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We need your help to build the future of independent news media, and we hope to see you@breaking points.com turning now to funding. We just talked a lot about the economic impact of this war, about how the war is going tactically. But remember, wars have to be paid for and has to be paid for by all of us. And Rao, the bill is starting to come due. Let's go and put this up here on the screen. Jake Sherman over at Punchbowl of the most tapped in congressional journalists in the U.S. here's what he writes. With war raging in the Middle east, the DHS is still shut down, the storm bearing down on the East Coast. Congress is returning to session today amid an array of problems, priorities and deadlines. Oil Prices are at $100 a barrel. The Strait of Hormuz is closed. Thirteen Americans are dead. But let's get to the headline. The White House, Pentagon and congressional leaders have already begun talks about supplemental funding for the Iran war. We don't expect any requests to hit Capitol Hill this week, but the two sides are trying to figure out how to pass it. We have had several sources suggest the package may carry a price tag of 100 billion or more. Lawmakers see this as potentially the last must pass bill of the year and may have to try and attach their own costly proposals. Reconciliation, the best option for GOP leaders. There is no chance Democrats would allow anything to pass without a vote on ending the conflict or reining in Trump's freedom to operate. But any new spending would will have to be offset with cuts elsewhere. So this would be the worst of all political worlds for the White House. They would have to put 100 billion into reconciliation and they have to cut 100 billion from the rest of the federal budget. They've already stripped it as far as they could go in the last reconciliation package. So who wants to bet where that money's coming from? $100 billion. Let's be clear here about this 100 billion. What is it about? It's about a supplemental funding request for the immense amounts that have already been spent. This isn't just about munitions, and I'm going to get to some of that here in a little bit don't forget. So we talked about in our A block, the carrier. Right? The carrier or the fire. Guess what the last carrier fire cost to repair? $70 million. 70 million just to repair the last fire. Similar fire back in 2008. Just looking at that. Let's talk a little bit about jet fuel. Let's talk about which is currently trading at $200 a barrel. Let's talk about the $200 million a month or so that it costs to send a single carrier strike group. Let's talk about the cost of diverting a Marine Expeditionary Force through the Straits of Malacca all the way over and then potentially having to deploy. Let's talk about all of the new ISR and the intelligence people, all the reservists. I know a couple of reservists, they've all been called up. They're working night shifts now at the Pentagon. These are people who not usually were working.
Saagar Enjeti
Right.
Krystal Ball
And so now everybody's starting to get paid. All of these reservists are all over there. Remember, a vast majority of the people who've been killed already in the war were actually called up from the Army Reserve or from the Air Force Reserve. So we've got. I mean, I would estimate the current true cost of the war already to probably be about 100 billion. And that doesn't even mention the interceptors and the drones and all that stuff. Which, by the way, I mean, this might, you know, counterintuitive. I actually do think we need to pay for all of that. But it puts everybody in a bind here where, yeah, we should pay. Cause obviously we need real defense readiness. Like South Korea is out there. Their economy's getting destroyed. The President basically declared emergency this morning. Talking about, he went on the airwaves, he's like, we have a serious problem. Sri Lanka. I don't know if you saw this. Sri Lanka. Wednesdays are now off. They're like, we're not working Wednesdays to save oil, to save gas. I mean, it's a disaster in the rest of the world, but in our economy, it's just gonna manifest in high prices. And then politically, how could any Democrat, or honestly even some of the anti war Republicans, how can you vote for the war? Because it's not congressionally authorized. And it's basically a free hand to keep the economic punishment of our own country going for as long as possible. Yeah, this is why you don't get into a war without congressional authorization in the first place. If you authorize it, then, yeah, you better fund it. Okay, we need, well, Articulated strategic goals, but. And I'm gonna brace everybody. The way that this is all gonna play out is they're gonna say they want everybody, they want us to leave our men in uniform hanging. Oh, you complained about the Interceptors, but you don't wanna replace the Interceptors. No, no, no, no. We can talk about that, we can talk about that strategy. But in the interim, right now, right now this is about a free hand to keep this BS war going. And I think that everyone really needs to brace cuz this will be a titanic political fight.
Saagar Enjeti
That's right. They're already using that rhetoric with politicians who say on they oppose funding the war. Like how can you leave our service members at risk? And you know, and some of the Democrats have said, like Alyssa Slotkin, she's like, well we're in it now, so we have to support them. I think most of, if not all of those Democrats, aside from John Fetterman, who's lost cause. But anyway, I think they will all change their tune because what you're going to be signing up for is literally making the case to Americans, we're going to cut your health care, we're going to cut snap, we're going to cut Head Score Start, we're going to cut the things that actually benefit the American people to fund this war that is not authorized, that no one asks for, that prior to launch had like a 20, 30% support rating. You're going to ask people to give up real things that they benefit from the federal government in order to fund that war effort. You're not asking the rich to pay anymore. You're not asking for that. You're not asking the military industrial complex that are getting rich. You're not asking those corporate entities to pay anymore to fund this absolute disaster. No, that is going to come. It is going to skin off the back of a population that has already been screwed. And then you're going to pay again at the gas pump. And then you're going to pay again when you go to the grocery store and the costs are passed through to you. And you're going to pay again when companies do greedflation like they did before and recognize like oh, there's an inflation going on, I can add even more to the price of my goods and I can get away with it because we know they did that during COVID and they will surely do it again.
Krystal Ball
So.
Saagar Enjeti
So that is who is going to actually pay for this war. Good luck. Good luck making that case to the American people. This war right now is as popular as it will ever be. And the best polling I've seen for it is 50. 50. The best polling I've seen for it. Compare that to the Iraq war. There was overwhelming support at the beginning. The Afghanistan war even more was like 90% support for the Afghanistan war at the beginning. Wars do not get more popular over time, especially not the way we fight them, where we end up getting bogged down in quagmire, you know, losing massive amounts treasure and lives and creating a gigantic mess, which this thing already is. So to your point about the cost, I saw an estimate that just in munitions expenditure, it's been over $12 billion. Just that. And so whatever, they're briefing Congress where they're like, it's been $11 billion so far. That is total and complete bullshit. It has already cost so much more for that than that. But yet when you go to the government, when you say could we maybe have healthcare like the rest of the world, oh no, we can't afford it. Could we get some support in terms of affordable housing or build on, oh no, I'm sorry, we can't afford it. When it comes to funding the war effort, there was always endless cash, an endless number of politicians ready to sign up to foot the bill to push that to the taxpayers to fund the latest adventure for the military industrial complex and the war profites.
Krystal Ball
I'll also just show you guys like the problem in the way that we fight. Let's put C2 up here on the screen. Okay, so this is a great Wall Street Journal story about these Reaper drones. And by the way, everybody get familiar with this stuff because these are the arguments that they're all going to be making whenever they're asking for more money. So Reaper drones take the fight to Iran, but at a cost. So they talk about Iranian shahed drones have gotten attention. The US is raging its own drone war, right? So these are surveillance drones, widespread strikes, MQ9 Reaper drone. They've been used in the battle, attacking hundreds of targets, surveillance. And they are able to strike. The US military has done little to highlight the role, but the telltale indications of their operations are evident in a lot of the videos that CENTCOM has been releasing. They're flown remotely in the US they were used a lot during the war on terror. Well, a current estimate puts it that some 10% of the entire fleet has now been lost as a result of not just this conflict with Iran. But I missed this. It was also with the Houthis. Now the unit cost of each one of these drones is about $30 million. Compare that to the unit cost of the Iranian shahed drone. Between 20 to 100,000 to it.
Saagar Enjeti
I saw an estimate that was 7.
Krystal Ball
It depends. So I actually listened to an analysis on this. It's for pretty interesting. The short range ones are cheap, obviously those are like seven grand. Apparently this is the Ukrainian model. The Ukrainians have these like really tiny ones which will only fly like you know, a couple hundred yards. Obviously those are super cheap. The Iranian ones that are capable of hitting like Dubai and stuff, those are more expensive obviously because they have to fly several thousand kilometers. But regardless, we're talking about a $30 million drone versus a 20, $30,000 drone. All right, the math doesn't math. Whenever this, whenever it looks like this now the argument is going to be, well, what we have to do is we have to top up, you know, this stuff instead really what we should do. And we should do this with everything the Pentagon bureaucracy is take a look at the Ukrainian conflict, Ukraine, Russia conflict. Take a look at Iran. What's the lesson is that cheap, easy to produce, mass producible stuff is always going to be massively beneficial in a long term engagement. And the problem with the US Military I've talked about, it's like a Rolls Royce engine. Like it's super expensive and it functions at a really, really high level, but when it breaks, massively expensive to fix. You need all these mechanics and technicians and very hard to produce. Did you know? So Tomahawk missiles, we fired untold numbers of them. Do you know how many that we produced last year? 57. 57. We've fired several hundred now so far over several years of Tomahawk missiles. There's one facility in Arizona which makes them all one.
Guest Analyst/Commentator
Wow, that's it.
Krystal Ball
I mean you've got no decent, you've got no decentralized industrial base, nothing. So there's even a fire there. It's over. Right? And think about that too from a perspective of like our own vulnerabilities. So when they come for this supplemental, the demand needs to be, no, look, we can have more thaad, we can have more Patriots, Tomahawks and all that other stuff. But to do that, it needs to be to our actual interest, not for some endless ridiculous conflict here with Iran. We need to be looking at Korea, Japan, the Asia Pacific and say these are the places which deserve it. These are the places here at home, why we need it. And this is where Congress needs to step in. They need to set actual rules where you can't just be going around launching wars of choice and aggression. So we gotta balance. Like I understand people are like, we don't need any more weapons. It's really not about that. What we do need to do though is to make sure that these ridiculous defense industrial companies which are here in Northern Virginia aren't printing billions of dollars at the expense of us as a taxpayer and making us all less safe. Like, we need a total reimagining. And a lot of the people I know in the Pentagon, this was their whole thing. That's the craziest part is that all of these ideas, I know the people who thought them and they work in the current Pentagon, many of them wrote essays why we should not go to war with Iran for this exact reason. And now we're here. Can you imagine the prospect of having to cut further cut Medicare or something like that to fund the war with Iran, which again is the very likely possibility right now?
Saagar Enjeti
Yeah, I just, that's where the money is. I mean the government is like, like missiles and health care. Yes, that's what we mostly spend our, you know, government money on. Social Security that has its own funding mechanism. But that's largely. Those are the two buckets. And so yes, this hundred billion dollars, apparently it's going to come from somewhere and that is the place where the cuts are, can and will be made. So that's the case that they're going to make to the American people. And you know, there's another piece of this like I'm not a, you know, a deficit hawk, you know, I'm not a ballots budget amendment person. You know, I usually think that this, like, how are you going to pay for it thing is silly and it's not the way that federal government, you know, it's not like balancing your household checkbook. We print currency, we are the world's reserve currency, et cetera. So it's very different than your household budget. However, Yanis Varoufakis says he doesn't think the dollar as the reserve currency is going away anytime soon. And I do put a lot of stock in what he says. However, there are a lot of others who are like, things are going to move increasingly in that direction as the US is this declining empire trying to throw its weight around the world getting humiliated. Currently in Iran and the Iranians are saying you can bring your oil tanker through the Strait of Hormuz as long as it's denominated in Chinese Yuan. The BRICS countries have been, you know, making their efforts to try to create an alternative currency. The war against Russia, the proxy War we've been waging in Ukraine against Russia has also pushed things in that direction. And if the dollar is no longer the world's reserve currency, then you really do have to start worrying about the debt. Then that is something that you are going to have to figure out, and there are going to be massive, massive cuts. So, you know, the more that we spin up that debt in a war that is itself undermining our position as the world's reserve currency, the more you are courting an absolute economic catastrophe for our own country here at home.
Krystal Ball
Yeah. And I mean, this. Look, the reserve stuff is all important. And I actually think Giannis's point is good, too, where he's like, look, you know, don't write the obituary just yet, because everything seems obvious in retrospect. And even Suez, in the time, nobody was like, oh, my God, the British Empire is over. That's not really how it went down. Right?
Host/Announcer
Yeah.
Saagar Enjeti
It's only in retrospect.
Krystal Ball
When you look back and look in 1970, you're like, oh, wow, like, Oxford was super important. Right, Exactly. So, I mean, I've talked about it before. Nobody in 1919 said, oh, the British Empire is over. Right. They're like, actually, we've won. You know, yes, we're horribly, you know, damaged. But. And, yeah, we owe all this money to the United States. But look at all this vast swath of territory we control now in the
Saagar Enjeti
Middle east, we're just carving it up,
Krystal Ball
but it ends up being a noose around their neck. Right. And it ends up actually after the Second World War. That's when they really wake up and they realize that the entire world is different. But those types of events are extremely rare. It's slow bleed. Like, if I were to guess that, you know, the history of our decline, it'll start with Iraq. I think Iraq is gonna be the real one, which you can look at the balance sheet. We tried to have a political corrective. How many change elections did we have? Four since Iraq. So Obama, Trump, Biden, Trump too. So we had four change elections of Americans being like, please get us out of this.
Saagar Enjeti
And that's just at the national level, at the congressional level, it's just back and forth and back of wave election after wave election after wave election.
Krystal Ball
That's actually a sign, by the way of empire, is that you have a bipartisan. They're called, like, grandees in the British Empire, where no matter who changed in the government, everyone was still around the empire. And the whole point is that the bipartisan elite locked up in this has put us to this funding role where, as you said, the government is weapons and diabetic health care for old people. That's it. Plus Social Security. That's basically all we actually do. There's 2% of the budget to weather balloons and Doge bullshit about the department. That's nothing. That's like a rounding area. It's all Social Security, healthcare, prescription drugs, diabetes for fat old people and weapons.
Saagar Enjeti
Yeah, Boom. I mean, as an example of that, I've been looking into do I've been. I don't know if you guys have followed these Doge steppes doses or really something. But in any case, it was the largest peacetime reduction in a workforce in our history. Okay. It was a huge cut in terms of the number of bodies in the federal government. It didn't matter at all in terms of the cost. Costs went up. Okay. There was a negligible impact on the overall federal budget because that is not what the money is spent on. So they got rid of all these people and the spending went up because that's not where the money is spent.
Krystal Ball
Yeah.
Saagar Enjeti
And you've got a lot of people who run around with no understanding of that. They think that, you know, if we just like cut our aid to Botswana or something, then, you know, balance the budget.
Krystal Ball
That was another one debt servicing because interest rates are going up.
Saagar Enjeti
But there's actually, there's nothing we can do really about that. I mean, Trump is trying to pressure the Federal Reserve and we'll see if that works. But you know, that's not something that you can cut in a reconciliation bill to fund a war effort, for example.
Krystal Ball
Exactly. But all, look, we have lived through these types of events before. So when we had Vietnam, we had stagflation, obviously that was a horrific crisis that followed. Don't forget Iraq. I mean, Iraq was a huge impact on the precipitating financial crisis. It seriously drained major parts of the economy. It juiced all of this ridiculous government spending. The Bush administration was throwing everything they could in terms of incentives too, to try and make the impression that everything was okay. And then it all goes bus in 08. A lot of people don't actually remember how important Iraq actually was to the eventual crisis of 2008. And you know, I was just looking this morning, you got a three month high here in mortgage interest rates, right? Something like 6.8%, 6.7% plus 19 basis points just from the last week. 6.7% is. I mean, that's insanity. That's really, really high. And yeah, there's a boomer out there who bought their house for like 100k, who is telling me about how they paid a 14 interest rate. Not the same when the average price is like 500,000 here in the US. But we are going to have to I actually think this one could genuinely trigger like a major budget discussion and political cycle in Washington ahead of the midterms and it's going to be all self inflicted. They have to pass it. Trump is going to go all in for war funding which means you have to cut something which so the Dems can run against the war and against the cuts and against all the other nonsense that's been going on for the last year. That's how you get a 2006 style blowout and that's what we're on track for.
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Saagar Enjeti
So, speaking of the Dems.
Krystal Ball
Yeah, right.
Saagar Enjeti
Should we go take a look at their premier propaganda channel? So Rachel Maddow has. She has figured this out. Sabre. She has unlocked the mystery of why it is we're going to war. And it's because of these foreign countries manipulating the president. And you know, the way that Jared Kushner is in hock to them. Guess what country she does not name among the foreign countries that she believes are the reason, the primary reason that we are now at war in Iran. I'll just, I'll let you guess and you can take a listen to what she has to say.
Guest Analyst/Commentator
Cui bono, right?
Krystal Ball
Who benefits?
Guest Analyst/Commentator
It's always useful to start that question in any country. Who benefits? Who wants Iran bombed off the map? And for their own reasons, who are Iran's rivals and enemies? Perennially, it's the Gulf Arab states, countries like Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. And Qatar. You know Qatar, the country that just gave Donald Trump a really, really nice $400 million plane, really a gilded flying palace for his own use, both during the presidency. During his presidency and after. Trump plans to take that plane with him and keep using it after he leaves office, if he ever leaves office. And you remember the United Arab Emirates, famous for recently structuring a totally pointless crypto financial transaction so that $2 billion of it would be stuffed into the Trump family's otherwise worthless, brand new crypto financial firm. And of course, you remember the Saudis who stuffed another $2 billion into the pockets of Trump's son in law, Jared Kushner, just as Trump's first term in office came to a close. You might remember enough people were alarmed about that when it that the Trump folks actually sort of bothered to come up with an excuse for what made that okay. They said, don't worry, Jared will Never again work for the US Government. He's never coming back to Washington. So it's okay that he's taken all this money from the Saudis. Now we will never have to worry about having somebody involved in US Policy who has also just been given billions of dollars by Saudi Arabia, apparently for no reason. Well, that was the explanation when he took all that money from the Saudis at the end of Trump's first term. And now today, who has been leading the negotiations on behalf of the United States government with Iran before we just started this war with them today. I mean, Secretary of State Marco Rubio was in St. Kitts this week.
Glenn Diesen
It wasn't him.
Guest Analyst/Commentator
No, it was Jared Kushner. The President's son in law recently paid billions of dollars by Iran's chief rival. And nevertheless, sitting there alongside Trump's tiny real estate friend, Steve Witkoff, who has sought recently to improve his considerable family fortunes by going to Qatar to seek money from its sovereign wealth fund. Weird that those talks didn't work, right?
Saagar Enjeti
I mean, how insane is it at the beginning when she's like, who benefits? Who wants to see Iran bombed? Who constantly hates Iran? And you're like, I know, I know, I know. How about the country run by the guy who said this is his dream for 40 years? How about that? How about Israel and, oh, Qatar, Saudi. And look, I think, like, there is a point about the Saudis in particular, regional rivals with Iran, Sunni versus Shia, all of that. There's some reporting suggested the Saudis were in on this war, too. Okay, Miriam Adelson gave Trump 100 million. If you're going to talk about the corruption here, gave him $100 million for his campaign. How is that not anywhere in your little listicle here? Like, it is crazy to me.
Krystal Ball
This is the second time she's done this, too. That's just like, she's all in on this.
Saagar Enjeti
She's all in on it. This is her new Russia gate. And there will. I don't watch any cable news very often, but I'm sure there will be others at the network who take up this line because they realize she's setting the tone. She's like the quarterback of the network. She sets the tone for what are the acceptable things to talk about and what rates and where is the narrative going? And I'm just gonna say, even with the Democratic base who probably continues to love Rachel Maddow, like, this is not going to work, the views on Israel and the overwhelming view that it was Israel and Trump trying to cover up the Epstein files, that effectively got us into this war in Iran that is going to persist among the Democratic base and the broader public regardless of the way that Rachel Maddow shape this propaganda effort. But that is, it was wild to see her go down that list and then just leave Israel off entirely.
Krystal Ball
I'm watching it. I'm like, is this willful at this point? Like, are you? And obviously I think the only answer
Saagar Enjeti
is, the answer is yes.
Krystal Ball
This is the only NBC News approved way of being able to talk about corruption and why we got into the war in the first place. You know, every once in a while they'll have somebody on their network who tells the truth. But be honest. I mean, take a look at cnn, at MSNBC and Fox. How often do they talk about Israel in a way that tells the truth about how they dragged us into this war? Yes, with Trump. Yes, with Trump. But do they Talk about the 40 year commitment? Do they do hear any of that type of criticism? The closest we got was Laura Ingraham talking to Ted Cruz asking if it was weird how tied in Lindsey Graham was in with Mossad, but even then she still supports the war. Right? That is about as close as I have seen so far. There's been no CNN panels, no MSNBC panel, no guests, almost nothing really that actually goes after the true reasons for this. So that's part of the reason why when you look at public sentiment too. First of all, it's crazy how enough people are still, even with all this overwhelming propaganda, are like, yeah, no, we're not doing this. But second, why the boomers are still where they are right now. They literally just don't have the information, like period.
Saagar Enjeti
Well, it's also why Trita Parsi is such an important media figure because they have him on msnbc, they have him on cnn and he's one of the few people that they have on who actually like understands the world and tells the truth about what's going on here. But you know, in terms of the, basically the, the only group in the country, not basically, literally the only group in the country that still supports Israel the way they used to is Boomer Republicans. The Democratic base has complete, I mean, it's gone, it is done, it is over. And independence overwhelmingly as well. We can put this up on the screen, guys, from NBC News. It shows you the way that views on Israel have shifted just between 2023 and 2026. So in three years time, okay, back in 2023, when you ask people are your views of Israel positive or negative? Overall, 47% said positive and only 24% said negative. Now, the overall numbers, okay, this is not just Democrats. This is overall, in the whole country, 32% have a positive view of Israel and 39% have a negative view. So the plurality of the country now has a negative view. And then 30% are neutral or don't know. With Democrats, only 13% still have a positive view of Israel, 57%. So a strong, almost super majority of Democratic base voters have an actively negative view of Israel. Back just three years ago in 2023, it was evenly split 34 to 35 in terms of views. Independents, only 21% have a positive view of Israel. The only partisan group that continues to have a net favorable view are Republicans. Even there, there's been some decline. So back in 2023, 63% of Republicans had a positive view of Israel. Now it's down to 54%, still a majority. But you can see the bleed among younger Republicans. And as I said before, if you do the age breakdown, it is boomer Republicans who are still, like, you know, holding the flame. Still, still, you know, carrying the torch for Israel the way that they used to. But, you know, I think this is important not only because of the, the news propaganda piece, but I really think this plays into the way Israel is thinking right now. And part of why they're behaving in such a psychotic manner. I mean, they have that in them. But why they're lashing out in this extraordinarily aggressive way in Lebanon, in getting their puppet government in Syria, obviously in Iran, in the west bank, in Gaza. It's because they know their political clock is ticking, that the lockstep support that they have had from both Democrats and Republicans is over. They've got their guy in the White House right now. They need to go for it all, the whole thing, right now, because there are going to be no guarantees for them in the future.
Krystal Ball
You're exactly right. The actual generational shifts in this. This is part of the reason why Israel wanted to go for broke. Now they want to become the global superpower, the regional power that they've wanted to for many decades. They want to shed the United States, destabilize the Gulf, basically call the shots for America and for the rest of the world. But, you know, look, it's going to be up to the future generations of America how it's not just about our security relationship with Israel. It's going to be our security relationship with the whole world as to whether all of this is working out. So I don't know, I hope it works out better. I really do. We have Glenn Deason standing by. Let's get to it.
Saagar Enjeti
All right, guys, for more analysis on the Iran war from a global perspective, we are joined for the first time, and I'm excited about this by Glenn Deason. He's host of The Glenn Deason YouTube channel, which Sagar and I both watch quite routinely. He's also a professor of Russian international affairs, focuses on geo economics, conservatism, and the Greater Eurasia Initiative. Great to see you, Glenn.
Krystal Ball
Good to see you.
Glenn Diesen
Thank you so much for the invitation. I'm a great fan of both of you.
Saagar Enjeti
Well, thank you. It's certainly mutual. I just want to start off with. Start with your top line view of this war, what it's about and how it's going so far.
Glenn Diesen
Well, I think it was quite evident that this war was always about regime change. And I think what we often underestimated was that regime change in Iran might also entail the destruction or Balkanization of Iran. And I think this is quite evident because when everyone speaks of regime change, there is no replacement government in the rear, which can simply be put in with legitimacy. So either this would have to be the Shah 2.0 rule with brutality, or the country would then just disintegrate into civil war between different factions. So I think this is important because it explains that this is not just a threat to the government of Iran, but also the country. So once Iran sees this an existential threat, it shouldn't be any surprise that it reacts in this way. Which is why many of my guests, both Americans and Iranians on the podcast, just kind of predicted this well before the invasion, that if they're attacked, they will straight they close the Strait of Hormuz rather quickly and just begin to attack all American bases in the entire region, because this is a fight for survival. And I think this is one thing we left out when we saw this war as simply being about helping protests and liberating girls. Because if this was simply the case, the Iranians wouldn't see this as existential threat and they wouldn't respond in this way. So I think this is just escalating more and more and we're getting into some very dangerous territory, especially with the potential of the destruction of Carg Island. I think that's when all bets are off.
Krystal Ball
Glenn, I'm really curious actually, for your view of the bigger geopolitical implications. So obviously you're an expert with Russia and with Ukraine. You've been analyzing this war now for years now. We have watched, actually, oil climb to high prices. The Kremlin has been able to get some sanctions taken off their oil. They're massively enriching their war machine. I just saw that the. I think it's. The Belgian prime minister came out yesterday and said maybe we should normalize relations with Russia. This is already having huge ripple effects across the globe. Tell us how you see that.
Glenn Diesen
Well, this is part of the problem with the Iran war. That is, for four years, we tried to knock out Russia from the ranks of great powers, and it failed. And especially when Trump took over a year ago. If we couldn't do it with the Americans, we can't do it without them. And nonetheless, the Europeans tried to keep it going. So the US Is still involved, of course, with the intelligence, the targeting logistics, also selling the weapons instead of necessarily providing them for free. But the idea for Europe was if we just keep it going for a bit longer, then perhaps something would happen in Russia. Now, of course, the Iran war has major implications for the Ukraine war. The Ukraine war was already going very poorly. That is, there's a massive manpower shortage, so the Ukrainians don't have enough men. The US doesn't have that much weapon to send anymore. So it's a weapon shortage. And also there's an economic problem. So you end up with this situation where the Europeans want to buy weapons with money they don't have to buy American weapons, which don't exist, to arm Ukrainian soldiers, which are, you know, also don't exist anymore. So it was always a huge problem. But now, of course, with the Iran war also entering, then there's even less. There's less weapons coming from the US And Europeans. They are. Well, the energy prices are now going from bad to worse, and they're preparing themselves for a complete economic meltdown. So it's not ideal to keep this war going. So I think there's some voices now who would like to see an end to the war. The problem is that the Europeans locked themselves into narratives of simply an opportunistic Russia wanting territory. They never recognized that this was an existential threat for Russia, which meant every time we escalated, the Russians would just respond in turn. So it's a little bit like the problem with Iran. We don't recognize the security concerns of our opponents, so we misjudged their policies and how they would respond to ours.
Saagar Enjeti
One of the rationales that has been offered, sort of after the fact, of why this war is happening, why this war is actually a smart strategic play for the US Is that Since China gets a lot of their oil for Iran, this is going to be damaging to China. What do you think is the Chinese perspective of the Iran war and the likely impact on that country?
Glenn Diesen
Well, they do get oil from Iran, so they don't care for any disruptions. And of course, if the US Will be successful in regime changing Iran, either putting a government loyal to the US or the country disintegrates or turns into chaos, it would be bad for Iran, sorry for China, but it can also go the other way. That is, if the United States now fails in this war, which seems more likely that it will. And part of the objectives of the Iranians is to expel the Americans from the regions. That is to not just destroy bases, but also make the Gulf states reach the conclusion that they will have more security without hosting US Bases. Then suddenly the US Is no longer a key security provider in the Middle East. If it's not a key security provider, then some of the foundation of the petrodollar goes away. Why would they still then trade only in dollars, especially when they have new economic centers of power? And then if all of these petrodollars aren't recycled into the US what would happen with the AI tech bubble, which is in direct competition in the AI competition with the Chinese? So there's a lot of things that can go wrong for the United States in this competition with China. But of course, if the US could seize control over these natural resources, again, this was very openly an objective in Venezuela to take control of it, make sure they don't link themselves too closely to Russia and China. But also in the Middle east, as Lindsey Graham suggested, we're going to make a ton of money here and obviously from the energy going to, well, whoever America wants to go to instead of China. So there is a lot more of a great power politics play going on here. And I think this is all, you know, this is what ties to competition with China, Iran, Russia. We're living in a very historical time. We're seeing the end of the hegemonic era, which was established after the Cold War. And we're now seeing this transition into multipolarity. And at the moment it's being pulled in both directions, which is a source of some of the more violent parts of our conflicts.
Krystal Ball
Now, you know, one of the things I'm interested in, Glenn here is to think, you know, we've talked here about China, but I'm also curious for your view as to how this will play out in terms of history. And so you talked there about the end of the Hegemonic era. We talked to Yanis Varoufakis earlier and he said, I would be hesitant to say that this would be the immediate death of the American empire and compare it, let's say, to a Suez moment for the British. However, as I said, even at the time of Suez, nobody was like, this is the end of the British Empire. It's only in retrospect that we're able to look back and see that. If you had that lens on and you were looking with the Iran crisis, but all of these other things, what were the specific timeline and events that you would look for to say definitively this was the beginning of the end?
Glenn Diesen
Well, I also don't want to go for the Suez Canal comparison because Britain had very different fundamentals than the United States. The US Is a massive power. It will remain so even if its economy would begin to collapse. It's going to recover, it's going to be a key player. So I wouldn't dismiss it as going simply disappearing. Britain could disappear, but that's not the case with the United States. But I think it's a longer transition, and it's worth keeping in mind what the world order signifies. That is, what are the basic rules, which depends on how security is created. When you have the international system with all these large powers competing against each other, then the question is, what creates security? Well, usually it would be pursuit of indivisible security. Because if countries, countries compete, that is, if United States builds missiles, that's secured for us, but insecurity for China, and then China will respond and we end up in this security competition. So usually peace is created if you recognize the security concerns of your opponents and you try to elevate the common security, that is indivisible security. Well, after the Cold War, there was only one central power, and the US promoted a different approach to security, which was the hegemonic peace, which means you don't have to take into consideration other centers of power. You only have one power which dominates. And indeed, the more the US could dominate, the less any other countries, even coalitions, could aspire to challenge the U.S. this would be the source of security. So this was the liberal hegemon, one center of power. There's no more great power rivalry. And that hegemon is a liberal democracy. So it will try to transcend some of the uglier parts of former politics. So elevate the role of democracy and human rights. This was the main idea. It would be a benign hegemon, but of Course, the key problem is over time the hegemon will always exhaust itself. As we've seen, it's more debt and also it depends on keeping other powers down. So eventually other centers of power would then figure out that they have to work together to balance the U.S. so you see institutions such as BRICS, like why would Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa and Iran, all these other countries suddenly have commonality. Well, of course they want a different economic architecture, but they also want to balance the hegemonic aspirations of the United States. So I think these are the wider trends happening and what I would look for would be some of the key crises we had. For example, the attempt to break China, this was a key part of this trying to restore hegemony, but it doesn't work. The Chinese are not just an industrial power, they're also a high tech power. If anything, they can use their AI more to be implemented within industrial capacity so they have more ability to make some revenue of their AI. We saw then with Russia, the objective under the Biden administration was to use the Ukrainians to try to knock out Russia and then the US could focus on China. It didn't work. So Trump then instead tried to get Russia on our side of the ledger by improving relations. And to some extent the same applies for Iran. The assumption if you can knock out Iran, you take out an important player at the southern end of the Eurasian continent. The problem is all of this tends to backfire. That is when, if one goes after Russia, it will align itself closer with China. Now, the attempt to defeat the Iranians, they will link themselves closer to both Russia and China. And ideally at some point, I think the United States will reach their conclusion. What many people thought was America first, which is if the US just pulls back a bit, just aspires to aspire to be one among many great powers, it will be able to restore its domestic strength. And suddenly if it doesn't have that big footprint on the Eurasian continent, then the Europeans, the Russians, the Iranians, the Chinese would begin soft balancing each other at least. Least, but we're not quite there yet. I think there's still these efforts by the United States to restore its hegemony. But I think that the defeat in the Ukraine war and now likely defeat in the Iran war will more or less put an end to this.
Saagar Enjeti
My last question for you, Glenn, is we had Tritiparsi on and he said, you know, from the Israeli perspective, they feel that this war is going great, that this is all going exactly the way that they want it. To go. They finally succeeded in getting a US President to launch the war. They've been push for years and years. Of course, blame still lies with Trump, but no doubt Netanyahu and others allied with him were making the case and that ended up being persuasive to Trump. Do you view it that way? And how do you see the interests of Israel diverging from the interests of the United States?
Glenn Diesen
Well, the Israelis aren't that different from the Europeans in this regard because the Europeans also think that what's missing with the United States is not the capabilities. They still believe the United States has this infinite resources and capabilities to essentially defeat whoever they want. So the Europeans wanted simply, if America we can bring them back into the war against Russia, then more directly, then we will win. And Israel is more or less thought the same. That is, if we can just get the United States to attack Iran. Yes, it might not succeed with the regime change, but in another long war, over time, the Iranians will be weakened and hopefully the government can be toppled and even possibly the country could be Balkanized. So getting finally a US President after all this year, and they have talked about this war for many decades now there's this opportunity to, as long as the US Kept in the war, that they can knock out Iran eventually, maybe not now, maybe in five years. But I guess here's where Israel and the US Begin to diverge. That is, it's not in United States interest, especially this critical time in history, because as I said, the world is becoming multipolar. That's just the reality in terms of the international distribution of power, which means the US US has to make priorities. And those priorities, as the National Security Strategy outlined, is to focus on the Western Hemisphere and East Asia. That's where America's peer competitor is. Which means if you pivot to somewhere, you have to pivot away from somewhere. And that would be a pivot away from Europe and the Middle East. And this is the key problem. This is why Trump has made a mistake. Because the longer he remains in Europe, that absorbs American resources, but it also pushes the Russians further to China and also in the Middle East. The longer it stays in Iran, the more it's going to divert its focus away from East Asia. Indeed, the US had to pull out its Thaad missiles and Patriots from South Korea to send to the Middle East. The whole point of pivoting to Asia was it was supposed to go the other way. The weapons were supposed to be pulled out of Europe and the Middle east and sent to East Asia. So we're seeing everything going in reverse and this was not not in the strategic interest of Trump. This is not what the security strategy indicated. They were supposed to do the opposite. But now, of course, one year later, the US Is still involved in the war in Europe and they're also now doubling down in the Middle East. So I think this is a strategic mistake for the United States. The fact that they most likely won't win this either makes it even worse. So no, I think you're going to see this expressed more now in terms of divergence in the us how they view Israel. What is America First? Is it the partnership with Israel or putting America before Israel? I think you're going to see more splits there now, and that's reflected in how the strategic interest of America is changing.
Krystal Ball
Absolutely. Glenn, you are such a great guest. We can't wait to have you back. And everybody go subscribe to Glenn's channel. He does such incredible interviews. We're going to have a link down in the description and we really hope that people will go watch his content as well. So thank you very much Glenn. We appreciate it. Appreciate you.
Glenn Diesen
Thank you so much.
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Krystal Ball
Huge breaking news that we're gonna have to add here at the end of the show. We can go ahead and put this up here on the screen. Joe Kent, who is currently serving as the Director of the National Counterterrorism center, resigned from his position effective immediately. Let me go ahead and read some of his letter, which is genuinely shocking. President Trump, after much reflection, I have decided to resign from my position as the Director of National Counterterrorism center effective today. I cannot in good conscience support the ongoing war in Iran. Iran posed no imminent threat to our country. It is clear we started this war due to pressure from Israel and its powerful American lobby. I support the values and the foreign policies that you campaigned on until June of 2025. You understood that wars in the Middle east were a trap that robbed America of the precious lives of our patriots and depleted the wealth and prosperity of our nation. Early in this administration, high ranking Israeli officials and influential members of the American media deployed a misinformation campaign that wholly undermined your America first platform. Sowed pro war sentiments to encourage a war with Iran. The echo chamber was used to deceive you into believing that Iran posed an imminent threat to the United States and that you should strike now. There was a clear path to a swift victory. This was a lie and is the same tactic the Israelis used to draw us into the disastrous Iraq war that cost our nation the lives of thousands of our best men and women. We Cannot make this mistake again. As a veteran who deployed to combat 11 times, a gold star husband who lost my beloved wife Shannon in a war manufactured by Israel, I cannot support sending the next generation off to fight and die in a war that serves no benefit to the American people, nor justifies the cost of American lives. I pray that you will reflect upon what we're doing in Iran, who we are doing it for. The time for bold action is now. You can reverse course and chart a new path for our nation, or you can allow us to slip forward further towards decline and chaos. You hold the cards. It was an honor to serve in your administration and to serve our great nation. Absolutely stunning news. Let's just dissect it a couple of different ways. Number one, this is the National Director of Counterterrorism, highest security clearance in the entire United States government. Israel, or, sorry, in Iran, posed no threat to the United States, number one. Number two, Israel is the person manipulating intelligence. Israel, pro war lobby. Those are the people who convinced you in order to go into war with this, into war with Iran. This is one of the most shocking resignations of the entire Trump administration. I think it might be the first, like real big one of somebody who was aligned with the America first movement. And let's consider the consequences here. They are gonna try and destroy this man. I guarantee you they will try to indict him. They're gonna say he breached his. They're gonna say he breached his security clearance by sharing information. He was never a real patriot. He was somebody, you know, MAGA or Snake, something like that. Anti Semite, the full stop of the pro war machine and the US Government are going to destroy this man. Just watch and wait. And especially if he starts going on the podcast circuit and talking, do not forget that this is somebody who deployed to combat multiple times. Special operations background, gold star, husband, doesn't matter. They're gonna do everything that they possibly can. But this should be wall to wall news. We never even really had had high profile resignations like this under Iraq. And I mean, I think the fact that you have a high, high level security official with the top security and clearance saying this is Israel's war, that they manipulated the intelligence, that you're making a huge mistake, that they pose no imminent threat to the United States. You have to ask, seriously, how about how all of the lies have been told by this White House? And I think, second, what did he know to have to resign at this point? Point he knew no end in sight and that's why he decided to do it. Now. So it is a, I mean, a stunning development to see right now. Yeah.
Saagar Enjeti
And I mean, just so people know, I don't know if you've been following this guy, Joe Kent ran for Congress as like a hardcore Trump loyalist, America First. There was a controversy where he was like, affiliated with Nick Fuentes Graper types and had disavowed them. He was a Stop the Steel guy, was like a January 6th truth or like that. That's the type of milieu that he's in. So hardcore supporter of Trump. He was a Tulsi ally, which I think is also an interesting piece of this internally, because apparently Tulsi, in the lead up to the first Iran war, the 12 day war, was arguing against it and making her case fairly forcefully. Ends up getting completely sidelined. They joke about her as dni, standing for Do Not Invite, gets completely sidelined. Now she's sent out to do a bunch of, like, election nonsense in Fulton County, Puerto Rico, whatever. She's no longer part of the Iran war deliberations. And so in any case, Joe is one of her allies internally in the administration. So to see him resign in this very critical and public fashion, I mean, it's hugely noteworthy. In Sagar. I'd be interested to get your perspective on historic comparisons to Vietnam, sort of similarly at times, concerns about wars in the past and how this stacks up against them. I will say similar to the Tucker Carlson line about it's all Israel's fault and Trump, you're getting tricked and blah, blah, blah. I have little patience for this argument that the President of the United States, who can staff his administration however he wants, can listen to whoever he wants. He can listen to Lindsey Graham, or he can listen to Joe Kent, or he can listen to Tucker Carlson, or he can can listen to Ted Cruz. Like he gets to choose what direction he wants to go in. I really chafe at the notion that he's just being tricked and manipulated and he's, you know, it's really not his fault. It's all the Israelis. Yes, the Israelis wanted this war. There is absolutely no doubt about that. The Israelis have wanted this war for 40 years. And every president up until now has, including Trump, has said no to engaging in this aggressive, hot war against Iran. So that is the one piece that just when I see it framed in the way that he frames it, it really, you know, I just chafe against that.
Krystal Ball
I understand your point, but don't forget he's trying to admit to do think this is a real political statement because he wants to try and Have. And he's gonna get the narrative which he wants, which is that a member of the administration is resigning in protest. Let's look. I mean, he said all the Israel stuff. He also resigned and basically implied that this is on Donald Trump. Right. This is a different thing than saying it internally. This is somebody who is putting it, I mean, literally, like possibly his life on the line. And I don't mean just like his actual safety. I'm talking about, remember this, with this administration. FBI is going to be up his ass. They're going to be doing any potential investigation. The entire Zionist media is going to destroy this man. They. I mean, I wouldn't be surprised if he gets magically audited by the irs. Like, I really am not going to put any of that. And your point is, first man on the line.
Saagar Enjeti
Yes.
Krystal Ball
He is like, look, Vietnam, remember this? Nobody at this high profile ever resigned over Vietnam this early on. They said it internally, and it's very clear that he probably tried. I would put this in a totally different category. This is a person with a ton to lose. He's not rich, he doesn't have a lot of resources. This is somebody who genuinely has a lot to lose out of this one, and he's putting it all out there.
Saagar Enjeti
No, that is, that is absolutely fair. I just get so sick of people treating Trump like he's just, you know, a child being manipulated and being tricked into various things, and he's always blameless, etc. But the import of it and the risk that he's taking here is genuinely horrific.
Krystal Ball
I cannot even describe to you, like, in this, in this environment where we have the fcc, you have Cash Patel, Keystone Cash, Pam Bondi, these people, you think Trump is going to take this line down? The full force of the United States government is coming after this man. And he's an 11, you know, served 11 tours in combat. And he said, no, I can't support this. He's one of the only people who's not full of shit. Remember yesterday when I said it's time to resign? And that's the call now from Joe Kent. So if you're listening to this, magically, if you're not Joe Kent or if you're any of these other people, you know, there's only one person who can't resign, it's the Vice President. Everybody else, you're appointed and you serve either the pleasure of the president or of your own accord, it is time to go. It is time to create the situation that people were not courageous enough to do after Iraq. To stand up in front of the American people and say this is a bullshit. And that's why the war continued on. Don't forget Colin Powell. He dissented. Yeah. Oh, it took years for him to get out. And then, oh what, two to three years later we learn about all this stuff that he did inside the admin. But at the time when it mattered the most, when he could have resigned and used his immense prestige, he did nothing about it.
Saagar Enjeti
He went and did that UN speech.
Krystal Ball
Yes.
Saagar Enjeti
And yeah. And you know, tarnished his reputation forever and actually made the case, case for the war. Well, I am wondering if he will be a one off and you're right that the administration will do everything they can to smear him and make his life absolutely miserable to try to guarantee that he's a one off. Or if this starts a chain of resignations, of effectively fleeing the sinking ship, looking at this and going, this is a disaster. You've already got one guy who's taking this step. You know, maybe this is the move that I need to make as well. And if he can, if he can do it and he can speak out and he can survive, maybe that's the right move for me too, to find the exit. So in the coming days and weeks that will be the thing to watch. Whether this is one guy and it's a flash in the pan and they do everything they can to make him miserable and destroy him and everybody else takes that as like a cautionary tale and is like, I'm just going to keep my mouth shut. Or whether the this opens is like a, you know, opens up the dam, opens up the floodgates and others start to leave.
Krystal Ball
I don't think a dam is going to break. I do think it takes somebody of immense principle to have to speak out on something like this because you just have too much to lose. I mean your whole family is literally your entire well being is at risk financially. You could go to prison. You have no idea. And I wouldn't put any of it past this government. And that's why if you look at Iraq and at Vietnam, the dissenters were all internal. They didn't start speaking out until 1969. Some of these people, this is the time to actually try to do something about it. And what Joe has done correctly is that now Trump has to be asked about it. Now every member of the White House of the administration is going to be asked about it. Oh my God, Tulsi, I would not wanna be her. Cuz they were allies, right? They were good friends. Any of the people who were friends with Jo Cant the witch hunt that's going to happen. If unfortunately, I hate to say it, this will probably work out net net for the Zionists inside the government. Cuz they're gonna say that anybody who dissented is disloyal to you and they're gonna use them as an example. So the truth is is that internally this is probably going to empower all of the Zionists in the pro war lobby. But the only check that we really have on our government is the people is the democracy and the press at this current time before an election. And it's actually really incumbent on everyone to make this a big, big story. This guy resigned over the war. He said it's a lie. He said that everything they're telling us is a lie. And that's the only way to create an immense pressure cycle on the Trump administration. Although I wouldn't put it past our mainstream media, you know, who largely support the war to try and. I don't know, what are they gonna say? He's a groiper, he sucks or something. I can see it already.
Saagar Enjeti
Yeah, well he's given them some things to work with there.
Krystal Ball
Okay, look Joe, he said a lot of things in fair over the years, you know, I wouldn't have done them. We run in some of the same circles in terms of the anti war movement and I can just tell you like there were a lot of people who feel this way in the Pentagon, in the White House, all across the government. He's the only one who actually did anything about it. Or at least he's the first one to actually do anything about it. And that, that wipes away a lot of sins in my book. All right, we will see you all later. Thank you guys so much for watching. Appreciate it. Ryan and Emily on tomorrow. They'll see you then.
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Episode Summary: March 17, 2026 — "Trump Demands $100 Billion, Rachel Maddow Deranged Monologue, US World Order Collapse, Trump NatSec Resignation"
This episode of Breaking Points dives deep into the rapidly unfolding consequences of the US-Iran war, focusing on President Trump’s $100 billion war funding request, the fierce budgetary and political fallout, and mounting dissent in Washington—including a bombshell resignation from the Director of the National Counterterrorism Center. The hosts critically examine media narratives (notably Rachel Maddow’s), the military-industrial complex, the geopolitical ripple effects for US world order, and shifting American public opinion. Special guest Prof. Glenn Deason offers a global perspective on the war’s impact.
[02:36–10:04]
[10:04–14:04]
[14:04–20:41]
[23:14–32:02]
[29:06–32:02]
[32:36–48:01]
[50:50–59:39]
This episode encapsulates an inflection point: the US-Iran war’s spiraling costs, the crumbling of American hegemony, and the rise of open, public dissent from within the national security establishment. The hosts lay bare how war spending drives domestic austerity, highlight the military-industrial complex’s self-interest, and expose media failures in confronting the full truth behind America’s wars of choice. Public opinion is changing rapidly, but entrenched forces remain resistant—until moments like Joe Kent’s resignation offer a potential turning point.
The central question remains: Will this be a fleeting episode of protest, or does it mark the start of wider reckoning with America’s global role and the wars it wages?