DSR Daily March 4: US Sinks Iranian Warship as Conflict Spreads

right here on the DSR network.

“And there's no better way to enjoy the DSR network than by becoming a member.”

Members enjoying ad-free listening experience, access to our Discord community, exclusive content, early episode access, and more. Use code at DSR26 for a 25% off discount on sign up at the DSR network.com. That's code at DSR26 at the DSR network.com/bi. Thank you, and enjoy the show.

Hello, and welcome to the DSR Daily. I'm David Rothkup, joined by Riley Fessard and Minestine. We're here to talk about what's going on in the world today, which is a Wednesday in the beginning of March, there are little crocuses popping up through the lawn. It's little snow drops.

There's little chants that spring is returning.

“But elsewhere, the world looks a big mess.”

Who's going to tell us? Riley.

The conflict between the US is real and Iran has reached a critical point following the death

of the Itola and the sinking of an Iranian worship by a US submarine. As the war enters its fifth day, the violence has rapidly expanded across the region with Israeli strikes hitting Lebanon while Iranian missiles target Israel, Bahrain, and Kuwait. This escalation has already resulted in over 1,000 deaths and crippled the global energy markets by significantly disrupting oil traffic through the straight-aporn moves.

While Iran navigates a leadership vacuum and internal unrest, US and Israeli officials have indicated that their intensified military campaign against the regime's security forces could continue for several more weeks. Hey, we know about leadership vacuums. We've got a leadership vacuum here.

In fact, we have a leadership vacuum who's in charge of our strategy in there.

“You know, did either of you guys hear the conversation between Trump and Friedrich Merck?”

See, yesterday, the German Chancellor or the questions that Trump took beforehand? No, I'm not saying that. It was just, it was so pathetic. It was like, well, worst case scenario. I suppose the worst case would be if somebody replaced him who was worse than the guy who was there,

we would know that for a while anyway, but that could happen, right? That's like, yeah, that could happen. And he was going on again about, you know. Well, we had some ideas for who should replace him, but we killed them all. It was like, yeah, that's great.

And then he tried to walk back a little later in the day Rubio statement, if you were called Rubio said that the reason we entered into this conflict was because we knew that Iran would strike us after Israel struck them, and we thought Israel was about to strike them. Pretty convoluted and suggest we have no control over what Israel does.

And then Trump said, well, actually, I was the one who got Israel to make that threat.

So basically, the imminent threat that we were responding to from Iran

was initiated by us. That's really pretty special. You know, I've even said that, this war is spreading. It looks like hardliners are well in control in Iran. And it looks like we could be dealing with this for some time,

which is very grim news, particularly for people in the region who have to live with this and suffer with insecurities and pain that it brings. And the United States and Ecuador have launched joint military operations inside Ecuador, targeting criminal groups designated as terrorist organizations, marking an expansion of U.S. anti-drug efforts in the region under President Trump.

The move follows a series of aggressive actions against drug trafficking networks, including dozens of strikes on smuggling vessels and a rate in Venezuela as Ecuador struggles with escalating gang violence and cocaine trafficking. The Ecuadorian president has sought closer cooperation with the U.S. recently designated major gangs as terrorist groups signaling deeper American involvement

in the country's internal security crisis.

First of all, it makes eight the number of countries that we have attacked since Trump took office

in the past year. That's a new world record. And it's nine as we've pointed out if you count the United States, where he's actually sent troops into our cities illegally. But this whole idea of declaring drug groups as terrorists,

which is purely legal predicate to allow the president to strike them without due process. Doesn't seem to be slowing down. They seem to be coming up with a formula, which is, you know, what can--what do they have to do in order to allow them to do whatever they want with impunity? In the case of Iran, there was an imminent threat.

In the case of Venezuela and Ecuador now, in the case of Mexico, these aren't drug lords. They're terrorists, which means they're an imminent threat. In the case of American cities, there's an emergency. We declare an emergency.

“That's what's going to be the approach that they're going to take with regard to elections.”

They're essentially putting themselves under emergency control of everything, which is the oldest fascist trick in the book. That's what fascist leaders do all the time. And who's living with that? We are right now.

Every day, in almost every realm of our national activity. Right. The 2026 mid-term season launched with primaries in Texas, North Carolina, Arkansas, offering an initial look at how voters are reacting

to President Trump's second term.

In a pivotal Texas Democratic Senate primary, James Talerego, defeated Jasmine Crocket, signaling a potential shift as the party seeks to reclaim working class in minority voters after their 2024 loss.

“Meanwhile, the Republican side saw a heavy emphasis on Trump loyalty,”

with incumbent John Kornin and Challenger Ken Pax in heading to a runoff in a race where the candidates competed fiercely for the president's approval. The emerging conflict in Iran has also begun influence of political landscape as early polling shows only 25% of Americans support the recent strikes, creating a potential liability for Republicans,

if military casualties and gas prices continue to climb. Yeah, so another poll that suggested that support for the Iran War was roughly where support, a little under where support was for the Vietnam War when Nixon was in office the end of his term. A few things out of the Texas decision.

One was Talerego as a good candidate. He seems well suited for Texas, but he also sends a message of next generation leader and is trying to come up with a formulation for red state dams. And I think people are hopeful about that.

I would also say that Jasmine Crocket, who run against him, was, and who he narrowly defeated, was very gracious about it. You see unity in the dams.

“That's how you see in the Republicans in Texas.”

Senator John Cornan and Attorney General Paxon hate each other. Paxon was very close outcome.

There was a third party candidate.

He got 13% of them out, and that's why they're going to run off to sort of figure out who gets his vote. But Cornan, you know, decrys, Paxon's crime and his personal behavior and everything else. But Paxon essentially says, "Well, I'm the true or loyalist

to Donald Trump." That apparently carries some weight in Texas, where, for example, representative Dan Crenshaw, who's pretty far right. But what occasionally say something semi, you know,

ameliorative towards the situation between the parties, was deemed not far right enough and was beaten by a local politician who is considered, you know, on the extreme right, even in Texas. So that's something. We also had the congressman who's revelations

of his sexual abuse of a staff member, which led to the suicide of that staff member. He was not crushed.

There were other elections around the country yesterday,

and you did see some flipping of some Republican seats in places like Arkansas at the state legislature level. You saw a former North Carolina governor now being the damn candidate for Senate, which suggests that state may be more in play.

“It was an important day, but I think the most significant thing was”

that there's a lot of meddling and playing around with the polling places and the rules that really cast a shadow over the elections and Texas particularly in Dallas area. And, you know, I think this may end up being a proud of things to come particularly in red states

as they seek to suppress the vote by every means possible.

To the extent to which we see more of it, I think you're also going to see more tension nationally, even in the streets as people start to sense that the GOP is play in 2026 is not to win, but to steal the election.

Mama, how do you feel the great love on? Hmm. So, what? And so creamy. Hey, how can a papa scream me? Nutella, where does Mama and dad live?

No Nutella is Nutella. Minute.

“Donald Trump is meeting with major technology companies,”

including Google, Meta, and OpenAI, to formalize a rate payer protection pledge aimed at preventing rising electricity costs linked to the rapid expansion of AI data centers. The pledge is expected to require tech firms

to secure or fund new power supplies, pay for grid upgrades, an arranged special electricity rate agreements, households and small businesses are not burdened with higher utility bills, ahead of the November midterm elections.

However, critics, question whether the initiative will bring new power generation online quickly enough to ease grid strain, particularly given the administration's emphasis on fossil fuels over faster to deploy renewable energy sources. I am critics on this one.

You're always critics. Come on, every time you say critics,

believe this, it's you. I'm always critics, but like, especially on this. No, especially on... Well, this is, yeah, this is, yes, especially on everything. This is a, you know, discipline on the part of these companies

that realize that the incredibly high demand for electricity from data centers was going to push up consumer-electrics cost at precisely the time that supposedly there was, you know, presidential initiative to lower costs and to enhance affordability. They want to make, you know, sort of their own unilateral decisions

that diffuse that and the Trump administration is supporting it. It's not a terrible idea to say that the people are demanding the energy pay for it, but as noted, this administration doesn't want to take the easy clean solution of adding more renewables to the grid. They want to solve this skyrocketing demand with more fossil fuels,

which is, of course, going to be dire for the environment.

“In any event, I think the fastest growing area for new regulation”

in cities and states across America has to do with AI and with data centers. And so, the states will be heard regardless of what the White House is trying to do. By the way, we did an excellent episode of Siliconjustice yesterday with Princeton's Allanger Nelson, formerly of the Biden administration. One of the best, most interesting, most responsible, most creative thinkers

we know on AI, dealing with some of the looming big and scary issues and totally encourage you to go and listen to it. It's an A+ episode. And, Riley, with the final story. U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Letnic has a voluntarily agreed to testify before the House of Versailles Committee following revelations that he visited

Jeffrey Epstein's private island in 2012.

offender in 2005, recently released Justice Department documents confirmed a family

“visit to the island years later. This discrepancy has fueled a bipartisan cause”

for his resignation from the Trump administration. His upcoming testimony follows similar depositions from Bill and Hillary Clinton as the committee expands its high profile inquiry to include figures like Bill Gates and Doug band. Yeah, look. You know, as they say in Washington,

it's not the crime, it's the cover-up.

And Letnic has been lying and lying and lying about his relationship with Epstein

even though he lived next door to him. Even though he got his house from a minisweet heart jail, even though they did some kinds of business together. And even though he took his family to visit Epstein's island a few years after, you know, Epstein was found to be, you know, doing this human trafficking

that he was doing. Letnic shouldn't be in the job to begin with.

He certainly shouldn't be in the job given his performance thus far.

And, you know, how he performs here may have some effect on what his future is

“because I think as we've said, approaching the election Trump,”

I want to do some house cleaning. And you even saw some other examples of that today with, you know, Agnester at Christy-Nome, testifying on the hill where she was a little bit more conciliatory than Pam Baudit was. She had me, she lied all the time.

But I think she realizes she's on egg shells at the moment on thin ice. And so she's trying to strike a balance in her tone. Anyway, we'll track these things. We have a great episode of Deep State Radio coming up this week.

“We've got coming up a little later today.”

And we have a special episode of Words Matter tomorrow with the warm warm steam and Mary Trump. And of course we've got everything else we do here. So please join us for all of that for now. Thank you, Mina.

Also, thank you, Riley. Thanks, everybody. Bye-bye. But what I want to say is that you don't want to do a lot of studies. semester-by-trag-laptop-bücher soft-behind the internet.

So that's really true. I mean, you can say that you're drunk. Yes, you're from a steuer, right? But you don't want to do anything. That's right, it's just a question.

Do you just do what you want to do? And if you work then you'll be able to do it. That's right? Safe. What do you want to do?

Yes, of course.