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- [00:00]
Owen Gregorian
Quick, choose a meal deal with McValue. The five dollar McChicken meal deal, the six dollar McDouble meal deal, or the new seven dollar Daily Double meal deal. Each with its own small fries, drink, and four piece of McNuggets. There's actually no rush. I'm just excited for McDonald's for a limited time only. Prices and participation may vary. Not Valder McDelivery.
- [00:16]
Erica
Good golly.
- [00:18]
Marcella
Good golly. Lang is fast.
- [00:21]
Erica
Good morning, everybody. I will not be defeated.
- [00:23]
Marcella
Steve the Texan was first, though.
- [00:26]
Erica
Oh, what? Ooh, Texas in the house. You go, Steve.
- [00:32]
Owen Gregorian
Steve's are back on a skillet bookish.
- [00:37]
Erica
Good morning, everyone. Is it Monday again already? Has everyone been following the story of Punch Monkey? I. I plan to do an expose, a full story on Punch Monkey. I don't know if we call him Punch Monkey, but little Punch, I'm. This is like the only story that's keeping me alive these days is that
- [00:58]
Sergio
Little Punch, you want to save America? Would you take him home? Would you adopt him?
- [01:04]
Erica
I like. Of course. That's like, what my instinct is, but obviously what's best for him is to be amongst his peers and be resilient and find his way. But oh, my God, this little. All right, so drop an emoji in the chat if you think there's going to be a pun. Punch feature film and punch stuffed animals and punch merch everywhere, because it's gotta happen. He Punch punches uniting this country. Look at the punchy people. Yeah, we love punch. All right, I think that gave us enough time to come in, talk about something happy before we get into the disasters. No, just kidding. So, you guys, for anyone who's like me and needs to be talked off a ledge, Sergio's got that task today. So we'll. We'll lean into Sergio. All right, lean in. But before we do anything, Bri, take us away.
- [02:02]
Bri
Now. I need to warn you before we go further, somewhere in my house, there's an alarm going off, and it's starting to make me crazy because I can hear it, but you can't. So I might have to take you in a trip through the house to find the alarm. But before we do that, we're going to enjoy the new and upgraded simultaneous sip. The reason I tweeted it out is that you can read along and join in on the chorus. It's newly revised. As somebody pointed out on Twitter, I got rid of the word thermos, and as my Twitter wag said, I impeached it. So thermos has been impeached and removed from the list of the simultaneous sip text. And it goes like this. Grab your vessel. Be ready. The simultaneous sip. I know why you're here. You're here for the simultaneous sip. All you need is a copper and bugger of glass. A tank or chalice or stein, a. A canteen, joker flask. A vessel of any kind. Fill it with your favorite liquid. I like coffee. You can fill in your own beverage there. And join me now for the unparalleled pleasure of the dopamine hit of the day. The thing that makes everything better. The simultaneous sip. Go. And add that part. Gotta add the
- [03:31]
Owen Gregorian
good stuff.
- [03:33]
Erica
That must have been. That was like the official launch of the official simultaneous sip There. It was. You saw it here, guys. So welcome again. It's Monday. You are at the Scott Adams School where everybody loves to show up for class, right? Not like the old days. My name is Erica and I am joined by my beautiful co hosts. We have Sergio looking dapper in his beanie. I'm digging the whole setup. Sergio, beautiful.
- [04:03]
Sergio
Thank you.
- [04:04]
Erica
Good morning, seller. Good morning, beautiful Marcella. Good morning, multi talented Marcella. Yes. And we have Owen Gregorian. He is reading one book at a time, you guys. There he is.
- [04:19]
Owen Gregorian
Good morning to everyone except Ayatollah Khomeini
- [04:24]
Erica
and Ahmadinejad. Yeah, you guys. So you might have heard there was a little something over the weekend going on. Nothing major. Should be wrapped up quick, but we figured we should probably talk about it. And I know nothing. And I'm gonna sit and listen and add my 2 cents. But I'm gonna count on this crew to inform us all from all different angles. So you guys help inform me. Let's go, Owen.
- [04:54]
Owen Gregorian
Where to start? So we. We did kick off this attack on Iran. It was a joint operation between at least Israel and the United States. Seems to me like it's been mostly very successful in terms of achieving its objectives. I know there's a lot of controversy about why we're doing it, how long we're going to do it. We'll get into some of that. But does seem like we're going through, you know, according to plan, and we have had a few casualties. Latest I've heard is we had four people die, four Americans die in the operation. We've also had a bit of a mishap in Kuwait where apparently there was some friendly fire and we shot. Shot down some of our own planes, but the pilots in those cases made it. So fortunately there weren't any casualties. But we apparently lost some planes in Kuwait and otherwise I think we've been essentially decapitating a lot of the leadership in Iran. I believe the count might be up to something like 48 or something. But there's, you know, over 40 of the leadership, and that includes Ayala Khomeini. We mentioned Ahmadinejad. I probably mispronounced that. But, you know, a number of the top leaders there are gone. I think even the top leader of Hezbollah in Lebanon has been taken out by Israel. So there seems to be a lot of casualties in the leadership. And it sounds like there was, again, some great Israeli intelligence that led to some of this, the latest story, and I don't know whether to believe it, I can't put any credibility into this, but apparently the story is that Israel had infiltrated all of the dentists and was implanting locator chips into, into the fillings of the Iranians. So they knew where everybody was. And I, I don't, I don't know if that's misinformation or propaganda. Maybe it's meant to just create some paranoia and get out their teeth.
- [06:48]
Erica
Thanks for ruining another doctor.
- [06:52]
Owen Gregorian
But that's, that's the latest story. I, I would, I would probably put that in the, in the category of propaganda. Maybe that's meant to create paranoia in the, in the minds of the Iranian leadership and get them to pull out their teeth or something. I don't know. But whatever it is that I, you know, I have to hand it to Israeli intelligence. They're geniuses of what they do, even if it is all propaganda. But it does seem like they did, they did know where Ayatollah Khomeini was and a lot of his leadership. The story around that is that they were at some sort of breakfast meeting and they had intelligence that they were going to be at this breakfast meeting. And so they, that's where the timing of the initial attack came from was they said, well, we got to take advantage of this. We know where they are and we're going to take them all down. And so that kicked off the attack, and there's been bombing, you know, pretty consistently since then. Trump came out with a statement at three in the morning announcing the attack. And then there was a more recent one yesterday, giving an update and just kind of reinforcing that we're going to continue down this path and we're going to achieve all of our objectives. And reiterating his, I guess I would call it the demand to lay down their weapons if they're the, the IJRC or the military, the police. But apparently so far they've rejected that. They're trying to fight back. They've sent a bunch of missiles all over the Middle east and pissed off all their neighbors. So now I think they're getting even more people upset against them and essentially, you know, getting probably almost the whole world upset at them. I, I saw a statement or a story recently that Germany, France and the UK or something like that, and there were a few European countries that said, hey, maybe we're going to get involved now because of this counter attack stuff that's going on around the region. Because a lot of these missiles went into countries that hadn't been part of the attack. And they're saying, you know, we can't allow this to continue. So looks like there's a broadening coalition. So that's kind of my initial summary. I don't, I'm sure I've left out a lot of details, but figure I'd give that as an intro.
- [09:00]
Erica
Yeah.
- [09:02]
Marcella
Do you know that there was several different countries hit, which was something we don't often see? I know Abu Dhabi, the Arab Emirates, Qatar was hit as well as Cyprus was hit again in the Royal Navy base. And I believe Greece is sending their troops in Italy as well to that area. What other ones were hit? Lebanon was hit.
- [09:35]
Erica
Seeing like a missile coming towards Dubai was crazy. And then watching Intercepted. Was it. But, you know, I, I know nothing. Okay, you guys, But I've never seen like the UAE join in with America. To do something like this in the Middle east is pretty freaking amazing. Am I right? Am I wrong?
- [09:58]
Sergio
I mean, some. It's amazing. I think that the word that was done prior to this is what is being missed a lot too, right? There's a lot of building, a lot of foundations that were created over the last few years. The Board of Peace at the end being established. This is the first war fully backed by a board of peace that hasn't happened before. And what we're seeing right now is just a continuation of the agenda. If you look at the schedule, if you look at Mexico, right? Mexico last week was. It might have forgot. It was so long ago. So long ago, right? So when we attack El Mencho, right, we killed him. What happened? All these guys started, like destroying building, you know, protesting. They were creating fires everywhere, right? So this is a very lot like it, right? They're like protesting. They're not happy that the leader got killed. All the leadership is killed, destroyed. They have no money left. All they have is.
- [11:02]
Erica
Who are you talking about?
- [11:04]
Marcella
Who are you protesting?
- [11:06]
Erica
Iran, Protesting There is protest.
- [11:09]
Sergio
I mean, no, no, no.
- [11:10]
Bri
Iran.
- [11:10]
Sergio
No, I mean, okay, what I mean is that all these missiles being launched at all these countries are rantings of lunatic or lunatic people that are there on the last hopes. You see what I'm saying? It's like the people in Mexico, those cartels, they're okay now look at them now. There's no more fires right now. Things are back to normal right now. Venezuela the same way. Right. Venezuela went better. So what I'm saying is that this is not World War 3. This is a lot of like people ranting in an amazing big way with big weapons. Right? That's it. That's what I wanted to share with you.
- [11:50]
Bri
So.
- [11:50]
Marcella
So you brought up something in regards to, I think Erica or Sergio that Qatar has joined in, has written that they will that because. So what happened is Iran hit different allies in the region. It hit Iraq, it hit Qatar or Qatar, as somebody wrote in there, it hit United Arab Emirates which is includes Dubai, a city in United Adventist. I believe it hit Cyprus as well. So all those nations are now on our side because they are trying to defend their own nation from Iran and from whatever can hit them. But I wanted to talk about is the. Today there was a press conference by or Secretary Pete Hick said in Commander Kaine and he outlined basically a clear three path mission, a three part mission for this Operation Epic Fury, as they call it, against Iran. Basically trying to differentiate between the war now and in the war in Afghanistan and Iraq because a lot of people, I see a lot of people in the chat, a lot of people are concerned, Erica's concerned, everybody's concerned that there is going to be an ongoing war like Afghanistan, Iraq and so on. And we're going to lose a lot more lives than four soldiers we lost. I think Sophia said on the chat that's way too many. Four that have been lost. It is four. One is too many. But wars have to be fought. There's a reason why we're fighting the Operation Epic Fury. What the war Secretary Pete Heggs had said is that it's narrowly tailored, define objective, destroy Iran's offensive missile capabilities, cripple its Navy and prevent Tehran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. Of course, the commander in chief, which is President Trump, he sets the standard of how long they're going to be there. Secretary Heg said, couldn't say how long. He defines it because for him it's defined as getting these objectives done. Now legally the president can have 60 days until he has to go to Congress and get approval for this war, I believe Thursday the, there will be. From the Speaker, Johnson has said that on Thursday there probably will be a vote on this conflict. I believe either today or, or tomorrow they will be briefed about everything that has gone on and all their information that they have. But from my understanding is that there had been new attempts to create nuclear weapons by Iran. And that is something that intelligence that they have, an intelligence that they will have to prove to the Senate and the Congress in general, and we'll see that pretty soon. But basically, the main outline is Trump is not any. Like any other president. He doesn't go in without knowing what the, what the grad. What the consequences are. He goes straight to it, gets out and starts again like they tried peace. That's another thing he's outlined, and Pete Hex had outlined it today, Secretary Hex had outlined it today, that he was present at the peace talks with Jared Kushner and Steve Woff. I remember, I remember Witkoff today. And he was like, we attempted to get this done without what we're doing now, and there was no way to do it the, the good way. So now we're going to do it in this fashion. And so, so I have an answer.
- [16:13]
Erica
I know, I know. I need the answers. It's so good. It's like my own personal meeting. So what? For those that are wondering, okay, I'm, I'm, I'm going to speak for the people that are like, but wait, I don't understand. So did we do this because we don't want Iran to have a nuke? Because didn't we just do a strike on their nuclear facility and we were told it was taken out? Or are we doing the 4D chest because we want the oil so we can kneecap China from getting their oil and they're not getting it from Venezuela now? So was this like a bigger thing, but going in under the premise of nukes?
- [16:55]
Owen Gregorian
I think Scott would say there's always more than one reason. Right? He said that a number of times. Like, people don't do these things just for one reason. They may declare this is the reason, but there's always more strategy to it. So I think it is going to be an all of the above situation where, yes, it's strategic in the sense of trying to get peace in the Middle east. The Abraham Accords, it's strategic in terms of oil to keep the Strait of Hormuz flowing. Oil that's 20% of the oil flow in the whole world. And they got, I think it was Saudi Arabia or the UAE agreed to pump more oil in the wake of this attack to keep the supply coming, to keep there from being too much disruption in oil prices. And I think it does make sense, at least strategically, that it would also benefit. Well, it would benefit us from an oil perspective in terms of having control over it, and it would hurt Russia and China potentially, because they were the ones that were getting supply from Venezuela and from Iran. And so even though we had all these really big sanctions over all this stuff, they were still selling a lot of oil to China. They were still selling a lot of oil to Russia.
- [18:10]
Marcella
And I don't think oil alone is the reason they're doing this.
- [18:15]
Owen Gregorian
Yeah, well, I mean, I, again, I, I think it's all of the above. I don't think it's one thing. I, I think it's easy to jump to that conclusion and say, oh, it's just all about oil. And I do think that's an element of it. For example, if you just imagined that Iran didn't have any oil, you know, would, would this have happened? Now? It's in my mind, impossible to separate those two, because if they didn't have oil, then they probably wouldn't have the money to go build nuclear weapons. So I think the nuclear weapons probably is the primary reason. And if they weren't going after nuclear weapons, like, at all, then, you know, let's say they were. You know, I don't know what good example there would be, but some other, you know, enemy of ours, but they weren't pursuing nuclear weapons in any way, then you might say, okay, we're not going to. We don't need to go take them over. You know, maybe Syria would be a good example where, like, they're kind of an enemy, even though they're on more friendly terms with us now, but we didn't feel the need to, you know, take out. Take them out or, or take over from, from that standpoint, because they're not as much of a threat from that perspective. They don't have weapons of mass destruction. They're not trying to get them. So I think the nuclear is definitely a piece of this. And it's probably very honest to say we're doing this to prevent them from getting nuclear weapons. And I totally agree with that. I mean, I think when, when you have a country for that, for decades, has been saying death to America and death to Israel very openly then, and they're also very openly trying to get nuclear weapons, then it would be stupid not to take them seriously or to, to Understand that if they get nuclear weapons, they're probably the most likely country in the planet to actually use them because they have this extremist rhetoric, they're willing to die for their cause. They do all this terrorism. And if they were able to use even a dirty bomb of nuclear material, they probably would. And so I think, you know, it'd be very likely that they would at least attack Israel with a nuclear weapon if they were able to. And so I think that's definitely a primary component of it. But I don't think you can just say, oh, no, oil doesn't have anything to do with it, because I think it certainly does.
- [20:31]
Erica
Also, the way they were buying the oil, they weren't using the dollar, the, you know, the, our currency. And that was a big problem. So they want that to stop, too. And yeah, I mean, how long has everybody been saying that, you know, Iran, the leadership, the ayatollah has to be taken out, Nobody did it. I think if I just want to dip my toe into the controversial part of the pool right now for a second, you know, I think some people are going to be like, Israel told us to do this. Like, we're doing Israel's bidding and their wars and is costing lives of our people. I, I, I don't have a dog in this fight this way. I don't really know enough about it. I can see why people say that, because I feel like half of the people are like, why are we doing what Israel wants? And the other half is like, well, there are friends in the region and, you know, it makes sense. So, you know, I does any, I'm going to read the chat too, while you guys talk. So what's your opinion about the Israel angle? I, I am heartened, though, like I said before about a lot of people in the region joining in. Makes me feel better that it wasn't like America, again, going like, into a war. And it's like, why are we doing all this warring? So how do we, how do we square that up?
- [21:56]
Sergio
Can I do a reframe on this, Erica? Yes, because we're losing sight of what happened here. Right? There's a regime of, it's a kidnapping regime that took over a country, Right. Iran, it took over a country that was having a good time, everything was awesome, and they took over for whatever reason. Right. Whoever was behind it, that happened. And like you said, nobody did anything about it for 47 years. Right. And now finally, all the pieces are there to do something about it. And he does it. He liberates a Whole generation of people, right? Women that are going to be making children and they're going to be naming their kids Little Donald. There's going to be so many Donalds out there. You'll see, right? And this is very hard for a lot of people to understand, right, because we're so used to this history of all these presidents doing nothing all these years and just bowing down to other countries. Not just Israel, but everybody out there, right? China, Biden was whoever paid him the most, allegedly. I don't want to say anything, but everything was sold out. This is the first time ever in my experience as a immigrant here that I moved here from falling in love with this country in the 80s that I see a president taking actions towards stopping all this stuff in a sane way and not a crazy, indiscriminate way of doing this. So we are beating China without having to go into World War Three. Basically, he's strangling China, which is our last enemy, right? Our last enemy that can take over us now we're burning them in their territory where their supplies are taken over by us now. So now they have to, like, rely on nuclear or paying more. But now we have the control over their energy because 90% of the oil from Iran went to China. Okay? 40% from Venezuela went to China.
- [24:10]
Erica
So beating China, this I just want to redirect for one second. Like, I get what you're saying, and, like, it can totally make sense. So for people who heard Trump say no wars, like, we're not having any wars. So tell me if I'm right. So your point, Sergio, is like, not to minimize this in any way. Like, we did, like, a smaller war with a really crazy psycho country to avoid what you're going to call World War Three. So here we are. A lot of us were like, wait, you said no more wars.
- [24:45]
Sergio
No, you know, it's not a war is a. It's a security operation. Right? It's a security operation is an informal.
- [24:50]
Marcella
Well, they defined it as a war. They defined it as a war. They. They do define it. The. The administration does define it as a war because they are going to go get Congress's approval now. It's not a war like Iraq and Afghanistan, where we're going to be there for years, and nation building, there's not going to be any. We're just going to get those three defined objectives out of it now. I mean, obviously you can say there's going to be all these other consequences that are going to hit us that we don't know, you know, but you go in and you do your job and you think of the outcome. You don't focus on the process. But one of the things that I did want to have Owen read for us, and I think he made a list of Scott's takes on the war, and that would be. That would be really helpful to all of us. And, you know, we remember one of the things that I. So sorry. One of the things that I have to say is. And I want to cry, but when this happened on the weekend, the first. My first thought is, like, Scott is watching and. And I just. I missed him so much. And I think Erica was saying the same thing. All of us are missing him right now.
- [26:06]
Owen Gregorian
Well, we certainly all miss him at this point. And I wish he was here to give his take. And I can't say for sure what his take would have been because it's often not something anyone can predict. But I think the, you know, I can certainly give you my take based on past things that he said of what I think he might say. But before I get into that, I wanted to respond in terms of the Israel question. I, you know, I certainly think Israel is part of the picture, too. But I think I also, you know, I don't think it's at all there in terms of evidence that we're just their puppet or that we're just doing it because Israel wanted us to. I think Trump has had an agenda to get peace in the Middle east for a very long time, and he's been working towards that with the Abraham Accords and all these things. And Iran really was the last big sticking point preventing that from happening, partly because of all the terrorism that they were still doing, but also because they were the one that would just say, no, we're not doing that, and, you know, we want death, Israel and all this stuff. And so pretty much all the other players in that region had kind of come around to the Abraham Accords and at least partially had signed on to it. And Iran was the one that was the big player in the region that was just not willing to play ball. And so I think from that perspective, I think the US has an agenda to say we need to topple this regime. We need to get new leadership in place that will be willing to sign on to the Abraham Accords or to be peaceful or to not have all this terrorism all the time. And I think that's been an agenda of the Trump administration for a very long time, and they've been working very steadily towards that. And even the Board of Peace is Part of that, you know, I mean, it's, it's, it's all very consistent with the direction that they've been going. And the other statement I would make about it is that I think I see Trump as a very confrontational style person, that this is something I kind of learned myself, that I wasn't nearly as willing to directly confront a problem as I probably should have been early in my career. And so, like, you know, I might have someone on my team that's not really performing the way they need, need to be, or doing everything I need them to do, but I just wouldn't make a big deal of it. You know, I'd say, oh, yeah, everyone has their own weaknesses or problems, and it's not that big of a deal. We can make it work, you know, and so I just wouldn't deal with the problem, and then that problem would persist. Right. I mean, that's the logical outcome of that, is it's not going to get better unless you confront it. And I worked with someone who was the exact opposite. He would just get in your face and deal with the problem right now, like, we're, we're getting to the bottom of this. We're going to understand why this is happening. We're going to stop, stop it. It's not going to continue. This is the last day, you know, you're not going to have this problem going forward. And it made me very uncomfortable when I first encountered that both, you know, he turned it on me sometimes, and he turned on other people. And he was the kind of guy who take you out to dinner and. And he would just tear you apart. I mean, not, not just tear you apart, but, like, he would get to the bottom of things. Like, he would. He would ask you questions, and if you gave him some kind of BS answer, he'd be like, that's a BS answer. That's not the real answer. What's the real answer? And like, you know, what do you really want? And, like, he would just strip you down to your soul. And. And by the end of the dinner, you were either his best friend or his worst enemy. Like, there was no alternative. There's no in between. And. But what I realized after working with him for a long time is that that really worked. I mean, he really did fix a lot of problems that way. And things would get measurably better than if he had just let those problems persist and just pushed him aside and didn't deal with them. And, and that's what I see in Trump, too, is that he's not going to just let this problem just sit there like a lot of other presidents have. You know, he didn't. He. He solved North Korea during his first term. He solved the Israel, Gaza problem. He's now solving the Iran problem. And, you know, he's just not the type of guy that's going to be like, yeah, I'm just going to let him keep being a man to me and keep letting all these terrorist attacks happen and let Americans die all over the place and let it be a thorn in the side of everything we're trying to do. He's going to make it end. He's going to bring it to an end. And it's just a very decisive, confrontational, direct way of being. And that's how, you know, he did the same thing with the border. You know, he's like, well, no, we're shutting down the border. Like, is no more illegal immigration. We're going to deport people. We're going to do. You know, and he just goes all the way. And one of the ways Scott would frame that is he. Trump always takes the strongest position.
- [30:38]
Erica
I think that. I always see this is how I frame what Trump does, is that I think he's such an amazing father, okay? Like, the way he raised his children, him and his wife Ivana raise their children. And I feel like, you know, he's got all these grandkids and there's a future, and he's, you know, he's got Baron, who's still young, and I think he does things like with the thought of his family and wanting the country to be okay for them and their future, which is fine, like, take it over as a concerned father, because it benefits all of us. And I think he's just like, I can't leave this earth, you know, until I know it's going to be, like, where it needs to be for America to succeed and go on. And I love it. I feel like. I feel like he is America's dad, and he's just like, I'll come in and do all the hard shit now, and by the time I'm done, we have a good bench of people. And as long as they don't screw up and lose an election, you know, they should be able to take it on. So I do worry, though, how they're going to reframe this whole thing. You know, everything's about the. Everything. Everything we do is about power and elections. Like, nobody gives a shit, in my opinion, if, like, you know, I'm talking about, like, Congress, senators, These people, it's always about, am I going to get reelected? Who's going to win? Who's going to win? And it's like, why don't you just. Just step back and look at the country and the world as a whole and what is the best thing for all of us? So we. We. We can never forget how much these people don't care about us or what's happening. It is like they live within their own little quarterly bubbles of, like, how they have to move toward an election. So I think it's. It is up to us to really. We really don't call these people enough and call them out enough. Like, I really think that we need to have, like, our. Our local state jurisdiction people on our speed dials and be like, listen. Yeah, hey, hey, it's me again. What are you doing? Like, this isn't what we signed up for. And I think we need to be, like, heard more because at New Jersey, I expect more from you because we're. We're a pain in the ass like that. Get on the phone,
- [33:04]
Sergio
Erica. Somebody said, somebody. Somebody on YouTube said that is home. I think that that's very appropriate, right? That. That is home. What you're talking about being. He was away. We had, like, some crazy uncle, you know, grandpa in charge, you know, that. You know, what the hell was going on. And now we have a father that is, like, on it. It's funny. He's. He's fixing things. We have a pattern of things and fixing things. So I love that. The refrain.
- [33:32]
Erica
And he just has a window to do it, you know, so he's like, let's get it done.
- [33:36]
Sergio
We got to get it done. Somebody asked if you were sitting on your mic microphone, but you're not. Right.
- [33:41]
Erica
Oh, my. Does it sound weird to you?
- [33:44]
Owen Gregorian
Sounds fine.
- [33:45]
Marcella
It sounds fine. It sounds great to me.
- [33:47]
Sergio
Yeah. Yeah. What about it?
- [33:48]
Owen Gregorian
Yeah. So getting into what I imagined to be Scott's take, I mean, certainly part of it is we're still in the fog of war. You know, this is still just the first few days. So anything you hear on either side, you can't really just take it as truth. You have to look at it skeptically and understand it may not be accurate. That's going to be true in any war situation like this. But there's so much going on right now, and there's so many stories flying out that you. We don't know exactly what's true and what's not. So that's just something to keep in mind. Another is that, you know, Scott probably would have said the most predictable thing would have been that both sides are going to immediately claim that the other side went and hit a school or hit a hospital. And we've already seen that, you know, we've already seen the story come out that we apparently supposedly attacked a school of girls, coarser girls, and, you know, we killed 85 girls in a girl's school. And then, you know, the. The debunk took a day or two, but it basically came out that not only was this girl school part of an IGRC military compound, so it really was part of a military target. It apparently also was not us. It was them. Like, they apparently launched some kind of missile from that base, and they. It misfired and it went right back down and hit the school. So they apparently hit their own school, and we had nothing to do with it. And so, you know, that that's an example, I would just say, of where you can't really know exactly what's true. I don't even know if that story is true. I mean, you know, you don't know. So I would just take. Take with a grain of salt any story you hear, especially if it's too on the nose, as Scott would say, that it's like, oh, here's the perfect story to make it seem like we're the monsters or they're, you know, the good guys or whatever. And so I think you need to. You need to step back, wait a while, see how this all fleshes out, what the debunks are that come out, and eventually things will become more clear. But I think right now, we're still in that fog of war phase. I mentioned about taking Trump taking the strongest position. I think that certainly would have been an element of what Scott would say, because that seems to be what he's doing in this context. And also that he's shaking the box, that he's not willing to just take things the way they are and say, well, that's just the way they are. He's going to change things. And so I think he's definitely shaking the box with this, where he's putting Iran in play in a way they never have been in the past. You know, for generations, they've been under this regime, and no one's done anything significant about it. Everyone just considered it impossible and just thought, okay, we can't do anything about this. And some presidents have shoveled money towards them, some have done sanctions. You know, they've done little things, but nothing that would ever be decisive. And I think it left Israel in the mode of saying, okay, every once in a while we got to go blow up their nuclear site so they don't get enough uranium to do anything. But again, now Trump is putting an end to it at this point. And I think it's much more likely that by taking out all the leadership and putting in most likely some new leadership that would be more amenable to America that we could see, see a resolution. I don't think it's by any means certain yet, but I think it's much more likely than it ever was before. And it is interesting to see the reactions of the other countries in the region where most of the other Arab nations seem to be on our side and seem to be cooperating. And you know, you mentioned Cutter and others that might even get involved with the conflict and the it probably was a huge mistake for Iran to spew out all these missiles all over the place around the region because now they're basically just pissing off everybody around them and they don't really have any allies left at this point. And you don't see China stepping in, you don't see Russia. There may be some strategic element to the Russia being involved with Ukraine, so they can't really devote any military assistance that way. And there may be some, you know, China question going forward about how it's all going to shake the box with that. But I think that's certainly, you know, part of the picture as well. And you know, I mentioned that Iran openly says death to Israel and death to America and is trying to build nuclear weapons. And of course we can't let that happen. And I think that from Scott's perspective falls in line with what he would say about people. You know, countries are going to do what's in their best interest or they're going to do what is necessary for their national security and for their self defense. And so from that perspective alone, I think it justifies what's going on here.
- [38:16]
Erica
I want to say to the chat really quick, you guys have lots of good statements and comments and questions and counterpoints. I'm reading as many as I can. You guys are very, very smart. I wish I could answer all of them and really know, but I, I just don't think we really even know the half of it. Like we don't know. We don't know if Iran was actually building nukes. I have no idea. How would we know? You know, just like weapons of mass destruction, you know, and I Iraq, I don't know. And I think, you know, Owen's point of like, you just can't really. You just have, you just have to like, hope for the best with these things. And really quick, you guys, I just want to say, if you're enjoying anything we're doing today, could you just take one second to hit the like button, the thumbs up. Subscribe, subscribe. Do all the things, it would really, really mean a lot to us.
- [39:07]
Marcella
And comment, comment on X that you like it.
- [39:11]
Erica
Yeah, comment on X. Like, you know, keep us going over here, please.
- [39:15]
Sergio
You know, Erica, so to bring back, bring it to Scott a little bit. This is Scott declared war on China right. Back in 2018 when he said that he was going to take him down. And he's been working on it and helping Trump do it all these years. And now again, I don't want to just say that. It's great when you can align many objectives together like what Owen was saying that it's not just one reason. Yeah. It's oil. If it's helping Israel with this and it doesn't hurt Israel right now, you know what, let's go for it. Right now it's just win win for everybody. Right? It's no win win for China and it's no win win for Russia. So those are the last two superpowers left. Right. So now we only have one superpower. That's it. Right now it's 100% defined right now that their weapons don't work. Right. They had like all their best Chinese weapons, anti aircraft weapons. None of it worked like everywhere. They cannot use it or any excuse about it. Right. So we know that our weapons are the best. Nobody can take us down. And that's what Trump wanted. He wanted to make people western. Oh, there was no question. Lifelock, how can I help?
- [40:43]
Erica
The IRS said I filed my return, but I haven't.
- [40:45]
Owen Gregorian
One in four tax paying Americans especially paid the price of identity fraud.
- [40:49]
Erica
What do I do?
- [40:50]
Owen Gregorian
My refund though. I'm freaking out.
- [40:51]
Erica
Don't worry, I can fix this.
- [40:53]
Owen Gregorian
Lifelock fixes identity theft guaranteed and gets your money back with up to $3 million in coverage.
- [40:58]
Erica
I'm so relieved.
- [40:59]
Sergio
No problem.
- [41:00]
Owen Gregorian
I'll be with you every step of the way. One in four was a fraud paying American. Not anymore. Save up to 40 your first year. Visit lifelock.com podcast terms apply. Did you hear that? I'm sorry. Yes. Okay. It's okay. I thought I was on mute. It's my Sergio.
- [41:17]
Sergio
Sergio.
- [41:20]
Erica
So another thing that this is also. All right. So like the, the positive thing for me is I do Think that whatever country next wants to be like, you won't touch us. I think they're going to be like, oh, Trump, Trump serious, and maybe talk about what he wants. So it, you know. Yeah, good example to set.
- [41:41]
Sergio
Isn't that what you want in your neighborhood? Somebody that is taking care of business, somebody that is taking all the homeless, all the crime, and it's cleaning up everything for the, for the commerce, you know.
- [41:52]
Owen Gregorian
Yeah, But I, you know, I think there is at least a chance that this is going to lead to a golden age in the Middle East. I don't think that was a possibility any other way. I, I don't think with the brand there, the way they were, that that would happen. And so I think, you know, Scott may have mentioned the possibility of a golden age, and he might have talked about how Jared Kushner and Steve Woodcock have been these amazing negotiators, and if they could have found a diplomatic solution, they probably would have. And they were certainly the lead negotiators with Iran. So I think we definitely had our best people on the case from a diplomatic perspective. But I think, you know, and in terms of war, I mean, I think to me war is, you know, it is kind of a hard thing. Like, I don't like to argue over words because it's like, of course it's war, but at the same time, like, the last time we declared war as a country was World War II. Vietnam was not a declared war. This Korean War was not a declared
- [42:52]
Erica
war, but they were wars.
- [42:53]
Owen Gregorian
Iraq was not a declare. Like, so, you know, is it a war? You could answer it however you want, depending on how you want to weasel your way into it. But I do think there, in my mind, the difference is, is this going to be a short term thing or a long term thing? I mean, I would consider Afghanistan for 20 years to be a massive war, and even the Iraq, Persian Gulf sort of things, because it was going on for so many years. And I would consider that a major war operation. This does not look at all like it's going to go that way. I mean, anything could change, but I doubt it. I think everything logistically from what we've set up has been we've got these two aircraft carriers, we've got planes all over the place in the region, and we're mostly doing it with air power. We're not sending in massive troops on the ground where they're going to be occupying Iran. And I think everything Trump has said is consistent with that, that we're not going to do that, that we're looking for the Iranian people to stand up and take control of their country and that we're going to be leaving it up to them to figure out who's going to lead things going forward. I'm sure we'll have a voice in it. I'm sure if they pick the wrong person, we may, we may veto that with a bomb. But I think, and anybody who declares that they're now the leader of Iran is pretty brave at this point. But I think, you know, I think once this operation is done, I think it will be probably in a matter of weeks. We'll probably just be done at that point. I mean, there may be little things like we've seen in Gaza where things keep going a little bit here and there because there might be pockets of IDRC or other people that don't give up and they'll have to be dealt with. But I think for the major operation, I'm expecting it will be probably just, you know, two, three, four more weeks.
- [44:36]
Marcella
What, oh, and what, what else is this doing to the left?
- [44:41]
Owen Gregorian
It's forcing what, I mean, just like we've seen many times, it's forcing the Democrats to, to take the side of the terrorists. It's forcing them to, I mean, we saw the New York Times had some kind of complimentary sounding title on their obituary for Ayatollah Khomeini. Scott even made it in the room in, in the news for that. I mean, Libs of Tick Tock I think, was the one that posted it. But, you know, they compared how they, they ran the story about Scott's obituary versus Ayatollah Khomeini and it made Ayatollah Khomeini sound like a better person. So even after Scott's death, he ends up being part of these big news stories that he never intended to be part of. But you know, I do think it is kind of, you know, I don't know if I want to say funny in this context, but it is kind of funny to me that it is sort of forcing them to take this position that can't be defended. Like the, they're suddenly on the side of the terrorists and they're suddenly on the side of the losers too in terms of, you know, clearly Iran's not going to come out on top here and Democrats are taking the losing side
- [45:50]
Erica
again and the Iranians are like Chinese cheering and dancing in the streets, you know, in America and Iran. And then you've got your lib women like, oh no, Trump, you're Like what, what, like what happened to you.
- [46:05]
Sergio
But all those people, they can be at this point, they're, they're like, at the right point. They're ripe for awakening. I'm telling you, I was there and it happened to me, Right. So I know that it can happen to other people. So be there as a listening, you know, in a hug for people to.
- [46:28]
Erica
That ship has sailed.
- [46:30]
Marcella
You don't. Just in case.
- [46:32]
Sergio
Because there's a lot of cognitive dissonance going on. Right. I mean, people is going to try to explain how is it possible, right, that this is happening. So who knows what kind of explanations they're going to have, but they're going to be suffering a lot, and, and they want to find solutions and happy people like us, you know.
- [46:51]
Erica
No, they don't.
- [46:52]
Owen Gregorian
My final point would just be, you know, there's often talk of fairness and, oh, this isn't fair. Trump's not being fair. And Scott had often said that, you know, fairness was invented so children and idiots would have something to talk about.
- [47:06]
Erica
One of my biggest peeves is somebody going, well, that's not fair. I'm like, ah, we're done.
- [47:11]
Owen Gregorian
Yeah. And it just, I mean, the fairness doesn't come into play, especially in war. I mean, especially in war. It's like fairness is not an element of this conversation. It's, it's just whoever has the power is going to do what they need to do, and if they're superior militarily, they're going to win, and we're going to win. I mean, at this point, that, that Iran is going to fall. They're, they're not going to be able to survive this. And, you know, it may or may not be better long term. I can't predict how it's all going to play out long term because you don't know who's going to be in charge. You don't know if it's going to be better or worse. Worse than what it was before. But I do think it's going to shake the box and it's going to be a different set of leadership. And I think they hopefully will learn their lesson not to try and stand up to the United States and make stupid statements like death to America. And, you know, hopefully they will be cooperative from a nuclear standpoint and make sure we can do our inspections and make sure they're not doing anything they shouldn't do. Israel certainly does seem to have a lot of great intelligence one way or another. And so I think we probably will know to some extent what's going on. I don't know that any intelligence can ever be perfect. And so sure it might be even a lie from the Israeli intelligence. But I would think this regime change would probably take away their motive to lie, if they had one, about how close they are to getting nuclear weapons. Because if we have a regime that is now more cooperative and is willing to negotiate a better overall, you know, relations with all these countries, including Israel, then, you know, it should hopefully move everything in a positive direction.
- [48:46]
Erica
I want to just focus for the last 10 minutes, if you guys can indulge me. So, you know, we're seeing. I don't know how to, like, really frame this, but so we're potentially going to see people that are mental. Like this guy that shot up in that bar in Austin wearing, you know, an Allah sweatshirt with an Iranian sweatshirt underneath and alleged Quran in his car. I said alleged, Marcella. So I think. And then, you know, there's other potential attacks that we've heard about after this and potentially based around this. So I just want to, like, have a quick discussion, like, on a human level here for people that live in cities or if you're, like, out and about and, you know, do we need to be careful? Do we need to really see something, say something? And my big prolific comment is going to be this. And this I'm not afraid to say. I really feel this with all my heart is that Islam has no place in our country and our values do not align. And their objective has always been to overtake the world. Not just this country, but the world. And they've been doing it under the cloak of Americans saying we need to be tolerant and accepting of these people after they, you know, trashed us on 9 11. So I. I've always known their objective. I've always heard it. I always knew that it didn't matter to them how long it took. I always knew that they would insert themselves into politics and mayor of New York, maybe, maybe Ilhan Omar, get their way into the Capitol, onto school boards and local positions and all of this. And this is what they've done. And we've had churches burning down and mosques being erected. We have praying in the middle of tom of Time Square. Praying to what? It's not a religion, but praying to, like, a sick ideology that has no place in our country or in any kind of civilized world. Okay, this is me. I'm speaking for me, you guys. I'm not speaking for anyone else. I think that we need to speak out and demand more from our politicians, from our police from our local politicians also. It's, it's not safe, okay? And these people are like, look at, look at Ilhan and Rashida Tlaib during the State of the Union. The only time they got any passion was when they were talking about anything anti American that had to do with another country. They had no passion for our country or our people. They are not playing around. And when they said that their goal is, is to raise like a Islamic flag at the White House, that is not a joke. And these people don't fear death, like if they die, they're martyred, you know, 72 virgins. Okay? But then we're gonna also take your nine year old daughter and say, I'm marrying her and rape her for the rest of her life. Okay? This has nothing to do with our values here, okay? We're a Christian country. We are based off of Christianity. So that's my little rant. So I just want to have like a quick conversation from you guys. Like, you know what, how do, how do we proceed right now?
- [52:15]
Owen Gregorian
Well, I definitely think it's a heightened alert level. You need to be careful. I would tend towards staying away from any large gatherings of people. Stadiums, concerts, you know, whatever it is, even large restaurants or other things. It could end up being a target. And so to whatever extent you can, can just be careful, obviously have situational awareness around you. If you see something, say it and get out of the area and you know, protect the people you love. And I think that's just the reality for now and you know, probably for the, you know, short term future. And if there's an action you might want to take right now is to call your representatives and say, hey guys, let's fund Department of Homeland Security. This isn't the right time to have no funding for the Department of Homeland Security. You know, the government loves to play these games and the Democrats are playing this game by saying, oh, we're not going to fund dhs. And this is the absolute worst time and circumstances to be playing these stupid games. And you know, I'm, I'm all for defunding the government in general and having a smaller government. And I think even the DHS program probably does too much and has too much money. But at the same time, right now, I, I no that we can't have the DHS saying we can't do our job because we don't have funding. So I think that may be a more persuasive argument if you made it right now than if you made it two weeks ago or maybe three months from now. So if you want to take action, even if you have a blue senator or blue congressperson, know, it might be a good time to make that phone call or send that email and say, you know, put a stop to this. Let's get Department of Homeland Security back on the job.
- [53:58]
Erica
I want to clarify, too. So Muslims. I'm not talking about Muslims. I'm talking about Islam. And, you know, you guys have to understand, like, not all Muslims practice Islam, okay? There are such things as peaceful Muslims. Islam is not a religion. They don't have a right to an ideology. And we, for some reason, we overlook this. It's like, oh, you know, oh, no. It's their religious right. It's not a religion. And I'm. I'm not single. I have friends that are Muslim. They're amazing. Islam is not aligned, and you can't not be a radical Islamist. It's just. It's not a thing, okay? So if you're. If you. This is my opinion, again, allegedly, yada yada. If you align yourself with Islam, you are not a peaceful person, okay? You have radical ideals. And if you want to live out those ideals, you can't do that in America without being radical.
- [55:00]
Sergio
Erica, I agree with you 100%. That is incompatible with the way that America is being built. I wouldn't have come here if I. If I knew that you guys are gonna be run by Muslims. I mean, by Islam, I wouldn't have picked this country. Right? I picked it because of the fundamentals of this country, of the way that he's looking up to God. But again, it's taking advantage of our goodness, right? Because we have given freedom of religion. Right? So anybody can say, like, you know what? I came up with this crazy idea to take over America, and I'm going to call it a religion. I don't care if it's Islam or if any other religion, any whatever. If somebody has to change the law, they need to change the law that it says that. It doesn't matter if you call it a religion. If it's something that is, like, in the future, it's going to destroy America. You got to stop it. That's it. So you just have to look at it the way. Design is destiny. Scott said that many times, design is destiny. If you look at something that is. Look at the pattern. Is it helping the country or is it hurting it? So that's it. Right? So I'm glad you brought it up. Thank you, Erica.
- [56:15]
Erica
Marcela.
- [56:16]
Marcella
I believe in freedom of religion. Islam or Muslims to Me, I don't agree with what Erika was saying in regards to the biggest nation of Islam or Muslims who, however you want to call it, is Indonesia. And you don't hear them attacking anyone. So there is perhaps you're going to find some story about Indonesia attacking the US Somehow. But all I have to say is that there's nothing to be afraid of. The majority of Muslims are peaceful, which Erica indicated, and we have this idea that somehow that that's going to destroy us. The thing about America, which I think Sergio brought up, is the fundamentals. We're a republic. We have certain rights that no other nation allows, freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom, the Second Amendment, to carry weapons as bear arms, which no other nation allows. So I do believe in that. But going to the point of the sleeper cells, because we're all thinking religion, war, Scott Adams theory of what could happen if we go against Iran, is there sleeper cells here? Are they going to attack us? Secretary Hicks had talked about that today. Someone from. I forget who asked, but they asked him, what about the sleeper cells? And he goes, we're all watching. We're working as one entity. I know that. I'm from the War Department, but there's CIA, there's FBI, there's Department of Homeland Security, all of that. We're working in tune together. One of the things that Scott talked about is systems, right? And one of the things that I do find different in this administration is, is how efficient they are working with each other, which is great. You can tell that one hand knows what the other hand is doing. While in other administrations, that wasn't as prevalent. I think even in the first administration for Trump, it wasn't as prevalent as this is now. You can see all of his cabinets getting along and working together as well. However, you know, as Owen indicated, you know, be careful, watch yourselves. I know that for the synagogues, they've told them to not congregate or not be around too much, because in la, we have a lot of different areas which are Persian or Jewish. And so there's a lot of heightened alert by the sheriff's department and by the police department in la. But one last thing I do want to say is I know we're running out of time, is that you don't see any Iranian that is in the US or anywhere else. Not. They're all celebrating this. They're not. None of them are talking about. None of them are angry at Trump. None of them are talking against us. They are all celebrating him. You have tons of people in la that went out celebrated not only in Los Angeles, but everywhere else. There's a whole new batch of voters that Trump has, and I just wanted to highlight that.
- [59:49]
Erica
Yeah, awesome for it, for all of those people. All right, we did it. We got through Monday, you guys. Thank you so much for being here. And tomorrow, BJ Dure will be back to join us. We haven't seen him in a while, our Canadian friend. It's going to be fun. And then we'll be back Wednesday with the news crew. Okay? So please be useful, be alert, be aware, stay free, and let's just try to take some deep breaths. Today I am literally going to go outside and talk, touch some grass, and we love you guys. And thank you. Thank you for clicking like and subscribe and all those good things. We really appreciate that, too. Thank you, Bri, for hosting us. And, Scott, I don't know what you really would have said today, but it would have been amazing, and you would have talked me off a ledge. So I'm just gonna get off the ledge because he would have done that for me. All right, love you guys. And we'll see you tomorrow. To Scott.
- [60:49]
Marcella
To Scott.
- [60:50]
Sergio
To Scott.