Latest / Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar / 4/6/26: Trump Moves Iran Deadline, Israel Hit By Missiles, US Pilot Rescue Operation

Transcript

4/6/26: Trump Moves Iran Deadline, Israel Hit By Missiles, US Pilot Rescue Operation · Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar

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Speaker 1: Hey guys, Saga and Crystal here.
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Speaker 3: dot com. Good morning, everybody, Happy Monday. Have an amazing
0:35
Speaker 3: show for everybody today. What are you, Crystal?
0:37
Speaker 4: Indeed we do.
0:37
Speaker 2: We've got a bunch of new Trump truths that are
0:40
Speaker 2: wild and insane to break down. We've got a new
0:43
Speaker 2: Barack grie Reved report this morning, just in time for
0:45
Speaker 2: the market opening, so we'll bring you up to date
0:47
Speaker 2: with all of the latest machinations in the Iran war
0:50
Speaker 2: as of this morning. We also are going to take
0:53
Speaker 2: a look at a significant Iranian strike within Israel with
0:57
Speaker 2: significant damage and casualties there Israel also hitting a South
1:02
Speaker 2: bart petrochemical facility that's really significant inside of Iran, so
1:06
Speaker 2: I'll break that down for you in the significance there.
1:08
Speaker 2: We're also taking a look at this allegedly successful raid
1:12
Speaker 2: to rescue the airman who had crashed inside of Iran
1:16
Speaker 2: and going to take a look with Brandon Wikert at
1:17
Speaker 2: what happened there with the official story is what some
1:20
Speaker 2: of the questions are remaining, and I certainly have a
1:22
Speaker 2: lot of questions about the official story there. We're also
1:25
Speaker 2: going to take a look with him at some of
1:26
Speaker 2: the materials that are running low on our side and
1:30
Speaker 2: how that could impact the Iran war effort. We're also,
1:33
Speaker 2: of course going to take a look at the markets
1:34
Speaker 2: this morning, what is going on there, shortages just now
1:38
Speaker 2: beginning to develop, the censorship regime that has kicked in
1:41
Speaker 2: to block us from an accurate understanding of the damage,
1:44
Speaker 2: especially to US and Allied facilities in the region. Entree
1:49
Speaker 2: to Parsi is going to join us to discuss how
1:51
Speaker 2: Iran may be viewing all of these events.
1:53
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2:32
Speaker 4: It was an Eastern miracle, guys.
2:34
Speaker 1: It was a master.
2:35
Speaker 4: Subcount has risen.
2:36
Speaker 3: That's right, our subcount rose while the President said, Praise
2:39
Speaker 3: be to Allah. And then, of course you're listening to
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Speaker 3: this to the podcast, Please share the episode with a friend.
2:43
Speaker 3: Really helps other people find the show. But yes, let's
2:45
Speaker 3: go ahead and start off with the Easter message from
2:48
Speaker 3: the President.
2:48
Speaker 2: Yeah, so let's put this up on the screen. I mean,
2:51
Speaker 2: in the ranking of most insane Trump truth slash tweets.
2:55
Speaker 4: This has got to be up there. And it's a
2:57
Speaker 4: very high bar. So Trump put this ount.
3:00
Speaker 2: He says, Tuesday will be power plant Day and bridge
3:04
Speaker 2: Day all wrapped up in one. In Iran, there will
3:07
Speaker 2: be nothing like it. Exclamation, multiple exclamations. Open the fucking straight,
3:13
Speaker 2: you crazy bastards, or you'll be living in hell.
3:16
Speaker 4: Just watch Praise be to Allah, President Donald J.
3:21
Speaker 1: Trump.
3:22
Speaker 2: So, I guess in Trump one point zero, we had
3:24
Speaker 2: the infrastructure Week that never came to pass, and in
3:26
Speaker 2: Trump two point zero, infrastructure Week means promised and threatened
3:31
Speaker 2: war crimes against Iran. That's the difference between Trump one
3:34
Speaker 2: point zero and two point zero.
3:35
Speaker 3: I do actually think this is the craziest and the
3:37
Speaker 3: worst one because the previous contender was fire and fury
3:40
Speaker 3: and yeah, Rocketman, but that wasn't in the middle of
3:43
Speaker 3: an actual war.
3:44
Speaker 1: This is a war.
3:44
Speaker 3: This is a wartime thing. When our producer sent it
3:47
Speaker 3: to us, I was like, this is not real.
3:49
Speaker 1: There's no way.
3:49
Speaker 4: I know. I'm verify too check.
3:51
Speaker 3: I was like, oh my god, I mean it just
3:54
Speaker 3: is shocking, because I mean I made this joke privately.
3:58
Speaker 3: But the thing about the madman theory is your not
4:00
Speaker 3: supposed to be mad. You're only supposed to be acting mad, Well,
4:03
Speaker 3: what if you are mad? I mean for real, And
4:05
Speaker 3: that's the real danger that we're all walking into. So
4:08
Speaker 3: obviously there's the war crime aspect to this. This is
4:11
Speaker 3: not generally the way, you know, the way that we
4:14
Speaker 3: would fight in World War Two, even the fire bombing
4:16
Speaker 3: of Tokyo, it was never you know, supposed to be
4:19
Speaker 3: we're intentionally firebombing civilians. The way that we would justify
4:24
Speaker 3: it is that there's a lot of factories in that
4:26
Speaker 3: civilian area, But we would never explicitly say we're doing
4:30
Speaker 3: this to try and kill as many people as possible,
4:32
Speaker 3: even though that was the goal. This time we're just
4:33
Speaker 3: saying it, We're just saying it out loudly. No, we're
4:35
Speaker 3: going in to emserate the population, to destroy all of
4:39
Speaker 3: the power nuclear power plants and or or the gas
4:43
Speaker 3: petrochemical facilities, the gas fields, the bridges, and we're doing
4:47
Speaker 3: so explicitly to try and to destroy their infrastructure and
4:52
Speaker 3: to emserate the population to compel the regime to a deal. Now,
4:55
Speaker 3: of course, that is not what's working right now. And
4:58
Speaker 3: in fact, that bridge strike that happened over the weekend
5:01
Speaker 3: was on an unconstructed bridge like it was halfway through
5:04
Speaker 3: its construction, and again yet it wasn't in use in
5:07
Speaker 3: the Pentagon. Comes that we're like, well, we need to
5:09
Speaker 3: deny the enemy a critical logistics hub. And you're like,
5:12
Speaker 3: uh again, you know, look, if you want to go back, Yeah,
5:14
Speaker 3: blowing up bridge is a long time a part of warfare,
5:17
Speaker 3: probably like one of the oldest things that people do.
5:19
Speaker 3: You seize a bridgehead, you take a bridgehead, you blow
5:22
Speaker 3: it up. But there is an ostensible military purpose. This
5:24
Speaker 3: is just do it to do it, and in order
5:26
Speaker 3: to show the capacity of the United States. And it
5:28
Speaker 3: is first of all, obviously for the Iranian population, what
5:32
Speaker 3: a nightmare and a disaster. But second really, you know,
5:34
Speaker 3: for the United States by taking any of this veneer
5:37
Speaker 3: off and just further creating the situation where it's just America,
5:41
Speaker 3: it's just Israel. It's like the Israelification of the United
5:44
Speaker 3: States of our military.
5:46
Speaker 1: Which look, I.
5:46
Speaker 3: Mean, people know, I'm not like a big norms guy
5:50
Speaker 3: or any of that, but I do believe in honor
5:52
Speaker 3: and you know, of the United States of America. And
5:55
Speaker 3: you may say that Iraq and Afghanistan it was horrible,
5:58
Speaker 3: and I agree.
5:59
Speaker 1: I never would have well, I didn't.
6:00
Speaker 3: Want to be in those wars, but we did not
6:03
Speaker 3: conduct ourself in that way. I never thought I'd be
6:06
Speaker 3: sitting here defending some of that, But the truth is
6:09
Speaker 3: is that America put its sons and daughters on the line. Now,
6:12
Speaker 3: we shouldn't have been there in the first place, but
6:13
Speaker 3: to try and protect civilians, to try and make a
6:16
Speaker 3: better way of life. Now, I agree nation building doesn't work.
6:18
Speaker 3: We shouldn't be doing that. If we are going to
6:20
Speaker 3: fight a war, then let's do it quote properly. But
6:22
Speaker 3: even in this, the bigger strategic picture is totally missed
6:26
Speaker 3: because we are not getting anywhere closer to opening the
6:29
Speaker 3: fucking straight right, if that's what you actually want to do.
6:33
Speaker 2: I mean, there's so much to say about this. First,
6:35
Speaker 2: on the war crimes aspect of this, there's some reporting
6:37
Speaker 2: that they've just basically decided any and all infrastructure is
6:41
Speaker 2: fair game and that the previous limitations, which basically the
6:45
Speaker 2: idea is that if you hit a piece of infrastructure,
6:48
Speaker 2: there has to be a truly justifiable, directly military reason
6:53
Speaker 2: and something that can't be accomplished in another way.
6:56
Speaker 4: They're throwing that out the windows.
6:58
Speaker 2: No, we're going to hit electrical grid bridges whatever we
7:01
Speaker 2: want to, whenever we want to. Also, allegedly there are
7:05
Speaker 2: people in the Pentagon and in this administration who are
7:08
Speaker 2: very happy to see what Israel with our support. Of course,
7:11
Speaker 2: the whole way we're able to get away with in
7:13
Speaker 2: the Gaza genocide because it meant, okay, guess what, now,
7:16
Speaker 2: we don't have to play by the rules at all.
7:18
Speaker 2: Like if they can starve and bomb an entire trap
7:22
Speaker 2: population for years and no one really does anything about it, Okay,
7:26
Speaker 2: then it's no holds barred. The problem, of course, is
7:29
Speaker 2: that then it's no holds barred for everyone, including our adversaries.
7:32
Speaker 2: In a lot of ways, in this sort of an engagement,
7:35
Speaker 2: our adversaries benefit more from being no holds bar It
7:39
Speaker 2: enables that level of asymmetric warfare. It puts our own
7:42
Speaker 2: of course, service members and civilians in the region, and
7:44
Speaker 2: American civilians in the region at risk.
7:46
Speaker 4: I mean, even this business of oh.
7:48
Speaker 2: Our bases are getting hit, so we're going to put
7:50
Speaker 2: all of our soldiers in civilian hotels is deeply dishonorable
7:54
Speaker 2: and very likely a violation of the laws of war
7:57
Speaker 2: as well.
7:57
Speaker 4: But so there's that aspect of it. And then the
7:59
Speaker 4: other part of it.
8:00
Speaker 2: Let's talk about this whole open open the fucking straits.
8:03
Speaker 2: Last week days ago, we were told by Trump number one, Oh,
8:07
Speaker 2: it's not that big of a deal to us, whatever,
8:09
Speaker 2: we don't really care Europe. If you like the straits
8:12
Speaker 2: so much, why don't you go and open it? And
8:13
Speaker 2: in the very same speech it will open naturally anyway.
8:18
Speaker 2: Obviously we knew at the time that was alive. This
8:20
Speaker 2: is a big deal that Iran doesn't actually have the
8:23
Speaker 2: Straits of Hormves close, but they have control over who
8:26
Speaker 2: goes through and who doesn't. That is a dramatic new
8:29
Speaker 2: global geopolitical reality. It's obviously a problem for the globe,
8:33
Speaker 2: for the US in particular. And so this pretense of
8:37
Speaker 2: like whatever, like we lowky, you don't even care, you guys,
8:40
Speaker 2: do whatever you want with it was always bullshit. And
8:42
Speaker 2: so this is Trump getting very frustrated, I think, and
8:45
Speaker 2: showing his hand here that this actually is a key
8:47
Speaker 2: objective and the Iranians have no intention actually of ever
8:50
Speaker 2: going back to the previous status quo with regard to
8:53
Speaker 2: the straight of Foremataus.
8:54
Speaker 3: They's pretty stupid, right, because it's the only card that
8:56
Speaker 3: they have. They have their missiles, they have their drones,
8:58
Speaker 3: and they have the Straits of Hormus. The Straits of
9:00
Speaker 3: hor moves is enforced really with the missile and the
9:03
Speaker 3: drone threat, and you could actually take out one hundred
9:05
Speaker 3: percent of the missiles, which of course, remember they told
9:07
Speaker 3: us they did, and obviously they haven't, and they would
9:09
Speaker 3: still have the drones, and even then you would really
9:11
Speaker 3: only take a few shoulder fired missiles and a couple
9:14
Speaker 3: of speedboats with the IRGC has prepared for years to
9:16
Speaker 3: be able to wreak enough havoc that the strait remains
9:19
Speaker 3: effectively closed. As of today, there are more tankers that
9:22
Speaker 3: are moving through the strait than before. Why because they're
9:24
Speaker 3: paying Iran. They're paying them. I mean, that is a
9:26
Speaker 3: new that is actually a way worse reality for the world,
9:29
Speaker 3: because now you have no international passageway. You know that
9:33
Speaker 3: generally trade is able to move through completely unencumbered, but
9:36
Speaker 3: now you have an effective Iranian veto over one of
9:39
Speaker 3: the most critical choke points on the whole globe, which
9:41
Speaker 3: directly undermines you know, America's entire reason for entering this
9:45
Speaker 3: in the first place. Should we put a two up
9:47
Speaker 3: there on the screen just to show all of you Trump,
9:50
Speaker 3: you know, over the weekend, claiming many of Iran's military
9:53
Speaker 3: leaders who have led them poorly and n wise are terminated,
9:56
Speaker 3: along with much else with the massive strike in Tehran,
9:59
Speaker 3: so more decapitation and assassination strikes in Iran. But more importantly,
10:04
Speaker 3: he keeps saying things like negotiators have been given absolute
10:07
Speaker 3: immunity from death, basically again using the Israeli model that
10:11
Speaker 3: they did with Hamas, where oh, well, we'll negotiate with
10:14
Speaker 3: someone and if we don't like the way they negotiating,
10:15
Speaker 3: will kill them, or if we do like the way
10:17
Speaker 3: they're negotiating, will kill them because we don't want to
10:19
Speaker 3: negotiate right too much or you know, exactly in the
10:22
Speaker 3: right way.
10:23
Speaker 1: So this is the this is the problem, and like right.
10:26
Speaker 2: Now there's been much confirmation of this in terms of
10:28
Speaker 2: significant deaths among the Iranian leadership.
10:32
Speaker 3: We just don't like, really people need to understand, we
10:35
Speaker 3: really do not know a lot about this war.
10:36
Speaker 1: We're going to do the censorship stuff in a bit.
10:39
Speaker 3: But even it's like inside of Iran, you know, they're
10:41
Speaker 3: putting out all kinds of nonsense, you know, claiming various
10:45
Speaker 3: different things that aren't. We're putting out all kinds of
10:47
Speaker 3: nonsense where you clearly cannot trust a lot of the numbers.
10:51
Speaker 3: And then recently, and I'm sure you've read this, there
10:53
Speaker 3: have been a lot of dispatches of people going to
10:55
Speaker 3: the Strait. Things there are a little bit different than
10:57
Speaker 3: the way that they're being sold to us. Right, so
10:59
Speaker 3: there's all this international subterfuge. The UAE is shut things down. Ohman,
11:04
Speaker 3: everybody is cracking. You know, all these journalists going into
11:08
Speaker 3: Oman right now. They're like, yeah, you can write, but
11:10
Speaker 3: no pictures. You can do that, you're not allowed to go.
11:13
Speaker 1: Into the Strait.
11:14
Speaker 3: So just keep that in mind that everything that we
11:16
Speaker 3: are hearing is all either second or third hand, or
11:19
Speaker 3: if it is, it's a written dispatch. And even then,
11:21
Speaker 3: who knows if the ability to get some of the
11:23
Speaker 3: actual information out of those countries, yeah, is all that useful.
11:26
Speaker 2: Let me go ahead and put a three up on
11:28
Speaker 2: the screen. So we had another deadline moved. Once Agen
11:31
Speaker 2: he'd put in place this forty eight hour deadline. Then
11:34
Speaker 2: Trump extended that by an additional twenty four hours. Now
11:37
Speaker 2: the deadline is Tuesday at eight pm. This is, you know,
11:41
Speaker 2: the very latest of you know, a move of a
11:44
Speaker 2: deadline by Trump. This is a repeated pattern from him.
11:47
Speaker 2: We can put a four up on the screen, which
11:49
Speaker 2: I think lays.
11:49
Speaker 4: Is pretty out pretty clearly.
11:51
Speaker 2: On March twenty first, Trump said, you've got forty eight hours.
11:55
Speaker 2: On March twenty third, he postponed that for five days.
11:58
Speaker 2: Then on March twenty sixth that was postponed for ten
12:00
Speaker 2: more days. Than on April fourth, we were told forty
12:03
Speaker 2: eight hours, and then on April fifth this was postponed
12:06
Speaker 2: to April seventh, eight pm Eastern time. Let me go
12:10
Speaker 2: ahead and put up Barack Reviede's report from this morning.
12:13
Speaker 2: He's got, you know, his latest dispatch here, timed just
12:17
Speaker 2: before the market's open. Make sure that things don't get
12:20
Speaker 2: too chaotic here to buy Drump a little bit more
12:22
Speaker 2: time to figure out whatever the hell he's doing, revined rights.
12:25
Speaker 2: In last ditch push, the US, Iran and a group
12:28
Speaker 2: of regional mediators are discussing the terms for a potential
12:31
Speaker 2: forty five day ceasefire that could lead to a permanent
12:34
Speaker 2: end to the war, according to four US, Israeli and
12:38
Speaker 2: regional sources. So you notice who's not a source there.
12:41
Speaker 2: The Iranians, US, Israeli and quote unquote regional sources, which
12:45
Speaker 2: could be the Saudis, could be you know, UAE, could
12:48
Speaker 2: be someone who's basically just parroting the US line. Here's,
12:51
Speaker 2: oh no, we're totally We're totally gonna get a ceasefire. Guys,
12:54
Speaker 2: don't worry. We're getting really super close here. Meanwhile, if
12:57
Speaker 2: we put the gym shoodow up on the screen here
13:01
Speaker 2: and this is his reporting, and other outlets have this
13:03
Speaker 2: reporting as well. Iran has rejected a temporary ceasefire in
13:07
Speaker 2: its war with the US and Israel, saying it would
13:08
Speaker 2: allow adversaries to pause and prepare for the continuation of
13:11
Speaker 2: the war. We're calling for an end to the war
13:13
Speaker 2: and for preventing its reoccurrence. Foreign Ministry, a spokesperson was
13:17
Speaker 2: cited as saying by Iran's state news agencies. So they're
13:21
Speaker 2: saying absolutely not. Why would we give you a temporary
13:25
Speaker 2: cease fire when we know your interceptors are running low.
13:28
Speaker 2: We know we have at least the capacity to shoot
13:30
Speaker 2: down some of your fighter jets over our airspace. We
13:34
Speaker 2: know Abby we're going to talk about the strikes within Israel.
13:38
Speaker 2: We know we're still able to exact damage, and we
13:40
Speaker 2: know that you all are running out a material on
13:43
Speaker 2: a variety of fronts. I'm sure you would love to
13:45
Speaker 2: pause and regroup and be able to come back stronger,
13:48
Speaker 2: But we need to make sure that when this thing ends,
13:51
Speaker 2: we are not just going to go back to another
13:54
Speaker 2: war down the road like what happened with twelve Days.
13:56
Speaker 3: This is the sadness is that now actually would be
13:58
Speaker 3: a great time to have a ceasefire, but it would
14:01
Speaker 3: require not just cooler heads, but tremendous acts of courage
14:04
Speaker 3: from the Iranians and from the United States and from
14:07
Speaker 3: the United States to be able to restrain Israel, because
14:10
Speaker 3: right now is right before any sort of real precipice.
14:12
Speaker 3: Right it's before we're going to invade with ground troops
14:15
Speaker 3: or further escalate and destroy all these power plants. If
14:18
Speaker 3: you're the Iranians, you finally have the West paying attention.
14:21
Speaker 3: You have them totally. You held up in the Straits
14:24
Speaker 3: of Hormuz. You've created this new power dynamic. You never
14:26
Speaker 3: really will have a better hand to play. Your population
14:29
Speaker 3: is not further and miserated. The only problem, though, is
14:31
Speaker 3: that Israel is hovering above this whole thing, where they
14:34
Speaker 3: don't want a ceasefire because they need to further destroy
14:37
Speaker 3: the Iranians regime. They want to collapse it, turn it
14:40
Speaker 3: into a rump state, just like what's happening with Syria,
14:43
Speaker 3: and so for the world, for the United States and
14:45
Speaker 3: for Iran. It actually everything would be good going to
14:47
Speaker 3: a seaspire, but Israel is like this, you know, rogue
14:50
Speaker 3: actor that's on top of it, but of course has
14:52
Speaker 3: prime position. And then of course Israel and the US's
14:55
Speaker 3: relationship has created it so that the US can never
14:58
Speaker 3: really have any credibility and its diplomatic negotiations with the Iranians,
15:03
Speaker 3: all logic points to total war and has been pointing
15:06
Speaker 3: that way now for quite some time, which is again,
15:09
Speaker 3: it's a real tragedy. I think for everybody. Let's put
15:14
Speaker 3: a six up here just showing Donald Trump's you know,
15:16
Speaker 3: continuing reiteration. This is a Wall Street Journal interview that
15:20
Speaker 3: he gave yesterday. Threatened to destroy all of Iran's power
15:23
Speaker 3: plants if the country's leaders don't agree to reopen the strait,
15:27
Speaker 3: if they don't come through, if they want to keep
15:29
Speaker 3: it closed, They're going to lose every power plant and
15:32
Speaker 3: every other plant they have in the whole country. So
15:36
Speaker 3: what this means is that he's not just threatening civilian infrastructure,
15:40
Speaker 3: but every other plant could even be a reference to
15:43
Speaker 3: some of the petrochemical facilities, which is what makes things
15:46
Speaker 3: a bit complicated. He wants to take the oil, but
15:48
Speaker 3: maybe he wants to destroy the oil. Really once he
15:50
Speaker 3: wants to do is collapse the country into a place
15:53
Speaker 3: of absolute chaos.
15:55
Speaker 1: But what we have watched over this course.
15:57
Speaker 3: Is that every single time the US is escalated, the
16:00
Speaker 3: Iranian regime actually is getting stronger. So what they're doing
16:04
Speaker 3: is that they're and I'm talking about internally inside of
16:07
Speaker 3: the country. They're arresting, they've shot protesters already, a couple
16:11
Speaker 3: of people were executed. They've made it so that if
16:13
Speaker 3: anybody who's aiding inventing the enemy is going to get
16:15
Speaker 3: the death penalty. I mean, can you think then about
16:17
Speaker 3: a situation where the government will have maximum control. If
16:20
Speaker 3: you have no power and you're totally reliant on authorities
16:24
Speaker 3: to deliver the basics of food, water, and shelter, that's
16:27
Speaker 3: actually going to create a better position for them to
16:29
Speaker 3: be able to have total totalitarian rule inside. So that's
16:33
Speaker 3: not what's really going to happen the arms. Remember they've
16:36
Speaker 3: got one hundred thousand people or so, they've been preparing
16:39
Speaker 3: for this for a long time. That would also make
16:41
Speaker 3: it obvious that this is a total war. They're like, okay,
16:44
Speaker 3: we're in this to the death, obviously waiting for a
16:47
Speaker 3: ground invasion, and Trump is not ruling that out a
16:50
Speaker 3: seven if we can.
16:51
Speaker 1: He again spoke on the phone with the Hills Julia.
16:54
Speaker 3: Manchester said he is not ruling out ground troops if
16:57
Speaker 3: even if they if they do not make a deal.
17:00
Speaker 3: He also said no infrastructure targets are off the table.
17:04
Speaker 3: I think when you combine a couple of things, the
17:06
Speaker 3: raid which we'll talk about in a little bit, to
17:08
Speaker 3: go into rescue one of the down US airmen, this
17:11
Speaker 3: has you know, without giving away too much about what
17:14
Speaker 3: that was, I still really truly believe that, like with Venezuela,
17:18
Speaker 3: we will learn exactly the wrong lesson. So we had
17:21
Speaker 3: this amazing CIA Delta Force operation to go into, you know,
17:27
Speaker 3: to save this down US airmen. That's incredible, but that's
17:32
Speaker 3: proof of a couple different that you look at it.
17:34
Speaker 3: One way, Wow, we're able to establish this air bases.
17:37
Speaker 1: Well. On the other hand, you know, this.
17:39
Speaker 3: Fifteen is not even supposed to be shot down, period,
17:41
Speaker 3: because we're supposed to have air dominance or air superiority
17:44
Speaker 3: over the country. So how did that happen? By the way,
17:46
Speaker 3: I spoke with a few military sources. From what I understand,
17:49
Speaker 3: the Iranians have been watching, waiting and learning. So they
17:52
Speaker 3: have been watching all of these air sorties all across
17:54
Speaker 3: the country. They've been coordinating with China, with Russia. They're
17:57
Speaker 3: not using any new technology, it's all nineteen eighty stuff.
18:00
Speaker 3: But they're just sitting there and watching that F thirty five,
18:02
Speaker 3: watching that F fifteen, watching the A ten.
18:05
Speaker 1: They have some drones and some other things.
18:07
Speaker 3: They're using the coordinate information to try and make it
18:09
Speaker 3: so it's a little bit easier to go into pinprick.
18:11
Speaker 3: Remember that the hoo thies also were able to clip
18:14
Speaker 3: an F thirty five in that pro Well, those guys
18:17
Speaker 3: are not even the Republic of Iran. These are just
18:20
Speaker 3: some dudes with missiles like hiding out in caves. They're smart,
18:23
Speaker 3: they study and they watch and they learn, and so
18:26
Speaker 3: what they've been able to do is to down these
18:29
Speaker 3: incredible air platforms. You're like, okay, well that's a huge problem. Second,
18:34
Speaker 3: in the raid, you had these two C one thirties
18:36
Speaker 3: that had to get blown up. That's two hundred million
18:38
Speaker 3: dollars in aircraft, bunch of bunch of helicopters, like four
18:41
Speaker 3: different helicopters that were there, so hundreds of millions of
18:44
Speaker 3: dollars in air assets. Then even when they were able
18:48
Speaker 3: to extract, there's report of like some sort of a
18:50
Speaker 3: gunfight that happened in the country. You know, the official
18:53
Speaker 3: story is to see one thirty wheel got stuck in
18:54
Speaker 3: the sand.
18:55
Speaker 2: Two see one thirty wheels got stuck in this Both
18:58
Speaker 2: of them are yeah, maybe and very right, very as
19:01
Speaker 2: you know, I am very skeptical of this official story.
19:04
Speaker 4: We could talk to Brandon about this.
19:06
Speaker 2: But to your point, well, and here's kind of like
19:09
Speaker 2: why the logic of this war just becomes inevitably up
19:13
Speaker 2: the escalation chain. Because let's say the official story is
19:16
Speaker 2: correct and they executed this incredible, brave mission and they
19:20
Speaker 2: got out the airmen and our special force is so
19:23
Speaker 2: amazing blah blah blah. Well that in boldens Trump then
19:26
Speaker 2: he feels like, oh my god, we're so such badasses,
19:29
Speaker 2: Like let's go for it, right, Let's say that it
19:32
Speaker 2: was kind of low key a catastrophic disaster, and you
19:34
Speaker 2: ended up with, you know, having to destroy four hundred
19:37
Speaker 2: million dollars worth of equipment on the ground, barely got
19:40
Speaker 2: your asses out without you know, potentially hundreds of lives,
19:42
Speaker 2: loss of US service members, kind of attachroph you weren't
19:45
Speaker 2: able to actually to accomplish the goals that you know,
19:48
Speaker 2: beyond this rescue, which there were possibly other goals beyond
19:51
Speaker 2: the rescue of this one airman. So well that means
19:54
Speaker 2: then now you're you're frustrated, you're humiliated. What does that mean?
19:58
Speaker 2: You have to escalate, you have to something else. So
20:01
Speaker 2: you could see these true socials either as he feels
20:04
Speaker 2: emboldened and his confidence, just like coming out of Venezuela.
20:08
Speaker 2: He thinks that he loves seeing the American military be
20:11
Speaker 2: such badasses and so that makes.
20:13
Speaker 4: Him want to go further.
20:15
Speaker 2: Or you could see it as frustration and lashing out,
20:18
Speaker 2: which also makes him want to go further. So either
20:21
Speaker 2: direction leads to effectively the same.
20:24
Speaker 1: Results, and everything turns on the knife's edge.
20:26
Speaker 3: Right, So even in this you know operation look, I mean,
20:28
Speaker 3: who cares ultimately about aircraft getting blown up? We saved
20:32
Speaker 3: a guy that's that's great. However, let's look back to Venezuela.
20:35
Speaker 3: If this warrant officer, the guy who got the medal
20:37
Speaker 3: at the State of the Union, if he had not
20:40
Speaker 3: just like been an absolute unit and he'd been just
20:43
Speaker 3: like one other person, everybody on that helicopter is dead.
20:46
Speaker 3: Like that's literally a completely other sort of like you
20:49
Speaker 3: don't want to keep putting yourself where things turn on
20:52
Speaker 3: the knife side. Note right now it's turned out it's
20:54
Speaker 3: what working somewhat favorably for the United States.
20:57
Speaker 1: We're able to execute this. But look, I mean, we.
20:59
Speaker 3: Still lost fIF team, we lost two A tens, we
21:01
Speaker 3: lost all these helicopters, We've gotten all these MQ nine
21:04
Speaker 3: Reaper drones which are getting shot down. We're losing billions
21:07
Speaker 3: of dollars with aircraft already as a result of the war.
21:10
Speaker 1: Remember that roll.
21:11
Speaker 2: Rural villagers in Iran who were firing on our helicopters
21:14
Speaker 2: and you know, doing whatever they tend to, you know,
21:17
Speaker 2: to make things lifetof.
21:18
Speaker 3: Showing also that oh oops, you know, are not being
21:21
Speaker 3: greeted exactly as liberators are we right, and so now
21:24
Speaker 3: imagine a ground invasions. I mean, but the worst case
21:26
Speaker 3: My greatest fear was he was taking pow because now
21:30
Speaker 3: it's Vietnam.
21:30
Speaker 1: All over again.
21:31
Speaker 3: Remember all those pow Mia flags back from the nineteen
21:34
Speaker 3: seventies and nineteen eighties.
21:35
Speaker 1: Now we're gonna go and save our boys.
21:36
Speaker 3: We're gonna have some crazy ass Delta Force missions to
21:39
Speaker 3: try and to go and do something eagle claws, some
21:41
Speaker 3: sort of a nightmare. I mean, who knows, you know
21:43
Speaker 3: how stuff like that would work out. Then we're gonna
21:45
Speaker 3: have to go kidnap somebody, try and make some sort
21:47
Speaker 3: of a hostage exchange or something. It would be real madness.
21:51
Speaker 3: Let's put a eight also, just to show everybody this.
21:53
Speaker 3: Remember is the alleged negotiator with the United States. This
21:56
Speaker 3: is Galibav, the speaker of the Iranian Parliament. He's responding
21:59
Speaker 3: to Trump's true social Your reckless moves are dragging the
22:03
Speaker 3: United States into a living hell for every single family.
22:06
Speaker 3: Our whole region is going to burn because you insist
22:08
Speaker 3: on following nets On Yahu's commands. Make no mistake, you
22:11
Speaker 3: won't gain anything through war crimes. The only real solution
22:15
Speaker 3: is respecting the rights of the Iranian people and ending
22:17
Speaker 3: this dangerous game. So remember they keep they've rejected the
22:20
Speaker 3: temporary ceasefire. This is their defiant response to the power
22:24
Speaker 3: plan blow up. And you know, they also know that
22:27
Speaker 3: Trump is really trapped in this market problem of his
22:30
Speaker 3: where he both doesn't want to appear weak. He's moved
22:33
Speaker 3: the deadline how many times now want this is the
22:36
Speaker 3: fourth deadline move. I think that's the fourth deadline.
22:39
Speaker 1: Now to the.
22:40
Speaker 3: Tuesday eight pm Eastern time for what that's going to
22:44
Speaker 3: look like. They know that this would on ambiguously send
22:49
Speaker 3: oil prices soaring because Iran will almost certainly respond by
22:53
Speaker 3: blowing up multiple other energy infrastructure across the Gulf. So
22:58
Speaker 3: then what's going to happen as a result that they'll
23:00
Speaker 3: probably further take control of the Straits of horror moves
23:04
Speaker 3: and it will get much much worse. So all around,
23:07
Speaker 3: like we're in a bad position.
23:08
Speaker 1: This is true. I've said it now for weeks.
23:11
Speaker 3: I do not see a possible way out from here,
23:13
Speaker 3: Like you have to basically lay on your sword, which
23:17
Speaker 3: he's not going to do, especially after this special operations rate.
23:20
Speaker 1: He's running high.
23:21
Speaker 3: He's doing a press conference today around one pm at
23:24
Speaker 3: the White House. I wouldn't be surprised if the Airman
23:26
Speaker 3: was there and flown overnight to appear like a big
23:29
Speaker 3: celebration from the US. So that's the mindset of everybody
23:33
Speaker 3: who's in Washington right now.
23:34
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean could be.
23:35
Speaker 2: And then the media strategy has also been interesting, Like
23:38
Speaker 2: they didn't send really anyone out on the Sunday shows
23:40
Speaker 2: yesterday to talk I don't think I don't think anybody, right,
23:43
Speaker 2: not a soul, not even like a besent to talk
23:45
Speaker 2: about the markets or without nobody, And instead you have
23:48
Speaker 2: Trump calling these various reporters and saying various insane and
23:53
Speaker 2: contradictory things. Trey Yanks over at Fox News has been
23:56
Speaker 2: one of the recipient of some of these phone calls.
23:58
Speaker 2: We'll talk about some of as reporting. It's not reporting,
24:00
Speaker 2: it's just Trump right telling him later, Yeah, we we
24:03
Speaker 2: sent arms to the protesters via the Kurds.
24:05
Speaker 4: Yeah, we totally did that.
24:07
Speaker 2: But in any case, let's take a listen to this
24:09
Speaker 2: quick SoundBite of trade telling everybody that you know, one
24:13
Speaker 2: of the things Trump said is, oh, we're going to
24:14
Speaker 2: go in and take the oil.
24:15
Speaker 4: Let's take a listen to that.
24:16
Speaker 5: The President tells me, if they don't make a deal
24:19
Speaker 5: and fast, I'm considering blowing everything up and taking.
24:22
Speaker 1: Over the oil.
24:24
Speaker 5: The President went on to say, you're going to see
24:25
Speaker 5: bridges and power plants dropping all over their country.
24:30
Speaker 2: Blowing everything up and taking the oil. Okay, you know,
24:33
Speaker 2: good luck with that. I mean, we just continue to
24:35
Speaker 2: get new objectives, new goals every single day, and you know,
24:39
Speaker 2: no straight answer about this war. What this war is
24:41
Speaker 2: even about?
24:42
Speaker 4: It?
24:42
Speaker 2: Is it about the straight of woe moves which is
24:44
Speaker 2: only closed because of the war. Is it about taking
24:46
Speaker 2: the oil? Is it about the nuclear program? Is it
24:48
Speaker 2: about the ballistic missiles? Every day there's new shifting explanation.
24:52
Speaker 2: So this is just the latest of oh we'll just
24:54
Speaker 2: we'll just blow everything up and take the oil.
24:56
Speaker 4: Yeah, okay, good luck with that.
24:57
Speaker 6: Yeah.
24:57
Speaker 3: And you know, to the point about lot like the
25:00
Speaker 3: logic of the war, it starts to become this is
25:03
Speaker 3: very First World War esque. The logic of continuing the
25:06
Speaker 3: war is to try and defend the territory which we
25:10
Speaker 3: took in the opening days of the war. They're like, well,
25:12
Speaker 3: it can't give that up. We've lost too much for
25:15
Speaker 3: this scrap of land. So now we have to lose
25:17
Speaker 3: ten times more to make sure that we don't lose
25:20
Speaker 3: this scrap of them and then vice versa. Right, well,
25:22
Speaker 3: now we have to defend this one scrape. It's like
25:25
Speaker 3: it didn't even matter, it's not even all that important,
25:28
Speaker 3: except millions die as a result of that.
25:31
Speaker 2: You can imagine we take carg Island and then it's like, oh,
25:33
Speaker 2: we have to defend car.
25:35
Speaker 1: We have to do what.
25:36
Speaker 3: We've wasted too much, We've come too far to go back.
25:41
Speaker 3: You just said lost all remember from the address, you
25:44
Speaker 3: know he even said like we have to avenge their desks,
25:47
Speaker 3: thirteen Americans. You know, that's another thing where for all
25:50
Speaker 3: of the talk about how great things have gone, I
25:51
Speaker 3: feel like it's very minimizing for all thirteen Americans who
25:54
Speaker 3: have died as a result of the conflict and this.
25:57
Speaker 3: You know that those refeeling tankers, which God, that was
25:59
Speaker 3: a big deal, and nobody talks about that, right But
26:02
Speaker 3: for some reason, you know, will we underanalyze the disasters
26:06
Speaker 3: and we over celebrate a lot of the victories. When
26:10
Speaker 3: you really balance it out together, you know, we're not
26:12
Speaker 3: anywhere closer to the strategic aim of the war. And
26:15
Speaker 3: many of the claims by the White House, by the
26:17
Speaker 3: Pentagon have proven to be absolute nonsense. There's no air
26:20
Speaker 3: superiority total air superiority over Iran. They obviously still have
26:25
Speaker 3: a huge amount of their ballistic missile capacity. It's certainly
26:28
Speaker 3: not ninety five percent destroyed. The regime remains stronger than ever,
26:32
Speaker 3: and the Straits of Hormuz is under de facto Iranian control.
26:35
Speaker 3: So it has been a failure, I would say, on
26:37
Speaker 3: all four of the major like strategic goals that were
26:41
Speaker 3: laid out in the beginning of the war.
26:43
Speaker 2: All right, let's go ahead and talk a little bit
26:45
Speaker 2: about what's going on with Israel. All right, So there
26:50
Speaker 2: was some significant damage within Israel due to an Iranian
26:54
Speaker 2: strike and an apparent interceptor fail. Let's go and put
26:58
Speaker 2: this up on the screen. So this is from Haretz.
27:01
Speaker 2: We now have some news that of deaths here. So
27:04
Speaker 2: rescue teams recover the bodies of four victims who were
27:07
Speaker 2: killed in an Iranian missile strike. This original headline said
27:12
Speaker 2: that for We're feared trapped. Now we know that rescue
27:14
Speaker 2: teams have in fact recovered those bodies. They carried out
27:18
Speaker 2: careful operations at a six story residential building struck by
27:21
Speaker 2: an Iranian missile on Sunday night before We're trapped on
27:23
Speaker 2: the building Spottom floor as the top three floors collapsed.
27:27
Speaker 2: And obviously what's significant here heifeas been hit a number
27:31
Speaker 2: of times actually seems to be a real focus of
27:33
Speaker 2: Iranian efforts. And in addition, obviously the fact that you
27:37
Speaker 2: had an interceptor fail here and you have the Iranians
27:40
Speaker 2: able to still exact this kind of damage and actually
27:44
Speaker 2: kill Israelis within the state of Israel is quite extraordinary
27:48
Speaker 2: and just shows you obviously they aren't backing down, and
27:51
Speaker 2: they feel very much like they have in the upper
27:53
Speaker 2: hand in a lot of ways.
27:54
Speaker 3: Well, it's what we just talked about, is that when
27:55
Speaker 3: you open the door, you know, to destruction of infrastructure
27:59
Speaker 3: and civilian death, Well then when Iran is able to
28:02
Speaker 3: do it on a much more limited scale, nobody's going
28:04
Speaker 3: to cry for you, right, Like the Israelis are like, oh,
28:07
Speaker 3: they are targeting civilians and you're like, well, you know,
28:10
Speaker 3: it's one of those where they're kind of just doing
28:12
Speaker 3: what a lot of you guys have been doing, which
28:14
Speaker 3: I think neither party should do it.
28:16
Speaker 1: I think it's bad. But you can obviously see.
28:19
Speaker 3: The degradation of Iranian or the the degradation of Israeli
28:23
Speaker 3: air defense systems of their missile interceptors, their AARO two
28:27
Speaker 3: and three's are running rapidly low.
28:29
Speaker 1: Remember that analysis I brought everybody.
28:31
Speaker 3: If the track of the first sixteen days of war
28:34
Speaker 3: had continued, they would have run out as of a
28:36
Speaker 3: couple of days ago, and so they have to severely ration.
28:39
Speaker 3: The reason why Iran continues to strike Haifa is because
28:43
Speaker 3: of those oil refinery facilities, and actually you can see
28:47
Speaker 3: it very obviously in the response of the Israelis. So
28:51
Speaker 3: can we put a twelve up there on the screen.
28:53
Speaker 3: In retaliation for this strike, Israel just this morning attacked
28:58
Speaker 3: the largest petrochemistical facility in Iran. According to the Defense Minister,
29:03
Speaker 3: cats two facilities were responsible for eighty five percent of
29:07
Speaker 3: Iran's petrochemical exports that have now been put out of operations.
29:11
Speaker 3: So obviously this is in retaliation for multiple of these
29:15
Speaker 3: strikes which have pummeled Haifa and the oil refineries over there.
29:19
Speaker 3: Israel is responding. The problem though, is that it's not
29:23
Speaker 3: like Iran just responds to Israel and continues to hit
29:27
Speaker 3: their refineries. When their infrastructure goes out, then they respond
29:30
Speaker 3: to the US Israeli coalition of the UAE, Qatar, Kuwait,
29:35
Speaker 3: Saudi Arabia already a eleven. If we can up there
29:38
Speaker 3: on the screen, you could see the statement from the
29:40
Speaker 3: Ministry of Electricity and Water Renewable Energy of Kuwait assault
29:44
Speaker 3: on two power generation stations and water desalination plants in Kuwait. Remember,
29:50
Speaker 3: Iran is way less reliant on desalination plants than the
29:54
Speaker 3: Gulf countries who only have like two weeks supply or.
29:57
Speaker 1: Something like that of water.
29:59
Speaker 3: It would be at apps mission critical disaster for them
30:03
Speaker 3: if this didn't end up happening. And we are setting
30:05
Speaker 3: the stage because we're still what thirty six hours away
30:08
Speaker 3: from Trump's deadline, and if that does actually happen, the
30:11
Speaker 3: power plants tracks strikes, we will see exactly this time
30:15
Speaker 3: of attack times ten. God only knows what the straits
30:18
Speaker 3: of our moves and or ground operation. So there's total
30:21
Speaker 3: war in the region.
30:22
Speaker 2: Yeah, and we also haven't even the Hoofies have sent
30:26
Speaker 2: some almost like warning strikes, but they have not operated
30:29
Speaker 2: to close the Babel Mundab straight which would further paralyze
30:34
Speaker 2: the oil markets. Now, I will say you were alluding
30:37
Speaker 2: to the fact there has been some reporting from the
30:39
Speaker 2: straight Upore moves that more is getting through then is
30:42
Speaker 2: readily available, but there's still no doubt the millions of
30:45
Speaker 2: barrels of oil a day that we're getting on the
30:47
Speaker 2: market are no longer getting on the market. And also
30:50
Speaker 2: significant in terms of how this missile was able to
30:54
Speaker 2: evade Israeli interceptors that were fired at it. So apparently
31:00
Speaker 2: number one the warhead.
31:02
Speaker 4: On the ground.
31:02
Speaker 2: This is a separate thought, but the warhead actually didn't dotonate,
31:06
Speaker 2: so it would have been far more catastrophic for the
31:08
Speaker 2: Israelis if it had it collapsed one building, but you
31:11
Speaker 2: would have had obviously a larger blast zone. But apparently
31:15
Speaker 2: it was able to It was able to sort of
31:18
Speaker 2: evade these interceptors and also to split into multiple pieces.
31:22
Speaker 2: And so this is a demonstration of higher level Iranian
31:25
Speaker 2: technology as well, which is part of why they've been
31:28
Speaker 2: able to continue to do the damage that they have.
31:31
Speaker 4: We know that according to our.
31:32
Speaker 2: Own intel that something like only a third of their
31:36
Speaker 2: missile stockpile has been destroyed. Another third may have been
31:40
Speaker 2: damaged or buried. But they've been able to access reaccess
31:44
Speaker 2: that sometimes within the same day, so they still have
31:47
Speaker 2: significant capabilities. They have still significant steps up the escalation
31:51
Speaker 2: chain that they could took take. Within Israel, the public
31:55
Speaker 2: is overwhelmingly in favor of the war, although the support
31:58
Speaker 2: for it has slipped some as people are getting a
32:00
Speaker 2: little tired of living in bomb shelters all the time.
32:03
Speaker 2: And then with the Gulf States, you know, the logic
32:05
Speaker 2: for them is basically like, look, we're in this thing now.
32:08
Speaker 2: If you leave Iran with this regime in place, we
32:11
Speaker 2: are totally screwed. This is not a situation that.
32:13
Speaker 4: We can live.
32:14
Speaker 1: It is untenable, right silly.
32:15
Speaker 2: You have Ua in particular saying like, listen, we'll go
32:18
Speaker 2: all in with you. We will be active combatants. They're
32:20
Speaker 2: the ones going to the UN to try to get
32:21
Speaker 2: this resolution passed of like use any means necessary to
32:24
Speaker 2: reopen the straight up homoves. So this hardening of logic
32:28
Speaker 2: is occurring on both sides, truly.
32:30
Speaker 1: That's the problem.
32:31
Speaker 3: Also, literally, while we're recording, this is from Trey Yanks
32:34
Speaker 3: and multiple other reporters, heavy incoming fire towards Tel Aviv.
32:38
Speaker 3: They are reporting. Jim Shudo is there for CNN. He
32:42
Speaker 3: is saying similarly on the ground in Tel Aviv. Quote,
32:46
Speaker 3: there are an unusual number of explosions during this air raid,
32:51
Speaker 3: multiple interceptions or attempt at interceptions, possibly indicating multiple incoming missiles,
32:56
Speaker 3: three air raid warnings all in a row, so some
32:59
Speaker 3: very hea the missile incoming fire over Tel Aviv, the
33:03
Speaker 3: major city in Israel, demonstrating again of their missile capacity.
33:07
Speaker 3: And remember they are rationing. They've been basically firing a
33:11
Speaker 3: number of missiles, but more in recent days than they
33:14
Speaker 3: did in the two to three weeks. They exhausted many
33:17
Speaker 3: of those interceptors and that's why a lot of their
33:18
Speaker 3: stuff is now able to get through. They're saving the
33:21
Speaker 3: suicide attack drones and missiles for very precise targets in
33:24
Speaker 3: the Gulf, and we expect that to continue, and there
33:27
Speaker 3: will be some cope and potential propaganda from the US
33:31
Speaker 3: government around how about if we take out the power plants,
33:34
Speaker 3: that this will reduce Iranian ballistic missiles. I was reading
33:38
Speaker 3: how exactly they're able to fire these missiles. It is
33:41
Speaker 3: First World War sq They have field telephones, which the
33:45
Speaker 3: type of things where you can crank like this with
33:47
Speaker 3: buried underneath telephone wires between commanders who will pick up
33:51
Speaker 3: the phone and be like fire at this target as
33:54
Speaker 3: in retaliation and they have literal messengers. Like if you've
33:57
Speaker 3: ever watched the movie nineteen seventeen, that's what remember they
33:59
Speaker 3: cut the telegraph wire and the guy has to go
34:02
Speaker 3: and deliver a message.
34:02
Speaker 1: That's literally what's happening.
34:04
Speaker 3: So this is I mean, it's effectively bomb proof, like
34:07
Speaker 3: if they figured it out over one hundred years ago
34:09
Speaker 3: on the Western Front, that's basically being recreated just to
34:12
Speaker 3: show you all warfare eventually reverts down to the mean
34:16
Speaker 3: of messengers, field telephones, buried wires, and if you want
34:20
Speaker 3: to communicate, you will eventually figure it out. In terms
34:23
Speaker 3: of the answer for wait, why are we not able
34:25
Speaker 3: to disrupt, It's because they're like, okay, our phones are bugged,
34:28
Speaker 3: can't use WhatsApp.
34:30
Speaker 1: That's what they're doing.
34:31
Speaker 3: Even if you wipe out the power plants, it's not
34:32
Speaker 3: like you're gonna You're not gonna cut every wire that
34:35
Speaker 3: was you know, very often some of the those were
34:37
Speaker 3: literally some of the goals often some of the artillery
34:39
Speaker 3: and mortar missions from the First World War. So and
34:41
Speaker 3: then even when they were cut, you just use bodies
34:44
Speaker 3: and messengers. So that's the reality of war and it
34:47
Speaker 3: will just continue. It's really bad.
34:48
Speaker 1: All right, We've got Brandon Wikert standing by. Let's get
34:50
Speaker 1: to it.
34:53
Speaker 3: Very excited now to be joined by our friend Brandon
34:56
Speaker 3: and Wykert. He's a senior editor at nineteen forty five
34:58
Speaker 3: dot com. Great friend of the show. See man, thanks
35:00
Speaker 3: for joining.
35:00
Speaker 7: Us, Thanks for having me.
35:02
Speaker 1: As always so Brandon.
35:03
Speaker 3: We want to go through the story of this raid
35:06
Speaker 3: inside deep inside of Iran to rescue a weapon systems
35:10
Speaker 3: officer who was part of an F fifteen crew which
35:13
Speaker 3: was shot down over Iran. Of course, there's now an
35:16
Speaker 3: official story from the Pentagon. We want to get some
35:19
Speaker 3: of your reaction to all of that and potential some
35:21
Speaker 3: other theories. Just go and start with Donald Trump's announcement.
35:24
Speaker 3: We'll put it up here on the screen, he says.
35:27
Speaker 3: We got him, my fellow Americans. Over the past several hours,
35:29
Speaker 3: in the United States military pulled off one of the
35:31
Speaker 3: most daring search and rescue operations in US history. He
35:34
Speaker 3: talked specifically about how all of the you know, it's
35:38
Speaker 3: a miraculous operation, et cetera. The official story of the
35:41
Speaker 3: operation was recounted here by Jack Murphy. He is the
35:46
Speaker 3: journalist actually who broke the initial news that this weapon
35:49
Speaker 3: system officer had been recovered. Let's take a listen to
35:53
Speaker 3: what he said.
35:53
Speaker 1: We're going to get your.
35:54
Speaker 6: Reaction, but the broad pieces of it. As know, there
35:57
Speaker 6: was a F fifteen pilot on the ground to escaping
35:59
Speaker 6: and abating for about twenty four hours inside Iran, and
36:04
Speaker 6: from what we can tell about the effort to get
36:08
Speaker 6: him back, they did a lot of air strikes to
36:11
Speaker 6: keep the Iranians off of his back. The Iranians have
36:14
Speaker 6: blooded a lot of assets into the area. We're actively
36:16
Speaker 6: searching for him, and meanwhile we have to get you know,
36:20
Speaker 6: a ground team helicopters in to actually extract the guy.
36:23
Speaker 6: And as we now know, they set up what's called
36:25
Speaker 6: a FARK or a Ford air refueling point. So for
36:29
Speaker 6: like people who aren't familiar when you have to fly
36:32
Speaker 6: helicopters but also airplanes sometimes especially long distances, you have
36:36
Speaker 6: to set up some sort of like a fuel depot.
36:39
Speaker 6: You know, I did this many moons ago for little
36:42
Speaker 6: birds in Iraq, you know, just driving out somewhere and
36:45
Speaker 6: taking a fuel b libbit out leaving it in a
36:47
Speaker 6: field for a little bird pilot. Sometimes this is a
36:49
Speaker 6: little bit more elaborate. There're a C one thirty aircraft
36:52
Speaker 6: blown in that was refueling some of these helicopters, and
36:56
Speaker 6: this kind of plays into you know, how the pilot
36:58
Speaker 6: was actually pulled out of this. So they occupied this
37:01
Speaker 6: improvised landing strip, set up the FARP, and the pilot
37:05
Speaker 6: was eventually pulled out by little bird, so they went
37:07
Speaker 6: in and extracted him. But then on the way out
37:11
Speaker 6: the sea, one thirty got, as I understand, a wheel
37:14
Speaker 6: stuck in the sand, they like sunk into the dirt,
37:17
Speaker 6: and the crew was trying to dig it out, and
37:19
Speaker 6: that resulted in some delays. It took them a while
37:22
Speaker 6: to get out off of that FARP, and the Delta
37:25
Speaker 6: Force element that was standing by as a quick reaction
37:28
Speaker 6: for US was actually called in. They came in and
37:31
Speaker 6: helped blow up the aircraft. I mean, I know one
37:34
Speaker 6: one thirty was blown some media reports are saying two
37:37
Speaker 6: C one thirties. I also believe at least one helicopter
37:41
Speaker 6: was blown up. I guess they just determined that they
37:44
Speaker 6: could not recover them and get them home for whatever reason.
37:49
Speaker 6: And after that happened, you know, whichever new aircraft, probably
37:53
Speaker 6: helicopters that they flew in the QRF on they got
37:56
Speaker 6: everybody on those and flew them back home, and they
38:00
Speaker 6: were they were back over the Persian Gulf probably around
38:05
Speaker 6: eleven thirty Eastern Standard time last night, and that was
38:09
Speaker 6: pretty much the end of the operation as far as
38:11
Speaker 6: that's concerned. But I mean, the air strikes are still ongoing.
38:15
Speaker 3: So that's the official story. Brandon, First, zoom out. Tell
38:18
Speaker 3: us a little bit about what happened here. What does
38:22
Speaker 3: it say strategically about some of the problems already with
38:26
Speaker 3: the United States. Then, of course, you know the bravery
38:27
Speaker 3: of the people who also pulled this off.
38:29
Speaker 7: Yeah, well, I'll start with that last part first. I mean,
38:32
Speaker 7: I know that there's a narrative the administration is putting out,
38:35
Speaker 7: and I know there's now a counter narrative, possibly on
38:38
Speaker 7: social media, and I'll just say, in either event, I
38:41
Speaker 7: think the professionalism of the US military was on full display.
38:46
Speaker 7: And you know, these these people that that we we
38:49
Speaker 7: have as an all volunteer force are extremely competent, and
38:52
Speaker 7: they can execute missions under a lot of pressure, and
38:57
Speaker 7: you know, even under some of the most strenuous circumstances.
39:00
Speaker 7: So with that being said, I think we have to
39:02
Speaker 7: look at the larger picture here and say this was
39:05
Speaker 7: our first taste of real ground combat in Iran, and
39:09
Speaker 7: you know, we we probably got the Wizzo and the pilot,
39:13
Speaker 7: as you know, the administration has said, we've gotten them
39:16
Speaker 7: back home, but look at what it cost us in
39:18
Speaker 7: the process. My colleague Larry Johnson, who's a former CIA analyst,
39:22
Speaker 7: has said, that's about four hundred million dollars worth of
39:25
Speaker 7: taxpayer equipment that was you know, destroyed in the process
39:29
Speaker 7: of this operation. That is not sustainable, especially if you
39:33
Speaker 7: look at some of the logistical problems we're having already.
39:37
Speaker 7: Not only are we cannibalizing into pay comm stockpiles for
39:39
Speaker 7: interceptors and some of these jass some ers which are
39:43
Speaker 7: very long range extended range long range strike missiles, but
39:48
Speaker 7: also we're already pulling CAC one thirty five refuelers out
39:52
Speaker 7: from the boneyard, which usually indicates that we really are
39:55
Speaker 7: strapped here for stuff. So the idea that we kind
39:59
Speaker 7: of had to blow up some of our own equipment
40:00
Speaker 7: there is, which is the story coming out of the administration,
40:04
Speaker 7: is very disturbing because we can anticipate if there is
40:07
Speaker 7: a larger ground operation planned, as people have been saying,
40:11
Speaker 7: it's going to be even costlier than what we went through.
40:13
Speaker 7: This is a snapshot, and as for the operation itself,
40:17
Speaker 7: it does seem it does seem like there was a
40:20
Speaker 7: lot of resources thrown into recovering to individuals. Now, I know,
40:25
Speaker 7: we don't leave our people behind, and we try to
40:28
Speaker 7: even if they're dead, we try to organize missions to
40:30
Speaker 7: bring their bodies home. That is something that's gone on
40:33
Speaker 7: the Ranger Ethos goes back to the French Indian War.
40:37
Speaker 7: So we don't leave men behind. I understand that. But
40:40
Speaker 7: the people online who are questioning the official narrative, I
40:43
Speaker 7: think are not wrong to because not only has this
40:45
Speaker 7: administration been very misleading in its official statements about everything
40:50
Speaker 7: in the war, but also it's a lot of resources
40:53
Speaker 7: and a lot of money thrown into one mission set.
40:56
Speaker 2: Yeah, so basically I read the Reuters in side story
41:00
Speaker 2: of what happened. I read the Wall Street Journal inside
41:03
Speaker 2: story of what happened, and so the narrative is effectively,
41:06
Speaker 2: you know this one F fifteen was down. The pilot
41:10
Speaker 2: was rescued really quickly. The other guy was you know,
41:13
Speaker 2: it was very difficult to find him. He's able to
41:16
Speaker 2: he's wounded, but he's able to sort of clamber up
41:19
Speaker 2: the side of this mountain, send off a distress signal.
41:21
Speaker 2: They're able to pinpoint where he is. The CIA also
41:25
Speaker 2: ran some sort of misinformation op to sort of throw
41:27
Speaker 2: the Iranians off of the case. They bring in something
41:31
Speaker 2: like one hundred special operators on these C one thirties,
41:34
Speaker 2: the Sea one thirties. Immediately both of them get stuck
41:37
Speaker 2: in the dirt. Now saw the pictures. We just saw
41:40
Speaker 2: some of the pictures. I don't know anything. It looks
41:42
Speaker 2: like the ground's pretty hard there.
41:43
Speaker 4: But who knows.
41:43
Speaker 2: These are very large aircraft, very heavy, et cetera. They
41:46
Speaker 2: bring in these little bird helicopters on the C one
41:49
Speaker 2: thirty transport planes. Those are then used to go and
41:53
Speaker 2: grab this guy, bring him back. But since the Sea
41:55
Speaker 2: one thirties can't get off the ground, they have to
41:57
Speaker 2: destroy the Sea one thirties, plus some reports they too
42:00
Speaker 2: summerport say four of the little birds, bring in other aircraft,
42:04
Speaker 2: then rescue Now this roughly one hundred men and potentially
42:08
Speaker 2: women who are now stuck behind enemy lines, get them
42:11
Speaker 2: all out, et cetera. At the same time, you've got
42:14
Speaker 2: reaper drones and others who are firing in the surrounding
42:17
Speaker 2: area to keep the Iranians or anyone else away from
42:21
Speaker 2: the area where this rescue is happening. So what are
42:24
Speaker 2: as you listen to that narrative? I agree with you,
42:27
Speaker 2: it's not you know, it seems to me in line
42:30
Speaker 2: with the ethos of the US military that it would
42:32
Speaker 2: not be crazy to expend that amount of resources. But
42:35
Speaker 2: is it actually necessary to expend that amount of Is
42:37
Speaker 2: this the way that a rescue would normally go? Is
42:40
Speaker 2: this the normal amount of Like I don't know what
42:43
Speaker 2: the proper language is, but is this the sort of
42:46
Speaker 2: stuff that you would bring this Would you normally bring
42:48
Speaker 2: in one hundred men to accomplish this sort of thing?
42:51
Speaker 4: What would be the reason for that.
42:52
Speaker 7: The only thing comparable to this level was actually the
42:56
Speaker 7: failed Carter administration Operation Eagle Claw, which actually was very
43:00
Speaker 7: similar to what occurred in Iran this last weekend, where
43:05
Speaker 7: Carter had a bunch of sea a bunch of transport
43:08
Speaker 7: planes meet Navy elements in the middle of the Iranian
43:12
Speaker 7: desert and they set up kind of a refueling temporary
43:15
Speaker 7: refueling station, and the whole thing went pear shaped from
43:18
Speaker 7: from that moment onward, which which was very similar to here.
43:22
Speaker 7: And of course in that case though, you had a
43:24
Speaker 7: lot of American hostages at the embassy, so they needed
43:27
Speaker 7: to have an even larger military force that was able
43:30
Speaker 7: to kind of go in and get theoretically get them out.
43:34
Speaker 7: So for two guys, it just seems like a lot
43:38
Speaker 7: of a lot of resources were expended. Now, the argument,
43:41
Speaker 7: I think would be that the Iranian territory is very
43:45
Speaker 7: well defended, and this was very deep inside their territory,
43:48
Speaker 7: so they needed to have enough stuff to punch a
43:51
Speaker 7: whole land, refuel and then go out and you know,
43:57
Speaker 7: execute their mission and under a lot of a lot
44:00
Speaker 7: of hostile fire, which we saw those videos coming out
44:03
Speaker 7: of Iran. It looked like something from you know, like
44:05
Speaker 7: a battlefield video game where it was just incoming everywhere
44:08
Speaker 7: and get very confusing modern combat situation. So I think
44:13
Speaker 7: probably this is not the norm in terms of the
44:17
Speaker 7: amount of resources expended, but this is a pretty extraordinary instance.
44:21
Speaker 7: And if you know, whether it was just a rescue
44:23
Speaker 7: operation or a rescue operation plus something else, the fact
44:27
Speaker 7: of the matter is this is a preview of what
44:30
Speaker 7: to expect if the president really does pull the trigger
44:33
Speaker 7: on putting a larger force on carg Island or Kishem
44:36
Speaker 7: Island or some other part of Iran. It's going to
44:39
Speaker 7: be a very messy situation.
44:41
Speaker 3: And I think that's what we're trying to underscore here.
44:43
Speaker 3: You know, nobody is saying, nobody is trying to underplay,
44:46
Speaker 3: even if the official story is correct about how great
44:49
Speaker 3: it is to get a pilot back. But you know,
44:52
Speaker 3: it doesn't make you a ninny to say, look, that's
44:54
Speaker 3: really great that that happened.
44:55
Speaker 1: But let's zoom out a little bit.
44:57
Speaker 3: We weren't even supposed to have aircraft being shot down, period.
45:01
Speaker 3: I mean, we have eight We had two A tens
45:03
Speaker 3: go down. Can we go ahead and put what is
45:05
Speaker 3: it B five up there on the screen? You have
45:07
Speaker 3: two A tens that go down in the span of
45:10
Speaker 3: twenty four hours, apparently as part of this operation. Yet
45:13
Speaker 3: F fifteen, I mean, what that alone is a couple
45:16
Speaker 3: one hundred million in aircraft, two combat rescue helicopters, and
45:22
Speaker 3: F sixteen has to declare emergency land safely. A Strato
45:26
Speaker 3: tanker declares emergency over Israel has to land, and Iran
45:30
Speaker 3: also claimed that it had fired another US jet. Now
45:32
Speaker 3: the last one has not pickn from all the rest
45:35
Speaker 3: of them. It's very clear, especially when you combine some
45:38
Speaker 3: of the tanker incidents that brought down those four Americans
45:41
Speaker 3: who died a few weeks ago over Iraq. It is
45:45
Speaker 3: very obvious many of our airmen are in much more
45:48
Speaker 3: harm over Iran than they ever were in the global
45:52
Speaker 3: War on Terror, which is a shock to the system
45:55
Speaker 3: and would be only ten times more if there was
45:58
Speaker 3: any sort of ground in me. So I just really
46:00
Speaker 3: would love your perspective on that.
46:02
Speaker 6: Yeah.
46:02
Speaker 7: No, the administration keeps saying that we have total air control,
46:06
Speaker 7: and this experience clearly indicates that that is not the case.
46:12
Speaker 7: The air defense network of Iran may be degraded, I
46:15
Speaker 7: fully admit it is likely degraded because of our attacks
46:18
Speaker 7: over the last what month now, but ultimately it is
46:21
Speaker 7: not destroyed. And I think that any American who has
46:24
Speaker 7: family in the military should be aware that this mission
46:28
Speaker 7: set is not exactly as the Pentagon is claiming. It
46:31
Speaker 7: is not this walk in the park, it's not this
46:34
Speaker 7: spike the football moment. This is a very dangerous and
46:38
Speaker 7: high tempo operation. It's straining our people. It's straightened in
46:42
Speaker 7: the military. It's straining the already strained equipment, and it's
46:46
Speaker 7: draining our already finite supplies of critical weapons and material
46:50
Speaker 7: at a time when the whole world seems to be
46:52
Speaker 7: stretching the American military juggernaut. So this is not the
46:58
Speaker 7: rosy scenario that's being depict it in American corporate press.
47:01
Speaker 7: And I think this is very dangerous because I think
47:04
Speaker 7: this also this leads the president. Actually, I think the
47:06
Speaker 7: President starts thinking, oh, well, you know, this is a
47:09
Speaker 7: cake walk. I've got total control. I can then do
47:12
Speaker 7: the next step, which is to put more troops on
47:14
Speaker 7: the ground, and we'll wrap this up in a few weeks.
47:16
Speaker 7: And that is not going to be the case, all right.
47:18
Speaker 4: So let's talk about the alternate theory.
47:21
Speaker 2: No one is saying this is proven, but we certainly
47:24
Speaker 2: can't take this administration's word for literally anything. We also
47:27
Speaker 2: can't take the Iranian regimes word for literally anything. So
47:30
Speaker 2: it's left to all of us to look at the
47:32
Speaker 2: evidence and ask us if we think that it makes
47:34
Speaker 2: sense and comports with reality. So here is one example
47:38
Speaker 2: of the way this theory is being put together. Let's
47:40
Speaker 2: go and put this up on the screen. So this
47:43
Speaker 2: is from a visiting assistant professor at a Fletcher School,
47:47
Speaker 2: and he says that he believes this was not just
47:50
Speaker 2: about rescuing this one airman, but that this was actually
47:54
Speaker 2: unrelated to the pilot rescue mission, and the attempt here
47:58
Speaker 2: was to go in and try to grab the nuclear maturiy.
48:00
Speaker 2: So I'll read what he lays out. He says, emerging
48:02
Speaker 2: evidence suggests that US operations south of Isfahan marked in
48:06
Speaker 2: red on the map, were unrelated to any pilot rescue mission.
48:09
Speaker 2: The downed American pilot was reportedly located in southwest Iran,
48:13
Speaker 2: near these different provinces that news names. I definitely will
48:16
Speaker 2: screw up if I try to pronounce marked in blue
48:18
Speaker 2: on the map, not central Iran instead. This appears to
48:21
Speaker 2: have been a failed helliborn insertion aimed at locating uranium
48:25
Speaker 2: within Iran. The recent dismissive of season in US Generals
48:28
Speaker 2: may not be coincidental, may reflect internal resistance to such
48:31
Speaker 2: high risk operations. Given Iran's increasingly effective air defense and
48:35
Speaker 2: the apparent failure of this mission, the viability at future
48:37
Speaker 2: helliborne incursions deep into running territory is now in serious
48:40
Speaker 2: doubt and may need to be abandoned. So the idea
48:44
Speaker 2: here is effectively that I think it's it's not in doubt.
48:48
Speaker 2: F fifteen went down and there were two individuals on
48:51
Speaker 2: board who had to be rescued. When they're rescued, how
48:54
Speaker 2: they were rescued, whether this was a rescued plus or
48:57
Speaker 2: whether the guy was already rescued, and then they just
48:59
Speaker 2: use that as a cover to try this thing so
49:02
Speaker 2: that they could declare misson accomplish even if it went sideways.
49:04
Speaker 2: I think that is all all of this is, you know,
49:07
Speaker 2: is pure speculation at this point. But basically what people
49:10
Speaker 2: are looking at is the fact that you had so
49:12
Speaker 2: many resources devoted to this that it was really close
49:16
Speaker 2: to Isfahan, which is reportedly where most of the enrich
49:20
Speaker 2: uranium is that there seems to have been an attempt
49:22
Speaker 2: to set up effectively sort of like a temporary base
49:26
Speaker 2: in this agricultural airstrip. That this attempt apparently failed, and
49:32
Speaker 2: you know that you had to have blow up all
49:34
Speaker 2: of this equipment and then you know, have others come
49:37
Speaker 2: in and to the rescue. That this is indicative potentially
49:40
Speaker 2: not of at least just a pilot rescue, but it
49:43
Speaker 2: may have been another mission that ultimately failed.
49:46
Speaker 3: Yeah.
49:46
Speaker 7: Absolutely, And you know I wrote for The Daily Caller
49:49
Speaker 7: last week an opinion piece analyzing why I thought if
49:53
Speaker 7: we did do a ground and courage and it would
49:55
Speaker 7: be the Tom Clancy uranium hunt, because that seems to
49:59
Speaker 7: be what President Trump has been fixated on, is the
50:01
Speaker 7: prospect of an Iranian nuclear weapons breakout. He's been talking
50:05
Speaker 7: about this for years, and you know, to be fair
50:07
Speaker 7: to him, this is not something new. He's been talking
50:10
Speaker 7: about it since the twenty sixteen campaign when he was
50:12
Speaker 7: opposed to the jcpoa that Obama negotiated. So that would
50:16
Speaker 7: have been the most consistent and if you were doing
50:19
Speaker 7: the ghost recon your uranium hunt in the middle of
50:22
Speaker 7: the desert. The kind of equipment that was brought in,
50:25
Speaker 7: and the kind of planes that were brought in, and
50:27
Speaker 7: the kind of you know, outlay of resources, that's all
50:32
Speaker 7: consistent with a uranium hunt. You know, they needed to
50:36
Speaker 7: set up an airstrip. They they did. They needed to
50:39
Speaker 7: be able to have, you know, hold the territory long
50:42
Speaker 7: enough for heavier equipment to ultimately be brought in. That
50:46
Speaker 7: didn't happen, but it very well may have been the
50:48
Speaker 7: next step. If this was just more than a rescue operation,
50:52
Speaker 7: and the fact that it's in Isfahan, you know, or
50:54
Speaker 7: just near Isfahan. That that's the real that's the real thing.
50:57
Speaker 7: That has a lot of very learned people. This isn't
50:59
Speaker 7: just internet conspiracy theorists. This is very very learned people
51:03
Speaker 7: who are experts in foreign policy and national security who
51:06
Speaker 7: are suggesting that, hey, there's more to this story because
51:09
Speaker 7: the kind of resources that were brought to bear are
51:11
Speaker 7: not consistent with two people being rescued. Furthermore, the F
51:15
Speaker 7: fifteen that was used in question is a two seed
51:17
Speaker 7: or strike Eagle that is a very specific aircraft that
51:20
Speaker 7: is used for certain kind of at times suppression of
51:24
Speaker 7: enemy air defense seed missions. That indicates to me also
51:28
Speaker 7: that there was some kind of escalation in the offing
51:31
Speaker 7: when that airplane was deployed in the first place to
51:33
Speaker 7: go out, and I believe it was deployed near carg Island.
51:37
Speaker 7: So ultimately there's some there's some very odd things going
51:42
Speaker 7: on here that do not align with the official narrative.
51:44
Speaker 3: And I think, look, it genuinely could be both the
51:46
Speaker 3: guys and it could be Hey. Also, we need to
51:49
Speaker 3: be able to test put a landing strip down. Let's
51:52
Speaker 3: put all these people. If this works, well, then we
51:54
Speaker 3: could build off of this.
51:55
Speaker 1: The last cooperating base.
51:57
Speaker 6: Right.
51:57
Speaker 1: Well, so that's my last question for you.
51:58
Speaker 3: Are you more so some people saw, oh, maybe Trump
52:01
Speaker 3: will take this as an offer amp knowing psychology, especially
52:04
Speaker 3: with Venezuela, they're going to sell this to him as
52:07
Speaker 3: a stunning success. This only makes ground troops more likely.
52:10
Speaker 3: To me Curious for.
52:11
Speaker 7: Your view, Oh, I think there's I think we're going
52:13
Speaker 7: in somewhere into Iran. I think, now, if anything, you
52:16
Speaker 7: saw that that very troubling Easter message from the president,
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Speaker 7: and you know, I was at my church yesterday and
52:23
Speaker 7: we are they're all very pro Trump, but even they
52:25
Speaker 7: were like, why did he say such a thing on
52:27
Speaker 7: Easter of all days? It's you know, well, I think
52:29
Speaker 7: it's because he was reacting likely to what was really
52:34
Speaker 7: a disastrous I mean, they pulled it off in terms
52:36
Speaker 7: of getting the pilots back, which again that's that's excellent
52:39
Speaker 7: and good job, but ultimately four hundred million dollars worth
52:43
Speaker 7: of equipment lost, and you know, the Iranians now have
52:45
Speaker 7: this big propaganda victory, et cetera. I think that Trump
52:49
Speaker 7: now is going to want to double down because he's
52:51
Speaker 7: going to want to basically reassert his control over the situation,
52:55
Speaker 7: which means ground troops are next somewhere, and that you know,
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Speaker 7: this is a snapshot of how badly things could go,
53:03
Speaker 7: and they will go badly. And then after that, of course,
53:06
Speaker 7: the next escalation is nuclear weapons, and as you know,
53:10
Speaker 7: I'm still very fearful that that is ultimately where this
53:12
Speaker 7: is headed in some fashion.
53:14
Speaker 4: Yeah.
53:14
Speaker 2: Absolutely, so you mean to tell me open the fucking straight,
53:16
Speaker 2: Praise be to Allah was not the Easter message church
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Speaker 2: goers were expecting from our president.
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Speaker 1: That strange, No, no, no, it was.
53:25
Speaker 7: It was very dark.
53:26
Speaker 1: Wow.
53:27
Speaker 3: I'd actually love to hear the cope on that one,
53:29
Speaker 3: But that's a segment for a time.
53:32
Speaker 6: Thank you.
53:34
Speaker 1: We always appreciate your analysis.
53:35
Speaker 7: Yeah, have a good one.