Ana Kasparian — Trump’s Iran Strategy BLOWS UP As Millions Rally

So what you're looking at there is maybe the largest memorial service in the history of humanity. That is for the Grand Ayatollah in Iran. There are reports that 12 million people showed up. And Trump expressed shock. He didn't know that if they he bombed their country that they might rally around the flag. So more on the developments of this story both the substance of what's happening in Iran but also the moral on that is Donald Trump and our media who apparently thought, "Oh no, if we murder all of their leaders including the equivalent of their Pope, I bet the Iranian people will love us." It turns out they didn't, Anna. >> Yes, so the funeral I should note also honored the Ayatollah's daughter, daughter-in-law, son-in-law, and 14-year-old granddaughter who was also slaughtered by US-Israeli strikes in the opening salvo of the war against Iran beginning February 28th. Now it certainly did have a rallying around the flag effect and you saw it on the streets of Iran over the weekend and by the way the ceremonies are continuing into today and you will see large crowds in Iran today as well. But there was one person missing and that was the new Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei who did not attend. Now there is speculation about his injury sustained in some of these US-Israeli strikes in the beginning of the war. There are also some concerns for his safety if he had showed up to the or shown up to the you know funeral. So as a result of fears that Israel might strike, he didn't attend. >> Can can I'm just going to jump in real quick on that. So uh we had to wave the Israelis off because they were considering murdering a whole bunch of people at the funeral. >> According to the New York Times reporting, which is very like complimentary toward the Israelis. They usually run cover for the Israelis, so there's no reason to believe that they're lying in their reporting on that. >> So, the Israelis are like, "Oh, great. A bunch of Iranians are getting together. Can we murder them?" And we were like, "Whoa, whoa, whoa. Take it easy. We're trying to get to peace. If you murder the negotiators, you murder their top leaders, those 12 million will turn into 24 million and 94 million and everyone in the country, let alone the rest of the world. So, cool it for a second." But, Israel's like, "Oh, damn it. We wanted more murder, but we didn't get it today because America checked us a tiny bit. Oh, sorry, Israel. I don't worry. You'll get to murder all across the world anyway. Lebanon, Gaza, West Bank, which you're doing. >> that. They've been doing that. And in fact, Israel has become such a pariah state that Netanyahu was seen on US cable news over the weekend defending Israel's honor. And we'll get to that a little later in the show. But, let's get back to the funeral and what we know about the crowd. And more importantly, this is the most important angle to this story for the purposes of the United States and the American people. Just how easily played Trump was through Mossad BS, okay? So, keep that in mind. Now, let's get to some more details as reported by the Financial Times. They reported that officials have prepared for what they say could be between 12 million and 15 million visitors across 6 days, which would make it one of the largest funerals in modern history. The The funeral procession will head to the Shia center of Qom and on to Iraq, where it will pass through the holy sites of Najaf and Karbala. Now, nearly 2 million trips were made on the Tehran Metro in less than 2 hours as the funeral procession for the leader began Monday morning, Fars News Agency reported. So, you know, there ways of trying to determine just how many people took to the streets in order to honor the Ayatollah and his slain family members. And clearly, the numbers are not made up. They're very, very high. And it wasn't difficult to see individuals chanting things like destroy Israel, death to America. Now, you can argue, oh, well, they're such a threat because they're chanting. Well, what would you do if a foreign country came in and killed our political leadership? That would have a rally around the flag effect as well. >> [snorts] >> And this is a big departure from what the Western world has been trained to believe about all Iranians being viciously against the Iranian regime. There is a pretty strong base of support for the Iranian regime. The percentage has been stated at, you know, either 20 to 30%. It could be a little bit higher. There are those who are against the regime, but many of those people actually showed up to the funeral procession out of curiosity, as was reported by a number of sources including the New York Times and the FT. Now, the crowd carried red religious flags, which are symbols of revenge for blood. Mourners in Imam Hussein Square symbolically hang hung an effigy of US President Donald Trump. And I want to show you a little more of what the scene looked like. What you're looking at right now shows Iranians throwing stones and destroying a billboard featuring Donald Trump as the great Satan in Tehran. And people also carried a long red banner over their heads, on which, according to the FT, was written, we will kill Trump in Persian and English. Some chanted death to America and down with Israel. Now, they're obviously furious with the United States. Let me give you a quote from one 40-year-old resident of Iran who also took to the streets and said this in an interview with Reuters, "Everyone here has come to avenge the blood of their supreme leader. As our leader has said, we have a blood feud with the United States. Our relations with the United States will never be good." Now, our relationship with Iran didn't have to be so adversarial, but unfortunately it is because we continue to be allies with Israel, which seeks to be the dominant country in that region of the world, and they want the US to fight its wars for them in order to make that goal happen. I wish we weren't enemies with Iran. There's really no need for us to be enemies with Iran, but here we are. >> Every time you ring the bell below, an angel gets his wings. Totally not true, but it does keep you updated on our live