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The Iran War, Domestic Politics, and Drones · Bourbon & Rum

0:00
I'd like to hear your take on how World War Three-part 1 is
0:05
going. The tribal nature of our
0:07
arguing, it's all about whoever's guy is on top.
0:11
The fact that 40 bad people are no longer eligible to be the
0:17
Ayatollah of Iran is a good thing.
0:20
Do you have a clear sense of what Trump thinks is success in
0:24
this? Welcome to Bourbon and Rum, the
0:27
podcast dedicated to civil conversation.
0:31
I'm Kent. I like rum and I'm from the left
0:33
side of the aisle. And I'm Kyle.
0:35
I like bourbon. I tend to be a little more
0:37
conservative. We're brothers talking politics
0:40
over bourbon and rum. What are you drinking Well.
0:55
I, I am drinking today. Now you know, you're getting
0:58
started earlier and it sounds like you may not be drinking
1:01
anything, but I, I just grabbed a little Weller green label, a
1:06
little special reserve Weller, which is kind of their basic
1:11
model, but it is the same juice that ultimately becomes pappy.
1:15
So you know. It's little.
1:18
It's weeded bourbon. Pretty, pretty, pretty smooth.
1:22
What are you on? You got orange juice, you said?
1:24
Yeah, I had AI, had a lovely orange juice this morning.
1:27
We're in Alaska and so it's 8 O clock in the morning as we
1:30
record this so I didn't feel like pounding would be a good
1:36
idea. I'm a little disappointed.
1:38
I would have thought, you know for the occasion that you would
1:42
have had a little bit of a cocktail on a 8:00 AM, but that
1:46
makes for a rough day potentially.
1:48
Well, we are recording on the 8th of March and you know, a
1:56
couple of news items. I guess I'd like to hear your
2:00
take on how World War Three-part 1 is going.
2:05
Yeah, I don't think it's World War Three.
2:07
I mean, not yet. I think it's, I think it's,
2:12
well, I think the US military is doing a phenomenal job.
2:16
I mean, we took some casualties, but it wasn't people in the act
2:21
of the war. It was people that were, you
2:23
know, got some, I think, I think all the casualties occurred of
2:28
the, of some of the bombings of some of the bases.
2:30
But I think they're doing a phenomenal job and it's amazing
2:35
the accomplishments that they've racked up.
2:38
And then I'm out of the regime that they've destroyed.
2:41
It's definitely a different kind of warfare when you go straight
2:45
for the top in the 1st 30 seconds.
2:48
I mean, that is a pretty unprecedented approach, which I
2:52
don't know, it's kind of refreshing, I think.
2:56
I think if you, if you look at this through the eyes of anybody
3:00
that has spent any time in Iran or, or, or left the regime, I
3:05
think there's a lot of hope and excitement.
3:07
I think it's probably going to take some time.
3:09
They're not probably going to capitulate immediately, but so
3:14
far I think it's positive. I think it's also, it shows an
3:20
incredible amount of miscalculation, I think on the
3:24
part of Iran to to start out by lobbing bombs at what presumably
3:31
could at least at least have become neutral members of the
3:35
Arab community. And they, you know, they took
3:38
people like Saudi Arabia who was like, hey, we're going to sit
3:41
this out to know we're wanting to fight.
3:44
Now. Saudi, I think truthfully was
3:47
more pushing for this than others.
3:49
In fact, I saw an article that Saudi was quietly urging this.
3:54
So I don't think the Gulf states are necessarily aligned with
3:59
Iran, but certainly lobbing bombs with them has not helped
4:03
their view of the Iranian regime.
4:07
So, yeah, I mean, I think I think it's made significant
4:11
progress. I think the question is, where
4:13
do you go from here? What's the exit point?
4:15
At what point do they, you know, is there a point at which that
4:19
they capitulate? I don't know that they will.
4:23
Then it's a matter of can you take out enough capability and
4:26
enough of their government to where you've weakened it to a
4:30
point at which that an overthrow is possible?
4:32
It's just not really clear at this point who that party is.
4:38
What's the history throughout time of effecting regime change
4:45
by bombing campaigns I. Mean well, I mean, I mean we.
4:50
Killed a bunch of people at the top, admittedly, but do you have
4:55
a clear sense of what Trump thinks is success in this?
5:00
Yeah, I mean, I think I think having a government that's not a
5:06
threat to anybody is, is the goal.
5:11
You know, it's interesting. I was watching some debate about
5:15
this this week and, you know, Iraq was not the war that
5:21
everybody wanted it to be, and it wasn't.
5:25
There are a lot of things we probably would have done
5:26
differently, but it's a little hard to argue that Iraq is not
5:32
in a better place today than it was in the year 2025.
5:37
Years later, Iraq is a democracy that are voting leaders.
5:41
It's relatively stable. They went through a lot of
5:44
violence, a lot of pain, but it's a hell of a lot better
5:47
place than it was being led by Saddam Hussein.
5:52
Yeah, yeah, I, I guess. I mean it.
6:00
I'm not arguing with that, but like, was that our job?
6:04
Yeah, it's a good question. I, I, I, I don't want to just
6:08
reflexively oppose this. And so, you know, yeah, I think
6:15
that the, the, the fact that 40 bad people are no longer
6:24
eligible to be the Ayatollah of Iran is a good thing, right?
6:29
I, I don't want to, I don't want to lose that.
6:32
Maybe it's asking too much, but I don't see super clarity of I,
6:39
I saw yesterday Trump was saying he was preparing to send troops,
6:44
and then today he's saying he's declared victory already.
6:50
You know, it's a little bit confusing.
6:54
What, what our goal is, I I doubt, honestly, I doubt that
7:00
you can get what you want from the air.
7:05
It didn't do much for our relationship with, with North
7:09
Vietnam, You know, just just bombing people to get what you
7:13
want. Historically, I don't think
7:16
works that great. Yeah, I don't know.
7:21
I just think, you know, stepping back a little bit, it is
7:27
interesting to me the the tribal nature of our arguing and it's
7:39
all about whoever's guy is on top.
7:41
And I feel like there are so many people now that are like,
7:46
this is a horrible idea that wouldn't think it was a horrible
7:51
idea if their guy was doing it. So I, I guess, you know, yeah,
7:57
there's questions about, I think, well, everything you
8:00
raised are good, good points and good questions.
8:04
But I also think that wrapped into this is this whole baggage
8:10
that we have as, as a country have of, well, you know, I can't
8:14
support taking out a terrible regime if it's the other guy
8:20
doing it. And I'm not saying you're like
8:21
that, but I don't know, it's just comical this week, some of
8:26
the things that I've seen, like there's a line from Rachel
8:31
Maddow and she's screaming, you know, a year ago, well, Trump's
8:35
not going to do anything about Iran.
8:37
He's not going to take him out. Well, now it's well, Trump's a
8:40
son of a bitch, 'cause he's taking out Iran.
8:42
And it's like, OK, I, I guess I don't think what he's doing is
8:50
that outrageous. And I think most, there's a lot
8:55
of people on both sides of the aisle that have pressed for this
8:59
old for a long time now. You can say, is it working?
9:02
Is it the best plan and everything else?
9:04
Yes. But I don't think it's a it's
9:08
hard to say, well, this is a uniquely Trump idea.
9:13
Agree. No, I, I, I agree with you
9:15
there. My favorite, I'm sorry to
9:18
interrupt, but my favorite thing was the refuse saw Bill Maher
9:22
had a had Adam Schiff on and he's like, you know, I'm going
9:26
to play this from the administration.
9:28
And it was a line about the rate of the administration to use
9:32
force in this emerging situation.
9:34
And he's like, yeah, that's way too vague.
9:36
That's that doesn't make any sense at all.
9:38
And they said, well, that was Obama's justification of the
9:40
Libya bombing, you know? And then it was like, it's just
9:44
like, yeah, I, I think your points are valid.
9:47
I just, I think it's, you think it's shrouded in like, well,
9:53
this is a bad idea because Trump decided to do it in many cases.
9:57
Yeah, I, I, I hope I don't slip into that.
10:00
I have to say I'm, I'm, I'm not going to be able to separate
10:05
myself from why now. And the fact that it coincides
10:12
with some, some, I don't even know that it's damaging the
10:20
accusations against Trump in the Epstein files.
10:23
To me, what's damaging is that they gave it credence by trying
10:28
to hide it and then trying to cover it up.
10:31
And, you know, like, if it really is nonsense, why not
10:35
treat it as nonsense? But they go to these ridiculous
10:41
lengths to try to. Ridiculous lengths, as in
10:44
releasing a hell of a lot more than anybody has ever released
10:48
at any other administration. But the specific ugly and
10:53
damaging allegations against Trump, they specifically hid and
10:57
got caught. I mean, if it's if it's
11:02
nonsense, why treat it like it's real?
11:05
That's all I'm saying. And so, yeah, I'm suspicious of
11:10
timing and because of that, I'm suspicious of the whole thing in
11:14
Iran. I guess that makes me just
11:16
tribal, but is it just? 50 years coincidence.
11:24
I think he's solving problems that need to get solved and a
11:29
lot of people have been happy to just kick this problem down the
11:31
road, but this was going to happen eventually.
11:35
Yeah, so do we just ignore the the cover up?
11:45
Well, I, I disagree that there's a cover up.
11:49
I mean, they're releasing the information, it's out there.
11:51
The acquisite accusations are out there.
11:55
I again, it's like what is being covered up?
11:59
You don't even think there's anything that they're covering
12:01
up, but you think they're covering it up.
12:03
Well, I, I don't, I don't think it's nothing.
12:10
I think it hasn't the, the story, and I'm willing to accept
12:13
the story is that they investigated and didn't find a
12:18
lead that they could act on. But what, they interviewed the
12:24
girl four times or something. You know, it's not like it's,
12:28
it's not like it's nothing. I, I don't mean to just, I, I'm
12:35
not trying to pivot to this. I'm just saying, yeah, I'm
12:39
completely skeptical of the timing.
12:42
And so nothing can be done in this Organism.
12:45
That's the, I mean, that's what this comes down to is anything
12:48
that's done that's not Epstein related, it's tainted.
12:55
Well, kind of because they've deliberately tried to run a
13:01
cover up on something that I think is awful.
13:06
I I don't know that changing world circumstances should give
13:10
you a pass on that. Yeah, I mean, I, I don't know, I
13:18
I think two things can be true at the same time.
13:21
I think. Yeah, I think there needs to be
13:25
more transparency there. But I also think that the world
13:29
continues to exist in the rest of the world is not dependent on
13:34
Epstein, on an Epstein case. I mean, there's other crap that
13:38
happens in the rest of the world that has to be dealt with.
13:42
Yeah, I I agree, but I don't know, you don't think it's
13:50
convenient. I just it.
13:53
It feels really convenient. It's convenient to launch one of
13:56
the largest military operations in history.
13:59
I I just don't see how that's a convenient situation.
14:05
I don't know. Well, again, if they hadn't gone
14:08
to such lengths to cover it up in the 1st place, it it, it
14:14
rings truer. But when you're going to oh, we
14:17
thought it was duplicated. Like come on.
14:21
They've had people scouring for his name specifically for
14:26
months. That's like, nobody knew this
14:30
was there. That's just that's preposterous.
14:33
And again, if this is if there's a smoking gun, so your
14:40
complaint, 'cause you don't think there's a smoking gun,
14:43
'cause obviously there's a smoking gun, It would have been
14:46
plastered on every headline in the run up into the Harris Trump
14:53
campaign. So there's some vanity, there's
14:56
some people trying to make the boss look good, but you don't
15:00
really believe that there's anything there substantial or
15:04
else that would have been used by Biden's administration.
15:09
I mean, are you thinking there's some some level of a Democrat
15:17
campaign that would not use that information?
15:21
And yeah, actually this thing came out during the
15:24
administration, but this particular accusation was
15:27
floated during the campaign, but then it lacked available
15:33
evidence to support it. Or got covered up and by.
15:37
Biden. So why is he covering up for
15:39
Trump? That's a great question.
15:44
Unless there's nothing there. Unless there's nothing there.
15:50
Does it all feel like nothing to you?
15:54
Yeah, because if it was something and the Democrats
15:58
could have gotten a Democrat elected, there is no world,
16:03
there is 0 concept of anything that would keep that hidden.
16:10
It makes it. There's no possible way they
16:12
would keep that hidden. There is zero.
16:16
I mean, they're going to go to every possible length to get
16:19
their guy elected. There is no way they're going to
16:22
hold on to something if it actually had credence.
16:26
Unless there's blackmail going that way, too.
16:32
I don't trust Donald Trump, I don't trust Donald Trump.
16:35
I don't trust Donald Trump and I never will.
16:39
OK. I never will.
16:42
OK. He could.
16:48
There's nothing that he could do that would make me not think
16:51
that he's a scoundrel. And so, yeah, this is all, it's
16:56
all. And.
16:58
And so then. So are we.
17:00
Going to just see documents related to the to the worst
17:04
sexual abuse scandal in the public history of the world and
17:10
his name is all over it. And there are really bullshit
17:17
explanations for things being factored out.
17:22
I can't not think that that's something.
17:26
I can't not think that. So I mean, why even have this
17:33
podcast? We're just going to talk about
17:34
Epstein every week. So just move on I.
17:43
Apparently we can't move on. I'm I'm willing to set it aside
17:48
for now, but I there is no way I'm ever going to be able to see
17:53
the current events without that lens involved.
17:59
There's just no way it it. A Democrat gets in office next
18:03
round and it's not some old white guy and they research
18:09
everything and nothing comes out again.
18:12
So are they in on it? Is the next somebody that's
18:16
younger? That's no way they had anything
18:18
to do with Epstein. Now they're in on it, too.
18:23
Maybe if they're covering stuff up, if they're selectively
18:27
releasing things, if they're hiding things that are obviously
18:31
bombshells. It's not.
18:36
I don't think this is. Really partisan?
18:39
You had Clinton testify. What did that give us?
18:44
Was there any bombshells there? I mean his name was all over the
18:47
files. Yeah, well.
18:50
Sounded like a big sigh. Well, I I don't hold anything
18:54
out for for Clinton. I don't.
18:56
I have no pity for him. If they've got something on him,
19:00
bring it on. I.
19:03
But that's what I'm saying. I mean, he's in the files just
19:07
as frequently as Trump or anybody else.
19:12
And they had a hearing and all these people that have seen.
19:15
All the stuff. Had the hearing with them.
19:18
And I don't think we learned anything, that nothing else
19:22
really came out that was even remotely meaningful.
19:27
I mean, you say Trump's names all over the files, Clinton's
19:31
names all over the files. You got a guy who's trying to
19:34
get to know everybody. Any politician is going to have
19:38
his name plastered all over the file because he's the guy in
19:41
charge and they're trying to butter up the guy in charge.
19:45
I mean, a lot of the, I mean, I've read all his name all over
19:50
it, but a lot of it is about, well, the president.
19:54
That's the president that. Sure.
19:56
You know. No, I I get that.
19:58
I just. I I'm sorry that I can't turn
20:05
loose of it that the timing of this looks like.
20:09
Well, but the timing of everything is going to look like
20:12
that if it's always unresolved. So the next three years,
20:15
anything that happens, well, it's being happened because of
20:18
this. If it happens in the same week
20:21
that the Department of Justice is caught red handed,
20:25
deliberately obfuscating and hiding a really salacious
20:28
allegation, I'm willing to give you that if if it happens within
20:32
a week of a specific. But what are you saying is the
20:38
salacious element that was hidden, that whole, that whole,
20:43
Yeah, but that was released four years ago.
20:46
The allegation has been in the public sphere for Then why?
20:51
Did they take it out? Why did they?
20:54
Why did they redact it from what they released?
20:58
I think it's incompetence and I think it's people trying to do
21:02
what they think it would be appreciated by the boss.
21:05
That's the way I view it. I mean, there's nothing.
21:08
The stuff that they've released, the whole thing is not new.
21:12
Agreed. So why hide it I.
21:16
So you don't think there's people in an administration that
21:19
are sucking up to their boss? I don't think there's anybody in
21:23
this administration that's not anybody who.
21:28
So yeah, maybe, maybe just a coincidence.
21:34
I it's not a. Coincidence.
21:36
I'm saying that all I'm saying is, yeah, I don't think that's
21:42
what they should be doing. I think they should release
21:45
everything but this specific accusation again, There's, you
21:52
know, I just don't think there's a smoking gun is my point.
21:57
And this accusation has been in the.
21:58
Public sphere before Agreed. Just saying that it it just
22:08
seems a pretty big coincidence. It just seems a big coincidence
22:14
to me. Yeah, it just seems really like
22:16
a like a bad coincidence to me. I I'm convinced it's all a
22:21
nothing burger. No, I mean, I'm convinced it's
22:25
a, it's a nothing burger in the sense that no amount of
22:29
disclosures are going to satisfy anything to anybody about
22:33
anything other than that's. Probably true, yeah.
22:38
Other than there's a lot of sleazy people out there that do
22:40
sleazy things, but I don't think there's going to be something.
22:45
I think if there was something that was going to get Trump, it
22:48
would have gotten them by now. I.
22:51
Agree. I agree.
22:54
Well, I don't think we're going to.
22:56
I don't think there's any anything positive that's going
22:59
to come out of beating this horse.
23:02
I'm probably not going to ever see eye to eye on that.
23:07
Well, I'm looking forward to the there's more news, but I'm
23:11
looking forward to the point at which you have somebody in there
23:16
you do trust, and then you still don't hear squat about Epstein.
23:22
What are you going to do with yourself then?
23:25
It's going to be frustrating. I think this is like the Kennedy
23:30
assassination. I think this is an Evergreen
23:32
problem because there's already been so much obvious covering
23:39
up, so much obvious obfuscation, like in plain sight.
23:46
People are completely trying to bury these things.
23:50
So I, no, I'm probably not ever going to feel like, I think
23:56
that. I know that it's all been that
23:59
it's all been disclosed. I don't think I'll ever feel
24:02
that way. But should that make me not
24:07
outraged? I guess that's my, I am outraged
24:10
by it and maybe that'll go away. Maybe I'll just resign myself to
24:15
it. But yeah, I think it's
24:17
outrageous. I think it's outrageous.
24:20
I think it was outrageous that Bill Clinton was so associated
24:24
with the guy. I think it was outrageous that
24:26
Larry Summers was. I'm glad to see him gone.
24:29
I think it's outrageous that Prince Andrew and what's her
24:36
name, Fergie, like it's all outrageous.
24:41
So, I mean, you know, yeah. I don't disagree.
24:45
I think it's all awful. But I guess I'm just, I'm like,
24:51
what do we do with? It I don't have a solution to
24:55
that. I don't have AI, don't have
24:56
something positive to say moving forward.
24:59
I don't, I don't have that. I don't know what it's going to.
25:03
I guess I'm just going to be unhappy forever and I'm kind of
25:06
resigned to that. I will quit throwing it up in
25:10
your face on the podcast. Well, I don't.
25:12
Care. I mean, I'm just like, yeah, I
25:17
mean, it's it's frustrating that I just wish they would release
25:24
it all. And if there's really nothing
25:26
there, then then people could move on, right?
25:31
If you saw, if you thought you. But the problem is, even if you
25:34
released it all, you would say they're holding on to something.
25:39
Well, now I would, and I don't think I could be blamed for
25:43
that. I mean, to your point, yeah,
25:46
like it, it's the covering up that looks guilty to me.
25:51
That's that's my point. It's the covering up that I'm
25:54
like, really you to your point, yeah, this has been in the
25:59
public. People have known that this was
26:01
around there. So you release something and oh,
26:04
we forgot to include four transcripts of then the four
26:09
that we forgot for this particular 4, Like, wow, bad on
26:15
us. Sorry, I yeah, I think that
26:19
looks suspicious. Yeah, I think what's crazy to me
26:25
is how much crap there is. I mean the millions of
26:31
documents. Yeah, yeah.
26:36
No, it it's, you know, my outrage.
26:40
I mean, there's plenty of fuel for my outrage, for what it's
26:43
for. Well, I guess my point is like,
26:47
I mean, if you're not really, if there's a million documents
26:51
you're not releasing or somebody said they released 3,000,000
26:55
documents and there's another 3,000,000 that aren't being
26:58
really like, OK, it's just like an ever ending.
27:04
Yeah. Problem well.
27:08
We're certainly not going to fix it.
27:09
I'm willing to step aside from it.
27:12
Let's talk about happier news. Let's talk about well.
27:15
Or do we do we institutionalized the Epstein check in of the
27:21
week? I mean, do we make this like AI
27:25
mean? I think it's important to
27:26
address the issue and because I don't, I don't want to be seen
27:30
as you know, everything you said is correct.
27:33
It is horrendous and unacceptable and I want more
27:40
visibility. I just the, the part I'm
27:43
struggling with counter to you is 1.
27:50
I don't feel like we're ever going to feel, no matter what
27:53
happens, no matter who gets up, unless you and I go up there,
27:58
unless I get you elected as a Democrat for president.
28:02
And we get up there and we, you know, have like a, the two of us
28:08
go through the entire National Archives and we find every
28:11
document. I mean, maybe there's a point at
28:13
which we're satisfied, but Even so, we're going to be
28:16
mistrusting some archivist and some office someplace.
28:21
Like, I don't know that we're ever going to solve it.
28:26
And you're right. You're right.
28:32
I don't know if there is anything to solve.
28:35
Yeah, you're 100% right. I don't disagree at all.
28:40
Well, let me let me throw a couple of other names at you.
28:45
Talarico, Paxton, and Cornyn. Let's.
28:49
Talk. It's interesting.
28:52
Well, I voted this week. I, the guy I voted for, didn't
28:56
get to, didn't make it. I voted for Wesley Hunt,
29:01
representative, who is one of the three running for senator.
29:06
Really like him. He's a West Point grad.
29:10
He's done really well, but out of Hugeston.
29:13
But he didn't fare well enough as a third candidate.
29:17
I I'm not crazy about Paxton, I'm not crazy about Cornyn.
29:21
I'm definitely not crazy about Talarico either.
29:25
So yeah, it's a it's challenging.
29:30
I think we've got this runoff coming up between Paxton and
29:38
Cornyn. Yeah, I'm not crazy about either
29:42
one of those candidates. But like I said, I I to me, I
29:46
want to defend against Talarico, and I think Cornyn probably has
29:54
the best consensus candidate potential to beat him.
30:00
I think Paxton's too extreme, but I think what's going to
30:04
happen is it's going to be Paxton, I'm afraid.
30:07
But although he was a minority, it's just a question of, you
30:11
know, it's kind of like the it's kind of like Bush, Clinton,
30:19
Perot. How many of those Perot voters
30:21
are going to go for Clinton? How many of those are going to
30:23
go for for Bush? And so it's a similar situation
30:27
with the Paxton Cornyn run off. You know how many of those
30:33
Wesley Hunt voters are going to go for Cornyn versus Paxton?
30:37
Do you do you dislike Talarico because he's a Democrat, or is
30:44
there something specific about him that you?
30:47
Don't know, I I think some of his statements and some of his
30:51
core beliefs are out there. How are you feeling about about
31:00
Secretary the fall of Secretary Gnome?
31:04
Yeah, I think that was a good plan.
31:05
I think she she outlived her usefulness a while ago.
31:13
I don't know. I mean, I didn't hate everything
31:15
she was doing, but I feel like, you know, well, like and you
31:22
pointed out, but I mean, I think there was a lot of the whole ice
31:28
debacle in the Minnesota thing. I think I really, I mean,
31:33
honestly, whether you like or hate Tom Homan, they should have
31:38
listened to him and how they implemented it because he knows
31:41
how to implement it without being like center stage in the
31:44
middle of you know what I mean? And it to your point, like how
31:49
much of that was a big show up in Minnesota?
31:52
Part of me is like, and you know, my argument at the time
31:56
was like, well, the police don't cooperate with ICE and blue
32:02
states. And in a blue state like that,
32:04
they haven't enforced immigration law.
32:06
But reading about Homan, it's like now we're still enforcing
32:11
immigration law in Minnesota. But it can be done in a in such
32:16
a way that isn't on the headlines.
32:18
You know, I think that's a key element.
32:20
And I think part of what another thing I saw, well what your
32:25
thing you sent me that thing Thom Tillis had railed on GNOME.
32:29
And I think that was a really good point.
32:30
Like this doesn't need to be a number.
32:34
This needs to be let's get rid of the people that we need to
32:37
get rid of, not hit some BS number, you know?
32:41
And I think that was a really good point as well.
32:43
Well, for what it's worth, I I maintain I'm not opposed to to
32:49
deporting people that that deserve deportion or
32:55
deportation. But this was my criticism of the
32:59
whole Minnesota thing is that it was it it it was designed as a
33:05
publicity stunt. I in my or as a high visibility.
33:11
You know, they were, they were going for splash more than maybe
33:15
particularly. Well, and that but, and I don't
33:19
know if they were or they weren't, but I feel like they
33:26
may not have been getting directed by the people that are
33:30
in the know. Like I would, I would trust
33:33
somebody like Holman to lead an operation over some politically
33:37
appointed Yahoo that doesn't know anything about ICE.
33:41
And are they going to create a a dangerous situation versus
33:46
letting the professionals handle it?
33:50
So, yeah. And the other thing I, I hadn't
33:53
followed it, but that all reading about it, you know, this
33:58
whole bit with the well, I don't know if you saw John Kennedy
34:01
railing on her about these advertisements.
34:05
I hadn't seen these advertisements.
34:06
But like, she's like Kramer on the Marlboro Man horse, you
34:11
know, doing all these ads and she's in the middle of all the
34:16
ads. And Kennedy's like, yeah, he
34:19
asked you to, as did he ask you to be the one riding the horse
34:23
in the middle of the. Well, you know, I'm very glad
34:34
she's gone and I'm, I'm, I'm glad she went down in flames.
34:39
But it does feel a little like what got her in trouble was not
34:45
necessarily the shooting of citizens.
34:48
It was the upstaging, the president TV ads and you know, I
34:54
think I. Disagree.
34:55
I mean, I think, I think that was a huge stain.
34:58
Well, no. I that was the.
35:00
Cheap shot, but biggest problem. But then this like the like this
35:07
really public affair with Corey Lewandowski like that is just.
35:12
Just tacky. Weird, yeah.
35:16
Like do you not think that that's going to the people are
35:21
going to notice that like that? I just don't understand that.
35:25
Well, and what's odd about it is it's not like she hasn't been a
35:30
public official for, I mean, granted, it was in the BFE.
35:36
Dakota's some what was it, South Dakota?
35:38
She's the governor of Yeah. So, I mean, maybe, maybe it's
35:42
not exactly Hollywood, but Rapid City politics, South Dakota.
35:46
Based listeners to the podcast. No, yeah.
35:51
I don't know if it's. Well, it is.
35:53
More, you'd think as a governor she'd have had some sense.
35:58
It reminds me of the, you know, 'cause I, well, you know, I
36:02
don't know. We always think, I always think
36:04
of somebody that's like a governor, like, yeah, it's like
36:07
a movie star, somebody important.
36:09
But honestly, I mean, you could bump into a governor, especially
36:14
a Lieutenant governor. I always laugh because I was at
36:16
a show, a trade show one time in Oklahoma City.
36:20
It was a military aerospace show at the show and I there's
36:25
somebody black, you know, you have like everybody's in this
36:28
big banquet hall and they're presenting to them and
36:31
somebody's blathering away. And I'm like, this is boring
36:34
waste of time. So I go out in the lobby and I'm
36:36
driving a grabbing a cup of coffee and I see this lady and
36:40
she's making a she's headed out the door and I'm just standing
36:44
there. I'm like, oh, you're trying to
36:46
escape this nonsense. And I was like, yeah, you got
36:49
the right ID. And I just made some comment
36:51
like that. She's like, oh, no, I'm sorry, I
36:54
have to get back, back to work. And I was like, oh, that's cool.
36:57
How you doing? What do you, what do you do for
36:58
a living? She's like, oh, I'm a Lieutenant
37:00
governor of Oklahoma. Oh, OK.
37:09
You weren't on my deck of cards and governors or whatever the I
37:15
don't. Know who the hell you are, but
37:16
OK, interesting. You know, one of the other
37:19
things I wanted to bring up about the Iran conflict and I
37:28
was at a, a friend of mine has a company and one of the guys on
37:33
the board used to run a company, a drone company.
37:40
And I got to talking to him. And you know, one of the things
37:44
he was talking about is the, well, I, I brought it up because
37:50
I said, you know, you see this, it's been reported some of the
37:55
outlets, you know, you see these Shahid drones that Iran is
37:59
using. And they're, you know, probably
38:02
cost a couple, a couple grand to make one of these drones.
38:05
And they, they have a small payload, but they launch them at
38:08
the UAE or they launch them at Israel.
38:10
They launch them at some place. And you know, we're shooting it
38:13
down with $1,000,000. You know, they're launching a
38:16
$2000 drone with a warhead and it's going toward a city and a
38:22
Patriot missile is intercepting and a Patriot missile is
38:25
probably 1,000,000 bucks or more.
38:27
You know, I, I probably get those numbers wildly off, but
38:29
it's a huge expense. You're taking down this piddly
38:33
little drone. And it's like, and I was, I said
38:37
to this guy, and I said, well, you used to be in the drone
38:39
business. And I said, man, because we've
38:42
talked about this before. I'm like, man, I, I don't know
38:45
why we spend, we're going to spend a trillion dollars on the
38:48
B21. Why don't we spend, you know, a
38:51
10th of that and buy a billion drones, you know, and the guy's
38:55
like, you know, absolutely. And he's like, and he's like,
38:59
honestly, that business that he had, the drone business, he's
39:02
like, we've been trying to convince the DoD of that very
39:06
thing for the last 10 years, you know, And I, and it really, it
39:11
becomes like the drone warfare situation only almost becomes
39:19
like guerrilla warfare in Vietnam or IE D's in the Iraq
39:26
war or somebody makes some makeshift piece of junk and they
39:30
lob it up there. And it can be as big of a threat
39:33
is something that costs way more, you know?
39:36
And so it really is going to be, well, it's scary to a degree,
39:41
but it's going to be interesting to see how that threat is
39:44
combated. And I think it also opens the
39:47
door of a much different type of warfare in the future when it
39:52
comes to drones, because that is kind of a huge equalizer.
39:57
Well, you know, we've had since 1945, kind of the, the
40:02
definition of force projection and power has been access to
40:08
nuclear weapons, which is. You know, in addition to all the
40:12
other parts of it, it is like the ultimate capital
40:15
expenditure. You know what I mean?
40:17
Like you, you can't just you don't have improvised nuclear
40:22
warheads. But yeah, to your point, it's
40:27
the IED along the side of the road.
40:29
Like, hey, you've got, you know, multi trillion dollar nuclear
40:34
arsenal to defend yourself and to deter everybody.
40:37
But you know, the guy with a, you know, 2 lbs of plastic
40:44
explosive doesn't care about your nuclear weapons.
40:49
And, and I think drones, you know, obviously some of them are
40:52
really sophisticated, but it's sort of the same thing.
40:54
It's like, no, it's the opposite of high capital warfare and
41:02
it's, you know, kind of retail warfare or something, you know.
41:07
Well, and then it becomes this, there's a terror element of,
41:13
hey, we launched 100 drones at a populace.
41:16
You know, they're not, the Iranians aren't sitting there
41:21
thinking about surgical striking.
41:23
Hey, we're going to go after military targets.
41:24
They're going to launch in the air and scare the crap out of
41:27
everybody. And that's part of the, and
41:32
that's part of the challenge of a war like Iran is like the
41:39
people aren't in charge. You know, I feel like World War
41:43
2, you know, the, the doctrine of bombing in World War 2 was
41:49
you got to break the will of the people, essentially.
41:53
You know, that was the kind of the mindset that like, hey,
41:56
you're going to kill all the people.
41:59
And since World War 2, we've never done that.
42:01
It's always been what we're going to take out the military
42:05
and you know, and and I don't know, as you look at Iran, it's
42:08
like we don't, I'd say like we always would kind of mock this
42:14
whole thing or we have no problem with the people of Iraq.
42:17
Well, we don't have any problem with the people of Iran unless
42:23
you support the regime, you know, and you know, it's kind of
42:27
like we, we think is that most of them don't want the regime.
42:31
But you know, at what point are they going to raise up?
42:35
And you know, if you keep, if you keep bombing, if, if you're
42:39
bomb enough of them, is their going to, is their support going
42:42
to sway and be like, no, screw you, you're bombing us.
42:46
We'll side with the regime. I mean, and it, it, that's the
42:48
really the tricky balance here, I feel like is the biggest risk.
42:53
Yeah, well, I agree. Yeah, I think that there's a
42:59
real diminishing returns. I mean, that first bomb that
43:02
killed the Top 40 leaders, that that was a good bomb.
43:05
I mean, that that's very effective.
43:08
But, you know, you, you move down the food chain a little bit
43:12
and you're causing a lot of damage.
43:15
And at some point you galvanized the people, you know, were the
43:19
British people. Like, oh, man, we ought to just
43:23
wave that white flag during the Blitz.
43:25
We should, you know, no Hitler was right all along.
43:29
No in in you could argue that the that the blitz experience in
43:34
London, I mean that that drove their resolve and it inspired
43:42
us. That's the other part of it too,
43:45
you know, I mean it, You know, I guess Iran doesn't really have
43:50
any allies, but. Well, I mean, and that's the,
43:55
and that's, again, that's. Yeah, yeah.
43:57
You bomb all the people you're going to create that I worry
44:00
about. I think if it was just us
44:03
running this campaign, I think we'd be very sensitive to that.
44:07
I'm a little worried about Israel.
44:08
I mean, if you look at Gaza, if they turn Tehran into Gaza,
44:14
you're not going to have the support of that population.
44:17
Yeah, 100% agree. Yeah, I, I do worry about that.
44:21
I, I think that, I think it, you know, like I said before, I
44:26
think that working with Israel is risky because I don't think
44:30
that they have the same, you know, maybe the same macro
44:34
objectives of regime change in Iran.
44:37
But I, I think that they're a little less, little less
44:42
concerned about the, you know what I mean?
44:45
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I don't know, it's I'm
44:51
hopeful this can work and we get something different there.
44:56
I think a whole lot of Iranians are hopeful of that as well,
45:00
globally for sure. Yeah.
45:03
Well, let let's hope something good comes of it and and hope it
45:07
it comes in a way that doesn't require and require deeper
45:12
commitment from us. I I worry a lot about that.
45:15
I don't think we need to be, I don't think we need to be in
45:19
there. But yeah.
45:22
Well, I mean, we're systematically taking out China
45:25
and Russia's allies, so that's a plus.
45:28
Venezuela's out. Iran's out.
45:33
Cuba's next. Yeah.
45:36
Just don't screw up the cigar factories.
45:40
We're going to bomb Cuba, you know, Watch out for the cigars.
45:46
Cuban rum. Have you had Cuban rum?
45:50
Yeah, I've had a couple. But I mean, that's where all the
45:54
big, you know, like Bacardi was a Cuban company and then
45:59
migrated to Puerto Rico. So yeah, I would think that
46:06
there's probably really good runs in.
46:09
So regime change in Cuba can really benefit the Bourbon Run
46:12
podcast. We we see, you know, got to look
46:17
at this, this the Sunnyside of the equation, I guess.
46:21
That's right. Hey, thanks for joining us on
46:27
this episode of Bourbon and Rum Podcast.
46:29
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