Tom Nichols: Sinking Into the Mire of a Longer War?

Comer evenly one, staff writer at the Atlantic, professor of merit tests at U.S. Naval

War College. His books include the death of expertise, it's radio-free Tom Nichols. How are you doing Tom? Hey, Tim, how are you? You know, caveats included. I'm doing I tough loss for the honey badgers. The girls basketball team at Coach last night, one point loss. I didn't really agree with the ref's foul call at the end. And no one cares about that except for me, but now the listeners with this podcast have to go. Well, they can still

win if Mike Pence has the courage. That's true. I want to go through the latest with the war. I'm just going to run through some headlines. Then we'll take through them one to time. The U.S. K.C. 135 refueling aircraft went down in Iraq earlier this week. All six

crew members aboard are now confirmed deceased. Oil prices are teetering around 100 bucks

of barrel. The F.T. says that U.S. has burned through years of munitions and starting the war, including Tom Hawks, the Navy's going to be filling the pinch for years. Axia says that Trump claimed in a call with his G7 allies that Iran is about to surrender. He simultaneously said nobody knows who is the leader. So there's no one that can announce surrender. That's a paradox I want to get to. Hexeth had a press or this morning. He opened it by criticizing

CNN and saying he's excited for David Ellison to take over. And he said that how many the new Supreme Leader is wounded and likely disfigured. So that's the run to show. I want

“to start with the surrender paradox. Because I guess that's how Trump thinks we get out”

of this war. How can we know that they're about to surrender if we don't know who the surrender is? We can't. And also surrender to whom? You know, like surrenders require handing over power to somebody. That's, that's, it's not a generic surrender term. I mean, I suppose surrender. You know, he could be saying that they're about to exceed to my main demands. Okay. But that means there's still going to be in power means that they're, you know,

they're still running their own country. I mean, Trump has a pretty expansive notion of the word surrender. I think you and I've done this so long. We kind of qualify as Trumpologists or, you know, Trump experts. But you notice that when he gets into trouble with something, he starts to kind of rely on little verbal crutches. You know, is there going to be a health care

plan? We're looking at it very strongly two weeks. And you're going to see something you've never

“seen before. It's going to be amazing. It'll be the best thing that was, you know, it's almost like”

it's, you could press a little button on the back of his head that says, you know, spiel 36 A. And I think that's becoming this. I saw him last nighty. There's a clip of him. It's going very well. Like nobody's ever seen before. When you hear stuff like, like, nobody's ever seen before, then you know, he's anxious. So I don't know what surrender mean at this point. I don't think he does it either. But I think it's a word he's going to say because he's trying to sell

that. He's trying to market it to the people that are telling him he needs to wrap this up. He may be thinking of the Celine Dion song or cheap trick. Yeah, cheap trick. Sorry. Was that before your time? Well, I know that cheap trick existed. But I don't know, what is the song? It would be the song. What's the relevant song? You see, you see back in the day, when we used the crank to phonographs. Okay, cheap trick. One of their most famous songs is called

surrender. surrender. Yeah. I know this song. The cheap trick as I'm googling this right now that cheap trick guys are kind of handsome back in the day. I think that's a nice look. Anyway, let's hard to do a transition from that into my next topic. So we're just going to do a straight pivot, which is the deaths. We don't exactly know, I guess, what happened with this playing over a rock, now we're up to to 14 American casualties in the war. There's a French casualty

yesterday as well. I don't know how that's going to be received in Europe. Adam Kensinger was ranting about this particular plane on social media and this kind of disc predates Trump but how like bail out is not an option on this plane if you get into trouble for various reasons and so the military should have been dealing with that. But putting us out of the specifics of that critique, like I think the broader critique is just, you know, for all the talk of like the war fighters,

there seems to be kind of a lack of of care about focusing on their safety. I mean, this was brought up very briefly in the Hague South Press conference today, much more time spent complaining about seeing that. I don't know that I'm going to point the finger at Central Command and say they're going

“to take care of their people. I would say the question you have to ask is, whatever we're doing,”

worth the risk of all the things that can happen during a major military operation,

the theater with, you know, jeeps flipping over, you know, kind of things. You know, car accidents,

“people falling down stairs. I mean, anytime you deploy people, somebody's going to get hurt”

doing something like this. It's interesting. I don't know enough about the, you know, kids and girls complain to say that, you know, the plane is poorly designed or they've made poor choices. What it looks like or what the initial reports seem to look like is there was some kind of collision in midair, which, you know, when you've got big refueling tankers flying close to other planes, you know, that kind of thing can happen. The bigger question is, is all of this risk,

military risk from, you know, enemy action, the risk of trying to do complicated things like refuel airplanes and, you know, combat zone, is this worth of what the president wants to do? And that would be an easier question. If we knew, you know, what it is, I saw last night, the White House shot off one post and said something about, it's like destroying around cement, one mission, one objective, you know, success. I'm like, so we went from like 10 to 6 or 7 to 1 and a fairly

“achievable thing. And the objective now, I guess, is depleting their military. I guess that's what”

they're saying. It is now. Maybe, you know, you know, a number of missiles in their navy, you know, like that, that's, that's kind of what they're falling back on now. It's what Marco is saying. But it's right. Okay. Well, what happened to rise up your day of liberation, isn't it? You know,

which I never thought was a good idea, unless we were actually going to support that and I didn't

think we ever would. Because, you know, it's a big place. And we don't have any forces on the ground. And so, you know, all the other stuff is now falling by the way. So I terrorism in the nuclear program and regime change. I guess Chris Murphy came out of a briefing and said, "All that's stuff's gone. You know, there's no more regime change talk. It's not really about the nuclear program." And what I suspect they're doing is retconning now. They're saying, "Well, this was always

what this one objective. We didn't brilliantly mission accomplished." Which, you know, might be the best and face-saving way out of this for Trump at this point. Even if that is the face-saving way out of it, I mean, he's in a real briar patch right now. You know, like even if they did say that they did that and turned around immediately, it's hard to make the case that that trade is worth it. You know, that doesn't plus American troops dead. We're depleting our own munitions. I mentioned

that F.T. report in our own preparedness for an actual threats. Some of the things somebody that was actually threatening to us will get into Russia's biggest gift to them. And all of this type to plead the Iranian Navy, really? Okay, great. Well, we worried about the Iranian Navy, the way in the American people. I'll get me started about the Iranian Navy. We're just taking their ships across the Atlantic. Who cares, if we got rid of the Iranian Navy? People been yelling at

me for three days that the U.S. Navy couldn't have forced the surrender of Iranian frigate,

“in which case maybe you know, we ought to be thinking about a refund. But I think it is presumptuous”

of us to say, is it worth it at this point? Because I don't think that really helps the grieving of the families. I'm in and in a broader sense. That about, I guess, they're like, yeah, I mean, I get was this level of effort, including the deaths and the risk worth it. And I think I will try to be as fair to his supporters as I can that they would say. Listen, Ron is off the board as a military player for years. Their nuclear program has been set back years. They know now that we're just

going to mold the grass any time we feel like because, you know, there used to be this kind of unspoken, you know, we're not going to reach out and touch a run. We don't want to whack that hornets nest. Well, we've done that. And so, you know, that this is a much reduced, much less dangerous a run. No, no, it's important to steal man what a positive art case would be. Right. So let's do that. Let's say that that is true. Let's say that happens that Iran is off the board. Okay. So

simultaneously, it's to that. Let's look at what's happening with Russia. Like Ukraine is helping us with the drones in Iran because we didn't prepare for the Shahead drone attacks. And so Ukraine's helping us. But meanwhile, we're easing sanctions on Russia because of the oil market fall out. And Russia is like caching big time over this war. So, like, would it have been worth it to say, hey, we're going to sideline Iran for five years and an exchange for that Russia to turn

into extra armies in Kimchapka. Yeah. Exactly. Well, seriously, like Russia's got two two billion more dollars now of just just already that they can use, like they were depleted. And now they're going to get to what's the opposite of depleted replete. It's pretty clear that

this team didn't think through, never mind the second and third order effects. They didn't think

through like the first order effects. Right. This will be, you know, if there are still war colleges

they just, you know, they were constantly caught by surprise. What? They can mine the strengths of

“foremost. What is this witchcraft? You know, every every work game every scenario always begins with”

the assumption that the Iranians are going to do that kind of stuff. They script wrote a whole scenario in which we smack them hard. We kill the Iatola and they, you know, brown out their bridges and they say, we give up, you know, please come, we greet you as liberators, you know,

and that was never going to happen. And so once all that went to shit, then they had to figure

out, well, what are we going to do now? Well, let's just keep hurting them and keep blowing stuff up. You know, Trump did this post the other day. Well, the price of oil is good for us because we're a big oil producer. No, saying that we make money off it because Americans are going to have to pay for $4 gallon gasoline. You know, that's a pretty desperate thing. And it means that the Russians are making money off of it. And it means that we've had to admit that we can't control events in two

“places at once. And it means that we didn't really think about consulting with all of our allies.”

There's other stuff going on in the Gulf. It doesn't countries. I mean, what are we up to now about how many countries have been hit by the Iranians? You know, we look like a week ally or an opportunistic ally because now we're saying, hey, maybe if we get a little help around here, well, you know, I should have thought of that three weeks ago. We're obviously now not only helping out the Russians, you're pointed about oils while taking, but we're also not confronting them about

some of the mischief they've been up to about helping the Iranians and potentially feeding them intelligence and Steve Woodcastle. While they've told me, they've told me they're not doing

them. I'll take them at their word. We'll congratulations, you know, Steve, you are the first guy

to take the Kremlin to take Vladimir Putin at his word. So it's just a mess all around. And the opposite, but I actually, it's not just that we're not confronting them. I Trump continues to like fingerwag Zelensky. Like, oh, a friend, like Putin wants to come to the table. Zelensky that doesn't want to come to the table. And the whole thing is, the whole thing is insane. Right? That we are allowing them to now help stabilize their teetering economy.

You know, while their legitimate threat and their, you know, some conversations about what else they have planned with Russia, potentially targeting other Baltics NATO, states like, like, that's like a real risk, at least for your, or your PNL, and Russia is fucking with us in Iran. And we're

like lecturing Zelensky. A few Ukrainians. Like, have you said, thank you to us yet.

It's like what? Putin right now is, you know, like Alan Rickman in diehardt, where he says, you were hoping for a miracle. Theo, I give you Donald J. Trump, you know, which has just rescued them on multiple levels. While things are going very poorly for them in Ukraine. I mean, who does 100 dollar barrel oil benefit? Well, you know, that's a pretty short list. If we were trying to steal man in the case to say, all of this is worth it for what? And Trump's answer seems to be

or depending on who's, you know, his surrogate is at any given moment. Well, it's better than a nuclear bomb. Okay. It's, I will print that. You know, if you really had evidence that they were about a

“week away from 10 nuclear bombs, I'd say, well, I guess all, but then go big. Then you have to”

really go big. Then you really do have to occupy the country. You have to go, you know, North Korea times five. You know, but they're not making any of these cases other than I really thought, I could just do a Venezuela in a place that isn't Venezuela. That's awfully built. Wardrow comes down to pieces that mix well and last. That's where quince shines. Premium fabrics consider design and everyday essentials that feel effortless to wear and dependable even as the season's

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“that you have to start to like grapple with. Okay, Trump is obviously stupid, but”

he's also kind of cowardly and you know, you get to say what you want about him. You never

have to hand it to Trump, but he's political instincts, but good enough to get elected president twice. You know, it's like, how could you do something that is so like politically stupid in this moment and that you get to theories of, "Oh, corruption or black may I reject all the black mayors?" He's like, "That's nobody has any black male on Trump that could be worse for on the worst case scenario and Iran could be." So maybe it's corruption. You're offering that it's just like

hubris, it's victory disease. Like you got, he got high on his supply. A lot of than I think, I mean, he thinks that there are going to be like statues built to him as the great liberator. I think people in whispering that in his ear for a while. You know, why do you think he's talking

about Cuba? You know, I am going to be not just a war president. I'm going to be the guy that sets

“the world right. You know, no more of this pussy footing around them. You know, it's time for the”

dictators to tremble for guys that's supposedly hate neocons. That is the neocon project on the whole jar of steroids. That is neoconning beyond the neocons wildest dreams. It just run around the world setting things right. I guess I kind of thought with saga about this point too. I feel like we need a different term. I call it jingoism because it's not like he wants the statue to him. Right. Like he doesn't want freedom for the Iranian and Venezuela and Cuban people really.

It is a little different. True. Although, you know, the whole project is we're going to bring real American value. Whatever the hell it is, you're saying it. You're right. In his case, it's absolutely that, you know, Lindsey Graham and the rest of him, who knows? I mean, Graham's was spoiling for a war, you know, for a long time. But you would think his base would say, listen, whether it's for your glory or some kind of whacked out neocon project, this is all the stuff you

said you're going to do. And that does raise the issue of his political instincts finally failing

him. This war has never been popular, except with his base, which, you know, his base just decides

what did he do today? Tell me what I have to support and also pour into lifestyle brand. They would do it. You know, it's the people who like the new album by their biggest fans like their new album because they are programmed to like their new album because they can't say anything bad about the kids call this stan culture. They have a pop artist that they're standing at or what the pop artist does. They're going to fight our you on their behalf on the internet. And that's

what it is. It's just the politics of stan culture. We used to call that a cult of personality, but yes, well, the factory disease thing that he said was right. You know, I do think. But it's hubris,

“but it's also, I think, you know, it is corruption. I think it is. We all get rich. I go to my”

statue, ribbon cutting, people throw flowers. I mean, I also think he's not well. I think this is not well old man who does not is not making good decisions. I mean, I think I'm sorry. I would be making a lot of the same criticisms of the war. And it's conduct, if Trump were 55 instead of 80, but I also think, you know, again, here's something clearly wrong with the president. There has been for a long time. They're not leveling with us about his health. And I don't think I think

his cognitive issues have made it that he can't really think things through. Can I bring up the shoes? Because, please, you know, the, this weird thing where Trump made everybody walk around and is in four shimes that don't fit them. And the reason I bring this up is because the additional problem here of hubris, victory, disease, vane glory, corruption is all compounded by the fact there's nobody in that room who's going to say, Mr. President, we really have to talk about this.

You know, maybe this isn't a good idea. Maybe we ought to change course here. Maybe we ought to think about that. Maybe we ought to anticipate the following things. I'm sure General Kane, among other military folks, try to raise these things. But you don't, you don't think that a guy clomping around in daddy's shoes is going to say, sir, this is a bad idea. Your secretary of state or your course there isn't a national security council anymore. But, you know, as your guy,

I'm telling you, they're going to mind the streets. We need to think about that. We need to think about some alternatives here. No, it's death of Stalin's stuff. It's all, yes, you know, good, good masterful moves. Let's give a specific example of that, a specific person who's in the clown shoes, you know, who is who's regressing to, you know, back when his mamma for addressed him in Appalachia and that's J.D. Vance of Ice President. Politico says this morning,

someone links to Politico. Maybe J.D. himself. I don't know. Someone texted Politico.

on. A senior Trump official texted to Politico. That's intriguing. You know, where we can have an in the vice president's on background on background to a newspaper saying, I don't know

“about this. Do we think he's going into the oval and saying that to Trump in his clown shoes?”

I sure don't. And I think this is where you pick somebody like J.D. Vance for V.P. You completely humiliated him. He called you possibly America's Hitler. He had to grove to get back into your good graces. He had to be pretend to be friends with your idiot son, you know, he had to talk about how brilliant you were and how wrong he was and how he went to Yale and he was so stupid and he didn't know anything but this reality TV guy, he knew everything

and he saw everything. He's a great genius and J.D. just had to humble himself before this great genius and now put on the exact shoes that he wants. And now he's not so sure about the great geniuses choice in Iran but do you think he's telling him that to his face or do we think that he's texting Politico? The ob is going to add to that list and laughing at, you know, all kinds of racist

crap in front of your and your wife and children. The first things I thought was with Politico

is, oh great, well now we we found Bridge Colby's burner phone. I wish I could take credit for

“this joke but I think it was Dan Dresner who posted on X something like, thank God Bridge Colby”

isn't here to see this, you know, or something to that effect. So, you know, there's there's clearly a group of people that are probably freaking out here, you know, the guys that actually thought seriously about foreign policy really thought we were going to pivot to Asia and, you know, tick on the Chinese and all that stuff and in fact, man, you know, the Chinese are probably have, you know, binders to use an old expression, binders full of notes about what's going on

in Iran and and learning all kinds of interesting lessons. But I mean, what's he going to do? What's he's got, he's been the invisible man, there was that really humiliating picture at the start of the war. Do you remember this where, you know, all the tough guys were in Mara Lago and, you know, president got his hat on and they're in this little pillow for that they've made of a, you know, a skiff, a skiff with rafters and somebody pointed out for those of you that

are not hip to stuff like this, you know, a skiff is a compartmentalized place where you can just that is electronically secure so that, you know, you can't bring in like apple watches or your cell phones or any of that and nobody can hear you. It's a place to discuss and examine classified material and this was done with like drapes and a room that had like a raftered ceiling. I mean, it was just so it was just so on brand for this bunch. But I digress the humiliating picture I'm

thinking of is, and, you know, and, yeah, it's a children's table, JD Vance and Tulsi Gabbard are digging into their lime gel out, you know, and, you know, and, you know, just got sick and all crackers. You know, they're quite goldfish, you know, and, you can tell I have grandchildren, I have got boxes of bunny grams laying around all over the place. But, you know, they're discussing important matters of state with JD Vance, Tulsi Gabbard, the professor and Marianne, all the rest,

and that's it. I mean, it was, you know, it's funny, but it's not funny. I mean, first of all, you're launching the biggest war in 20 years. Maybe I ought to be in Washington. I don't know,

“I'm just, I'm just, I'm spitballing here that, you know, maybe that's why we built a situation room.”

And, you know, you shouldn't be trying to launch a gigantic war in the Middle East from a golf resort in Florida. But I'm all fashion, you know, I'm just one of those old fashion guys to things that you want to be near the Pentagon and the State Department and the situation room and all of the nurse center of communications. But, you know, throwing up some blankets around the, around the steam

tables at the buffet works, too. You know, that's always a way to go. And, but JD Vance wasn't there,

is the point. Yeah. I was going to give people a little something to just a little skip in their step for the weekend on the Friday podcast. I think it was one thing. And so here's just something to think about. My first Instagram in the political story is that JD is going to try to get away with us. Right? Like the JD is going to be like, it wasn't me. You know, I'm the one true scotsman, the true America first person. You can trust me. You can count on me. And maybe that could

have worked for if you as the vice president for a different president. But how do you think that that will go over with Donald Trump? As long as Donald Trump is on this mortal coil, JD Vance

will never be able to utter a single word of critique to him besides in private to his friends

of political. Because you can't run for president in 2028 while saying that, oh yeah, the boss did

to run against your own goal. It was pretty hard for Comma with Joe Biden who has his own issues

“and a lot of evidence that he at least behind the scenes was being a pain in the ass to her frankly”

and criticizing her. Which I'm sure Donald Trump would never do behind the scenes. Yeah,

right. And I was like, Joe Biden is calling Comma as people and Comma sometimes would be like, hey, why are you distancing from me? You shouldn't be distancing from me. But Donald Trump is going to be on whatever AI social media he has in 2028 being like, this fat idiot loser. He has no idea how great our victory was in Iran. Like it's just the done work with Trump. Sorry, JD. JD's got a lot of other problems starting from the fact that people just don't like him.

So, you know, he's going to need Trump to be to put his hand down and say, this is my chosen one. The problem is on that score is that there's some evidence that Trump's walking around saying things like, you know, Marco, Marco seems to be the stronger guy. You know, so it's almost like

the favored sun stat. This is passing over to Marco to little Marco, which I never, I mean,

just what world I'm really living in. I understand politics makes strange bread fellows. I wasn't born yesterday. You know, the first time I saw George Bush and Ronald Reagan on a stage together, I said, oh, this, this is a mixed marriage. But my god, it's another thing entirely to see, you know, which of these two guys that hated Trump is going to do better at getting his investment? And I suspect it's going to be Marco because, um, because he's just been the more, in that sense, the more

loyal, uh, and we're useful. I mean, that's the other thing is that Trump has gotten a lot of mileage out of Marco Rubio, um, in terms of top cover and getting actual work done and, you know,

“one of the things that I think is really profoundly amazing about this administration is how much”

Trump doesn't rely on his own cabinet for anything. He runs like his business. He's got this kind of main guy. He's got Susie Wiles. He's got Miller who's like the minister without portfolio walking around and JD Vance and Pete Heggseth and the rest of them are all kind of kept away from, uh, you know, anything really breakable. All right, y'all, you know that we are plant gays in our house, but did you know that fast growing trees is America's largest and most trusted online nursery

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Yeah, to steal from JBL. Excuse me. I haven't been asked surprised about what world we're

in with Marco because I can always spot a squealer and he was a squeal. Let's go down the list of

squealers to the Secretary of Defense, the Reforms and the Ocon. Pete Hague says press conference this morning. I mentioned a couple of things. I want to play a couple of clips. One, this is how he started the press conference, his media criticism, and then he was addressing concerns about the straight-of-horror minutes. Let's listen. Yeah, some of this crew in the press just can't stop. Allow me to make a few suggestions. People look up at the TV and they see banners, they see

For example, a banner or a headline, "Middy's wore intensifies, splashing on the screen the last couple of days." Alongside visuals of civilian or energy targets that Iran has hit,

“because that's what they do. What should the banner read instead? How about Iran increasingly”

desperate? The only thing prohibiting transit in the streets right now is Iran shooting at shipping. It is open for transit, should Iran not do that. Okay. Well, so Iran isn't increasingly desperate. And the straight-of-horror moves is open. If not for the Iran shooting, this whole set of drones and pumps at the boats going through it. So that's the Secretary of Wars take on the state of play. I did a TV segment last night where we were talking about all

the kind of shitposting and mean generating that they're doing. And listen to Hague Seth and you realize just how juvenile, how adolescent, how whiny, little kid, you know, it all sounds. Well, the straights are open, except for those meanies shooting. Well, then they're not, then being adult, man. Say, "Look, we have a problem. Straits are Iran is menacing. We are taking action. We're going to deal with this." Instead, it's all kind of trying,

and Trump does the same thing, trying to manifest things into being. You know, don't say that the war is intensifying. Say, Iran is desperate. When things are blowing up all over the Gulf, the war is intensifying. A normal adult person would use that language and call it denotative. You know, that it's not emotional language. It's not fake. It's a thing. Iran is desperate. Is a, you know, you're a writer. I'm a writer. We know that's a headline says, "Oh,

are you mind reading?" Right? First thing an editor would say to you. You read their minds.

You know, they're desperate. You've met the eye at Tola. The last thing that the eye at Tola,

“the only thing this new eye at Tola has put out has been basically boiled down to three letters.”

G. F. Y. Are they desperate? Do you have evidence? Mr. Secretary, can you show us? Can you give us a real briefing instead of a kind of a morning, you know, bitch fest or airing of grievances or a daily festivist? Bring out a board. Show us, tell us why you think being headline should be Iran is desperate. You know, give us some numbers. Give us some disposition of forces here. Show us what? I went through the first Gulf war in Washington. What's these briefings all the

time with my boss, US Senator? You know, this isn't hard to do. Second Gulf war. People were

embedded. You had daily updates. You knew exactly what was going on. These guys come out and say, quit writing stuff. Well, that's not an answer. That's not an adult. This is the, I mean, I'm really missing, you know, guys in gray suits saying good morning. Here's the situation. This is what's happening. This is why your sons and daughters are in mortal peril. This is what we're doing about at these are the objectives they're going to obtain. And instead, you get a guy who comes

on every morning and makes it about him. And you know, why are you all being me? I mean, while we're spitballing headlines, you know, I mean, one other thought might be six more American troops dead, former talk show host turned secretary of war lines about TV cairons. I might be another one.

“I don't know. Is that something that happened? And it would be perfectly accurate. That's what's”

going on. It's, it happened exactly that way. Oh, they don't look the TV cairons. It's like, you kind of have some pretty serious matters here. Oil brides are skyrocketing. Your troops are dying and are being injured. Maybe the TV cairon isn't isn't your top concern. A few of the secretary of war right now. But you're a TV host, so. But after that rally last night, it seems like, you know, the French actually did a split screen. I don't know if you saw this, the French TV

did a split screen of, you know, giant fireballs erupting during strikes at that moment as they split screened with Donald Trump, who was doing his thing, you know, on the stage with a little weird old guy dance that he wants with the A playing thing. Yeah. And, you know, it was like, oh, oh, Jesus Christ. I mean, what are we, what are we even doing here? The part about, you know, those cairons are intentionally written. Really, I thought they were just a refrigerator magnets.

It's like how else would they be written besides intentionally? Intentionally. And you've got all these people there at A to clock in the morning saying, tell us about the six additional deaths, why are these airplanes having a plot? What happened? Where, what are our operations seeking to

achieve today? Because that was always, you know, in the other words, it's a today. This is, you know,

we're, these are the following things that we can give you as of, you know, a 100-zulu. This is where we are, right? And instead, it's like, you know, those cairons, they're intentionally written.

We'll get to what's happening with our time of hoax. After I, I have a list that's been

“provided to me of cairons. So I, I don't, I don't like from TV. It's not interesting news. I'm just”

coming across the Pentagon is moving a marine expeditionary unit to the Middle East as Iran steps up his attacks on the straight of Hormuz. Hague Seth actually approved the requests to move additional forces to the Middle East. So that kind of, you know, not to be just too pedantic about all this, but it does seem like the war is escalating in the Middle East, if we're sending more troops. You're sending a marine expeditionary force? Yes. Yeah. It seems like the cairons kind of

fine, actually. As escalating seems very low-balled in a little bit. Yeah. You know, if you're sending a marine expeditionary force, let us try and do a service to the listeners here. Why would we do that? Are we really going to attempt to seize the streets of Hormuz? Are we going to land a force? And actually, I mean, it's incredibly risky. Just to throw this out there, there's some, and I don't want to pretend to be an expert on this. But there's like an island

“right in the straight, then we're that there was talking about a sea of capturing, you know, in order”

to have a base there to help people know. So who the, and who the hell knows what they're actually doing, but like that, that I'm the military vlogs. I was already there some discussion about that. I'm not even going to comment on the wisdom of doing this because I'm not sure what they're going to try and do if they're going to try and do it in there. I mean, this could also just be another one of those things of, you know, kind of a kind of jumping out of the, out of the force

kneeling boo. Sometimes you signal by moving stuff around, right? Say, I don't want to do this, but I'm putting forces in place that can do bad things that you're not going to like. But none of this tracks with, there are already beaten, there are already surrendering, they're going to

surrender, this wars will be over very soon. I mean, this is Trump basically sinking in the,

in the mire of a longer war. Well, trying to reassure the markets every day by saying surrender is near. You can only pull that trick so many times, you know, where the market finally just says, no, we don't believe you anymore. And oil stays at a hundred bucks a barrel. And, you know, the doubt 50,000, those were good times, you know, not so long ago. And, you know, they're not going to keep buying the resurance. Ooh, 46, eight, you know, or still ways away. Um, and on the gas prices,

just want to think you kind of alluded to this, but they're now making the full pivot from this is temporary prices are going to go back down to it's good, actually. The prices are up, Chris Wright, Secretary of State, and it's going to be just going for a while. Yeah. Fortunately, the US produces more oil than we can consume, where a net oil exporter, so overall for the US economy, this isn't bad news. This is such a dumb argument because it just drives me around on my

seat here. Imagine if you said this about some other commodity, and it's true, right? The United States produces more wheat than it can possibly consume, right? Yeah. I mean, we subsidize corn so that we can turn it into, you know, gasoline, you know, say, okay, to say, look, um, wheat corn,

we have more than we can use. Don't worry, we're never going to run out. Of course,

a loaf of bread is going to be seven bucks. Right. Yeah. I mean, you would just never say this about anything else. I mean, it's just a name to say, no, no, a high oil prices are good. It's good for us. It's good for the Russians, you know, but it's not good for you. Like good for job creation. Maybe here with Louisiana might be accidentally the only good thing that happens for Jeff Landry and Midland West Texas, like, you know, a couple of places where they'll have a few more jobs. But I don't

know that that's worth it. Right. And I feel like Billy Bob Thornton is already drawn up the paper. Yeah. He's doing great. He's going to have an extra big house renovation in Fort Worth, but I don't know how what that does for everybody else. But now I got to pull my old guy routine and say children, I have been through an energy crisis. Okay. When I was a teenager, you know,

the oil shocks of the early 70s and what people don't understand is the first thing they're

going to see are high prices of the gas pump. Right. Now, I am of the age. I had to wait and line for gas. It'd be fascinating to see that reaction among Maga World. But I don't think that's, oh, I shouldn't say it's not going to happen. But what people don't realize is a petroleum shock increases the price of everything. Yeah. You know, I mean, when I was a kid, not that these

“matter anymore, but the first one of the things I noticed, like record albums, everything. Why?”

Because they're made with petroleum products. And as this oil shock went on, anything that required petroleum of any kind just got more expensive. So plastic food, plastics, food. You know, certain kinds of agricultural products, you know, and this notion that while I'll just stay high for a while, that's good for us because we make a lot of oil. Yeah. We sell it. But also, we buy it. We have to fill our tanks with it. We have to buy other stuff. And it shows you. I mean,

we talk about chirones, about desperation. That was a desperate thing to say.

You, you referenced this earlier. This is another, I just, I don't want to faint expertise. I'm

“but I was reading who's saying I wish on this. And, you know, this is just triggering my like small”

sea conservative impulses, which is like when you do something big, when you have a big plan,

you don't always know exactly like what is unexpected that could come out about. There's been a lot

of chatter about the progress being made by Jared buying off Sharia law dictators, the Middle East, to get them to be nice to Israel. And like we've had normalization with some of these countries, and Abraham Accords, and elsewhere. Okay, that could be good normalization between Israel and Gulf States. Obviously, you got to give credit where do of the progress is made. But we're starting to see now, this is a comment earlier this week, that Gulf States are now starting to view Israel

as an agent of chaos equal to Iran. The war is far worse than the Gulf States feared. There's plenty of blame to go around. They are still in rage against Iran, whether they're dismayed at the decisions

“of D.C. They are getting suspicious about Israel's regional ambitions, people are fleeing,”

Dubai, and Abu Dhabi for safety concerns. We don't know exactly what this says. I don't want to overstate it, but again, like something like this could have also other unintended consequences. Maybe it just undermines the progress that was made. Maybe it's worse than that. It's a known unknown, but the one thing we can know is that we didn't prepare for any of this. We didn't diplomatically lay the groundwork to go to our friends in the Gulf, even our friends in the Gulf and say, hey,

this is going to get sporty, and we've got you back, and we're going to try and protect you, and we understand that this is going to cause some problems. Instead, we just went cowboy and said, hey, you know, BB called, and you know, we agree, and this is a good idea, and we're going to take on a run, and it's going to take just a few days, so everybody said tight. Well, two weeks later,

“you start to accumulate the problems that you didn't think of ahead of time, that you didn't”

prepare the ground diplomatically. You didn't prepare the ground with your own people. You certainly didn't prepare it with friends overseas. I mean, MBS got a heads up because I'm in Jared on a what's up, Shane, and all that, but for the rest of the rest of the earth states, I don't know. Well, and you know, thank God that our ambassadors are such top-notch talents. Now, you know, as my cuckabee and Charles Kushner, and you know, the rest of this, this, you know, embarrassing

group of basically culture warriors and internet trolls, and people that paid off the Trump family.

It's done the thing that we've seen. Everybody's accountable for their own behavior, so this is not, I'm not trying to say that like because we did this, we had these terror attacks, but we've seen this uptick now. We had the shooting in Austin. The guy had an Iran shirt on. We now at Old Dominion and Norfolk yesterday, shots are fired at an ROTC classroom, killing an army, Colonel Brandon Shod, wounding two other army personnel. The shooter was a former Army National Guard member who had

some terrorist sympathies, apparently shooters shouted out of the lock bar. There's then this attack at the Temple Synagogue in West Bloomfield that rammed the vehicle into the building while pre-school is in session, the driver 41-year-old do a citizen from Lebanon who lost several family members and an air strike in Lebanon last week. So, you know, I mean, this is horrible. I'd be upticking anti-Semitism is, we're seeing everywhere, the risks, the threats to Jews in America are real,

the uptick in terrorist activities here. Does anybody believe that they thought through of all that and like prepared for it and planned for it and that we have experts and people in counter terror and charge, we've fucking fired the Iranian counter terror team a week before the war started. Oh, we did all kinds of really smart things. We also shut off just to go back to the International Arena for a moment. We also, you know, pretty much shut off the, you know, Voice America Farsi service.

So, you know, could, could call there. You know, I don't want to be overly critical

of anybody in counter terrorism because trying to stop these radicalized lone wolves is really hard to do. On the other hand, boy, what I feel better about this, if we had a real director of the FBI instead of this, you know, jet-setting party boy, you know, who's running around the world and having the time of his life, bucket list stuff. You have sea fighters. I'll not be training FBI agents. Do we think that that's that's everybody's time and resources right now having

UFC fighters trained FBI agents on how to do grapple moves in the ring. That one got me to the point of, I just had to tap out for a minute. I just said, this can't be. I thought it was actually the onion. I'm not intended. And God Tim, I saw that and I said, that's kind of funny,

And, you know, this is just a complete madness. And at a time when, yes, you know, again, there are dedicated professionals out there trying to stop terror attacks. But it would be nice to have some seriousness from people at the top and these kind of terror attacks, especially if you haven't prepared the country, you know, one of the things that could have happened in Trump laying down the product at four months and get ready for this. This is a thing we

might have to do. And we're going to increase, you know, our communication and our interaction with local and state law enforcement. And we're going to tell them, you know, when this thing starts beyond your guard. And instead, you know, we get midnight videos of an old guy in a white hat saying

it's a, it's a, it's a amazing thing. And it never, like, it never saw, they're going to surrender.

It's like nobody wants to be the person to go out and just soberly and calmly tell the American people about the risks, the rewards, the opportunities, the dangers. It's all in part because this administration, the people in it are so insecure that they're terrified of appearing to be anything but completely in control, chest puffing and manly. I mean, you see it with headset, you see it with the president and you, and interestingly enough, you don't see it with Marco Rubio,

he kind of, you know, just trying to stay out of the frag pattern here and get, get some things done apparently. But the ones that go out there, it's like, it's okay. We're adults. Americans

“are grown-ups. Talk to us. Tell us this was something we needed to do. It's very important. Here's”

why, here's the things we're going to do. You know, and instead it's, everything's great. And no more of your, no more of your chirones. Well, and you mentioned the risks, and like, you know, when I was a little kid, my dad's investor, he taught me about risk-benefit analysis, didn't really sink in as much as it should have during my teen years. But, you know, it was a good attempt at fatherly listening. That's not kind of what I'm saying. That's about the blown wolf stuff here.

It's like, you knew that would be an increased risk. Like, you just knew it would. And you knew that the tensions are already really high, and that there's a lot of anti-Semitic violence and threats already in the country. Right. Like, that was already happening. You went to war with a

Muslim nation of 92 million people. You had to assume that there were going to be some dangers around

because of that. And then, you know, you add into it, straight to form moves, the cost going up for everybody, you add into the Arab stage, you add into it, the helping Russia. And I'm just tying everything together in this, in the conversation that we've had, there was no concern or calculation or consideration at all of, like, the increased risks. There was no plan beyond Donald Trump's imagination. There was no plan beyond Donald Trump's kind of fever dream. Well, there's

beat, and BB had a plan, but yeah, that we didn't. It looks like these really, and American plans might not be the same plan anymore. Yeah, clearly. If you only have one ally, you might want to be on the same page, just as a diplomacy lesson here. You know, and in the meantime, and I have to just

point this out. In the meantime, Pete Higgs says is going after the war college, America's war

colleges. There are a bunch of people out there at social media who think that I'm going to get fired from a job I retired from three years ago. We wouldn't want people learning anything in the military. But talking about things like risk analysis, and you know, linking operations to strategic goals, like these are all the things we're not doing right now. And you want to, you want to, you know, shit can, the only people that are actually that are actually teach the military,

how to do that. It seems like a bit of a distraction when, you know, you probably ought to be briefing the country on why two airplanes hit each other over the desert. Last thing, we're a month now

“tomorrow from the DSDHS shutdown. And I mean, I think that probably the least important”

outgrowth of all this is that people will have to wait a long time in TSA lines at the airport. It's like, these are all real things. Like, you know, commerce does to happen. People still have to go places. They have to see their family. They have to go do, you know, work trip. Like, the idea that we've had bomb threats at airports in Kansas City, you know, that our TSA agents are getting paid public servants are not getting paid. And and it's at a time when we have like

real threats to Homeland Security. And we're, we're in this shutdown because the government wants to keep the option to have massed thugs roaming the streets going forward. They're not keeping the option. They want to continue to have massed thugs roaming the streets. And so they're going to let the Department of Homeland Security be shut down for a month during a war. Simply as a tantrum to not actually do something that most Americans want done. I want to give

a shout out to the TSA firm and it be somebody hates them. The TSA workers got loved them. I

“appreciate you doing a fucking terrible job. I just, that's what I was going to say. Yeah, no. It's been”

25 years. I don't know why we're taking our shoes off still. The shoe bomber wasn't even very good.

I, I recently had to take my shoes off because they had metal on them or some damn thing, right?

“And, you know, and so they were like, sorry, and I was like, listen, it's okay. You know,”

you got to job to do because, you know, the other thing that happens is if a terrorist ever does

get on a plane again, the first people are getting a blamed are those guys. And, you know, I think

it's just a lot of security theater. And I don't feel less safe now that the DHS has shut down. I felt less safe when it was open and Corey Lewandowski was running it. But again, it would be nice to see adult leadership, you know, at the top of the government during a war. And instead, it's like, it's like Delta House or something. I mean, it's, you know, Pluto and DDA are in charge of security and because they didn't think about all this stuff. I guess it went so we keep coming

back to them as the DHS shut down, Russia oil prices, the streets are, you know, this would, this all should have been gamed out. They should have been doing nothing but having meetings all

“day saying, and then what do we do? What are our options here? That's how it's done. You know,”

that's the process. I've been to some of those things. And they just didn't do any of it, which tells you, you know, again, not only that the president's instincts failed him, but they're not being very good stewards of American national security that they've put us in, you know, in a very dangerous situation. I will steal man at one more time. Maybe for good reason. Maybe for some, I know, I saw that real it. Don't you give me that lucky young man? I know, I, you know,

maybe for some reason that will become clearer when the smoke clears. I don't think so, but I can't be the guy constantly making the case that the president refuses to make. You know, you're saying it's nice for the TSA agents. And I have to tell you just doing like a personal assessment. Like six out of ten times, I go over out of my way to be nice to the TSA just because it's a shitty job and I understand it and it's not their fault. Three out of ten, I'm doing Ujai breaths,

you know, and just calmly trying to get through without getting upset. One out of ten, maybe I'm a little rude when you're touching my dick in the year 2026, like 25 years after 9/11, I don't, I don't have an underwear bomb on, and I just, I think some of this is a little much,

“but it's not that person's fault, but sometimes I have to, you have to keep telling yourself that. So”

I'm going to try to improve. You're, you're inspiring me to try to improve to get up to seven out of ten times being nice. We've all run into a bad public servant. There are a couple of TSA agents I certainly would nominate for throwing off the jetway, because they seem to enjoy that job a little too much. They should get paid though. They should be getting paid. That's insane that they're working right now without paycheck. That's insane. Ninety percent of the people, and maybe it's just because we have

a really lovely little airport here in Rhode Island, but 99 percent of the time, I find that they are

professional. And if you really want to feel, maybe we can end it a later note, if you really want to feel some sympathy for the TSA guys, just stand there for a moment and watch what people do. You know, walk up in this DM&ID. What? You know, drivers license. I want to know, oh, maybe hold on. You know, these people that are like 40 years on you want to say, is this your first day at the airport? Is this like a field trip, or, you know, or,

Yes, ma'am, that 16 ounce jug of water can't bring that on. Why not? Because you just can't, and you're just not going to, you know, and then it's like the comedy routine, right? They open

up their suit and kiss and take it out, you know, it's like, okay, these cafe, like, have you never

been to an airport? You're right. 25 years later, we're doing stupid things. But 25 years later, how many of these people don't freaking realize how to walk through a line at an airport? I mean, for Christ's sake, you know, so there's plenty of blame to go around. Thank you for coming to my TED Talk. Thank you as always to Tom Nichols. Everybody, you have a wonderful weekend. We'll take you out with a little cheap trick. And we'll see you back here on Monday with Bill Crystal. Bye.

Surrender. Surrender. But don't give yourself away.