1129: Why Democrats Must Oppose Trump's Iran War

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I'm John Lovett. I'm Tommy D. Thorne. On today's show, we're at war with the run. Violence is spreading all over the Middle East. American soldiers are losing their lives.

The administration is struggling to explain why it's happening.

“And Democrats are struggling to explain why it shouldn't be happening.”

We'll talk about what we know and don't know and where we are on all of it. We'll also hear from Senator Rubin Gallego. And have Democrats are responding and how he's thinking about the midterms. Also, beyond this show, we'll be covering all the developments around the war and around. And the political fallout across the cricket network.

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I know. Anyway, if you're interested, sure. And to cricket.com/friends and subscribe today before it's too late. All right. Let's start with what we know as of Monday afternoon Pacific time about the latest war

that Trump and Netanyahu have started in the Middle East. The US and Israel have been launching air strikes in Iran since Saturday, aimed at destroying the regime's military capabilities and killing its leaders. Dozens of whom are now dead, including the 86-year-old Supreme Leader, Ayatola Community. Iran and its proxies have retaliated with strikes against at least 10 other Middle Eastern countries,

targeting US military bases and assets, but also hitting airports and hotels. The US and Israel have killed at least 550 Iranian so far, including at least 175 people, mostly children in an Israeli strike that hit a girls elementary school in southern Iran. Iranian retaliatory strikes have killed at least 10 Israelis, six civilians across the Gulf, and now six American troops, with at least 18 other Americans seriously wounded.

Trump's initial reaction to the first American deaths of this war came in a pre-taped video message.

He released from his golf club on Sunday. Let's listen. We pray for the full recovery of the wounded and send our immense love and eternal gratitude to the families of the fallen.

Before it ends, that's the way it is.

It's the way it is. It's the way the cookie crumbles.

“Trump's first live remarks about the war came on Monday morning during a Medal of Honor ceremony”

at the White House, where he did not take any questions. What's the lesson? Today they said, "Oh, well President wants to do it really quickly after that he'll get bored." I don't get bored. There's nothing boring about this.

Do you agree with that, Pete? I don't think there's anything Mr. General. There's nothing boring about it. See that nice drape. When that comes down right now, you see a very, very deep hole.

But in about a year and a half from now, you're going to see a very, very beautiful building.

I picked those drapes in my first term.

I always like gold. But I think we can save a lot of money. I just saved curtains because I built many of ballroom.

“I believe it's going to be the most beautiful ballroom anywhere in the world.”

When you hear all that hammering out there, you know why the first lady is not thrilled exactly. When I hear that sound, that beautiful sound behind me, it means money. So I like it, but my wife isn't thrilled. We are at war right now. He did say that after the news that at that time, four Americans were killed now, six.

So you guys have any initial thoughts on the seriousness and sobriety with which the commander-in-chief is talking about a war that is now killed Americans? Have that, pal. So we've gone to several stupid wars in American history. A bunch of Republicans launched a war preemptively in Iraq. And they tried to do it in the most sophisticated way possible.

They were also smart, and they had all no history. And they had all the years of expertise and research to explain how that was going to be so easy and quick. And we would be welcomed as liberators. These were the smart Republicans we were told. These were the people that had really thought it out.

They knew what they wanted. They knew they were objective. They were willing to lie to get there because they were so convinced of their point of view. They had an ideology. And they were going to pursue it to its end.

And that turned into a disastrous quagmire that caused thousands of American lives. And hundreds of thousands of Iraqi lives on the chaos were still dealing with the consequences of this group of fucking Yahoo's. So glib in virtually every way they talk about this. Barely offering a rationale, the rationales they do offer completely in conflict with one another from a golf club in Florida, and they were going to be a huge problem with the police.

And they were going to be a huge problem with the police. And they were going to be a huge problem with the police. And they were going to be a huge problem with the police. And they were going to be a huge problem with the police. And they were going to be a huge problem with the police.

And they were going to be a huge problem with the police. But they have the backing of Republicans and Congress. They have even Democrats in Congress, afraid to criticize them or fighting to put their names either yes or no in favor of this. Like the whole thing is such a kind of statement of like rot and decline. It is disgusting.

I was disgusted. And I like sort of watch it all happening over the weekend and just sort of like I it was sort of it's not just how awful these people are. It's the way in which it's treated. They're treated with a level of seriousness and how they're approaching it when we can all see with our fucking eyeballs that they're so in over their heads and unqualified and ridiculous and in how they handle it. That's where I'm at.

“Tommy remember Obama responding to the death of American troops by saying that's the way it is from a in a tapes message from Hawaii.”

Yeah.

I we weren't always perfect on the death of Americans.

But yes, I know what you're like. I have a stylistic and substantive critique here as a communication matter the fact that he launched a war on Saturday and then didn't comment on it until until in like live in person until Monday morning at an unrelated event about just like top or metal of honor. Need a war and a run top or for these remarks. It is baffling. I mean, like after the Venezuela operation Trump did a press conference immediately.

Rubio is on all those shows like we're now we're just doing a video message from your country club. It does not suggest like confidence in the policy. But I think like big picture. Over the weekend I was consuming news and like doomsgrilling and then every once in a while I would just like get so angry that I wanted to scream because this is a war of choice. And the first choice was 2018 when Trump pulled out of the Iran nuclear agreement, which Iran was complying with and would have prevented them from getting a nuclear weapon.

And it led to a series of choices that got you to Saturday when Trump launched a war of choice that is now led to six U.S. service members dying and apparently a school full of girls in Iran getting bombed. And like Iraq, this is a war of choice built off of a lie. Like we'll get into the details in a minute, but there's no imminent nuclear threat.

There is this new spin that they're on the cusp of creating a missile shield for the nuclear work that is totally bullshit.

“But this choice is going to get a lot of innocent people killed.”

We are going to spend tens of billions of dollars at a minimum on weapons and it could play out for years. So like, I think the neocons are back. Like we might as well have Dick Cheney in charge given this policy. I was worried that that at that over at the bulwark, Bill Crystal would be like reactivated like a mentoring candidate. And all of a sudden kind of like his body moving in ways he doesn't totally understand it is not a control of kind of like going back to the old Dick Cheney controls.

It's very upset. It's very upset about it. It must be a conflict in there. I will say that it is mostly stylistic the communications, the communications critique here, but there's something substantive about it too, which is like.

And you're doing it.

We could talk about Obama, but it's like, I don't know, George Bush, Biden, anyone.

Like you send Americans to war. You talk to the American people about it.

“And you take questions from their representatives in the press.”

Like that's just what you do. And the fact that they don't do that, the fact that he spent three hundred words towards the end of a two hour state of the union on Iran. Not even bothering to make the case. Not bothering to make the case in the lead up. Not even bothering to try to make the case to the rest of the world.

Not responding to any questions from the press about this. Doing a couple of the tape messages from Florida while this is happening. It just goes just like, they don't give a fuck what we think. They don't give a fuck what anyone thinks. They think that they're in charge.

They make the rules and everyone else can go fuck themselves. Well, I'd also like it goes to the lack of any kind of real congressional debate. And he sends that Congress ought to weigh in as our representatives. Like, yes, it's a process. Question is out about the substance of whether or not this is right or wrong.

But the way those things connect is in a democracy. We are supposed to weigh in because it we understand that the stakes of an action like this are very high. Trump's our early details guy, which is why he's left the nitty gritty of explaining his government's rationale for starting this war as well as their objectives in Iran. To the substitute weekend Fox host when Iran's the Pentagon in between push up contests with the Health and Human Services Secretary. Pete Heggseth held a press conference on Monday alongside the chairman of the Joint Chiefs.

General Dan Raisin Kane. Here are the highlights from Heggseth. We didn't start this war, but under President Trump, we are finishing it. Turns out the regime who chanted death to America and death to Israel was gifted. Death from America and death from Israel.

This is not a so-called regime change war, but the regime sure did change. No stupid rules of engagement. No nation building quagmire, no democracy building exercise. To the media outlets and political left screaming endless wars stop. This is not a rack. This is not endless.

“What is our exit strategy here and when will it be deployed?”

I would never hang a time frame from our perspective.

The commander and chief sets the optempo in terms of this fight. As I said, it's on his terms. What are our objectives and can you share more information on how the soldier is super killed or killed? You're to ensure that they can't use that conventional umbrella to continue a pursuit of nuclear ambitions. As it pertains to the U.S. casualties, every once in a while you might have one,

the forces that we call it a squater that makes its way through and in that particular case it happened to hit. So right before the the squater comment, which is, that's going to be a hard one to forget. Hexeth did lay out after a couple of contradictory statements like endless war. Come on, this is an endless war. So what's the time frame? I would never put a time frame on this war. But he did lay out what's maybe the closest the administration has come to defining the military objective in Iran.

Tommy, what did you make up his answer there? How many times do you think he practiced those lines in the mirror in the morning as he was shaving? Too many like, sing, songy. Not a regime change war, but the regime sure did change. Death to America, but we gifted them death to that.

Not a regime change war, but the Israelis killed the supreme leader of Iran, who is the in charge of the country since 1989, and also seen as a religious figure in the leader of the armed forces. And the, you know, final say in all political decisions. But you know, regime evolution, I guess, is what we're saying. Yeah, and that the attack is surgical and not utopia and however Iran take back your country.

We're not just going to destroy their missile capability or the nuclear capability, but their ability to, quote, project power, right? So whatever that means. So yeah, the new line is that they're on the cusp of like seemingly making so many ballistic missiles that they would have. They quote conventional umbrella that would allow them to pursue nuclear weapons. That's just, that's not a thing.

Yeah, countries got a nuclear umbrella. That means you can use a threat of nuclear retaliation to deter attacks. That's what the North Koreans do. The idea that Iran could have enough ballistic missiles to prevent the US from intervening to take out a nuclear program is just made up bullshit.

Whenever they wanted, they bombed them repeatedly and no, you know, conventional deterrent has changed that.

“So I don't know why they're trying these new lines. I don't know why they're trying this bullshit out.”

The messaging changes are so stark like you were saying like on Saturday, we're talking better regime change and the people rising up. Now that's gone. Trump's like clearly has no plan for the future. He talked to like 10 reporters and one of them he was like, oh, got a list of three guys who should take over. Then he called another reporters like, oh, those three guys are dead now. So they're just winging it. Yeah, why do you think there's all these shifting explanations for the rationale for this war?

Who fucking knows. It's really, it is. Well, so Rubio also underscored what headset said he said in a Iran in about a year where you're in a half would have crossed the line of immunity. I don't know what the line of immunity is. There's no such thing. There would have so many missiles that they could hold the whole world hostage, which is of course quite a claim. Because I have residesting that the Iranian conventional arsenal would have been unable to be defeated by the United States of America.

“I don't think that's what our military would say about it. But then, okay, that's a year and a half.”

And so then he's asked Rubio's ass like, is it imminent? And he says, yes, because we were aware of Israeli intentions and understood what it would mean for us and understood what it would mean for us and had to be prepared to act as a result of it. So he's saying it was imminent because Israel was going to strike imminently. And if Israel strikeed Iran imminently, Iran would strike back at us. So, but came the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs says in that conference with Hegseth that Israel acted on US intelligence when it did the strikes against Iran's leadership.

We were not only aware of it, we were instrumental to it. And so the argument is now from directly from Rubio, we had to strike because Iran was going to strike after we struck. Like that's where they're at.

“Which I feel like actually the closest to the truth.”

Well, we talked about this in the last episode, but that random administration source or it was in and around the administration source to political that basically said the hope within the administration was that maybe Israel would go first because then Iran would retaliate and we could retaliate against Iran.

And it turns out they thought that that was a possible scenario and then said, yeah, instead of letting Israel go first, let's just go with them because that's going to happen anyway.

Yeah, that political leak was that they thought it would be better politics for the Israelis strike first and then was also insane. Yes, completely insane. And then Rubio, today, there was a leak over the weekend that there was an imminent threat, right, that the US had to preemptively strike Iran because the Iranians were going to hit us or hit our bases in the region and lead to a mass casualty to incident. And who's that idiot over at CNN that fucking Google who's always yelling on the panels that I Scott Jennings tweeted this out credulously, which was like, not believable, not credible in any way. And what Rubio did today to clarify it was to say, we knew the Israelis were going to strike, which meant the Iranians were going to strike back.

So we had to be involved on the front end to preempt that or, you know, keep American forces safe, which I think kind of like cuts out the step or maybe you could talk Israel out of doing something that would put, you know, US personnel in the region. That risk. Well, also you traditionally the United States doesn't publicly say we are only going to full scale bombing across a middle Eastern country because kind of Israel dragged us into it. Let's get, let's get, let's get that and it's like, but on this, on this missile point, like the Iranians have a lot of missiles, but they do not have an ICBM defense intelligence agency didn't assessment last year, the found that if Iran decided to have one, they could have an ICBM by 2035.

So that assessment has basically been the same since the 90s that there are decade away from having this technology.

So the suggestion that Iran was on the cost of having a missile that could hit the United States is a lie and it is undercut by the US intelligence agencies period. It seems like all of these lies have all been undercut by now. It's always like, they throw it a bunch of lies at the beginning and then they stop trying to defend them like because now, now where we are is the Rubio rationale, right, which is not an ICBM, which is not, they were a week away from having a nuclear bomb or nuclear material, whatever the fuck they were trying to say.

It was not any of this. It was just, well, Israel was going to do it. And so we decided to just go with Israel, which also, by the way, if you read the long New York Times piece and we can get into like, how Trump got to this got to yes on war. It was BB Netanyahu who played a huge role here.

And the two of them were talking about this since, I guess December was the first time BB brought it up to Trump.

And then they kept talking about it and then Trump was going to go after the regime started murdering all of the protesters. And then BB was like, no, no, we're not quite ready yet to just wait a little bit and then we'll do it together. So this idea that like, oh, and Israel just went. We had to, we were going to, they were intent on going. And so we just had to go with them like, BB and Trump were planning it the whole time. Well, and just, again, the chairman of Joint Chief said that Israel acted.

That is a joint effort. So I don't understand how this is, we, we created, we had to, the imminent threat was from the campaign. We were starting. That's what made it imminent. We are the imminent.

“I wouldn't think too hard about it. Yeah, I, I think, I think there's two, I think the conflicting rationales come from, like, I think the reasons were at war with the Ron or Trump so you go and let me out.”

The ego point is, I think, Graham, Lindsey Graham, people like that and the Neocons are saying, take out Maduro, take out the Iranian regime and we'll get the Cuban government next and you'll be this grand historic figure. And Trump, I think, has seen like the capabilities of the US military. There's one story that said he thinks he has like, godlike powers that they have godlike powers and you want to use them. And then there's Netanyahu who has been pushing Trump really hard to act like you guys were saying.

And put out a statement, I think yesterday saying, this coalition of forces allows us to do what I've yearn to do for 40 years. He said it. So last June when I said, you know, I thought, I feel like the United States got dragged to war by Netanyahu, Jonathan Greenblatt at the ADL said that was anti-Semitism. And now, this is what Marco Rubio was saying and this is what Netanyahu was saying happened here, which I know he talked to the United States and to joining him in this insane war of choice that doesn't actually directly threaten the United States.

Yeah, I realize there's a lot of folks, especially on the right who say, you know, the Israeli government controls US foreign policy and then people say that that's like vaguely anti-Semitic and certainly anti-Zionus.

But like, in this case, it seems pretty clear, the administration is saying that Israel helped. Now, I do think time into your point about Trump's ego.

I'm sure that BB fed into that during hit, like, was he's trying to make the case to Trump, right? Because I'm sure BB's not just like, I really want this, please do this for me. For sure, be like, sir, you could be the greatest president of all time. I also think that the Obama and the nuclear deal is a big part too, because they probably told him that pussy Obama. He did this terrible deal and you can, you can show him up by actually showing that you did this the right way and it would be easy. And so I'm sure that Obama was a part of it too. And did you read, I'm sure you read the New York Times story about this.

“Vance of all people convinced Trump to do this. Because he was leaning towards, remember he was thinking about doing a quick strike and then maybe say the big one for later or he was going to do the big one.”

And Vance was like, well, if you're going to do it, go big and go right away and then Trump apparently after that meeting started thinking about what Vance said and it was like, okay, that was a good idea. The other part of this too. Jayne Vance though, who wrote that op-ed. The best part of the best part about Donald Trump is that he's not going to get us in any more form. Yeah, no new wars.

Yeah. And then I do think part of this too is Trump. You have Ruby out there saying they were year away from having a hyper advanced conventional umbrella that would made them immune. But meanwhile, the lesson they took from operation, I don't remember what the fun. And then I fear midnight hammer. Is that actually Iran's capabilities are not something we have to worry too much about.

They're actually in a weakened position now would be the time right in the wake of these protests. Look, the idea that like Benjamin Netanyahu with US intelligence is not decapitating the entire Iranian regime without US, if not encouragement permission. And so even Ruby are going out there and saying, well, Israel was going to do it, so we had no way to be needed encouragement. Well, I'm not saying they would need encouragement, but they're not going to start the campaign unless they feel pretty confident that the US is poor.

Yeah, so support. Yeah, I mean support. Right. And so Ruby are going out there and saying, well, the Israelis were going to do it. And therefore that was going to create some kind of imminent threat.

I don't understand why in this moment they feel the need to act as though they were dragged into it. But that's in part because of their own politics about not wanting to seem like they were just choosing a random day to start a giant new conflict in the Middle East. Maybe they are worried about their own politics.

“But that's the only way I can see to kind of undercut the idea that we weren't dragged into this in part because Benjamin Netanyahu has been gunning for a war with Iran for the entire time.”

He's been in public life. Yeah. Thought another notable detail in that story was that Intel officials had predicted that a popular uprising against the regime after a strike was a remote possibility,

which is interesting in that Trump, when he first announced this, was like, take your country back.

Yeah. I mean, it's like a large unarmed population. It's just going to rise up against a security forces there. They have no plan. They're just winging it.

Again, there's all these people talk about what the options are. Like, well, maybe there's a Venezuela option where you find the vice president. There's a Delsea Rodriguez of Iran. I don't think that exists. Iran is stronger power centers as air gc, there's the bassege militia.

There's all these groups that are that are armed to tell an unarmed population to rise up and take those people on is laughable. Like, the people are going to get killed. Also, like, Iran tens of millions of Iranians vote for the hard-line government. Right. We see the videos of people on Tehran celebrating the death of the Supreme Leader.

Yeah.

“And so the suggestion that there's some uniformed opinion about what happened here that everyone will support with the US just did is,”

it is just wrong. And then there are also, like, ethnic and religious minorities who might see this as their moment to rise up and take their face. There's the Kurds. There's the blue separatists. There's Sunni minorities.

And so I'm sure there's some listeners like from who are Iranian listening to this, like yelling at us through the phone. Being like the regime was bad. We need to regime change. And like, I hear what you're saying. But like, I obviously hate this regime too.

But like, it couldn't get worse from here. We've seen it happen before. And like, that's the concern.

And also, ultimately, you're trusting Trump and Pete Hegseth to manage a war with Iran, which seems that idea to me.

Taliban was a murderous repressive regime. Saddam Hussein ran a murderous repression regime like Kim Jong-un Kim Jong-un. We don't, we don't go to war with governments that aren't repressive and dangerous. So far. So they are.

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There's the, as Tommy mentioned, the Venezuela type outcome. Where he gets his, his Delsea Rodriguez of Iran, who's willing to work with the US. I guess because I don't know what their promise to, like oil money, corruption gets them, gets to grease the wheels there and then they just press their people. There's also, you know, telling the Iranian people to overthrow the regime entirely,

which, as we discussed, is pretty remote. And then it's like, well, maybe it's fine if we just degrade their military capabilities to the point where they can't cause any real trouble for at least a few years.

“Do you think Tommy that the administration is trying to be strategically ambiguous?”

Is there any chance on the outcomes or do they just have no fucking idea what they actually want? No, I mean, like, I throw a thick, I walk through a second to what I think. I don't think they have a plan. I don't think they have a plan for what comes next. As Trump, you know, like we were saying before Trump called a reporter and said,

I have a short list and then he said they're all dead to the next report he talked to. So even if they find a Delsea Rodriguez type, I think that person is likely to get killed by the IRGC or other existing power structures. And unless we abuse on the ground to support that person, like just saying rise up and take your country back. Like that's not a plan. They're just winging it. They don't know what will happen next. I think they're just letting rip.

What are some of the different ways this whole thing could go south really fast?

So what you feel from what headset says there when he says like, you know, this is not a rock and what Trump is saying. There's this idea that as long as we don't claim ownership of the consequences, we're not going to be responsible for the consequences, right? As long as we don't, they're avoiding saying we will not put troops like boots on the ground. They won't say that explicitly, but obviously they don't want to put boots on the ground. All of their language around like this wasn't regime change, but the regime changed. Whatever whatever it is, it is around saying we're doing what we're going to do for their military capacities for their capacity to put drones and and and do damage to our bases and our allies in the region.

“Iranians are going to own the consequences of that, right? Like that's what they're kind of saying and whatever chaos comes next to there's a civil war.”

There's violence in the streets if a new repressive regime emerges and puts down anyone who tries to fight it. Whatever happens next like not our problem, not our problem, but of course it will be our problem one way or another we will be dealing with the ramifications of it. Our allies will be we will Israel will be US bases in the region will be the the the impact on on oil and gas prices. We will live with the consequences even if you don't claim them. Yeah, Trump Trump does not seem like he wants to live by the pottery barn rule.

Obviously, yeah, we break it to the pottery barn for those of you who weren't alive during the Iraq war that was who said it was a colon Powell. Yeah, Paul Georgetown if you break it you bought it. Not so for Donald Trump. I mean, look, there's there's this concern that first of all we've already seen like violence and chaos spill out not just in the release but all over the world. And at our embassies in Pakistan I see Iraq Jordan right there's like protests outside the embassies there is this idea that like if Iran becomes a failed state.

It's not only a haven for terrorism and civil war, but it precipitates another refugee crisis this you know that oil shocks all around the world. How many fucking tens of billions of dollars will this war cost the American taxpayers there's also like the idea of terrorist attacks against American interests. American troops abroad and even here inspired terrorist attacks here we saw a shooting in Austin over the weekend potentially the shooter was sort of inspired by what happened in Iran. So this just like and this is just what a couple days into this thing.

I mean, yeah, Iran is decided to attack everyone there fire they think that there's been tax on like 11 countries or 12 countries they're firing at all these Gulf countries the UAE Bahrain Qatar Kuwait. Some of those shots are fired at where we have U.S. bases but some are just like civilian infrastructure and the Iranians use ballistic missiles and then use these cheap drones called shahed drones across like 20 grand 50 grand a pop they have tons of them. They can fly 2000 kilometers and they basically just like GPS to a point and then detonate when they hit it.

The intercepted missiles we used to take them down are in short supply and they're really expensive so those things cost 20 to 50 grand the shahed drones are interceptors cost million bucks a pop.

“And so we're running low on them. The UAE is running low Qatar is running low and this whole thing is a big war of attrition which is to say what's going to run out first?”

The intercepted missiles or the Iranian ballistic missiles in drones. So like that's a big thing we're all watching. There's the economic cost which is the Iranians said they would close the street or remove. They haven't mind it but they've been firing at ships 80 you know 20% of the world's oil goes to the street or moves that will have a huge economic cost and then to their allies. But their allies also rely on the Chinese and everyone does yeah and then you know the the longer term. Like the longer this goes on the more likely there is to be civil war sectarian conflict some sort of failed state some sort of refugee flow and again.

We're talking about a country of 90 million people and the administration from Trump on down has repeatedly in the last couple days since the started refused to rule out boots on the ground.

And then he like significant capacity which is also pretty terrifying. They won't rule it out. They won't rule it out. Trump didn't just refuse to rule it out. His comments were very weird. He said I don't have the yips with respect to the ground. Like every president says there will be no boots on the ground. I don't say it. I say probably don't need them or if they were necessary. I don't know what he's trying to signal there. Like I could imagine a commando raid that includes the US and Israel that is designed to get the HEU or the nuclear materials that they think are somehow buried somewhere beyond that though.

It's like what do we talk about?

“I really like so much of what this is in response to the things they don't like about Democrats, right?”

And they always felt like the date certains around Afghanistan were kind of projecting what we were going to do to our enemies.

And so I think they are incredibly reluctant to put troops on the ground not to like excluding kind of short sort of tactical like deploying small units to do small tasks. But boots on the ground Trump is clearly worried about it, but he kind of feels as though in order to project strength.

I need to have that is I think him trying to be kind of leave his options open to not sort of first where a scary option to the Iranians.

But it means we have or means we have boots on the ground right now. And we now find what's on it.

“And I think there's a very good chance that they're like special forces contingents who are on the ground and maybe they're not.”

Maybe they're deployed under like title 50 so it's then eyeable and you know that's kind of what he's getting out here. I agree with you that like invent as well if they were boots on the ground, right? It was a very short term.

And I think what JD Vance focuses on with Trump tries to focus on is we're not doing long term occupation in nation building.

But I think the response to that is it's not necessarily up to you. If Iran remains a threat if they keep firing drones and missiles if this regime in some former fashion stays in place and the threat is not gone. The threat is not gone. These really won't see the threat is gone. So what then?

“I mean also you know George W. Bush kept saying that they were going to get troops out of Iraq by the spring in summer of 2003.”

Sometimes like these the intentions to not have boots like one thing leads to another.

And then suddenly you feel like okay, well now I got to stay in there and now they're firing on us here. Now we've got to put in more I mean it's it's fucking slippery slow. It was just like so the arrogance of believing you're in your control of events. You've launched a war. It's destabilizing the world is a dangerous place.

You're not in charge of all the consequences you've unleashed. And you know there's this sort of like kind of macho thing that hegset does. This is a way Trump gets kind of puffed up by the people around him. But yeah man like managing delicate relationships with regimes that are despicable and murderous to try to get deals to protect your interest while without destabilizing. Like it's it's it is unsatisfying on some level.

It is hard to live in the real world and accept concept compromise and and like long-term strategic thinking where the outcomes aren't certain. But you choose that over instability because you have respect for how dangerous the world can be. The worst things can get even against your best intentions and there's just that is to me like that is the connection to the from the way they talk to the substance which is like these people are cavalier about American lines because they are just not. Thoughtful or careful they are like decadent about history and we and and it is dangerous.

It is dangerous to have people like that and just charge in moments like this incredibly dangerous. All right let's have a whole the politics of this war. I played out so far one joke I saw going around on Twitter this weekend was a good thing Congress isn't alive to see this. Sure enough with a few exceptions the Republicans who run Congress are all on board with whatever Trump wants to do in Iran. Democrats being Democrats have split into a few camps.

You've got your very pro is real hawkish types like your Josh Godhymers and your John Fettermins who are so far fully supportive of the war that that's definitely a minority position in the party. You've got progressive Democrats and even a lot of mainstream Democrats like Rubin Gaego who love it talk is going to talk to later. John Ossof Tim Kain who've come out strongly opposed to the war and then you've got the most Democrat response of all from a group of Democrats who start their statements with a lot of throat clearing about how the Iranian regime is bad.

You must you must prove that you are not grieving the Iotola with your first couple sentences because someone out there apparently there's very a bunch of liberals out there grieving the Iotola that we I haven't seen them but they're out there and we've got to condemn them and we got to make sure that we're not grieving for the Iotola. Every statement has to start with Iran is Brett and that's where it goes and then after you you do the throat clearing about how awful and terrible and oppressive and murderous the regime is.

Then you've got to mainly criticize Trump for not consulting with Congress first and then you kind of just do a bunch of million mouth shit from there. You think some of these Democrats are scared of the politics here and if so why. I don't know why they would be scared of the politics like this is not a popular war that there's not a close to a majority of people who want this war not Democrats not independence.

“I think what I want from Democrats is go after the war on the merits not on the process the process ship has sailed focus on what's happening here which is Trump lied about the threat Trump the Iran was nowhere near close to getting a nuclear weapon.”

He's lying about the threat from Iranian ballistic missiles they are nowhere close to hitting the United States hammer him on that he lied and then talk about the cost. Now six service members are dead more gravely wounded. It's going to cost us tens of billions of dollars no one wants to be spending money this way. It's not a popular thing to be doing and then I think we should highlight the chaos around the world since this action. The war is not happening in Iran it is terrorizing populations in Israel and Lebanon in the Gulf American diplomats are less safe embassies are getting overrun Americans either the gunman in Texas might have been inspired by what happened in Iran like Trump is making us less safe and like just hammer him on.

Go talk about the substance yeah as gay go about this and he he said the same like we should be focusing on like why are we over the run like why what was the goals why what what is the objective why is it worth sending risking American lives in this moment for this conflict look and and all these people that are defending this if you would ask them a year ago.

They are I think we're locked in both because of the politics and because on some level they support the policy and they know that those politics aren't good either right like they don't want to support the policy.

“I think on some level they're like you know what I wouldn't have done it this way but I hope it works and I don't want to go out there and say I think this is a bad idea if they can remove the eye atola.”

Two flavors of that there are some who just quietly to actually want to see the Iranians regime toppled and a lot of them are kind of the closest individuals to APAC for example and then there's the other group. The old folks of which there are many who think about like Gulf war one in 1991 and the people who are against the first Gulf war and looked thought like they look stupid afterwards when it was popular and successful and had 90% support. It's just like have we not lived through enough of these wars that we're still thinking and responding in the binary here which is like oh well so then if you're opposed to this you must love that Iran is the number one state sponsor of terrorism around the world and has killed Americans and has destabilized the region because if you if you're against that then you'd be for this war.

There's no like oh yeah I want to see the Iranian regime toppled too. I don't want to see the fucking eye atola there. I don't want to see a murderous regime in Iran.

“I hope that like you know the hamburger from heaven falls from the sky and takes out the whole regime and then democracy flourishes in Iran.”

Yeah of course that isn't that is something to hope for. There's some obviously some stone cold moron at the free press tweeted um if you call yourself a progressive and you're not even a little excited by the prospect of a woman hating gay hating jewating. The endothal regime that a no way represents the will of its people being crushed you're not actually a progressive say like that. So whenever saw the eye atola pride. So put on your progressive checklist Medicare for all death to the eye atola like what are you talking about no it's okay to talk about the downside risk of a regime change war of choice even against a bad guy.

Look sometimes when you're trying to murder an 86 year old eye atola you have to also kill over a hundred's young school girls yeah and that's just the way to and I guess if you're a progressive who likes women's rights don't you boy oh I guess that doesn't work there. Well they all it's just this thought that like that after a couple strikes that democracy is going to flourish in Iran and there's going to be no cost to do that like what the fuck are we talking about here we just did this in Iraq and and like it starts out.

Less popular than any previous complex in part because there was no debate like the country's waking up you know the country is Friday night you know people are like what what we're at war with Iran but it's the weekend like there's just like no debate about it whatsoever we learn about it. And from the press over the weekend the president doesn't give a big speech as you said and it like if it starts out in this way and then you look at what people say and they said well like you know I you know there is ambivalence in the polling for sure like that's always there because people don't like.

The Iranian government basically like always it worth American lives no the sports starts to drop is would you be okay with continuing the conflict of gas prices arising no that they wouldn't people aren't in people weren't in the market for sacrificing American lives and our tax dollars and having the economy be hurt for a war with Iran and part because no one ever made the case for that no one ever signed up to make that sacrifice as a nation that just didn't happen.

“Just read off some of the poll and there's been a bunch of polling so far.”

What's said to me Washington Posted poll they did thousand person poll they also did that thing where they they text them as well.

Thirty nine percent strongly or somewhat support that was at fifty two percent strongly or somewhat opposed in fact strongly opposed was thirty nine percent so the number that strongly opposed is the same as total strongly in somewhat support. We're there they asked people why are we there to take control wins at fourteen percent unsure is a in second thirteen percent regime change at twelve percent stop them from getting nuclear up in at nine percent getting their money an oil at nine percent distract from the Epstein files at eight percent and then at the very bottom.

Protect the United States at seven percent coming in coming in after distract from the Epstein files.

They have not really a soul people on the clear vision for what we're doing here.

There's also a they ask are you concerned about a full-scale war seventy four percent concerned which if I present to us. We're at we're having a full scale. That's the next question I know what I think I think maybe when the strike started they were like maybe it's a few strikes who knows I don't know but I know I had the same thought about that.

Yeah and then Reuters did a poll only about they found only a quarter of Americans approved the strikes.

Among Republicans the total is fifty five percent still not that high and forty two percent of Republican voters said that they will be less likely to support the Iran campaign. But it leads to U.S. troops in the Middle East being killed or injured well there you go that has happened now yep so that is the point I just like.

“Here's the thing if you're a Democrat and you're I mean you're trying to you brought up the George the first Iraq war with George Bush right.”

So let's say you for principle reasons you come out against the war strongly right now and then I don't know Trump somehow gets the scenario where the regime falls or they get some other Iranian leader who's in the regime. To actually start working with the United States and being more pragmatic and it's not full democracy and Iran but it looks more like I don't know Saudi Arabia one of these Gulf monarchies or something.

And it's not great but it also doesn't like threaten the rest of the world and you were opposed to the war.

I don't know what do you think is going to happen you think you're going to lose your next election. You think that when when someone says that you weren't for the war that was like that left sort of an okay middleing situation that we don't know about. Well I didn't want to go to war and risk American lies and where you think that's going to be a problem for you in politics. Like I don't think that's going to be a fucking political problem just say what you believe.

If the United States were attacked and Donald Trump responded to some kind of an attack by taking the country into war and then there was a congressional vote and it got behind it.

I would be terrified to Donald Trump in charge of our military during a time in which we had were dragged into a war truly if that were the situation actually brought into war that we didn't choose. Donald Trump should be impeached and removed from office for his various crimes he is the most corrupt president in American histories. Profit hearing off the office he is destroying and lawlessly like dismantling government agencies unleashing ice he's spending money without congressional approval he is a menace who is abusing his office every day.

“Of course you should not support Donald Trump choosing to take our country to war because he should not be in charge of our military should be no near any of these authorities.”

It's great crime as a shame of history that he is in this job and that we have not been able to keep it from turning to it. And the fact that when even when Donald Trump is president you can't muster the ability to say no I'm not in favor of going to war with Iran. I will vote no if there's a war powers resolution I will vote no if there's an authorization for these to force we are certainly not it is not necessary for us to go to war with Iran right now. And so they would never support giving this president even more authority than he's already had in the music the fact that we can't make that's ridiculous what we're talking about Donald Trump is prosecuting a war that we did not have to fight and Democrats a lot of them are afraid of their own shadow to come out and just say this is fucking stupid and dangerous like that is ridiculous ridiculous.

Putting everyone down for a no.

“Oh, I think it's really unbelievable and then and then he's fucking like all these guys like obtusely saying I don't see how anybody can like how anybody can watch what's happening and not be just proud and not just be.”

I was like like can't we know fairman's like why can't we just be celebrating what he is just and sufferable kind of like well why don't you answer your own questions. I don't know if there are any exceptions ran Paul Thomas Massey basically beyond Congress at least so far beyond Congress there are plenty of mega influencers who aren't happy about this war and have already criticized Trump. Daily wires Matt Wolch the Federalist Sean Davis which is some new ones there Steve Vanden there are also reports that Tucker Carlson had been personally lobbying Trump not to attack.

Guys eventually get on board or at least just sort of quiet down or do you think this could be a problem for Trump and further down the road events. I think Bannon tends to get on board Matt Wolch and Sean Davis probably will too. I think I don't think Tucker will ever get on board he's been consistent about opposing the worn around since last June and did not come around we're not there's came around it's sort of praising Trump for midnight hammer. Look Tucker knows his audience and he knows there's a big mega audience out there for folks who want to hear criticism of regime change wars and some of it has to do with US support for Israel and he will be making the case that Netanyahu pushed Trump into going to war and he's going to have a big I told you.

But good case he's going to play that Rubio quote over and over again today and have a big I told you so but like I think you know the JD events element of him not only no longer opposing regime change wars but pushing for the biggest boldest version of them I do think will harm him in the long term if.

America first anti interventionist mindset and the conspiratorial anti Israel mindset the fact that now we have the secretary of state basically saying we had to do this because Israel was going to bring us into this will like have a life of its own in those. And there will be people that will go back to trying like nothing nothing anti Semitic is true and if it's true it's not anti Semitic and so like if this is what what Rubio is saying like it's going to give a lot of purchase to that argument on that that.

“And and like that is going to have a lot of of power and I don't care whether a public and then Congress is a powerful influence or say I think from the bottom up people are going to be in rage by this.”

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can't sit to an average in the health garden. Start it and test not only for you, but for you. Two of the related stories before we get to the level of the interview with Geigo.

First, we talk last week about Pete Heggseth threatening anthropic because the AI company won't let the government use Claude.

There AI model for mass surveillance on Americans or fully autonomous weapons. Turns out anthropic held firm and Heggseth carried through on his threat, except he didn't decide that the government just wouldn't do business with anthropic anymore. He designated the company as a risk to national security and essentially blacklisted them saying that "no contractor supplier" or partner that does business with the United States military. They may conduct any commercial activity with anthropic. This decision is final.

Unsurprisingly, Elon Musk's XAI, which makes crock and then Sam Altman's Open AI, which makes chatGPT, agreed to Heggseth's demands.

“Anthropic has pledged to fight the government and court over Heggseth's decision. Anyone want to go off on how insane this is?”

Yeah, I mean, just like, again, anthropics had to ask, "One was don't use our software to do bulk mass surveillance of American citizens, and then it was don't use it in autonomous killer robots yet." Because it's not good enough yet. They can't do it. It wasn't even like that clear of a moral stand. You just said the AI wasn't ready. It's not what I'm sorry you're right. That was France. Right. And so we learned over the weekend that honestly don't beat yourself up over.

The drone wasn't going to fly itself. So they used Claude against in the Iranian operation over the weekend. We learned somebody reported that.

In response, like you said, two things happens. One, the Trump administration, they didn't just like pull Claude out of their classified systems. They're trying to destroy the company. Like, does igniting them a supply chain risk is crazy. That is what the United States has done to Huawei, a Chinese state backed telecommunication system. It could provide a back door for the Chinese spies to get into all of our communications and conspiracy labs, which is a Russian anti-virus company, which you probably don't want to put Russian anti-virus software and a computer.

And then, also, that craven, craven fucking door, Sam Altman and open AI just swept in to gobble up the contract afterwards just to show that he is the most amoral, money-focused, like deplorable little schmuck.

“So, the position of the Pentagon is that anthropic is so essential to our national security that the government can dictate how its product is used and it can't be stopped by anthropic.”

But also, it's a national security threat at the same time that can be banned from every company. Doesn't really make sense. Don't know that that'll hold up and the great thing about a democracy is the Secretary of Defense. Don't get to decide when decisions are final. So, good luck with that. The issue here is, like, okay, and anthropic in this case is at least publicly as far as we know, like what they're demanding is pretty reasonable. It is more ethical than what the Pentagon is suggesting that the Pentagon argument is,

all we ask of our contractors is that we use your product, we will follow the law, but the law right now is not caught up to what AI is going to be capable of.

It's not caught up to what AI can do right now. They're not laws. They're really govern this certainly not with the national level.

“That said, like, I know I don't think anthropic should be making decisions about when and how our military can use AI. I'm pretty uncomfortable with this administration, making those decisions.”

These are novel issues. I've seen people saying, well, if Raytheon makes a missile, Raytheon doesn't get to decide how the Pentagon uses the missiles. Okay, that's an analogy you can use for AI if you want AI is like a missile now. These are genuinely difficult and very scary questions about how AI is going to be deployed inside of our military. We're meant to be taken seriously and carefully and debated over time. Instead, we have a done-s Fox News host making domineering kind of sneering threats at the company.

“You have kind of opportunistic valueless people like Altman and Musk trying to come in and kind of take their market share and kind of punish their adversaries meanwhile.”

So, we're sort of like kind of sleepwalking into employing a new and incredibly powerful technology that we don't fully understand in charge of life and death decisions inside of our military.

So, like, it's the same response to this as to the fucking war on the whole. Like, these are people that are not responsible enough to be helping us figuring out how to make these difficult decisions over the long term. I mean, it's also what this says is if you start a company and you create a product or technology that the government decides it wants to use and you don't want it to use it the way that they want to use it because it will create or can lead to a great harm potentially catastrophic civilizational collapse.

So, this is simply attempted corporate murder. I could not possibly recommend investing in American AI to any investor. I could not possibly recommend starting an AI company in the United States. That is from Dean Ball who wrote the Trump administration's AI action plan. So, these guys just have to go to, like, deathcon 5 on everything. Everything has to be all out war. They can't just have a difference of agreement, a lack of alignment with anthropic and say, "Okay, well, we're just going to part ways on the use of this software. They have to destroy the company."

Well, the other, like the long-term issue, right, is if they're worried about master valence and worried about these tools autonomously deciding on targets and things like that, you know, one protection we have had against master valence is just the amount of data. Just the amount of data that's been encryption and the amount of data, right, just there's vast amounts of encrypted data that's hard to get at. There's just too much that's collected for human beings to parse. That's a protection. AI says there's actually a world in which you don't worry about anymore, because it can process vast amounts of data far beyond anything we can imagine today.

And the fact that they are not willing to make, even a temporary kind of willingness to say these will not be used in that manner. And if they are, we under control of Congress, anything to that effect. They just want to kind of dominate and say, "No, you don't get to tell us, we will do whatever we want." Like it just tells you what kind of people these are. And like, we are going to have to have this debate. We will have to do it when they're gone, I suppose. But like this is a frightening moment given how much, like just doesn't think much imagination to see where this goes. And we just don't have the right people to have that debate.

The result is that paramount skydance under the leadership of the Ellison's and Barry Weiss, their favorite conservative journalists will now control both CBS news and CNN. Over the weekend, Weiss responded to a tweet criticizing Zorin Mamdani's opposition to the war in Iran with a fire emoji. Okay, she's a straight shooter respected on both sides.

“Yeah, there was also a tweet from CBS referring to like Iran's nuclear weapons, which they don't have and they've never had. I think CBS this weekend, this Sunday show had like all pro war voices on its panels so good stuff.”

I don't watch love cable news anymore. I imagine you guys don't really either. We have it on the office, but like when I'm home, except for times like this, like when there is a war, when there is a crisis, I'm putting on CNN or I'm putting on MS now, because they're doing real time reporting. They have people in Tel Aviv, you can see the missiles falling, they have people in Lebanon, like that is invaluable in the time of crisis and like the idea of Barry Weiss kind of thumb in the scales at all times on all the news gathering is really unnerving.

Like bigger picture, I'm more worried about the TikTok US operations now being majority owned by Oracle and other LMS and other LMS and things. The silver lake capital, they're like conservative back investor group and then MGX and Abu Dhabi based investment company, right? I think that's going to be more impactful in terms of their ability to impact sentiment about politics in this country and do it secretly. But yeah, sucks. Well, they're hitting every demo every age group, that's for sure. What a move by Netflix. You're just going to have a couple of billion dollars for having just kind of negotiated up this deal to a crazy degree and like kind of thirsty fucking paramount paying just a huge, huge premium to take on this like asset like CNN, like whatever it's ideology, like it's kind of like I don't know what the future looks like, but they have a lot of threats at CNN that aren't.

The free person very wise. So like, I worry too about my bigger worry is the same as Tommy's, which is like, okay, there's whatever the specific kind of ideological tilt of CNN over time. I hope the independent journalists and anchors there get to continue to do what they do. I hope that like the places that have a strong culture like HBO don't suddenly have to run like anti-woke versions of their shows to to go along with like whatever industry. More than that, I just here's just a sort of drip drip drip drip of like, okay, now you get tick-tock as being controlled by right wing allies.

CNN is controlled in that way. Fox News, of course, always was and like bit by bit, you kind of lose these access access points and the noise and all the kind of turn in the algorithm.

Even if you are independent, you're kind of like kind of stuck in that to reach people as well. So it's just a sort of bad sign, bad sign. It is bad sign. It's bad sign. Yeah, well, and you know authoritarian takeovers of the media aren't always neat and tidy and just coming in and shutting them all down and having state media and stuff like that. You get, you know, it happened in Orbans, Hungary as well, right, they start.

“You get a few that there's direct state TV and then you get some that are the, the, you know, leaders billionaire friends that own the media stations and it's just, you know, so that's what they're trying to do.”

That's what they're trying to do. They're trying to cobble together a regime friendly media empire here is a little tick-tock that will CBS will CNN and they're just, I do think they'll fail.

Ultimately, I do like I just, this is not hungry and we're a big fractious country with a lot of different ways of getting information.

And one of them is crooked media, come back on slash friends, please subscribe. Yeah, like well, I mean, you're not, but if you are, but like seriously, if people are subscribed to what we're doing, right, the algorithm matters less, they're going to get this. They can share this with other people. Like it will be incumbent on people to build an alternative that we want to be a part of. Like that's real. All right, when we come back from the break, you'll hear love, it's conversation with Senator Rubin Gaiego about Iran and how Democrats are doing, including today's Senate primary in Texas, where Jasmine Crocket and James Telereco are facing off.

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Thanks for having me. So let's just start. What are your initial reactions to the strikes in Iran that began over the weekend and the deaths as of this recording of six U.S. service members in the campaign? Just what your overall response is to it?

Well, before coming on here, I was just reading a statement that Rubio said that we had to attack because Iran was about to-was going to attack because they were about to be attacked.

So basically what Rubio was saying is that Israel was attacking-

because it was going to attack Iran and because Israel was going to attack Iran, it was the assumption of this country that we had to also join the attack. So we're essentially giving up our warmaking, our warmaking decisions to another country.

“I mean, did anyone even try to say, hey, don't do that?”

Did someone try to tell Netanyahu, like you're going to start a regional war that we don't want to be a part of right now? Or did we just- now are we just now allowing Netanyahu to make these decisions for us? What is going on here? What ever happened in America first? I get- and I'm the kind of guy that understands, like, you know, I actually do believe Israel's an ally.

I do believe we should, you know, help protect Israel. I didn't analyze, but this is not. This is ridiculous. We lost six men in women so far. And I'm not sure there was what kind of pre-planning and planning was actually created

and enough time to actually be able to even execute this correctly. Like right now, I'm hearing that our stockpiles are running low. And it takes forever for us to redo and re-arm ourselves. All because Israel wanted to take a chance at the fact that, you know, Iran was weak. And we just had to follow them through.

If this is actually what happened, this is what Mercury would just said to everybody.

That is an absolute abdication of leadership by Trump and by everybody in his cabinet, the fact that we were basically pushed into the war by Israel.

That is not what should be happening at all. That is not our national interests. And, you know, now there's six men, six men of women dead. I don't know how we go injured. Who knows how much of our, you know, depleted stock is now gone.

Or, or how much of our stock has been depleted. How much is going to be drawn away from Europe and from Asia where it's needed. All because we decided that we need to hand over our foreign policy to Net. Yeah, it's just disturbing and disgusting. Yeah, so I was actually going to play the clip.

You just sort of got into it before I started sort of a show. No, no, no, no. It's a shocking thing to hear. In part because there've been so many different rationales for doing this. Right.

You have Rubio basically saying the reason we had to do this is we were preemptively preventing further damage because Israel was doing this. But certainly Donald Trump would not say he's being led into this by Benjamin Netanyahu. He said that on that they were trying to, it's at times they were, it's not a regime change operation, it's about the nuclear program.

“It's at times it's not, what do you make of the shifting rationale?”

Well, the rationale is probably Rubio's actual rationale was a real reason. And now they're coming up with the actual other reasons because they know that that is not good reasoning. They know that even people that are pro Israel that they want to see, you know, Israel continue as a sovereign state. That know that that is not what Americans want to hear. And that we just got involved in another Middle East, you know, war because Netanyahu decided that this is the best opportunity for Israel.

How does, like, how is this worth the blood of our men and women? And, you know, that is the rationale. And now they're going to come up with all these other rationales because they're going to try to basically make it easier because it's not, the Democrats are going to have problems. But now it's their America first base that are going to have problems with.

I've never heard of any other country essentially having to react in that manner and use their,

their national, you know, prestige, you know, their weapons, their, you know, the whole, you know, warmaking capability. Because in another country is starting a war and therefore we are going to have to react. Did somebody even try calling Iran saying, like, hey, this is not us. We're going to be staying out of this. Like, no, we just decided that we're going to let Netanyahu choose our wars. This is, it's very disturbing to me.

It's very disturbing. Everyone should be really mad about this.

And I don't mean think, this is not a, like, a left right issue.

“This is not, this is not like, are you a pro Israel person or are you, you know, whatever, other, other people are, right?”

This is, like, the fact that our country gave up its warmaking, the, the, the, gave started, inflicting damage on another country because of another country's decision. That is not, that is not leadership. That is not what you want to see the leadership doing. And it's absolutely horrendous. So there is a debate and you're right there, there is a divide that isn't, like,

strictly Democrat versus Republican. That's pulling out in Congress. These strikes were carried out without congressional authorization.

You've said the Senate should not hold any votes until it votes on a war powers resolution. But as this moment of war powers resolution wouldn't have the votes to pass. So, so what, what, what would be the value of having a war powers resolution when the outcome would be a rubio and Trump? And all these people holding it up and saying, see, they couldn't disapprove it. And therefore, they approve it.

Well, we have, so we do know that there's one coming up, I think tomorrow, or the day after. So at least we know that there is. I do think we also need to have a very different approach to this. This is not a very popular war. Like, let's just put it very plainly. It's, it's only supported by about 30% of the population of this country.

It's deeply unpopular with the kind of a, the maga base of the Republican party. The value in this would be that there is men and women put on record that will have to go forward and defend this when they go home during recess.

“And I think there's going to be a lot of people that are going to have a very tough time doing this, especially now that we understand the rationale, the real rationale behind this, right?”

There was no imminent threat to our country. The imminent threat means that it was, it was going to happen. What we just heard from, you know, Marca Rubio was essentially that we were going to get attacked because someone was going to attack. They were going to eventually attack us, and it was there for we decided to preemptive attack. In what world, does that word sell it actually justify us going to war and risking our, our men and women? And that's what we have to put on the record when it comes to Republicans and some Democrats coming up pretty soon.

So one argument and it's an argument that Senator Chris Murphy has been making is a war powers resolution gets it a little bit backwards. It suggests that somehow the vote would kind of retroactively suggest support from Congress when what's actually needed is an authorization for the use of military force. It's called war powers resolution, the absence of disapproval is certainly not approval that really what we ought to be doing is having a Congress that asserts the President cannot conduct war without a vote in Congress that authorizes the use of force as we did in Afghanistan and as we did in Iraq.

He's right, but if we're in the majority, we have that, but that's like AUMF is not a privileged resolution. I'm sorry I'm getting all dorky with you guys. No, no, it's fine. That's the only option we have that will actually bring a vote to the floor because if we try to introduce AMF that has to go through the process and they're just going to kill it in committee, right. If you do a war resolution, it has to get to skip all the bullshit that the Republicans can use to actually slow it down. And yes, you're right. It doesn't immediate end it, but it does put certain timetables that actually restrict at least some of that executive power.

So no, this is not the best solution at all, but it's the only solution that we have when the Democrats are in the minority in the majority. There's actually a lot more power we have, but we have to do what we can with what we can right now.

“And this is actually the best kind. You force the debate, by the way, you force the, you have to, you take up time on the schedule. It actually forces, you know, the conversation, the actual conversation to focus on this.”

But the center of Murphy is not wrong. It's just that that's not an option that we have immediately.

And therefore, it ought to increase pressure on Democrats to fund the H S that's been held up because of what ISIS has been doing. Are you buying that? Is there any truth to that argument? Well, onto that. When they, when all the FBI agents that are now looking for immigrants at home, depot, go back to their desks. When the HSI goes back to looking for money launders, and especially international drug carto money launders and potential terrorists, go back to actually doing their jobs and actually doing money laundering instead of looking for, you know, women and children at bus stops.

When they actually start, you know, deploying, you know, as all these ice, you know, 45 day trainees to the border to help make sure that no terrorists are crossing over the border.

We could be serious about this, but right now, DHS has $175 billion more money than the Marine Corps. They have enough money.

So benefit, they have enough money. They could be using a lot of these guys who doing a lot of things, for example, you know, back feeling the ATF right now. The ATF right now doesn't have enough money even to do a lot of the background checks that you need. The guy that shot up potentially the terrorist that shot up people in Austin bought a weapon legally, by the way.

“If there was a fully staff FBI ATF, they may have been able to flag it. This guy was potentially dangerous. But where's ATF right now?”

Either they've been fired because of political reasons. And by the way, also a lot of the agents that specialize in terrorism have been fired. Or they've all been put as provisional ice agents, and instead of them doing the things are really good at, like background checks, investigations, trying to track down, you know, bombs, you know, weapons, things of that nature. They're chasing, you know, migrant workers through the fields and trying to hit the Steven Miller quota. So these guys aren't serious, right? They're not serious about national security. They were serious about it.

Then these people would all go back to the work where they're supposed to, they're actually keeping our country safe.

They just want to actually put public pressures so they could get their way, and they could get an extra $30 billion on top of the 175 billion dollars they already have.

To go and do these massive deportations and hit the Miller quote that they want every day. So I saw you endorsed Maine Senate candidate Graham Platner this morning. Why, why would you let you to jump on the Platner train? There's a, you could have platinum plane or some of that.

“Look at the platinum liner right now, we're in war, right?”

You know, as a matter of fact, grab and I actually were in Iraq at the same time. He was down closer to Feluca. I was up closer to the Syrian border. We, we need veterans at action to stand there. Number two, janimals can't win. It's just that simple. Like, there's no way that we, we're going to get janimals to actually win in a year when people want, you know, authenticity.

Want some level of populism, you know, it's a change election.

And to think that we're going to send a 80 year old nominee versus, you know, I don't know how old senator Collins is. The appropriations share, and that's going to have a good outcome, I think it's fanciful. And the elections in two is in two months right now, let, or sorry, early ballots drop in two months. We need to consolidate around Graham. Like, Graham has lived real experience. He was a young Marine. He was dumb. He did dumb things, and he is actually apologized for them.

He's learned from that. Right now, we have so many people that are expecting this perfect candidate. And we end up looking for these perfect candidates that don't know how to connect with everyday voters. And we just, and we figured, oh, my God, I can't believe we lost. Well, we need to win.

“Democrats can't just win in North Carolina, I think we're going to win.”

We can't just defend in Georgia. We need to pick up seats or us win in the minority. It doesn't help us if it's Susan Collins, you know, is a little more moderate. She still gets power to John Thune, to have the power to appoint Supreme Court judges, to have the power to actually, you know, do another reconciliation, so you can super, you know, charge ice.

And so, uh, Graham's the only one that can win. That's it. It's very simple. And everyone else, you could have your excuses or everything else like that. There's only two candidates on the ballot right now. There's only one that could win, and we need to win the seats, and that's, that's the pathway we do it. And the man has lived a real life. He's a lobster man. He's a working class man.

He knows how to communicate. Not everyone's perfect, welcome to politics, but we will get him there. And he'll certainly will be better than Susan Collins. So he's under fire today. He had done and, and started to belabor the details, but I think they matter. Sure. He went on a, uh, a YouTube channel, did a live stream with a, with a guy, uh, is a pretty big channel. He mostly talks about guns, military culture, military life. He also does delve into some conspiracy theories, including anti-conspiracy theories around the killing of Charlie Kirk.

Plattener goes on the first channel and has an hour-long conversation talks about the values of immigrants and his friends and the immigrant community.

And it's a completely fine conversation represents his message, but people who are already suspicious of Plattener because of it had to, because some of those previous comments, as you mentioned, are saying, "Oh, this is just too much. We have, there's, there's too many signs or there's a person that's comfortable in these anti-Semitic environments." At the same time, they exist, they exist and he had a, well, I mean, it just takes on those platforms. Let's, let's back up, who's going on Joe Rogan Show?

I don't have to mention names, but there's a lot of Democrats have gone on Joe Rogan Show. Joe Rogan has said anti-Semitic anti-Jewish conspiracy intros. But because there's been these very sophisticated Democratic politicians, no one has a problem with those guys going on there, right? Some people do, but yeah, I take your point, but I have to mention some people do. Some people do, but like not to the outcry that's happening here, right? So like, working class man goes and has a conversation on a platform that is very similar to what Joe Rogan talks about,

not necessarily guns or stuff like that, but everyone freaks out on this guy. Why? Because the establishment doesn't want him. I mean, this is very simple. This establishment doesn't want him. So they're going to make sure that he looks bad. No one actually talks about the fact that he got that tattoo as a gang man and then re-enlisted twice.

“And every time you re-enlist, you have to go through a physical.”

When you go through a physical, the Marines and the Army, which he went and joined later, they check for tattoos. And they check it against a database of anti-Semitic and gang tattoos.

Never, ever, was, was hailed there. Then he actually went and got a security, a very clear, top security clearance to protect the ambassador of Afghanistan.

Also, you have to get check for that. So clearly, you know, him and his mates, when they were young and stupid Marines, like I was a young stupid Marines, got a tattoo that looked like a cross and skull bones, which we have a lot of those in the Marine Corps, like pirates. pirates, but what happens is years later when he finds some to politics, someone like points it out, and what do you do? He gets rid of it.

But now because he's running against the establishment, he's tainted, right? Because he was a young young, young, young, young, young, young, young, young, young, young, now that he's, you know, in his, you know, late 30s or late 40s, you know, it's always going to hold against him. But he's a type of person actually understands how young stupid people are and how people change.

And he's the one actually connects with not, you know, this governor who's 80 years old, but you don't hear about that. You don't hear about the fact that, like, for all these times he kept going through all these vets and he kept on passing the vet, right? All you hear is just the fact that, oh, it's an SS mark.

No, if you look at it, it looks like skull and crossbones. You know, if you're a marine, you know, we get stupid tattoos. We get tattoos in different languages. Don't even make sense. And we get tattoos of things that look cool, especially when you're young, that young and

dumb. And the man has actually made, you know, a men's for it. You know, there was a, you know, there's already a movement. There's a movement of people that want to continue helping these elite people win, even though they can't win the election and hoping that it will, instead of looking at the fact that, you know, the U.S.

government basically said that there was nothing wrong with the tattoo for years.

“So why would these young men think there was anything wrong?”

Until finally politics put it out to them. And good thing they put it out to them. And what do you do? You got rid of it as soon as you could. Yeah.

Look, people want to be suspicious of Graham Platner. They don't like these associations. I'll just say, I watch the whole conversation. And it was a great conversation where it was good to see a Democrat in that space being able to kind of have that conversation. And after he gets off the line stream, which nobody watched.

Like all these people telling Graham Platner, he has nobody watched. After he gets off the live stream, he's on this conservative libertarian program channel. That does engage at conspiracy theories that I do not like, which is why I don't consume them. Don't like them. He pulled his audience and they liked him.

They liked him 90 10. And so if you have a problem with him fine, if you don't think you should be a center of fine. But boy, I wish you had a better answer for what we do about not having people who can speak to these audiences. Also, by the way, you can question, like, you know, I'm not the kind of person like, oh, you shouldn't question this thing. Absolutely question, right?

“I think it's legitimate to be people have some concerns, right? Like why wouldn't you, right?”

But also don't let's not also like lie ourselves into this situation where somehow this guy is some evil being. Because number one, he's going to win. He's going to win that primary. Number two, once we realize, you know, the full scope of what people are talking about, once people look at the old tattoo, once people understand that the US government gave this guy very, very, very, very high security clearance, knowing that he had that tattoo and also assuming that it was also not anti-Semitic.

It all kind of starts making sense. Yes, maybe he was a stupid young man, but now he wants to serve his country and he's learned and he's grown. And guess what, the majority of Americans are not a bunch of student council presidents just, you know, being perfectly distilled people, waiting to run for governor president, senate, whatever someday, right?

Some of your colleagues are student council presidents.

I was just, I was a dorky student council president, so I'm like, I'm one of those people too, right? So like, but I'm saying in general, like, there's, there's a problem in this country where, you know, we want authenticity, but we only want the authenticity that's not that authentic, right? Yeah. We want some of the crossover and talk to these Republicans and conservatives and bring in these young men,

but we want to do it in a night's clean and neat way, right? We want this perfect candidate to be able to bring all these people that aren't perfect into our coalition. That doesn't exist, right?

“You have to accept a lot. You have to accept that some people are going to be, you know, at fault that they've made mistakes,”

that they said stupid things have they grown, have they learned from it, then that's, that's what matters. But if you, if you want that person that can figure out how to get those bros in, how to get that disaffected voter back,

how to get that Republican to crossover, we have to have people that are authentic first number two and have some real lived experience

to be able to go talk to that person and connect because if not, you're going to find our source in situation when we run these cookie cutter candidates in these tough races, I'm not saying you should, you know, you know, there's some definite races where you could, you know, have a cookie cutter candidate, the perfect candidate. But some of these races, you're going to have to have someone that could actually reach across the way and we actually touch somebody because that person has, you know, lived your life, understand your struggles, understand, you've made mistakes.

And it's, is, is willing to accept you into this coalition, provide that we all understand that we're here to make sure that Democrats win, that we have controlled the agenda, and that we're not going to have another, you know, two years potentially of Donald Trump in control of the Senate and the House.

“Last question because you're on such a roll on these, on these Democratic primaries, where are you and the Texas Senate Democratic primaries?”

You know, when this comes out, people will be voting in Texas if you wait in on Tel Riko versus Crochet, where's your head at? I mean, I, I think they're both great candidates, I think they're both, they both have a chance to win. I'm going to, you know, help out whoever wants to, to be helped come Tuesday, Tuesday. And, you know, I'm going to be very excited. Texas is, you know, the Arizona of this year. This is, I feel like what, what's happening in Texas, what happened in 2018 in Arizona, where we just had a huge surge and got people elected to office up and down the ticket.

I think you're going to see that also in Texas. And look, you know, my endorsements are, are all over the place. We want to do one through through line is I'm helping people get elected that can make sure we win. We need to have control of the House, we need to have control of the Senate. And sometimes that's going to be people that I think are on, will be a concern on the left, right, that are populists on the left. Somebody that's going to be people that are kind of near middle of the road, somebody that may be on the little on the conservative side.

I don't understand people don't see the world we live in right now. We're in a very dangerous situation. We need to make sure we have control. We need to take anybody into a coalition that can help us win control of the House and the Senate. And then once we actually get out of this craziness, then let's have a little purity battles, right? But this guy is the guy that nearly killed a lot of us on January 6. I was there on the House floor, right? This is the guy that just got us into a fucking war with Iran, right? Just the guy that's already taking, you know, ballot boxes and stuff out of out of Atlanta, Georgia.

And we're here trying to have this purity battles when we should be looking to see who's going to help us win these elections and by big margins for us to actually reset the agenda. Push the Democratic agenda forward, and that will be, you know, and the NBA, if you have never noticed, it's always ends up being a fairly progressive agenda. And then hopefully in 2028, we could deliver that Democratic president, Democratic House and a Democratic Senate, but you don't get a Democratic Senate for that president, if you don't win some seats, by the way, in 2026, because 2028 gets harder and then after I get harder, right?

We only need to understand that. We need to win first, and people, there's some candidates right now that just aren't going to make it through.

“Time is running out for them, and I want to win. I want to win so we could protect, you know, this country. We could protect them from Republicans, and you have to make some tough choices, and that's that's just how life is.”

Last last question, I just want to end because this is obviously on Iran. You know, there's there's Democrats that have been saying we didn't go through Congress. There's Democrats who oppose a war of powers vote at all, which I think is strange, because even if you believe Iran, the Iranian regime was a terrible government, and Congress have authority. But do you think Democrats on the whole are doing enough talking about why primitive wars are dangerous in and of themselves? No, I don't think they are. I actually think we need to get off this process question.

You know, I think voters are really smart. And, you know, I'm not saying that they won't understand this process question, but I think before they even get to the process question, they want to have a values conversation.

Can't remember anymore. But like that makes a difference. Like people right now want to see like strong leadership. They want to see like, oh, you know, what this guy knows what he's talking about or this guy knows what he's talking about.

They know that the war is bad for this country.

“And then the process question kind of will take care of itself, right?”

But we really need to show strong values when it comes to whether or not we're willing to commit our men and women to war, to potentially death, and not just for us, but also for Iranians. Or for other civilians in the war, whether it is, you know, Israelis and Israel or Jordanians or Saudis, you know, Saudi civilians that are all, we've all kind of exposed to this regional breakout, right?

These are the things that we need to be considering before we get into these big process questions.

“Well, Senator Ruben-Gayagov, thanks for your time. Thanks for talking to us. And we'll talk to you again soon. Appreciate it.”

Okay.

That's our show for today. Thanks to Senator Gayagov for coming on. If you live in Texas, I hope you get out and go today. Last chance.

Dan and I will be back with a new show on Friday.

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