← Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar
Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar
4/6/26: Trump Moves Iran Deadline, Israel Hit By Missiles, US Pilot Rescue Operation
00:53:53
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- [00:00]
Lori Siegel
This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human.
- [00:04]
Jay Shetty
Hey, I'm Jay Shetty, host of the On Purpose podcast. My latest episode is with Noah Kahn, the singer songwriter behind the multi platinum global hit Stick season and one of the biggest voices in music today.
- [00:17]
Noah Kahn
Talking about the mental illness stuff. It used to be this thing that I was ashamed of getting to talk about. This is not common for me right now. I need it more than ever.
- [00:28]
Jay Shetty
Listen to On Purpose with Jay Shetty on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [00:35]
Charlamagne Tha God
Peace to the planet. Charlamagne Tha God here. And listen. We are back. The Black Effect Podcast Festival is back in Atlanta on April 25th at Pullman Yard. Yeah, and the full lineup is nuts. We got the Grits and Age Podcast, Deontay Kyle and Big Ice Cup Cat. We got Club 520 with Jeff Teague and the gang. Don't call Me White Girl. Mona will be there. Keep it positive, sweetie, with Crystal Rene. We got Reality with the King with Carlos King. And yes, Drink champs will be in the building. Plus, you know we're going to have a lot of guests, so you need to join us. And we got the Black Effect Marketplace, the picture podcast and everything you expect from the Black Effect Podcast Festival. Tickets are on sale right now. Go get yours@blackffect.com podcast festival. Don't play yourself. Okay, pull up.
- [01:25]
Lori Siegel
I'm Lori Siegel and this is Mostly Human, a tech podcast through a human lens. This week, an interview with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman.
- [01:33]
Krystal Ball
I think society is going to decide that creators of AI products bear a tremendous amount of responsibility to the products we put out in the world.
- [01:40]
Lori Siegel
An in depth conversation with the man who's shaping our future.
- [01:44]
Krystal Ball
My highest order bit is to not destroy the world with AI.
- [01:47]
Lori Siegel
Listen to Mostly Human on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
- [01:56]
Krystal Ball
Hey guys, Sagar and Krystal here.
- [01:57]
Lori Siegel
Independent media just played a truly massive role in this election and we are so excited about what that means for the future of this show.
- [02:04]
Krystal Ball
This is the only place where you can find honest perspectives from the left and the right that simply does not exist anywhere else.
- [02:10]
Lori Siegel
So if that is something that's important to you, Please go to BreakingPoints.com, become a member today and you'll get access to our full shows unedited ad free and all put together for you every morning in your inbox.
- [02:21]
Krystal Ball
We need your help to build the future of independent news media and we hope to see you at Breaking Points Dot com. Good morning, everybody. Happy Monday. Have an amazing show for everybody today. What do you have, Crystal?
- [02:33]
Lori Siegel
Indeed we do. We've got a bunch of new Trump truths that are wild and insane to break down. We've got a new Barack Ravid report this morning just in time for the market opening. So we'll bring you up to date with all of the latest machinations in the Iran war as of this morning. We also are going to take a look at a significant Iranian strike within Israel with significant damage and casualties there. Israel also hitting a South Bars petrochemical facility that's really significant inside of Iran. So I'll break that down for you in the significance there. We're also taking a look at this allegedly successful raid to rescue the airmen who had crashed inside of Iran. And to take a look with Brandon Weickert at what happened there, what the official story is, what some of the questions are remaining. And I certainly have a lot of questions about the official story there. We're also going to take a look with him at some of the materials that are running low on our side and how that could impact the Iran war effort. We're also, of course, going to take a look at the markets this morning. What is going on there. Shortages just now beginning to develop, the censorship regime that has kicked in to block us from an accurate understanding of the damage, especially to U.S. and allied facilities in the region. And Shri Ta Parsi is going to join us to discuss how Iran may be viewing all of these events.
- [03:49]
Krystal Ball
Yes, that's right. Thank you to everybody who has been supporting the show, breakingpoints.com, but more importantly for our purposes, everybody came through. Let's put it up there on the screen. Our beautiful graphic 2 million. A nice clean number. 2.0. Exactly. On the channel, I guess 2.1 would be good, but there is something very clean, clean about the 2 million. So thank you seriously, so much to our YouTube audience. 2 million subscribers means a lot. Didn't think we would get here so quickly. Not even five years old. Or is it five years old? It's somewhere around there in terms of the show. That's where my brain is as of this morning. Thank you to everybody, seriously. And I guess if you can get us to 2.1, go ahead and hit subscribe.
- [04:28]
Lori Siegel
It was an Easter miracle, guys.
- [04:30]
Krystal Ball
It was an Easter.
- [04:31]
Lori Siegel
Our sub count has risen.
- [04:32]
Krystal Ball
That's right, our sub count rose while the president said praise be to Allah. And then of course, if you're listening to this as a podcast, please share the episode with a friend. Really helps other people find the show. But, yes, let's go ahead and start off with the Easter message from the President.
- [04:44]
Lori Siegel
Yeah, so let's put this up on the screen. I mean, in the ranking of most insane Trump truth tweets, this has got to be up there, and it's a very high bar. So Trump put this out, and he says, Tuesday will be Power plant day and Bridge day all wrapped up in one. In Iran. There will be nothing like it. Exclamation, multiple exclamations. Open the fucking straight, you crazy bastards, or you'll be living in hell. Just watch. Praise be to Allah. President Donald J. Trump. So I guess In Trump 1.0, we had the infrastructure week that never came to pass. And in Trump 2.0, Infrastructure Week means promised and threatened war crimes against Iran. That's the difference between Trump 1.0 and 2.0.
- [05:31]
Krystal Ball
I do actually think this is the craziest and the worst one, because the previous contender was Fire and Fury and Rocketman, but that wasn't in the middle of an actual war. This is a war. This is a wartime thing. When our producer sent it to us, I was like, this is not real. There's no way.
- [05:45]
Lori Siegel
I know. I had to verify, too.
- [05:47]
Krystal Ball
I was like, oh, my God. I mean, it just is shocking because, I mean, I made this joke privately. But the thing about the madman theory is you're not supposed to be mad. You're only supposed to be acting mad. Well, what if you are mad? I mean, for real. And that's the real danger that we're all walking into. So obviously, there's the war crime aspect to this. This is not generally the way, you know, the way that we would fight in World War II. Even the firebombing in Tokyo, it was never, you know, supposed to be. We're intentionally firebombing civilians. The way that we would justify it is that there's a lot of factories in that civilian area. But we would never ext. Explicitly say we're doing this to try and kill as many people as possible, even though that was the goal this time. We're just saying it. We're just saying it out loud. Like, no, we're going in to immiserate the population, to destroy all of the nuclear power plants and. Or the gas petrochemical facilities, the gas fields, the bridges. And we're doing so explicitly to try and to destroy their infrastructure and to immiserate the population to compel the regime to a deal. Now, of course, that is not what's working right now. And in fact, that bridge strike that happened over the weekend was on a unconstructed bridge. Like it was halfway through its construction
- [07:01]
Lori Siegel
and again, wasn't even in use yet.
- [07:03]
Krystal Ball
It wasn't in use. And the Pentagon comes and we're like, well, we needed to deny the enemy a critical logistics hub. And you're like again, you know, look, if you want to go back, yeah, blowing up bridges is a long time part of warfare. Probably like one of the oldest things that people do. You seize a bridgehead, you take a bridgehead, you blow it up. But there is an ostensible military purpose. This is just do it to do it in order to show the capacity of the United States. And it is first of all, obviously for the Iranian population, what a nightmare and a disaster. But second, really, you know, for the United States, by taking any of this veneer off and just further creating the situation where it's just America and it's just Israel, it's like the Israelification of the United States of our military, which, look, I mean, people know I'm not like a big norms guy or any of that, but I do believe in honor and you know, of the United States of America. And you may say that Iraq and Afghanistan, it was horrible. And I agree, I never would have, I didn't wanna be in those wars, but we did not conduct ourself in that way. I never thought I'd be sitting here defending some of that. But the truth is, is that America put its sons and daughters on the line. Now we shouldn't have been there in the first place, but to try and protect civilians, to try and make a better way of life. Now I agree nation building doesn't work. We shouldn't even be doing that. If we are gonna fight a war, then let's do it quote, properly. But even in this, the bigger strategic picture is totally missed because we are not getting anywhere closer to opening if that's what you actually want to do.
- [08:29]
Lori Siegel
I mean, there's so much to say about this. First, on the war crimes aspect of this, there's some reporting that they've just basically decided any and all infrastructure is fair game. And that the previous limitations, which basically the idea is that if you hit a piece of infrastructure, there has to be a truly justifiable, directly military reason and something that can't be accomplished in another way. They're throwing that out the windows that no, we're gonna hit electrical grid, bridges, whatever we want to, whenever we want to. Also allegedly there are people in the Pentagon and in this administration who are very happy to see what Israel, with our support, of course, the whole way, were able to get away with in the Gaza genocide. Because it meant, okay, guess what, now we don't have to play by the rules at all. Like, if they can starve and bomb an entire trapped population for years and no one really does anything about it, okay, then it's no holds barred. The problem, of course, is that then it's no holds barred for everyone, including our adversaries. In a lot of ways, in this sort of an engagement, our adversaries benefit more from being no holds barred. It enables that level of asymmetric warfare. It puts our own, of course, service members and civilians in the region and American civilians in the region at risk. I mean, even this business of, oh, our bases are getting hit, so we're going to put all of our soldiers in civilian hotels is deeply dishonorable and very likely a violation of the laws of war as well. But so there's that aspect of it and then the other part of it, let's talk about this whole open, open the fucking Straits. Last week, days ago, we were told by Trump, number one, oh, it's not that big of a deal to us, whatever, we don't really care. Europe, if you like the Straits so much, why don't you go and open it? And in the very same speech, it will open naturally. Anyway, obviously we know at the time that was a lie. This is a big deal that Iran doesn't actually have the straights of Hormuz clothes, but they have control over who goes through and who doesn't. That is a dramatic new global geopolitical reality. It's obviously a problem for the globe, for the US in particular. And so this pretense of like, whatever, like we low key don't even care, you guys do whatever you want with it was always bullshit. And so this is Trump getting very frustrated, I think, and showing his hand here, that this actually is a key objective. And the Iranians have no intention actually of ever going back to the previous status quo with regard to the Strait of Formation.
- [10:50]
Krystal Ball
Well, they'd be pretty stupid, right? Because it's the only car that they have their missiles, they have their drones and they have the Straits of Hormuz. And the Straits of Hormuz is enforced really, with the missile and the drone threat. And you could actually take out 100% of the missiles, which of course, remember they told us they did, and obviously they haven't, and they would still have the drones and even then it would really only take A few shoulder fired missiles and a couple of speedboats with the IRGC has prepared for years to be able to wreak enough havoc that the strait remains effectively closed. As of today, there are more tankers that are moving through the Strait than before. Why? Cause they're paying Iran. They're paying them. I mean, that is a new. That is actually a way worse reality for the world because now you have no international passageway, you know, that generally trade is able to move through completely unencumbered. But now you have an effective Iranian veto over one of the most critical choke points on the whole globe, which directly undermines, you know, America's entire reason for entering this in the first place. Should we put a two up there on the screen just to show all of you? Trump, you know, over the weekend claiming many of Iran's military leaders who have led them poorly and unwise are terminated along with much else with the massive strike in Tehran. So more detail decapitation and assassination strikes in Iran. But more importantly, he keeps saying things like negotiators have been given absolute immunity from death. Basically, again using the Israeli model that they did with Hamas, where, oh well, we'll negotiate with someone and if we don't like the way they're negotiating, we'll kill them. Or if we do like the way they're negotiating, we'll kill them because we don't wanna negotiate too much or, you know, exactly in the right way. So this is the problem. And like right now, there hasn't though
- [12:22]
Lori Siegel
been much confirmation of this in terms of significant deaths among the Iranian leadership. So I don't even know.
- [12:29]
Krystal Ball
We just don't like, really, People need to understand we really do not know a lot about this war. We're gonna do the censorship stuff in a bit, but it's inside of Iran. You know, they're putting out all kinds of nonsense, claiming various different things that aren't true. We're putting out all kinds of nonsense where you clearly cannot trust a lot of the numbers. And then recently, and I'm sure you've read this, there have been a lot of dispatches of people going to the strait. Things there are a little bit different than the way that they're being sold to us, right? So there's all this international subterfuge, the UAE has shut things down. Oman, everybody is cracking. You know, all these journalists going into Oman right now, they're like, yeah, you can write, but no pictures. You can do that. You're not allowed to go into the Straits. So just keep that in mind. That Everything that we are hearing is all either second or third hand or if it is, it's a written dispatch. And even then, who knows if the ability to get some of the actual information out of those countries is all that useful.
- [13:22]
Lori Siegel
Let me go ahead and put a three up on the screen. So we had another deadline moved. Once again, he put in place this 48 hour deadline. Then Trump extended that by an additional 24 hours. Now the deadline is Tuesday at 8pm this is the very latest of a move, of a deadline by Trump. This is a repeated pattern from him. We can put a 4 up on the screen, which I think lays this out pretty clearly. On March 21, Trump said, you've got 48 hours. On March 23, he postponed that for five days. Then on March 26, that was postponed for 10 more days. Then on April 4, we were told 48 hours. And then on April 5, this was postponed to April 7, 8pm Eastern time. Let me go ahead and put up Barack Ravid's report from this morning. He's got his latest dispatch here timed just before the markets open. Make sure that things don't get too chaotic here to buy Trump a little bit more time to figure out whatever the hell he's doing. Ravid writes in Last Ditch Push, the US, Iran and a group of regional mediators are discussing the terms for a potential 45 day ceasefire that could lead to a permanent end to the war, according to four US Israeli and regional sources. So you notice who's not a source there? The Iranians, US Israeli and quote unquote regional sources, which could be the Saudis, could be uae, could be someone who's basically just parroting the US Line. Here's. Oh no, we're totally gonna get a ceasefire, guys. Don't worry. We're getting really super close here. Meanwhile, if we put the Jim Shuto tweet up on the screen here, and this is, you know, his reporting and other outlets have this reporting as well. Iran has rejected a temporary ceasefire in its war with the US And Israel, saying it would allow adversaries to pause and prepare for the continuation of the war. We're calling for an end to the war and for preventing its reoccurrence. Foreign Ministry spokesperson was cited as saying by Iran's state news agency. So they're saying, absolutely not. Why would we give you a temporary cease fire when we know your interceptors are running low? We know we have at least the capacity to shoot down some of your fighter jets over our airspace. We know we're gonna talk about the strikes within Israel. We know we're still able to exact damage and we know that you all are running out of material on a variety of fronts. I'm sure you would love to pause and regroup and be able to come back stronger, but we need to make sure that when this thing ends, we are not just going to go back to another war down the road like what happened with the 12 days war.
- [15:52]
Krystal Ball
This is the sadness is that now actually would be a great to have a ceasefire, but it would require not just cooler heads, but tremendous acts of courage from the Iranians and from the United States and from the United States to be able to restrain Israel. Because right now is right before any sort of real precipice, right? It's before we're going to invade with ground troops or further escalate and destroy all these power plants. If you're the Iranians, you finally have the west paying attention. You have them totally, you know, held up in the straits of Hormuz. You've created this new power dynamic. You never really will have a better hand to play. Your population is not further immiserated. The only problem though is that Israel is hovering above this whole thing where they don't want a ceasefire because they need to further destroy the Iranians regime. They wanna collapse it, turn it into a rump state, just like what's happening with Syria. And so for the world, for the United States and for Iran, it actually, everything would be good going to a ceasefire. But Israel is like this rogue actor that's on top of it. But of course has prime position. And then of course Israel and the US's relationship has created it so that the US can never really have any credibility in its diplomatic negotiations with the Iranians. All logic points to total war and has been pointing that way now for quite some time, which is again, it's a real tragedy I think for everybody.
- [17:09]
Jay Shetty
Hey, I'm Jay Shetty, host of the On Purpose podcast. My latest episode is with Noah Khan, the singer songwriter behind the multi platinum global hit Stick season and one of the biggest voices in music today. Noah opens up about the pressure that followed his rapid success, his struggles with mental health and body image, and the fear of starting again after such a defining moment in his career.
- [17:31]
Noah Kahn
It's easy to look at somebody and be like, your life must be so sick, man. You have no clue. Talking about the mental illness stuff, it used to be this thing that I was ashamed of. I'm just now trying to unwind this idea that I have to be unhealthy physically or in pain, in some emotions, emotional way in my life to create good music. If someone says that I did a good job, I'm like, yeah, I'm good. Someone says that I suck, I'm like, I suck. Getting to talk about this is not common for me right now. I need it more than ever.
- [18:02]
Jay Shetty
Listen to On Purpose with Jay Shetty on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [18:09]
Podcast Narrator (Secret World of Roald Dahl)
You know the famous author Roald Dahl? He thought up Willy Wonka and the bfg, but did you know he was a spy? Neither did I. You can hear all about his wildlife story in the podcast the Secret World of Roald Dahl. All episodes are out now.
- [18:24]
Lori Siegel
Was this before he wrote his stories? It must have been what? Okay, I don't think that's true.
- [18:29]
Jay Shetty
I'm telling you, the guy was a spy.
- [18:31]
Podcast Narrator (Secret World of Roald Dahl)
Binge all 10 episodes of the Secret World of Roald Dahl now on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [18:39]
Iris Palmer
I'm Iris Palmer and my new podcast is called Against All Odds. And that's exactly what the show is about. Doing whatever it takes to beat the odds. Get ready to hear from some of your favorite entrepreneurs and entertainers as they share stories about defying expectations, overcoming barriers, and breaking generational patterns. I'm talking to people like award winning actress, producer and director Eva Longoria.
- [19:01]
Guest on Against All Odds
I think I had like $200 in my savings account and my mom goes,
- [19:06]
Lori Siegel
what are you gonna do?
- [19:06]
Guest on Against All Odds
And I was like, I'll figure it out. We had a one bedroom apartment for like $400 a month. All could not afford. Like, I was like, how am I going to make $100 a month?
- [19:15]
Iris Palmer
I'm opening up like I've never before. For those of you who think you know me from what you've seen on social media, get ready to see a whole new side of me. Listen to Against All Odds with Iris Palmer as part of the My Cultura podcast network, available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcast.
- [19:34]
Krystal Ball
Let's put a six up here. Just showing Donald Trump's, you know, continuing reiteration. This is a Wall Street Journal interview that he gave yesterday. Threaten to destroy all of Iran's power plants if the country's leaders don't agree to reopen the strait. If they don't come through, if they want to keep it closed, they're going to lose every power plant and every other plant they have in the whole country. So what this means is that he's not just threatening civilian infrastructure, but every other plant could even be a reference to some of the petrochemical facilities, which is what makes things a bit complicated. He wants to take the oil, but maybe he wants to destroy the oil. Really, what he wants to do is collapse the country into a place of absolute chaos. But what we have watched over this course is that every single time the US has escalated, the Iranian regime actually is getting stronger. So what they're doing is that they're. And I'm talking about internally, inside of the country, they're arresting, they've shot protesters already. A couple of people were executed. They've made it so that if anybody who is aiding and banning the enemy is gonna get the death penalty. I mean, can you think then about a situation where the government will have maximum control? If you have no power and you're totally reliant on authorities to deliver the basics of food, water, and shelter, that's actually gonna create a better position for them to be able to have total totalitarian rule inside. So that's not what's really going to happen. The arms, remember, they've got 100,000 people or so. They've been preparing for this for a long time. That would also make it obvious that this is a total war. They're like, okay, we're in this to the death, obviously, waiting for a ground invasion. And Trump is not ruling that out. A seven if we can. He again spoke on the phone with the Hill's Julia Manchester, said he is not ruling out ground troops if. Even if they do not make a deal. He also said no infrastructure targets are off the table. I think when you combine a couple of things, the raid, which we'll talk about in a little bit, to go into rescue one of the downed U.S. airmen. This has, you know, without giving away too much about what that was, I still really, truly believe that, like with Venezuela, we will learn exactly the wrong lesson. So we had this amazing CIA Delta Force operation to go into, you know, to save this downed US Airmen. That's incredible. But that's not. That's proof of a couple different things. You look at it one way, wow, we were able to establish this air base. Well, on the other hand, you know, this F15 is not even supposed to be shot down, period. Cause we're supposed to have air dominance or air superiority over the country. So how did that happen, by the way? I spoke with a few military sources. From what I understand, the Iranians have been watching, waiting and learning. So they have been. Been watching all of these air sorties all across the country, they've been coordinating with China and with Russia. They're not using any new technology. It's all 1980s stuff. But they're just sitting there and watching that F35, watching that F15, watching the A10. They have some drones and some other things, and they're using the coordinate information to try and make it so it's a little bit easier to go into pinprick. Remember that the Houthis also were able to clip an F35 in that pro. Well, these are. Those guys are not even in the Republic of Iran. These are just some dudes with missiles, like, hiding out in caves. They're smart. They study and they watch and they learn. And so what they've been able to do is to down these incredible air platforms. You're like, okay, well, that's a huge problem. Second in the raid, you had these two C130s that had to get blown up. That's $200 million in aircraft, bunch of helicopters, like four different helicopters that were there. So hundreds of millions of dollars in air assets. Then even when they were able to extract, there's report of, like, some sort of a gunfight that happened in the country. The official story is the C130 wheel got stuck in the sand.
- [23:16]
Lori Siegel
Two C130 wheels got stuck in this. Both of them maybe am very. As you know, I am very skeptical of this official story. We can talk to Brandon about this. But to your point. Well, and here's kind of like why the logic of this war just becomes inevitably up the escalation chain. Because let's say the official story is correct and they executed this incredible, brave mission and they got out the airmen and our special forces, so amazing. Blah, blah, blah. Well, that emboldens Trump. Then he feels, my God, we're so such badasses. Like, let's go for it, right? Let's say that it was kind of low key, a catastrophic disaster, and you ended up with having to destroy $400 million worth of equipment on the ground. Barely got your asses out without potentially hundreds of lives lost of US Service members. Kind of a catastrophe. You weren't able to actually to accomplish the goals that, you know, beyond this rescue, which there were possibly other goals beyond the rescue of this one airman. So that means then now you're frustrated, you're humiliated. What does that mean? You have to escalate. You have to do something else. So you could see these true socials, either as he feels emboldened and his confidence, just like coming out of Venezuela, he thinks that he loves seeing the American military be such badass as. And so that makes him want to go further. Or you could see it as frustration and lashing out, which also makes him want to go further. So either direction leads to effectively the
- [24:44]
Krystal Ball
same results and everything turns on the knife's edge. Right? So even in this operation, look, I mean, who cares ultimately about aircraft getting blown up? We saved a guy. That's great. However, let's look back to Venezuela. If this warrant officer, the guy who got the medal at the State of the Union, if he had not just like been an absolute unit and he'd been just like one other person, everybody on that helicopter is dead. Like, that's literally a completely other story. So, like, you don't want to keep putting yourself where things turn on the knife's ad. No, right now it's turned out it's working somewhat favorably for the United States. We're able to execute this. But look, I mean, we still lost F15, we lost two A10s, we lost all these helicopters. We've gotten all these MQ9 Reaper drones which are getting shot down. We're losing billions of dollars worth of aircraft already as a result of the war.
- [25:30]
Lori Siegel
Remember that rural villagers in Iran who were firing on our helicopters and doing whatever they can to make things life
- [25:38]
Krystal Ball
tough as well, showing also that, oh, oops, we're not being greeted exactly as liberators, are we? Right. And so now imagine a ground invasion. I mean, but the worst case, my greatest fear was he was taking pow because now it's Vietnam all over again. Remember all those POW MIA flags back from the 1970s and 1980s? Now we're gonna go and save our boys. We're gonna have some crazy ass Delta Force missions to try to go and do something. Eagle, some sort of a nightmare. I mean, who knows, you know, how stuff like that would work. I think we're gonna have to go kidnap somebody, try and make some sort of a hostage exchange or something. It would be real madness. Let's put a 8 also, just to show everybody. This, remember, is the alleged negotiator with the United States. This is Golubov, the Speaker of the Iranian Parliament. He's responding to Trump's true social. Your reckless moves are dragging the United States into a living hell for every single family. Our whole region is going to burn because you insist on following Netanyahu's commitment. Make no mistake, you won't gain anything through war crimes. The only real solution is respecting the rights of the Iranian people and ending this dangerous game. So remember, they've rejected the temporary ceasefire. This is their defiant response to the power plant blowup. And they also know that Trump is really trapped in this market problem of his where he both doesn't wanna appear weak. He's moved the deadline how many times now? This is the fourth deadline move. I think that's the fourth deadline now to the Tuesday, 8pm Eastern time for what that's gonna look like. They know that this would unambiguously send oil prices soaring because Iran will almost certainly respond by blowing up multiple other energy infrastructure across the Gulf. So then what's going to happen as a result of that? They'll probably, probably further take control of the Straits of Hormuz and it will get much, much worse. So all around, like, we're in a bad position. This is, I've said it now for weeks, I do not see a possible way out from here. Like, you have to basically lay on your sword, which he's not gonna do, especially after the special operations rate he's running high. He's doing a press conference today around 1pm at the White House. I wouldn't be surprised if the airman was there and we'd have flown overnight to appear like a big celebration from the US So that's the mindset of everybody who's in Washington right now.
- [27:55]
Lori Siegel
Yeah, I mean, could be. And then the media strategy has also been interesting. Like they didn't send really anyone out on the Sunday shows yesterday to talk. I don't think, I don't think anybody. Right. Not a soul. Not even like a besant to talk about the markets or whatever. Nobody. And instead you have Trump calling these various reporters and saying various insane and contradictory things. Trey Youngst over at Fox News has been one of the recipient of some of these phone calls. We'll talk about some of his reporting. It's not reporting. It's just Trump telling him later, yeah, we sent arms to the protesters via the Kurds. Yeah, we totally did that. But in any case, let's take a listen to this quick soundbite of Trey telling everybody that one of the things Trump said is we're gonna go in and take the oil. Let's take a listen to that.
- [28:37]
Krystal Ball
The President tells me, if they don't make a deal and fast, I'm considering blowing everything up and taking over the oil. The President went on to say, you're going to see bridges and power plants dropping all over their country.
- [28:50]
Lori Siegel
Blowing everything up and taking the oil. Okay, you know, good Luck with that. I mean, we just continue to get new objectives, new goals every single day. And you know, no straight answer about this war. What this war is even about. Is it about the Strait of Hormuz, which is only closed because of the war? Is it about taking the oil? Is it about the nuclear program? Is it about the ballistic missiles? Every day there's new shifting explanations. So this is just the latest of, oh, we'll just blow everything up and take the oil. Yeah, okay, good luck with that.
- [29:18]
Krystal Ball
And to the point about like the logic of the war, it starts to become, this is very First World War esque. The logic of continuing the war is to try and defend the territory which we took in the opening days of the war. They're like, well, we can't give that up. We've lost too much for this scrap of land. So now we have to lose 10 times more to make sure that we don't lose this scrap of land. And then vice versa, right? Oh, well, now we have to defend this one scrap. It's like it didn't even matter matter. It's not even all that important except millions die as a result of that.
- [29:51]
Lori Siegel
You can imagine we take Carg island and then it's like, oh, we have to defend Car Island.
- [29:55]
Krystal Ball
We have to do. We've wasted too much. We've come too far to go back too much.
- [30:02]
Lori Siegel
You already said that equipment lost all
- [30:04]
Krystal Ball
that, remember, from the address. You know, he even said like, we have to avenge their deaths as 13Americans. You know, that's another thing where for all of the talk about how great things have gone, I feel like it's very minimized for all 13Americans who have died as a result of the conflict. And those refueling tankers which got that was a big deal. And nobody talks about that. Right. But for some reason we underanalyze the disasters and we over celebrate a lot of the victories. When you really balance it out together, we're not anywhere closer to the strategic aim of the war. And many of the claims by the White House, by the Pentagon have proven to be absolute nonsense. There's no air superiority, total air superiority over Iran. They obviously still have a huge amount of their ballistic missile capacity. It's certainly not 95% destroyed. The regime remains stronger than ever and the Straits of Hormuz is under de facto Iranian control. So it has been a failure, I would say, on all four of the major like strategic goals that were laid out in the beginning of the war.
- [31:04]
Lori Siegel
All right, let's go ahead and talk a little bit about what's going on with Israel Real.
- [31:08]
Jay Shetty
Hey, I'm Jay Shetty, host of the On Purpose podcast. My latest episode is with Noah Khan, the singer songwriter behind the multi platinum global hit stick season and one of the biggest voices in music today. Noah opens up about the pressure that followed his rapid success, his struggles with mental health and body image, and the fear of starting again after such a defining moment in his career.
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Noah Kahn
It's easy to look at somebody and be like, your life must be so sick, man. You have no, no clue. Talking about the mental illness stuff. It used to be this thing that I was ashamed of. I'm just now trying to unwind this idea that I have to be unhealthy physically or in pain in some emotional way in my life to create good music. If someone says that I did a good job, I'm like, yeah, I'm good. Someone says that I suck, I'm like, I suck. Getting to talk about this is not common for me right now. I need it more than ever.
- [32:02]
Jay Shetty
Listen to On Purpose with Jay Shetty on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [32:09]
Podcast Narrator (Secret World of Roald Dahl)
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- [32:24]
Lori Siegel
Was this before he wrote his stories? It must have been. What? Okay, I don't think that's true.
- [32:29]
Jay Shetty
I'm telling you, the guy was a spy.
- [32:31]
Podcast Narrator (Secret World of Roald Dahl)
Binge all 10 episodes of the Secret World of Roald Dahl now on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [32:38]
Iris Palmer
I'm Iris Palmer and my new podcast is called Against All Odds. And that's exactly what the show is about. Doing whatever it takes to beat the odds. Get ready to hear from some of your favorite entrepreneurs and entertainers as they share stories about defying expectations, overcoming barriers, and breaking generational paths, patterns. I'm talking to people like award winning actress, producer and director Eva Longoria.
- [33:00]
Guest on Against All Odds
I think I had like $200 in my savings account and my mom goes,
- [33:05]
Lori Siegel
what are you gonna do?
- [33:06]
Guest on Against All Odds
And I was like, I'll figure it out. We had a one bedroom apartment for like $400 a month and we all could not afford. Like, I was like, how am I gonna make $100 a month?
- [33:14]
Iris Palmer
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- [33:35]
Lori Siegel
All right, so there was some significant damage within Israel due to an Iranian strike and an apparent interceptor fail. Let's go and put this up on the screen. So this is from Haaretz. We now have some news that of, of deaths here. So rescue teams recover the bodies of four victims who were killed in an Iranian missile strike. This original headline said that four were feared trapped. Now we know that rescue teams have in fact recovered those bodies. They carried out careful operations at a six story residential building struck by an Iranian missile on Sunday night. The four were trapped on the building's bottom floor as the top three floors collapsed. And obviously what's significant here, Haifa's been hit a number of times, actually seems to be a real focus of Iranian efforts. And in addition, obviously the fact that you had an interceptor fail here and you have the IR Iranians able to still exact this kind of damage and actually kill Israelis within the state of Israel is quite extraordinary and just shows you obviously they aren't backing down and they feel very much like they have the upper hand in a lot of ways.
- [34:39]
Krystal Ball
Well, it's what we just talked about is that when you open the door, you know, to destruction of infrastructure and civilian death, well then when Iran is able to do it on a much more limited scale, nobody's going to cry for you. Right. Like the Israelis are like, oh, well, they are targeting civilians. And you're like, well, you know, it's one of those where they're kind of just doing what a lot of you guys have been doing, which I think neither party should do it. I think it's bad. But you can obviously see the degradation of Iranian or the degradation of Israeli air defense systems, of their missile interceptors. Their arrow 2 and threes are running rapidly low. Remember that analysis I brought everybody? If they track of the first 16 days of war had continued, they would have run out as of a couple of days ago. And so they have to severely ration. The reason why Iran continues to strike Haifa is because of those oil refinery facilities. And actually you can see it very obviously in the response of the Israelis. So can we put a 12 up there on the screen? In retaliation for this strike, Israel just this morning attacked the largest petrochemical facility in Iran. According to the Defense Minister Katz, two facilities were responsible, responsible for 85% of Iran's petrochemical exports that have now been put out of operation. So obviously this is in retaliation for multiple of these strikes which have pummeled Haifa and the oil refineries over there. Israel is responding. The problem though is that it's not like Iran just responds to Israel and continues to hit their refineries. When their infrastructure goes out, then they respond to the US Israeli coalition of the UAE coalition, Qatar, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, already a 11 if we can. Up there on the screen you can see the statement from the Ministry of Electricity and Water, renewable energy of Kuwait. Assault on two power generation stations and water desalination plants in Kuwait. Remember, Iran is way less reliant on desalination plants than the Gulf countries who only have like two weeks supply or something like that of water. It would be an absolute mission critical disaster for them if this didn't end up happening. And we are setting the stage because we're still what, 36 hours away from Trump's deadline. And if that does actually happen, the power plant strikes, we will see exactly this time of attack times 10, God only knows what the Straits of Hormuz and or ground operations. So there's total war in the region.
- [37:07]
Lori Siegel
Yeah, and we also haven't even. The Houthis have sent some sort almost like warning strikes, but they have not operated to close the Bab El Manda Strait, which would further paralyze the oil markets. Now, I will say you were alluding to the fact there has been some reporting from the Strait of Hormuz that more is getting through than is readily available. But there's still no doubt the millions of barrels of oil a day that were getting on the market are no longer getting on the market. And also significant in terms of how this missile was able to evade Israeli interceptors that were fired at it. So apparently, number one, the warhead on the ground, this is a separate thought, but the warhead actually didn't detonate. So it would have been far more catastrophic for the Israelis if it had it collapsed one building. But you would have had obviously a larger blast zone. But apparently it was able to sort of evade these interceptors and also to split into multiple pieces. And so this is a demonstration of higher level Iranian technology as well as, which is part of why they've been able to continue to do the damage that they have. We know that according to our own intel, that something like only a third of their missile stockpile has been destroyed, another third of may have been damaged or buried, but they've been able to access re access that sometimes within the same day. So they still have significant capabilities, they have still significant steps up the escalation chain that they could take. Like within Israel the public is overwhelmingly in favor of the war, although the support for it has slipped some as people are getting a little tired of living in bomb shelters all the time. And then with the Gulf states, the logic for them is basically like look, we're in this thing now. If you leave Iran with this regime in place, we are totally screwed. This is not a situation that we can live in.
- [38:59]
Krystal Ball
It is untenable.
- [39:00]
Lori Siegel
So you have UAE in particular saying like listen, we'll go all in with you. We will be active combatants. They're the ones going to the UN to try to get this resolution passed of like use any means necessary to reopen open the Strait of Hormuz. So this hardening of logic is occurring on both sides.
- [39:15]
Krystal Ball
Truly that's the problem. Also literally while we're recording this is from Trey Yangst and multiple other reporters. Heavy incoming fire towards Tel Aviv. They are reporting. Jim Sciuto is there for cnn. He is saying similarly on the ground in Tel Aviv, quote, there are an unusual number of explosions during this air raid. Multiple interceptions or attempted interceptions possibly indicating multiple incoming missiles. Three air raid warnings all in a row. So some very heavy missile incoming fire over Tel Aviv, the major city in Israel, demonstrating again of their missile capacity. And remember they are rationing. They've been basically firing a number of missiles but more in recent days than they did in the two to three weeks. They exhausted many of those interceptors and that's why a lot of their stuff is now able to get through. They're saving the suicide attack drive drones and missiles for very precise targets in the Gulf and we expect that to continue. And there will be some cope and potential propaganda from the US government around. How about if we take out the power plants that this will reduce? Iranian ballistic missiles. I was reading how exactly they're able to fire these missiles. It is first World war esque. They have field telephones which the type of things where you can crank like this with buried underneath telephone wire between commanders who will pick up the phone and be like fire at this target in retaliation. And they have literal messengers like if you ever watch the movie 1917 that's what it remember they cut the telegraph wire and the guy has to go and deliver a message. That's literally what's happening. So this is I mean it's effectively bomb proof like if they figured it out over 100 years ago on the Western front. That's basically being recreated just to show you all warfare eventually reverts down to the mean of messengers, field telephones, buried wires. And if you wanna communicate, you will eventually figure it out. In terms of the answer for, wait, why are we not able to disrupt it? It's because they're like, okay, our phones are bugged. Can't use WhatsApp. That's what they're doing. Even if you wipe out the power plants, it's not like you're gonna. You're not gonna cut every wire. That was, you know, very often some of the, those were literally some of the goals, often of some of the artillery and mortar missions from the First World War. And then even when they were, you just use bodies and messengers. So that's the reality of war, and it will just continue. It's really bad. All right, we've got Brandon Weickert standing by. Let's get to it. Very excited now to be joined by our friend Brandon Weickert. He's the Senior Editor at 1945.com. Great friend of the show. Good to see you, man. Thanks for joining us.
- [41:46]
Brandon Weickert
Thanks for having me, as always.
- [41:48]
Krystal Ball
So, Brandon, we want to go through the story of this raid inside, deep inside of Iran to rescue a weapon systems officer who is part of. Of an F15 crew which was shot down over Iran. Of course, there's now an official story from the Pentagon. We want to get some of your reaction to all of that and potentially some other theories. Let's go and start with Donald Trump's announcement. We'll put it up here on the screen. He says, we got him. My fellow Americans, over the past several hours, United States military pulled off one of the most daring search and rescue operations in U.S. history. He talks specifically about how all of the, you know, it's a miraculous operation, et cetera. The official story of the operation was recounted here by Jack Murphy. He is the journalist, actually, who broke the initial news that this weapon system officer had been recovered. Let's take a listen to what he said. We're gonna get your reaction.
- [42:40]
Jack Murphy
But the broad pieces of it, as you know, There was a F15 pilot on the ground. He was escaping and abating for about 24 hours inside Iran. And from what we can tell about the, the, the effort to get him back, they did a lot of airstrikes to keep the Iranians off of his back. The Iranians have flooded a lot of assets into the area. We're actively searching for him. And meanwhile, we have to get, you know, a ground team, helicopters in to actually extract the guy. And as we now know, they set up what's called a FAR or a forward air refueling point. So for like people who aren't familiar when you have to fly helicopter but also airplanes, sometimes especially long distances, you have to set up some sort of like a fuel depot. You know, I did this many moons ago for little birds in Iraq. You know, just driving out somewhere and taking a fuel blip out, leaving it in a field. For a little bird pilot, sometimes this is a little bit more elaborate. There are a C130 aircraft flown in that was refueling some of these helicopters. And this kind of plays into, you know, how the pilot was actually pulled out of there. So they occupied this improvised landing strip, set up the far, and the pilot was eventually pulled out by little bird. So they went in and extracted him. But then on the way out, the C130 got, as I understand, a wheel stuck in the sand. It like sunk into the dirt and the crew was trying to dig it out. And that resulted in some delays. It took them a while to get at off of that farp. And the Delta Force element that was standing by as a quick reaction force was actually called in and they came in and helped blow up the aircraft. I mean, I know C1, one C130 was blown. Some media reports are saying two C130s. I also believe at least one helicopter was blown up. I guess they just determined that they could not recover them and get them home for whatever reason. And after that happened, you know, whichever new aircraft, probably helicopters that they flew in the QRF on, they got everybody on those and flew them back home. And they were back over the Persian Gulf probably around 11:30 Eastern Standard Time last night. And that was pretty much the end of the operation as far as that's concerned. But I mean, the airstrikes are still ongoing.
- [45:00]
Krystal Ball
So that's the official story. Brandon, first zoom out, tell us a little bit about what happened here. What does it say strategically about some of the problems already with the United States? Then of course, the bravery of the people who also pulled this off.
- [45:15]
Brandon Weickert
Yeah, well, I'll start with that last part first. I mean, I know that there's narrative the administration's putting out, and I know there's now a counter narrative, possibly on social media. I'll just say in either event, I think the professionalism of the US Military was on full display. And you know, these people that we have as an all volunteer force are extremely competent and they, they can execute missions under a lot of pressure and Even under some of the most strenuous circumstances. And so with that being said, I think we have to look at the larger picture here and say this was our first taste of real ground combat in Iran and we probably got the Wizzo and the pilot. As the administration has said, we've gotten them back home. But look at what it cost us in the process. My colleague Larry Johnson, who's a former CIA analyst, has said that's about $400 million worth of taxpayer equipment that was, you know, destroyed in the process of this operation that is not sustainable. Especially if you look at some of the logistical problems we're having already. Not only are we cannibalizing into PAYCOM stockpiles for interceptors and some of these JASSM ers, which are very long range, extended range range, long range strike missiles, but also we're already pulling KC135 refuelers out from the boneyard, which usually indicates that we really are strapped here for stuff. So the idea that we kind of had to blow up some of our own equipment there is, which is the story coming out of the administration is very disturbing because we can anticipate if there is a larger ground operation planned, as people have been saying, it's going to be even costlier than what we went through. This is a snapshot. And as for the operation itself, it does seem, it does seem like there was a lot of resources thrown into recovering two individuals. Now, I know we don't leave our people behind and we try to, even if they're dead, we try to organize missions to bring their bodies home. That is something that's gone on. The Ranger ethos goes back to the French Indian War.
- [47:22]
Lori Siegel
War.
- [47:22]
Brandon Weickert
So we don't leave men behind. I understand that, but the people online who are questioning the official narrative I think are not wrong to, because not only has this administration been very misleading in its official statements about everything in the war, but also it's a lot of resources and a lot of money thrown into one mission set.
- [47:42]
Lori Siegel
Yeah, so basically I read the Reuters inside story of what happened. I read the Wall Street Journal inside story of what happened. And so the narrative is effectively this. One F15 was downed. The pilot was rescued really quickly. The other guy was. It was very difficult to find him. He's able to. He's wounded, but he's able to sort of clamber up the side of this mountain, send off a distress signal. They're able to pinpoint where he is. The CIA also ran some sort of misinformation op to sort of throw the Iranians off of the case. They bring in something like 100 special operators on these C130s, the C130s. Immediately, both of them get stuck in the dirt. Now, I saw the pictures. We just saw some of the pictures. I don't know anything. It looks like the ground's pretty hard there, but who knows? These are very large aircraft, very heavy, et cetera. They bring in these little bird helicopters on the C130 transport planes. Those are then used to go and grab this guy, bring him back. But since the C130s can't get off the ground, they have to destroy the C130s plus, some reports say two. Some reports say four of the little birds bring in other aircraft. Then rescue. Now this. Roughly 100 men and potentially women who are now stuck behind enemy lines. Get them all out, et cetera. At the same time, you've got Reaper drones and others who are firing in the surrounding area to keep the Iranians or anyone else away from the area where this rescue is happening. So what are. As you listen to that narrative, I agree with you. It's not, you know, it seems to me in line with the ethos of the US Military that it would not be crazy to expend that amount of resources, but is it actually necessary to expend that amount of resources? Is this the way that a rescue op would normally go? Is this the normal amount of like, I don't know what the proper languages, but is this the sort of. That you would bring to. Would you normally bring in 100 men to accomplish this sort of thing? What would be the reason for that?
- [49:38]
Brandon Weickert
The only thing comparable to this level was actually the failed Carter administration operation Eagle Claw, which actually was very similar to what occurred in Iran this last weekend, where Carter had a bunch of transport planes meet Navy elements in the middle of the Iranian desert and they set up kind of a refueling, temporary refueling station. And the whole thing went pear shaped from. From that moment onward, which. Which it was very similar to here. And of course, in that case, though, you had a lot of American hostages at the embassy. So they needed to have an even larger military force that was able to kind of go in and get, theoretically get them out. So for two guys, it just seems like a lot of. A lot of resources were expended. Now, the argument, I think, would be that the Iranian territory is very well defended and this was very deep inside their territory. So they needed to have enough stuff to punch a hole, land, refuel, and then go out and, you know, execute their mission and under a lot of. A lot of hostile fire, which we saw those videos coming out of Iran. It looked like something from, you know, like a battlefield video game where it was just incoming everywhere and very confusing modern combat situation, situation. So I think probably this is not the norm in terms of the amount of resources expended, but this is a pretty extraordinary instance. And if, you know, whether it was just a rescue operation or a rescue operation plus something else, the fact of the matter is this is a preview of what to expect if the President really does pull the trigger on putting a larger force on Carg island or Kashm island or some other part of Iran. It's going to be a very messy situation.
- [51:26]
Krystal Ball
And I think that's what we're trying to underscore here. You know, nobody is saying, nobody is trying to underplay, even if the official story is correct about how great it is to get a pilot back. But, you know, it doesn't make you a ninny to say, look, that's really great that that happened. But let's zoom out a little bit. We weren't even supposed to have aircraft being shot down, period. That's right. I mean, we had two A10s go down. Can we go ahead and put, what is it, B5 up there on the screen? You have two A10s that go down in the span of 24 hours. Apparently as part of this operation. You have F15. I mean, that alone is a couple hundred million in aircraft. Two combat rescue helicopters, an F16, has to declare emergency, land safely. A Strato tanker declares emergency over Israel, has to land. And Iran also claimed that it had fired another US Jet. Now, the last one has not been confirmed. All the rest of them, it's very clear, especially when you combine some of the tanker incidents that brought down those four Americans who died a few weeks ago over Iraq. It is very obvious many of our airmen are in much more harm over Iran than they ever were in the global war on terror, which is a shock Iraq to the system and would be only 10 times more if there was any sort of ground invasion. So I just really would love your perspective on that.
- [52:47]
Brandon Weickert
Yeah, no, the administration keeps saying that we have total air control and this, this experience clearly indicates that that is not the case. The air defense network of Iran may be degraded. I fully admit it is likely degraded because of our attacks over the last, what, month now. But ultimately it is not destroyed. And I think that any American who has family in the military should be aware that this mission set is not exactly as the Pentagon is claiming it is. Not this walk in the park. It's not the spike, the football moment. This is a very dangerous and high tempo operation. It's straining our people, it's strained in the military, it's straining the already strained equipment, and it's draining our already finite supplies of critical weapons and material at a time when the whole world seems to be stretching the American military juggernaut. So this is not the rosy scenario that's being depicted in American corporate press. And I think this is very dangerous because I think this also misleads the President. Actually, I think the President starts thinking, oh well, if this is a cakewalk, I've got total control. I can then do the next step, which is to put more troops on the ground and we'll wrap this up in a few weeks. And that is not to going to be the case.
- [54:03]
Lori Siegel
All right, so let's talk about the alternate theory. No one is saying this is proven, but we certainly can't take this administration's word for literally anything. We also can't take the Iranian regime's word for literally anything. So it's left to all of us to look at the evidence and ask us if we think that it makes sense and comports with reality. So here is one example of the way this theory is being put together. Let's go ahead and put this up on the screen. So this is from a visiting assistant professor at a flag Fletcher school. And he says that he believes this was not just about rescuing this one airman, but that this was actually unrelated to the pilot rescue mission and the attempt here was to go in and try to grab the nuclear material. So I'll read what what he lays out. He says emerging evidence suggests that US operations south of Isfahan marked in red on the map were unrelated to any pilot rescue mission. The downed American pilot was reportedly located in southwest west Iran near these different provinces that news names I definitely will screw up if I try to pronounce marked in blue on the map, not central Iran. Instead, this appears to have been a failed heliborn insertion aimed at locating uranium within Iran. The recent dismissal of seasoned US Generals may not be coincidental, may reflect internal resistance to such high risk operations. Given Iran's increasingly effective air defense and the apparent failure of this mission, the viability of future Heliber incursions deep into Iranian territory is now in serious doubt and may need to be abandoned. So the idea here is effectively that I think it's not in doubt. An F15 went down and there were two individuals on board who had to be rescued, when they were rescued, how they were rescued, whether this was a rescue plus or whether the guy was already rescued. And then they just used that as a cover to try this thing so that they could declare mission accomplished, even if it went sideways. I think that is all. All of this is, you know, is pure speculation at this point, but basically what people are looking at is the fact that you had so many resources devoted to this, that it was really close to Isfahan, which is reportedly where most of the enriched uranium is, that there seems to have been an attempt to set up effectively sort of like a temporary base in this agricultural airstrip, that this attempt apparently failed and that you had to blow up all of this equipment and then have others come in and to the rescue, that this is indicative potentially not of at least just a pilot rescue, but it may have been another mission that ultimately failed.
- [56:31]
Brandon Weickert
Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, I wrote for the Daily Caller last week an opinion piece analyzing why I thought if we did do a ground incursion, it would be the Tom Clancy uranium hunt. Because that seems to be what President Trump has been fixated on, is the prospect of Iranian nuclear weapons breakout. He's been talking about this for years. To be fair to him, this is not something new. He's been talking about it since the 2016 campaign when he was opposed to the JCPOA that Obama negotiated. So that would have been the most consistent. And if you were doing the ghost recon uranium hunt in the middle of the desert, the kind of equipment that was brought in and the kind of planes that were brought in, and the kind of, you know, outlay of resources, that's all consistent with a uranium hunt. You know, they needed to set up an airstrip. They did. They needed to be able to have, you know, hold the territory long enough for heavier equipment to ultimately be brought in. That didn't happen, but it very well may have been the, the next step if this was just more than a rescue operation. And the fact that it's in Isfahan, you know, or just near Isfahan, that, that's the real. That's the real thing that has a lot of very learned people. This isn't just Internet conspiracy theorists. This is, you know, very learned people who are experts in foreign policy and national security who are suggesting that, hey, there's more to this story, because the kind of resources that were brought to bear are not consistent with two people being rescued. Furthermore, the F15 that was used in question is a two seater Strike Eagle that is a very specific aircraft that is used for certain kind of at times suppression of enemy air defense seed missions. That indicates to me also that there was some kind of escalation in the offing when that airplane was deployed in the first place to go out and, and I believe it was deployed near Kharg Island. So ultimately there's, there's some, there's some very odd things going on here that do not align with the official narrative.
- [58:30]
Krystal Ball
And I think, look, it genuinely could be both the guys nearby. Hey, also we need to be able to test put a landing strip down. Let's put all these people. If this works well, then we could build off of this.
- [58:40]
Brandon Weickert
We have a foreign operating base.
- [58:42]
Krystal Ball
Right, so that's my last question for you. Are you more. So some people saw, oh, maybe Trump will take this as an off ramp, knowing his psychology, especially with Venezuela, they're going to sell this to him as a stunning success. This only makes ground troops more likely to me. Curious for your view.
- [58:57]
Brandon Weickert
Oh, I think there's, I think we're going in somewhere into Iran. I think now, if anything, you saw that, that very troubling Easter message from the President. And you know, I was at my church yesterday and, and we are, they're all very pro Trump, but even they were like, why did he say such a thing on Easter of all days? It's, you know. Well, I think it's because he was reacting likely to what was really a disastrous. I mean they, they pulled it off in terms of getting the pilots back, which again, that's, that's excellent and good job job. But ultimately, $400 million worth of equipment lost and you know, the Iranians now have this big propaganda victory, et cetera. I think that Trump now is gonna wanna double down because he's gonna wanna basically reassert his control over the situation, which means ground troops are next somewhere. And that, you know, this is a snapshot of how badly things could go and they will go badly. And then after that, of course, the next escalation is nuclear weapons. And as you know, think I, I'm still very fearful that that is ultimately where this is headed in some fashion.
- [59:59]
Lori Siegel
Absolutely. So you mean to tell me open the fucking straight, Praise be to Allah was not the Easter message that churchgoers were expecting from our president. How strange.
- [60:08]
Brandon Weickert
No, no, no, it was, it was very jarring.
- [60:13]
Krystal Ball
I'd actually love to hear the cope on that one, but that's a segment for another time. Thank you, Brandon. For us, we always appreciate your analysis.
- [60:20]
Brandon Weickert
Yeah, have a good one.
- [60:21]
Iris Palmer
One.
- [60:38]
Lori Siegel
This is an I heart podcast. Guaranteed human.