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Daniel Davis Deep Dive · Brian Thomas

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  Speaker 1: KRCD Talk station, a twenty eight to fifty five KRSCD
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  Speaker 1: talk station. Happy Tuesday always made extra special with the
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  Speaker 1: return of retired Lieutenant Colonel Daniel Davis doing what we
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  Speaker 1: all call the Daniel Davis Deep Dive. You can find
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  Speaker 1: his podcast or you get your podcast, because I'm not
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  Speaker 1: the only one who talks about throughout the week, but
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  Speaker 1: I'm glad we get the opportunity to chat. Welcome back
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  Speaker 1: to the fifty five krc Morning Show, my friend Daniel Davis.
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  Speaker 2: Always a pleasure to be here.
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  Speaker 1: Brian, Well, see if you can work this out for
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  Speaker 1: me and apparently everybody else. What's going on now? On Saturday,
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  Speaker 1: Trump said the US military would start launching strikes on
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  Speaker 1: the country's energy infrastructure if no progress was made within
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  Speaker 1: forty eight hours. Regarding reopening the straight of Horror moves
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  Speaker 1: now yesterday he said, well, hold on, I'm pausing those
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  Speaker 1: attacks for five days because I've had productive of talks
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  Speaker 1: with Iran. Now depending upon this is the danger of
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  Speaker 1: reading headlines, Daniel Davis. On one headline, you'll say Donald
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  Speaker 1: Trump has successful or you know, positive talks with Iran.
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  Speaker 1: Then the next headline iron says nobody's talking to us, Well,
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  Speaker 1: it depends on who you're talking to. Things are in
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  Speaker 1: a state of surrey in the Iran with the Iranian
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  Speaker 1: regime leaders being knocked off. We had that initial missile
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  Speaker 1: strike which wiped out a big chunk of the higher
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  Speaker 1: echelon Iranian leaders. They had the naming of a new
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  Speaker 1: Supreme leader, this Mojaba Khamani guy, which many people are
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  Speaker 1: calling the cardboard cut out a Supreme leader because he
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  Speaker 1: hasn't been seen in the news since being named Supreme Leader.
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  Speaker 1: So his faction, the Iranian state media, is saying nobody's
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  Speaker 1: talking with Kamani, he's never talked with him. But Donald
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  Speaker 1: Trump says, no, We're dealing with a man who I
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  Speaker 1: believe is the most respected and the leader. So Trump
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  Speaker 1: and his people apparently talking with someone with the Iranian regime,
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  Speaker 1: but not the Supreme leader who's in control and who
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  Speaker 1: is capable of even sitting down and discussing with US
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  Speaker 1: or Israeli or anybody else settlement or peace or opening
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  Speaker 1: up the straight Daniel Davis, do you have any ideas
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  Speaker 1: on that one.
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  Speaker 2: Well, listen, a lot of the confusion comes from reading
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  Speaker 2: Western press. There's no confusion coming out of any of
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  Speaker 2: the Iranian side here. In fact, I spoke yesterday with
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  Speaker 2: a professor at the University of Tehran. I also spoke
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  Speaker 2: with Jeremy Scahill of drop site News, who had been
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  Speaker 2: in extensive conversations with a number of Iranian leaders and
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  Speaker 2: then they had put out on their own social media
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  Speaker 2: they have one side there, and they said that there
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  Speaker 2: are no negotiations, there are no talks, and what indirect
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  Speaker 2: talks they are, which they acknowledged through intermedias or Egypt
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  Speaker 2: and Qatar have some pretty harsh terms of their own.
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  Speaker 2: It seems to be the US side that's confusing what
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  Speaker 2: it is, and we're claiming, oh, it's not Mosted, but
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  Speaker 2: it's actually somebody else. President Trump said it's some senior
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  Speaker 2: person that I'm not going to name. But the Iranian
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  Speaker 2: sense says, no, there's just one guy in charge here,
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  Speaker 2: and there's many officials, just like there are in the
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  Speaker 2: United States State Department, Department, Defense, the White House, etc.
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  Speaker 2: So I think that we're making more of this in
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  Speaker 2: the Western media than is the case, because the issue
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  Speaker 2: really isn't who's talking to who so much as it
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  Speaker 2: is what are the sides saying, Regardless of who on
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  Speaker 2: the Uranian side, you're talking to what are they saying
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  Speaker 2: and what is the US said, And we still have
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  Speaker 2: a situation with radically different ideas about what a negotiated
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  Speaker 2: settlement even looks like. Ironically, and perversely, if I could
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  Speaker 2: say we had a good deal on the table on
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  Speaker 2: the twenty seventh of touctually the twenty sixth of February,
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  Speaker 2: two days before this thing blew up, and now then
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  Speaker 2: the idea that we want to go back to something
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  Speaker 2: like that, it just seems pretty unlikely to me, because
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  Speaker 2: right now Iran has leverageovers that they didn't have before.
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  Speaker 2: So it seems pretty unlikely that they're going to just
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  Speaker 2: give in because they get bombed for you know, three
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  Speaker 2: weeks or whatever it's been up to this point. Iran
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  Speaker 2: has shown they can suffer a long time. They suffer
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  Speaker 2: through eight years of the Iran Iraq War, they suffer
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  Speaker 2: through the war last year, all kinds of sanctions by
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  Speaker 2: the United States. So if we think there's going to
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  Speaker 2: be a quick reaction because we bombed them a lot here,
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  Speaker 2: I don't think we understand the nature of our adversary well.
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  Speaker 1: And I've drawn the parallel the analogy that it's you know,
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  Speaker 1: like the k or like the cornered wild animal. You know,
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  Speaker 1: they find themselves in a position with life and death
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  Speaker 1: and they just go absolutely bersark. They're going to do
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  Speaker 1: anything they want to keep the regime in power, even
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  Speaker 1: if it's been limited substantially from their military capabilities.
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  Speaker 2: Right well, I mean it depends on how you define
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  Speaker 2: limited capabilities. From their conventional navy. Yeah, that's been virtually decimated.
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  Speaker 2: The conventional air force basically didn't even exist before. But
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  Speaker 2: their air force, I mean there are a missile force,
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  Speaker 2: on the other hand, is quite substantial. Their actual naval capability,
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  Speaker 2: especially with underwater capabilities, with the underwater missile, slash torpedoes,
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  Speaker 2: drone boats, speedboats, most of those have not yet even
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  Speaker 2: been brought into the fray, so those things are still
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  Speaker 2: very much active. And of course everything focuses on the
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  Speaker 2: con strait of hormones. Who has control over that and
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  Speaker 2: right now, for many many military reasons, Iran holds that.
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  Speaker 2: So they hold the cards on keeping that open or not,
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  Speaker 2: which is why we've released sanctions on Russia while we
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  Speaker 2: release sanctions ironically on Iran itself, because we need that
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  Speaker 2: flow of oil to come out, so That's what really
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  Speaker 2: shows you the real name and how concerned we are
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  Speaker 2: in the White House despite a lot of these optimistic
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  Speaker 2: statements coming.
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  Speaker 1: Out and recognizing Iron's got this stranglehold of the Strait
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  Speaker 1: of horn Mooves because of the minds and the ability
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  Speaker 1: to sink those ships. Clearly it's shut it down. That's
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  Speaker 1: obviously been effective demonstrably. So look, nobody's going through the
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  Speaker 1: world suffering mightily because of it. But to that point,
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  Speaker 1: I see, at least I have read that some of
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  Speaker 1: our European allies maybe starting to move in the direction
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  Speaker 1: of helping open up the Straight of Horror moves. I
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  Speaker 1: was looking at the terrible situation going to Australia. They
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  Speaker 1: obviously didn't plan for the future, having enough reserves to
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  Speaker 1: last the more than thirty days. Their green energy problem,
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  Speaker 1: not mine. But that's another country that would benefit from
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  Speaker 1: opening the Straight of Horror moves. Now, as much as
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  Speaker 1: everybody apparently hates evil Orange Man, this suggests to me
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  Speaker 1: that they're going to have to get over that and say,
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  Speaker 1: listen for the benefit of our own economies because we
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  Speaker 1: rely so much unlike the US, on the Straight of
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  Speaker 1: Horror moves. We got to get that thing open. Do
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  Speaker 1: you see that moving in that direction or maybe that
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  Speaker 1: coming to fruition? Daniel, You know.
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  Speaker 2: What I don't, and I don't think we can also
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  Speaker 2: lose sight of the fact that the only reason we're
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  Speaker 2: in the wars because we chose to go into one.
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  Speaker 2: As much as people like to say there was an
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  Speaker 2: eminent thread, there's no evidence of an eminent thread. In fact,
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  Speaker 2: there's evidence that there wasn't one. But now that we
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  Speaker 2: are where we are, as you kind of say there.
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  Speaker 2: But here's the thing, there is no military solution to
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  Speaker 2: solve this problem. There isn't one. Iran has spent decades
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  Speaker 2: preparing a defense in the event that they got into
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  Speaker 2: a full scale war that they had the resources and
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  Speaker 2: the logistics stored up in places we can't get to them,
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  Speaker 2: and so far they're demonstrating they have it. So this
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  Speaker 2: is really a test of wheels right now. You go
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  Speaker 2: in there with the navy. There's a reason why our
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  Speaker 2: navy hasn't cleared this out yet, why we haven't a
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  Speaker 2: scored ships, because we know it would be near suicide
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  Speaker 2: because of their capabilities, and then bringing in somebody else,
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  Speaker 2: whether it's the Europeans or Australians or the Japanese or
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  Speaker 2: the South Korea's. It's not going to open it up.
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  Speaker 2: All it's going to do is create more targets for
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  Speaker 2: the Iranian capabilities to shoot at here. And that's why
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  Speaker 2: no one has done it to include us. That shows
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  Speaker 2: you how diffaut this is going to be to.
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  Speaker 1: Solve well, and recognizing the rate of inflation going in
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  Speaker 1: or on, it seems to me that, you know, whether
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  Speaker 1: they want to admit it or not, resolving this on
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  Speaker 1: some level is going to ultimately help their economy. I
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  Speaker 1: don't know how they can rebound from something like this. Well,
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  Speaker 1: I'll tell you though, Brian, here's the problem. If that
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  Speaker 1: was on the table number one, we probably wouldn't have
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  Speaker 1: gone to war in the first place. But we've taken
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  Speaker 1: that off the table by saying.
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  Speaker 2: It's regime change. It's the destruction of the regime is
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  Speaker 2: what we're going for, and so we have made it
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  Speaker 2: an existential threat. So, whether they're suffering economically, and they are,
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  Speaker 2: whether they're suffering because they're not getting as much oil out,
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  Speaker 2: actually so far they have been getting more out. It's
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  Speaker 2: very strange. It's like four hundred thousand barrels a day
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  Speaker 2: more that they've been getting out than they were before,
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  Speaker 2: So make that make sense. But the bottom line is,
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  Speaker 2: no matter how much they suffer, we've made it so
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  Speaker 2: so they almost can't surrender and give up because then
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  Speaker 2: the regime would fall. So now that they as your
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  Speaker 2: analogy is second ago, now that we put them into
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  Speaker 2: a corner to where it's fight or die, and they're
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  Speaker 2: going to fight all the way through, and they have resources,
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  Speaker 2: they can drag this out a long time.
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  Speaker 1: Well interesting up at piece by Gerard Baker that I
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  Speaker 1: thought it was rather a stude the idea of this
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  Speaker 1: asymmetric war. Yes, our military might overwhelms the Iranian military might,
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  Speaker 1: but they they will decline. Winning for the Iranians would
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  Speaker 1: allow just keeping their their I guess control structure in
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  Speaker 1: place to some degree, the same folks running the country,
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  Speaker 1: which is a much.
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  Speaker 2: Important point the military balance of power. When you look
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  Speaker 2: at the spreadsheets, it's just off the charts in our favor,
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  Speaker 2: there's no question about it. And you add in Israel
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  Speaker 2: to that as well. But the issue is what is
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  Speaker 2: going to be necessary to win for us. We have
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  Speaker 2: set a very very high bar, which in my view
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  Speaker 2: is too high given the fact that Iran is four
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  Speaker 2: times bigger than the country of Iraq and we have
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  Speaker 2: no ground force. And by the way, it's not even
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  Speaker 2: four times bigger than Iraq. It's also the terrain which
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  Speaker 2: overwhelming you because of these massive mountain ranges. It advantages
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  Speaker 2: the defender in ways that Iran couldn't do Iraq couldn't
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  Speaker 2: do in twenty and three nineteen ninety one. So they
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  Speaker 2: have enormous advantages territorially and geographically. And so we have
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  Speaker 2: to go in there and say we're going to decimate
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  Speaker 2: their military. We're gonna get rid of their regime, We're
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  Speaker 2: going to get rid of the nuclear capabilities, and then
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  Speaker 2: we're going to get rid of their long range missiles
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  Speaker 2: and their proxy forces. Those are targets that we have
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  Speaker 2: set the militarily. Those are just nearly impossible to gain,
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  Speaker 2: at least in any kind of a short term. Meanwhile,
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  Speaker 2: the Iranian side, all they have to do is two things.
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  Speaker 2: They have to survive politically to remain viable, and then
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  Speaker 2: they have to have a viable military sustained rate of
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  Speaker 2: fire with missiles and with their drones. They don't have
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  Speaker 2: to blow away everything and eliminate Iran or anything, or
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  Speaker 2: Israel or anything else. They just got to stay vible
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  Speaker 2: and just keep on shooting and keep on hitting targets,
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  Speaker 2: which they're doing. Then they will eventually politically win, just
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  Speaker 2: like the Taliban outlasted US, just like Vietnam. Vietnam outlasted
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  Speaker 2: US so many times, so many examples. You can think
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  Speaker 2: of a weaker power that was decimated by a stronger
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  Speaker 2: military power. Look at Russia Ukraine for that. Ukraine's the
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  Speaker 2: weaker power, but they've never given up, and they've you know,
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  Speaker 2: four plus years now. Yeah, So all the recent evidence
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  Speaker 2: shows that if Aside has the will and it believes
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  Speaker 2: it's an existential fat, they can go for a long time.
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  Speaker 1: Most notably, that seems to be the foregone conclusion here,
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  Speaker 1: given the limited amount of military power, you need to
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  Speaker 1: keep the strait of Hormus shut down. So, and I
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  Speaker 1: got to ask you this because I have not seen
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  Speaker 1: anybody talking about it. I'm of the mindset that TikTok tikkok,
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  Speaker 1: going back to your part, that this wasn't an eminent threat.
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  Speaker 1: The clock on the War Powers Resolution is ticking, isn't
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  Speaker 1: it sixty days without express authority? A waging of war
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  Speaker 1: by Congress or an authorization for you some military force,
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  Speaker 1: neither of which we have. Sixty days plus an extension
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  Speaker 1: of thirty days under the Warpowers Resolution is all you get.
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  Speaker 1: Does that mean at the end of let's say ninety days,
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  Speaker 1: we're going to have to pull the plug on this?
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  Speaker 2: Wow, let's just be honest that the War Powers Act
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  Speaker 2: doesn't exist. It's a piece of paper with no power.
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  Speaker 2: The constitutional separation of powers also doesn't exist because we
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  Speaker 2: blew through both of those. Nineteen seventy through War Powers
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  Speaker 2: Act does not say, despite popular belief, that the president
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  Speaker 2: has sixty days to do what ever he wants. It
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  Speaker 2: expressly says you only can use the military as the
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  Speaker 2: commander in chief if there has been a declaration of war,
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  Speaker 2: statutory authorization, or we were attacked. That's it. No other possibilities,
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  Speaker 2: no other authorized use of it. The only thing about
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  Speaker 2: sixty days is if we have been attacked and he responds,
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  Speaker 2: then he has sixty days in order to respond. So
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  Speaker 2: those are not even related to what's claimed that he
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  Speaker 2: has the freedom of action. But since we didn't do
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  Speaker 2: anything about the constitution itself, which says only Congress can
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  Speaker 2: declare war, and this is absolutely one hundred percent of war,
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  Speaker 2: and we didn't get statutory authorization with the War Powers Act.
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  Speaker 2: That means that neither one of those hold any power
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  Speaker 2: at all. Nobody is going to follow that law. We
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  Speaker 2: just have to be honest about it.
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  Speaker 1: Well, that seems been sort of the kind of ad
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  Speaker 1: hoc approach we've taken since World War Two with most
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  Speaker 1: of the conflicts we've been involved with, Daniel, it's a fact.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, this is not something new to Trump administration. Now
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  Speaker 2: he's taking it further than anybody else has, but virtually
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  Speaker 2: every president has blown these things often. This is the
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  Speaker 2: consequence is now it's not just a missile strike here
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  Speaker 2: and there or a small action, but now it's a
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  Speaker 2: full blown war that nobody in America had a chance
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  Speaker 2: to even say anything about. No one was asked, and
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  Speaker 2: we haven't followed our law. So it's worse than it was.
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  Speaker 1: Well, going back to my comment about maybe the other
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  Speaker 1: countries who've been financially impacted by the Strait of Hormuz
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  Speaker 1: perhaps stepping up to the challenge in spite of the
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  Speaker 1: impossible nature of it, as you declared it, it is.
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  Speaker 1: I guess I'm kind of a little concerned about that
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  Speaker 1: whole idea of World War three, so all those countries together.
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  Speaker 1: But then I've read reports that the Russians are helping
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  Speaker 1: the Iranians with intelligent signal intelligence and other intelligence, target
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  Speaker 1: striking and things. So the Russians are sort of using
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  Speaker 1: Iran as a proxy to keep this thing going. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: they are too.
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  Speaker 2: There's a plenty of evidence open source, even much less
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  Speaker 2: classified information, and they're definitely doing that. The Iranians have
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  Speaker 2: confirmed that that's that they're getting some kind of limited help.
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  Speaker 2: There's also some kind of material help there's been playing.
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  Speaker 2: Those are things coming in from multiple countries and we
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  Speaker 2: can only.
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  Speaker 1: Guess what's inside of that.
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  Speaker 2: But it's one of those where the chickens come home
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  Speaker 2: to roost kind of deal. Obviously, that's what we've been
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  Speaker 2: doing for four plus years in Ukraine against Russia, and
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  Speaker 2: now then they're returning the favor so far in smaller levels,
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  Speaker 2: but it is happening, and it does appear to be
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  Speaker 2: useful and helpful to the Iranian side.
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  Speaker 1: I suppose turnabout's fair play. We do that all the
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  Speaker 1: time with foreign conflicts, don't we, Daniel Davis? So what
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  Speaker 1: the CIA's for, right, Daniel Davis well, Daniel Davis, Deeve Di,
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  Speaker 1: I've always a great having on the fifty five Casie
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  Speaker 1: more so. Oh and I've got to ask this out
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  Speaker 1: because somebody was screaming at the radio. You're talking about
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  Speaker 1: reliance on sort of Iranian media and Middle Eastern media
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  Speaker 1: being a little bit better than and more reliable than
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  Speaker 1: the domestic Somebody out there in the a listening audience
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  Speaker 1: probably was screaming, yeah, well, bagdad, Bob, how can we
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  Speaker 1: trust anything those damn Iranians say or the other Middle
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  Speaker 1: East countries that may be caught in to the side
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  Speaker 1: of the Iranians. Just very quick on that topic, Daniel,
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  Speaker 1: you gotta.
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  Speaker 2: Be careful not to say, okay, because they said it,
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  Speaker 2: it's untrue, and because we said ardy it is true.
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  Speaker 2: And that's exactly what I see. And if you're just
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  Speaker 2: looking at what's true, you got to look at what
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  Speaker 2: happens on the ground. And so far they have been
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  Speaker 2: able to hit their targets, they have gotten through the
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  Speaker 2: air defense systems, the straight remains closed. Our navy hasn't
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  Speaker 2: gone in. So if you're looking at what the reality is, you.
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  Speaker 1: Can make your own definitions. That boils it down quite nicely.
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  Speaker 1: And I appreciate your addressing that. Daniel Davis. We'll do
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  Speaker 1: this again next Tuesday, Daniel Davis, Deep Dive, wherever you
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  Speaker 1: get your podcasts, have a great week, sir, thanks again
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  Speaker 1: for your time. Thank you very much, see you next time. Hey,
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  Speaker 1: forty three fifty five kr C DE talk station. Let's
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  Speaker 1: learn