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Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar
6/20/25: Ro Khanna Flames Schumer On Iran, WH May Use 'TACTICAL NUKES & MORE!
00:57:50
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- [00:00]
Crystal Ball
This is an iHeart podcast. Hey, guys, ready or not, 2024 is here. And we here at Breaking Points are already thinking of ways we can up our game for this critical election.
- [00:13]
Sagar Enjeti
We rely on our premium subs to expand coverage, upgrade the studio, add staff, give you guys the best independent coverage that is possible. If you like what we're all about, it just means the absolute world to have your support. But enough with that. Let's get to the show.
- [00:27]
Crystal Ball
Good morning, everybody. Happy Friday. We've got the whole team here, plus special guest Congressman Ro Khanna, fresh off a Theo Vaughan appearance. Great to see you, sir.
- [00:35]
Ro Khanna
Great to see you. Not quite a Breaking Points appearance, but, you know, it was a good one.
- [00:41]
Crystal Ball
This is. Are you.
- [00:42]
Sagar Enjeti
Yeah.
- [00:42]
Crystal Ball
What are you talking about?
- [00:43]
Sagar Enjeti
You get the full team. Very rarely does the full team assemble.
- [00:46]
Crystal Ball
He's talking about Theo Vaughan isn't quite as big as the Breaking Point's appearance, but, you know, that's very kind, you know. So we're going to talk to the congressman here for a little while, then he's going to run and catch a flight. There's a bunch of updates with regard to Iran and Israel we want to get to. We'll see how far we are able to get with that. We've also got some Zoron news we might jump on. We've got some Obama comments we might get to. We should ask a congressman about the Obama comments. And then Ryan, is Turtle Boy joining? Is that a thing that's happening? Oh, you're muted. Ryan.
- [01:19]
Ryan Grim
Yes. Producer Griffin says that Turtle Boy will be in the back end of the show. So if there's ever been a reason to become a paying subscriber, that's.
- [01:27]
Sagar Enjeti
That's it.
- [01:29]
Ryan Grim
The guy who.
- [01:32]
Ro Khanna
I was thinking, when I get off, I'm gonna Google that, sir.
- [01:37]
Emily Jashinsky
I have heard Turtle Boy.
- [01:38]
Ro Khanna
I just have never heard. I don't have no idea what it means.
- [01:41]
Ryan Grim
Make sure it's Dr. You Google Dr. Turtle Boy. Not just Turtle Boy. Yeah, he's the. He's the local Massachusetts reporter who kind of broke the Karen Reed story out into not in a national view. And he's. So he's now on taking his victory lapse after her acquittal.
- [01:56]
Crystal Ball
Gotcha. Okay, so lots to get you on the show. So first, Congressman, I wanted to start off by getting you to react to a little bit of you. I'll just play a little piece of this at the Ovon appearance. You can tell us what your, you know, what your experience was and what he sort of wanted to focus on here. I Thought. I thought this part was interesting.
- [02:10]
Ro Khanna
He started off the podcast world. Now you, like, react to yourself on podcast reacting.
- [02:15]
Crystal Ball
Exactly. Yeah. Well, and this is, you know, exclusive. Your first reaction to you being on. So in any case, he wanted to start off talking about Iran, talking about Gaza. I'm about, like, 30 minutes into the podcast thus far, but let's go ahead and pick up with this part, and then we'll get your reaction.
- [02:30]
Theo Von
It is Trump. Is Donald Trump afraid of Netanyahu? I don't, I don't understand that, you know, because Trump certainly feels like he seems. He is a guy who does not seem afraid to say what he wants to say.
- [02:41]
Ro Khanna
I don't think he.
- [02:42]
Unnamed Guest
I don't know what it is, because I want Trump to do the right thing. Like, I want him to. To start to end the war in Gaza, to actually figure out how we get peace there. And I think he could. He could. If he picks up the phone and he says, netanyahu, you're done. Netanyahu is going to stop the bombing. And then Netanyahu is going to say, okay, but we got Hamas. I can't stay here with Hamas.
- [03:05]
Ro Khanna
And he's.
- [03:05]
Unnamed Guest
And Trump could say, okay, I'm going to help you get rid of Hamas, but you can't keep bombing and killing women and children. That's not getting rid of Hamas.
- [03:12]
Theo Von
Yeah, it's freaking crazy, dude. I mean, it's just like.
- [03:15]
Unnamed Guest
And so you get Egypt, you get Jordan, you get Saudi Arabia. I call it the 23 state solution. You get all of those Arabs.
- [03:22]
Theo Von
Put Mississippi, dude, I'll tell you this. We can give Mississippi to Palestine. I've been saying that for.
- [03:27]
Crystal Ball
Give Mississippi to Palestine. Classic Theoban solves, finds Middle east peace. But, Congressman, what was, what was your experience? And were there any particular moments that we should really, like, pay attention to or that you found particularly noteworthy?
- [03:43]
Ro Khanna
I was amazed by his passion, his empathy, his outrage with what's going on in Gaza. I mean, you could just see it in his voice. It was just this utter frustration that the United States was complicit in the killing of women and children. And Theoban is always someone who takes the side of the underdog and also kind of just reflects American values of someone who hasn't thought and read every Brookings paper. He's just like, look, this, this is wrong. And I was, I was also struck by how concerned, scared, outraged it was that we were thinking of getting into another war in Iran.
- [04:26]
Sagar Enjeti
That's a very. So Congressman, that's actually one of the main things we wanted to focus on with you is the role here of the Democratic Party and of the opposition. One of the things that's really rhyming for me going back and really thinking about what happened in Iraq is I don't see a mob mobilization of the Democratic establishment. On the Iran question, you know, we've had Thomas Massie and leaders like you who have introduced, you know, the need for a declaration or an approval by Congress. I guess we can give it to the Bush administration. At least they went to the lengths with that. But here the Trump administration is taking a completely unilateral approach and we have not yet seen calls from major Democratic leaders, you know, for this. Yeah, exactly. Like as you say here, what does this mean from Senator Schumer? I'm just wondering if you can expound on that. That and the lack of leadership right now from the Democratic Party on the Iran war question.
- [05:17]
Ro Khanna
It's deeply disappointing. This is like the Iraq war moment. The Democratic Party should be in unison screaming from the rooftop, we don't want another war in the Middle East. Donald Trump won the presidency because he said that the Iraq war was a disaster. And Jeb Bush wasn't willing to say that. He won over a lot of people who previously supported Democrats because he committed that we weren't going to get into another war in the Middle East. We've had Iraq war cheerleaders in our party who ran for President, John Kerry, Hillary Clinton, John Edwards. It didn't work out so well for them. And then we had people who stood opposed to the war, like Barack Obama, who did very, very well, and Bernie Sanders. My view is that this is the moment the Democratic Party can reclaim the anti war mantle. Obviously, we should have unison of Democrats on my war powers resolution in the House. This isn't even a close call. And we should have Senator Schumer instead of saying, oh, I don't know, maybe they should strike him. Maybe Trump isn't tough enough. He should be behind Tim Kaine and saying, every Democrat needs to oppose this war.
- [06:29]
Ryan Grim
Yeah. Just from a cynical perspective, it seems like if you're a politician looking for future advantage, the play here would be, even if you're not against war, would be to speak out against war and reap those benefits going forward. At the same time, the no Kings protests had, you know, hundreds of thousands of people around the country. You have Democrats saying that he's an authoritarian, that he's a threat to democracy. They've been saying that for a very long time. It, how, how do they blend this idea that okay, yes, he's a threat to democracy, he's authoritarian, he's tyrant. But maybe, but I'm okay with this war that this tyrant is going to operate. When you talk to people privately, what, what is holding them back from just coming out with a full throated opposition to Donald Trump just launching a war against Iran.
- [07:24]
Ro Khanna
Well, your first point there, Ryan, was key, that it's not just that we should be opposed to this war, but we should be opposed to Donald Trump waking up and deciding whether to commit a stole war based on the last conversation he had. I mean, everyone should be for this coming to Congress, especially if you think that Trump has overreached his constitutional authority and consolidated power. A number of people, they have been itching, some of them candidly in the Congress to take out Iran's nuclear facilities. And this is something that there are a number of Democrats and Republicans that they want to do this and they think magically, okay, we're going to have a military strike against Bordeaux and Iran will not have a nuclear bomb and then everything will be peaceful in the Middle East. Well, first of all, we know that this story has been told before. We're going to have a successful military operation. Everything will work out. We took out Saddam Hussein. Then what happened? We got stuck for almost a decade in Iraq. We're going to get rid of Al Qaeda in Afghanistan. Everything will be fine. We got stuck for nearly 20 years in Afghanistan. The idea that we can strike for no. And that Iran isn't going to retaliate against American troops in Iraq, that they aren't going to retaliate with counterterrorism against Americans is utter naive thinking. It's going to draw us into a conflict. And for what? We don't even know if the bunker bombs can destroy the entire Fordow site. At best, it's going to push Iran back two to three years in developing nuclear weapons. And they're going to get, then rip up the npd, their involvement in the npt. They're going to push out all inspectors. And we know in the past the Obama deal had it so that Iran couldn't enrich beyond 5% at any place other than Natanz. Now they're enriching at 60% at Fordeaux. We know we've had a deal before. Even if you think the deal wasn't perfect, it was much, much, much better than the situation we have now or the situation we will have if Iran gets out of the NPT and kicks out all the inspectors. So those are just the facts. I don't know why the Democratic Party isn't bolder. It's a symptom, not just of being acquiescent to another war. It's a symptom of a lack of leadership. You know, I almost see more conviction on Lindsey Graham being like, let's go bomb him.
- [09:45]
Crystal Ball
I mean, yeah, oh, absolutely, you're right.
- [09:48]
Ro Khanna
That's the worst of all worlds.
- [09:50]
Emily Jashinsky
Well, and Congressman, can I ask to what extent you assess. I mean, we are all looking around and thinking why Democrats, even from the cynical perspective that Ryan raised, are, are you not mustering the same level of opposition that Sager pointed out you used to see during the Iraq War? Why is that not happening? And to what extent would you attribute that to the donor class of the Democratic Party? Do you think that's who's in the ear of Chuck Schumer, stopping him and other high profile Democrats from going all in with a sense of conviction, first of all on the war powers question and then on the question of the war itself?
- [10:26]
Ro Khanna
I think it's the foreign policy hawks in the Beltway that people listen to. I'm sure there.
- [10:32]
Crystal Ball
I mean, Schumer wasn't for the Obama nuclear deal, so he was one of.
- [10:38]
Ro Khanna
The cheerleaders for the war in Iraq. Like, how are these people still around with credibility and foreign policy? Why should we care at all?
- [10:44]
Crystal Ball
Should he resign?
- [10:46]
Ro Khanna
Another war in the Middle East?
- [10:47]
Sagar Enjeti
Like, why do you think he should.
- [10:49]
Crystal Ball
Resign, Congressman, at this point, it almost doesn't matter.
- [10:53]
Ro Khanna
He should be seen as totally irrelevant. Like, the average person on the street has more common sense about the Middle east than Chuck Schumer. Chuck Schumer's record on the Middle east is opposing Obama's Iran deal, is cheerleading George W. Bush to get into a war in Iraq, is now having nonsensical statements about Tim Kaine's war power resolution. Like, why does he matter on this debate? What does matter? You know, people say, oh, go on podcast, go on Theo Von and they're usually thinking about it from an electoral perspective. And of course, they're right that we should be going on these podcasts. But you know why they should go on Theo Vaughn? Because Theo Vaughn talks to truck drivers and talks to folks who are working in construction and industry and young kids or recent college graduates. And he's reflecting what most Americans are thinking about issues, agree with him or not. And he is saying overwhelmingly, people don't want another war. They're afraid that they may get called up and have to stop serve in Iran. They're concerned about the cost. They're wondering why we're not spending that money and time in the United States. And I feel like instead of listening to the people advising Chuck Schumer, maybe this party should be listening to people who are talking to Theo Vaughan. And we do much better in terms of building the coalition. And we wouldn't need these ridiculous 20 million consultant studies that are going to go to the same people that are advising Chuck Schumer.
- [12:16]
Crystal Ball
Unbelievable. I wanted to ask you about this, though. We've got Thomas Massie sponsored the war power resolution. You're one of the, you know, the lead co sponsors here. There's no other Republicans on it, though. So for all the talk of America first and the split in maga, et cetera, and there's zero Republicans on the Senate version of it. So what is the reluctance here? What's going on?
- [12:35]
Ro Khanna
You're right. I mean, at the base of maga, I would say at least a third of them don't want this war. And you have very outspoken people like Tucker Carlson, like Steve Bannon, like Marjorie Taylor Greene. What they're saying, the reason they're giving for us for not getting on this war power resolution as well. There's not a war. Well, don't you think Congress should weigh in before there's a war?
- [12:55]
Crystal Ball
I mean, also there is a war. I mean, that's just a nonsense way of thinking about it, but go ahead.
- [13:00]
Ro Khanna
Yeah, I mean, they're saying, well, we haven't struck Iran yet that the United States hasn't struck. Now, Ted Cruz admitted on that Tucker Carlson tape, that clip that we are helping Israel in the, the bombing of Iran. But the point is that there's, they're trying to avoid the issue because they don't want to get in the crosshairs of Donald Trump. I believe that the pressure is going to build on the MAGA base for some of these Republicans to break. And look, people say it doesn't matter. I do think the fact that Trump is saying now I'm going to wait two weeks is partly a recognition that the bunker bombs may not even achieve the objective. But it's also partly a recognition that a lot of the MAGA base is upset and he's hearing the anti war sentiment. And if the Democratic Party was unified in our opposition, maybe we could actually prevent this war. I mean, it would influence Donald Trump, who is so susceptible to where public opinion is. It's not just a lack of leadership for how do we win. It's an actual moral moment like you're in Congress for these big decisions and the vast majority of members of Congress have just been solid.
- [14:11]
Sagar Enjeti
Yeah, go ahead, Ryan.
- [14:12]
Ryan Grim
Just speaking of going on, Theo Vaughan, have you reached out all to Bannon or Tucker Carlson to appear on their program? Because that seems like the kind of seal that hasn't been, hasn't been broken yet. But if you listen to, you know, as you have been lately, a lot of, you know, Tucker Carlson, like, you know, 80% of the time he's making, he's making a lot of sense. Then he goes, yeah, I've been in.
- [14:36]
Ro Khanna
Touch with Tucker and on some of the clips, I'm just concerned if I go on, he's going to start asking me the population of every country.
- [14:44]
Ryan Grim
Do.
- [14:44]
Sagar Enjeti
Your job and study. I have no sympathy.
- [14:48]
Crystal Ball
I'm confident you can handle that a little better, guys.
- [14:50]
Ryan Grim
But I also think if you say, look, I don't want to invade that country, therefore I don't need to know their population.
- [14:54]
Sagar Enjeti
There you go.
- [14:57]
Ro Khanna
But you know, I do think we need to, I mean, I'd be open to going on, but more importantly, I think we need to be sharing their clips, sharing what they're saying. You know, I was on CNN and they thought they had a gotcha question saying, oh, that means you agree with Steve Bannon and Tucker Carlson and yes, it does on this issue, I agree with them. And I'm hoping that they actually can convince some of the Republicans to get.
- [15:26]
Sagar Enjeti
On one of the things. Congressman, I know you're on the Senate Armed Services Committee, so maybe you can speak a little bit to this. There has been now open questioning by Donald Trump and actually a lot in the open source environment as to whether these massive ordinan penetrators could even accomplish the goal of taking out the Fordo nuclear facility. So I'm wondering, you know, based on your own knowledge, I'm sure you've sat in briefings and others, what your assessment of this easy strike, which is being pushed by the CENTCOM Commander Korilla, and what the reality of something like that could look like?
- [15:58]
Ro Khanna
Well, based on public information, I don't know and I don't think most people know. And that's the, the real issue. I mean, first of all, maybe it's 50, 50, it'll work, but it could be too deep. Maybe we hit some of it, but don't get all of it. And the reality is the best case scenario that we hit all of it. We don't know how widespread Iran's nuclear capability is. We know that they have scientists who could rebuild it. We know they have spare centrifuges you're not going to destroy all of it. And we know that within a year to three years, they can start to rebuild their nuclear sites then why? Because they're going to then kick out the inspectors. We won't even know where they're building it. And the lesson they'll draw is the lesson that Pakistan and North Korea drew, that if you have a nuclear bomb, you're safe from American invasion. If you don't, you could be Libya, Iraq or Afghanistan or Iran. The logic of this makes no sense for us to get in, especially when we had a deal where Iran was committed to less than 5% enrichment. Even if they were cheating, let's say they were at 10%, 15%. They weren't at 60%. And so the effort needs to be to get a deal. I was one of the Democrats, so I got criticized for this, too. I don't make every call. Right. I was cheering Donald Trump when he said, let's get a deal. Chuck Schumer was saying, oh, you're making side deals with Iran. I was like, great, let him make a deal with Iran.
- [17:26]
Crystal Ball
Taco Trump making his idea. No, no, no, let him do his job.
- [17:30]
Sagar Enjeti
Taco might be one of the most destructive things that's ever happened.
- [17:34]
Ryan Grim
Thanks, Wall Street.
- [17:36]
Emily Jashinsky
Yeah.
- [17:36]
Crystal Ball
Horrible, horrible. All right, Congressman, I know we got to let you go. Thank you so much for jumping on this morning. It's always great to get your insights.
- [17:43]
Sagar Enjeti
Thank you. We appreciate it.
- [17:44]
Ro Khanna
Take care.
- [17:48]
Crystal Ball
So he brought up the two weeks thing. The White House is floating. Caroline Levitt said, like, oh, Trump's going to decide in the next two weeks. I mean, I just, like, I don't know. What do you guys make of it? Because I just. You can't trust anything these people say. It could be another faint to just, you know, let the Iranians sort of relax again before they bomb them in five minutes. I don't know what. What's your.
- [18:09]
Sagar Enjeti
Guys, what I think, and this is based on a little bit of some people I've chatted to, is. And first, let me set the stage. What we are dealing with, this is not a normal White House. We are basically in the court of Versailles. All right? No one can criticize the legitimacy of the monarch. So that's why, you know, Steve Bannon and Tucker have to target the neocons who are talking with him. Everything is about gaining the audience of the k end of the ear of the king. And the king can vacillate from time to time, but his own legitimacy of the throne cannot be called into Question. He's all powerful and he's all knowing. So what's really happened, I think, over the last couple of days is I can say equivocally the Bannon lunch was a pivotal moment. So Steve Bannon was yesterday at the White House, had lunch with Donald Trump. I don't think he said anything different in his private comments than he did publicly. So that's very encouraging. And that did lead to the so called two week deadline. Now, if it were up to Donald Trump, I'm actually relatively confident that we would be heading towards some sort of diplomatic solution. The problem is, of course, the Israeli question on the side, because what Israel now has is two weeks to mount the pressure campaign of the century, first and foremost. There's a credible report out today from the Iranian foreign minister who's in Geneva to speak with the European foreign ministers that somebody tried to kill him, possibly even the Israelis and or advisors around them. Remember, they already took out one the negotiators who spoke with Steve Wykoff. There's also Crystal, maybe you can pull this up. I tweeted it out from the Times of Israel. The Israeli Foreign minister, the Israeli Defense minister today said he has officially greenlit strikes on the regime. We're not even talking specifically about nuclear facilities. They are in the next two weeks, basically have a free military hand to ramp up military strikes on the Iranian regime and specifically to try to kill all of the people around the Ayatollah. So like I said, if it were just up to Donald Trump, I genuinely do believe we would be heading to this. It does seem that he's been spooked a bit by some of these reports and questioning the CENTCOM intelligence as to whether the Fordo facility really could be taken out by the US military. But Israel really could, you know, really could force our hand. Yeah, you could see it right there. Katz instructs the IDF to, quote, destabilize the Iranian regime with intensified airstrikes. And Israel, they're not doing well right now. I mean, I know that sounds crazy to say because of all their propaganda, they're running out of interceptors. The war is costing Israel hundreds of millions of dollars per day, per the Wall Street Journal. Commercial air shutdown is devastating the economy. Nobody's going to work. You know, how can you work when every single night you're spending in a bomb shelter looking at your phone. So their society is in chaos. Every single time one of those intercepts or gets fired. It's 700,000 to $2 million. The flight cost of an is like I don't even know, $35,000 per hour. They're go, they're going bankrupt, you know, and will according to their own former like bank official I was reading this morning, we're looking at a bill, well over 12 billion a single month of the war in Iran, which no, not a lot for us, but that's a lot over for them. So I would say like we have had a factional victory in getting to the two, two week period. But obviously I really don't think Trump is the principal actor here, especially because the Iranians won't meet with us. They're meeting right now with the Europeans. It's the Israelis who are going to try to destabilize and then it's really Trump and what to the extent that he wants to insert himself as the primary policymaker in this process.
- [21:51]
Ryan Grim
Yeah, and I think so you're curious and you guys to take on this. But like if 50 years from now, when they look back at kind of how the conflict overall between the United States and the up and coming powers played out, the US Decision based on pressure from the military industrial complex to go into this like Rolls Royce style approach to, and literally Rolls Royce is one of the main contractors for US Weapons to make it so that you have these, this massively high margin industry that is making lots of people very rich, despite the fact that strategically the numbers are just idiotic. In other words, if you're spending 700, 000 to $2 million on an interceptor against a missile that costs your adversary $10,000 or $50,000 to put together. In the case of Yemen, the orders of magnitude were even further apart. Yes, We're a couple. We're like a week plus into this.
- [22:52]
Sagar Enjeti
Yes.
- [22:52]
Ryan Grim
Imagine a year out. Like it's, it's, it's as if nobody did the math on this. But the Israelis, they did do the math and the math for them is we cannot afford this. We also cannot do it ourselves militarily, but the United States can afford it at least in the medium term and the United States can do it militarily. So they, they did the math and they didn't conclude, well, I guess we shouldn't do this. They concluded, let's do this and just bank on the fact that the United States is going to come in behind us. That's a small conflict between these two countries, Israel and Iran. If there was ever a bigger conflict, you could just see how, how long the United States would be able to carry on before it's, it is itself bankrupt. Isn't the right word. But just out of ammunition, we can. Ammunition cost.
- [23:43]
Crystal Ball
Yeah, I can pull that up, actually. Let me find that.
- [23:45]
Sagar Enjeti
Yeah. I mean, this is a. This is a tried and true thing about countries that always. You know, one of the. For example, if you. There's a great book behind me which is about the ammunition shortage during World War I and the amount of ammunition they used in the first month of the war is what they projected they were going to have to use for the entire war. And so after like three weeks, they're like, oh, shit. They're like, now what? And they're like, you know what you do? You have to go into total war. You have to lock down your economy. You have to seize control of all of the industry and basically marshal and mobilize to produce as much as humanly possible. And you will literally go bankrupt. As all of the European great powers did, basically became subservient, you know, bank. Bank loaners to the United States of America. That's the entire story behind the fall of the British Empire. So that is a very, very good lesson. Now, I'm not saying it can't be done, but the point is, is that you have to marshal your entire society towards it. But you're exactly right, Ryan. From what I have read, the Israelis are like, yeah, we knew we couldn't afford it. We're just going to get America to pay for it. And that's the problem.
- [24:44]
Crystal Ball
Usually a pretty safe bet.
- [24:46]
Emily Jashinsky
Put it on the visa.
- [24:47]
Sagar Enjeti
Yeah, they're right, though. See, that's the thing. At the end of the day, they are right. And this is why I'm still pessimist, even think we have won a victory. People who want to, you know, to avoid this going all out yet I do think we have won some of a victory and we still have a chance. Right? The Europeans are meeting with all of them, but I would still put it at around 25, 30% simply because of unrestrained Israeli military action. There's a story out this morning from the New York Times. The US Intelligence assesses that there's two scenarios right now where Iran goes for a nuclear bomb. One is kill the Ayatollah. Two is the US military strikes fordo. Well, you know, what is the Israeli option there for? They're going to try and kill the Ayatollah. Just yesterday, they hit a bunker in which the Ayatollah was thought to be in. Now, the ostensible target was one of the Ayatollah's, quote, advisors. He's survived by the way, at least according to the Iranians. But that's where things are like, you see the IDF action and also they can do math too, Ryan. They can't afford this shit for too much longer. You know, already there are, you know, prioritizing their interceptors. Remember the censorship, blackout in Israel is real. We have no idea what is being hit or not. And there's a reason for that. And it's because these, they are now having to prioritize, maybe military interceptors, but they have to let civilians get hit. Right. So you're going to start to see the death toll rack up.
- [26:09]
Crystal Ball
Oh, they would never have that trade off.
- [26:10]
Sagar Enjeti
Oh, sorry, I would.
- [26:12]
Crystal Ball
I dare you.
- [26:13]
Sagar Enjeti
I forgot that I'm talking about the most moral army. Yeah, yeah. The most moral army in the world would never make that, that decision. That. But that's my point is the Israelis are, the Israelis are the most aggressive, you know, actor in this and they just have such an incredible ability to shape events without being restrained by U. S. Policy makers.
- [26:39]
Crystal Ball
Shape events. That's very okay, but I mean.
- [26:43]
Sagar Enjeti
But I'm saying they can just, they can just do whatever they want to do in America. Trump does not pick up the phone. I mean, it's like the whole thing.
- [26:51]
Crystal Ball
Ayatollah, but this is Bibi's claim to fame is that he knows how to work us over. And it's frickin true. I mean, he is one of us. He is an American.
- [26:59]
Sagar Enjeti
I was born in Philadelphia. Okay, so if we really want to. There you go.
- [27:03]
Crystal Ball
Emily, Emily, what are you, what are your thoughts? Like, are you, what are you hearing and what are your thoughts on where we stand right now?
- [27:08]
Emily Jashinsky
Well, I think actually Sagar just did a little like, very helpful reporting by saying, having talked to folks, he thinks that Bannon lunch was significant because there's a real question as to whether the two weeks is cold water, whether it is on, you know, sort of the lust for another interventionist conflict or is it a negotiating tactic where Trump is, as you said at the start of the show, Crystal, giving the two week window and then immediately going to move the next day or the day after, something like that. But everything that we just laid out about the cost, costs and about the sort of timeline tells me two weeks is most likely going to be two days in some respect or another. I mean, I just, I think the cold weeks feels like, I think it feels like a sort of last ditch helpful dose of cold water, but the machine has been turned on and it's lurching towards the conflict. I mean, at this point, it feels like turning the Titanic around to do so. The two weeks I agree with Sagar is obviously better than, you know, not.
- [28:15]
Crystal Ball
Having us being at war, you know, directly right now. But, yeah, right.
- [28:19]
Emily Jashinsky
I mean, for all those reasons, it's.
- [28:20]
Crystal Ball
Like, I'm very cognizant of the fact that, first of all, at least according to the Trump administration, you know, the last movements towards diplomatic negotiations were just a ruse. So there's that. There also previously were these reports out that effectively the plan was to give Iran one final deal ultimatum that contains in it the sort of poison pills that we know will make it it, you know, guaranteed that the Iranians won't take it. Not to mention, if you're the Iranians at this point, how can you negotiate with these people, like, on every level? Not only did you already negotiate a deal with them, that they just were like, yeah, we're not going to do that anymore. But then they're broadcasting to the world that, like, yeah, we pretended we were going to go forward with these negotiations. We were just tricking you so that you could be attacked and destroyed.
- [29:08]
Emily Jashinsky
So Iranian nationalism is mounting because of all of that?
- [29:11]
Crystal Ball
Oh, yeah, definitely.
- [29:12]
Sagar Enjeti
Oh, yeah. By the way, they took the streets on Friday. And actually across the Muslim world, Friday prayers have reportedly been like, overwhelming in their support for the Iranians, even amongst the Sunni populations, which that's hard to do for anybody out there.
- [29:28]
Crystal Ball
I mean, that's what, you know, Saurabh and Trita have been telling us. They've, you know, they're seeing unfold this rally around the. I mean, it's entirely predictable. It's entirely predictable. Think about us after 9, 11, right? George W. Had like a 90% approval rating. Everyone was like, yes, let's go. So of course, that going to happen. And I just, you know, obviously the space for negotiating a deal has dramatically, dramatically closed. And then to your point, cyber, like, you have this incredibly nefarious actor in Netanyahu who you can't put anything past this guy in terms of what he's willing to do to make sure that we're going to be there to help him effectuate the plans that he has had for decades at this point. So it's, you know, precarious is like, like the, the probably like lowest, nicest thing I could say about where we sit right now. It's really quite dire.
- [30:20]
Sagar Enjeti
Yeah, it's not good.
- [30:22]
Ryan Grim
Go ahead, Ryan, Just real quickly to respond to what Crystal said. I actually put that, I put that question that you asked about how can they trust US to get back into negotiations directly to a couple of Iranian sources. And they said, well look, the thing you have to understand is like maybe you had a better perception of the United States ten years ago. We never did. Like, we have never trusted the United States. No matter who the President was, they were right. And so we were not shocked that they pulled out of the jcpoa and we were not shocked that they attacked us. You know, they, and Israel attacked us. They, they expected it, they saw it coming. So their answer was, you know, you make deals not based on trust but you know, expediency and necessity and then you put everything into the deal that you possibly can to make it enforceable. And that's why, you know, the Russians and the Europeans were part of the jzpoa. Some hope that like, you know, global involvement, you know, would, would pressure the United States to one. Yeah, obviously didn't, but go ahead.
- [31:24]
Sagar Enjeti
Yeah, let me pick up on that because this is actually one thing that gives me a little bit of hope is that the main parties meeting with the Iranians today are the European powers. And Macron actually has a quote, comprehensive offer to Tehran. I can read a little bit from this and I'm reading from the Financial Times reversal. It says Macron said negotiations must move towards zero and uranium enrichment as and foreign ministers will meet with them and they will present to them this quote, comprehensive negotiation offer which would put an end to the hostilities, namely it would cause a ceasefire as well as lead to zero enrichment from the Iranians. Again, I don't know if that's what the Iranians would agree to, but really the real problem here is that the so called comprehensive offer, even according to the French and the Europeans, is that it also has to be acceptable to Israel. I just don't think that there is any deal at this point which is acceptable to Israel, which again is one of those things where it's the United States of America who would probably take that deal. But the Israelis would be like, oh, how can we trust it?
- [32:24]
Crystal Ball
Zero enrichment. Yeah, right.
- [32:26]
Sagar Enjeti
But even with zero enrichment they would say how can we trust you that you're not going to. They'd be like, you need to basically let me occupy your nuclear facility. Right, they're gonna, no, that's not gonna happen. Another really nightmare maybe if it's mutual. Yeah, right. But one like nightmarish scenario I see right now is that Israelis are now talking about some sort of grand commando raid on the Fordo facility, like occupying the way that they did in Syria. But I mean, look the risk there is just so insanely fraught and especially if it were to become a disaster. And then you could easily see how things snowball from there. A failed Israeli commando slash strike raid that fails to take out power or doesn't finish the job. And then the Iranians are like, screw it, let's go sprint to the bomb, right? I mean, there's so much here which would obviously just almost immediately draw America in. So I'm like, cautiously, like 25% optimistic about this, but I just, I don't see how we can surmount, you know, the Israeli. I don't see how we can surmount, like, all of their clear strategic objectives at this point, unless a different Donald Trump emerges who is like, like, no, we're done. This is what we're doing. But I mean, he couldn't even stop Israel from striking Iran, if that's even to be believed.
- [33:44]
Crystal Ball
You know, he didn't want to. I mean, let's not be foolish here, right? And I think Ken Klippenstein and now his reporting was confirmed by Reuters. I think that, you know, Trump for a while, and Biden too, by the way, was like, no, you're not doing that, you're not doing that, you're not doing that. And then Trump was doing the same for a while and then he stopped saying no. And that is the equivalent of a green light. Now, maybe that way you have plausible deniability that you didn't affirmatively say, yes, go ahead. But of course, the Israelis are gonna know as soon as you were like, oh, well, do what you wanna do. They know exactly what that means. And so, you know, Trump knew exactly what was unfolding here. He, he greenlit this. I mean, we saw the buildup. We all were watching closely as to what was ultimately going to unfold. So he, he wanted this to happen. He greenlit it. We shipped hundreds of Hellfire missiles to Israel in advance of these strikes. So, you know, it's like, I don't want to. Yes, Netanyahu is doing everything he can to create that outcome, but ultimately it's Donald Trump who decided, yes, this is, this is the direction that we're ultimately going to go in. We're going to let Israel attack Iran days before we're supposed to have the next round of negotiations. Even though, I mean, from all, all indications, there was a plausible chance of actually being able to seal some sort of a deal and achieve a diplomatic solution, which is much more unlikely at this point. After, you know, after we blew up our own, our own deal making ability.
- [35:11]
Ryan Grim
And we have some relevant comments I can put up from a senior Iranian advisor that goes exactly to this point. Let me put this up where, yeah, basically he's saying do. And this is a close advisor to the Ayatollah saying that it is, it would be a mistake to do, to reach a ceasefire at this point because Israel is going to break the ceasefire in two months and they will use the two months or whatever the period is to restock their supplies, particularly of, of interceptor missiles. So any ceasefire that's implemented now will lead to renewed war. We should not allow the enemy, which is currently in a weak position to revive itself with a ceasefire. And he goes on, on through, you know, with that analysis. But I think this is a consequence of, you know, the US and Israel not abiding by any of its agreements. Whether it's the January ceasefire that they reached with Hamas and then said they were going to break and then broke broke. Whether it was the deal over Edon Alexander where they said if you release Edon Alexander, we'll let in aid and we'll, you know, push for a ceasefire. And they, and they did none of that. Whether it was, it's, you know, assassinating Hania in Tehran as they're getting very close to a deal and on and on. If you believe that a ceasefire can't be trusted, then, then why reach a ceasefire unless you are on the brink of like regiment elimination.
- [36:41]
Crystal Ball
Let me put this up on the screen and get your reaction to it. This was the, just to put it out there, this is the reporting from Cyhersch of what his sources are telling him it's gonna happen, say mixed bag in terms of his reporting accuracy, but I think it's good to put it all on the table. Michael Tracy tweeted these portions. So according to his reporting, this report on what is most likely to happen in Iran as early as this weekend, according to Israeli insiders and American officials I've relied upon for decades, will entail heavy American bombing. I have vetted this report with a longtime US official in Washington who told me that it will all be under control if Iran's Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei departs. Just how that might happen short of his assassination is not known. There's been a great deal of talk about American firepower targets inside Iran, but little practical thinking as far as I can tell about how to remove a revered religious leader with an enormous following. Next piece here he says. I've been told the White House has signed off on an all out bombing campaign in Iran, but The ultimate targets, the centrifuges buried at least 80 meters below the surface at Fordeau, will as of this writing not be struck until the weekend delay has come at Trump's insistence. Because now this does kind of ring true. The President wants the shock of the bombing to be diminished before the opening of Wall street trading on Monday. Trump took issue on social media this morning with the Wall Street Journal report that said he had decided on the attack on Iran, writing he had yet to decide on a path forward. So what are your thoughts?
- [37:58]
Emily Jashinsky
And Krista, could you. Okay, so I was gonna say keep that up there was.
- [38:01]
Crystal Ball
Sorry, I'll reshare it.
- [38:02]
Emily Jashinsky
No, no, because I just wanted to zoom in on the Hanania post about the sort of disputed accuracy of Cyhersha's record because Hanania sort of has this like, snark. I remember Seymour Hersh reporting that we were soon to bomb Iran during the Bush administration. And I know what he's saying, but I actually think that's an interesting point because it tells you who has been leaking over the course of decades to try to force a bombing of Iran. And I think that's like whether or not this report specifically is an accurate assessment of Trump's thinking. What it is, is Seymour Hersh having a source who he is describing accurately as a senior US Official. I'm sure that part is true. Talking to him and saying that this is what's being discussed in a serious way. So I actually, I mean, yes, take it with a grain of salt, but I think it's actually not insane that this is likely a serious high level conversation that's happening. I don't know how this is going to be affected by Trump's Bannon lunch yesterday and the two week, I don't know what we call it, like deadline extension, but it did feel like we were in a 48 hour window and I don't know that we actually are out of the 48 hour window at all because it's hard to know when Trump says two weeks what he's trying to telegraph to Iran. It's hard to know what Israel then does. There's no way that Netanyahu is happy with Trump's two week announcement yesterday. And so do they escalate in a way that forces the hand? I don't know, but that reporting to me doesn't seem insane.
- [39:42]
Crystal Ball
Sagar, what do you make of these, this tactical nukes Talk, talk.
- [39:45]
Sagar Enjeti
Oh my God, don't even get me started.
- [39:47]
Crystal Ball
I'm getting started, buddy. All right, let me pull it up. I Got it here. Let's go ahead and play it.
- [39:56]
Emily Jashinsky
To.
- [39:57]
Sagar Enjeti
Senior White House correspondent Jackie Heinrich.
- [40:00]
Emily Jashinsky
Away from the shots.
- [40:03]
H
Headlines this afternoon, including one from the Guardian that claimed that US Military has doubts about whether the bunker buster bombs could get the job done.
- [40:12]
Crystal Ball
And.
- [40:13]
H
And further claiming that only a tactical nuke maybe finish it. And it further stated that the President is not considering a tactical nuke, that it was not one of the options that was presented to him. I was just told by a top official here that none of that report is true, that none of the options are off the table, and the US military is very confident that bunker busters could get the job done at Bordeaux. The President is giving.
- [40:38]
Crystal Ball
So she says there are. It's not the tactical. None of it's true. The tactical nukes are actually not off the table.
- [40:43]
Sagar Enjeti
The tactical nukes are on the table.
- [40:45]
Crystal Ball
Which she kind of buries the lead there. You kind of have to like, really listen in, which seems kind of significant.
- [40:51]
Sagar Enjeti
It's insane, preposterous. It also, though, I really want people to see here how the slippery slope happens. First it's just we just one bomb. That's all it is. Then it's, oh, actually it's a couple of bombs.
- [41:06]
Emily Jashinsky
And that's why you leak this stuff.
- [41:08]
Sagar Enjeti
Right. Maybe the bombs, though, can actually do the job. So then it was only a tactical nuke. Oh, so you drop a tactical nuke on here, now we're in a whole different other world. And, you know, this just demonstrate. Look, these generals, they make all kinds of promises. From what I hear, General Kurilla has been, you know, in all these, like, meetings with the president, being like, Mr. President, we can do this. He wants to cement his legacy as the guy who took out the Iranian nuclear program. His term is up in only two weeks and he's given all these pie in the sky military assessments to Donald Trump. Of course, Donald Trump is loving it, right? Korilla's like, like jacked. He looks good. He's got a nice figure on camera. Straight out of central casting, as Trump would say. No, this is the. Listen, he's got a girl name.
- [41:51]
Crystal Ball
The gorilla.
- [41:51]
Sagar Enjeti
The gorilla. Gorilla. The gorillas. Like, we can all see how the wheels are turning. It's obviously, it would be devastating. I think one of the main reasons they're keeping it open is just basically to scare the out of the Iranians. But really what it's about is they are being so reckless in their rhetoric that they're actually again, just increasing the odds of the ir. You people are crazy. We are Just going to sprint to the bomb. And the only reason why this really is all happening is again because of Israel's actions just basically ratcheting up where the US has to go from the escalation ladder. Also, can we all keep in mind that when Russia was even openly talking about a tactical nuclear weapon in Ukraine that everyone was like that would be a red line. And that we should basically go to war with Russia. So should Russia go to war with us? U.S. you know, Iran is technically their client state in a similar manner. Maybe not exactly the same, but everyone just see how crazy this all is. And this is again, you know, where I've been going back and I've been reading even more about all these. These military guys are the kings of over promising and under delivering. So we can all talk about Libya. We actually delivered in Libya. We took out their air defense. It was just a strategic problem of the fact that the country collapsed into civil war.
- [43:06]
Theo Von
War.
- [43:06]
Sagar Enjeti
But what about Serbia? Serbia is actually a very apt example. So in 1999, NATO and the United States wanted to take out Milosevic and basically get to stop the civil war and all of his actions. Right? Well, the US Military predicted and NATO said it will just take three days of bombing to get Milosevic to back down. It took 11 weeks. And at the end of those 11 weeks, the US military was presenting options to President Clinton to fully invade aid and to take over Serbia because air power could not get the job done. We have to just keep learning these lessons over and over and over and over again. These guys don't actually know what they're talking about. They said Iraq was going to be a cakewalk. 150,000 troops, Mr. President. No question, no problem. Afghanistan, don't worry about it. We just get a couple special forces, overthrow the government. We could take out the Taliban with limited airstrikes. It never works. It's always going to lead to the ground troop and or way more than we ever thought from the very beginning. Go ahead.
- [44:06]
Emily Jashinsky
The incredible irony of all of this is that Iran itself should have been the first lesson of this decades ago. This is the textbook example playing out in front of us. So it's a tragic irony that, you know, again, they thought they had that completely under control. No unintended consequences that have happened down the line from meddling. And here we are in 2025 still, still groping to figure out what happens.
- [44:35]
Crystal Ball
Talking about bringing back the shah's son too. Not learning any lessons.
- [44:41]
Sagar Enjeti
Can I talk about that too? Fox News is referring to this guy as his Royal Highness. Oh, my God.
- [44:48]
Emily Jashinsky
No, they aren't.
- [44:49]
Sagar Enjeti
No, no, they are.
- [44:50]
Crystal Ball
Yeah, go check it out.
- [44:51]
Sagar Enjeti
They even tweeted it out. They go, his Royal Highness, the shot. I go, where am I on Bizarro Planet? What's happening?
- [44:57]
Crystal Ball
Yes, you are.
- [44:58]
Sagar Enjeti
You know, being the son of a deposed king does not make you. HRH is a title. It has meaning. Okay, I mean, I don't know, what are we doing here? You know, not to be a royal expert or whatever, but, you know, it's like, if we had on Edward Habsburg and we're like, his Royal Highness of Austria Hungary, I'd be like, what? I think he's like a banker in Switzerland.
- [45:23]
Emily Jashinsky
I've had him on other podcasts.
- [45:25]
Sagar Enjeti
Really?
- [45:25]
Crystal Ball
Did you call?
- [45:27]
Sagar Enjeti
He'd be like, edward, you don't have to call me that. He's like, the dynasty is gone. You know, when you. When you get thrown out, you don't get the title anymore. I thought we all acknowledge that. But they're seriously having this guy on, and he's like, oh, Iranians cry out for monarchy and free. It's insanity. That means we.
- [45:45]
Crystal Ball
I have the media clips on here, the coverage, the level of un.
- [45:49]
Sagar Enjeti
Horrible.
- [45:50]
Crystal Ball
I. I don't even know what to say. I mean, we truly do. Like, cable news really does never learn anything thing ever. It's so wild to see the propaganda march. And it matters. I mean, saga. We were covering that polling where it really depends. People feel about this all kinds of ways, depending on how it's framed. So I guarantee, if you ask people, do you want to get America entrenched in some, like, potentially catastrophic regime change or regime collapse war, they'd be like, are you hot? Like, what? Why would we do that? Why? I think it would be 90 10. But if you ask, you know, oh, well, should Iran have a new nuke? Well, should we let Israel strike Iran to get rid of their nuclear program? Who could object to that? Well, should we supply the weapons that Israel uses? Well, you know, should we maybe be the ones just to go ahead and take out these nuclear weapons? Because you've already said Iran can't. Can't have a nuke. When it's framed in that way, suddenly you get a disturbing amount of public consensus. And we also have to be real about the quote, unquote anti war MAGA base. The Republican base is vastly more pro war than the Democratic base. They will go and support whatever Donald Trump wants to do, including Steve Bannon, who already has the Financial Times. At the end of the day, me, Tucker, Marjorie, Taylor Greene, all these people will support the President's decision and just assume he has more intelligence and more wisdom and more understanding that we do. At the end of the day, they will all bend the knee to whatever it is that Trump decides.
- [47:14]
Sagar Enjeti
Most of them will, and most of the base will. But, you know, you made an important point yesterday, Crystal, on our show. Independence won't. And that's different.
- [47:21]
Crystal Ball
Absolutely.
- [47:22]
Sagar Enjeti
And that's why that does matter. And you know, I, I want to get this guy on the show, this guy Rich Barris, he's like a maga, like, aligned. And he's been making some great points where he's like, hey, guys, Trump's entire margin of victory in Michigan is the anti war independent base. He's like the Dearborn people who voted for Trump and, or people who were union and anti Iraq war. That is the margin of victory. So Donald Trump, it's striking the parallels with George W. Bush. Like, if you look at the 96 electoral map and the 2000 electoral map, it's actually insane how much things can change, change in just four years. George W. Bush, everybody forgets this. He ran as a restraintist. He thought that the US Campaign in Serbia was a disaster. He was like, that's not something that I'm interested in doing. He ran on reducing America's footprint abroad. And then of course, we got, you know, Mr. Neocon himself. Things changed a lot after 911 because he literally had a messianic complex where he believed he was put on earth by God to be there at 911 and to destroy the, the axis of evil.
- [48:27]
Emily Jashinsky
Huckabee is telling Trump right now.
- [48:30]
Sagar Enjeti
Look, I'm trying to draw parallels here.
- [48:32]
Crystal Ball
Yeah, Trump believes it.
- [48:32]
Ryan Grim
Yeah.
- [48:33]
Crystal Ball
I mean, trying to draw together there's a reason why he shared that text. And he talks about himself this way. I mean, in his inaugural speech, he talked about how, you know, he's basically put there by God for this great moment. And so when, I mean, Emily, you're gonna have to, you're gonna have to be my decoder in some of this stuff. But the, the religious fervor of, you know, the Israeli fanatics. And then you've got the Huckabee end times people and Ted Cruz, and then you've got, you know, Trump believing he's, you know, the second coming of Jesus Christ. To me, this is a terrifying mix, a totally terrifying mix. Because then you're like, you can't presume anyone's even acting rationally when you have this divine justification behind you when you believe that it's Your mission from God, as Ted Cruz explained, to always serve the government of Netanyahu.
- [49:27]
Emily Jashinsky
Yeah, so I do have good news on that front, which is that's a boomer brain. Even in evangelical circles, it's people like, there was this time before y2k where the left behind series and this millenarian Christianity pointed straight towards Israel and created this real, very like, very, very serious political support for Israel that we all kind of think of when we think of American evangelicals that not really trickled down. And in fact, what I saw over the last 48 hours after the Huckabee thing and after the Cruz thing in particular was a ton of pushback. For example, the Federalists published a long pushback to what Ted Cruz was saying, and I don't think that would have happened 15 years ago. It doesn't make it any less frightening that Mike Huckabee, who has played very fast and loose with whether he's a dispensationalist or not, is there. I mean, I think in all likelihood, yes. Mike Huckabee believes that political Israel. Israel is. You can sort of swap that in and out with when the Bible refers to the nation of Israel that today 2025 political nation state Israel is. You can read that into scripture, you can read that into Revelation. It's completely ridiculous. But it is popular with evangelical boomers like Mike Huckabee. So to the extent that Huckabee is the ambassador to Israel, that matters. But I don't think that's. It's certainly not how, like a Catholic like J.D. vance or Marco Rubio is seeing this. I know that's cold comfort to everyone. But the good news is the boomer brain dispensationalism hasn't trickled down to millennials right now.
- [51:04]
Crystal Ball
I guess I wanted to get your. Okay, good to know. Hopefully we all survive until those millennials have a little more power.
- [51:13]
Emily Jashinsky
You'll know when we're not raptured.
- [51:15]
Crystal Ball
Okay. All right, good to know. I wanted to get you to explain, Ryan, this report from drop site about how the Israelis are reposting some of the same strike footage from obviously, you know, has been tracking this and. And broke down this reporting. So what should people like, what's the significance here? What is he finding?
- [51:35]
Ryan Grim
Yeah, I mean, so this is allegedly two different strikes on two different days posted by the Israeli military. And as, as Maz points out, like, if you look closely, there's just a little bit of tweaking done to the color and to the angle. Angle.
- [51:55]
Crystal Ball
Yeah. Like, let's blur it a little bit.
- [51:57]
Ryan Grim
Yeah, but if you look at, if you look at that kind of the markings around the rest of the image, you're like, oh, you know, it doesn't take, you know, a PhD in OSINT to be like, this is actually the same picture. And so it raises the question of, you know, have they exhausted kind of a target bank in the sense that they're not, you know, they're not able to produce new pictures, which is strange because they have, you know, free reign over the Iranian sky. And all this is not exclusive to Israel. All of these belligerent powers are capable of bombing even something that has nothing, no military value whatsoever. And, and putting a clip out and saying that it's a command and control center. So it's not like they have a shortage of videos. It's just it, it. I think it shows a sloppiness and potentially shows, you know, that they're, that they're really scraping the bottom of the barrel at this point.
- [52:57]
Crystal Ball
Well, and this was also significant in that vein. NBC News is reporting that according to a senior Israeli intelligence official, only 65% of Iranian missiles were intercepted in the past 24 hours. That's down from nearly 90% the day before. And we have other reports as well that they're having to ration interceptors. I mean, this is something, something that soccer was talking about before. It' is part of why, you know, they're. Obviously, we have to be involved. We've been in, not have to be, but we choose to be involved and have been from the beginning. And I think this is one of the hopes of the Iranians probably, is that they can learn more about the missile defense systems and that as time goes on, they will, you know, have to further ration interceptors and also that they will have more understanding of how to evade those interceptors and those missile defense systems.
- [53:48]
Ryan Grim
And on top of that, they, they use their older and crapp your missiles, as you would expect. Logically, the first ones out of the gate were the, the cheap, cheap old guys that aren't as good.
- [53:58]
Crystal Ball
Because do we know. We know that for a fact, because I saw that speculation too.
- [54:02]
Ryan Grim
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so, because you know that when, when your first volley comes in, they're gonna, they have their entire bank of interceptors ready to go. So you throw the cheapest stuff. That's the worst. And so the interceptors then take all of that out. And then gradually you start, you know, using their thaad and, you know, hypersonic missiles. And, you know, yesterday they Fired, fired one sounds like one missile at Beersheba and it got through but it seems to maybe have missed his target. It landed right near the Microsoft building there. And then the IRGC said they were actually aiming for the Microsoft building which may have been because you know, citing Microsoft's role and Israeli industrial complex which may have been kind of reverse engineered cope like that. I, they're probably aiming for Elbit systems which is nearby there but hit closer to Microsoft so that they're like no, there's a lot of reverse engineering like oh yeah, that's definitely what we were aiming for. After you try to figure out where it landed. And then we're getting reports right now that there was another missile landed right around Bea. So you know, if they're two for two in be getting through, you know, missile defenses, that allows them to shoot many fewer missiles missiles and still have the same amount of impact. You know, if they were firing off, you know, 300 in the beginning just to land 10 or 20, that's not a sustainable pace if you have, you know, missiles missile stockpile in the low thousands. But if you're hitting at a 50 to 100 clip that causes a lot more damage and helps you win in.
- [55:39]
Crystal Ball
A war of attrition, I think Sagar, do you have to have to jump?
- [55:43]
Sagar Enjeti
Yes, I do, unfortunately. But yeah, just last thoughts is I think we have a 25 chance of avoiding this. Probably 75 chance. By the way. Literally as we're talking, Israel's getting rocked by ballistic missiles in terms of at least some of the images that have made it out. They are going to come under intense pressure in the government. They are going to ramp up regime change, change and destabilization efforts to the best of their possible ability. And yeah, I think it's going to be a very, very dangerous two weeks. But you know, I'm hope, I'm hoping for some success coming out of Europe and at least see what, what they're able to get out of the Iranians and publicly as well. You know, some of the statements to get them on the record and presumably a press conference or some statements from the Iranian foreign minister that could at least keep us out of the woods. But I also want to echo Emily's warning. We could be in a 48 hour time window. This could all be fake and this could by Monday on our show we can be covering a four do strike. Yeah.
- [56:44]
Crystal Ball
All right, well as we let Sagar go, I think we're also going to conclude the, the free portion premiums we're going to cover a bunch more stuff. I've got a bunch of clips. I got Dave Smith on Piers Morgan. You guys know, you don't want to miss out on that. The I, I've had it lady. Even Emily has to admit she was kind of cooking on cnn. She's like more based than we expected her to be. So that's kind of cool. We've got more coming out of Israel. In particular, BB Netanyahu is paying a personal price, guys, and I want to share with you what that personal price is. And we all should thoughts and prayers with Bibi and his family during this very difficult time. And so in any case, bunch of stuff to get to. We'll try to get to Zoron, maybe talk about Obama, see how much we get to. But for those of you who want to join us for the Full show, breaking points.com that monthly subscription is back. So, you know, partake in that to your full delight. See how you like it. And for premiums, we'll see you in just a moment. All right, guys, thank you so much for watching the free portion of the Friday show. We're going to move into some premium bonus content. So if you want to watch that as well, make sure to go and subscribe@breaking points.com and for all of you guys who are already premium subscribers, that portion is going to start right now. This is an I heart podcast.