Troops Being Dragged Into Iran, How It Will Cripple the US & the Real Goal of Israel’s Violence

not in the identifiable interest of the United States. We don't get anything out of continuing it

“by anyone's measure. And if you doubt that, ask yourself, almost last time someone explained”

"coolly and without emotion" made with bullet points or a PowerPoint. How exactly we win if this goes on longer? There's no real argument to be made. The United States is not win if this goes on longer and no one can claim otherwise. People can jump up and down and attack you for asking but they can't tell you rationally how you're going to be safer and more prosperous. How your children will lead better lives here in the United States if this goes on. So everybody knows

it's in our interest to wrap this up in a way that protects core American interests of course that avoids unnecessary humiliation that brings some stability to the region as they say, but wrap it up. And administration understands this. The Trump administration clearly understands this because news reports just in the last 24 hours have told us that the president is thinking about

“or planning to, depending on who you believe, dispatch the vice president to hammer out some kind”

of deal with the Iranians. And if that happens and we don't know just repeating what we read, then that's a pretty clear sign that the administration wants to declare victory and move on. Certainly to move on. And they probably couldn't pick a more credible person to do it. Ideology aside, the vice president is smart, it's honest, it's not one of the people who's gotten richer in government service. He's probably one of the people who got poorer in government

service, which is a pretty good measure of someone's moral rectitude and he understands power dynamics. And so we are praying for that, praying that that works, that the two sides are multiple sides really can come to terms and end this and stop the death of innocence or combatants for that matter

and stop the destruction of critical infrastructure and restore stability to global energy markets.

And basically make peace. Anyone who doesn't want that should answer the question, like, why don't you want that? So we're very much hoping that JDVans can get that done sometime soon. But in order to do that, he's going to, or the administration will have to do one thing first, which is a prerequisite to any kind of settlement or really any kind of ending to this conflict the benefits of the United States. And that's constrained. It's partner in this war.

Apparently it's full partner, which is Israel. You can't get what you want unless you constrain Israel. It's not the tack on Israel. It's just noting what's very obvious, which is that every nation has unique interests. And when you pair up with another nation in a war, particularly one that could flower into a global conflict, you're probably hoping for different outcomes because you're different countries. There's nothing weird about that. Israel is not the same as the United States

despite what they may tell you. It's different and they have different goals. And so as we assess this 15 years from now, hopefully in a prosperous, thriving country, we try to figure out how that happened, the two decisions we probably should be zeroed in on. And most anxious to a portion blame for our number one, killing the Ayatola in the very opening moments, which immediately limited the possibility of a negotiated settlement turned what could have been a narrow, objective, get rid of

Iran's nuclear program, constrain stability to build more missiles, whatever, into something much larger. Potentially a war against a nation itself or a war against a religion itself. So no sober person would have recommended that and we probably should find out how that happened. Not because we love the Ayatola, but because we love the United States and it's hard to see how that was good for us. And the second decision maybe even more important was the decision to go

into this, joined with the hip to another nation. In this case is real. That was never going to work.

It couldn't work. It doesn't make any sense. So whoever made that decision, well the president,

“of course made the decision. But who would who advised the president to do that? How did that happen?”

You're of course discouraged from asking how anything happened. You're supposed to just accept things, be shocked by them, get over them, get with the program, and no one, no one is encouraged. Desk, why? How? It's almost like a father, a hungover dad, brushing off an inquisitive, five real stop asking why. But we're not five year olds, we're American citizens. We've been absolute right to know why our country was put to bad use to our detriment. And so don't be

how that decision was made because it didn't help us at all. And as a product of that decision,

we're putting an awful lot of risk. So constraining is real bringing it to heal. It's a much smaller country than the United States. We pay for most of their military. We make all of this possible. So it shouldn't be hard to tell them to get in line, at least for the purposes of this conflict. Don't do things that violate our core interests. But so far, no one's been able to do that

“for some reason. Again, another, that's another why proposition. Why? Why would that be so hard?”

If Ghana was doing this to us, we'd say, hey, Ghana, stop it. But we're not doing that with Israel. And because we're not doing that with Israel, the Israelis feel completely free, not simply to make public announcements that they're going to pursue their own interests to the detriment of ours, but to humiliate the U.S. government and our nation by so doing. This is a feature that may be unique to Israel, hard to know exactly. But it's certainly the most obvious feature of our

relationship with Israel, which is an ongoing humiliation process. We spoke today to go to the former interim president of Israel, off from Berg, former Kinesit leader, a guy who knows Israeli politics and culture, he's in his 70s, he's born and lived his whole life, knows the country well. And he noted, unprompted that a feature of the way that Israel deals with other nations is humiliation. It's not simply enough to come to terms, you know, are both a little bit

dissatisfied. That means it's a good deal. You often hear that. That's not the Israeli view. The Israeli view is I have to crush you. I have to put my boot in your face. I have to diminish

“you. I have to humiliate you. Who knows where that comes from? But you should know it as you”

watch the interplay between the United States government and the Israeli government because there's a whole lot of that. And here's a perfect example. And this is both a problem, like a tactical problem for the US government, like how do you strike a piece deal with this kind of stuff going on we'll show it to you in a second. But it's also a deeper problem for us watching your country get humiliated by a tiny country in a faraway place and getting no explanation for why they're

allowed to do that. Humiliate to you and discourages you. And if you watch it long enough, you start to lose faith in your own nation. You start to become humiliated yourself.

So we could pick a million examples of this. But here's one. So Monday, the present before

“markets open, which was interesting, announces that the United States is pulling back from his promise”

to start hitting civilian infrastructure energy infrastructure in Iran. And we're doing that because we're going to try and find some negotiated settlement. We've been talking to the Iranians, and there is a way out of this. We don't have to get to the point where we're waging total war, not just against the government of Iran or the, I told Liz or the Theocracy or whatever we're saying we're doing. But against the people of Iran, turning off their electricity,

ending their drinking water, letting them die of exposure or whatever, total war against

a country of almost 100 million people. And nobody wants that, at least no one should want that.

So the present announced, hey, we're in talks, we're pulling back. But within just a couple of hours, our partner in Jerusalem, Benjamin Netanyahu, the government in this war with, issued this statement, and sent it to the government. We're not going to be able to do anything. We're not going to do anything. We're going to do something. We're safe guarding our vital interests, the Prime Minister of Israel said, our vital interests. Now what are those vital interests? Well, no one's really explained that, not even

clear the Israeli public really knows the extent of their own country's, quote, vital interests as envisioned by their Prime Minister. We're not really sure. But clearly, they entail territorial expansion, moving the borders of Israel outward, taking other people's land. And they're saying that in the Israeli government. This is a win because we've moved our borders outward. So we're paying

Israel is using that opportunity, our money, our weapons, the lives of our soldiers, to expand

its territory. So that's not our vital interests. You can agree or disagree with that.

“By the way, if you've been yelling about the Russian invasion of Ukraine, you should probably”

yell about this because it's even less defensible really. But they're saying that, and no one in the U.S. government has told them to stop. And so what does that mean for us? Well, it means that Israel somehow is in control of the course of this war. And they have been since the beginning. We learned this week for example, that the decision to go into this war and to kill the

Ayatollah in the opening hours of this war was made on intelligence. And the base of intelligence

supplied to the U.S. government by Masad, the Israeli intelligence. Not from the CIA, CIA, which no one wants to defend. But in this specific case, it sounds like it was a voice for restraint. And again, that's what we have intelligence and see so they can advise the president about what to do next on the basis of the best available information. That's the idea anyway. And apparently, CIA was telling the White House, "No, you can kill the head of Shia Islam,

but that probably won't topple the government. And there probably won't be in the aftermath

of that killing this spontaneous creation of a liberal democracy in South West Asia. Probably not

going to happen." But Masad had another scenario. They believed or said they believed that knocking off the religious leadership, the head of the stake in this theocracy would result in spontaneous regime change. And we wouldn't have to really get involved beyond just the initial bombing campaign. And that's very appealing to Americans who fought war

“from the air for a long time. And that's at this point pretty much the only thing that the”

American public will accept, you know, a low-risk, very expensive, but low-risk operation that doesn't take for a long, or you achieve your objectives by killing the right people with bombs. But nobody in the United States, almost nobody, has any great desire to send U.S. troops. In fact, in fact, in June when the government of Israel and its many paid spokesmen in the United States were pushing for what became the 12-day war, we're just going to take off the nuclear

sites. There were people who said, "No, that's not what this is. This is a regime change effort." And if pursued, it will wind up with boots on the ground, with the commitment of American troops, and what's that happens, it's kind of hard to get extricate them, and a lot of them could get killed.

“And anyone who said that at the time was denounced as crazy, a conspiracy theorist, a grifter.”

Yeah, nine months later, that's exactly where we are. Today, the head of Masad, smart seasoned guy said that he believes apparently said this, that he believes regime change in Iran, which is apparently another state of goal, will require at least a year to change the regime in Iran. So that right there is Israel saying we're going to need the commitment of American troops. Americans are going to have to go there. And surprise, surprise, Americans are going

there. There's not been an invasion of Iran of the mainland or any of the islands in the Persian Gulf, just yet, but there is clearly preparation for that. There are many thousands of U.S. troops headed there right now, some are already stationed in the area. And this looks like the kind of preparation that you would do if you were planning a land assault on a huge mountainous country that's surprisingly cohesive and very well-armed. And from what we can tell,

there's not a lot of enthusiasm for doing this among people who spend their lives thinking through military tactics and strategy. This doesn't seem like the kind of move that's going to end the war in our favor quickly. It seems like the kind of move that could result in disaster. We pray it doesn't. But that once made, well, almost certainly results in a long-term commitment to fighting on the ground in Iran. The very thing we were told we were insane to worry about, now everyone's

saying, "Yeah, yeah, it's going to take some boots on the ground." And one of the things you learn

aliens level crazy. Just nine months ago, this suggests this could happen. One of the things you notice, as you watch people, now advocate for it, those very same people, advocate for this thing

that was never going to happen and you were crazy to worry about, is the kind of blassey and

suciences they display, the kind of, "Oh, you know, boots on the ground!" As they call for it, and there's no place where you see this more, the world headquarters for boots on the ground would of course be Fox News. So here is Keith Kellogg. Retired general Keith Kellogg will be 82 years old in a month. Telling you that, "Yeah, boots on the ground!" Not a big deal. Watch. I'm a big believer in putting boots on the ground, not necessarily into Iran,

but taking Carg Island, and also taking this rate of harm moves. Like, we kind of need to do it

“the way the Romans used to do it. You know, you need to put, you know, your legions on the ground”

to secure the territory and give them confidence that they can do it. That we can open up the

straight. Look, I know there's risk involved. There's always risk involved, but those kids,

those young men and women, they understand the risk involved on taking both Carg Island, they know they have the straight of harm moves. She's got about boots on the ground. Now, what's interesting is the last line. What's interesting, by the way, that it's Keith Kellogg. Keith Kellogg is one of the reasons there has been no settlement in the conflict between Ukraine and Russia. So, Keith Kellogg was appointed by the new administration very, very early

in January to be the emissary from the White House to Eastern Europe to try and get some kind of

“deal between Russia and Ukraine. And without getting boring about it, Keith Kellogg is one of the”

main reasons that we don't have that agreement and hundreds and hundreds of thousands of Eastern Europeans, Slavs, Russians and Ukrainians, probably decent kids, with nothing to do with starting this war,

our debt, and Ukraine is totally destroyed. And Keith Kellogg was never having talked to him

at some length ever in favor of settling that. And that may or may not be connected to the fact that his daughter works with his landscape government. You never want to blame people's relatives for anything, but she's on the record saying, "I'm working on my dad to make sure he stays on Ukraine's side." Well, you can't have a side in a foreign conflict if you're an American emissary charged with settling that conflict. The only side you can have is the United States.

And Keith Kellogg didn't. So that's shameful. And he's not responsible for that war and he's not wholly responsible for a failure to settle it. But he's definitely partly responsible for helping to destroy American diplomacy and making the United States globally not a trusted partner in any discussion about anything. Because when you're dishonest with other countries, when you don't state upfront, your bias is when you don't do your job, which is to bring resolutions to the conflict,

people start to figure it out. And all of a sudden, your diplomacy doesn't work. Now, why does this matter? Do a lot of people in the United States who think diplomacy is stupid? Why would we have

“diplomacy? Are you liberal? No. Because diplomacy is a kind of power. In fact, it's a key form of power.”

In fact, it's the main form of power that big countries get to exercise globally. And it's the power to settle disputes on their terms. So if all of a sudden no one trusts or believes you because you've lied too much, you've been sneaky and tricky and actually working for some third country as you pretended to work for the United States, which has happened. No one wants to deal with you. So why is that bad? Because you're unpopular? No. It's not about popularity. It's about power.

Once you lose the power to settle conflicts by negotiation, the only power you have left is ornaments. So you better have overwhelmingly superior weapon systems in order to protect your interest. Because that's all you have at that point. And it looks like we may not have short of nuclear weapons overwhelmingly powerful weapon systems in this or any other theater. Lots of other countries as sophisticated weapons, two conventional weapons. Shockingly we large number of US military

aircraft apparently have been damaged or downed just in the last month over a run. That's not good. That's not good at all. But when you don't have credible diplomacy, that's all you have.

Not an insignificant problem. Keith Kellogg doesn't seem to be that interested in it. Just put boots on the ground. But the key line in the clip you just saw is the end. He's like, no, these people really eager to do it. Was anyone explained to them to the people massing in the

Persian Gulf of the Americans in uniform? Massing for special operators in any second airborne or

whatever. Any part of the gun-toting US military that's massing for whatever is coming assuming

“something is. Don't know that seems like it. Has anyone explained to them why we're doing this?”

Not the tactical level. Like your job is to go in and secure this land. This island or this part of the Iranian mainland. But there's strategic goal. Like what, why are we doing this? Probably not. And we know that because no one's explained to the American population. No one has bothered to explain what the point of this is. And that's a huge problem. Not only because it shows that democracy doesn't really work. And that the people we thought were in charge probably aren't

really in charge. They're taking orders from Benjamin Netanyahu, who got us into this war.

They're trying to erase that from history. You'll never see that in Wikipedia. But it's true.

That's a fact. And they admitted it. Don't let them steal the truth from you. Ten years, and I'm like, what are you talking about anti-Semite? No, that happened. But is there something in it for us? And has anybody explained to the guys risking their lives and to the rest of the country paying for it and grieving over the loss of our troops? Like what's the point? And no one has.

“So at that point, you have to wonder, like, is that legitimate? Can you just tell people”

go do this without explaining why? Well, they signed up for it. No, no, you still don't treat people like that. You don't treat countries like this. And in the course of all of this, you have to wonder what happens to our country. If there's no stated benefit to us from this war, ask yourself, would you ever do something like this if it didn't help the country represented? Probably wouldn't, right? What does that say about how the people in charge feel about our

country? Well, you don't have to guess look around the country. Been to an airport recently. TSA going on strike, of course, there are reasons for that in the Democrats' response will find. But in a country decisive of a continent, you need internal air travel period, not simply for commerce, but so people can see their kids, etc. So you can have a functioning country. And all of a sudden we don't. And then it turns out, oh my gosh, someone said

“an ambulance across a runway and a plane hit it and people were killed. Well, how that happened?”

Because there was inadequate air traffic control. Well, that's been known for what was anyone fixed it. Apparently not. Then a barge runs into the key bridge and Baltimore kind of a

critical piece of infrastructure. And as of this morning, it's like not even close to being rebuilt.

That was a long time ago. Then you drive around the country and you think, wow, what's kind of shabby? Not all of it. It's very pretty places. The landscape's amazing. To extent it hasn't been destroyed by solar farms in CBD outlets. But the actual infrastructure of the country is not great. All right, airports are not great. When you fly internationally, you're amazed, including to poor countries. Like, wow,

why do they have such nice airports here in Mumbai or Bombay or whatever they're calling it now? I thought this was a poor place. I read about Calcutta. I thought people were dying of starvation. Why is there airport nicer than LaGuardia? What is this? And what it is is neglect. It's neglect. It's what happens when your leaders are so hourly focused managing their empire and stoking their dreams of higher that they forget to tend to the country they run.

And at this point, it just absolutely couldn't be clear what's going on. Our leaders by partisan basis now are so distracted by what's happening outside of our borders. What's happening inside is becoming dire maybe an overstatement. Certainly depressing. What are the unemployment numbers? We could do an hour on this, maybe we will. It depends how you read them. So if you got here from West Africa or Somalia or Punjab or Bangladesh, probably have a job, probably make it a lot more.

Then you made in the country you grew up in. But if you were born here, you're less likely to have a job.

And that's before the energy shock and the rollout of AI. Really?

“How could that happen? And if you didn't know that, how did you not know that?”

That's not picking a fight with anyone or criticizing anybody. That's like a baseline measurement of how your country's doing. The people who were born, you're not the immigrants, do you mean you're offering the American dream? But the people who thought they would live the American dream because they were born here. There's birthright citizens and they're paying for everything. How are they doing? Not great. And by that measure, it's not improving.

So, okay, how much are we spending on this work? Unclear. Of course, nothing is clear in war. You can't get an accurate count of anything, including the dead. But it seems like about a

billion a day. Probably more. It's classified. A billion a day. You see the point.

You give up a lot when you wage a war. And when you wage a war in return for no promise of a return, other than the theoretical safety you feel because Iran, which you probably thought about like four times in the last 10 years, doesn't have nukes, which they told us in June. They didn't have any way. Do you feel better? No, it's the whole thing's ridiculous.

“So, I think the rest of us probably need to pay pretty close attention.”

As we're tempted to be distracted by falling what's happening in Iran and the Persian Gulf, pay close attention to what's happening here in this country because things change fast in war. That's the number one thing to know. Societies are completely transformed by war. In fact, every major societal change, the bit ones have come during war and the bigger the war, the bigger the change and some changes have been good like all change and some changes have been

well really bad. But whatever changes in progress is likely to be accelerated during more time. So, if the country is feeling a little weak in some area, it's likely to become very weak in that area. And then things will happen that nobody expected, but all of it is likely to happen during war. So, this moment is profound, but also kind of hard to read. So there are a couple of things you should be aware of that are happening that you might not know about. And they're going to have

long-term effects for the world and for the United States. And one of them is the destruction of Europe. Now, why should we care about Europe? Well, in the United States, most of our ancestors came from Europe. And so, there's that sentimental attachment, that cultural attachment, that religious attachment. That's the Christian West that we sometimes talk about. Christian West, what is it? Well, it's like Istanbul in this direction. That's the Christian West. And Europe is the bulk of it.

But maybe as important, certainly geostrategically as important, if China rises and takes the east, what do we have here in the West? Well, we have Europe. And we have the Americas. And that's our

“world. That's what we influence. Those are our actual allies because they live close to us.”

Much as you might like the Philippines. In 30 years, while the United States have a lot of influence in the Philippines, probably not. Anything in the South China Sea, but it's going to belong to China. Whether you want that or not, it's totally irrelevant. So what happens to Europe really, really matters to us here in the United States. And despite having a lot of silly leaders,

we basically are aligned on the level of values. I mean, they're like liberal and annoying and

it cheeset all messed up. But ultimately, if you're looking around the world and trying to figure who in my real allies, who might baseline allies with the Europeans. Well, one of the things you notice, if you pay any attention to this at all, is that the main victim of this war after the six Gulf States is Europe because it's their energy that's being destroyed, both by Iran and probably also by Israel, despite a lot of lying about it. It's their energy. And by the way, if you're

paying any attention, you may have noticed it, just the other to the Ukrainians, really a proxy for there's ever a proxy for the American deep state of the Ukrainian government, just went and hit a Russian energy installation, really. So who's the victim of that? Europe. Now, why would Europe beat the victim? Two little has been written and very little even is noticed about this, but the hostility that is really government leaders feel toward Europe. Whenever they speak about it is

very, very obvious. Here's the form of leader of Israel, and I've probably been at talking just the other day, maybe I think yesterday about Europe. Watch this. It had we not acted. All of

and we expect not to be, you know, criticized in and on, but we expect you're back in. That would

“be the decent thing to do. I think any European leader who sort of says, this isn't our problem.”

So when will it become your problem? When they have a nuclear weapon, when the missile is on its way to Madrid, when it hits Madrid or Barcelona, is that when you're going to wake up? So we're doing the fighting. We didn't ask you for any help, nothing. All we're doing is fighting against this horrible radical Islamist menace, we're reducing and hopefully eliminating this threat. And instead of thanking us, you're criticizing us. We're the victims. Why haven't you thanked us enough, Europe?

We pushed the United States, which has bases in all your countries, a fellow NATO member of the United States, we pushed the United States into a war that shafts you completely to end a threat that was not actually a threat to you. And in so doing, we constructed your energy supply to the extent that you're going to have a depression in Europe. And by the way, in case that's not enough, we're going to give you a migrant crisis. We're going to give you a migrant

crisis, because Iran is pretty far from Milwaukee, but not that far from Paris. And the aftermath of every Israeli-inspired war over the past 30 years has been to send desperate migrants into Europe.

“So if you're one of those people who consumed dumb stuff at the end, it's like, how did this happen?”

In London's becoming Muslim, well, it happens because the Brits hate themselves, of course, and massacistically want to import people who don't show their values. But it also happens because we have wars in the Middle East that have downstream consequences. And this war, the biggest country at the region, watching his infrastructure get destroyed, will inspire mass migration. And ultimately, a lot of those people are winding up in Europe, but Nephtali Benet

is saying to Europe, you haven't thanked us for that. So what you have here is the never-ending battle,

the real battle, which is over the moral high ground. That's the real battle. Who occupies the moral high ground? And high ground is a real thing. If you're in the high ground, you aim down it people. You've got a clear field of fire, you're in charge. And if you control the moral terms, if the conversation begins with, hey, you've wronged me, I'm the victim, there's really no way

“to win that fight. And that's what Nephtali Benet was just doing. And that's what BB does,”

Benjamin Netanyahu does come in every sentence. Hey, no one suffered like Israel has suffered. Therefore, shut up and do what we want and don't complain about. In fact, thank us for it. So you should know that Europe is in very serious trouble because of this and that matters to Americans. But the concerns that we're going to have to deal with, we pray not, here in the United States, are not limited to the slow death of our true allies. They would include a tax here.

Both acts of terror that are pretty predictable when you kill religious leaders in foreign countries, it does tend to inspire extremism. It's not an excuse for it. It's horrifying. But that's why you don't want to do anything to encourage religious extremism. Particularly if you pretend you don't like it. Maybe don't kill Ayatollas and you'll get less of it,

obviously. But that's not just it. The United States has never

engaged in a policy openly of targeting other heads of state because countries don't do that. Why don't they do that? Because it's not a precedent they want to set. It's one of several precedents that countries hesitate before setting in warfare. Don't assassinate that estate because we don't our head of state to be assassinated. Don't openly target civilian infrastructure. Of course.

And if you can help it, don't call for absolute total abject surrender. Because that's a lot to ask of any nation. And it tends to inspire people to fight to the bitter end when you start talking like that. And when you start talking like that, you are opening yourself up. And maybe most of all don't say out loud that we're replacing a government in order to control it and steal its resources. Now why wouldn't you do that? Two reasons. One is a kind of

abstract moral reason. Because it's wrong. It's why theft is illegal in every country in the world. You can't just say, I want that. I'm going to shoot you. We have laws against that. And those laws are rooted in the understanding that you're not allowed to just take something

And of our religion. And of most religions, by the way. So there's that. But the other reason is,

“because you don't want it done to you. And it might be a good time just to remind ourselves”

that the United States has a lot of resources. In fact, by some measures, it's the most resource dense nation in the world. And it's also, by say, Nigerian standards, pretty lightly populated.

350 million people spread out across a continent, the prettiest continent on the planet,

with abundant everything. And we don't extract a lot of it because we decided we're just too rich to mind things. But it's still here. We also have the largest fresh water reserves of any country in the world. Maybe after Russia. But certainly close. Massive amounts of fresh water. Most fertile farmland in the world. Abundant oil and gas. So we have resources too. And so if you set up a precedent because we make the rules, because we have been the beneficiary

of this unipolar system, we're in charge of the world. And the new rule is, if you've got a lot of resources, and we want them, and we can just overthrow your government and kill the people who run it and take them for ourselves, is that the standard? Apparently, then at some point it's at least conceivable that we would have to suffer that standard. And you just pray that

that never happens. But it's worth thinking past like next Wednesday and acknowledging that it could.

And if we're blowing up other people's civilian infrastructure, which we have done for a while now, since we blew up Nord Stream, because we don't like Putin, because he's bad. He's just bad. But that was the vital energy artery into Europe, or supposed allies. And we just blew it up. Proving simultaneously that we didn't care about global warming, of course, because that was the largest man-made admission of CO2 in history, but that we're disregarding

our own rules. Okay. So we have to live by the new standard. It's a very long way of saying, there could be consequences to this. Consequences, you don't have to be some sort of liberal who loves

“the UN or whatever is pro-french, stop. If you care about the United States, you should be worried.”

So there was a Velero refinery in Port Arthur, Texas, on the Gulf Coast of Texas, where there were

a lot of refineries, where a lot of a refined petroleum products come from, those include jet-fuel, gasoline, diesel, all the way down to asphalt. And there was a massive explosion at two days ago on a cloud and they had a stay in place order, and it was hydroma. And now they're saying it was just to industrial accident. No one was killed, thank God. But it happened. And maybe it was an accident. Accidents do happen, and just because a whole bunch of food processing

and energy and ammunition plants in the United States seem to be blowing up over the past five years doesn't mean they're not all accidents. They absolutely could be. Have no information to the contrary. But if we're blowing up other people's civilian infrastructure and partnering with the country that blows up other people's infrastructure, as a matter of course, just took out a ton of bridges and Lebanon yesterday for some reason, Israel. And we think that's fine.

“Then, at some point, you have to wonder about our infrastructure in this giant largely”

unprotected country. Could there be blowback that hurts us? That's not a liberal position. That's like a common sense position. If you're trying to protect your own country, you have to keep that in mind. But no one is keeping it in mind at all. So there is a potential physical threat to the United States without going on and on and on and on on about it. You should know that it exists and it's one of the downsides of this war.

The other downside that people are not considering in any great detail mentioned a minute ago, but are the long-term effects of Israel's strategic goal in this war, which as noted differs from ours completely, which is territorial expansion? What exactly does Israel want? We don't know, but they clearly want to extend their borders or at least the buffer zone around post-67 Israel. Whatever their actual goals are, while the rest of us are focused on whether

we're going to invade carguer island, probably not, by the way, who knows? These railies are tending to their own agenda using the cover of our military and our tax dollars. Just a fact. So one of the things they're doing is trying to grab southern Lebanon. Why does that matter?

because Lebanon has the largest population of Christians in the region. By far,

in fact, it was a Christian country for centuries. There's a Christian president of Lebanon. Did you know that? Every time Lebanon is mentioned as through the lens of Israel's interest, but if you're

“a Christian, you don't have to hate Israel, but you may have different interests. What about the Christians?”

Well, Lebanon is a Christian president. They have the military and Lebanon is Christian. And there are a lot of Christian villages, ancient Christian villages. Villages Jesus probably walk through, in Christian ever since. Only 2,000 years. And they're being destroyed, because under the cover of this war paid for and led by us, Israel has decided to take a big chunk of Lebanon. Watch.

Israel's defense minister on Tuesday said the country's military will control southern Lebanon

up to the litany river. The remarks of the first time Israel has clearly spelled out its

intent to seize swaths of territory that make up nearly a tenth of Lebanon. Israel's been trading fire with Iranian-fact Hezbollah fighters in Lebanon. That's after Hezbollah struck Israel, following joint Israeli-American attacks on Iran. Rockets damaged buildings and vehicles in northern Israel on Tuesday. Cats has previously threatened Lebanon's government that it would lose territory if it did not, to sarm Hezbollah. Israel has destroyed five bridges crossing

the litany river and has accelerated the demolition of homes in Lebanon's villages close to these really border. "Cat said, quote, "the principle is clear. If there is terror and rockets,

“there will be no homes and residents, and the IDF law remain inside." Did you know that was happening?”

And why does it matter? Well, it matters because this episode in history is going to end at a certain point. This war will end. Pray it sooner or later, but at some point all wars do end. And at that point, the truth comes out. Because the truth about everything will come out. Everything, just matter of where on the timeline it does. But at some point, we will know what actually happened in this period and over the last two and a half years. So if you look at the internet and you see

pictures of war crimes committed in Gaza or the West Bank or now in Lebanon, you can't be certain they're all real. And of course the shills on the internet will say they're all fake, but they're not all fake actually. Some of them are real. Tens of thousands of people, non-combatants, women and children have been killed by these really military using our weapons. American weapons paid for by the U.S. Congress. And there will be a reckoning over that.

And there are indications, real indications, not antisemitic propaganda, but actual indications that war crimes have been committed. Torchering people, killing people, unarmed non-combatants, kids on purpose. There's a lot of that. And some of us probably fake, so it is propaganda undoubtedly. But some of it isn't. And in the end, we're going to know

“because we always know in the end. And so you have to ask yourself the people who are defending”

this and paying for it, would you want to be one of those people when we find this out? How about the religious leaders? The American evangelical leader not, rank and file evangelicals who if they knew would be horrified. But the people who run the biggest evangelical associations in the United States, the people who are in Liberty University, for example, or Franklin Graham, these are household names. Have they said anything about the destruction

of churches and ancient Christian villages in a country in the Middle East with a Christian president? Do they even know Lebanon had a Christian president? Who knows? They've been said word one about it. Why? Well, that's a good question. That was the question that a lot of people asked the rank church after the Second World War ended in Germany. How could you go and along with that?

And there was not a good answer. Other than, I don't know, didn't want to offend the powerful.

There is going to be a consequence to this. And one of them is very easy to predict. Big evangelical institutions, which have done good things, by the way, if you're for the family and your pro-life, you're grateful for what they've done, for their personal decency of the people in the pews, what are really decent people? But the leaders of American evangelical Christianity, not all, but some will have no legitimacy at all when this is over. Where were you?

When a country that you pledged Fielty to was murdering Christians, your brothers in Christ, the Middle East? Where were you when people were starving when kids were starving in Gaza?

have to answer for that. These people will have to answer for that. And if you're wondering in this moment where there's a religious awakening underway in the West, there's really no question about that. If you're wondering why, not a lot of new converts are going to the evangelical

“institutions, this may be why. Really big change, because remember, once again, the truth always”

comes out, always. And this will affect American politics, maybe more than anything we've seen

over the past 20 years. It'll change the Republican Party forever. That's for sure. Most of the polling you see about the attitudes in the Republican Party toward this war, polling Fox News viewers, polling Magga people. How do you find Magga? Well, people who agree with anything the administration does, well, by definition, they agree with us. But people under 50 also vote, in fact, because they did vote in the last election, Donald Trump is currently president.

And it's not close there. Try to find one who supports this. Good luck. Let's see where it's at Liberty University. Probably not for it. So that will have massive consequences.

“Massive is the Democratic Party going to absorb all those people who knows, but there will be big”

political change because of this. And the reason is really simple, because the people who endorse this and lie to us about it and selectively ignore the suffering of other human beings, including their fellow Christians, have lost their moral authority. And they will not regain it anytime soon. And you just hope that this end soon enough that the nation itself doesn't lose its moral authority, because that is in the end the most compelling kind of authority. That's where your actual power comes from.

It's from your decency, which is from a powerful, denuclear weapons in the end. It's a powerful thing. Anything. And it is one of the main reasons, more than Coca-Cola and Marbles and Blue Jeans and Capitalism and the Democracy Agenda, the decency of the American Empire. Often in decent but compared to what other Empire, it was the decency of America's stewardship

of the world that made it powerful. And now it's very fashionable. Say, "Oh, it was always bad

and throw it most of that." And it was always bad. But the rest of the world didn't didn't feel that way about the United States for most of that time. Most of the Cold War, for example. But a lot of the world now does feel that way. And that's a loss for the United States. It's not a matter of caring what foreigners think, though. I don't know if a lot of people care what it is real thanks, but they don't care what anyone else thinks. But it's a loss of power and authority

for us. It's a huge loss. It makes us weaker and more endangered. And the final thing to remember, made the thing to meditate on about this moment, and you may not catch this because your breathlessly watching Fox News to find out if we're going to invade the Isle of Cargue,

“the thing that you should be paying attention to is the change in American authority and the”

level of power are authorities. Domestically, here in the U.S. feel like they can assume,

because that always expands during war. War time leaders become authoritarian, every single one of

them, every single one of them. And authorities below the executive also become authoritarian. Did you know that in 1942, when Franklin Roosevelt issued his famous executive order to in turn, about 120,000 Japanese Americans, mostly in the West, Oregon, Washington, California, in concentration camps, did you know the most interesting fact of that decision is often omitted from it, the overwhelming majority of them were American citizens, the actual citizens,

or legal residents, but two-thirds were American citizens with full citizenship who'd been convicted of no crime had even been charged with the crime, but they were thrown into concentration camps for three years and lost their property. And there was some effort in the 80s to be like, "Oh, we're so sorry." And also, who really cares Imperial Japan was bad, but these people weren't actually subjects of Imperial Japan, they were American citizens. And they were thrown

into concentration camps with their families and normally said anything. It's complicated. It's complicated. That's not complicated actually. That's totally wrong. You can't treat American citizens that way if you're the U.S. government ever. And yet, Roosevelt was able to do it because there was 1942, and the war wasn't looking good. And that's the other thing to remember,

can't get out, it's happened many, many times. As things get tougher and leaders become less popular

“and people become more enraged and discouraged and sad and distracted, governments can assume”

powers unimaginable in peacetime, even more dramatically than they did during the COVID epidemic. That can happen. And it may be starting to happen, speaking for myself, I've been threatened with more FBI investigations in the last month and during the entire body administration. So maybe that's indicator of something. Two more than during the entire body administration, which I criticized every single day for its duration. So there's that. But here's one

pretty specific example of piece of tape that should tell you what to be on guard against.

And that's at the local level, not the level of federal law enforcement, but like your local sheriff, assuming powers that no man should have got possesses. And certainly no one in the United

“States possesses. In flat obvious contradiction to our founding documents to the Bill of Rights,”

this sheriff, Sheriff Booshard, for Michigan, has decided that he's going to arrest an imprisoned people who make memes mocking him. This is real from last Friday, watch this. I give you this by way of example. Some sponge gum felt empowered and emboldened enough to put this picture of me up to try to threaten and intimidate me, which of course he didn't do because I signed up for this. And by the way, the person that did this said a bunch of terrible

things, not just against me, but against a lot of groups and individuals who, by the way, was arrested today in Wisconsin. My point is this though. If this person is emboldened and empowered enough or feel safe enough to do this for me, what does he do to a kid? What does he do to a Jewish family walking down the street? We didn't do anything. He made an ugly meme. But the sheriff's not intimidated. I signed up for this. I knew the risks of the job when I became

your sheriff. This guy's like some former Republican, Republican, politician in the state of Michigan. I knew the risks I signed up for this. Someone made a funny meme about you or an ugly meme about you. It's a meme. It's an image on the internet. That was an Instagram, not on the battlefield. You faced no physical risk. You just admitted that. And you had the guy arrested in another state and he's in jail. How is this not leading to mass protests? Why did they not shut your

“sheriff's department and where's the department of justice? Where's this of a rights division?”

Are you allowed to just arrest people who make fun of you? Oh, it's so ugly. It's anti-Semitism. Okay. Well, it's racism. You're mocking the vaccine. It's all the same. These are all pretexts that we take literally because we're dumb. And no one wants to be an anti-Semite or a racist or

deny science. Whatever they tell you your crime is, the actual crime is always the same. It's

mocking and impeding the authoritarian impulses of the people in charge. It's making fun of the sheriff, which is exactly what this criminal did. But the sheriff's okay tonight. He's going to be all right. He signed up for this. The rest of us did not sign up for this. This is illegal. Under the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. It's also totally incompatible with what it is to live in this country. You get to say what you think. There is no legal category

of hate speech. There's only speech that people in charge hate. So this guy should be the subject of a federal investigation like in about one minute after that hits the internet. Don't think he has been. Let's hope he will be. But that's exactly the kind of change that can bubble up in your country during war. And it's like some cookie sheriff Republican. That's the Republican. That's the free speech party guy. Really? And it's in Michigan. And who even knows some county in

Michigan? And all of a sudden you wake up. And you get arrested for a meme because it's hate speech. Which means it's speech to people in charge hate. And then if this goes on long enough, or if the IC states are to really suffer, it gets more extreme. There are already neocons saying

that they will make certain that people who oppose the war are arrested for the terror attack.

“I follow logic chain. Oh, you can't because there is one. They're openly saying we will use the deaths”

of Americans to settle our political scores using your government law enforcement. Not so different from we will settle our ancient tribal disputes on another continent using your military, kind of same principle. But it's not acceptable here. If the Iran war was bad, allowing the U.S. government to arrest, persecute, investigate, spy on U.S. citizens for exercising, their God-given rights is worse. And you'll know it's bad when they start talking about a draft.

Now, what is a draft? Well, of course, it's the definition of tyranny. It is somehow the right

of a government to take the fruit of its population its young fit citizens. The ones who just

build the civilization, continue the country, take them and force them to risk their lives. In other cases, some cases die for a decision they didn't make. And in this case, they don't support it all. What percentage of 18-year-old American men support the war in Iran? Haven't seen the polling imagined it's quite a bit below 30%. Maybe even lowered that. By the time we get to a draft, you can be assured it'll be even lowered that. So that would be tyranny. If there's another definition

of tyranny, forcing people to die for a war for another country, when your country is not even conceivably in peril of like invasion, except the long-term kind created by immigration, but an imminent invasion of foreign troops. But, you know, week one into this war because Benjamin Netanyahu

“wanted us to, and it's not going well, and you need to fight that war at the risk of your life,”

even though you hate it and have never really understood what it's about, because everyone

lied to you about it, and if you don't do that, we'll arrest you and put you in jail. I think that's the definition of tyranny. And simply because it's happened in the past, doesn't make it any less tyrannical. But don't take my word for it. So, want to bring you now in interview that we did a short time ago with a man called Jim Webb, James Webb III. And if the name sounds familiar, that's because he is from one of the most famous military families in the United States, his father

was Navy Secretary, a US senator, and Jim Webb, remember about to speak to, was himself in the United States Marine, III in a row, in his family, a family that has still tell you, has fought in every American conflict since the French and Indian wars. And we thought we would push him a little bit on what it would look like if those fabled boots on the ground that Fox News

“so badly wants to commit actually came to pass. What would that look like? And why are we doing this?”

And how would it work? And most critically, what would the end result be? And we thought it was a pretty interesting conversation. So we hope you will stay for it. We are strongly pro dog on this show. We make no secret to that dog. It's one of the great blessings of this life. And to keep them healthy, we recommend Dutch. It's the solution to skyrocketing veterinary costs. Why are those costs so high? Well, private equity in case you didn't already know that. Big investors

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Jim Webb, thank you for doing this very much. One of the many reasons I want to talk to you in addition to the fact that you're knowledgeable and honest is that you are a veteran of the last big American military effort, the Rock War and you grew up steeped in this world and have some

we're trying to figure out what's going to happen, but what's your view? Do you think the United States will commit meaningful ground forces? I'll start by saying I hope not. Yes. Judging by all of the indicators that are out there, the Marines floating in, there's, I guess, not even rumors, there's reports that elements of the 80 second have already been deployed forward. They're command

“element, I think Jennifer Griffin confirmed that today. It's looking like it is. And it's looking”

more and more likely. And I got to say what really concerns me is sort of the peace meal fashion that we're going into this from a ground fighter perspective. Yes. And then the bigger picture is that there has been no real debate about our involvement in Iran at all. At the congressional

level, there was never really a case made to the American public. And we are charging into an

environment that has not effectively been cleared according to our constitution, nor is there consensus among the American people that this is necessary for our national security. While at the same time, it's very, very clear through the statements of the administration, such as Marco Rubio, that we are doing this because Israel decided that we should do it. Therefore, by virtue of that, it's not in our national interests. We are committing our treasure and our blood to fight

somebody else's war. And it would be really great if we could have a debate about that before

“that happens. But I mean, you look at it, it may be too late. It's, I think one of the reasons”

that there hasn't been, you know, a real debate, there hasn't been any meaningful demonstration, anywhere against this, is that people are having trouble believing it could be true, that we'd be committing ground troops to a war with Iran. Can you just explain a little more fully why you think that might be in progress? Sure. Well, the complicated thing about that right out of the gate is that, I mean, as an American citizen, we have not been given any type of tangible objectives for

this entire operation. Is this, you know, is this regime change? Is this to reduce their military capacity? Is this to reopen the streets of Hormuz, which is actually the most biggest imperative right now? So without an end state objective, at least even at the operational level, it's very,

“very difficult to find a justification for it. I mean, that's what you're saying is clearly true.”

I haven't heard anything. I pay close attention. But what does that mean for the guys who are sitting at Hormuz thinking I'm about to head over? You said there were elements of the command of regular Army units headed over. Do they know why they're doing this?

Ultimately, you know, ultimately, if we don't know the long-term plan or even the interim plan,

the medium-term plan, I doubt they know. They have an operation in front of them, which they are, they've more than likely been briefed on their own execute. They may know that. But what's the tie? And how does this, you know, how does this further the interest of the country? How does this further our strategic objectives around the world or even in the region? And I look at the prospects of ground troops in particular to reopen the state of Hormuz as an indicator that we do not have

the initiative in this fight. The streets are closed, gas prices are going up, and we are looking at a scenario by all accounts. You can talk to any number of economists about this, where if this goes on for much longer, the entire global economy could potentially be brought down. But it's already already feeling the ramifications of it. So, in effect, what it appears that we're doing is we are committing people to regain the initiative to open the streets. You know, it's a, it would be a

quote unquote bold or over-the-top stroke in order to put the Iranians on their back foot. Myself as a former rain grew up in the Marine Corps, I have had a relative or ancestor fight in every single American conflict going back to the French Indian War. It's kind of the French Indian War. Correct. That was not on CNN. No, it was not on CNN. It did, it may have been on

OAN, but got it. Oh, that's amazing. I appreciate it. And we've never been really career soldiers

or Marines or airmen with the exception of my grandfather who was a career force officer, where people who step up and who fight because it's, I mean, you can read one of my dad's books. It's in our nature. But at the same time, it's a sense of honor and duty to the country. When

you go back to civilian society and you live your life. The career aspect is never really

“appealed. You're not in it for the free healthcare. Not at all. Not at all. It's okay. It's a”

fight, you know, if I'm probably held there somewhere else. But when, when you're inside of that, right, when that's your mindset, you know, you're going to go fight because, you know, I can use my own experience with the Iraq War. I didn't agree with it when we went in. I had a unique perspective, due to the way that I grew up about the inner workings and the lack of strategic objective. But it was clear that something was going on, our country needed young men to go fight,

and I volunteered to go, uh, dropped out of college to go do it. Um, but, uh, so you enlisted. Correct. You were not ROTC. I was in ROTC, um, and then I went to Afghanistan with my dad in 2004, uh, had a chance to do some photojournalism there. Um, liked it so much that I came home and decided to sign up and be a Marine Corps infantryman. She could have been a Marine Corps officer, but you

“decided to be a Marine Corps infantryman. Correct. It's not met a lot of people who turned”

down the chance to be a Marine Corps officer in ROTC. This is the Marine Corps. Well, you're pretty enthusiastic. I was. I was. It was, it was, it just seemed like the natural place for me to be. I was amongst my peers, guys, the same age, uh, walking around Helman province and up on the Pakistani border. How long between, you were to Penn State? Correct. So one day, you're at Penn State, you know, only a plastic beer cup, and then how long between that and

finding yourself for the rifle on a foreign country? Um, about 18 months? Yep. Roughly 18 months. So your classmates were still at school when you were. Correct. Uh, they were, they were graduating the summer that I was an inner hacker or out, you know, getting ready to go. Well, most of them. Wow. Why did you do that? Do you? Patriotism. I love this country to death.

“Um, also it's, uh, literally unto death. That's what you're saying. Right.”

Um, it's, uh, it's been my family's home for 400 years, um, on my dad's side, on my mom's side. Uh, they came over in the early 1900s from Eastern Europe, and, uh, they did the same thing. My, my mom's dad, my grandfather was on E.O. G.M. as a Marine. She was an army nurse and Vietnam. Um, it's just, your father's in Vietnam and your mother's an army nurse and Vietnam. Correct. Both your parents are in Vietnam. Correct.

Um, and it's, uh, you know, for my mom's side, um, she, she was, uh, both my parents were the,

the first and their family to go straight through college. My, my grandfather on my, my dad's

side graduated college when my father was a senior in high school. Um, he was an officer in the Air Force and in a different time when you could, you know, you could, you could fly an aircraft as a pilot because you had high enough GT score, um, and he flew in World War II, he flew bombers, um, and then he flew in the Berlin Air Lift. Um, and then he went into the missile program after that. He was a test pilot in between for jets, um, very accomplished man. Um,

absolute legend, um, you know, but, uh, the military gave him that opportunity, um, and also the country gave him that opportunity to advance, um, you know, advance up into society. My mom used the army for the same, the same reasons. My, my father came, where my grandfather came back from World War II and got a job as a formative factory in a small town outside of Pittsburgh. Um, and, you know, it was, it was light years ahead of where their family had been, um, and the military

was, you know, not only a vehicle to get out, but it was also a way to, to kind of pay back, um, you know, the opportunities that they had. And, uh, my dad, same cut, um, his mom was a share cropper, uh, in Arkansas. And, uh, my grandfather didn't come from any kind of means in Missouri. Um, and, you know, they had found a way to succeed and, and part of that was being part, being in military. Um, amazing. Thank you. Spring is the most refreshing time of year.

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“What's so interesting is that you're at Penn State in 2004. You don't the rock war's been”

in progress for a year. By that point, it's clear that we're not getting out anytime soon. It's started to get squirrely there. We can't really pacify it. And it's not just liberals who

are starting to say, wait a second and you're one of them. You're not a liberal and a conventional

sense, but you think this war is bad. But you drop out of college to go anyway and list it in the Marine Corps. If you're going to get it over with, it was coming anyways. But you didn't have to. No. Absolutely did not. The catalyst was the Battle of Felicia in 2004. Of course, had been in Afghanistan over the summer. Yeah. In the fall, Felicia happened. I had friends who involved in that. And I found myself thinking. So you knew guys who were serving there. Correct.

“Correct. And I figured it was my turn. I was going to do it anyways. But the war was really”

picking up. College would be there when I got back. And so just decided to get up and go and do it. What's your parents say? Um, as you can imagine, they were, they were proud. I'll say that. But,

you know, it's, you know, my dad always told me never in list for a war. And I went ahead and did it.

So I'm sure that there was a little consternation. And that was largely based on the fact that, you know, he had been wounded twice and Vietnam. And understood what it meant to do that. I had no clue. Well, and not only understood it, I mean, I, you know, for people, no, I mean, he was like a legit war hero in Vietnam. He was also a public intellectual who explained not just that the war was bad, but why it was bad in a way that, um, you know, non-liberal peace tank types could understand

because it was rooted in an American understanding of what war is for. I think it's fair to say. So like, is it fair to say your parents were, you know, not pro what happened in Vietnam?

Um, I don't think that's a fair assessment. Um, my father, you know, always, we've talked about

the same number of times. And we had, we had an agreement with the South Vietnamese to defend them. Yeah, against communism. Um, you know, and we went and we did it. And in a sense, in a very real sense, it was a, it was a just cause. Um, and I agree with you. Oh, no, this is what I'm saying. I'm saying, the view was that the U.S. government had not made good on its promises to its people and to the South

“Vietnamese. Yes. Oh, that, yeah, absolutely. Right. That's what I'm saying. Like, there were a lot of”

people who joined in Vietnam, especially early on who thought they were doing this good thing. And the, and our government basically didn't back them up at all. Right. They, or under their service at all. At all, at all. Um, there was, there was no safety net for those guys when they came home. You know, you know, I think of our experiences, or my experiences, I'll say, are as, you know, collective veterans, um, with the GI Bill, uh, with the way that, uh, the VA, uh, it takes care of disabled

veterans. You know, it's, it's one thing that we did learn after Vietnam. We hadn't really, really well taken care of because they were not. Yes. Um, and I'm thankful for that. So, but your data told you don't enlist for anymore. Correct. Correct. You gave me a story of, uh, I think a mutual individual we know who enlisted for the, uh, Cuban missile crisis. And by the time you had a bootcamp, it was over. Um, so interesting. So, uh, what was your experience like in a rock? Um,

violent is a good way to put it. Um, I saw the warts up close of our policy. And once again, I was in a really unique place to see that because of all the discussions that my father and I had, I had before I went, yes, um, he was very much opposed to the war, um, in all, you know, and all, all phases of us going in. Um, but, uh, it was very disorganized. For example, they brought in a bunch of, uh, Shea troops, uh, to Sunni Ramadi, um, and tried to put them in the

middle to do security. And those rivalries bubble to the top, um, any number of times, it was, uh, kind of wild to watch in person when, uh, you know, some Sunni policemen and some Shea troops, both on the same side, getting an intermoral firefight, um, they happened on occasion, um, yeah, but, uh, but overall, um, it was very informative, um, in all kinds of different ways, it's probably the best way to put it. Uh, you could see that, uh, a fairly early on, and I don't

end of the deployment to understand that what we were doing was completely temporary. We didn't

“really have a coherent plan. The, the biggest event that happened on the ground there was the Sunni”

Awakening, um, and that changed the nature of our battle space and virtually overnight, um, in a way that really rubbed a lot of people the wrong way, um, not in the sense that, you know, we wanted it to, to keep getting out there, um, and getting shot at and blown up in the rest of it, but one day, you know, we would be fighting, you know, military age males in, uh, track pants, um, and then literally the next day, those same guys around the corner, you know, saying it on our side,

but at times, taunting, um, saying, you know, they had been on the other side, um, and we had

no control over that. That was not forced by any policy that we were doing. It was just the result

of internal politics within the Sunni's out in Ambar province, um, you know, deciding to make the switch, um, and it was, uh, I watched as a city was, you know, it was already pretty torn apart, was effectively torn down of the studs, um, while we were there, and it was, uh, you know, that, it was a rack, um, but at the same time, you know, it's, uh, I kind of made, uh, I made a mental note, it'd be too strong to say it'd be a promise that if I found the same kind of

diddling non-strategic focus, uh, situation happening again, that I would do whatever I had my power. I mean, and there's no way to gauge that when you're, you know, 20 something years old, um,

to, to speak out against it, to try and find a way to convince whoever I could, um, to look for

a senior option. So you actually thought that while you were an Inbar province, Iraq, when I get older, if I'm still around and I've any influence at all, I'm going to do everything I can to make sure we don't do this kind of thing again, right? 100%. Now, when you were in Iraq,

“did you have any sense of what the strategic objective was? No, none whatsoever. Did anybody?”

Um, I'm sure somebody might have, um, they might have drank the cool aid and decided that, hey, this is the strategic objective, maybe it was bringing democracy to Iraq. You know, we're going to, we're going to fight here until the, uh, Arab Thomas Jefferson stands up and, you know, writes a bill of rights, fed Iraqi people. Um, but if you truly bought into that, I would say you're a best delusional, um, it's just a different society, not for better, not for worse.

That's obvious now, but, you know, in Washington, I was most of that time, people said that I don't know if they actually believed it or not. They did say it with a straight face, including from the White House briefing room, but you didn't meet many men fighting the war. Who thought that? No, not at all. Um, conversely, we had several true believers as I would refer to them, um, uh, who flipped the other direction. Um, it's just, the way it was,

um, and strategically, um, the, the, the reality was that we tied down the greatest maneuver force in the world, um, into a counter and search as he fight that we were, you know, it wasn't necessary, um, and at the same time, we weren't really trained to do it. I mean, we got trained to do it. We got better at it as we went along, but when we went to Iraq in 2003, you know, we were still designed to take down a major conventional force rapidly, which is what we did, you know,

right out of the jump, right? Um, and then over the arch of Iraq, we re-oriented all of our forces, and this is, you could say Iraq could be a little short-sighted, but the entire global war on terrorism. We re-oriented everything to fight counter insurgency, stripping out many, many, many, many things, many, many different capabilities that are highly effective in a conventional fight. Um, and we found ourselves over the past probably five or six years trying to re-oriented the force,

you know, towards a conventional fight, and we're not quite there yet, but in terms of strategic

“force projection, um, in our presence, if you, if you want to take that into account,”

it's been very detrimental. Um, you've seen the South China Sea open up, China has become more aggressive, um, the Russians have really cut their teeth in the next generation of conventional warfare in Ukraine, and we're still trying to figure out how to pull ourselves out of the mock of the G-Wat, and now we found ourselves at war yet again. In a pretty conventional looking face-off, right? Yeah. Um, so I think what you're saying is our force isn't necessarily ready

for this kind of war. No, I would, I would assess that it's not. We are in the middle of a major overhaul, um, at multiple levels, and, uh, to accent that, you know, I think one thing to really,

defined by drones, uh, for the past few years. We're still trying to figure out how to feel

equipment, uh, to counter drones. Um, our tactics, our operational methods, our infantile,

“compared to say the Russians, and you might ask, "Okay, why is that important?" It's like,”

"Well, a large bulk of what the Russians are doing in Ukraine is with Iranian sheds and other technologies that we may or may not know about." Um, so they are very, very, very, very far ahead in their development, um, and they're undoubtedly passing that back to the Iranians. So what's in your toothpaste if you're using the brand you grew up with, you probably don't want to know the ingredients likely include fluoride, something called SLS glycerin foaming agents,

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directly. We are still American dollars are still going to Ukraine as of right now as we speak. Right. And we've had a front receipt to it for over four years, so how could we not have adjusted

“our force based on what we're seeing there? So I think the best way to examine this is to take a”

look at say World War I. Gosh. Yeah. So the opening rounds of World War I. You had a whole bevy of new technology on the battlefield. Yes. And the bloodiest parts of that war were on the front end. Yeah. The front in the back end. But primarily the front end. People didn't understand the impacts of high explosive artillery machine guns. Exactly. Yes. Gas. And there was a there's a very steep learning curve that you pay for in blood whenever you're trying to adjust. Yeah, the whole

British ruling class dies. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. 100%. So you can kind of look at like a sine wave, right? Where on the front end you run into these technologies and your ability to deal with them is at its lowest point. And eventually you adjust the top of sine wave. You become much more operationally effective. And that's where I would peg the Russians are at right now. Like we've been observing, they have been practically applying and using Iranian heads for example. And they understand

how to counter our equipment. We've put a lot of defensive equipment out. Patriot missile batteries and aircraft fire probably some signals in jamming equipment. In overall kind of a piecemeal fashion,

“it's probably the best way to put it where we're not massing these types of fires. If you take a”

look at say the high-more system in an offensive capability, you're not massing these fires in the way that we're supposed to use them or massing say, uh, elant capabilities in a way that we would use them. But we put just enough out there to give the Ukrainians cover and then what the Russians can do and have been doing is engaging them piecemeal, building a profile and taking those lessons and then incorporating them into their own doctrine and undoubtedly passing those off. So one of my

fears at the big picture level, we can drill our way down and, you know, possible contingencies,

operational stuff in a second. But, you know, my big fear is that they, the the Iranians understand

how their systems work against our equipment. And there's evidence all over these last couple of weeks that that is the case. And if we commit ground troops without the appropriate countermeasures to defend them against say suicide drones, larger drones, ballistic missile systems, we could be positioning ourselves for a lot of bloodshed unnecessarily. And you're telling me that none of those guys who are preparing to do this assuming it happens

risking your life like nobody's, you're, no commanding officer sathe does had just so you know, here's why we're here, here's how we'll know when we've won, here's when we can leave.

Not never happening Iraq. How can that not happen? I don't understand. How can you ask someone

to risk getting killed without explaining why you're doing it? Well, it ties into, I mean, it's first follows your job to go out there and do it. But it's not like other jobs and you can get killed in any job, but the likelihood is very low and the expectation is zero. I don't expect to get killed as a talk show host. Okay, if I do, I'll be very surprised. I would not be surprised to be killed as a marine in an embark because that's just part of it. That's right, risk

that you understand when you've been up. It's bad policy. No, but just like as a, like how I didn't, I wasn't aware, but I thought someone would make up like a story at least, like we're doing this for, I don't know what, to remember the main, right, whatever, right? Yeah, I mean, we certainly don't have that right now. I mean, you had all kinds of, so what do the guys think? What do you tell your wife? That's a great question. I can tell you what some of the people that I know who are out there

doing this thing. They are confused. I know people who who have told me that they can't believe we're doing this. They don't want to do it. And they're not talking about their, you know, it's not individual cowardice. They're talking about the broad opinion of the units that they're in,

because there hasn't been a state of American interest in this. That's the bottom line,

everybody sees it. When you have Marco Rubio stand up in front of bunch reporters and say, we did this because Israel was going to do it. So then, therefore, we did it. That is not inspiring. That's not exactly, you know, MacArthur out there. Well, it's the opposite of MacArthur. It's a betrayal of the country. We're not doing this for us. We're doing it for somebody else who gives us campaign contributions to say that out loud, which is what they did. It puts the guys who are away

from their families risking death in a very weird position. They know that. They have internet access, right? I'm sure if any of them refused to fight, they'll be called cowards or anti-Semites or whatever

they'll be called, but they'll be slandered. But it still leaves an answer to the question. Why are

we doing this? And don't you owe the guys who may die in the next week or two, an explanation

“for why they may die? You would think that. And I think this is a good point to bring up your”

interview with Joe Kent the other week, where you know, he would shock by that interview. And I don't in the slander of Joe Kent or the FBI investigation into him and me, I mean, no, I mean, okay, fine. You know, well, it's time for the FBI investigation, but how about you answer the question? Nobody ever answered the question, right? Were you shocked by that interview? Yes, and no, I was shocked by the response to the interview. And you have this incredibly

bifurcated view about Joe Kent. Those of us who have been out there and done it to a man applaud him for getting out there and they applaud his courage back him a thousand percent. Really? Yes. So Joe Kent is popular with the troops. Insanely, well, he's popular in the veterans community. I imagine he's popular with the troops as well. But he is popular with the veterans. Big time. Big time. And what it also gave everybody was a view under the hood, right? About

“how you are viewed and treated? Should you step out of line? Should you question what is going on?”

You know, it's okay. It reminds me of like the poem Tommy by Richard Kippling. You know, it's you know, everybody wants, you know, Tommy win the guns begin to shoot. Tell me what's the slang term for British troops in the actual war, right? Yeah, right? But should you step out of line and question and say, hey, we need some clarity. We need to understand why this is an American interest. You know, they come for you. They come after you. And it's very illuminating

to this generation of veterans, I believe. My self included. And a lot of people come if you aren't even American. And they certainly know that this country is interested in hard. And they can't point to relatives who fought in the French and Indian war. So it's actually one of the most insulting things I've ever seen in my entire life. Agreed. The attacks on Joe Kent. Agreed. And if you disagree with Joe Kent, tell me how. But they won't. They won't debate him on anything he says.

“They will go after. And so veterans see this. And so what's their conclusion?”

Their conclusion is that, you know, you can connect the dots, you know, people just because you're in the military, you know, and you don't go to Harvard doesn't mean you're stupid. You know, you can read the room. You can see what are elected officials and our cabinet officials say about the

mentions that out loud as if it's negative as if it's a bad idea or it's perhaps dishonorable

as a country to send your military to fight on behalf of somebody else. So they put it all together and you know, understand what that full picture is, if you will. And it does not make the war more popular. Let's put it that way. I mean, I guess the bet is that these are guys who are so duty-oriented and so focused on tactics and good at their jobs in a lot of cases like, you know, you're trying to do this thing, go ahead and do this thing. They'll be so focused on that that they'll be compliant.

And then I assume the guess is if there's, you know, domestic resentment against us, the technology will

“somehow allow them to stay in power by crushing that descent perhaps. And I think I would take it a step”

further. I think that we have slipped into some sort of a caste system or attempting to be pushed

into a caste system. I'm a third generation marine, third generation and a row marine.

And well, that's great. That's your family business now. And the people in power, the elites, the hyper wealthy, you know, they get to call the shots and then we have to carry the water for them. And that's not what this country was founded on it all. No, citizen soldiers, citizen legislators. Yeah. And that's literally a caste system you're describing. Right. Right. Yeah. My dad was a digger, so I'm like, so can I ask about the attitudes you said, the most revealing part of the

reactions of the joke and interview was the contempt that a lot of the people sending troops into

battle have for the troops. They don't want to hear it. They don't want to hear any disagreement right

all. Yeah. I've noticed that contempt also. And it came out of an interview I did with the U.S. Ambassador to Israel. My cuckoo be, and I asked him what was happening in Gaza and the murder of all these children in his murder was done on purpose, obviously. Well, now they're just saying it. Let's just kill the kids. I mean, it's really cabinet officials have said that. So we know and he said, well, they're more humane than American troops were in Iraq and Afghanistan.

And I've heard others say this too, comparing the Israeli military to the U.S. military and saying the Israeli military is more humane. They're more war crimes committed by our troops in Iraq and

“Afghanistan as as a Marine has served in Iraq. Is that true? And be, what do you think of that?”

If it wasn't so insulting, it would be completely laughable. I'd want to just laugh out loud at the, it's just, it's completely baseless. We did everything in our power in Iraq in at least in my A.O. which was Ramadi in 2006 and 2007 described by an intel officer when we got on the ground as the most dangerous couple of square miles in Iraq and a very densely built-up urban environment. We did everything in our power to avoid civilian casualties. To the point where our heavier

weapons at the infantry level 50 caliber machine guns, for example, were cut off a lot of the time because we didn't want to risk responding to us being attacked. And this is not even at the individual level. This is at the battalion or division level. It wasn't worth risking hitting a civilian

“or hurting civilians. That applied to 50 kills. Correct. And that's a rifle type and having machine”

gun, but it's a, it's on artillery. If we called in attack helicopters to back us up, they would do a show of force, which means they would fly around and just kind of try to scare the bad guys or scare the insurgents into going away. Same thing with aircraft, granted one of the, it's one of the coolest things you could ever experience is an F-18 coming in and above the speed of sound like right above your head. But, you know, they weren't dropping

ordinance on occasion they would, but the situation had to be unique for that. And that gets into the way that the American military fights its wars. It's based on, you know, enlightenment principles, it rolls all the way back, you know, into, I, I would very eagerly argue Christian ideals, yes, where you avoid unnecessary death all the way around civilian combatant. You engage with proportionality, you know, with the enemy. You don't, you don't drop a 2000 pound bomb on one guy

that's the way we fought. And that is why in conflict such as World War II, Korea, Vietnam, Iraq,

“Afghanistan, the civilian population of those countries and even the enemy combatants to a large”

degree, viewed us favorably, our, our tactics on the battlefield in the European theater in particular of World War II shortened the war. We're millions of Germans surrendered to us rather than, you know, kind of risk it with the Russians because the Russians went pure total war, you know, crushed the ant with a sledgehammer, no quarter. You know, and it's that actually in the long term when you, when you apply those principal saying, hey, we're here to solve a problem

with violence, but we're going to limit it to the absolute minimum that we have to afflict. It sends a very clear message that, you know, you can be approached that you have good intentions. You're not there, you know, spreading around evil. And it, it enables somebody on the other side who may not believe in their cause to put down their rightful and say, you know what, like actually I'm out. And that's just as effective, if not far more effective than killing somebody on the

battlefield. Yeah, it's an unrequited fact of history that a lot of those German POWs went up in the United States in refugee camps across the country, including in downtown Nashville, Tennessee. There was a German prisoner of war camp in downtown Nashville during the war, because so many surrendered because they knew they wouldn't be torture to death, shot onsite, sold into slavery. They knew that they were dealing with the humane opponent. And the flip side. So I,

we talked about it before. I resigned from the RFK campaign over a statement that backed up the perception you just talked about. And when I look at what was the statement that the IDF in the American military in Iraq conducted themselves the same way. Or as you said, the idea was actually more humane than the American military that they avoided civilian casualties more. It's such a slander against American troops. I don't understand how anybody could say that.

Yeah. And I mean, all you guys do is take a look at the conduct of say IDF operations in Gaza or the war on the people of Gaza to get a glimpse of that. They killed between 50 and 70,000 non-combatants in a couple of years by just blanket bombing, bulldozing, working their way through. And so my, I could be told me to my face that US troops killed more per capita non-combatants in Afghanistan and Iraq. False. I mean, it just, it just false on its face. Not even in the realm of

real. Not even in the realm of real. A lot of, what do you think when you see an American official

say something like that about you? Shameful. I mean, first of all, I think they're ignorant.

That's, that's the first thing that comes by brand is like that guy is like probably both stupid and corrupt. Yeah. And the other part is like, how can you do that? How, if you're an American, how can you slander your own people, even more so the people who volunteer to fight these wars were not conscripts? Exactly. Why do you think that, and he's not the only one who said that as you just pointed out, a lot of them have said that. Why would they say something like that?

It's, it's pretty clear that the way the IDF operated in Gaza is very below bored and they

“deliberately targeted civilians. So you have to find a way to deflect that from being the narrative.”

So, but why, why, if you're an American official or politician, why are you in the business of covering for some other country's war crimes? I would love to know the actual history as so. Why couldn't you just say, I like Israel? You know, I want to protect Israel. There are friend or ally. That's disgusting. And we're not backing that. I love my country. I'm not into the fire bombing of Tokyo or dressed in. Okay. Yeah. Does it mean I hate America? That's beneath us, and I'm

against it. Why can't they say that? I get them fired. They might be... Or what? What is this?

Yeah. It's, I mean, it's the million dollar question. I mean, I would love to peel back the onion

on the base rationale for so many of our recent, like decisions as a country.

“Who is allowed to be in power? Why do when they get into power? Their views change so rapidly?”

And then, why is there this undying need to refuse to discuss what is out in the open in a logical and straightforward fashion? It's not a slander on anybody to want to discuss the

why we're in a rant or what our objectives are or have this go through Congress. Like, if you

ask these questions, you're immediately attacked. And it makes very little sense other than what could possibly be the, you know, unfortunately, the open glaring reality in the room, which is those at the top are being suppressed deliberately from that debate. For whatever reason is a corruption, probably, who knows? But without answers, without a public discussion, people's opinion default to that. It's like, okay, well, you're, you are deliberately screening and running interference

“for another country. Therefore, you know, what's the incentive? What's the natural incentive?”

That country, perhaps, has dirt on you somehow? And I think there's a lot of different things that have happened in the past 20 years, possibly further back, that need some light shown on them in order to ameliorate ourselves from that. In the meantime, I see two obvious effects. One is to destroy people's faith in their own nation. If you wanted to despair to country and make people feel like it wasn't worth defending. If you wanted people to lose confidence in their ancestors

and then what their ancestors built here, and the whole idea of being American, this is exactly what you would do. You'd shake people's confidence in their own country and in the virtue of its mission.

And the second thing that jumps out is the malice, the loathing of the American population,

by the people in charge. It's not enough. You could just lie and say, the idea of doing nothing wrong in Gaza. But to say, actually, with the idea of doing Gaza is better than what we did, that tells me that you hate me and that I should be afraid of you. You're accusing my country of war crimes. You're supposedly one of the leaders you're accusing my country of war crimes.

“I don't know. I think you might hurt me. I'm serious. It's hard to disagree with that. It's”

if you're willing to do all of this, and this sale, I know we're not doing this for us. There's no potential upside here for you. But we're doing it in any way, and if you don't like it, you're a terror sympathizer, and we're going to think about putting you in jail. I don't know. I think anyone who expresses those views is probably willing to hurt you. I would agree completely. Whether it's physically, whether it's physically, character assassination, the whole game it.

If I talked that way about somebody, you could be certain that I wish that person bad end. You're not wrong. I wouldn't talk that way about someone unless I was willing to hurt them. Would you? No, not at all. I think you've pretty well hit the nail on the

“head, but I think what we need as citizens in this country is to get rid of the people who would”

be who are being held hostage in that situation, because I don't believe for a second that

someone like Mike Huckabee really believes the words that come out of his mouth when he mentions that. He is being puppeted to say that at expensive his career, perhaps other things, and to be governed effectively, you can't have those people in power, or in positions of influence, and I'm not speaking, and I'm not calling for any kind of revolution, what I'm saying is that you're calling for a hostage rescue operation. Absolutely, to be done at the ballot box by putting the correct

people in charge. To the military for a second, you said we basically created a cast system where I think a lot of people watching will be amazed by the number of people in your world who've served in the military. You said I know people who are getting ready to play right now, right? Most Americans don't know anyone who's getting ready to deploy right now, just because the division between the people who serve, which is mostly young white men from far away from the

coast in general, fly over country, fly over country to south, leap south, you know, it's just like separated from everybody else. But this is, and you already said, you joined up, you joined to fight in a war you didn't agree with without knowing why we were doing this, right? But you did it anyway out of love of country, which is kind of beautiful. But now people are so discouraged about their country that who's going to join the military? It's an interesting question.

I mean, yeah, I've talked to a number of people who have decided that they are the last of their

I hate to say this, I love this country, I am not as proud of anything as I am as my, as my service

“in the Marine Corps. But I will not let my kids join because of the way that we went to war with”

Iran. Because if you look at it philosophically, we have gone to war on behalf of another country to further their interest. That is, those are not my war, those are not my words. The administration has set as much, Speaker of the House has set as much. And when that's the case, you know, you have reduced our military to effectively a mercenary force. And there's no honor in that, you know, this is an offensive war of choice. One of our allies was not being run over by an outside

power. You know, the democracy is not being destroyed. All the different ways that you can we're not even liberating Poland. No, we're not, we are, we are simply trying to, I guess, I mean, it depends on the day of the week. Eliminate a regime for getting nuclear weapons, reduce capabilities, all these different pieces. Not because that they have, there's any threat

“to America. You know, not because of anything other than it threatens one of our key partners in the”

region. And that is, I don't think there's a whole lot of honor in that. And I don't want to see my kids go do it. And I know a lot of people feel the same way. But I will say that I don't feel that people in my peer group are necessarily demoralized by this. I mean, it's heightened their awareness of how we're viewed what's going on. And it's, it's zeroed in on these specific needs for change in this country. Can we get there? I don't know. We have to get out of what we're doing in a

ran first before we start talking about that, just because it's such a huge deal. It's impacting

our global standing. It's impacting our economy. It's impacting our alliances. I mean, you name it.

“It's having a detrimental effect on the American way of life in the way we've done things for”

the last 70 years, at least. So you described the motive for going into where the impetus is dishonorable, inherently dishonorable because it's not, it was not done in defense of the United States or its interests. So like by definition, it's illegitimate. What are the conduct of the Warsaw far? Is it Honorable? Well, I mean, we can start with the way it opened up by killing the Iotola. And saying this may not be very popular, but that is the absolute worst thing we could have

done for any number of reasons. First and foremost, assassinating the leader of another country,

it has been taboo since at least the Treaty of West failure. You know, almost five years. Was that the 70s? It was just before the 1670. In doing that, one of the things that we did was we violated one of the fundamental principles of of of humanity. We killed an unarmed man and his family who were effectively out in the open. The second tier down from that. I agree with you really strongly, but I back to the Treaty of West failure. Yeah, you're being serious. I happen to know,

yeah, why did the civilized world decide that we're not going to assassinate each other's leaders in

wartime? Practically, it makes it difficult to negotiate. That is the first bullet point on that.

And by by doing so when we assassinate the Iotola, um, and if I'm correct, it was not the Americans who assassinated the Iotola. It insured a number of different things along those lines. We took away somebody who could be considered comparatively a moderate to the rest of Iranian society, as a talking, as someone we can talk to. And then we created him into the martyr of martyrs, if you will. You know, we killed, this is this is going to be a little bit paraphrase here,

but we effectively killed the Pope during lent while he was standing on a street corner or with his family, with his family, including a grand kid. And that would be bad enough in the Catholic religion, but when you take into account the nature of Shia Islam, where there is no greater honor than to die in defense of the faith. And then later on top, it was in defense of Iran. You who, we emboldened the entire civilian population to stand up and fight us. Had we taken a step back and not that I would have

and cause, say, the IRGC pain in a large area, then at some point, we probably would have had a pretty decent chance of, once again, sitting down with the Iranians and discussing offerings. But by creating a martyr rate of the gate with effectively a cheap shot that also is completely taboo in terms of international law and international relations, we have cemented these people's will to fight and their need to protect their own honor. And this creates a huge problem long term.

Do you know, so World War II, which is, you know, whatever you think of World War II or truth World War II was the largest conflict in human history, probably, were there documented persistent attempts by our side or the other to kill one of another's leaders? I'm not a worse person. Right, okay. Yeah, there was, I mean, there was obviously an internal attempt by the term course to take it right, there was dissent within Germany against Hitler and they

tried to kill, tried to blow them up and failed. But there's no, in the 80 years of declassification efforts, nothing, nothing not come across. I mean, if it's out there, I'd love to see it. So we're waging total war against a couple of different enemies, several different enemies, and we don't plot to assassinate their leaders. Correct. Okay. Just trying to establish how far out of like

“precedent. Oh, yes, it's, yeah, way outside precedent. Why did nobody say that?”

I didn't hear, I'm not that I hear everything, but I didn't hear anybody prominent stand-up

and say, whoa, wait a second. We're killing an 86-year-old leader of the country,

especially also the religious leader of an entire religion, and anybody say that. It was like he was the most evil man who ever lived. Anyone who's against this is also evil. You're on the total side if you have questions about this. Yeah, it's a fantastic question. I mean, that gets back to the need for leadership. I mean, if we had, you know, more leaders in the legislature, they would have forced an AUMF vote at least. Let alone talking about this. Someone, you know,

the people we send to Washington should be bringing this up. Why they're not saying it? You know, it could be any number of things like you're familiar with EC, just like me. It's, you know, you may just have a problem with, you know, with low IQ in some areas. They just don't understand or know, but also don't have a thirst for the knowledge to understand. But also, you know, possible ramifications for stepping out and saying something like that. Maybe they consider

political suicide. But at the end of the day, it's ultimately just cowardice in my opinion. Of course, it's cowardice. One thing I've noticed is that whenever you talk to people who fought in a rock or Afghanistan or Vietnam or War II or anybody who's actually pulled a trigger on behalf of the United States, there is a notable absence of blood thirstyness, at least in comparison to like Lindsey Graham, right? You know, or Mike Johnson or any of these

performers on the right or left, you know, they're always very excited about someone being killed.

“I almost never hear anyone professionally under arms expressed that. Have you noticed this?”

Yeah. It's pretty ubiquitous. What is that? When you've seen it up close, it's something that a never leaves your mind and b, something you can do without. I mean, doesn't mean you're not capable of it. You can never ramp up and do it again. But it's, once you've been to the extreme, you just prefer not to go back. Because it's war is the most horrible of all things. It's not clean like it's on TV or a video game. You know, there's no

respawn point. And when people die, whether they're your friends, whether they're civilians, whether they're the guys on the other side, it's rarely clean. And it's just a horrible thing to witness. So once you see that, I think it becomes part of your psyche to just, you know, you understand that you can go to that point, but you really want to do everything in your power

to avoid it. Conversely, when I see people out there who have never done it, such as Lindsey Graham,

you know, there's a certain blood thursdayness that comes off basically as evil. Straight up. I'm not calling Lindsey Graham evil straight out, but I'm saying if you think that killing is a good thing, double tapping boats, you know, killing for the sake of

“killing is good, then you should probably re-examine your entire moral ethos. Because generally speaking,”

it's unnecessary and it's not, you know, it's not effectively human. And it's in its core nature.

glad Mueller's dead good, right? And I thought as someone who, you know, vocally oppose the Mueller investigation like every night that it was ongoing, every single night, so obviously not, for the Mueller investigation, yeah, it was more opposed with anyone else, but when a man dies, even if it's someone you disagree with or even hate, like there's a certain reverence in death that's required if you're going to have reverence for a life. Absolutely. There's something

awful about that. Yeah, you judge society by how it remembers it's dead, like straight up. And people can have any problem they want with Robert Mueller, but at the same time, he has a grieving family. He has a wife. He has kids. This is a man who served the country honorably for decades,

starting in Vietnam as a Marine. He was wounded in combat. His first child was born while he was

deployed. He flew to Hawaii and got to see her for a brief minute before he flew back and went back to war. And then after all of that, he decided to stay on a service to his country for another few decades. And that is incredibly honorable. You can disagree with the Mueller investigation. I remember watching you every night talk about it. Yeah. You were my touch point for that

“for my daily. I don't think Mueller had a lot to do with it to be totally blunt. And I think everyone”

attacking Mueller knows that Mueller was not driving that investigation at all. And they're too afraid to say it was actually happening. But a lot of evidence that Mueller was incapacitated by illness.

So whatever, never knows that. So just watching the disingenuous as Mueller did it.

I don't think Mueller was really proud. I mean, there are lots of reasons to criticize Mueller. I'm happy to not defending Mueller, but like nobody's perfect. Just the lying is driving me insane. But I was one of his deputies who drove that. Who I think is like an MSNBC contract now, and he never gets attacked. But anyway, I noticed that it's very easy for a society to become a death worshiping society. And I feel like the US has made a real effort,

generationally not to become that. Right. But no one seems to be making an effort now. And my imagining this, I don't think you're imagining it all. When when you have daily Pentagon press briefings, which focus less on successful hits, do you take a compare, Pete Haggis as briefings to say, Donald Rumsfeld. Not a huge fan of Donald Rumsfeld. You're not. Yeah. But at the same time, there was at least an attempt to be somewhat transparent

in his briefings. Right. You know, we now see the, we see Haggis talking about no quarter and like how incredibly lethal and like we need $200 billion to kill bad guys. That's, that's Aia's beneath the station. It's beneath his office to talk like he's a Lance Corporal quite frankly.

But also, it's always focused on killing. And you know, that's, uh, that's not a headspace where

“I think, you know, people who have participated in that a whole lot usually sit, um, and honestly”

it worries me. But what worries me even more about it is the messages sends our enemies, um, or adversaries. And then about out there, we have, we have a few enemies right now. We have one country, which we have created into a massive enemy that we're trying to, to muck our way out of a fight with. But, uh, to tell them, to, to, to glorify the killing of its citizens of its people and then to tell the press that we're giving them no quarter, um, also backfires. Um, you're going to see that on the

battlefield. Um, you're going to see that in the way they approach fighting us. Like, okay, cool. Like, I mean, I can, you know, I can, I can speak as a fighting man here where if I knew that the people on the other side, I think, got their hands on me, um, we're going to finish me off no matter what and we talked about this in the minute before, you better believe that I would be amped up in doing everything in my power, um, to take as many of them with me. I'm not even a think about

“surrender. You know, it's, uh, it's very much, I think, like the attitude of the Marines in the”

Pacific, or World War II, um, that was the Japanese approach. And they deliberately told their own troops, this is the Japanese, that, uh, you know, the Marines were the same way. Like, you had to do commit atrocities in order to become a Marine, murder your family, all kinds of random stuff. And it creates this fight to the end mentality, which is not conducive to allowing any kind of diplomatic space. Well, and they convinced, you know, hundreds, if not thousands of civilians on

the Pacific Islands, famously on Ocanawa to kill themselves, right, rather than surrender, because they were going to be eaten or raped or sold into slavery or whatever. Um, so that is the message

question of honor and what is honorable and what is not and why you would fight for your country in the

“first place, since the pay isn't that great. So what are you fighting for when you, when you leave”

Penn State to enlist in the Marine Corps in a war that you don't agree with, what you say loyalty to these from America, you love America, but why would a patriotic young man love America more than licks and Stein, pick a country? Like, what is it about America that we are fighting for? What is worth fighting for? Corn dogs, baseball, and church on Sunday. Um, but in all, in all, in all seriousness, like decency, right? decency. Yeah, it is, you know, the city, like the shining city on a hill,

you know, the different aspects of this country, which have just, you know, the whole story of this country, people, people pouring in and carving out an entirely new way of life, throwing off, you know, the bonds of being under repressive kings and governments, um, from all over the world for incredibly long periods of time and reforming this under ideals that are stipulated in the Bill of Rights and the Constitution. Um, you know, nobody has the right to prevent you from defending yourself.

You can always speak your mind. Uh, you can't incriminate yourself. And I think a lot of people

take this for granted, um, here, and a lot of these are slipping away, by the way, um, which is,

“which is very troublesome. But those are why, you know, that's what motivated me is seeing the historical”

arch of this country growing up, knowing that my, my dad, my grandfather, you know, you run it all the way back. People served to defend those ideals, um, and the quality of life that you have here, the freedom of movement that you have. I mean, you can move wherever you want. You're not constrained to an area, uh, by a repressive government, or forced to repopulate an area like the Soviets did. Um, you know, it's, it's all of those things. It's a gift, you know, it's a, it is, it's truly a gift

from God that we have this experiment occurring in such a rich, rich piece of land on earth. And the, the flip side of that is coming from different areas where you didn't have that. So that's, you know, the contrast, if you will, um, now when it comes down to actually fighting on the ground, um, you end up doing that for the guy next to you, uh, for your peers, um, you know, and, and one

thing that was always evident in the Marine Corps is that, um, there's a deep sense of institutional

history. Um, you know, we are in the fight. Did, you know, I could sit there and, you know, turn to a 19-year-old, you know, and what do they do on Ewojima? And they know, you know, they may not know the entire historical arch of the battle, but they know those guys didn't run. They knew they stood there and fought because Marines at Bello Wood stood there and fought. And it's, you know, it's, it's, it goes all the way back through history. It's, uh, you know, you hold yourself accountable

through your peers, um, and they wear decorations from previous war. Right. Mm-hmm. All right. My unit had the French forage app, which they earned, uh, and what we're one, um, and we had to memorize that word. Correct. Yeah. My dead have that. Yeah. Great word. Yeah. So, interesting. Um, so you're fighting for the man next to you, you're fighting for the institution of the Marine Corps, um, but you're also fighting because you think on some moral level,

you're on the right side. Absolutely. Better than they are. Absolutely. For all of our faults, this is still a better country than theirs. Mm-hmm. If you got to a place where you no longer thought that, it'd be pretty hard to fight the war, correct? It would be, yeah. Right. So, I guess my concern is we're tampering with the secret sauce here. Mm-hmm. Like, for example,

“what, what is your read on the bombing of the Girl's School next to the RGC Naval Base?”

Yeah. I've got wrenching. Of course. Got wrenching. I mean, any, any, any normal person would feel that way. Mm-hmm. But what are we to make of that? I would love to know where that target package came from. Well, that was my thought. Yeah. Who, who gave us that target? How is it generated?

Um, because I know that our uniform services would never deliberately target a school.

I believe that. Um, 100%. I mean, could it be as something as as simple and perhaps nefarious as an AI targeting program, you know, deciding that because there was a key word that we were going to launch a missile at the particular building? Perhaps. Um, but I would think, and I would like to think that that was verified beyond just like, you know, a blip on a screen. Hey, this, this says she had, therefore, we'll hit it. Um, so, you know, I will say that at

off ramp, um, there has been some sort of, uh, obfuscation, interference, interjection by the Israelis, um, to prevent that. And it started with the killing of the AI, I told her right out of the gate. I mean, we got blooded right out of the gate. Um, we got put in a situation where it was

impressed upon the Iranian people that this was total war by basically our very first action.

“And in conjunction with that, I believe the, the girl school was hit. Um, that's another message”

being sent. I think by somebody, um, you know, it was, um, unless we can, unless we could have transparency and say, hey, how did this mistake happen? Who gave it to us? Um, and traditionally, that would be a very easy decision to make. I mean, I know there's probably a number of officers in the military who were involved in that strike, um, who would love to step forward and say, they gave us the information. Um, and that would be the right thing to do. Where are they?

Good question. Um, being muscled, maybe it wasn't even that, you know, but these are the things

that we need to have, you know, that we've traditionally had with our military as a little bit

as transparency on what we're doing as far as objectives go, how it's going on the ground. Um, and why did the mistakes that we made, you know, why did they happen? Um, you know, we got, we probably have more clarity out of John Callie or Lieutenant Callie and Vietnam, or love. Yeah. Then, uh, then that. But can I say, I mean, I, I, I grieved when I saw that because it's awful, um, but I also was not entirely surprised. I assumed the target package came for these

really, I don't know that, but it fits a pattern of behavior, design to keep the United States in for beyond our own interests. But I don't know if that's true. But what really bothered me was the official response to it, all kinds of people get killed in wars, non-convencey killed innocent

“people, children get killed. That's why I'm generally not that in favor of wars if we can help it.”

But I'm not surprised by it. But when you do something like that, you have to apologize like immediately, right? Don't you? That's the, the right and just thing to do. Isn't that we demand for children? Yeah, 100%. I, I, I don't understand how you wouldn't just apologize and say, look, we, you know, we're not sure how this happened. No American would do that intentionally. I believe that, because I, I've lifted my whole life. I know what Americans are like. They're not bombing

girl schools on purpose. I don't believe that. Everyone knows that. But like, how could you not say? We're going to find out what happened. But in the meantime, holy smokes. I'm so sorry. Did anyone say that? Not that I heard? Well, damn them, then. Yeah. How could you not say that? Hebrews, does it diminish you to apologize for a mistake that killed children? I don't think it

“does. Yeah, I don't know. Absolutely not. You know, it's the, uh, that's why I started to think,”

you can't do this in my name. I'm from here. Right. Now, I had some, I'm right there with you, Tucker. You know, it's, uh, the combination of that and the, the opening strike on the Iatola combined with the lack of objectives. Um, we're doing something in our name, which literally makes no sense and has the attachments, you know, or the writers of evil attached to it. You know, um, killing, killing a bunch of kids, um, is quite possibly the absolute worst thing that someone

can do, killing a kid. Like, I couldn't remember more. So can this be solved with ground troops? No. Why? So go back to what was talking about earlier. Um, if we thought that we could drop the

80 second airborne over to ran and over through the government, we would have already done it. Um,

what we're looking at is a, an operation or a series of operations to effectively reopen the straight support moves, um, which is a problem that we created due to our operation there, but to rule it back a little bit more. It's also because we didn't have the contingencies in place to deal with the most obvious thing that a Iranian regime that was fighting an existential fight would do. Um, this is their trump card. Should I have global oil? So we're going on hard. Yeah. And the

rationale behind it is is quite simple. Um, one and primary, it puts global pressure on the United States or whomever is attacking them, um, to come to the table and resolve this quickly because if it goes on for long enough, it can crash the entire economy of the world. Um, so the fact that we didn't have people in place to even address that contingency, um, or moving into the region to address that contingency, tells me this whole operation in Iran was not our decision. Uh, we are following

a long, uh, with somebody else, the Israelis. And that is not how America fights this wars,

leaders made these decisions to go to war in Iraq to wage war in Afghanistan as we did and to

“go into Iran. So it's the fault of American leaders. It's just completely clear. It's the”

fault of the Commander in Chief. Okay. However, it's also a fact that the Israelis pushed us to go to war in Iran that some of the fake intel came from them. Um, did you know that when you were serving Iraq? It was a wreck, okay, you had no idea that it was really anything to do with the Iraq war when you were fighting it. No, I mean, it was a rumor, but you know, it's kind of crazy. Yeah, it's one of those things. It just seemed like there was, uh, I mean, there's, it was very clear

there was ulterior motives, um, in place. But how that was being governed and driven was, you know,

way outside of what I get it. I get it. But now there's not a single person awaiting deployment.

Who doesn't know that? I mean, it's literally, the plan is literally in writing and it's been

“there since the, since the, since the 90s, right, a clean break, right, written by the same policy”

makers in the Pentagon who pushed the Iraq war. Um, and in six pages, you can go through it, seven pages, maybe, um, and read the entire arc of the different conflicts that they felt were going to be beneficial to enhance, uh, the Israeli state and the region. Um, Iraq was in there. Iran was the big one. Um, so how, do the troops feel about Lindsey Graham, would you say if you had to guess? I would say the opinion is probably not very high. Really not a hero to the troops. No,

um, in, at least the circles I run in, which were pretty broad, these, he's a bit of a laughing stock. Yeah. Um, he's a caricature of himself. Um, people from all over the country that I know are hoping that, you know, he loses his election flattened. Yeah. Um, and part of that, you know, the big part of it is, uh, he gets out there and talks a tough game and flexes his military creds, which have nothing to do with combat, and everybody sees it. Um, and in the context of the

war in Iran, it's so clear that he is pushing a narrative that has nothing to do with the American people. Um, it's all about Israel. Um, and the Israeli government and furthering their objectives, um, that has nothing to do with advancing, you know, American prestige because it's costing us all of our prestige. It's nothing to do with American troops because American troops are going to be dying on behalf of another country. Um, so one and so forth. Um, if Grinch, do you believe, or

let's let you guess? Yeah. Do you think that there, there's anybody from the service chiefs, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, who's telling the president, we can actually fix this problem with ground troops. Fixing the war? No. Um, opening the street, opening the street, I would hope that they're cautioning against that. Um, you know, there is plenty of data out there that speaks to the folly of trying ahead long assault into the streets of Formus. Um,

and everybody's start keeps talking about car island. Um, that's probably not the target,

“but before we get into that, I think it's important to go back in, uh, talk about, uh, millennium”

challenge in 2002 with the General Van Riper. Um, he's a legendary ring court general, who was the

head of the Red Force aka the Iranian force in a, uh, an a massive war game, multi-million dollar

war game in 2002, where this exact scenario was gameed out at a very, very large level. Um, it was a 14-day war game that he ended on day one, as fighting as the Iranians came after the American Force stepping into the street, um, and annihilated it causing, I think it was 20,000, uh, simulated casualties in one day, just ended it, like straight out of the gate. And the services were so upset by this that they reset the war game, limited the capabilities that the Iranians could use, and then

progressively war, they rigged their own war game. Oh, yeah. I mean, it's come on. It happens all the side, but, uh, but, why was that like rigging an MRI? Why would you do that? We're giving you a long x-ray, but we're, we're scrubbing out the spots. I mean, like what, they look full bill of health, you know, you might want to talk to a corner on the way out the door. But, um, but no, yeah, they rigged it, and they redid it, and he, he hung around as an advisor for the rest of the game, um, for 13

more days, um, under protests, but, you know, it was, it was designed to produce a result that people wanted to see within DOD. It was not designed to take a look at a particular problem set, and I'm sure there's a PA about there who's having heartburn right now for me saying it like that,

what exactly happened. And this is not the first time I have, uh, a number of friends who went through

high planning levels, uh, as senior warrants and staff NGOs, um, talking about different types of war games, how if they didn't rig it, um, and say, a scenario where I know specifically of where you're dropping a unit into the fight with Russia, um, if you didn't rig it, we would be annihilated, um, and that doesn't demonstrate the capabilities, and the overall justification coming out of Millennium Challenge was, well, we had a 14-day exercise plan, and we spent all this money,

so why could, why should we end it on day one when there's plenty more to experiment with? Um, but that's day to point one. We have wargamed this, and it didn't go well. Um, the other parts of it are the, if you look at the terrain of Iran, um, it is, afghanistan, but worse, with a larger population that is obviously well more equipped, um, than any other war we've

“fought in recent memory. That's why it's the oldest empire in the world, probably, geography matters.”

Absolutely. Um, and their traditions matter, like they have survived for two millennia, um, you know, and a lot of that was by having to fight, um, you know, they're not pushovers. I'm not a fan of their policies. I don't want to live in Iran, but at the same time, you have to to recognize realistically who you're dealing with. Um, and they're, they're not a, they're not a backwater. Um, they are a very advanced philosophical, mathematical, mathematical society. They've

given the world a lot. Um, and if you don't take that into account, you're rely on a hubris to make your planning. You're going to walk into a trap. Uh, so when you start looking at the actual streets in Hormuz, the streets of Hormuz, which is our current problem, um, that we are trying to fix, opening that is not going to crash the Iranian government. That moment is gone. Uh, that moment,

that moment was probably dead this second week killed the Ayatola. Um, and thinking otherwise is

fully at this point. There's a lot of talk about taking carguerland. The problem with taking carguerland is twofold. Uh, one that it lies a long way on the other side of the streets of Hormuz, where we have no ships. Um, we have no logistical capabilities. Um, it is closer to Kuwait than it is, our, or our current troops are located or Marines are located. Um, there's another place, which is called Kashm, uh, which is located literally right in the middle of the streets of Hormuz.

Uh, but that is a 600 or so square mile island that is effectively in a U in the street. Um, if I was going to try and reopen the streets of Hormuz and, you know, I'm not some grand tactician, I would think that's a pretty good spot to go. Um, which also means your opponent knows exactly that. Um, that being said, is there the potential for us to land troops and either one of those places? Um, yes, could we do a contested landing into those areas, possibly? Um, there would

be casualties in my assessment. Um, but speaking to Carg first, if you drop a bunch of guys into

“Carg, which is a, I believe, eight square miles, it's a small spot. You are assuming that they can”

hang out there and shut down the Iranian oil exports, um, without receiving any kind of counterfire. Um, you're banking on the Iranians deciding not to destroy their own infrastructure. Um, when you've already signaled to them that this is an existential fight. So to me, that makes no sense. Like you can rebuild infrastructure, but you can't take your country back after it's been taken down. So that math problem seems very, very, very simple. Um,

you know, that would be, I would think that if we landed there, um, we would get a sure one where the other, whether we're led on, um, whether we have some fighting, um, that goes on. This is not going to be UOGMA. This is not going to be forced on force uniform, uh, the Iranians have fought us asymmetrical the entire way. They understand our vulnerabilities in an asymmetrical environment. They sat right next door and participated in Iraq and uh, to, to a degree. Um, but what they will

do is let us stop moving and then make us a giant sponge for drones, missiles, and indirect fire.

“Um, I think that's your game plan for either out. Uh, Kesham, much bigger problem to”

try and solve. Um, but I think that this scenario is, is rather similar where if we got a sure, that's not the end of our problems. You're not going to end the war by doing that. Um, you're going to have massive problems trying to resupply these guys, trying to evacuate wounded, uh, and, and it

have been demonstrated. Uh, so it's not a question of taking it's matter of holding exactly. Yeah. So my last question hoping to bring these threads together into a tapestry of hope. Okay. Um, realizing that's unlikely. But how would, were you the commander and chief you get out of this right now?

The first thing I would do is, put our partner in their place. Um,

recognize that between us and Israel, we are the senior partner in this relationship. Um, without us, they have a very hard time existing in, uh, that neighborhood. So we snatch the initiative back from them and say, listen, you're on our time. And at any point in time, we can walk away from this and you're going to have big problems. So, you know, act like the grown-up in the room. That's what we're supposed to be. We are the superpower. We dictate the terms. Um, the second piece

is through diplomacy. Um, you know, it's, uh, one thing we've lost sight of in this country is

“in order to have an agreement of some kind, you have to have an exchange. Um, we have gotten way too”

comfortable with dictating terms, uh, to other countries backed up by the use of force. And that's

not diplomacy at all. Um, that's just bullying your way around the world. You don't have any diplomatic relations. Um, but I will say that, uh, the president has an opportunity to do something super duper bold that, uh, I believe he's the only one who can pull it off. Um, he managed to steamer the process and get us into this mess. And he can steamer the process to get us out. Uh, the one thing the Iranians I believe want more than anything else is the removal of Americans

from that region. Um, that is a, I think that is a very effective card that can be played. That's also the same card that much of his base, which is abandoned him to this point. Um, where you can see

“62% of independence, and I think that's a very, uh, presumptive number. I think it's high. I mean,”

it's very low, uh, disapprove of this war. I think it's way higher than that. Um, and many of the

independence, myself included, um, voted for him because he was the president of no more stupid wars. He was going to get us out of the Middle East. He wanted to get us out of Syria. All these different things going back to 2016. So there's, uh, there's an exchange there that I think can be made, it's a bit of a Hail Mary. Some people might call it ludicrous, but if we were to talk to them and reduce our footprint, uh, across the region, um, pull out of some of the areas that we no longer have

an interest in, right? Um, large basing in Iraq. I don't know why we're still doing it. Um, large basing in Kuwait. Well, that's the counterbalance Iran, um, you know, so on and so forth around the region, the fifth fleet headquarters in Bahrain. That's probably an important piece for us for just for protecting commerce globally. We could probably keep that. But give them the option to say a face by having them turn to their people and say, we had all this sacrifice and look, we drove

these guys out of the region. President Trump can turn around and say, my promise was to get us out of the Middle East. Iran is no longer a threat. Um, I'm bringing these troops home. Um, you're welcome.

“And I think that is probably the best hope that we have right now. But unfortunately,”

the situation looks like it is carreening at a control in the opposite direction. Um, so somebody's going to make a decision. Where could it go if it continues on its current course? Unfortunately, um, nowhere good, but if it continues on its current course, we're going to have the commitment of ground troops. Um, and we are going to amp up our involvement. Um, it's going to just be a, it's going to be a Vietnam like push of more and more men and material into the region,

in a ground war or a conflict that we are not going to be able to win. Um, they're not going to quit and there is no real way that I believe that we can drive them from power. Um, they're not going to leave voluntarily and we're not going to be able to snatch it from them. And every time that we commit a new unit into theater, it weakens us and other parts of the world. Um, it, it weakens us in the Pacific. It weakens us in Europe. Um, and it provides larger freedom of movement

for adversaries and those theaters. Um, and quite frankly, you give them enough space and enough badwill towards the US for what we're doing and what happens after that could be unbelievably catastrophic and global. What do you mean? Well, um, I think you could legitimately have a World

down in the Middle East to deal with a, uh, a regional nuisance, which is what the Iranians are,

“which is what the Iraqis were. Um, however, this time it's costing the global economy element,”

all kinds of other nations, uh, you know, their, their economic prowess, it's costing our reputation.

We could align the rest of the world against us, and I'm not going to say short order, but not

over a long enough arc, not over a very long arc. Um, it could cause other countries to consider

“using a different currency, which would be the, uh, the kind of the kill shot for the American”

Empire, and the American experiment. Um, and I'm not convinced that the Chinese want to take

Taiwan by force, but if there's nobody home, what's to say they don't walk across the street, um, in an administrative manner and just say, okay, now you guys are part of us, and then what, but we wouldn't have the ability to do anything about that. Um, beyond that, you have our reduced footprints in places like Japan and South Korea. That's right. Um, and those are very important economies to keep aligned with the United States, like militarily. Okay. That's, that's one thing,

“but economically, we need them, um, and it's the biggest buyer of our debt. Yeah. I think. Yeah.”

Number one. Mm-hmm. So, in essence, the wheels fall off. Um, is the worst case scenario. Dreamer, thank you very much for spending all this time and explaining, uh, I hope all the predictions are wrong. I agree with you, Tucker. I thank you so much for having me. Thank you. And thank you. We'll be back next Wednesday. Thanks for watching the Wednesday edition of the show. We stream live every week. Wednesday,

6 p.m. Eastern on Tuckercarlson.com. Members can watch the show live, join the members only chat and take part in the conversation in real time. We're grateful to be doing it and grateful that you watch it. Thank you.