Was Trump’s Iran Strike UNCONSTITUTIONAL?

Was Trump’s strike on Iran unconstitutional? Did the President bypass Congress to launch Operation Midnight Hammer?

In this hard-hitting interview, Gary Benoit and Steve Bonta from The New American break down the real questions:

– Did Iran already move its enriched uranium before the strikes?
– How hard is it REALLY to build a nuclear weapon?
– Why target Iran but not Russia or China?
– And most importantly: Is this another unconstitutional war?

Get this issue of The New American here https://thenewamerican.com/product/the-new-american-magazine-april-2026/
The John Birch Society affiliate, The New American Magazine.

TRANSCRIPT

Generated using A.I.; please forgive any mistakes.

Iran was supposedly years away from a nuclear bomb and suddenly boom! They're an imminent threat. Trucks streaming out of Natanz and Fordow right before the strikes. Boasts to American negotiators that they already had enough enriched uranium to assemble a device. And now after Operation Midnight Hammer the big question everyone's asking, "Do Iran already have the material to build a nuclear weapon? Or is this another case of intelligence hype just like we've heard for decades?" And even bigger, if they do get the bomb, does that change everything? Or are we being dragged into another endless Middle East war while Russia, China, and North Korea already sit on massive nuclear arsenals? Today Gary Benoit and Steve Bonta from the New American cut through the hype, the propaganda, and the politics to answer the tough questions. How hard is it really to turn enriched uranium into a deliverable nuclear weapon? Why Iran but not China or Russia? And should America even be involved? Stick around, this might be the most important conversation on Iran you will hear all year. Here's the full interview. So how is it that the following year all of a sudden we have this imminent threat? It does not make any sense and it does suggest that there's more to it than we're being told. Well if it's true that what's being alleged at a certain point in the negotiations prior to this war that the Iranian delegation boasted to the Americans that, "Well we do have enough nuclear material assembled, you know, you guys didn't get it." And there were a lot of footage in the days before we went in and struck at the end of Operation Midnight Hammer that there had been a large number of trucks leaving the Natanz and Fordow facilities. So presumably they probably did get a lot of the enriched uranium out of there and squirreled it away somewhere else. We don't know that to be sure, but it was certainly in politic of them to boast that, "Well we do have enough material for nuclear bombs." But that said, you know, it's clear that, I mean, assembling a nuclear device is hard enough. And by the way, a device is not a weapon. A device is something that goes boom, usually underground, under controlled circumstances. A nuclear weapon is a device capable of a nuclear detonation that is then appropriately miniaturized so that it can be put into a bomb or a missile warhead. And then, in the case of the latter, a missile warhead sufficiently hardened that it can survive the extreme conditions of re-entry into the Earth's atmosphere, this is technology that the North Koreans have not yet mastered. I mean, right now the North Koreans can launch a missile that can hit the United States, but it's very clear that they haven't figured out how to build them in such a way that any nuclear devices, even if they could miniaturize them, you know, so it's a very complicated process and people fail to appreciate just how difficult it is to build even a simple fission weapon, let alone a thermonuclear bomb. I'm just surprised the Chinese just haven't given it to them.

Well, and there is that. I mean, there have been rumors that Iran right now is begging either China or North Korea, or possibly Russia, to give them a few warheads. That is possible, but again, it seems unlikely because when you consider how much manpower and how much cost it takes to acquire, to develop nuclear weapons, even Pakistan, which is certainly a pretty unstable regime historically, and kind of a frenemy of us at best, they have no inclination to share nuclear technology with Iran or Saudi Arabia or any other Islamic country because their focus is India. They're worried about India and India likewise. So the incentives to proliferate nuclear weapons are different than people imagine. It isn't like assembling a fertilizer bomb, let's say, or other stocks in trade of terrorists. It's incredibly difficult to build a functioning nuclear weapon.

It takes a long time and a lot of money, and so the states that develop them are extremely reluctant to part with them under any circumstances. So it's unlikely to me that anyone in the so-called axis of evil is going to say, "We don't want our fellow axis member falling to the evil Zionists or whatever, so we're going to ship them 10 nuclear warheads that they can use on Riyadh and Jerusalem." It just seems highly unlikely. Plus, the thing is too, that you can trace. I mean, every nuclear bomb has its signature. If a North Korean nuke were detonated by the Iranians, we would know its provenience. Yeah. Something to keep in mind too is that it's not just a case of whether or not you have enriched uranium, but the extent to which that uranium has been developed or has been enriched. For example, if you look at a nuclear power plant, a nuclear power plant for the production of electricity would have enriched uranium, but you could not take that uranium being used in a nuclear power plant and use it to make a bomb because it's not enriched to the point where that's possible. It would be like expecting bubblegum to blow up in a nuclear explosion. So the question is how enriched is the uranium?

And to make a nuclear bomb, I think we're talking about something like 90% enrichment. And I don't know that there's any evidence that Iran has gotten to that point. No, but they've enriched very significantly beyond anything that it would be required. I mean, they don't have any nuclear power plants as such. They just have centrifuges that are enriching uranium. So it's very clear what they're doing. And there's no doubt that they do want nuclear bombs because the lesson that was drawn from the North Korean experience was that if you have nukes, the U.S. will leave you alone. You know, Saddam Hussein back in the day regretted the fact that the Israelis destroyed his breeder reactor at Osirak back in the early 1980s. And so he never had nuclear weapons. And so Syria likewise never developed nuclear weapons.

So there's no question that they are a very strong disincentive for this kind of activity. If we knew that Iran had even, let's say, a couple dozen small nuclear warheads hidden in caves somewhere near the Strait of Hormuz or something like that, it would have affected the calculus of the planning for the war very differently. We probably would have said it's too late. We can't do this. Just as we've essentially given up on North Korea and accepted the fact that we have this other very hostile little dragon on the other side of the world that now has long-range missiles capable of hitting the United States and in a few more years probably will master the technology for turning those missiles into deliverable MIRVs and things like that. I mean, given enough time, this can happen. So there's no question Iran kind of wants to go in that direction, but it's also true, as Gary indicated early, that we've been worrying about this for decades and claiming that they're on the very verge of getting nuclear weapons and so forth. So I do disagree with the intelligence report that said there's no evidence that Iran is trying to build nuclear weapons. Well, maybe not right now, but it's pretty clear they do have a nuclear weapons program and at some point in the future they're probably prepared to renounce the claim and say, "Okay, now we've got a bomb. What are you going to do about it?" But that's probably 20 or 30 years down the road because, as I said, these things are hard to build. Iran is a large country. It has over 90 million people. There are many immensely talented mathematicians, scientists, and engineers that come from Iran. And so, you know, they certainly do have a formidable brain trust, but it's just really difficult to build these things. And I don't know if we would have been able to build them had we not benefited from an infusion of elite European mathematical, physical, and engineering talent in the years leading up to World War II, because it was mostly European immigrant physicists and engineers like Hans Bethe and people like this. They weren't American. They had fled Europe and they came here and they helped us build the nuclear bomb.

Operation Paperclip and things along that. Yeah, Edward Teller, you know, and Ulam, and all these other people that were involved in first building fission bombs, atom bombs, so to speak, and then thermonuclear bombs after that. Not to mention, you know, ICBMs and rocket technology. Who built them? A bunch of Germans after the war. We brought it in, you know, Werner von Braun and his people, and we kind of, you know, looked the other way, the fact they've been part of the Nazi regime, and said, "Okay, you know, all is forgiven as long as you can help us build that stuff." You know, so, you know, the point being is that people who can do this are not behind every bush. You know, people who are capable of assembling, of building these incredibly sensitive devices, like, you know, the centrifuges that can run for years without faltering in order to enrich the energy, who are capable of building criton switches, and all these other things that have figured out how to do this. These are extraordinarily gifted, brilliant people.

Yeah, I was saying it's not a course you take at the University of Phoenix. No, no, I mean there are a lot of large countries with huge populations, like Indonesia and Bangladesh. They're never gonna have nuclear weapons. It's just not gonna happen, you know. They just, they don't have that kind of brain trust. Right, you know, we've mentioned China in this conversation, but we've also mentioned North Korea. We could bring in some other countries, such as Russia. All those countries are threats and have nuclear capabilities. And so that does raise the question, if we're going to go after a country because of having such a capability, why Iran as opposed, let's say, to Russia? I mean, that obviously is a terrible regime. Or why instead of China? And China, I think we could all agree, has a much larger, stronger nuclear capability than Iran. Or how about North Korea? Or how about other countries that, you know, so far as we do know, have not been given a nuclear capability, but nonetheless they are terrorist-type countries. So, Cuba, for example, just 90 miles from our shore.

So, why this particular country of Iran? I mean, obviously it is a despicable regime, but why that? Well, I think I can answer that. I mean, because unfortunately, Gary, when you're dealing with war, sometimes principle has to go out the window and you look at the pragmatic reality. So, it's kind of like, you know, on an individual. If you are confronted with somebody who says, "I'm gonna kill you," and he reaches and starts to pull his gun out, and you already have your gun drawn, you're probably gonna shoot him before he gets a chance to, you know, okay? But on the other hand, if he gets the drop on you, okay, he's already got the gun pointed at you, your calculus is going to be different. You're probably gonna give him your wallet, you're gonna say, "Please, I've got a wife and family," you're gonna do whatever you can to try to, because the reality is, unfortunately, he's already got the drop on you and there's nothing you do about it. And that's kind of the situation with Russia and China, is that there's a certain pragmatic reality that, you know, that we have much fewer options, and, you know, I guarantee you that the people who plan this stuff are saying, "Well, you know, things are bad enough as they are. We don't want to add to it by allowing Iran to become nuclear," and some of them are sincere. The question is whether that's really a realistic concern at this point, of, you know, Iran being nuclear within, let's say, two years or five years, you know, in the relatively near time, as opposed to 20-30 years down the road.

And I think that's where Congress comes in, because if Iran literally was pulling the gun out of its holster and pointing it at the United States, and it's going to be pulling the trigger within days, then you can make a case, "Well, gee, you know, it was good for the president to step in and stop that from happening." But no such evidence has been presented that that is the case. And I think part of the problem is that Congress likes the idea of the president deciding what to do and what not to do, because then Congress doesn't have to worry about taking the responsibility. And yet, according to the Constitution, it is the responsibility of Congress. So this might be a controversial question, so please don't be afraid to push back on it. So what if they are trying to get that, right? We have our bases, really, if you look at a map of our bases in the Middle East, they're surrounding Iran. So you could, I think, maybe make the case that they feel like they need to do it to defend themselves, not necessarily as a point of offense, but as a point of defense, first of all.

Second part of the question I wanted to present to you is, so what if they are, again, isn't it everybody's inherent individual, as well as collective, as a society and a nation, to be able to defend itself, right? Are we saying that we want an international gun control, essentially saying only the United Nations can decide who has nuclear weapons? Or what if we can say that Iran can't have nukes, what is to say that you get China and Russia and Europe to come together and say, "We don't like what you guys are doing. The United States is no longer allowed to have nukes," and we've set the precedence of an international community saying certain countries can't have weapons and we're all going to come together to stop them? First of all, I think a wise US policy would be not to have troops here, there, and everywhere in the Middle East. You know, obviously we want to make sure we protect the United States of America, but the purpose of US foreign policy, I believe, should not be to go abroad for monsters to destroy, and of course that's how we're doing it. And so when you put the United States in a situation where you go into a snake pit, for example, because you have despicable regimes in the Middle East, and of course I'm talking about the regimes, not the people themselves, but when you do that and then you start kicking around the snakes and whatnot, you might be bitten. So it creates the opportunity where a war could take place. So that's number one. Regarding the other point, you know, it made me think what you had to say regarding, let's say, gun control, because if you were to take away all the guns for the purpose of stopping gun crimes, you're not really eliminating all the guns, are you? The bad guys still have the guns, the government would still have the guns, and so what you're doing is you're creating a monopoly of power on the part of the government, and of course that's a very dangerous thing. That leads to totalitarianism, where only the government has the guns or bad actors.

And I would say it's the same thing with nuclear weapons, because you're not going to be able to take the nuclear technology, nuclear weapons, and put it back in the the bottle. It's already out of the bottle, and so if under an international regime such as the United Nations, you were to have all the nations get rid of their nuclear weapons, now you have a monopoly of power on the part of the world government. And I believe if that were the case, human nature being what it is, that power would not be used to enforce world peace, that power would be used to impose world tyranny. Well, yeah, I mean, the problem is, you know, that things have become so entangled as a result of our international entanglements, that it's very hard to sort all this stuff out.

So it's clear that it is not wise for us to have troops deployed hither and yon over, not just in the Middle East, by the way, I mentioned the Far East as well, but Gary and I've talked about this a lot. The thing is that the entire world has become kind of a gigantic welfare queen, as far as military is concerned, expecting that the United States is going to be there to adjudicate every dispute. And we're partly to blame. For example, back in the 1970s, we prevented, and in the 80s actually, we blocked Taiwan from developing nuclear weapons and said in effect, "No, no, don't do that, we'll take care of you guys, don't worry about it." Okay, ditto with Japan and this sort of thing. So, you know, we've created this dynamic where the entire world, there's this expectation of peace and open commerce, and by the way, this whole thing that's going on with the Strait of Hormuz is very, very shocking to a lot of people, because since the end of World War II, the entire world and the world economy have gotten completely used to the idea that American gunboats will keep the Strait of Hormuz open, will keep the Red Sea open, the Suez Canal open, the Panama Canal, the Straits of Malacca, you know, down between Singapore and Sumatra, and the South China Sea, and all these other choke points, regardless of what local potentates want to do, because, you know, at one time, it was very common for countries to do, stronger countries to do what China is now attempting to do in the South China Sea, and the East China Sea, and the Strait of Formosa, which is to say, we, you know, we're claiming all this for ourselves, you know, if ships are going to come through here, they're gonna have to pay and pay heavily, this type of thing. So, the idea has been that we're going to have open trade, open trade routes, and the ultimate guarantor would be the US military. Well, obviously, that's faltering a bit now in the Strait of Hormuz. So, the whole world has gotten used to the state of affairs, and somehow, you know, obviously, the globalists, and the neocons, and all their ilk argue, well, but yes, but it's a beneficial thing, because look how much we and the rest of the world benefit from free trade, and travel, and all the rest of this thing, and you know, there's a modicum of truth to that. It's a nice thing that the world's oceans are primarily open to navigation, except where there are Houthis or Somali pirates nearby, there are a few places still that are dicey, but unfortunately, we're the ones that are expected to be the guarantors of this in perpetuum, okay?

So, that's an issue, and not only that, we're expected to be the guarantors. I think Europe is shocked at Trump's attitude vis-a-vis the war in Ukraine, because up until the war in Ukraine, the US has always been, has been led by people who've said, oh, well, it's our duty to go over there, whether it's the Balkans, or checkpoint Charlie, Berlin, all this, we have to have troops over there so that we don't have World War III, and keep the Russian Colossus in check, and all the rest of this stuff, and suddenly we're saying, well, no, we really don't want to do that anymore. Europe needs to take care of its own problems, and probably Japan and Taiwan and the Philippines should be able to settle their beefs with China and the two Koreas, and all the rest of this, without ours being involved. So, how do we get from there to here? And what we felt is probably the most, the wisest thing to do would be to say, in effect, here's what's going to happen. Five years from now, we're ending all these treaties, and we're closing all these bases, and we're going to go back to adopting a military posture that primarily is concerned with defending the American homeland. By the way, if we did that, it would be much more easy, much easier, I think, to build this Golden Dome project that Trump has talked about, which is long overdue. You know, we've had, our cities have been naked to nuclear attack for decades, because most of our military expenditures have been dedicated to maintaining all these outposts all around the world, and safeguarding the post-World War II world order, or the new world order, if you want to call it that. And, you know, so clearly that has to be unwound.

There has to be a way to do this. As for Iran specifically, Iran is much more Israel's problem than it is our problem. I think Israel has a very clear and obvious incentive to prevent Iran from getting nukes, but I would say that as long as the mad mullahs are in charge, nobody wants to see Iran with nuclear weapons, because they are true, scary, religious fanatics. And we're seeing this now at the war, aren't we? I mean, they're not backing down. One has to admire, in a certain sense, their kind of feral courage. The news just came out a couple hours ago before we recorded it. Iran is, you know, they're getting absolutely hammered and obliterated. They've lost their leadership. They're clearly losing the war. The U.S. is now moving more troops in the Middle East. It's clear what Trump has planned next. And they're saying, "Oh, we're not gonna negotiate," because they are true believers. And this is, you know, they are in that sense a genuine threat. It's not clear to me, even if we had no bases in the Middle East, that they would not still regard us in some sense as the great Satan in the same way that the Barbary pirates, you know, 220 years ago regarded American ships and American people as ripe for the plucking, because the Quran, in effect, tells them that this is what they can do. They should be free to enslave unbelievers and confiscate their goods and do this. I'm not at all sure that Iran would cease to be a threat entirely, even if we withdrew from the Middle East. But that's a story perhaps for another day.

Gotcha. So, another point that you make, that both of you make in the article, is, you know, it's, I mean, you don't say this explicitly, but, like, let's forget about the fact that it's unconstitutional and it's an assertion that the president is usurping authority from the Congress. Won't it be great to get rid of a, as you mentioned, a tyrannical regime and to free the Iranian people? Isn't it worth violating the Constitution to bring about a... I don't think we said that. No, but let's say, hypothetically, it is. Is that really the result? Because let's look at American foreign policy over the years. It has not made things better. It has made things worse, at least in the Middle East, has it not? So... The last time I looked, the communists were still in charge of Venezuela, too. Right. Lest we forget.

Everybody's forgotten all about that now that Maduro and his wife are in American custody. But, you know what? His handpicked success, his vice president is now in charge and they're still persecuting journalists and, you know, they haven't held elections, any of that stuff. So... Yeah. Let's look at Iran specifically, though. I mean, these ayatollahs are horrible and wouldn't be wonderful if they were not in place. But look what has... Look at what Trump has said in recent days. He's issued a 15-point plan, you know, at least reportedly, according to what the media is saying. That was just rejected. That was... Yeah, but by Iran, right? But let's look at those particular points. Those particular points included assisting Iran with developing a nuclear program for the peaceful use of nuclear uranium, to develop its capacity to make electricity using nuclear power and so forth. And, you know, does that make any sense whatsoever, if we're concerned about their nuclear capability? Was that what Maga was really, really expecting?

So, I mean, it doesn't look now like... But he's been doing this since... Literally, the first thing he did after... Well, I think even before he was actually sworn in as president, the second time, was to announce this grand plan of colonization of Gaza. So we should have seen this coming. And, you know, again, Gaza is a problem. People have different... You know, for Israel and whatever to work out, it is emphatically not something that we should be over there. And that's precisely what he wanted to do. So Iran is sort of like a scaled-up version of Gaza. And I'm sure that Trump, in his fevered mind, already has visions of, "Oh my goodness, you know, we're gonna have American... All my American business trustees will be over there developing Iranian real estate. And won't that be great? And, you know, we'll have American ski slopes in the Elbrus Mountains and all the rest of it."

And how about the Strait of Hormuz? Because Trump has said in recent days that he'd like to make a deal with the Ayatollah, where between himself, between Trump and the Ayatollah, that the two of them together would control the Strait of Hormuz. So, you know, he's saying this is a despicable regime, which it is, but at the same time, he's willing to... He wants to make a deal. Make a deal with them to have joint control? But he actually, in his first term, people forget this, when he was buddy-buddies with Kim Jong-un in North Korea, he did the same thing. He presented a proposal whereby American developers would come over and help North Korea to develop, you know, resort cities in the country. North Korea is a very physically beautiful country, lest we forget. Beautiful coastline, beautiful mountains, and so forth. So he actually was ready to do a deal with the devil there, too. Because people don't, I think, understand Trump, for him, making the deal is the end goal. There's nothing beyond that, you know.

Anything beyond that is the realm of amorality and irrelevance, as far as Trump is concerned. He wants to make a deal. He doesn't see... He doesn't have any higher goals like, you know, let freedom ring, or, you know, vanquish socialism, or anything like that. It's, let's make a deal.

It would be wonderful to get rid of socialism. And Steve, that really, I think, brings up another point. How much socialism will we have today? How much communism will we have today, if it were not for U.S. foreign policy? And, of course, we look at U.S. foreign policy on the surface, ostensibly, it's an anti-communist foreign policy. But yet, when you look further, what you find is that the Bolsheviks likely would not have come to power in Russia, if it were not for U.S. foreign policy, what was done behind the scenes to help the Bolsheviks.

Nor the communists in China.

Nor the communists in China.

Nor the ayatollahs in Tehran.

It's not just the John Birch Society making that point, by the way. You know, I can think of a liberal congressman who became president of the United States, and he was a Democrat. And I'm thinking of John F. Kennedy is a congressman. When China fell to the communists, John F. Kennedy blamed U.S. foreign policy and said that we had brought about the rise of communism in China. But can you imagine if communism did not exist in China, for example? No Korea, no Vietnam.

Yeah.

Yeah, so I mean, obviously, it's easy to relitigate the past with all of its moral fraughtness.

You can't do that. But, you know, honestly, what is the best strategy? We don't pretend to have all the answers here at The New American, but certain things are crystal clear. And one is that we need to get back to a constitutional republic.

Right.

Okay? We need to do that. And number two, we're practicable. And there are some limits, because in the Founders Day, there were no ICBMs or things like hypersonic missiles and things of that nature. These are genuine novelties as far as the founders were concerned. So, you know, so we have to, we can't be fatuous and pretend those things are irrelevant and that precisely the same conditions obtained as obtained at the time of the founding. But as much as possible, we need to try to approximate that ideal of non-interventionism.

Right. I think when you look, though, at the world today compared to that of the founding fathers, it is true that things can get complicated when it comes to the application of principles. But let's not forget that principles themselves are eternal.

Yes.

So let's at least get back to the principles and use that as our starting point.

Absolutely. That's what I appreciate about The New American. It's always the, it's, we beat, you know, you guys just kind of wipe away the emotion and say, "Let's focus on the principle," and then see how we're gonna get to that.

So, you know, just add something here. You know, we have to tell the truth as we see it. We have, we're not Trump haters, but neither we mindless MAGA boosters. And we are in many regards disappointed in some of the things that Donald Trump has done, and we call it where he has done good. We acknowledge that as well. I mean, in many regards, the Trump presidency has been kind of different from anything we've seen in either of our lifetimes, frankly.

Yes.

You know, and we think that that maybe betokens better things going forward. So, you know, so for example, more than a year ago, when Trump made it clear that that tariffs was going to be a major part of his agenda, our reaction was, here was twofold. Number one, yay. Number two, wait a minute. Yes, but let's make sure they're done right, okay? Because guess what, folks? Tariffs are supposed to be imposed, like all other forms of taxes, by Congress, not by the president. That's another example where Congress has shamelessly abdicated via several pieces of legislation, stretching all the way back to the Smoot-Cauley Tariff Act of 1930, has systematically handed that power over to the executive branch. And so our reaction was, yeah, Trump has got the right idea, for reasons we don't have time to get into, but we need to get back to that model of the government-funded primary tariff, and obviously abolish the income tax, and repeal the relevant amendments, and all that sort of thing. But it has to be done the right way, you know? Tariffs should be levied by Congress, and approved by the president, and this sort of thing. We shouldn't have a dictatorial president saying, in effect, okay, now I'm gonna put tariffs here and there, and hither and yon. So, I mean, in many ways, we do think that, you know, Trump has kind of got the right instincts sometime, but he doesn't really seem to have a clear understanding of a lot of these constitutional principles that Gary's talking about, and much less be temperamentally predisposed, unlike people like Congressman Massey, to actually be beholden to them. He kind of wants to do his own thing, and find ways to justify it on the fly, and that is a recipe for dictatorship, even of the most benevolent kind

Yeah. So that reminds me of another question that I had, is I remember, you know, being in the, during the Bush, the W. Bush administration, with the Patriot Act, and with the war in Iraq, and the things that were going on with that, being principled with the Constitution was very difficult with a lot of the, you know, with the neocons in, not only in power, but in talk radio, which caused a lot of consternation with a lot of people that would normally be our friends. Has talking about those violations of those principles with Trump caused similar consternation and problems?

Well, I think it has. I think there's a lot of disagreement within the conservative movement, but maybe a good question to ask for people who think this is a good thing, in terms of consolidating government power into the hands of Trump, how would you feel about that if someday Trump is no longer president, and obviously someday he will no longer be president, and then a liberal Democrat holds the same power? How would you feel about it then? And the Founding Fathers' answer was very simple, not to trust men with the exercise of power. And so that's why the Founding Fathers created a government where the powers were limited, where they were specific, where those few specific limited powers were then subdivided among three branches of government, and then subdivided again in terms of the powers that could be exercised by the federal government that were few and defined, and all other powers belonging to the states and to the people. They did not want to have this kind of consolidation of power. And then of course you have Lord Acton's famous dictum that power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. So let's not put all this power into the hands of one person.

Absolutely. Well, thank you so much, both of you. Gary Benoit and Steve Bonta, I encourage everyone, this is my, oops, we got the, I'll put an image up, that's my digital version of the magazine. I encourage everyone to pick up a copy at the newamerican.com and to subscribe, and after you pick up your copy of that issue with the special coverage on Epstein. Also, love your book, Dr. Bonta, The Rise and Fall of the Roman Republic. I use that for my homeschooling, as well as your book Inside the United Nations. I encourage folks to get that, as well as yours, Gary, your book The Vanguard of American Liberty. That's, I'm remembering the title.

Quick plug. We are going to have a special issue, as I mentioned, on conspiracy, coming up in May, so look for that.

May issue. We'll be sending it to the printer in April because May is the cover date. So it'll be here before you know it. But the main issue, it will be an expanded issue, 100 pages, and totally devoted to exposing the conspiracy for global control.

Is that gonna be like kind of a retro cover from the original, from the 90s?

No, it will be, I mean, it covers the same broad topic, but there's a lot of novel material in it because we've learned a lot more in the last 30 years, and also things have changed.

You know, 30 years ago, the world was a different place, and so it's time for an update. And as far as the cover, I don't know. It'll probably have a picture of the world on it in some sense, but it'll be a different design from what we had. So those of you that have seen the 1996 version, that was a classic. It actually made it a cameo in the Mel Gibson movie, Conspiracy Theory.

Remember that? Conspiracy Theory?

Yeah, it was a real cultural icon. As far as I know, that remains the only time that a major news magazine has done a special issue examining this issue of conspiracy. And so this will be the second time, and we hope our readers will appreciate it and learn something new.

Another thing I wanted to plug before we take off is June, in Salt Lake City, the John Birch Society is having their Leadership Conference.

Yes.

I'm really excited about that. I don't know if both of you or either one of you are going to be there, but—

I will be there at least.

I don't believe I will be, no.

Folks should come out and meet you, Gary, and take a part of that. So folks, I encourage you to go to shopjbs.org to get the books, and go to jbs.org to learn more about that conference, and then the newamerican.com to get your special issue that we discussed today. So again, thank you so much, both of you, for joining us today.

Thank you for the work that you're doing and the publication of The New American. Appreciate it.

Thank you for what you're doing. It's so wonderful that you're doing everything you can as well to wake the town, tell the people, and get them involved.

Appreciate that. Thank you. Talk to you guys soon.

Thanks.