# Unpacking the Bipolar Messaging of the Iran War | EYES ON GEOPOLITICS

An episode of [The Team House](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1492797340), 20 Apr 2026, 1 h 19 min.

Audio: https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/pscrb.fm/rss/p/clrtpod.com/m/api.spreaker.com/download/episode/71464301/iran_shit_show_spreraker.mp3

This episode features a deep discussion on the current geopolitical tensions, focusing on Iran, the Strait of Hormuz, and US foreign policy strategies. Experts analyze military, diplomatic, and economic aspects, providing insights into potential outcomes and strategic considerations. Support the show on Patreon:⬇️ https://www.patreon.com/TheTeamHouse Subscribe to our newsletter!!!! https://teamhousepodcast.kit.com/join Jack's news outlet: https://thehighside.substack.com/ Find Jon Hackett here:⬇️ Jon's Twitter: https://x.com/jonathanhackett Jon's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thejonathanhackett Jon's books: https://www.amazon.com/stores/author/B0C5L659N5?ccs_id=e11a2062-f8d3-498e-bfd7-7d2f3869caf6 Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thejonathanhackett Twitter: https://x.com/jonathanhackett Check out Mick's new podcast here:⬇️ Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/at/podcast/pub-and-porch-applied-stoicism/id1836955475 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1k3QPmkAMwnGJxMLDwUSSd?si=n6piIu8XRcag1Z0K43A3bQ Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@UCd0Hq6QFk8CoTu5j-VU0Ong Find Mick Mulroy here: Fogbow ⬇️ https://fogbow.com/ Lobo Institute ⬇️ https://www.loboinstitute.org/ Twitter ⬇️ https://x.com/mickmulroy?s=21&t=-Ze3F_Ix2vlJ18KFvORTCA LinkedIn ⬇️ https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-patrick-mulroy-31198b52/ Bluesky ⬇️ https://bsky.app/profile/mickmulroy.bsky.social Mick’s publications ⬇️ https://www.loboinstitute.org/publications/publications-of-michael-mick-patrick-mulroy/ Whitefish security summit https://whitefishsecuritysummit.com Find Marc P here: https://x.com/Mpolymer Find Andy Milburn here: Twitter ⬇️ https://twitter.com/i/flow/login?redirect_after_login=%2Fandymilburn8 LinkedIn ⬇️ https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewmilburn2023 Substack ⬇️ https://amilburn.substack.com/ Andy’s book ⬇️ https://www.amazon.com/When-Tempest-Gathers-Mogadishu-Operations Bluesky ⬇️ https://bsky.app/profile/andy-milburn.bsky.social Find Jason Lyons here: LinkedIn ⬇️ https://www.linkedin.com/in/jason-lyons-666873316?u Bluesky ⬇️ https://bsky.app/profile/bgsilverback73.bsky.social "Karl Casey @ White Bat Audio" 00:00 Start 05:09 The Straits of Hormuz: A Critical Flashpoint 10:03 Military Options and Diplomatic Challenges 15:11 Negotiation Dynamics and Regional Implications 20:11 The Role of U.S. Forces and Strategic Considerations 24:55 Economic Consequences and Global Reactions 29:56 Future Scenarios and Policy Recommendations 39:55 The Complexities of U.S.-Iran Relations 44:00 U.S. Interests vs. Regional Dynamics 49:01 Domestic Politics and Foreign Policy Hypocrisy 54:58 The Role of Covert Action in National Security 58:49 Iranian Propaganda and Its Impact 01:02:07 Cultural Commentary and Political Satire 01:02:57 Information Warfare and Military Strategy 01:06:02 The Role of Congress in Military Engagements 01:10:04 The Unitary Executive Theory and Its Implications 01:11:55 Reflections on Military Service and Political Accountability 01:15:02 Looking Ahead: Future Topics and Discussions Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-team-house--5960890/support.

## Transcript

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[0:37] Speaker 1: Thanks a bunch. Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of
[0:43] Speaker 1: Eyes on Geopolitics. I'm here with Andy Milburgh, mcmulroy, Mark Polymaroppolos,
[0:46] Speaker 1: and myself. A lot happening as usual. You guys missed
[0:49] Speaker 1: the We were talking offline about the next Whitefish Security Summit,
[0:53] Speaker 1: so check that out. It's gonna be February twenty fourth
[0:57] Speaker 1: to the twenty sixth of next year. Take keep an
[1:01] Speaker 1: eye out for that. It's gonna be exciting.
[1:04] Speaker 2: Guys, how are you. It's great to see you.
[1:07] Speaker 1: A lot happening per usual, a lot of confusion too.
[1:10] Speaker 1: It's just been kind of like messaging chaos over the
[1:13] Speaker 1: last week. We left off our last episode, we were
[1:15] Speaker 1: talking about the naval blockade that was being announced. It
[1:20] Speaker 1: doesn't seem to be much of a blockade. Frankly, the
[1:22] Speaker 1: straight out hor moves seems to be the facto shut still.
[1:27] Speaker 1: A ton of mixed messaging, Like we had the Treasury
[1:30] Speaker 1: Secretary Bessent on Friday talking about extending, uh the way
[1:37] Speaker 1: getting rid of the waiver on sanctions for Iran in
[1:39] Speaker 1: Russia for selling their oil. That was Friday. Happens last
[1:44] Speaker 1: night or a night ago that waiver was extended. Uh So,
[1:49] Speaker 1: we really have no clue what's going on. Frankly, jd
[1:53] Speaker 1: Van Uh not jd Vance. Maybe jd Vance, but Jared
[1:56] Speaker 1: Wickoff and no Jared Kushner and Steve Wicoff I put
[1:59] Speaker 1: them together. They're just like a one blob of a
[2:02] Speaker 1: neptitude are heading back to Islamabad tomorrow, possibly with JD Vance.
[2:07] Speaker 2: We don't know. There's some mixed messaging there as well.
[2:10] Speaker 1: That just as we were getting online about an hour
[2:12] Speaker 1: ago it's been going on anyway, a lot happening. Where
[2:18] Speaker 1: do you guys, what are you guys tracking, What do
[2:20] Speaker 1: you guys want to talk about?
[2:21] Speaker 2: Exactly? Mike, you go first, There.
[2:26] Speaker 3: Is a lot. I mean, we all thought somewhere mid
[2:30] Speaker 3: last week that we were headed towards an agreement because
[2:34] Speaker 3: there was so much positive statements coming out of the
[2:36] Speaker 3: White House that you're like, this is great, and then
[2:38] Speaker 3: they're going to give up all their hu or we
[2:40] Speaker 3: can fly it to the United States and the Strait's
[2:43] Speaker 3: going to be open. And you know, I was certainly
[2:45] Speaker 3: hoping that was the case, but it turned out not
[2:48] Speaker 3: to be the case. At least the ratiing said it
[2:50] Speaker 3: wasn't the case. And if they say it wasn't the case,
[2:52] Speaker 3: then obviously it's not because they're the other part of
[2:55] Speaker 3: the you know, the process when it comes to ending
[3:00] Speaker 3: war between the two countries. So you know the first thing,
[3:03] Speaker 3: and not that anybody's listening, but it just doesn't help
[3:06] Speaker 3: to try to do negotiations publicly through social media. It
[3:10] Speaker 3: just hardens both sides. They get angry at each other,
[3:14] Speaker 3: and it makes the negotiators a job more difficult. Really
[3:20] Speaker 3: would be better if we just let this field Marshal
[3:23] Speaker 3: who's flying all over the world from Pakistan to Tehron
[3:26] Speaker 3: and now coming to the United States to do the
[3:29] Speaker 3: needful back channel negotiations, and both sides willing to compromise
[3:35] Speaker 3: because the alternative, I think is pretty clearly going to
[3:39] Speaker 3: be an escalation. I don't think President Trump wants to
[3:42] Speaker 3: leave this with just you know, yes, we did a
[3:46] Speaker 3: lot to reduce their military capacity. I think the New
[3:51] Speaker 3: York Times article just came out kind of questions exactly
[3:55] Speaker 3: the numbers that we've been saying, but we have reduced it.
[3:57] Speaker 3: So that's good. Ballistic soul suicide drones, obviously they're Avian
[4:02] Speaker 3: Air Force. We're not going to get to a regime change,
[4:05] Speaker 3: so just take that off the table, and then we
[4:09] Speaker 3: can't leave the Strait of promote's clothes or that's a failure.
[4:11] Speaker 3: This just is there's nothing that you can spend to
[4:14] Speaker 3: say that it won't be they didn't have it before.
[4:16] Speaker 3: If they end up with control of the Strait and
[4:19] Speaker 3: being able to hold the rest of the world ransom
[4:22] Speaker 3: with twenty percent of their energy supply, that is a
[4:26] Speaker 3: that is a big failure. So what are we going
[4:30] Speaker 3: to do from here? We're either going to come up
[4:32] Speaker 3: with a diplomatic resolution to this that's acceptable to both sides,
[4:38] Speaker 3: or I'm guessing we're going to start using ground forces
[4:40] Speaker 3: to try to secure the strait and potentially recover the HU,
[4:43] Speaker 3: which they don't seem well, and to give up and
[4:46] Speaker 3: so and then one last point when it comes to
[4:50] Speaker 3: the agreement right now, the only thing different from the
[4:55] Speaker 3: JCPOA that we're hearing publicly is they won't have the
[4:58] Speaker 3: ability to enrich. Under the JCPOA, they could, but only
[5:02] Speaker 3: up to three percent, which wasn't weapons right, but they
[5:05] Speaker 3: did have the ability to.
[5:08] Speaker 4: Kind rich.
[5:09] Speaker 3: We're not here in any discussion on ballistic missiles restrictions.
[5:12] Speaker 3: We're not hearing any discussions on not funding terrorist organizations
[5:17] Speaker 3: also known as proxies. When I was in the Pentagon
[5:19] Speaker 3: in twenty eighteen, that was the biggest reason we were
[5:22] Speaker 3: told that we needed to get out of the JCPOA.
[5:25] Speaker 4: It did include those two things.
[5:28] Speaker 3: So if this doesn't include it, I mean, just by definition,
[5:31] Speaker 3: there's going to be a lot of, I think critiques
[5:35] Speaker 3: on what this was all about. If essentially we end
[5:37] Speaker 3: up just getting back into the JCPOA, and certainly if
[5:41] Speaker 3: we released you know, the twenty billion dollars in funds
[5:44] Speaker 3: that they have and reduced and eliminate the sanctions. I
[5:50] Speaker 3: did understand the argument at the time that it didn't
[5:52] Speaker 3: include ballistic missiles and proxies. Our position the Pentagon was like, well,
[5:56] Speaker 3: let's address it separately. But that's what we were told.
[5:59] Speaker 3: That's why why the White House decided to unilaredly withdraw.
[6:03] Speaker 3: So I'll stop there, but I think we needed better
[6:06] Speaker 3: agreement than the one we got out of or we're
[6:08] Speaker 3: really going to have to question what this was all
[6:11] Speaker 3: about from a foreign policy decision making process.
[6:18] Speaker 5: Yeah, it's kind of interesting that the center of gravity
[6:20] Speaker 5: is now the Straits of hor Moose rights the most
[6:23] Speaker 5: consequential arena in this conflict, and it's not the nuclear issue.
[6:31] Speaker 5: It's not any of those things that we were I
[6:36] Speaker 5: want to say, kind of brought up with to focus on, right,
[6:39] Speaker 5: I mean, make at a higher level than me, But
[6:41] Speaker 5: I was. I was a planner focusing on these plans
[6:44] Speaker 5: and then that sucks cent. I was focusing on the
[6:46] Speaker 5: immediate problem of Iranian malign influence in the region, and
[6:51] Speaker 5: blocking the Straits of Hormose was a contingency that we
[6:56] Speaker 5: discussed should we go to war, and it was a
[6:58] Speaker 5: disadvantage and there were plans to there were plans to
[7:04] Speaker 5: mitigate it. We recognized that it would be a blow
[7:07] Speaker 5: and those plans though, depended heavily on coalition support in
[7:11] Speaker 5: the region, which we seem to have discarded to see
[7:15] Speaker 5: the least, right, So I mean, and just lasting that
[7:23] Speaker 5: I'll say is that you know Liddell Heart's Liddell Heart
[7:30] Speaker 5: was a British. He was a British first of all,
[7:33] Speaker 5: war veteran and a strategist, and he said, look, the
[7:37] Speaker 5: object of war is a better peace. You shouldn't go
[7:40] Speaker 5: to war unless you can ensure that you secure a
[7:43] Speaker 5: better peace. And I was optimistic for a while that
[7:47] Speaker 5: maybe we would see a better piece because we've grown
[7:49] Speaker 5: up under the shadow of Iran in the region, and
[7:51] Speaker 5: perhaps that was going to be curtailed. But it couldn't
[7:54] Speaker 5: be curtailed in the ways that we were doing it
[7:56] Speaker 5: alone and destroying, for instance, the Uranian navy. Was it
[8:03] Speaker 5: was almost irrelevant, right because there was the mosquito fleet
[8:06] Speaker 5: that was always a danger to the straits. It was
[8:09] Speaker 5: it wasn't the big service vessels, it was the small boats.
[8:12] Speaker 5: It was the mines, it was the drones. The drones
[8:16] Speaker 5: were recent development, and the ballistic missiles. And now sure enough,
[8:21] Speaker 5: you know, Aron, it's not contesting the straits through conventional navy.
[8:25] Speaker 5: It's regular navy's gone. But it was never the decisive factor.
[8:30] Speaker 5: So they've they've employed it distributed asymmetric. I hate using
[8:35] Speaker 5: that term, but it is an asymmetric approach. It's built
[8:38] Speaker 5: around these small fast craft, short based missiles, drones, concealed launches,
[8:44] Speaker 5: and we've done little to nothing to remove that threat.
[8:49] Speaker 5: If you if you look at the Wall Street Journal
[8:52] Speaker 5: and New York Times recent articles that quote our own
[8:56] Speaker 5: intelligence community saying that at least fifty percent the missile
[9:00] Speaker 5: launches to still intact, thousands of drones and an unknown
[9:04] Speaker 5: number of small boats. The small boats didn't even figure
[9:07] Speaker 5: in off b DA announcements. And that's so that's how
[9:12] Speaker 5: we are where we are.
[9:16] Speaker 6: So I think a couple of things. One is just overall,
[9:19] Speaker 6: I don't think there's any silver bullet for this. I mean,
[9:21] Speaker 6: I was trying to think this morning is okay? You know,
[9:23] Speaker 6: so we it's very easy to critique everything that's happening,
[9:26] Speaker 6: and we will do. So there's actually you know when
[9:29] Speaker 6: you talk about, Okay, we're in this right now, we're stuck.
[9:32] Speaker 6: And as we've said many times here and Meck, I
[9:35] Speaker 6: love when you kind of say, hey man, we actually
[9:37] Speaker 6: you know, we want the US to win. We're on
[9:38] Speaker 6: team America here like, but but we're kind of in
[9:41] Speaker 6: a shitty situation. And I don't see any really great
[9:44] Speaker 6: options for the following reasons. One is, you know, the
[9:48] Speaker 6: military option is not working. Let's just be very clear
[9:51] Speaker 6: on that, you know, if and and of course you know,
[9:55] Speaker 6: we can we can talk for the entire program about
[9:57] Speaker 6: the Pete hex at the press conferences. But even Dan Kane,
[10:01] Speaker 6: the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, when he comes out
[10:02] Speaker 6: and he talks about all the great things the US
[10:04] Speaker 6: military is doing, then you have on the side press
[10:07] Speaker 6: reports saying that Defense Intelligence Agency says forty percent of
[10:10] Speaker 6: the drones are still there, six in the missiles, whatever
[10:12] Speaker 6: it is, they still retain a lot of the capability
[10:15] Speaker 6: that frankly, during these Pentagon briefings nobody even addresses and
[10:19] Speaker 6: you don't get any questions because the dependenton on press corps.
[10:21] Speaker 6: At least the normal ones have all been kicked out.
[10:24] Speaker 6: But I'm not sure what the option is right here,
[10:27] Speaker 6: because the Iranians really believe they can outlast us. You know,
[10:31] Speaker 6: it's it's a race in time between when the Iranian
[10:34] Speaker 6: economy collapses whenever that may be versus when the US economy,
[10:41] Speaker 6: you know, inflation, price of gas, and then the world
[10:44] Speaker 6: economy when we kind of have had enough, and the
[10:46] Speaker 6: Iranians think they can outlast us. And so even if
[10:50] Speaker 6: it just ends up being kind of this test of patients, Now, Mick,
[10:53] Speaker 6: you raise something which is interesting is that you know,
[10:57] Speaker 6: some of us can kind of go and say, all right, this,
[10:59] Speaker 6: this new negotiations, just like everything with Iran is going
[11:02] Speaker 6: to be kind of this interminable set of round after
[11:04] Speaker 6: round after round. But if Trump does get impatient, and
[11:08] Speaker 6: I think he will, and you know, what is the
[11:11] Speaker 6: military escalation? Is that really going to be boots on
[11:14] Speaker 6: the ground which is going to cause US casualties?
[11:16] Speaker 7: Does? I mean?
[11:17] Speaker 6: You know, as we've talked many times before, the Pentagon
[11:19] Speaker 6: will do it. Of course, because it's building control of
[11:21] Speaker 6: the military. They will execute based on what they are
[11:25] Speaker 6: told to do. But this is going to be pretty
[11:27] Speaker 6: politically explosive in the United States and for Trump as well,
[11:30] Speaker 6: and so and actually I don't think he wants to
[11:32] Speaker 6: do this, but again, what are the options that are
[11:35] Speaker 6: left and kind of the what would seem to be
[11:38] Speaker 6: the thing that is going to end this which is
[11:41] Speaker 6: going to be really dissatisfying because it's not going to
[11:45] Speaker 6: certainly account for the Iranian support for proxies or the
[11:48] Speaker 6: ballistic missile inventory, or the Iranian people.
[11:50] Speaker 7: And regime change.
[11:51] Speaker 6: It would be kind of a JCPOA two point five,
[11:54] Speaker 6: I mean a little bit stronger. And that's where we
[11:58] Speaker 6: all thought this was heading. I think it was last Friday.
[12:01] Speaker 6: I mean, my god, everyone and we're all of a
[12:03] Speaker 6: victim of this who were doing media stuff. Things seem
[12:06] Speaker 6: to be going in a direction, which is kind of
[12:07] Speaker 6: a strength in jc JCPOA. There are people are arguing about,
[12:12] Speaker 6: you know, what's the you know what is this the
[12:15] Speaker 6: time in which or is there a set time in
[12:17] Speaker 6: which the runnings could then you know, we start to
[12:20] Speaker 6: begin in Richmond. Again was twenty years versus what we
[12:23] Speaker 6: said five years, but then everyone kind of backtracked from
[12:26] Speaker 6: that as well. On the best case scenario, it turns
[12:29] Speaker 6: into an agreement like that Trump will get lamb basted
[12:33] Speaker 6: on this, and then worst cases I don't know what
[12:36] Speaker 6: we do or there's gonna be you know, there's gonna
[12:39] Speaker 6: be a ground operations with significant US casualties. This is
[12:42] Speaker 6: one of those foreign policy challenges. And for you know,
[12:45] Speaker 6: all of us who do speak in the media, you know,
[12:47] Speaker 6: of course, you kind of analyze the situation, but then
[12:50] Speaker 6: at some point you say, like, okay, this is what
[12:51] Speaker 6: I think we should do. And on that note, there's
[12:55] Speaker 6: not a lot of great options. I don't know what
[12:56] Speaker 6: you guys thoughts are, but it seems to be we
[12:58] Speaker 6: have boxed ourselves in into a really a bit of
[13:02] Speaker 6: you know, a really tough situation, a bit of a pickle,
[13:04] Speaker 6: and there's no kind of quick silver bullets that's going
[13:06] Speaker 6: to get us out of this.
[13:08] Speaker 3: So on that point, mark uh and throw it to everybody,
[13:11] Speaker 3: of course. But like so we keep talking about, all right,
[13:15] Speaker 3: so we could seize, you know, some of the islands
[13:18] Speaker 3: to open the straight. We could potentially launch this which
[13:21] Speaker 3: should be a really complex special operations to get the HU.
[13:26] Speaker 4: On the straight.
[13:27] Speaker 3: Though, so if we did it and we were successful
[13:29] Speaker 3: in the Marines, land sees islands, like how do we
[13:32] Speaker 3: get out of it? Like, how do we what comes next?
[13:37] Speaker 3: I mean, you have to you have to think, you know,
[13:39] Speaker 3: five steps ahead and how it actually advances your overall policy.
[13:44] Speaker 3: Because we know if you tell marines and rangers to
[13:47] Speaker 3: you know, take something, they're going to take it. They're
[13:49] Speaker 3: probably to your point mark take casually. So this is
[13:51] Speaker 3: that's horrible. But then like, so we're gonna live there.
[13:55] Speaker 3: I mean, we're going to just permanently occupy the street
[13:58] Speaker 3: so that it's open. I don't know, that's the question.
[14:02] Speaker 3: And then the HU recovery mission, by everybody's estimation, is
[14:07] Speaker 3: going to be would be weeks. They would of course
[14:11] Speaker 3: mass forces against us. It could be we could be
[14:15] Speaker 3: creating our own Alamo, is what I'm concerned about, or Thermopylae,
[14:19] Speaker 3: and you know how far you want to go back.
[14:23] Speaker 3: So these are really big decisions. It isn't just like
[14:26] Speaker 3: I'm pulling a trigger and it's just going to happen
[14:28] Speaker 3: and it's going to work. And of course Iron's going
[14:31] Speaker 3: to retaliate for either of those things substantially against our
[14:35] Speaker 3: partner countries in the region.
[14:37] Speaker 6: So it's just the question is, yeah, think about your
[14:42] Speaker 6: previous role as Dastig, when you were when you were
[14:44] Speaker 6: sitting in the Pentagon, you would have been asked if
[14:46] Speaker 6: there were to be a National Security Council meeting. That's
[14:48] Speaker 6: probably not, but you would have been there. What is
[14:50] Speaker 6: your recommendation, because I don't know what the silver boat
[14:53] Speaker 6: there is none, So you know what would you recommend?
[14:55] Speaker 3: Double well, I mean start with I mean it's easy
[14:59] Speaker 3: to say, have a double down on diplomacy, you know
[15:01] Speaker 3: what I mean, Like, it's not in our interest to
[15:04] Speaker 3: go to escalate. It's not I'm not just being nice
[15:08] Speaker 3: to Iran, right, I wish the regime would get wiped
[15:10] Speaker 3: off the face of the earth. But these are decisions
[15:14] Speaker 3: that aren't it isn't. I think some people get too
[15:17] Speaker 3: comfortable with Okay, we launched a military operation to ken
[15:20] Speaker 3: bin Laden or Bagdaddy or kept or catch a Maduro,
[15:24] Speaker 3: and it's just.
[15:25] Speaker 4: The easy button. It's not the easy butt. And this
[15:27] Speaker 4: is definitely not the easy butt. This is this is.
[15:30] Speaker 3: Something that we could get stuck in quagmire. And I
[15:34] Speaker 3: don't want to see that happen. So I don't know
[15:35] Speaker 3: how we can. It has to be better than the
[15:39] Speaker 3: original JCPOA, I think, to make it viable for the
[15:44] Speaker 3: United States, but we need to accept that it might
[15:48] Speaker 3: not be the perfect solution, Andy, what do you think
[15:52] Speaker 3: about what we do if we actually took these islands
[15:55] Speaker 3: will be.
[15:57] Speaker 5: I'm going I've written about it, and I think it's
[16:00] Speaker 5: an appallingly bad idea, because yes, we can do it,
[16:03] Speaker 5: it's militarily feasible. As you point out, there's two questions
[16:07] Speaker 5: to ask. The first is what for right? What is
[16:11] Speaker 5: the strategic game that gives us? And secondly, what comes next?
[16:16] Speaker 5: We've anchored ourselves to it, We've become fixed targets. We've
[16:21] Speaker 5: we've forfeited all the advantage that we have without the
[16:24] Speaker 5: options of it. And you've got to keep forces there right,
[16:27] Speaker 5: And even then, they don't keep the straights open. I mean,
[16:30] Speaker 5: we've talked about this. It did with the range of
[16:35] Speaker 5: ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, with a range of drones. You're
[16:40] Speaker 5: not doing anything by sitting on terrain. Yes, And and
[16:44] Speaker 5: the uranium seizure mission, even if we pulled it off right,
[16:49] Speaker 5: and let's just say, and we're we're all tiptoeing round,
[16:51] Speaker 5: so let's say on the right side of classified of course,
[16:54] Speaker 5: as we always do on the show. But even if
[16:57] Speaker 5: hypothetically you can do this in a week, right with
[17:01] Speaker 5: only a thousand guys on the ground, plus heavy equipment
[17:04] Speaker 5: blah blay, all the stuff that that you can read
[17:07] Speaker 5: and open sources required. Then what so what we we
[17:11] Speaker 5: take the uranium? Right, it's not, but the program itself,
[17:16] Speaker 5: the expertise is still there. The centrifuges are still there,
[17:20] Speaker 5: if we're to believe our own intelligence community reports, many
[17:23] Speaker 5: of them being buried so deep. Yes, some of them
[17:26] Speaker 5: are being buried also by the air campaign, but they're
[17:28] Speaker 5: recoverable and they can be back in business. So we
[17:33] Speaker 5: haven't destroyed the program and and at at great risk. Yeah, no,
[17:38] Speaker 5: so I agree, And the only the only option now
[17:41] Speaker 5: is diplomacy. And there's one other there's one other factor,
[17:46] Speaker 5: a couple of factors right that that are also affecting this.
[17:51] Speaker 5: The effects on the regime of the war have not
[17:53] Speaker 5: been favorable to the United States. Rather than you know,
[17:59] Speaker 5: the click by by killing that top layer. And I'm
[18:03] Speaker 5: not saying, you know, they sometimes that's a good tactic,
[18:06] Speaker 5: but the promise that in this case, that we've strengthened
[18:10] Speaker 5: the hard line elements within the regime, if you'd believe
[18:12] Speaker 5: again open source reporting by Wall Street, Germal New York
[18:16] Speaker 5: Times Internal Descent has been suppressed, and in some case
[18:21] Speaker 5: of it's been it's been subjugated under this feeling of
[18:24] Speaker 5: patriotism and the feeling that they're being attacked by an
[18:27] Speaker 5: external country. Right, so they've to some extent, we've united
[18:33] Speaker 5: the country behind a harder line regime, and the revolutionary
[18:38] Speaker 5: God has increased its influence. It's isolated from the effects
[18:42] Speaker 5: of of the economic blows against ostensible blows against one
[18:47] Speaker 5: itself because of the way they've distributed their wealth. We've
[18:50] Speaker 5: learned that from John Hackett. So we were not again,
[18:57] Speaker 5: we haven't achieved a better a better piece. It's perhaps
[19:00] Speaker 5: still within a grosp There's no doubt that Iran is
[19:03] Speaker 5: feeling the pressure, otherwise they wouldn't be showing up in
[19:06] Speaker 5: Islam about but not to the extent that we think
[19:10] Speaker 5: they have.
[19:12] Speaker 6: You know, there's a there's a great there's a Washington
[19:14] Speaker 6: Post op ed by a former agency case officer, Mark Fowler.
[19:17] Speaker 6: I think it was last week, and he said something
[19:19] Speaker 6: that I thought it was great, and and he said,
[19:22] Speaker 6: you know as well, you know when we are running
[19:24] Speaker 6: around operations and you uh, you know, when you first
[19:28] Speaker 6: recruit an Iranian asset, when you sit down obviously you
[19:30] Speaker 6: secure their their agreement to work, you know, for the
[19:33] Speaker 6: United States, not against their country, against their government of course.
[19:38] Speaker 6: And then you come up with a salary. And in
[19:41] Speaker 6: our old world, Mick, we would say, okay, you're gonna
[19:43] Speaker 6: get paid one thousand bucks a month. There we go
[19:45] Speaker 6: write a cable.
[19:46] Speaker 7: That's it.
[19:46] Speaker 6: But in the Iranians mind, that was just the beginning
[19:49] Speaker 6: of the negotiation over his salary.
[19:52] Speaker 5: Uh.
[19:53] Speaker 6: And so you know, these are master negotiators. And so
[19:55] Speaker 6: it was funny because then later on is your hand
[19:57] Speaker 6: on the asset when you said, hey, here's your thousand
[19:59] Speaker 6: bucks for your you know this money. He's like, oh, no, no, no,
[20:01] Speaker 6: I want two thousand. But wait wait we agreed a
[20:04] Speaker 6: month ago. I was like, yeah, that was a month ago.
[20:06] Speaker 6: So you know, there, these are negotiators and the Iranians
[20:09] Speaker 6: probably can can can wait us out? And I guess
[20:13] Speaker 6: something Andy you said, I think is really important the
[20:15] Speaker 6: question that we should ask ourselves. I'm still a romantic.
[20:18] Speaker 6: I did this job for the agency, and I still
[20:20] Speaker 6: believed in American exceptionalism.
[20:23] Speaker 5: Uh.
[20:24] Speaker 6: You know, whether we're talking to the Kurds or the Syrians,
[20:27] Speaker 6: or or indiage personnel in Afghanistan. I believe the Americans
[20:31] Speaker 6: were the good guys. So the question now you have
[20:33] Speaker 6: to ask yourself is are the Iranian people today actually
[20:36] Speaker 6: better or worse off since this war started? And I
[20:39] Speaker 6: don't know the answer to that because there's no talk
[20:41] Speaker 6: of the quote help it's on its way from Trump.
[20:44] Speaker 6: I mean that was to me, that was inspiring. I
[20:46] Speaker 6: was like, I'll get behind this, and we're nowhere there.
[20:49] Speaker 6: In fact, if there's an agreement, if there's a jcpoa
[20:52] Speaker 6: two point five, let's say there's going to be sanctions relief,
[20:56] Speaker 6: you're gonna infuse cash into the Iranian regime and they
[20:58] Speaker 6: might actually survive longer. Suggest something to throw out last piece.
[21:02] Speaker 4: They probably will survive.
[21:05] Speaker 6: Yeahs last piece on this And it's something that I
[21:08] Speaker 6: felt guilty about, you know.
[21:09] Speaker 7: So you know, we all do our TV stick and.
[21:12] Speaker 6: We were all we were all Friday was a day
[21:14] Speaker 6: of incredible optimism that Mick, I don't know if you
[21:16] Speaker 6: were on.
[21:16] Speaker 7: I certainly was.
[21:17] Speaker 6: And I look back and I'm like, I wish I
[21:18] Speaker 6: hadn't said what I said, which was, hey, we maybe
[21:21] Speaker 6: closer in agreement. I think it was all bullshit, And
[21:23] Speaker 6: you got to ask yourself, Okay, what happened here? Was
[21:26] Speaker 6: it a couple of questions for you guys to consider.
[21:28] Speaker 6: Was it this struggle within Iran between the hardline elements,
[21:32] Speaker 6: you know, Vaheti, the IRGC chief, versus Arakchi, the foreign minister,
[21:36] Speaker 6: you know?
[21:36] Speaker 7: Was it an actual struggle there for what's going on?
[21:39] Speaker 6: Was it bullshit spewed out by quote sources of the
[21:43] Speaker 6: US national security media Some of us included that we
[21:47] Speaker 6: bought the nonsense about the optimism that I was coming from,
[21:50] Speaker 6: you know, And and you know, Kushner and wickf have
[21:53] Speaker 6: half the US UH Press Corps on speed dial.
[21:55] Speaker 7: So was it that?
[21:57] Speaker 6: And was that BS designed to kind of push an
[21:59] Speaker 6: air that things were getting closer, you know, baby, to
[22:02] Speaker 6: influence a deal?
[22:05] Speaker 2: And so?
[22:06] Speaker 7: Or was it?
[22:07] Speaker 6: Or and was it you know, Trump market manipulation? The
[22:10] Speaker 6: stock market went up dramatically, oil prices fell, helps the
[22:14] Speaker 6: US economy? Or is a combination of all those? But
[22:17] Speaker 6: I do think and it won't happen. But I was
[22:18] Speaker 6: thinking back like man like, we were just totally snowed
[22:21] Speaker 6: by this optimism on Friday, and it looks like it
[22:23] Speaker 6: was all BS or some elements certainly were. So what
[22:27] Speaker 6: are your guys' thoughts on that because I was totally
[22:30] Speaker 6: guilty in that, and I look back now and I'm like, man,
[22:32] Speaker 6: I shouldn't have said what. I should have been much
[22:34] Speaker 6: more cautious, saying like, hey, this is interesting. This is
[22:36] Speaker 6: coming from the US side, not so sure what's going
[22:39] Speaker 6: to happen. But I was not that, and I think
[22:41] Speaker 6: I fell into that trap a little bit.
[22:43] Speaker 5: Thought, Yeah, I do think that like diplomacyes.
[22:47] Speaker 3: Sorry, there is a different system in Oran right now.
[22:52] Speaker 3: They have, you know, power brokers like you already mentioned
[22:55] Speaker 3: a rogsheet the foreign minister. You also have this guy
[22:59] Speaker 3: that the new head of the National Security Council, Zoe Gadar,
[23:03] Speaker 3: I think is his name. I'm told I don't know
[23:05] Speaker 3: much about him, but I'm told like he was such
[23:08] Speaker 3: a hardliner that like cost some soula money wouldn't work,
[23:14] Speaker 3: Like he was saying, this guy is too intense.
[23:17] Speaker 7: So think about that, right.
[23:20] Speaker 5: So we're we're dealing with the Yeah, Psycho exactly.
[23:28] Speaker 6: Said that that he's dealing with people who are reasonable.
[23:31] Speaker 6: I mean, he comes out and he spews this ship
[23:33] Speaker 6: out all the time. He says, we like the people
[23:35] Speaker 6: we're dealing with, and we're good. What's he talking about?
[23:39] Speaker 3: I don't know, because if he's, if he's the ultimate guy,
[23:41] Speaker 3: and obviously the new Supreme Leader has both lost his
[23:45] Speaker 3: entire family and is apparently seriously injured because of the strikes,
[23:49] Speaker 3: I can't imagine him being any any less hardline than
[23:52] Speaker 3: his dad that we just killed. So I mean, I
[23:56] Speaker 3: think we have to accept that we're inna we have
[23:58] Speaker 3: a regime that's going to be even more hardline than
[24:01] Speaker 3: the old one.
[24:02] Speaker 6: It is.
[24:04] Speaker 3: They're likely if we get to an agreement, which we
[24:06] Speaker 3: all want to your point, Mark, that's gonna maybe permanently
[24:11] Speaker 3: install them as the as the governing body of ROT forever, right,
[24:15] Speaker 3: because they're going to have sanctions relief, and our agreement
[24:18] Speaker 3: is with them, so now we're not going to have
[24:20] Speaker 3: an incentive to see them deposed, even though they're absolutely horrendous.
[24:25] Speaker 3: So all that stuff's out the window if we get
[24:27] Speaker 3: to an agreement. Yeah, it's it's a challenge. And are
[24:30] Speaker 3: we promoting, you know, this idea that everything's rosy? So
[24:36] Speaker 3: you know, I think that's the US's view. Is we
[24:38] Speaker 3: just keep saying it so that it'll actually happen. I
[24:41] Speaker 3: just think eventually, and we're probably already to that point,
[24:44] Speaker 3: people just don't listen to it. They just say, Okay,
[24:47] Speaker 3: let's see what actually comes out of it, what's written
[24:50] Speaker 3: and what's agreed to. I was on a bunch of
[24:52] Speaker 3: foreign media yesterday and all and with people in Tehran
[24:56] Speaker 3: who have obviously pushing their side, and they're like, none
[25:00] Speaker 3: of this stuff was agreed to. It's all made up,
[25:03] Speaker 3: and we don't know how to get to an agreement
[25:06] Speaker 3: if there's not even going to be a baseline of
[25:09] Speaker 3: honesty and something that's actually written and published. And I
[25:14] Speaker 3: argue with these folks all the time because they just
[25:16] Speaker 3: promote the regime. But it's hard to argue that one, like,
[25:18] Speaker 3: unless there's a written agreement, why would anybody believe it's
[25:23] Speaker 3: that it's actually you know, public that says this is
[25:26] Speaker 3: what we agree to open the straits?
[25:28] Speaker 4: What does open mean?
[25:29] Speaker 3: Open doesn't mean Iron gets to charge a million dollars
[25:32] Speaker 3: and have everybody go through their territorial waters and they
[25:36] Speaker 3: decide whether you go through. Open is an international waterway
[25:39] Speaker 3: that has.
[25:40] Speaker 4: Just like it was.
[25:41] Speaker 3: But there's got to be a definition and they've got
[25:43] Speaker 3: to actually put down in writing what they're agreeing to,
[25:46] Speaker 3: because this is clearly not working.
[25:50] Speaker 4: The way it is.
[25:51] Speaker 6: Hey, and can you go over the disposition of US
[25:53] Speaker 6: forces now just from open source? You know, where are
[25:56] Speaker 6: we in terms of is there is there a third
[25:58] Speaker 6: aircraft carry a battle group there where they're both mews there?
[26:02] Speaker 6: Where are we in terms of this building? I saw
[26:03] Speaker 6: something on again, it's on open source, it's on you
[26:06] Speaker 6: know on Twitter that there there's continues to be this
[26:09] Speaker 6: pretty significant airflow of assets from the United States. Maybe
[26:13] Speaker 6: the audience will have to kind of go over exactly
[26:16] Speaker 6: what's what our order of battle is if we can
[26:19] Speaker 6: say it in an unclassified way.
[26:21] Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean i'd have to pull Mick and I haven't.
[26:23] Speaker 5: I haven't been. I haven't been counting the order of
[26:26] Speaker 5: battle here in the Middle least, but certainly there's been
[26:31] Speaker 5: no return of units, so anything that's come as being additive,
[26:35] Speaker 5: I haven't. I didn't know there's a I wasn't tracking
[26:38] Speaker 5: as a third third carrier. I know we've we've we've
[26:42] Speaker 5: flown significantly in the last couple of weeks. We've flown
[26:47] Speaker 5: more tankers out here. And I say that significant because
[26:52] Speaker 5: it's a really interesting aspect of the air campaign, or
[26:55] Speaker 5: maybe it's just interesting to me because of a geek.
[26:58] Speaker 5: But you know, a run wasn't ran knew they couldn't.
[27:03] Speaker 5: They couldn't shoot our aircraft out of the skies in Mass.
[27:06] Speaker 5: So they went after critical enablers, right, They went after
[27:11] Speaker 5: I think do Hay called them the the nest and
[27:14] Speaker 5: eggs of air power. In our case, those are the
[27:19] Speaker 5: tankers right the sea. Uh they I'm sorry the case.
[27:23] Speaker 5: He one thirty five fleet that's aging a limited number
[27:27] Speaker 5: of airframes went after our air wax aircraft because of
[27:32] Speaker 5: course they play a key role too. We've got a
[27:35] Speaker 5: limited number. Uh. And they went and went after our
[27:38] Speaker 5: acquisition radar here in the here in the Gulf, and
[27:43] Speaker 5: and they were pretty successful. You know, you can look
[27:45] Speaker 5: on open source what they did here in Prince Sulton
[27:48] Speaker 5: Air Base to the air wax and tankers, and they
[27:52] Speaker 5: destroyed acquisition radar in Jordan and Bahrain. So so we've
[27:58] Speaker 5: had to replace those. But but if the reports are
[28:02] Speaker 5: to be believed, we've replaced them in mass I mean
[28:04] Speaker 5: we've we must have very few tankers left. Back in
[28:08] Speaker 5: the States. We flew a ton into Ben Gurion Airport
[28:12] Speaker 5: of all places, the other day. So ostensibly it looks
[28:16] Speaker 5: as though we're preparing for further action, and that's why
[28:20] Speaker 5: you see all this this suppressed hysteria on Twitter. But
[28:25] Speaker 5: I agree with I agree with you guys that I
[28:29] Speaker 5: don't sense that, not not that I have any great insights,
[28:33] Speaker 5: but I don't sense that from this administration in nothing
[28:38] Speaker 5: to nothing to gain at all by escalating militarily. I mean,
[28:43] Speaker 5: we have reached the limits of what we can attain
[28:46] Speaker 5: through a military campaign. That's the bottom line. And so
[28:50] Speaker 5: I yes, there's certainly been reinforcement and military capacity here
[28:55] Speaker 5: in the midd least, but I think that's largely for show,
[28:58] Speaker 5: and it's certainly at at cost of the long suffering
[29:02] Speaker 5: soldiers sale Emmon and marine who has stuck out for
[29:06] Speaker 5: an extended period of time. And if reports are correct,
[29:09] Speaker 5: even the Navy's running short of chow, which tells you
[29:12] Speaker 5: how desperate things are. But you know, on a serious
[29:15] Speaker 5: note on the diplomacy, I'm not a diplomat by background,
[29:21] Speaker 5: but I think diplomats will tell you that that it's
[29:25] Speaker 5: obviously it's an ed. If you take small, small bites
[29:28] Speaker 5: right when things appear to be as they are now,
[29:32] Speaker 5: you don't go for the you don't go for your
[29:34] Speaker 5: ultimate objectives right away. And decide after your twenty one
[29:37] Speaker 5: hour conversation you're done, because it's not going to happen, right.
[29:42] Speaker 5: You have to you have to calibrate your expectations accordingly,
[29:45] Speaker 5: and you have to accept the conditions for a comprehensive
[29:48] Speaker 5: agreement as we've just been talking about, and not present
[29:51] Speaker 5: because of the perceptions of both sides, that both other victors.
[29:55] Speaker 5: So I think the likely outcome and the one that
[29:57] Speaker 5: we United States have to scept is, you know, if
[30:02] Speaker 5: progress is made, it's going to be they're going to
[30:04] Speaker 5: develop an interim framework, something that stabilizes the immediate situation
[30:09] Speaker 5: in straits or moves and and yes, perhaps eleven and
[30:12] Speaker 5: two without without resolving these underlying issues. So it might
[30:18] Speaker 5: be a temporary arrangement on partial sanctions relief, some form
[30:24] Speaker 5: of de escalation and in the streets, and with agreement
[30:30] Speaker 5: to talk about an arrangement on nuclear activity during the
[30:34] Speaker 5: next talks.
[30:37] Speaker 3: So the on your question, mark, I think the eleventh
[30:39] Speaker 3: view is going to be there within a week, maybe
[30:41] Speaker 3: a little over a week.
[30:43] Speaker 4: And then the.
[30:44] Speaker 3: US is George hw Bush, it's gone through the Gibralt,
[30:49] Speaker 3: it's gone through the it's in the med somewhere I'm
[30:54] Speaker 3: sure some of our audience knows, but to try to
[30:57] Speaker 3: keep track of it, because that's I mean, if you
[30:59] Speaker 3: talk when you listen to the Iranian commentators, that's what
[31:04] Speaker 3: they think.
[31:05] Speaker 4: This is all about. This is this is all just.
[31:07] Speaker 3: Turn until til we get more forces there, and it's
[31:10] Speaker 3: it doesn't actually amount to anything.
[31:12] Speaker 4: And it's just a delay.
[31:13] Speaker 2: And can you blame.
[31:16] Speaker 3: I don't blame them, because you know, we attack them
[31:17] Speaker 3: right in the middle of the negotiations.
[31:19] Speaker 4: I do think that the White House.
[31:21] Speaker 3: I do think the White House actually wants an agreement though,
[31:24] Speaker 3: so I don't think they want to use two views
[31:27] Speaker 3: and you know what I mean. But the other alternative
[31:30] Speaker 3: is just to double down on this blockade. And I
[31:33] Speaker 3: do think the blockades having putting pressure on the regime.
[31:37] Speaker 3: My only question, and this is for an economist probably
[31:41] Speaker 3: more than us. But so if we just double down
[31:44] Speaker 3: on the street and we completely block twenty percent of
[31:47] Speaker 3: the world's old supply without any end in sight, and
[31:50] Speaker 3: we're not going to try to force open the straight
[31:52] Speaker 3: militarily because it's too risky, it's I mean, what is
[31:55] Speaker 3: that going to do to global energy crisis? If they
[31:59] Speaker 3: just accept that it's gonna and then what if they start,
[32:02] Speaker 3: you know, Houthi's get in the game, you know, and
[32:04] Speaker 3: they start. I don't know if they can completely block
[32:07] Speaker 3: the Bob, but I think they can certainly make make
[32:09] Speaker 3: it difficult.
[32:10] Speaker 5: We know that.
[32:11] Speaker 3: So and then we're just stuck here. We're just stuck
[32:15] Speaker 3: with and then they're going to have to do something
[32:18] Speaker 3: because if you cut them off entirely, they're going to
[32:21] Speaker 3: have to do something to change the game. So it's
[32:23] Speaker 3: the Houthi's, it's attack, you know, guitar UAE, the energy
[32:27] Speaker 3: facilities and those countries in Saudi like, all the issues
[32:32] Speaker 3: that we're trying to deal with. As they shifted this
[32:34] Speaker 3: from a conventional military fight to kind of like you know,
[32:39] Speaker 3: asymmetric economic type fight of attrition, get magnified, right, I
[32:48] Speaker 3: mean there's nothing coming out of the street. There's nothing
[32:51] Speaker 3: that goes through the Bob. I mean that would be
[32:55] Speaker 3: Oh the other thing about the aircraft carrier, is it
[32:58] Speaker 3: actually went I think I'm wrong. I think it went
[33:01] Speaker 3: all the way around.
[33:04] Speaker 6: Yeah, right, the Horn of Africa. Something crazy, isn't that right?
[33:09] Speaker 4: While you guys talking bottom line on that.
[33:10] Speaker 6: I think is that so one of the things though
[33:14] Speaker 6: you know, I think D kind of chimed in there,
[33:16] Speaker 6: and he said, well, hold on a second. Each time,
[33:18] Speaker 6: you know, we've seen this build up, We've used it.
[33:21] Speaker 6: We saw the build up in Venezuela, used it. And
[33:23] Speaker 6: so while it makes no sense for there to be
[33:26] Speaker 6: escalation right now, I mean, there is a build up,
[33:29] Speaker 6: and and you know, we can't kind of discount that,
[33:32] Speaker 6: you know, Trump's true social posts. Only what an hour
[33:35] Speaker 6: or two ago when he threatened now to uh once
[33:38] Speaker 6: again to destroy all Iranian uh what was it was
[33:42] Speaker 6: bridges and power plants, kind of you know, more of
[33:46] Speaker 6: this kind of infrastructure armageddon. And so, you know, I
[33:51] Speaker 6: think that there is reason to be concerned because when
[33:55] Speaker 6: Trump has threatened these things, he actually has carried them, uh,
[33:58] Speaker 6: carried them out. While although this time it seems to
[34:00] Speaker 6: be you know, perhaps this is the next Obviously, you
[34:03] Speaker 6: guys would address this better than I would. As opposed
[34:07] Speaker 6: to ground forces on Carog Island or or you know,
[34:11] Speaker 6: or anything like that. You know, the next step in
[34:13] Speaker 6: any escalation would be some kind of bombing campaign against
[34:16] Speaker 6: infrastructure targets. You know, maybe that's what as you climb
[34:20] Speaker 6: the escalatory ladder, that's what the U that's what the
[34:23] Speaker 6: Pentagon is recommending versus kind of something that which which
[34:27] Speaker 6: of course is going to lead to world condemnation. There's
[34:29] Speaker 6: going to be talk of, you know, is this war
[34:31] Speaker 6: crimes et cetera, et cetera. But you know, maybe that's
[34:34] Speaker 6: what's next on that kind of the menu. If these
[34:36] Speaker 6: talks in Islama Bide don't go anywhere.
[34:39] Speaker 3: So it's off the coast and Maibia. It's going around
[34:43] Speaker 3: Cape of Good Hope for the Wall Street Journal, and
[34:46] Speaker 3: it'll be in the in the area at the close
[34:51] Speaker 3: to the end of the month, if not the first week.
[34:56] Speaker 5: A lot of a lot of C six sailors going
[34:59] Speaker 5: around the cape, then that's an unusual move for the
[35:02] Speaker 5: US Navy.
[35:03] Speaker 7: Clearly they did this a lot.
[35:05] Speaker 6: Yes, right, force protection mode, which doesn't really I mean, okay,
[35:10] Speaker 6: but that's not that's not what you really want to
[35:13] Speaker 6: project in terms of.
[35:14] Speaker 2: Yeah, it's not confidence inspiring.
[35:16] Speaker 1: Also, like what's next on that menu from the d
[35:19] Speaker 1: D is arguably war crimes, uh.
[35:25] Speaker 2: Says.
[35:26] Speaker 1: It kind of says how far this has gone like
[35:28] Speaker 1: out of control. Frankly, I mean Andy mentioned it before
[35:32] Speaker 1: about like when they game this out straight, Oh horr
[35:35] Speaker 1: moves was the number one thing to worry about, right,
[35:37] Speaker 1: the asymmetric threat, the fast attack boats and stuff like that,
[35:40] Speaker 1: not so much. Their destroyers or whatever, frigates or whatever
[35:43] Speaker 1: they have, not so much. They're two f fourteens from
[35:46] Speaker 1: sixty years ago, and so we knew this going in
[35:51] Speaker 1: and up until we started bombing at the end of February.
[35:56] Speaker 1: On the table was a supposed deal that was better
[36:00] Speaker 1: than the JCPOA in terms of like uranium enrichment and
[36:04] Speaker 1: stuff like that. So I think like just going at
[36:08] Speaker 1: it and bombing and attacking Iran with Israel, it hasn't
[36:12] Speaker 1: really benefited our position, I would say at all. Especially
[36:17] Speaker 1: now they're like, oh, if they don't have another twenty
[36:19] Speaker 1: four hour session and everyone goes home upset. Everyone's maximalist
[36:23] Speaker 1: on either side because everybody thinks they're winning and nothing
[36:27] Speaker 1: gets done. The next move is just the bomb bridges
[36:29] Speaker 1: and power plants like that's insane to me. Or grab
[36:32] Speaker 1: car G Island for an extended period of time to
[36:34] Speaker 1: squeeze their oil revenue, like while our marines are getting
[36:38] Speaker 1: fucking incoming the entire time, like how many, Like there's
[36:41] Speaker 1: got to be a casualty assessment on what that would
[36:44] Speaker 1: look like, and it can't be good at all. There's
[36:48] Speaker 1: no way we can protect all of them. Just have
[36:49] Speaker 1: five hundred marines just sitting there protecting an island while
[36:53] Speaker 1: they're catching not even strays, they're catching direct fire like
[36:57] Speaker 1: all day every day. I just don't know how any
[36:59] Speaker 1: of it makes sense.
[37:01] Speaker 3: So the eleventh Beade gets there made it may according
[37:05] Speaker 3: to several overlords.
[37:07] Speaker 5: So I think, I mean, I think the military build
[37:11] Speaker 5: up there, you know, and I get everything you guys
[37:15] Speaker 5: have said is correct, but I think the military build
[37:16] Speaker 5: up there is a red herring. I think it's a
[37:21] Speaker 5: I think it's a shower force to back negotiations. And
[37:24] Speaker 5: I think obviously we have to, we have to back
[37:28] Speaker 5: what we said about forcing the blockade or whatever we're
[37:33] Speaker 5: calling it all the streets. But I don't for a
[37:36] Speaker 5: moment see US resorting to using ground troops and any
[37:43] Speaker 5: capacity aside from in maritime interdiction operations.
[37:48] Speaker 4: Yep.
[37:49] Speaker 5: Just you know, for all the reasons that we've said
[37:51] Speaker 5: it just it would be such a strategic faux pas
[37:57] Speaker 5: that I'm pretty sure that that all the generals who
[38:00] Speaker 5: haven't been fired yet are advising and admirals are advising
[38:04] Speaker 5: strongly against it, and and I think, you know, again
[38:11] Speaker 5: I said earlier, wasn't it Another thing I'm not is
[38:14] Speaker 5: I'm not an economist, but I'm fascinated by reading about
[38:19] Speaker 5: the impact of the war and a little bit dismayed
[38:22] Speaker 5: because even if the straits are opened, the way that
[38:27] Speaker 5: it's been explained is that the risk premium is already
[38:29] Speaker 5: being built in. Right, So even if even if oils
[38:33] Speaker 5: physically moving, prices that remain elevated because of the persistent
[38:38] Speaker 5: geopolitical risk that the straits will close again or there's
[38:42] Speaker 5: going to be a tax on tanker's infrastructure, and so
[38:45] Speaker 5: insurance rate go up, costs go up, and that's we're
[38:51] Speaker 5: not insulated ultimately from the effects fuel cost, transportation cost,
[38:57] Speaker 5: energy costs. The IMF has has downgraded global growth forecasts,
[39:03] Speaker 5: raised inflation inflation expectations across the globe, and warned of
[39:10] Speaker 5: a global recession. Now, I mean, I don't think that's
[39:14] Speaker 5: just posturing. I mean, these are all realities. So I'm
[39:17] Speaker 5: I'm hooping and I'm thinking, I mean, these things are
[39:21] Speaker 5: these are are the factors that affect this administration, right,
[39:27] Speaker 5: I mean, the economics of all of this are could
[39:31] Speaker 5: well be disastrous.
[39:34] Speaker 1: Well, the writing is on the wall in terms of
[39:36] Speaker 1: the midterms, like they you know, everything that all polls
[39:39] Speaker 1: are projecting that the Republicans are gonna get wiped out
[39:42] Speaker 1: and possibly definitely the House and possibly the Senate too.
[39:46] Speaker 1: So the writing is definitely on the wall. They see
[39:49] Speaker 1: this is happening, and like you mentioned, like everything going up.
[39:51] Speaker 1: Fertilizer is going to go up. Whtw meeans food's going
[39:53] Speaker 1: to go up. We had an economist on a couple
[39:57] Speaker 1: of weeks ago talking about all the things that are
[39:59] Speaker 1: like second and or effects that are affected by the
[40:02] Speaker 1: shape being the facto shut. I don't think this administration
[40:06] Speaker 1: really cares, frankly about the midterms. I think they care
[40:10] Speaker 1: about getting a win in the press. And I think
[40:13] Speaker 1: this whole thing is like, frankly, and this is super cynical,
[40:16] Speaker 1: like like this is content and it's crazy.
[40:21] Speaker 6: Well, I think that there's a there's an argument to
[40:23] Speaker 6: be made that the you know, and and that you know,
[40:27] Speaker 6: the midterms are already lost, and so this is kind
[40:29] Speaker 6: of and I subscribe to this a little bit. I mean,
[40:32] Speaker 6: this is kind of legacy defining stuff for Trump. With Venezuela,
[40:35] Speaker 6: Iran and Cuba. I think there's some element of truth
[40:38] Speaker 6: to that, and so you know, with that in mind,
[40:40] Speaker 6: I think, you know, maybe the administration is willing to
[40:42] Speaker 6: risk that that economic pain if they can get a
[40:45] Speaker 6: win out of Iran. I just the problem is the
[40:47] Speaker 6: enemy gets a vote and we're kind of stuck. And
[40:49] Speaker 6: you know, there's a great line. There's no easy button
[40:51] Speaker 6: right now. I mean, for all accounts that you read
[40:53] Speaker 6: in the press, who knows it's true now that Trump
[40:55] Speaker 6: and even Hegseth, which is amazing or maybe not, it
[40:58] Speaker 6: is surprised that Iran resilient. And see now they shouldn't
[41:00] Speaker 6: have been. If they had Iran experts, they would have
[41:02] Speaker 6: said Iran and Iraq fought a brutal war and the
[41:04] Speaker 6: Iranians suffered terribly. And I think the Iranian regime is,
[41:08] Speaker 6: you know, it is certainly willing to to UH, to
[41:12] Speaker 6: sacrifice kind of the well being of its people in
[41:14] Speaker 6: perpetuity for this. But I do wonder that kind of
[41:19] Speaker 6: they just this the calculating. You know, Trump wants a
[41:22] Speaker 6: win in Iran.
[41:24] Speaker 7: And UH and UH.
[41:26] Speaker 6: And you know, perhaps that the losses in the midterms
[41:29] Speaker 6: already baked in, won't matter at this point. And you
[41:31] Speaker 6: can make an argument again, you know, let let's say
[41:33] Speaker 6: there's a win. Let's say Iran capitulates totally, they give
[41:37] Speaker 6: up every energy prices are still going to be brutal. No,
[41:40] Speaker 6: Americans don't give a shit about foreign policy. So Trump
[41:43] Speaker 6: could get this win. But if gas prices are still
[41:45] Speaker 6: high and not even come November, it doesn't even matter
[41:48] Speaker 6: a November. It matters when this summer. I mean, at
[41:51] Speaker 6: some point the midterms are they're gonna their Republicans are
[41:53] Speaker 6: gonna say it's lost.
[41:54] Speaker 7: No matter what.
[41:54] Speaker 6: It's too late because Andy, I think you not that
[41:57] Speaker 6: the residual effect is just is going to be. It's
[41:59] Speaker 6: going to take months. And I mean we're talking. I
[42:01] Speaker 6: think KLM's you know, just announce they're gona run out
[42:04] Speaker 6: jet fuel soon. Yeah, and so you know, so you
[42:07] Speaker 6: know there there. But there is a notion that Trump
[42:09] Speaker 6: is doing this as something for his legacy. And the
[42:12] Speaker 6: problem with that is his legacy is to do anything
[42:14] Speaker 6: that Obama didn't do, or not to do anything Obama did.
[42:18] Speaker 6: And so what would be the right agreement now just
[42:21] Speaker 6: in it, because you have two sides and there's gonna
[42:23] Speaker 6: have to be compromised, would be a kind of a
[42:25] Speaker 6: JCPO A two point five. It's pretty obvious, and that
[42:29] Speaker 6: might not even be you know, in terms of I
[42:31] Speaker 6: think it's abandoning the Iranian people, there's no doubt about that.
[42:34] Speaker 6: And you might not address the proxies and the missile inventory,
[42:38] Speaker 6: but it just in terms of the actual nuclear side
[42:41] Speaker 6: of things. There's probably something that all of us in
[42:43] Speaker 6: a vacuum would say, Yeah, that's that's actually fine. We
[42:45] Speaker 6: can probably live with that. But I don't know if
[42:46] Speaker 6: Trump can politically too, because.
[42:49] Speaker 2: They have to convince him it's a win, so he
[42:51] Speaker 2: can go out and.
[42:52] Speaker 6: Crow anything that's going to come out of his mouth.
[42:54] Speaker 6: If it's a compromise, it's going to be people are
[42:56] Speaker 6: like us are going to say it's a strength in
[42:58] Speaker 6: j JCPO, we did this all this for that. So
[43:01] Speaker 6: I think that puts Trump's in a bind as well,
[43:03] Speaker 6: because even this kind of the art of the deal, guy,
[43:06] Speaker 6: when there is a deal to be had, might not
[43:08] Speaker 6: take it because he's going to get criticized. And you
[43:12] Speaker 6: do have your favorite subject. You do have a very
[43:15] Speaker 6: noisy pro Israel contingent, especially on X the Freedom of
[43:21] Speaker 6: Defensive Democracy crowd who you know, it's a maximuists position
[43:24] Speaker 6: on everything, and that's I mean Lindsey Graham, it's obviously
[43:28] Speaker 6: he's not part of any kind of lobby group, but
[43:30] Speaker 6: you know, Lindsay Graham has been kind of thrown.
[43:32] Speaker 2: You could have you could have told, you could have
[43:35] Speaker 2: convinced me.
[43:36] Speaker 6: I'm saying, but Lindsay is warning in the press, hey,
[43:39] Speaker 6: you know, no capitulation, kind of like Obama. So I
[43:42] Speaker 6: think there is some constraints politically from Trump from his
[43:45] Speaker 6: right that he's boxed himself into. I mean, you can't
[43:48] Speaker 6: have JD Vance go to Pakistan, offered twenty year delay
[43:52] Speaker 6: and enrichment, and then Trump literally publicly the next day saying.
[43:56] Speaker 2: I don't like that. So I think what happened.
[43:58] Speaker 1: I think what happened was that was based on like
[44:00] Speaker 1: releasing that twenty billion that's frozen, and uh, once somebody
[44:04] Speaker 1: put out that test balloon online, got a lot of
[44:08] Speaker 1: a lot of heat from like the like the groups
[44:10] Speaker 1: you were talking.
[44:11] Speaker 7: About, you can't offer it.
[44:13] Speaker 1: And then I think that's literally what happened. That's why
[44:16] Speaker 1: they yanked it away. I mean, really throwing up test balloons.
[44:20] Speaker 1: That group that you mentioned, they put it out and
[44:22] Speaker 1: they start shitting on it, pick up a little bit
[44:25] Speaker 1: of steam, get some calls for some donors. Addison calls up.
[44:28] Speaker 1: It's like, what the fuck? And not paperback. That's what happens.
[44:32] Speaker 1: It's I think it's that simple.
[44:33] Speaker 2: There's no strategic possible.
[44:35] Speaker 7: Yeah, it makes negotiations impossible. You can't.
[44:37] Speaker 2: I mean, that's what's happened. Yeah, it's it's fucked.
[44:40] Speaker 5: So you guys bring up a really interesting point if
[44:42] Speaker 5: you narrow it down to what a US interests, right,
[44:46] Speaker 5: what really are interests? Not Israel's and I get it
[44:49] Speaker 5: Israel's and ally blah blah blah. But first of all,
[44:53] Speaker 5: you know a couple of comments and chick poet, we
[44:55] Speaker 5: didn't really determinedly go after proxyslistic missile inventory. All that
[45:01] Speaker 5: was all focused on nuclear because we realize that we
[45:06] Speaker 5: couldn't even back then, we couldn't materially affect that for
[45:11] Speaker 5: any extended period of time through an act air campaign.
[45:14] Speaker 5: The only reason now the proxies. When we talk about
[45:18] Speaker 5: the proxies, let's talk about the proxies that we United
[45:21] Speaker 5: States care about. And this is an argument obviously, it's
[45:27] Speaker 5: so I invite pushback. We care about the militias in
[45:31] Speaker 5: Iraq right, because of their influence potentially on the Iraqi
[45:34] Speaker 5: administration and the threat to our own forces in the region,
[45:38] Speaker 5: because they have proven historically not to be friendly. Right,
[45:42] Speaker 5: we should care about them, and we care about the
[45:44] Speaker 5: Huthis because of the mischief they get up to now
[45:48] Speaker 5: and then by by closing the bam his bolla. We
[45:54] Speaker 5: care about his bolla because Israel cares about his bolla. Now,
[45:58] Speaker 5: in fairness, we care about his bollow, we say, because
[46:01] Speaker 5: of stability in the region. We care about has bollow
[46:04] Speaker 5: because we want Lebanon to be a functioning democracy unless
[46:07] Speaker 5: bolla threatened. His bolla threatens that. Right, But bottom line is,
[46:13] Speaker 5: we don't really care about better if that's not the
[46:15] Speaker 5: reason we care about it because of Israel. Because Lebanon's good,
[46:18] Speaker 5: Lebon goes to shit and a handbask and we don't
[46:21] Speaker 5: make a concerted effort to help Lebanon. We care about
[46:24] Speaker 5: his bollow because the Israelis are telling us its bother
[46:26] Speaker 5: it's an extential threat. Do we care about ballistic missiles
[46:29] Speaker 5: coming from Iran? No, those were never a threat to us. Really, honestly,
[46:33] Speaker 5: I would argue never a threat our guys in the
[46:37] Speaker 5: region where at the threat from the militias launching fucking
[46:41] Speaker 5: drones and everything. Yes they were, they were provided by Iran.
[46:45] Speaker 5: But you see what I'm saying that we set these
[46:49] Speaker 5: goals that we couldn't achieve through an air campaign that
[46:53] Speaker 5: weren't even that important to us, and the core issues
[46:56] Speaker 5: were going after the particular proxies that concern us, but
[47:02] Speaker 5: most of all the nuclear program, and I think that's
[47:04] Speaker 5: what we need to focus on. And by the way,
[47:08] Speaker 5: reduction of proxies, yeah, it makes sense. We talk about
[47:12] Speaker 5: going after the source in Iran to dissuade that Iran's
[47:15] Speaker 5: never going to be dissuaded from support for the proxies.
[47:18] Speaker 5: Iran's always going to see that as a great way
[47:22] Speaker 5: to strike back, an asymmetrically strong way, because trying to
[47:26] Speaker 5: prove that they're doing it and interdict that flow of
[47:29] Speaker 5: lethal weight has proven really difficult. So you know, the
[47:33] Speaker 5: solution is to go after the proxeas themselves. And I'll
[47:36] Speaker 5: shut up in a moment, but that isn't But you
[47:39] Speaker 5: can't do that purely through military campaigners. Israelis have found
[47:42] Speaker 5: out again and again and again right Hisbola is deeply
[47:49] Speaker 5: embedded in the economic and the political structure of Lebanon.
[47:54] Speaker 5: Unless you have a concerted reconstruction effort, unless.
[47:57] Speaker 8: You give the UN there a different mandate, or even
[48:04] Speaker 8: in certain other peacekeeping force to back the government of
[48:06] Speaker 8: Lebanon and call it a building parlot capacity effort, You're
[48:10] Speaker 8: not going to affect Hesbala for any long period of time.
[48:13] Speaker 5: And mowing the grass, killing thousands of civilians, drawing civilian
[48:18] Speaker 5: infrastructure just means you're setting conditions to have to go
[48:22] Speaker 5: back and do it again in a few years. These
[48:24] Speaker 5: are lessons that the Israelis have not learned. But I
[48:27] Speaker 5: feel as Americans, as the United States, we need to
[48:31] Speaker 5: be smarter than that. And now now our interests to
[48:34] Speaker 5: what are our national interests?
[48:38] Speaker 3: And I think that you know the negotiators now and
[48:40] Speaker 3: you might agree with you at least it sounds like
[48:43] Speaker 3: they do in the sense that they're only talking about
[48:45] Speaker 3: the nuclear issues or anybody talking about and the straight yeah,
[48:50] Speaker 3: well that yeah, I imagine blinking and burns. And President
[48:55] Speaker 3: Obama was like, wait a minute, that's what we did
[48:58] Speaker 3: in you guys criticized this and now doing the same thing.
[49:00] Speaker 3: And they're not including ballistic missiles and proxies that I
[49:04] Speaker 3: that at least there's no discussion of it publicly. Again
[49:09] Speaker 3: in the Pentagon, we thought, okay, well let's keep the agreement.
[49:13] Speaker 4: But then if they're doing things.
[49:15] Speaker 3: On the ballistic missile side or certainly the proxy side,
[49:17] Speaker 3: when we just address it separately, right like by loupidly
[49:22] Speaker 3: get together, you make it almost impossible to get to
[49:24] Speaker 3: an agreement, which isn't anybody's interest. So I'm not advocating
[49:28] Speaker 3: that you have to include it, but that's the whole
[49:30] Speaker 3: reason why we.
[49:31] Speaker 4: Got out of the first place. So there's going to
[49:33] Speaker 4: be a lot of.
[49:33] Speaker 3: I think part of it is just it's almost like
[49:36] Speaker 3: nowadays our policy is so tied to domestic politics that
[49:42] Speaker 3: it can't say consistent because it's all about trying to
[49:45] Speaker 3: get a political advantage over your political opponents, which means
[49:49] Speaker 3: you can't agree with anything they say, even if it
[49:52] Speaker 3: was in the interest of the United States. Like the
[49:54] Speaker 3: whole concept of you know, politics ends at the water's edge,
[49:58] Speaker 3: you know, Bendinburg c that's like on like it's now,
[50:01] Speaker 3: it's like it's just all wrapped into it and people
[50:04] Speaker 3: they don't even you know, And there's been a lot
[50:06] Speaker 3: of talk about this, people who are adamantly opposed to
[50:08] Speaker 3: wars in the Middle East. They're now for a war
[50:10] Speaker 3: in the Middle East. It's like, well, what do you
[50:13] Speaker 3: stand for? I mean, I can understand, I can disagree
[50:16] Speaker 3: with people, Fine, it happens all the time. But it's
[50:19] Speaker 3: really hard to disagree with somebody that actually doesn't believe
[50:21] Speaker 3: what they're saying. It's like, well, what is it. Are
[50:25] Speaker 3: you opposed to the what we spend six trillion dollars
[50:28] Speaker 3: in foreign wars over the last twenty years, or are
[50:31] Speaker 3: you for it now? But simply because it's in you
[50:34] Speaker 3: believe it's your political team.
[50:39] Speaker 6: I think that hypocrisy is just going to be pretty
[50:42] Speaker 6: kind of laid pretty bare if there is going to
[50:44] Speaker 6: be an agreement. Because as you guys noted that, you know,
[50:46] Speaker 6: when when you see the criticism of the JCPOA is
[50:50] Speaker 6: it is a lot of it has to do with
[50:52] Speaker 6: the lack of attention on the ballistic missile inventory and
[50:55] Speaker 6: the proxies. I mean, that's just it's like the receipts
[50:58] Speaker 6: are there. It's going to be interesting to see how
[51:02] Speaker 6: how people react to that. Now, there also was the
[51:04] Speaker 6: you know, the the and this is this goes along
[51:07] Speaker 6: by the way, exactly.
[51:08] Speaker 7: You know, Trump's negotiating style.
[51:09] Speaker 6: He actually, if you think about it, he would be like,
[51:12] Speaker 6: those are two hard let's not do those. We're going
[51:14] Speaker 6: to go on the one thing that we probably can
[51:16] Speaker 6: agree on, which would be some kind of a new deal.
[51:18] Speaker 6: And so, but the hypocrisy is pretty stunning. I mean, Andy,
[51:21] Speaker 6: I pushed back just a little bit. I mean, I
[51:23] Speaker 6: don't have to tell you this. You know obviously that
[51:25] Speaker 6: his ball, the history of his ball is a record
[51:28] Speaker 6: of killing Americans, is is pretty acute. And so you know,
[51:32] Speaker 6: that's so I do think there you know, his ball
[51:34] Speaker 6: is still in organiza, and there's still are his ball
[51:36] Speaker 6: of plots, and we still you know, there's active counter
[51:38] Speaker 6: terrorist operations that go on against his BALLA arguably, of course,
[51:41] Speaker 6: not to the same level of threats to.
[51:44] Speaker 7: US forces and she and militias.
[51:47] Speaker 6: But but I do I wouldn't discount, you know, his
[51:49] Speaker 6: ball a threat to Americans.
[51:50] Speaker 2: That's still I would.
[51:52] Speaker 5: Argue being killed by his BALLA in the last five years,
[51:55] Speaker 5: how many American servicemen are being killed by his ball.
[51:57] Speaker 1: Also, I would argue to that a lot of the
[51:59] Speaker 1: American people don't even know where the fucksbolla is, or can.
[52:03] Speaker 7: Point out I really do.
[52:05] Speaker 5: I mean.
[52:06] Speaker 2: Wild, I totally disagree with.
[52:09] Speaker 5: You two one hundred and forty one marines, but that
[52:11] Speaker 5: was forty years ago. I mean, that's like when I
[52:14] Speaker 5: came in the Marine Corps going after the Japanese because
[52:17] Speaker 5: they kill you know, it's it's history. We listen. I'm
[52:21] Speaker 5: overstating this just for the sake of argument. Of course,
[52:24] Speaker 5: I'm not a his Bolla. Of course they need to go.
[52:28] Speaker 5: They need to go. They're destructive to the entire region.
[52:33] Speaker 5: What they've done to the country of Lebanon is you know,
[52:36] Speaker 5: I don't think people realize many people don't realize that.
[52:39] Speaker 5: So I don't want to get on the tangent of
[52:42] Speaker 5: supporting Hezbolla. They need to be have viscorded, destroyed. What
[52:46] Speaker 5: I'm saying is mowing the grass is not the way
[52:48] Speaker 5: to do that. And I'm agreeing with you guys. Yeah,
[52:53] Speaker 5: so we we narrow it down. I mean, a version,
[52:56] Speaker 5: a modern version of of speak softly and carry a
[53:00] Speaker 5: big stick is go into these negotiations willing to compromise someday.
[53:06] Speaker 5: But the stuff that we can do behind the scenes
[53:10] Speaker 5: right that we've done before, we could continue to do
[53:13] Speaker 5: to bring pressure on that ballistic missile program. I mean,
[53:16] Speaker 5: do real things against it and against the proxies, especially
[53:20] Speaker 5: against the proxies, without resulting to this massive air campaign
[53:24] Speaker 5: that looks good in press, you know, in press, uh,
[53:29] Speaker 5: press conferences, but it chiefs right.
[53:31] Speaker 6: And you bring up a really good point because one
[53:33] Speaker 6: thing that that we don't see as much of, and
[53:36] Speaker 6: I think it's I have a theory on this. I
[53:39] Speaker 6: don't think President Trump likes COVID action because you can't.
[53:42] Speaker 7: Brag about it. Yeah, he does, you know that that
[53:48] Speaker 7: I think.
[53:49] Speaker 6: And again, none of us are in government right now,
[53:51] Speaker 6: but so many of these things could be kind of handled,
[53:54] Speaker 6: you know, quietly behind the scenes with very aggressive COVID
[53:57] Speaker 6: action plans. And I don't you know, I don't think
[53:59] Speaker 6: it happened during the buy An administration. I don't know
[54:01] Speaker 6: what's going on in the Trump administration. I think probably
[54:04] Speaker 6: a lot of our COVID action resources are are folks
[54:06] Speaker 6: in the Western hemisphere on Mexico. I mean, uh, you know,
[54:10] Speaker 6: mixed old crowd is probably all brushing up on Spanish
[54:13] Speaker 6: right now.
[54:14] Speaker 7: Uh and uh and so so.
[54:16] Speaker 6: I but I don't think this goes in line with
[54:18] Speaker 6: what Trump likes like COVID action doesn't work for him
[54:21] Speaker 6: because he can't talk about it.
[54:22] Speaker 5: That's not fun. And and it takes time, right, I mean,
[54:25] Speaker 5: it takes time and patience to to get it in
[54:30] Speaker 5: place and to see effects. Yeah, that's where I get.
[54:34] Speaker 4: That's where I go.
[54:36] Speaker 2: That's where you need to go.
[54:37] Speaker 1: And I'm a dirty liberal like Kami and I'm I'm
[54:40] Speaker 1: saying that's where you need to go. Like hit Russia
[54:43] Speaker 1: back to for the fucking Havana stuff, like all the scenes,
[54:47] Speaker 1: behind the scenes, hit the Iraqi, the Iranian militias in Iraq.
[54:51] Speaker 2: It has been like do it covertly.
[54:54] Speaker 5: We should be the best in the world and doing
[54:56] Speaker 5: that stuff.
[54:57] Speaker 3: And it should be continuous. If you look at the
[54:59] Speaker 3: Reagan type of the way he did national security. Had
[55:03] Speaker 3: a very robust military but didn't use it that often,
[55:06] Speaker 3: but he was a non stop on the covert side.
[55:09] Speaker 3: Like that's it, you know, that's the traditional Republican approach,
[55:14] Speaker 3: the one I promote.
[55:16] Speaker 2: I guess I would argue, so sell weapons to Iran
[55:21] Speaker 2: to fund some covert actions.
[55:22] Speaker 4: Specific that's a specific thing. It's a concept I'm talking.
[55:25] Speaker 3: I'm just saying it's it's it is walked softly and
[55:29] Speaker 3: carry a big stick, and the big stick isn't used
[55:31] Speaker 3: that often because it doesn't necessarily help the US overall.
[55:36] Speaker 3: But the covert stuff, you know, that's continuous.
[55:42] Speaker 5: Smart with both ultimately success stories.
[55:47] Speaker 3: Right in Afghanistan, you know, against the Soviets. I mean,
[55:50] Speaker 3: there's all sorts of examples, so some of it are going
[55:52] Speaker 3: to work, some of it isn't.
[55:53] Speaker 7: Going to work, but that's just you know, still money strike.
[55:56] Speaker 6: You know, all of us were kind of shaking our hands,
[55:58] Speaker 6: shaking our hands saying why wasn't this done under title fifty?
[56:00] Speaker 6: Why in the world was done a type of ten?
[56:02] Speaker 6: Why Brad got it?
[56:03] Speaker 2: It's just people about it because he was in Ukraine.
[56:05] Speaker 7: He was doing no way Trump can do that.
[56:07] Speaker 2: He was getting impeached for Ukraine. Bro, That's why he
[56:10] Speaker 2: did it under that title. That's why.
[56:12] Speaker 3: But you get a I mean, cover action eventually comes out, right,
[56:15] Speaker 3: so you get credit historically if that's what your big
[56:18] Speaker 3: issue is.
[56:20] Speaker 5: So, I mean, but I agree with Monk, but that's
[56:26] Speaker 5: speaking of.
[56:26] Speaker 4: Cover reaction though.
[56:28] Speaker 3: So what's going on with all these scientists we get
[56:30] Speaker 3: we're seeing killed? I don't know, but it's starting to
[56:33] Speaker 3: be like go beyond just conspiracy theories.
[56:36] Speaker 2: And it's going on.
[56:41] Speaker 4: What I mean, when it has to become.
[56:44] Speaker 3: A statistical impossibility to this many? Right, I'm just throwing
[56:49] Speaker 3: it out there because you know, we obviously do it.
[56:51] Speaker 4: Israel does it.
[56:52] Speaker 3: We're at war with the country who you know has incentives,
[56:57] Speaker 3: and then all of a sudden we're seeing all these scientists.
[57:01] Speaker 3: I'm just throwing it out there.
[57:03] Speaker 4: Don't have any evidence social media.
[57:05] Speaker 1: I haven't followed it, but yeah, followed a tangental like
[57:08] Speaker 1: on the periphery.
[57:09] Speaker 2: I don't know.
[57:11] Speaker 1: No, it's not up my alley at all. But you
[57:14] Speaker 1: like this, aren't they UFO people?
[57:17] Speaker 3: Is that why there's a bunch of nuclear scientists.
[57:20] Speaker 1: Oh getting clipped. I don't know who's got who benefits
[57:25] Speaker 1: qui bono?
[57:25] Speaker 4: Right?
[57:26] Speaker 2: Isn't that the question?
[57:28] Speaker 3: Like that how they think it's going to help them?
[57:30] Speaker 3: But except for the fact that we're doing it to them, right?
[57:34] Speaker 3: I mean, how many are any nuclear scientists end up
[57:37] Speaker 3: GETTINGFT I'm just bringing because if you know, obviously somebody
[57:42] Speaker 3: who has authority needs to review it. If it's if
[57:44] Speaker 3: it's a threat, we need to we need to address it.
[57:47] Speaker 3: I guess that's my point. For breaking it up, like
[57:48] Speaker 3: the FBI needs to start, okay, because it's not going
[57:52] Speaker 3: to change our nuclear status.
[57:54] Speaker 7: You brought up I can talk about.
[57:56] Speaker 1: Yeah, you walked right into that one, bro, How do
[58:00] Speaker 1: you expect the counter intelling the FBI to be fucking
[58:03] Speaker 1: doing a good job.
[58:03] Speaker 2: The guy's passed down his fucking office. They're trying to
[58:05] Speaker 2: not to wake him up.
[58:07] Speaker 6: Through that Atlantic story was as well sourced as you
[58:10] Speaker 6: can get, and they got hit a dozen sources.
[58:17] Speaker 3: I don't talk about friends like I have no cash. Well,
[58:22] Speaker 3: we did a lot of stuff together when he was
[58:24] Speaker 3: a prosecutor. If you guys ever become director of something,
[58:28] Speaker 3: and I'm not going to get out here and talk
[58:31] Speaker 3: about you guys, just that.
[58:33] Speaker 4: All I know.
[58:33] Speaker 7: Okay, so let's switch.
[58:34] Speaker 6: But I have a good I have a good way
[58:36] Speaker 6: to to to make MC not feel uncomfortable about this
[58:39] Speaker 6: because one of the things that we've seen, it's a
[58:42] Speaker 6: little bit of a little bit of a shift here.
[58:44] Speaker 6: One of the things he's seen is this incredible and
[58:46] Speaker 6: I hate it. I won't retweet it, won't repost it,
[58:48] Speaker 6: but you watch it with some you're like, they're pretty good.
[58:51] Speaker 6: Is this Iranian propaganda campaign with all the stuff they're
[58:55] Speaker 6: putting out with the legos and they just had one
[58:57] Speaker 6: with cash and you know he's with his hockey on
[59:00] Speaker 6: holding the beer passed out.
[59:02] Speaker 7: But there's there's the.
[59:04] Speaker 6: The Iranians are crushing us on kind of unpropaganda. Do
[59:07] Speaker 6: you guys know what I'm talking about? Yeah, And it's
[59:11] Speaker 6: this concerning because you know, Trump, the Trump administration of
[59:14] Speaker 6: the State Department cut off the office that was supposed to.
[59:16] Speaker 7: Counter this stuff.
[59:19] Speaker 4: Engagement.
[59:20] Speaker 7: Yeah, and so we're getting killed on this thing.
[59:22] Speaker 6: And it's so I'm I'm really conflicted because just you know,
[59:25] Speaker 6: it's it's when I say impressive, I hate him saying that,
[59:28] Speaker 6: but you're looking at its pretty sophisticated. It's showing a
[59:30] Speaker 6: nuance of kind of US politics. It's really hard hitting,
[59:33] Speaker 6: it's working, and these are spread all over the place
[59:35] Speaker 6: on TikTok and one of your guys thoughts on that.
[59:41] Speaker 6: I'm just written about that. Actually the information domain, we
[59:44] Speaker 6: we are losing. We're losing at the at.
[59:47] Speaker 5: The strategic level, and and that's a good it's kind
[59:53] Speaker 5: of interesting when you the BBC did a a documentary
[59:58] Speaker 5: about that, and again and I'm just talking about what
[1:00:03] Speaker 5: came out in this documentary. I don't know for sure,
[1:00:05] Speaker 5: but the argument, but what it appears happened is that
[1:00:08] Speaker 5: you know, you removed this upper layer of the IRGC
[1:00:13] Speaker 5: who were you know that their pedigree went back to
[1:00:16] Speaker 5: the revolution, right. I mean that's not exaggeration. I mean
[1:00:19] Speaker 5: Solimani or the Irana Rock War at the very least
[1:00:23] Speaker 5: the eighties. But they were, you know, tough guys, but
[1:00:27] Speaker 5: they they were rooted in that kind of thought pattern.
[1:00:31] Speaker 5: They and so when it came to propaganda, it was
[1:00:34] Speaker 5: very it was cumbersome, it was you know, it was muller.
[1:00:38] Speaker 2: Boomers got the boomers got wiped out.
[1:00:40] Speaker 5: BOMs came up and they're like, hey, we know how
[1:00:44] Speaker 5: to reach the American or the global population. And and
[1:00:48] Speaker 5: then and they those TikTok videos are I mean the masterful,
[1:00:52] Speaker 5: and I mean in a way that you rarely see propaganda.
[1:00:56] Speaker 5: And you see and and they're doing something that propaganda
[1:00:59] Speaker 5: really done. It pulls in an audience that the adversary audience,
[1:01:04] Speaker 5: but that audience is pulled in not laughing at the propaganda.
[1:01:08] Speaker 5: They're laughing along with the messaging, which is which is
[1:01:14] Speaker 5: very unusual. You think about Second of War, the Brits
[1:01:19] Speaker 5: had someone called Lord Haha. You know, it was a
[1:01:21] Speaker 5: trader basically used to broadcast and it was forbidden to
[1:01:24] Speaker 5: listen to them. Brits used to listen to him because
[1:01:27] Speaker 5: he was He was funny in a way that was
[1:01:29] Speaker 5: not intended. He was just a ridiculous figure. Hanoi Jane right,
[1:01:35] Speaker 5: famous too. G I used to listen to her, but
[1:01:40] Speaker 5: it was kind of laughing at her. But people are
[1:01:42] Speaker 5: watching these videos because they were genuinely very entertaining and funny,
[1:01:46] Speaker 5: and like all good propaganda, there's a kernel of truth
[1:01:49] Speaker 5: in them, and some of them.
[1:01:51] Speaker 6: I like it, but then I hate it because I
[1:01:54] Speaker 6: can't stay on the Iridians and I want to see
[1:01:56] Speaker 6: them if you're writing in the regime gone. But but
[1:02:00] Speaker 6: it's impressive, and you're right, Andy, it's this is not
[1:02:02] Speaker 6: from the old stodgy, you know, nineteen eighties crowd. Yeah,
[1:02:06] Speaker 6: I think I did I see somewhere that this might
[1:02:08] Speaker 6: even be being produced in the West California.
[1:02:14] Speaker 5: Well, there's there's a couple of commits, So what happened.
[1:02:17] Speaker 5: There's a copy cat, So there's an American copy can't
[1:02:22] Speaker 5: producer producer these lego videos, and and and they're being
[1:02:26] Speaker 5: produced for domestic political reasons, right, not not pro Iranian,
[1:02:31] Speaker 5: but they've seen how how impactful they are when the
[1:02:34] Speaker 5: Iranians released them. So of course you may see a
[1:02:37] Speaker 5: video circulating now called what should we Do with the
[1:02:40] Speaker 5: Drunken hegstaff? Right, and it's set to a Dropkick Murphy's song,
[1:02:44] Speaker 5: and it's it's actually pretty funny. And there's another one
[1:02:48] Speaker 5: then why is it?
[1:02:49] Speaker 4: Dropkick Murphy song?
[1:02:51] Speaker 6: Drop Kick Murphy's And that's another one about anti Trump
[1:02:58] Speaker 6: as you can get.
[1:02:59] Speaker 5: And and that and the company it's it's one dude.
[1:03:02] Speaker 5: He's in Montana, right, and I think he intended the
[1:03:05] Speaker 5: white Fish Security Conference and got the idea from that
[1:03:08] Speaker 5: is and it's called Ponder.
[1:03:10] Speaker 2: He's the key speaker next year.
[1:03:12] Speaker 5: Yeah. But but the but the one said the original
[1:03:15] Speaker 5: ones aren't being produced outside Iran but by Iranians, by
[1:03:20] Speaker 5: companies that were contracted by the Iranian government. And so
[1:03:23] Speaker 5: they're hip, they're savvy, they know how to get these
[1:03:25] Speaker 5: these things out there. They're fluent English speakers, so they understand,
[1:03:30] Speaker 5: you know, they it's AI. But it's very clever AI
[1:03:33] Speaker 5: because they're they're putting in the right language models, the
[1:03:37] Speaker 5: right terminology.
[1:03:38] Speaker 7: And did you say you wrote on this recently.
[1:03:40] Speaker 5: No, no, I I wrote about en sways and means
[1:03:44] Speaker 5: strategy in the in the campaign, and and I talked
[1:03:47] Speaker 5: about the information domain and how we were losing the
[1:03:50] Speaker 5: information domain amazing, and how we how we got rid
[1:03:54] Speaker 5: of some of this key capabilities too before the war.
[1:03:57] Speaker 5: It's not just the GC. But you talk our mind sweepers.
[1:04:01] Speaker 5: In September we decommissioned the five last five Aventure Class
[1:04:07] Speaker 5: nine countermeasure ships in fifth Leet actually in the US
[1:04:11] Speaker 5: Navy and send send them backs. That's why we're so
[1:04:16] Speaker 5: dependent on coalition countries to help us do mind sweeping.
[1:04:21] Speaker 5: So we made some bad, bad choices that that have
[1:04:25] Speaker 5: made us vulnerable. But yeah, that's a great point. Mark
[1:04:29] Speaker 5: with the information war, were weigh behind.
[1:04:34] Speaker 6: Do we need a we need an eyes on video
[1:04:38] Speaker 6: like that AI generated with the little legos.
[1:04:41] Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, we can make that happen. It's probably easy now.
[1:04:44] Speaker 4: I think.
[1:04:45] Speaker 7: I think that's your homework for this week.
[1:04:46] Speaker 1: If not do homework, bro, I don't do I haven't
[1:04:49] Speaker 1: done homework in thirty five years.
[1:04:51] Speaker 5: It's a really clever one. You can look it up.
[1:04:54] Speaker 5: It's called your Country's Run by Pedophiles and and and the.
[1:05:02] Speaker 2: Get on the list.
[1:05:03] Speaker 5: But the song and the chorus is so catchy. Yeah,
[1:05:09] Speaker 5: my colleagues were kind of humming along to it in there.
[1:05:11] Speaker 1: Yeah, that's what's good about it. Yeah, I mean that's
[1:05:14] Speaker 1: how you know. Yes, I think the issue with especially
[1:05:17] Speaker 1: like the Maga, the entire magasphere, and why they're having
[1:05:20] Speaker 1: so much trouble with the info is because they're fracturing, right,
[1:05:24] Speaker 1: like half of them, you know, really or not not
[1:05:27] Speaker 1: into like the wars and stuff like that. And also
[1:05:30] Speaker 1: I think where they're putting a lot of a lot
[1:05:32] Speaker 1: of steak into the Sencom briefings and the sen Com Twitter,
[1:05:36] Speaker 1: like nobody believes that ship. You want to make something funny,
[1:05:40] Speaker 1: easy to understand, not like oh we we destroyed six
[1:05:42] Speaker 1: hundred of these today.
[1:05:44] Speaker 5: Yeah, so do you'd be really good at this? I mean,
[1:05:48] Speaker 5: think about it.
[1:05:49] Speaker 6: No, I mean, I just I just want to mention
[1:05:51] Speaker 6: one thing because I've been on my tirade the last
[1:05:54] Speaker 6: couple of episodes about these Pentagon briefings, because I because
[1:05:57] Speaker 6: I think just heg Seth is just and with his
[1:05:59] Speaker 6: kind of the religious conn of tones were way out
[1:06:01] Speaker 6: of control. And then I was kind of criticizing even
[1:06:04] Speaker 6: perhaps the chairman. But the one thing that Admiral Cooper
[1:06:06] Speaker 6: and Dan Kine the chairman did last time, which I
[1:06:09] Speaker 6: thought was really good and smart, was highlight just kind
[1:06:12] Speaker 6: of the role of the kind of the the airmen,
[1:06:15] Speaker 6: the and the sailors. And I think that's something that
[1:06:18] Speaker 6: is actually positive to do. And and because you know,
[1:06:22] Speaker 6: we do have to kind of keep in mind that
[1:06:24] Speaker 6: there are people out there in harm's way, and so
[1:06:27] Speaker 6: you guys know what I'm talking about, when when it
[1:06:31] Speaker 6: was just so many kind of just a little different vignettes,
[1:06:34] Speaker 6: and I actually I do think that is useful. It's
[1:06:37] Speaker 6: far more useful than you know than heg says kind
[1:06:39] Speaker 6: of JV football speeches, which now tanges with some kind
[1:06:44] Speaker 6: of religious connotation, which is just beyond cringeworthy right now.
[1:06:47] Speaker 6: But I just wanted to kind of throw that out there,
[1:06:49] Speaker 6: highlighting the role of individuals who Cooper and Kane kind
[1:06:52] Speaker 6: of come across in their travels. That kind of appealed
[1:06:55] Speaker 6: to me. I like that I'm saying something positive about
[1:06:58] Speaker 6: one of the briefings.
[1:06:58] Speaker 7: How about that?
[1:06:59] Speaker 3: Yeah, Well, our military is the best in the world,
[1:07:02] Speaker 3: I mean.
[1:07:03] Speaker 5: But it's always it's always the fallback, isn't it that
[1:07:06] Speaker 5: you know, you eulogize the soldier's sailor marine, but it
[1:07:09] Speaker 5: doesn't really get us anywhere if you're sending them to
[1:07:11] Speaker 5: war potentially for the wrong reasons. I'm saying, you know,
[1:07:17] Speaker 5: I mean, we eulogize them all the way through Iraq
[1:07:19] Speaker 5: and Afghanistan, but we were still killing them for a
[1:07:22] Speaker 5: core in ways. I mean, I'm overstating the case. That's
[1:07:26] Speaker 5: that's it's an all volunteer force. I don't get teary
[1:07:29] Speaker 5: eyed about casualties uniform personnel, but I do I do
[1:07:35] Speaker 5: think there's an obligation to make sure we shed that
[1:07:37] Speaker 5: blood it's in a coherent course and for strategic gain,
[1:07:40] Speaker 5: right And that's that's the part that I think we
[1:07:46] Speaker 5: perhaps perhaps Congress is missing right now.
[1:07:49] Speaker 6: Well, I mean, you have you have three hundred injured
[1:07:51] Speaker 6: plus and thirteen Americans killed in action. So Trump's going
[1:07:55] Speaker 6: to own that, you know, whatever happens on here, that
[1:07:58] Speaker 6: was on watch his decision.
[1:08:00] Speaker 3: So I think it's the end of April. Will it'd
[1:08:03] Speaker 3: be sixty days, right, yeah?
[1:08:06] Speaker 2: I think yeah, right around there, because it's like everyone's.
[1:08:10] Speaker 6: I don't think this is any grants asking the Congress
[1:08:12] Speaker 6: is just non existent, so technically right, but.
[1:08:15] Speaker 1: The Congress both voted like both houses a Senate and
[1:08:20] Speaker 1: the House representatives both voted against.
[1:08:25] Speaker 5: I don't understand.
[1:08:28] Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it changes when totally Yeah, I don't understand
[1:08:33] Speaker 1: how you abdicate your constitutional responsibility.
[1:08:36] Speaker 7: Right.
[1:08:37] Speaker 5: No one's saying you must stop the war. They're saying, hey,
[1:08:40] Speaker 5: by the Warpowers Act, you need to put the Congress
[1:08:44] Speaker 5: needs to vote on this, right, Yeah, that's.
[1:08:46] Speaker 4: What I'm looking up. But that's my understanding.
[1:08:48] Speaker 3: Sixty days they have to actually take an affirmative step vote.
[1:08:51] Speaker 5: So I think people are conflating the hey, this is
[1:08:54] Speaker 5: on patriotic if you oppose the war. No one's saying that.
[1:08:58] Speaker 5: The saying you just need to ask the question, right,
[1:09:01] Speaker 5: what are the what's the strategic outcome, what's the end
[1:09:05] Speaker 5: state designed? Are we going about it the right way?
[1:09:07] Speaker 5: Blah blah blah.
[1:09:08] Speaker 2: Just do your fucking job.
[1:09:09] Speaker 5: It's a healthy mechanism.
[1:09:12] Speaker 3: At the end of sixty days, according to the War
[1:09:14] Speaker 3: Powers Act, the president has to do one of three things,
[1:09:18] Speaker 3: get congressional authorization to continue in the military action, or
[1:09:24] Speaker 3: withdrawal forces from a conflict, which seems to be the same.
[1:09:27] Speaker 2: Thing to me.
[1:09:27] Speaker 3: But so this is specifically saying that at the War
[1:09:30] Speaker 3: Powers Act they have to take an affirmative step to continue.
[1:09:33] Speaker 3: It's not just we're just not going to vote. Is
[1:09:36] Speaker 3: there no president has ever agreed that that's constitutional. Not
[1:09:39] Speaker 3: sure why the Supreme Court hasn't decided that seems kind
[1:09:42] Speaker 3: of important.
[1:09:44] Speaker 1: Is there an argument to be made that, like when
[1:09:46] Speaker 1: they called there for the ceasefire, bomb stopped dropping that
[1:09:50] Speaker 1: sixty days resets.
[1:09:53] Speaker 2: Is there an argument there?
[1:09:55] Speaker 5: I don't know. I don't know what constitutes end of
[1:10:00] Speaker 5: hostilities according to the Wallpower Act.
[1:10:04] Speaker 7: I mean, it's the same truth.
[1:10:07] Speaker 6: There's the same comeras that voted to confirm him, set
[1:10:09] Speaker 6: a second f as Tulsia's DNA, as cash as.
[1:10:12] Speaker 7: They're not going to do anything.
[1:10:14] Speaker 6: I think the only time, the only reason they would do,
[1:10:16] Speaker 6: the only way to do something, if US ground forces
[1:10:18] Speaker 6: are introduced. That that I think people would become very
[1:10:22] Speaker 6: uncomfortable with that.
[1:10:23] Speaker 1: But if you would hope that that would guilt them
[1:10:25] Speaker 1: enough to do their fucking job.
[1:10:27] Speaker 5: I agree, And they don't. That they don't.
[1:10:31] Speaker 3: And even if you add in the days that were
[1:10:33] Speaker 3: at a whenever it gets to sixty days, if they
[1:10:36] Speaker 3: don't actually vote to continue, then they've just voided that act.
[1:10:41] Speaker 4: Right, the Act is no longer.
[1:10:44] Speaker 2: That's a bad precedent, that's for sure.
[1:10:46] Speaker 1: That like the Act is like basically we don't we
[1:10:49] Speaker 1: don't even go by it.
[1:10:50] Speaker 7: For a long time. I mean that's you.
[1:10:52] Speaker 3: Know, used to do things over it because it and
[1:10:56] Speaker 3: say that we weren't bound by it. But we did,
[1:10:58] Speaker 3: like the briefing that was.
[1:11:00] Speaker 4: And all that stuff.
[1:11:01] Speaker 6: There wasn't authorized use in military force after nine to eleven, right.
[1:11:05] Speaker 3: Yeah, And we extended that all the way to our
[1:11:07] Speaker 3: operations in Syria right in two thousand and eight. But
[1:11:11] Speaker 3: technically there was a congressional authorization there isn't like this
[1:11:16] Speaker 3: doesn't have anything to do with the nine to eleven decks, right,
[1:11:19] Speaker 3: we can argue.
[1:11:20] Speaker 5: Yeah, I think Congress got used to being lazy and
[1:11:24] Speaker 5: exercising that constitutional obligation in the Global War on Terror,
[1:11:32] Speaker 5: because yes, the AOMF was just extended almost without discussion
[1:11:39] Speaker 5: for twenty years.
[1:11:40] Speaker 6: This is a perfect thing for you two lawyers here.
[1:11:44] Speaker 6: It's this notion that I think the White House subscribes
[1:11:46] Speaker 6: to and Trump does of the notion of the unitary executive.
[1:11:51] Speaker 6: You know, it's a very powerful executive branch that does
[1:11:55] Speaker 6: kind of supersede legislative and judicial. I mean that's the
[1:11:58] Speaker 6: theory that people on on the some on the right half,
[1:12:01] Speaker 6: and I think the White House certainly is exercising that
[1:12:05] Speaker 6: there's there's a ton of reasarch.
[1:12:06] Speaker 4: They gave it a fancy name essentially means that.
[1:12:08] Speaker 5: We have that's a that's the really that's an interesting
[1:12:14] Speaker 5: I think.
[1:12:16] Speaker 6: It's the idea of of you know, the unitary there's
[1:12:19] Speaker 6: a lot of.
[1:12:23] Speaker 3: It's a fancy word for not constitution, not under our constitution.
[1:12:27] Speaker 3: That's like our constitution clearly says the president's commander in chief.
[1:12:31] Speaker 3: So once it's authorized by Congress, you have to have
[1:12:34] Speaker 3: one individual that's in charge. But it's not that they
[1:12:37] Speaker 3: that the president, regardless of what your political position, can
[1:12:40] Speaker 3: decide to go to war, you know, and be the
[1:12:44] Speaker 3: commander in chief. That's clearly not what it says in
[1:12:46] Speaker 3: the constitution.
[1:12:47] Speaker 6: It's an excursion though, right, Yeah, this is Mick you
[1:12:54] Speaker 6: are you are you are showing you are old true
[1:12:57] Speaker 6: and I would say good, classic, righteous, old school republicanism here,
[1:13:03] Speaker 6: that's constitutional republican. But that's not I think the theory
[1:13:08] Speaker 6: of many who are in power, and that's unfortunate because,
[1:13:10] Speaker 6: by the way.
[1:13:11] Speaker 3: Remember that that theory only holds when they're in power,
[1:13:14] Speaker 3: Like they're not gonna they're not going to promote the
[1:13:15] Speaker 3: unitary right executive theory when you know, the next Democrats.
[1:13:19] Speaker 6: And exactly That's the thing that I don't understand sometimes
[1:13:23] Speaker 6: that this this all can be turned on.
[1:13:26] Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, it's it's easy to do. There full of ship.
[1:13:29] Speaker 1: It's okay to say it. It's okay to say what
[1:13:35] Speaker 1: side is, what side is pushing for. For the fact, though,
[1:13:37] Speaker 1: dictator to you know, a unitary executive to do whatever
[1:13:41] Speaker 1: he wants. Like I don't see like Cory Brooker calling
[1:13:44] Speaker 1: for like Biden to be the unitary you know executive.
[1:13:49] Speaker 1: You know, let's be real here, let's be real. But anyway, Yeah,
[1:13:55] Speaker 1: they're full of ship. It's fine. We can admit it.
[1:13:57] Speaker 1: And Congress is useless.
[1:13:59] Speaker 5: I think there's a Hey, I'm I'm proud of us.
[1:14:02] Speaker 5: We had. We had an elevated, relatively intelligent conversation without John.
[1:14:09] Speaker 2: I'm surprised by that too, and I got to do that.
[1:14:12] Speaker 9: You had to look a lot up though, when I
[1:14:15] Speaker 9: when I I do want to say, when I tuned
[1:14:18] Speaker 9: in though you were talking about man As man as
[1:14:22] Speaker 9: Thursday and uh.
[1:14:24] Speaker 2: And that was offline and that was off the that was.
[1:14:31] Speaker 7: Something from you today.
[1:14:33] Speaker 5: There's from the agency.
[1:14:35] Speaker 6: Guys, No magic, easy Button's gonna be a quote I
[1:14:38] Speaker 6: used later on on TV.
[1:14:39] Speaker 7: That's really good. I like it.
[1:14:42] Speaker 6: I'm not gonna say this is for my friend at
[1:14:44] Speaker 6: ABC mcmlroy. I can't say that.
[1:14:46] Speaker 4: You can't say that NBC.
[1:14:47] Speaker 2: You could say your friend mckmulroy.
[1:14:49] Speaker 6: But I will credit you on that. And let's let's
[1:14:52] Speaker 6: also just go back. We'll say one thing on this
[1:14:55] Speaker 6: d that for those of us who spent a lot
[1:14:57] Speaker 6: of time in Afghanistan and made it through unscathed gastro wise,
[1:15:02] Speaker 6: a quick trip to Pakistan to the Serena Hotel where
[1:15:04] Speaker 6: all these negotiations are taking place, would engender a massive
[1:15:08] Speaker 6: bout of dysentery from like twenty four hours on the ground.
[1:15:12] Speaker 7: So I'll take my ass where we were talking about.
[1:15:15] Speaker 5: Got to follow up with a story to that mark.
[1:15:17] Speaker 5: So the Saudis, who are very close to the Pakistani's
[1:15:20] Speaker 5: in fact, according to the local media, hold a bunch
[1:15:24] Speaker 5: of Pakistani soldiers, so they have an exchange program. Good
[1:15:27] Speaker 5: friend of mine, who's the senior Saudi naval officer, did
[1:15:31] Speaker 5: a tour with the Pakistani navy and asked them about that,
[1:15:34] Speaker 5: and he said, yeah, they you know, he said, yeah, yeah,
[1:15:37] Speaker 5: I mean you know, Saudis are very polite. He's like, yeah,
[1:15:39] Speaker 5: they're nice people. Babbah, he said, but you know on
[1:15:42] Speaker 5: the ship there are toilets. There is no system. It
[1:15:46] Speaker 5: just goes into the sea. So literally, anyway, before I
[1:15:53] Speaker 5: get attacked. That's I'm just quoting said something about that,
[1:15:57] Speaker 5: And I thought we would bring the tone of the
[1:15:59] Speaker 5: conversation bag to toilet humor. Since we have two Marines
[1:16:05] Speaker 5: and d here and two Marines and two Greeks. It's
[1:16:08] Speaker 5: naturally where these things gravitate.
[1:16:12] Speaker 1: Yeah, ass and anyway, uh anything else? Boys, that was
[1:16:17] Speaker 1: a great episode.
[1:16:18] Speaker 3: I've talked about what's going to happen in Cuba.
[1:16:21] Speaker 7: I know that's next week. You do Cuba next week.
[1:16:23] Speaker 3: We have to we have to wait something actually happens.
[1:16:27] Speaker 7: Hey.
[1:16:27] Speaker 6: There was just a big team there from the US government,
[1:16:29] Speaker 6: including probably some of our old friends micked. So they
[1:16:32] Speaker 6: were just in Havana.
[1:16:34] Speaker 2: And they've been squeezed.
[1:16:35] Speaker 1: We've been squeezing Cube, but pretty hard over the last
[1:16:37] Speaker 1: like a few months as well.
[1:16:40] Speaker 2: Oh everything, it's okay, all right, guys, do what's a favor?
[1:16:43] Speaker 1: If you want any of the links of the guys,
[1:16:44] Speaker 1: the links are down to the description always and if
[1:16:47] Speaker 1: you're listening on audio, they're also down there as well.
[1:16:51] Speaker 1: Best place to support the shows Patreon dot com, slash
[1:16:53] Speaker 1: the Teamhouse. You get episodes at free and early. That's
[1:16:57] Speaker 1: it as always, guys, I appreciate it. Thank you.
[1:17:04] Speaker 10: Hey, guys, I want to take a moment to tell
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