Sen. Mark Warner On What Trump Is Risking With War in Iran

I think it could be argue more of a danger and what happens if we say we're out and the Israelis say no, we want to finish this.

“Does that still keep our troops in our allies in a harm's way?”

Hi everyone from New York Magazine in the Vox Media Podcast Network. This is on with Keras Wisher and I'm Keras Wisher. The war in Iran has just entered its third week and we're no closer to understanding President Trump's ultimate goals in the conflict. The administration's explanations for getting involved here have been all over the place. Our objective is to defend the American people by eliminating imminent threats from the Iranian regime. We knew that there was going to be in Israeli action. We knew that that would precipitate an attack against American forces.

So we've had anything I might have forced Israel's hand.

Iran was building powerful missiles and drones to create a conventional shield for their nuclear blackmail ambitions.

And so have their timelines for an end to the war. We've already won in many ways, but we haven't won enough. You're thinking this week it will be over touching days. I think so. The operation will end when the commander and chief determines the military objectives have been met fully realized and that Iran is in a position of complete and unconditional surrender.

Whether they say it or not.

And so it's not for me to posit whether it's the beginning, the middle, or the end. Thousands of people have already died including some American troops. More than a dozen nations have been dragged into the conflict and the risk of this ballooning into a bigger global crisis keeps mounting. My guest today is someone I go to a lot on issues like this for junior Democratic Senator Mark Warner. He's the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee.

And he's also a member of the gang of eight, meaning he's one of the few members of Congress who gets to sit in on top level briefings. Warner has said repeatedly this was a quote, "war of choice" and that he's seen no evidence that Iran posed an imminent threat to the U.S.

“I think he's really important to talk to right now.”

I have a very long standing relationship with him and he certainly has a lot of insight into what's happening here being on the gang of eight. And also focusing in on things that are related to each other, especially with Iran, including cyber security and all kinds of issues. He has a lot of insights also as an investor and someone in his previous life who understands a lot about the intersection between the economy, government and these foreign actions. He's just really smart. He also is a little more bipartisan than most people. Sometimes I don't agree with him on that, but he actually is trying very hard to get us all to grow in the same direction despite all the efforts by President Trump to grow in only his direction.

A note to our listeners, we tape this interview on Wednesday. A lot may have changed by the time you're hearing it, but it's not every day we get to talk to a top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee. All right, let's get to my conversation with Senator Mark Warner, our expert question comes from Washington Post reporter Jason Rezion. He's Iranian-American and was based in Tararan before he was kidnapped and held hostage for more than 500 days by the regime. If you're looking for some insight to what's happening in the Middle East now in an substantive way, this one is for you. Don't go anywhere.

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Thank you, Kara. Thanks for having me on. I'm thrilled. I always love talking to you.

Before we start, I want to reiterate that we're taping this conversation late when the evening and some things may be outdated by the time listeners hear this. So we're going to dive in based on what we know right now. The Trump administration has offered a lot of explanations for the war. You've said, and many people have said, there's no evidence of an imminent threat.

“So what is your best explanation for why Trump got the U.S. into this war?”

Well, I think Marco Rubio kind of acknowledged that Israel had decided it was time to strike and they figured if Israel struck. Iran would strike back against us as well, but if we're the senior partner in that relationship, this was a war of choice. There was no imminent threat. There was actually no imminent threat even to Israel over the longer time horizon with the ballistic missile threat it would go up. But as you said, you know, there are four different reasons that I've counted that the president said was our goal.

The first one was, you know, regime change. Obviously, the new supreme leader since we killed this dad is wife and his child.

I don't think and is normally viewed as much more hard line than even his father. I don't think that's going to happen anytime soon short of either boots on the ground or a major uprising of the people. Second, you know, let's go after the nuclear capabilities. That was supposed to be totally destroyed obliterated nine months ago. And you know, you think, again, there's been an admission that getting the enriched uranium out would require troops on the ground. And, you know, it is buried and still secure. So we're not going to get that on ballistic missiles. We have made progress.

But even the most optimistic in our briefings are not saying they've gotten rid of all of their or even the vast majority of their ballistic capability. And then the fourth they added recently was like, let's get rid of the Iranian navy and we've sunk some ships. But the ability of the Iranians to use these speed boats, which are literally small and they have hundreds of them to plant, you know, minds in the stretch of her moves, which they've already done. And we haven't really been able to take care of that capacity and along with drones.

And then let's just remember as well, Iran still has drone capacity. And I just sure is how wish we had taken as a lynchies Ukrainian offer. Because clearly we've not built into our military infrastructure ability to use what Ukraine has already done the best in the world.

Let's spend a few thousand dollars taking down a fifty thousand dollar Iranian drone rather than a couple million dollars.

Iran is really not told the hootsies to go full on, which would open up almost another front. And a lot of the shea militia groups have taken some actions. But we're seeing is in the public reporting even today that, you know, the embassy at Baghdad and others are like starting to say beyond guard because of the shea militia come. So they're, they got a vote in this. So none of these goals have been met. And I don't see a timeline for doing this. So so we, you noted Rubio's point was that Israel is going to strike.

So what should Americans make it the fact that Israel is in some ways dictating American involvement here as you suspect. Like you mentioned, we're the senior partner here. They couldn't really initiate this major strike without our support.

“No, they couldn't, you know, the question would have been if we would have said, no, we won't go with you, would they still have gone along?”

Right. As an I'm a long term supporter of Israel, I stand by that. I'm not necessarily a supporter of all the actions of BB Netanyahu's government. But I do feel like, you know, there's been lots of public sector stories about how that present was worked. He was here. BB had an audience of one and a lot of that appears to be true.

Yeah. And at the end of the day, we got to look at, you know, this was the America first guy and shouldn't Americans be supreme in as we think about the most ultimate decision which is go to war. I mean, obviously, the nuclearized Iran is in everyone's interest.

“But is it an American interest right now at this moment in time?”

Well, we got 47 years of a bad leadership. I don't shed any tears for the death of the senior Iranian leadership.

We got to act now.

He did not do that. He did not, he didn't make the case to the public.

He didn't sure as hell didn't make the case to the Congress. And again, we keep talking about presidents being set by this guy. And, you know, this is going to be another hard one to reverse in terms of what happens with the next president, whoever he or she may be. They're not point back and say, okay, I can start this without any congressional approval. So your colleague, Senator Mark Kelly of Arizona said he thinks it really comes down to the president's ego.

Do you agree?

“And if so, what are the implications of starting war for his own sense of glory or just because he feels like it?”

As you said, this is implications for the future.

Well, it feels like so much of the president's actions are kind of random and about about ego. And then if you take it to the next step, if he had decided, why not preposition to make sure that the American citizens in that region? You know, are diplomatic or military, but also just the tens of thousands of Americans who are passing through on transit. Or otherwise, we're like, given a little bit of forewarning, or we could have preposition planes that get them out of the region. It seems so ad hoc in terms of why we're we've better ready if we and Israel jointly decided to time.

And when the first strike was going to be it just doesn't feel like this was fully thought through.

“And I feel like again, back to your point about Trump and his ego, you know, he felt wind at the back after the material raid he felt, you know, the last bomb was one and out.”

And it may be actually believe that you know, a short term bombing campaign would take out a country of 92 million that's got a military establishment as horrible as the region is really built in.

Right, and maybe thinking this is maybe his last chance, by the way, because the upcoming midterms and with all the other pressures. So a few days ago, Trump said the war was quote very complete pretty much and that Iran has nothing left in the military sense. You're in the gang of eight. So what if you see any evidence that you can talk about and his work completely neutralized Iran's offensive capabilities talk a little bit about that. No, absolutely not. They still have drones. They still have the ability to to mind the straight to promote some of those actions have been taken place after he made those comments.

They have these other allies like the Shea militias and the hooties that they've not called upon. They've got cyber capabilities that we've not fully taken out. I know there's been reports of Iranian sales, but they do have the ability either directed or by inspiring people, you know, to take terrorist acts. We've got them abominate the American embassy in Norway. We've got shooting at the Toronto consulate that was some crazy story today that I don't think is true, but saying, you know, there could be a Iranian ship off the coast of California that would have drones on it.

So these guys are are not out of the fight. And you know, we've got still a lot of Americans potentially in harm's way that you know, if it doesn't scare the heck out of you can't at least should. But this is where when you burn all your friends who's going to go the extra mile when it's all about America won't. Right. So let's talk about the administration. And so I know that you're in the gang of eight. You're one of the few members coming to getting higher level intelligence briefings.

“How does the information you're getting in private square with what the administration is telling the public about its goals in this war and how long could it actually last?”

I have seen. No time predictions on well, you know, any of the goals up from regime change to getting your short of troops on the ground getting the or enriched uranium out, literally taking out. So no. I've actually no plan to get to well, let's put like this here. I see no plan that meets Trump's criteria of unconditional surrender. I get to choose who the next guy is going to be. I sure is how I would like to know on Monday, who made all the money when he came out after he had the conversation with Putin he said, hey, we are almost got him gone.

The market pumps, you know, many, many points. I'm frankly like to know who are the biggest winners on that surge because it's felt like once the market had closed, you went back and said, well, maybe it's not over right away. Right. So he could have just done that for that or someone knew about it. Yeah, it would like the White House was freaking out about the oil price. You know, those comments on Monday, you know, did at least study the oil market. And I think we're down to like mid 80s now may have hit 90 again, but yeah, we were north of a hundred before he said those statements that some point up to 110 over the weekend. So, but that's a pretty fast and loose way to play with American foreign policy and the economy and the stock market and the economy overall.

So, how close do you think the administration is to putting boots on the ground, this idea that they keep going down.

You know, there have been plans and as Rayleigh's Americans. I mean, this is as any entity would have contingency plans, but nothing would be easy about that. And it would be a huge, huge risk that I think the military at this point would raise serious objections to it.

Again, we've always got the circumstance care that the reality of what he said versus the reality of what he feels at this point or the political pressure where he can say, okay, we won all done.

Well, if after we said, we've, you know, we're going to get their unconditional surrender. We're going to choose the next people. The idea with both the American and Israeli best Air Forces in the world, if Iran regime survives, you know, this kind of current state.

“Is it more of a danger less of a danger? I think it could be argue more of a danger and what happens if we say, we're, we're out and the Israelis say, no, we want to finish this.”

Does that still keep our troops in our allies and harms way?

But you think these would have been the kind of rational questions that would have been asked before he jumped into this. I talked to several people who have done more planning and they're like, there's plans of plans of how to do plans. And then when they hadn't seen any plans. And this was a Republican who is also quite privy to a lot of things. There's no plans that we've seen, no, like if this happens, then that. I mean, there's also no secret plans that takes us to talk, like with those secret plans, you know, nothing about.

Okay, I only wish I could tell you, you know, don't worry. I can't tell you, but I'd have to kill you because I'm in part of the gang of eight, but rest assured.

No plans. If they exist, he is once again not following the law by not sharing that with the gang of eight. So as you mentioned, Trump is said he won't settle for anything less than the regime's unconditional surrender. It's, it's very movie-like. It's like he's talking about the Nazis or the Japanese war, too. Before the start of the war, intelligence reports warn that even a large scale assault on Iran was unlikely to topple the regime.

“Everyone thought this. Very hard. They're very hardened people there. So what are the ways this war could end and which one to you is the worst option and the best option?”

Well, the best option and I, and I, and I caveat it with, maybe just, he's done and he says, okay, we declare victory and we've got, you know, tens of billions of dollars spent. And at least at this point, eight American servicemen killed and are we safer long-term or even short-term? The intermediate would be, you know, it goes for another few weeks and you kind of come to the same conclusion, but you know, you've attributed more of their ballistic missiles. You've taken out more of their military capacity and the, the, I think the worst would be a semi-failed Iranian state.

That is still, you know, and enormously aggressive and you know, and again, one of the things that has not even been talked about very much, you know, could this reignite some kind of Sunni, she has split across the whole region. So, like, God, none of that is bubble, but if you're talking about worst case, that kind of interdenominational split within the Islamic community would be a really bad bad thing. Yes, that's called dominoes, I believe, diplomatic speak. So Trump speaking of making it even more chaotic has said he's thinking of taking over the straight of hormones where the oil flows through for people who don't know, and the US could escort tankers through the shipping channel to keep oil flowing.

“And when say, three ships are hit in around the straight, sounds disastrous and potentially disastrous to me, practicing speaking, what would escort tankers look like for the US military? Feels like we'll lose a ship. That's what it feels like.”

Or if we may not lose a full ship, but we will lose sailors because again, these, these small boats. I don't know, and again, President Macron from France is said he's going to send, you know, potentially friendships through. I have not heard, and I'm sure there must be a plan, but the straights are so small, how you, you know, just think about something like an aircraft carrier, how you actually escort through, particularly if mines have been laid. So it's Leo, you're not going to stop the mines or if they're sending out these small boats, I guess you can blow them out of the water, but I've not heard somebody come to us and say, hey, don't.

Don't worry, we have a plan, we can do a frigates and elsewhere, smaller military vessels. I just don't know the answer to that, and I think most of the commentary from retired military has been, you know, this would be very, very, very hard. Very hard to do, and it could make it even more chaotic if there was an explosion or something like that. We'll be back in a minute.

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The eye tole is sun, mushed about how many, as the new Supreme Leader. He is, by most accounts, more of a hard liner, and of course, we'd killed his wife and children.

“What do we know about the stability of the regime right now in nuclear capabilities?”

Trump has said he got rid of them, but he didn't, or he said, now he didn't. Talk about where they really are. This is where I want us to not just be relying on these railies who've got better visibility into a run than we do. This is where I just did not sure whether particularly our European friends who've got embassy still and take one, whether they still have better contacts, ideas about what the resistance might look like.

There were some conversation that, even within the group of the, I think, 88 clerics. There was some, you know, it was not a slam dunk that this guy was going to be voted in. But this is again where I think we're flying a little bit blind. And, you know, usually the theory of the case is, if you're going to have a resistance against an authoritarian regime, you got to have a leader. And, you know, we've had lots and lots of intel reports over a number of years to say, okay, we get another Supreme Leader, who's next?

“Is there some other viable leader? Is somebody going to, you know, re-emerge that we could actually do business with?”

And the overall consensus was always, no, and again, I'm just afraid that he's thinking the Venezuelan model,

where they'll see why I read your, you know, the president now in Venezuela. With close with Medira. It appears to be trying to do business with us, although that still leaves, you know, the overwhelming majority of Venezuelans who voted against murder, or maybe out in the cold. And, um, So is that person exist a person in the US can work with?

I'm sure, listen. And also has legitimacy, right? Well, the regime is hated. I'm not a great student of Iran, but I've read enough intel. I've followed enough, you know, the fact that there was, you know, in the immediate aftermath of the killing, you know, some level of street celebration.

And when you've got this, you know, the IRGC, I think much different from even the Assad regime in Syria, you know, that 180,000 plus or minus folks, you know, they not only are part of the security apparatus, but they have, they own as an entity about half of the Iranian economy. So a lot of money, you know, probably hated by many. So if there's a regime change and it's not a few hundred that would get killed by the regime change, but potentially tens of thousands who have been so repressive for so long.

They're going to fight pretty damn hard. Yeah, that's true. And speaking of flying by and you said one of your biggest fears is the US running down the stock of munitions to intercept ballistic missiles without knowing how many more Iran has. Talk about the risk of running down those stocks, even though generally speaking of the US is in a much better position than Iran to keep dropping bombs.

“Well, here's the thing we got to focus on.”

We have plenty of bombs to drop on Iran in the kind of the classic sense of airplane comes over, shoots a guided bomb down. What we don't have are the interceptors that can take down the Iranian ballistic missiles that are left or the Iranian drones, I go back to that.

Yeah, yes, if you thousand dollar drone that we're spending a couple million dollar missile on and this is again, if there was even thinking about this coming around.

Why in the hell didn't they, you know, say, all right, Zelensky who offered I believe in a will will send a bunch of our drone experts will send you a bunch of these right away. They have perfected the ability to take down Iranian drones. They're going to start this war. Why the hell didn't they take up that offer? And my understanding is Zelensky made an offer to Trump on the White House and, you know, nothing that got acted on. No, not sure we've gotten all into region, but it's just not the way you would do something that has this major ramification.

Right, we don't have the right munitions. We got the right munitions to bomb the hell out of it. We don't have it the right munitions to take down the Iranian attack back towards us and that would hit the whole region. Right, we also want to learn the sweet that Iran may try to activate sleeper cells outside the country, which they're well known for. When you think about the different ways, they could wage asymmetrical warfare that hurts you as interest.

What worries you the most? I would assume in this country, right? Well, it doesn't worry me in this country. And it worries me that, you know, cash betel at the FBI as over this last year fired most of the senior expertise on counterterrorism counter espionage. You know, what worries me is that the, you know, the intel community, you know, has, you know, tells the gap between chasing re-litigating the 2020 election as opposed to likesing.

How are we going to stay safe from terrorists? And then overall, this is not again, this part is not the Trump fault, my name means entirely. You know, the Intel apparatus moved away from counterterrorism to focus on counter adversaries like China and Russia.

“That was, I think, overall the right move.”

But, but again, it, it, it, it, this stage, a single incident or two with the World Cup coming and others. I mean, we are, but if this goes on, you know, is, is again revolver.

We're vulnerable. Like you're never going to be totally in a very good.

Right. In a non-cash-patel world, it would be hard enough as you're saying. But are we ready to protect again, what, what is in place to do that if these people have left? We still have, you know, lots of operations. We still have lots of personnel.

And we've got a pretty good record of stopping whether it's Iranian or other entities as they try to launch these threats into America. In our NSA, our, our ability to listen in ability to break up these groups has, has been good. It's not like we've taken out a number of them, but at scale. And again, with some of the expertise that has been dismissed by cash-patel, my level of worry is higher.

“And, and I, because this war is not popular already, you know, I think the American people would be anger than they are.”

I mean, a couple of terrorists attack along with, you know, I'm ready. I think we're 51 cents, 60 cents of additional gas prices going up.

And the amazing thing on the gas prices is that is because we're still burning down the oil that we've had.

Are using oil that we've had. And, you know, we're not really feeling the effects of the straight to homo's being shut down. So every episode we get a question from an outside expert here's yours. Hi Senator Warner, this is Jason Rezion, I'm a journalist with the Washington Post. I'm also a Iranian-American, and I lived and worked in Tehran for many years as a correspondent.

What costs should the American public be prepared to pay for this war in terms of lost lives,

“destruction, environmental, and otherwise civilian infrastructure in the Middle East, but also to our own economy?”

And finally, there are currently six Americans that we know of who are being held hostage in Iran. What can be done and what is being done to free them right now? Well, Jason, I'm very aware of your story and have been part of the groups that were urging pressing to try to get you released. And I'm thankful that that came to pass, but as you said, after over 500 days. In terms of the six existing Americans that are still being held, I am not aware of,

I am not aware of, particularly at this moment of war, what is going on real time. In terms of the expectation of costs, we have been lucky to date that some of the strikes on some of our embassies haven't resulted in more casualties.

“Some of our strikes on our military or intel agencies or outposts around the region.”

That's been a lot of ways a lot combined with good intelligence, but the honesty and knowledge went. So if we're talking about, you know, even giving the administration all the credit, you know,

a billion dollars a day of munitions cost, that doesn't count the cost of rebuilding what has been destroyed.

Increasing gas prices on an economy that's already a bit wobbly, especially on the job front. And, you know, people struggling with affordability from groceries to gasoline, but you know, as you know, this goes on. Actually, whether we like it or not, kind of almost everything we make has a petroleum base to it. So it gets into every product, it gets in, I met with the one of the CEOs of the airlines today and, you know, he said so far. They're doing okay, but, you know, that's so far in terms of jet fuel cost going up.

I don't say the airline, he said it's the war is costing that airline $25 million a day. And if this goes for, you know, you can do the math, you goes for six months, you're talking about $5 billion. And this could have a huge effect on our economy. And then finally Jason, I guess I'd say.

I always believe that America is stronger with allies around the world.

We have so burned so many of our allies around the world. And if we take these kind of actions that doesn't think through, you know, will they really be there next time. Right. Now, it's not over. And the last few months, the US military deposed two heads of state, the Supreme Leader Iran, the Venezuelan president Nicholas Maduro, even though the same government is still there. And the administration has made no secret, the fact that it wants to do the same in Cuba. Let's say for the sake of the Trump is successfully, they're ending or severely damaging all three regimes.

It's up to the USA for, and if so, should Trump get credit for that, and what are your thoughts on Cuba? Because, you know, Lindsey Graham can't keep himself like down. It's hard to make a assumption, and I'm not going to react everything just because it's Trump, you know, if the Iranian regime. It's been going and Iran returned to not just a threat against us and against Israel, but against, frankly, other nations in the region and in Europe. You know, we'd have to have credit to, but at what cost? I mean, that's not going to happen today tomorrow or next week.

“In terms of Cuba, I think the regime is on its last legs. I was hopeful they would have reformed. I don't think they had. I visited during the Obama period.”

And I always thought our exchange student in Argentina, I love South America. I think we've never, we always look each to West, we never look south.

But the idea, even when so many of the South American Central American regimes would be glad to see Major Ogo, we'd be glad to see the Castro regime moved on. They sure expect don't want to return to the days of the United States, the Gringo being the kind of throne or the, you know, the paternalistic influence over all. Of that region. Gunboat diplomacy. Yeah, gunboat and just kind of, I think we'd finally built to the point that we looked at Central and South America as partners.

We needed to do more obviously to slow down the traffic flow of people coming into America. But, you know, to go back to the old days of the Gringo with the big guns. I'm not sure that again helps us since so many of these countries, though, around the South American, one of the things I don't think most Americans realize.

They're mass vast majority of their trading relationship with China, not with the United States. Yeah. And I don't think us being kind of the, the big powerhouse we're going to run the whole continent North and South America is going to, you know, move them away from China.

“Are the chances of a Cuban invasion or a Cuban action?”

I don't know, other than the fact that I would say the Cuban regime is, I think this is Trump's right, is on his last legs without the oil that would come from Venezuela with the fact that, you know, people are still trying to get out of Cuba at record rates. If he could navigate a transition in Cuba, I would, you know, I think that would be better for the Cuban people. But I, I'm not going to hold my breath on that, and I still think, well, I'm glad Maduro's gone. I'm not sure the Rodriguez administration, which is still the Maduro folks without Maduro, there is actually making life better yet for the Venezuelans.

Maybe in terms of the fact that they're going to, with reopening the embassy and potentially getting the increase of the Venezuelan oil again, that may start to trickle through to the Venezuelan people, but so far. I'm still the same people. My report says that's so much. Yeah. All right.

Now, one of the biggest beneficiaries who are right now seems to be Russian President Vladimir Putin, the U.S. has started loosening some of the oil sanctions on Russia, which undermine the U.S. European pressure campaigning against the war in Ukraine. And so ring oil prices will boost the Kremlin's main source of funding for that war. It's been an hour for us.

“How does the war weaken Americans strategic interests in other parts of the world that Ukraine being the center of that?”

There is the, the one thing we absolutely know that the only geopolitical winner thus far into this war. Is Vladimir Putin. You know, if the Iranian regime had collapsed very quickly after Syria and after Hezbollah, you know, you got to argue that Putin was weakened because his client states. But if the Iranian regime remains and they have now got because we've released some of the sanctions for some of the sale of oil to India. Yeah, we've given Putin a lifeline of additional funds because it didn't get a lot of attention here.

And I'm not even talking about necessarily American sources, but a lot of the Europeans when I was at the Munich Security Agreement were actually slightly more optimistic on Ukraine's chances because the Russians were taking such a cost in their economy and just you.

Any country that's lost close to a million men killed.

I wanted killed. You can only maintain that for so long, but this gives, I think, fresh at least fuel to the fire for Putin and that's not a good, that's not a good thing. Not a good thing. So, you can talk about the war Democrats have been visibly torn between their justified opposition to a brutal regime, you yourself would just set it. And their opposition to Trump's unilateral decision to go to war as a result it feels like the Democrats have a muddled message.

The problem with the process, not the decision to bomber on and kill its leader. Why Senator and process especially when Trump was already deeply unpopular before the conflict?

By the way, the Pentagon reportedly may ask Congress for an additional $50 billion in emergency funding.

Where are Democrats on this and will you vote against it if it comes for the Senate? You know, I want to see what the request is for. Remember the Pentagon got a huge boost up in the big ugly bill last summer. So to say, you have an emergency here when you've got a series of additional funds, you know, you've got to make the case. When they make the request, I'm sure they will. You know, where do we stand at that point? Is there an endpoint? Is there a more articulated goal or we still got these four goals that we've been bouncing around on?

Can we see the plan? You know, I'm not going to do an absolute, no, I'm not going to show us how to not do an absolute yes. I want to see the circumstances and see the request, what it's for you, you don't want to obviously. Nobody wants to hold the lives of our service members at risk if they're not getting the munitions or the tools they need to defend themselves. So this is the kind of conundrum element once the war is starting.

“You have to back them. You have to, you have to back, obviously, we all would back the troops. We're no, I think our country, thank God, has moved past that kind of, you know, venom around Vietnam.”

We're even if they don't like didn't like the war you took out on the troops. That was awful. The goal, even if it, like he declares victory tomorrow and gets out. I actually think we've probably made America less safe because of wounded Iran that still got all of these capacities.

Who knows where they'll stop? I mean, remarkable thing about the supreme leader of the guy that we knocked off from these railies knocked off on their first day.

He was a bad guy, but he'd actually restrained Iran from, you know, weaponizing their enriched uranium. He had held back on tax against America and our interests. I got no belief or bet they son, and he's not a kid. I think 5558 something like that.

It was, you know, going to be probably more anti-American than his dad since we killed his dad, wife and kids.

“Right. So, but go back to the process part of that question. Why center on the process?”

Voters, especially Democrats, want the party to make a clear position here.

He's important to focus on the process of how it happened, because this is how it always happens with Trump.

He just moves forward and says, "Oh, well, come and arrest me if you want," kind of thing. The position is, and this is probably the position of, of most at this point, stop it tomorrow. Stop, stop, stop, regardless of the outcome, and regardless of the consequences. I just, I, you know, is important as it is to have a sound by an answer on two deep in the weeds on this. You know, it's hard to say stopping tomorrow when he did, I think something careless and irresponsible to start without

the case or it's much more than process, but just stop tomorrow. I think my job is also to say, "Is that going to make America safer or less safe?" Right. And to me, that's, unfortunately, at this point, a bit of an open question. We'll be back in a minute. When you think about wealth inequality in America, there's probably one man whose name comes to mind.

And yes, he did compare America's billionaire era to the guilty age. We're living in a moment where the top 1% owns more wealth in the bottom 93%, where one man, you learn most owns more wealth than the bottom 53% of American households, where, while 60% of our people are living paycheck to paycheck, the billionaire class has seen its wealth increased by a trillion and a half dollars since Trump was elected. How's that? They doing pretty well?

I talked to Senator Bernie Sanders about his latest bill for a wealth tax, and his call for a moratorium on AI data centers. Plus, how much he uses AI himself? Today explained every weekday and now on Saturdays 2.

“For a brief period of time in the beginning of the pandemic, time that I'm very sorry to make you have to remember.”

There was this hot new act that promised to reinvent the way that we thought about social media forever. Clubhouse was going to be the thing. And this week on version history, our chat show about the most interesting and important and best and worst products in tech history,

we're talking about why Clubhouse took off, and then ultimately why it went away.

That's on version history available on YouTube and wherever you get podcasts. So I want to shift to something because another thing that's going on here is, we've been talking about the war in Iran, but there's a major story related to the Pentagon's decision to label AI company, andthropic, a supply chain risk or designation in Storchler's or for foreign companies. Pentagon's decision was huge implications for other U.S. conducts war in the future.

Andthropic was involved in the Venezuelan situation. I suspect their technology has been used in this operation. Yes. And inthropics is now, it's suing. And obviously, after the Pentagon's decision, Sam Altman announced that his company opened his company up and had swept in to make a similar deal. He claimed to include some of the same

guardrails that killed anthropic steel. I'm skeptical. But talk a little bit about these two related things. And the impact on these companies that are becoming more critical. The idea of designating American company's supply chain risk is,

“I think, completely unprecedented. We've done that with foreign companies,”

but never with American companies. Right.

And a company that, you know, anthropic, but AI, Google, there's a lot of parts language models out there that are really good, but nobody would disagree that Anthropics not one of the best. Now, you could go back and fly spec whether Dario the CEO of Anthropic should have been, you know, is out there this much in the department to influence what they did.

But the thing that just why I'm so much on, you know, Anthropic side in terms of the court case, is that, you know, arbitrarily saying you're a supply chain risk, because you think issues like, you know, whether we should create an AI driven weapon without a human in the loop,

or that we should turn over completely unprecedented surveillance tools that AI models could provide without a frickin' debate. I don't want to trust pedaix staff with making those decisions. Right. Right. So, I'm very strongly feel that the government's overreached. I think if there is no process, and it's again,

as arbitrary as heads of Anthropic, you know, without I think any real justifiable cause saying, we can declare any of you supply chain risks.

really going to try to even do business with the company.

So, there are human is that Anthropic is a private company. You can't tell a government to use his products, which is with Anthropic. What's trying to do, on the other hand, it sounds reasonable to say the government shouldn't use these tools to illegally spy on American citizens or kiloposing soldiers.

That human oversight, it's also their, if they don't want to sell it, they don't have to sell it, right? That's usually our way.

“Where's the line of this power from your perspective?”

And you've been on both sides of the equation. I've been on both sides. It is a really hard choice. You gotta make some concessions to work with the government. I get that in particularly DOD, and you know you're doing business with an entity

that's job is to both protect Americans and you know, take kill the bad guy. But to do that without a debate, particularly in an area where we are in such uncharted territory, is AI. It just doesn't make sense.

This is why you know, I've put a bill out today by person bill that's going to try to say, let's do a economy, the future commission trying to model after the cyber salarium to say, we've got to put some ground rules in place around AI. But you know, Karabari, you know, we have completely stuck

at putting any guard bills on social media. You know, the power of all these companies is only exponentially grown. The idea that we're going to sort this through quickly. And I'm not only questioning about, you know, have we unleashed?

And I'm, I'm pro AI in terms of, I think, ultimately,

it will be very beneficial even around jobs. But man, I am spooked about the economic disruption, particularly for like recent college grads over the next five years. You know, I, the, the doom scrollers, I don't fully agree with, but they're not without some argument that we ought to go through.

The malt box, but stuff about, you know, these agentic AI agents kind of creating their own network, their own religion. Yeah. Yeah. That's pretty spooky place or just, you know, go back to anthropic,

you know, the fact that clawed their best model has in just the last two and a half months, completely disrupted the software industry for a few days on the markets. Because they, the movement on these AI tools is absolutely as fast as anything, Altman or Dario or any of these guys said.

And usually the prognostic haters, the, you know, the advocates are wrong about how long it's going to take. This time they may be right. Right. Right.

Somehow we got it, you know, and you're part of this debate. And I'm part of this debate. We got to somehow force the, the, the country to come to grips with the fact that we can't put this. Does this incident complicate the situation?

And doesn't make us less safe with clawed was really important from what I'm talking to a lot of people are like, we don't want to open AI, we want to claw it. Like, that's our best and brightest. Well, there are things like you.

If you've got a ship and you've got an AI defense system that automatically responds when incoming missile, that to me is less problematic, obviously. We have variations on that already to, you know, what some people have said we're going to launch a thousand drones all at once

and once they're launch, you know, we're going to have no control. They're going to be able to go after targets they want, because you don't have any kill switch, or you don't have any ability that once launched. Yeah, agency.

You got control. Yeah, agency. So I don't pretend to know the answers on that. But I sure as hell don't want to turn that all over to Pete Higgs F. To arbitrarily make a decision on a short-term basis.

“So what's going to happen with this anthropic thing from a guess from you?”

You know, I hope I saw that Microsoft, I even think filed an amicus brief. I think even Altman, you know, said he supported some of the privacy issues, but he's on every side. He's on incase you're interested. I care.

I know your relations. But I just would say that. And I like him, but he's on every side. Yeah, I would just say this. This is why we were so crappy on doing anything on social media.

That is child's play compared to implications around this AI debate. So we got to get our shit together and, you know, and not thinking for mentally. And I just, you know, I did a couple of AI forums today off the hill and you. I want to be optimistic, but I just hope we don't have to go through some, you know, got awful event that says, "Oh, crap, why didn't we think about this editor?"

Right. And the companies have power. They possibly shouldn't have. You know, you've seen that with Elon Musk and everybody. Well, we've seen the power.

“And also, I think they got to share the responsibility.”

That's we don't even, we've spent a whole other program on just the economic, misdistribution, maldistribution, job elimination. But I don't think has to happen. But as we've talked in the past, you know, with a lot of these AI tech big guys,

you know, empathy would not be the first word that comes to mind.

No, in fact, it's not even in the, it's not even the top 100. So last question, the fact that we're having this conversation with the bombs and trying to only underlines this urgency, let's circle back to the war. They've been a lot of comparisons to the Iraq war and fears were repeating that mistake, but at least with Iraq, Congress overwhelmingly authorized the use of military force

there and a big majority of the public initially supported intervention in hindsight.

but conflict with Iran is unique because of clear majority of Americans oppose it at the outset.

“If this tracks on longer than the administration anticipates, what happens?”

What does it mean for the country? I was talking to a very prominent Republican senator and he said it, if it's not over in 15 days, it's over for the Republican party in a lot of ways. I don't know if that's the case. What do you think?

What I would say is, you know, there have been so many incidences that I thought, "Oh my god, this will be the breaking point from Republican friends." And you know, and again, I'm, I'm guilty as charged,

and partisan, but man, I have lost a lot of faith with these guys and gals that, you know,

there will not be a constraint put in place. And we don't have to get a bunch, but until a good number of Republicans step up and say, is this really not only the precedent we want to set,

“but is this the way we want to have our country governed by a single individual without any congressional constraints?”

If they keep seeding power, but we, you know, we bring up our resolutions, we argue in fact, but, you know, in a system where you still got to get 51 or 218 to 178 in the house, we got to get some folks to get religion that this is not the way the country ought to work. Well, there was barred retailer green. You're expecting that plot twist.

Well, that was the idea, it was great to answer.

If she could come out, come on guys, this shouldn't be that hard. Well, she's consistent with what she said at the beginning. She's a consistent voice in that regard, other things. Let's leave that aside. But last question, what could it mean for the country as a whole if you had a game and out? They're not moving or constraining him.

You're unable to.

“What does that mean until at least November?”

Well, if, if it means that. If we don't all get out and felt like hell. We're screwed. It also means what really scares me and we ought to talk another time about this. It's much, much more afraid about what happened to Iran. I am almost equally, if not more afraid about this,

President, at this moment of time, he's going to interfere in a major way in our elections. Our attempt to. Or attempt to. And I'm not as worried about trying to change the vote after the votes are cast,

but I am concerned about using, you know, in God forbid a terrorist as a mentor, you know, a piece of raw intelligence is a reason to change states, closed polls, you know, move in troops. And, you know, if that happens. And we have a truly corrupted election.

I don't know how the country ever comes back. Oh, yeah. All right. I want to end on that note, but I've got to end on her warner. Coming back next week. Coming back next week.

She was heated rivalry. It's so happy. Anyway, go vote. But I really appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. [Music]

Today's show was produced by Christian Castro Rosal, Michelle Aloy, Katherine Mills-Sop, Megan Bernie, and Kaylin Lynch. Nishot Kerwa is Vox Media's executive producer, a podcast. Special thanks to Amen Wellen. Our engineers are Fernando Aruda and Rick Kwan, and our theme music is by Tracodemix.

Go wherever you listen to podcasts, search for on with Kerwa's Wisher and hit follow. Thanks for listening to on with Kerwa's Wisher from Polion Media and New York Magazine. The Vox Media podcast network and us will be back on Thursday with more.