C (5:35)

Well, the most important thing, Brett, and thank you for having me, but the

D (5:38)

most important thing is to recognize that

C (5:40)

Iran has been at war with us for at least 47 years, all the way from 1979. People may forget they took our embassy hostage 444 days. They were responsible for the killings of

B (5:56)

300 plus Marines in Lebanon in the early 1980s.

C (6:00)

And if you ask people about Iraq, what was the source of many of our casualties in Iraq, you'll get estimates as high as 75 or 80% of

B (6:10)

them were due to Iranian made roadside bombs.

C (6:14)

And so they've been at war for

B (6:16)

us a long time. So she goes on to say that anyone who questions it is ahistorical, meaning she knows history and you don't. You're a historical. She is an a hole, but okay. Anyway, meanwhile, the Pentagon is telling us they are raining hell down on Iran right now. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth says bombers have taken control over the skies of Iran, flying over Tehran, flying over Iran, flying over their capital, flying over the irgc. Iranian leaders looking up and seeing only US And Israeli air power every minute of every day until we decide it's over and Iran will be able to do nothing about it. Meanwhile, much talk now about boots on the ground in Iran and will there be U.S. forces by the end of December 31st. Polymarket, you know, which seems to get a lot of stuff correct this morning. This is polymarket. US forces entering Iran by December 31, a 65% chance of US forces on boots on the ground. Meanwhile, the Iranian foreign minister, Abbas Agrachi says he is waiting for a US Ground invasion. The Iranians are prepared. And watch as this NBC News anchor is like, wait a minute. Did you just say what I think you said? Boots on the ground in Iran. Are you afraid of a US Invasion in your country? No, we are waiting for them. You are waiting for the US Military to invade the ground troops? Yes, because we are confident that we can confront them and that would be a big disaster for them. So you're saying that Iran is ready and willing to take on the US Military if there were to be ground troops? Well, we were ready for this war, even more than the previous war. So you can see, you know, the quality of our missiles, how much they are upgraded after the last war because we learned lots of lessons and we are. So there's a lot of propaganda happening in real time right now. We want to bring in Colonel Douglas MacGregor, who's just written a great new piece on his substack about how this thing possibly ends. Colonel, great to see you. Welcome back to the show.

E (8:39)

Hey, thanks very much. Good to see you.

B (8:42)

So when you look at. Well, first of all, this idea of boots on the ground, we keep hearing this over the past 48 hours, and members of Congress are saying, we know we're not ruling it out. We can't have regime change with just air power alone. What do you think the likelihood is that we're going to see us boots on the ground? 00.

E (9:05)

I mean, you might see some special operations troops mill around the neighborhood. That's eminently possible, although I think we're a little concerned about getting them out once we put them in. But no, I just don't see any evidence for it. You've got an army that's simply too small. It's a fraction of what it was formerly in the 1990s. The Marines, again, they don't have enough men to make a dent. You would probably need somewhere in the neighborhood of at least a half a billion troops. And remember that a lot of those are going to have to be part of the sustainment, the support. Then even more important, we're not really organized or trained to deal with the threat, because the threat we'd face would be very similar to what the Russians have faced and ultimately mastered in Ukraine. We're not accustomed to dealing with thousands of drones or unmanned aerial vehicles of all different types and sizes converging to attack us. And we've never had to deal with these precision guided ballistic missiles and cruise missiles. So now I think it's almost zero. Imagine you're trying to bring in ground troops and someone finds out. The Iranians will find out through satellite based intelligence and their various operatives and their supporters in Moscow and Beijing that we're going to try and concentrate forces somewhere. It doesn't matter where you put them. Say they're going to try and come in through Haifa, although that port's in bad shape now. And then you've got to move them through Israel, across Syria to get into northern Iran, or you're going to try and penetrate the Straits of Hormuz and land at Bandra Bas. I mean, it's all ridiculous nonsense. The missiles alone would destroy you along with all of the unmanned systems. So I, I can't imagine that happening.

C (10:58)

I'm seeing reports out of Israel that Israel wants boots on the ground, but they can't get any generals to lead it because their assessment probably matches yours that it's a suicide mission. Can you respond to what we've been through collectively over the last week? From this is a short military operation to four to five days, to two to three weeks, then it was four to five weeks. Now we're here in September. That doesn't bode very well for a successful mission that we thought would take a weekend, and now that's seven months. So what do you make of this moving target and what it says about the status of the war that we can't see because of propaganda filters?

E (11:40)

Well, I'm seeing some real indicators of success for us. So much success that President Trump is summoning the aerospace industry heads to meet with him in the White House, presumably to tell them our missiles and munitions have done a great job. Right. Right.

B (11:56)

High five. We're done. You guys have done such an amazing job. No, not that. We've spent over, you know, a trillion dollars and we have, we're out of Tomahawk missiles and we have, we don't have Patriot systems. Like that's really what that meeting's about, right?

E (12:09)

Well, I would think so about a number of things, but it's not an indicator of imminent success or that we're on the threshold of victory. This other business, you know, the Israelis just announced the mobilization of 100,000 reservists. I'm hearing that a lot of those reservists are not going to show up. And they've got to man the force that they're trying to ship into Lebanon where they're meeting again. Resistance despite enormous bombing. I just don't see the evidence for success. And moreover, now I'm hearing from people that say, oh, you don't understand, Doug. The Iranians are running out of ballistic missiles. They're running out of cruise missiles. Why? Why do you say that? Well, they haven't fired as many over the last two days as they did at the beginning. I said, aha. Well, obviously they have to have targets. What have they got left to shoot at? They've already destroyed all of our bases. They've done enormous damage to the infrastructure, command and control, radars, Patriot batteries, thaad batteries, you name it. Oh, no, no, you don't understand. They're running out. As soon as somebody tells me the enemy's running out. And that's the reason I tend to remember Ukraine. Oh, the Russians are running out of ammunition. They're running out of missiles. Oh, the Russians are losing. Iranians are winning. I don't believe anything, frankly. I want to look at a different indicator. And the indicator right now comes in the form of insurance premiums for shipping. They have risen by 640%. Just think about that. We don't have to shut down the Straits of Hormuz right now. In other words, it doesn't have to be blocked. If you're an Iranian, all you have to do is make sure that the risk that insurers have to take is too high. And that's what's happened. We have 3200 ships sitting to go in and out of the Straits of Hormuz. Now, if you're a Russian flagged or Chinese flagged tanker, you're allowed to leave. You're allowed to come in. But if you're anybody else, you're going to be stopped. And right now nobody wants to insure the ships. So these, these effects are profound. Higher oil and refined product risk premium. Higher freight and war risk insurance, tighter financial conditions. And if ships and premiums stay high, Iran is achieving a strategic effect without having to win tactically. So what do you need to keep this going? More drones? Sure. Some more drums, occasional missiles. And who is going to invade you? Oh, I forgot, the Kurds. Right. Only now we've discovered there is no Kurdish army preparing to invade. We're trying to stand one up. But the Kurds aren't that stupid. They've been down this road before with us and we betrayed them. So, you know, I just don't know what the outlook is, except to say, I agree, this could go on for many, many more weeks.

B (15:06)

I love when people would say to you, colonel, Colonel, who led men into battle, for crying out loud, and who has sources, deep, deep sources within the United States military more than any of us sitting here on this table or anyone who's, like, probably watching right now, unless there's some sort of keyboard cowboy that we don't know about. But to say to you that you're wrong about what Iran's missile capacity is, you've been studying this for decades, and their ability to sustain this, you've laid out many, many times on our show. So I guess I'll just ask you straight out. Is there a way that we could actually beat Iran short of a nuclear weapon?

E (15:48)

Well, I think the bar is very low for Iran. All Iran has to do to be victorious, if you will, is survive. That's it. That's all they have to do. Continue to lob missiles, continue to launch drones, strike back. If we come close to the country, in whatever way they can, they managed to maintain command and control. They've dispersed their forces. Those forces are surviving. They seem to have a very large supply of missiles and drones, contrary to what anybody may think. So all they have to do at this point is survive. Now, what do we have to do to win? That's the real question, right? I mean, you listen to all this bombastic nonsense and hyperbole from the president. We're the greatest. We have the greatest force in the world. Okay, fine, it's the greatest in the world. What are you trying to do? Well, regime change really hasn't worked very well, has it? You managed to kill the Supreme Leader. That simply galvanizes the population against you and Shiites worldwide against you. So I don't think that's helped very much. They've developed a good succession system. So if anybody is killed or wounded and taken out of action, they have plenty of people to step up and take over. So if we're not going to regime change this forcibly with bombing by trying to bomb everybody out of office, what are we going to do? And I think what we're trying to do is destroy Iran and cause the society to disintegrate. And we're desperate. We're grasping for straws. We're trying to get the Kurds to go in to create havoc. I see evidence that we're milling around and causing trouble in Azerbaijan that may result in a resumption of the war there between Azerbaijan and Armenia at the Same time, the Turks aren't very happy about our aspirations, since the Kurds, of course, want to build a state at their expense and the expense of Iran and the Turks. And the Iranians are already. Iranians are already sharing intelligence. So if our goal is to destroy the country, I don't think we're going to achieve that. But if we came even close to it, I think we're going to end up dealing with the Chinese and the Russians.

C (17:58)

Yeah.

E (18:00)

And that's. That's something I thought we wanted to avoid. But then again, you know, we thought that was the case under Biden. And it turns out that Biden crossed all of his red lines almost immediately. Sending everything he said he wouldn't send and risking everything he said he wouldn't risk. Looks like Donald Trump wants to do the same thing.

C (18:19)

Right. You know, there is an option for President Trump to save face and say, look, we got the ayatollah and we got a lot of bad guys. We're pretty happy we're walking out of here. The problem is that it doesn't seem to be Donald Trump in the driver's seat. It seems to be President or Prime Minister Netanyahu that it's Israel's will that we are bending towards. So if we walked away now, we probably would be led like a dog right back here until I don't know what. So it has to be disastrous. And yet we can't really get a true picture of what the Americans are being asked to do, even though we're funding it. And I notice because I follow your X feed closely, it helps me to cut through the ball. But you got a lot of turds now who are pushing back on you. And I didn't see this before because the pro war faction, the pro war bots, are out. And I notice you're taking a lot of stuff for telling the truth. Now, that tells me something.

E (19:20)

That's right.

B (19:21)

You're over the target, Colonel.

E (19:22)

Yeah, well, unfortunately, if you object to waging war with uncertain purpose and unattainable goals, then you're viewed as a traitor. I mean, that's. Obviously, you don't support what's right and good, but I think Americans are smarter than Washington thinks. And I'll be frank. I don't think this is going to lead anywhere. I don't think President Trump is going to tow the Battleship Missouri into the Persian Gulf and then repaint the name on the Missouri to the USS Trump and hold a surrender ceremony there for the Iranians. I don't think that's going to occur. I hope we can get out of this without ending up in a major war with Russia and China, without blowing up the entire region. The entire region is pretty much blown up as it is. But I think what's going to happen is that over the next several weeks, war fatigue is going to set in. I think we will take more casualties than we've taken thus far. And I think President Trump may be in real trouble. He may not finish his term. He may end up no longer being president by the time the war ends, however it ends.

B (20:35)

So maybe you can give us just a military assessment beyond what you've already said here. Where do things stand on the Israeli side? Are they, you know, CNN is not allowed to show us, Fox News is not allowed to show us. RT got shut down from showing us what's actually happening inside of Israel. You know, bombing attacks inside of Israel. What are we, you know, what do we know about their, the Iranian capacity at this point? Are they sitting back? As Professor Morandi in Tehran has said this morning, the Iranians are using basically some of their old missiles. They haven't even really used some of their most advanced stuff yet. And they're sort of sitting back. Can you help us understand? And also the American deaths, we've only heard six Americans have died. I'm hearing that that number is false. Maybe you can tell us about the American killed in action numbers that you're hearing about. Maybe you just can give us a sense of all of these things.

E (21:30)

Well, let's start with Israel. I think internally Israel is suffering from considerable unrest. There are lots of unhappy people in Israel right now. They've been through quite a lot as a result of starting this war in the aftermath of the 7th of October. They've got armed forces with people that are exhausted, that are tired. At least a million Israelis have left the country and gone elsewhere. And I'm sure more would leave if they were able to do so. So I think the future for Israel is ominous. It strikes me that Israel and Iran may well end up in this contest that I would describe as competitive collapse. In other words, which state falls apart first? And if I were betting, I would say Iran will not be the first, that it will be Israel. Internally, they're already bringing in large numbers of mercenaries to fight, and that's been going on almost from the beginning. Israel has sustained a lot of damage. It's probably going to sustain a lot more before this is over. And I don't know where Mr. Netanyahu is most of the time. Everybody keeps asking that question. He's not exactly very visible these days. So I think Israel is in trouble, let's put it that way. Now, when we go to the Persian Gulf, we look at the Emirates, we look at Saudi Arabia, but particularly the Emirates. I think we as a nation are finished there because deterrence has failed. What the Iranians have demonstrated pretty conclusively is to fight wars, you don't really need navies and air forces. If you're defending your country with missiles and unmanned systems and ground troops, you can wage war for a very, very long time. We are at the end of a 6,000 mile logistical pipeline. We've got to replenish everything. We don't know how many missiles we fired. We're not sure about how many enemy missiles we've intercepted. And when you're in that kind of position, when in doubt, you tend to make things up. I think we're making a lot up, saying that we're doing a lot better than we are, but. But it's impossible to know with any precision. But the point is, you can bomb lots of people in Iran over a long period of time, but you're not going to bring down that nation and you're not going to bomb its current government out of existence. So when you look at the map, I tend to rely more heavily on rebar. I find that most of their data is pretty good. And as I look at the charts right now, I'd say the Iranians are continuing to do quite well. And I don't think that we are pounding them into the dust or pulverizing them out of existence. And I think that's one of the reasons that we're going to send more troops and more firepower there. We've got three carrier battle groups that we can surge, and over the next two weeks, I think they're going to get them ready and bring them over so they can replace the two carrier battle groups that are there now. So this is going to go on. As you pointed out, everybody stopped talking about 48 hours. Remember, we go back to Witkoff and he said, well, President Trump and I thought they were going to capitulate. I mean, after all, look at all the firepower we amassed. Persia has been with us for 2,700 years. I don't see any evidence that they're about to go away. I think they'll, they'll endure. I think ultimately by enduring, they will win. The question is, what. What sobers us up? I think it's going to be economics. Remember, Japan depends for 72, 73% of its oil on the Persian Gulf. South Korea depends about 66, 65% of its oil comes out of the Persian Gulf. China, 50%. But the Chinese have substantial strategic reserves and they have a new pipeline into Siberia. So that no doubt helps a great deal. India's oil, 50% of it, comes from the Persian Gulf. And right now, Indian industries, whether it's ceramics or automobile tires or any number of things, anything that contains petroleum, all of your, you know, your fertilizers contain elements from petroleum. Those businesses are being destroyed in India. And people are beginning to say, now, wait a minute, did President Trump ever consult with any of the nations with which we are aligned or nations that are ultimately friendly to us before he decided to do this? The answer is no. Did anybody really present him with a systematic analysis of how likely it was that we would be successful striking Iran from the air? Or was that simply waved aside based on anecdotal evidence provided by the Israelis that said, oh, this will be over in two days or three days or four days, we don't know the whole story. I mean, the truth will come out eventually. We'll find it out. But I think most of our assumptions were false. They were evidence free, as so much analysis in Washington is. So I think for the long haul, and hopefully we don't have any ships that are damaged or sunk. Hopefully, we don't have a carrier that's struck by one of these ballistic missiles. That would be disastrous because right now all the bases are basically gone in most of the region. They're not usable anymore.

C (26:48)

Gosh. I want to, I want to ask you just one more question about the idea of escorting ships through the streets of Hormuz, the Strait of Hormuz. No one has taken us up on that offer. President Trump said, hey, we'll be the insurer. The US Taxpayer will do that.

B (27:06)

I mean, now that insurance rates have skyrocketed, right?

C (27:09)

So the government is saying, okay, we'll do it. That puts US Taxpayers on the hook, and I assume they would pay for, you know, replacement costs, death tolls. I, I don't know exactly what that means. You and Colonel Davis both kind of freaked out about that because you're like, you really want to sail near Iran? You really want to do that? And no one has to. Why? Who would do that? Who would sail towards a country escorted by the country that's bombing that country? So it doesn't seem like. It just seems like bluster, right? Is that what you think?

E (27:45)

Well, I don't know, because I think that President Trump frequently is a victim of what we call ready, shoot, aim. He says things and then subsequently somebody tells him it's not possible, it won't work, or it's untrue. Then he just sort of waves it off. But this time I don't think he can wave off some of these remarks. I can't imagine any admiral in the United States Navy urging U.S. or President Trump to send Navy combatants into the Persian Gulf right now. They'd be sitting ducks. That's the easiest thing in the world to hit and sink. So I think the idea is crazy. Note that the carrier battle groups, particularly the USS Abraham Lincoln group, has moved as far away as they possibly could without completely sacrificing their ability to contribute to the air campaign. Because remember, you know, you've got a, most of these fighters are about a 300 mile range. That means they've got to fly out 150 miles and back 150 miles and you're a long way from Iran. If you're four or five, 600 miles south of the Persian Gulf, that means that you've got a lot of refueling going on. All of these things cost us logistically. So I just don't see it working. I don't see it happening. I think what you'll end up doing maybe is conducting a kind of naval blockade, but that's going to get you into trouble with everybody. You know, right now what we see is a pattern of missile volleys and drones based on a specific group of targets that are provided largely as a result of Chinese intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance. And the satellite based intelligence is also providing the battle damage assessment. And so this is a very carefully orchestrated campaign on the part of the Iranians. These people are not amateurs. So we, we on the other hand, you know, seem to be stumbling. You know, it reminds me of Lloyd George who said at the beginning of World War I, if the politicians stumbled into the war, the generals have certainly stumbled through it. And I think that's what we did. We stumbled into this behind the Israelis that hooked us in and we're trying to make the best of it. I'm sure the generals in the Air Force, the admirals in the Navy are doing everything can, but this is tough. And in today's attack, you know, the Iranians used one of their Khorram Shar ballistic missiles with sub munitions. They've done horrific damage to Ben Gurion Airport, put it out of business. This was because obviously the Israelis attacked the airport in Tehran. These people aren't finished. They're a long, long, long way from being finished. I think they're going to be standing when Israel's in ruins. And that's the problem, because when do the Israelis finally step up and say, enough is enough, we're going to use a nuclear weapon and put Iran out of business? That's really what I worry most about.

B (30:53)

I've been hearing from sources pointing out that there are a number of IDF soldiers who've been overheard discussing this. Use a nuclear weapon. Just use a nuclear weapon and take out Iran. So I wouldn't be surprised by that. Doug, I'll get you out of here on this. Which is this idea we've been hearing from the Iranian side that they've hit our aircraft carriers. They've targeted hit our aircraft carriers. They've hit some of our navy ships. Is that propaganda from the Iranian side? What are you hearing from military sources? We can't seem to get any data as to whether or not any of our ships have been hit.

E (31:30)

You know, I do have some friends in the Navy, and I'm told that at least One of the DDGs was hit, and they did have a fire on board, but the rest of it, no. And, you know, the other thing is nobody wants to confirm success because they're afraid that they're going to tell the Iranians that they've hit the right target. But the truth is that you can't really conceal the effects because they're going to be picked up on satellite intelligence anyway. But historically, just remember, we always slow roll casualties. We slow roll losses or we simply lie. We lied during the Second World War because the losses were always higher than we expected during World War I. They were horrific, and people waited months to hear the truth. So I just don't think that much of what we are hearing is truthful from our side. And I don't know that the Iranians are telling us everything either, because if you think you got close to a carrier, maybe you say, well, we got close, so tell them we nicked the carrier or something. Who knows? I don't know. But I don't think we can depend on much integrity in war. What did Napoleon say? The first casualty in war is the truth.

B (32:44)

Right?

E (32:44)

He was right.

C (32:45)

Absolutely.

B (32:46)

Colonel Douglas MacGregor, great to see you as always. Thank you so much. Where can people read your new substack piece that you just published? What is the name of your substack?

E (32:54)

Well, I think it's something like McGregor Warrior, but, you know, you stick my name in there, you'll find it. You'll get there.

C (33:01)

Yeah.

B (33:01)

Fantastic.

E (33:02)

You know, I also have McGregor TV, but I'm shadow banned, so nobody ever finds it at all.

C (33:09)

Well, go looking, folks. Raise the algorithm.

B (33:12)

That's what people say about our show. Like we can't ever find you. We don't get notifications, we subscribe. You don't show up on our homepage, you get Shadow banned. So they don't want the truth out there. Colonel, great to see you.

E (33:22)

Popular.

C (33:23)

Yeah, exactly. All right, well, I'll go into your X feed and fight with your turds. That will make me feel better. Sometimes. Sometimes when I get mad about the war, I just stir stuff. Okay, you got it.

D (33:39)

Thanks. Correct.

B (33:41)

Great to see you. All right, coming up here on the show, we're going to talk about the Russian response. President Putin weighing in finally to this when confronted by a reporter, exactly what the Russian response would be on all of this. Sort of sitting back and waiting before inserting himself into this. And also we heard from Sergei Lavrov specifically on the support of any of these, these countries that are bombing Iran right now. So Russia seems to have drawn a line in the sand. We'll see if it's just verbal or will it have any meat behind it?

C (34:10)

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B (35:28)

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C (35:32)

Yep.

B (35:32)

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C (35:37)

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B (36:08)

And we have it in our description box below. Like, if you're like, what was that URL again? It's. Everything's in our description for the show. So check it out. Yeah. And support. Thank you for supporting the few sponsors that we have here on the show. We wouldn't be able to do this show. This is a free show. We wouldn't be able to do it without great American companies who support us.

C (36:23)

Right. All right. Russian President Putin is facing criticism in Russia for not doing enough to end the war in Ukraine. And now he's facing pressure to do something about the war in Iran. Now, some say that he should be doing in Ukraine what the US And Israel is doing in Iran, which I guess is balls to the walls. Right? Can I say balls?

B (36:45)

You did.

C (36:45)

I did, yeah. Balls to the walls. I don't know if that's a good template, though. I don't know if you want to do it our way if you just listen to Colonel McGregor. But on Russian talk shows now, they're saying President Putin is dependent on his personal relationship with Donald Trump, and that's why he hasn't ended the war in Ukraine that stalled peace negotiations, which are heavily criticized there. So what can Russia even do in Iran, while it stuck, still is entangled in its own war at home. Russian leaders are saying they will do something, namely stop the flow of energy. To anyone who is supporting this war, here is Sergey Lavrov saying exactly that. Our strategic partners and will continue to

E (37:25)

maintain dialect with these countries. And we do.

B (37:27)

We'll do our best to including with

A (37:31)

other countries of the international community in

B (37:33)

the United Nations Security Council in the

C (37:36)

United Nations General assembly will do everything

B (37:38)

to create an atmosphere that will make this operation impossible.

C (37:49)

Okay, so we're going to talk for a minute, in a minute about what that means. President Putin is saying he also can stop the flow of energy to Europe. He was sort of spitballing in this interview. You can look that up if you want, but it is in Russian. Why would he do this? Possibly because Europe will be dragged into the conflict because they, most of them are in NATO. Even though many, many NATO members are saying they don't want anything to do with this, namely Italy and Spain, they may not have a choice. Now, earlier today, Iranian foreign minister said this when asked about how Russia and China are helping.

B (38:23)

Are your allies, Are your allies, Russia and China helping you? Well, they are supporting us politically and otherwise. Are they, Are they supporting you militarily? Well, military cooperation between Iran and Russia is not, is not a secret. You know, we have worked with each other in the past, and that has continued, you know, and will continue, I hope, I guess. And they are actively helping you in this war? Well, they are. They have always helped us. So I'm going to, I'm going to understand that to mean. Yes, that they are, they are actively assisting you in this war. Well, I'm not going to give the details of our cooperation with other countries right in the middle of the war.

C (39:11)

Okay, what does that mean exactly? Helping? Where does Russia stand? Joining us to discuss is Jim Jotras. He's a former State Department official and an expert in US Russia relations. Good to see you, Jim. Thank you for offering your expertise. So what do you.

D (39:26)

Yeah, sorry, go ahead.

C (39:27)

No, you go ahead, you take it.

D (39:29)

Natalie Clayton. Thank you. Doug McGregor. Tough act to follow, but I'll do my best. Thank you.

C (39:34)

All right, game on. What do you think? Give us the overall.

D (39:37)

Well, I think you actually outlined it very well in your introduction. A lot of this has to do with how President Putin views President Trump. I mean, when we talk about U. S. Russia relations and what's the nexus between the two major theaters right now, Ukraine and Iran, it's these two New York flim flam artists, Witkoff and Kushner, that the Russians have been repeatedly meeting with so they can talk about big business deals and land and money and bloody baby, just think of the tax write off and whatever, whatever kind of nonsense they're trying to sell the Russians on a ceasefire. The Russians have been polite with this. Maybe they even took it seriously because they say, hey, wait, these guys have got a direct line to Trump. And now they. I think even though the mirage, that there's some kind of a deal possible with Trump, with the United States, that the United States could possibly negotiate in good faith, you know, even. Even Vladimir Putin cannot believe that anymore. You know, he was disappointed that he thought he had a handshake deal with Trump over Ukraine at Anchorage. The spirit of Anchorage. Now we see these same two guys engaged in this treachery, and I think that's the only word for it, pretending to negotiate with the Iranians while we set up to just kill them, to knock them out, to decapitate them. So I think you're right that the pressure on President Putin to finally drop this illusion that he can negotiate a deal with his friend President Trump is finally gone, that the pressure is going to be on him very strongly to move forthrightly in Ukraine. Again, the question you ask, why aren't they launching a decapitation strike of that sort against the Kyiv regime that we see Israel and the United States repeatedly employing against, you know, not only Hezbollah and also trying against Hamas negotiations in Doha and now doing it twice with respect to Iran? So I think the bellwether we're going to see here is twofold. One is, will the Russians change their behavior in Ukraine? And secondly, when Trump wants to declare a win and get out, which I think is his only way out of this at this point, you know, two weeks, three weeks, four weeks, you know, at the maximum, before he's supposed to go see President Xi in Beijing at some point when he wants to get out and say, okay, we've accomplished our mission, another win for Trump. I've solved my 84th war. Do the Iranians let him off the hook? You know, when the Russians and the Chinese see that, here's the United States with our, you know, mammary gland caught in the ringer, do they want to let us go now? And if Iran is getting the advantage, we've exhausted our interceptors. Do they want to keep pounding us away? And do the Russians and the Chinese see an opportunity to bleed us white in Iran the same way we tried to bleed the Russians white in Ukraine?

B (42:29)

So, Jim, you know the old saying, right? Don't get involved if your enemies are shooting themselves in the foot. Why would, you know, why in the world would Russia jump into this if the United States is incapacitating itself completely, running through its munitions right now, having to call CEOs of Raytheon and Northrop Grumman and all of these defense contractors to the White House in order to basically Beg them to make more Tomahawk missiles because we've exhausted our supplies in Ukraine. So Putin could sort of sit back and sort of wait, circle the wagons and watch as the United States really shoots itself in the foot here. Do you anticipate any change to the Ukraine war? Putin maybe doing something more as the spring unfolds here, as the ground unfreezes and they start to move towards spring weather?

D (43:22)

You know, Clayton, you know, one of the frustrating things about the Russians I've learned over several decades is that whatever you would do in their circumstances, they never do. And they do something else. You say, why the hell do they do that? So, yeah, they're not. A lot of people I know in Moscow from many sources have been pressing for a long time to have a change in strategy. And it seems that Vladimir Putin in particular, and there are some other people, Nabiuliana, the head of the central bank and so forth, have been pressing. No, no, we have to be cautious. We have to show restraint. We have to keep the door open and negotiate negotiation. And if you look at the way they've been conducting the war, it has been what I call pedagogical. It has not been designed to achieve a military victory, but rather to force the other side to meet the minimal terms that they set out in June 2024, the Four Oblast, Crimea, neutrality and all that. And that was an illusion from the start, I think. You know, I'm not questioning the military competence of the Russian armed forces, but rather the political competence of understanding the. The mentality of people in the Western capitals who are really, let's be honest about it, cutthroats. I mean, they simply do not take honestly any prospect of negotiation. I don't know if the Russians have finally figured that out. I certainly would have if I were in their shoes a long time ago. You'd think now there's simply no excuse for President Putin to maintain this. This illusion of a negotiation. But I honestly don't know what they will do. I would think that at some point they will decide they've lost so many men. You know, they're still under economic pressure from sanctions, you know, killing Ukrainians. I mean, these people are basically Russians anyway. That's still a loss for the Russian and Russians anyway. At some point, you decide why we keep losing people at this, when we could end this war by destroying the Kiev regime. And. And I don't know if they will do that.

B (45:13)

Can I follow up here? Because, I mean, the real. So the one side, you got Ukraine right, where they're obviously preoccupied, but the other side is. This is barreling towards a world war.

D (45:22)

Exactly. Yes.

B (45:23)

What exactly does the Russian relationship with Iran versus Israel? I mean, Putin had over the, like, five months ago was talking about how many, you know, Jewish Russians live in, live in Israel. So the relationship is very muddy.

E (45:38)

It is.

D (45:39)

And of course, that has been damaged somewhat because of Israeli support for the Ukrainians. So that relationship is not what it was. Again, you get a lot of speculation in Russia, you know, anti Semitic conspiracy theories about how strong the Chabad organization is in Russia, how much influence it has on Putin. People tell me it has influence, but not the same degree of, let's, let's be honest about a control that, you know, big Jewish money and evangelicals, Christian Zionists have here in the United States over the political class in Washington. But it is a factor in how strong a factor is. I don't know. And what are the countervailing? Remember, Putin is not a dictator. He's a manager. He's a manager over a rather diverse sense of a set of pressures and interests that he's trying to balance in some way. Back to the Iran thing. I think they have to worry about what Colonel McGregor said, that if the Iranians do press their advantage, that, that very well could lead to an Israeli nuclear response. That's something they obviously have to worry about. But they also have to consider that, okay, when the Americans are ready to declare a victory and go home and do the Iranians step down, or do they say to themselves, if we step down, fine, we've, we've survived, that's a victory of sorts. But that all it means is we're going to give the Americans and Israelis another chance to come back and hit them again in six months or a year after we had a chance to, to reload. So, you know, that's a dilemma for everybody involved.

C (47:06)

Well, given what a shit starter the US Is, you can see why Russia would be kind of motivated, you know, to help the Iranians either directly or indirectly. And so what capacity? And there's no deterrence now. They've been sanctioned to within an inch of their life. So, so what? You know, the US doesn't have the capacity to fight Iran and Russia at the same time militarily, so why the hell not, Right? Is that sort of their position of like, yeah, we can help the Iranians, but how direct do you think it

D (47:42)

will be in terms of helping the Iranians? I don't think the Russians would get directly involved if they can possibly avoid it. Now, there are some Things they might do. For example, I understand that the Israelis have a submarine capability launch for their nuclear weapons. If that's the case, are the Israeli subs being shadowed by Russian subs and will sink them if they think the Israelis are about to launch their nuclear weapons. That's the only place I can see the Russians would be directly involved militarily. Although you can be sure that there are Russian personnel in Iran today with their air defense systems and maybe even piloting some of their aircraft.

B (48:27)

I guess that's the real question here. I mean. And you have the Chinese angle in all of this as well.

D (48:32)

Yeah.

C (48:32)

So in terms hadn't considerate. He made a good point about the meeting coming up with Xi Jinping. It will be very embarrassing for President Trump if he's still leading this bloody unsuccessful war and he meets in China.

D (48:47)

He'll want to go to Beijing having declared himself a winner. And you'd think it would be in the Russian as well as the Iranian interest not to let him do that and may also be in the Chinese interest not to do that. I mean, after all, the Chinese, what's their short term interest? Turn the energy spigot back on. They want that back on. But both the Americans and the Israelis have made it clear they want this to be the showdown with the Iranians. They want to put an end to the Iranian threat. Well, you'd think that would work on the other side too, that if the Iranians backed up by the Russians and the Chinese, saying we're going to drive the Americans out of the Middle east, we're going to crush Israel, we're going to get rid of all the American bases, force them to pull out. You'd think they don't want to go through this again in a few months too, especially since the prospect for escalation might even be greater than again, it's a real tightrope. How much are you going to risk becoming triggering a global conflict versus how much can you maybe reduce the prospects of a global conflict by finishing it now?

B (49:48)

How about you want to bet? I'm not, I'm not poly market Jim, but I'm going to bet I'll just lay down this bet right now that, that, that meeting with Xi Jinping will get canceled. Is going to get canceled, it's going to be postponed.

D (50:01)

I think there's a very good chance of that depending on how long this goes on. And again, there's so many imponderables here. You know, we're getting propaganda from both sides how badly degraded are the Iranian Air defenses? We don't know. I've seen reports we've used the B52s which we. You think we would not want to use if there was any chance they could be shot down, but I don't know to what extent that's propaganda, that they're still firing standoff weapons, that they're not risking flying over Iranian airspace. There's so much we don't know about how this war is unfolding. And remember, it's still very young and to what extent the Iranians are, have not had seen any attrition in their capability to strike with drones and with ballistic missiles, but are simply waiting for the degradation of, of our interceptor force where they can strike targets within unity and how far they won't want to push it, which, as you say, we got a nuclear risk there.

B (50:57)

Yeah. Jim Jotras, thank you so much. No one would rather talk to who's plugged in on the Russian side of things more than you. So thank you for your perspective on this. It is interesting now to see the President Putin throwing his hat into the rhetoric ring right now with all of this. Thanks so much, Jim. Great to see you.

D (51:14)

Thank you.

C (51:14)

Yeah. All right, coming up, we're going to talk about the propaganda, the information blackout, how we get through this. What do we believe? I think it's important for our own sanity to not be tossed around by the propaganda and the fancy posters coming out of the White House. Now the IDF has a poster as well. What are they calling? Lions Roar.

B (51:35)

Lion's Roar.

C (51:36)

Yeah. And so, you know, well, also the media black.

B (51:40)

I mean, to your point about the media blackout, I mean, we saw CNN openly admit Aaron Burnett show that. Oh, the Israeli government doesn't want us to show you this, so we're admitting

C (51:50)

that they are under direction from the state of which they are covered.

B (51:54)

Yeah, they're access journalists. You know, you don't get a nice rooftop view without being an access journalist. You know that that's guarded by the idf. So, like you're literally in there. Protection of the idf. They're gonna, they're telling you exactly what they want you to cover. That's how this works. That's why embedded reporters is such a joke mostly. All right, all right.

C (52:14)

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B (54:12)

blackout, the propaganda is in full swing. We are at war after all. So you're going to be hearing a lot of fake news and scrolling through X, you're seeing a lot of fake videos, people sharing videos from 10 years ago. This is, this is Tehran. No, it's Algeria.

A (54:28)

Call of Duty footage.

B (54:29)

Yeah, Call of Duty. I mean, it's like, oh my God. I'm sure surprised they're not playing the old, like the old Midway, you know, 1943 video game, you know, from the arcade, for footage. So anyway, there's a lot of this going on, but also there is the relationship with certain governments and the media, the state controlled media. For instance, here is CNN Aaron Burnett show during breaking news in Tel Aviv on top of a rooftop, pointing out exactly what she's not allowed to show you because the Israeli government doesn't want you to see it. So watch this.

D (55:05)

Want to go up there?

C (55:06)

We're not showing you that because we're not going to show. The Israeli government does not allow us or want us to show where that may have come up, that interceptor, but I'm not.

B (55:15)

So we're not allowed to show that. Of course. That's access journalism at its greatest. Right, because the IDF presumably providing logistics and protection for them while they're on top of a building in downtown Tel Aviv. So you can show what we allow you to show, which is not very much. So right now we wanna bring in two special guests who know all about this and cover. And they've been doing an incredible job covering this war and trying to parse through all of the propaganda and bullshit that's out there.

A (55:44)

That's.

B (55:44)

Harrison Berger is a correspondent for the American Conservative. Ryan Grim is a reporter for Dropsite News, co host of Breaking Point. He's been doing really a bang up job trying to get this information out to you. Ryan, I'll just start with you on this. How difficult is it right now for you at Drop Site News to be able to even get accurate reports of damage inside of Tel Aviv, inside of Tehran, to try to get information out and verify it?

A (56:10)

Yeah, because we're in this interesting world where we have more information than ever before and more.

B (56:15)

Brian, you're muted.

C (56:18)

Sorry, is that on our side?

B (56:19)

Is that our side or.

A (56:22)

Yeah, that's on your.

B (56:23)

Oh, there you go.

C (56:24)

We gotcha now.

B (56:25)

We heard you.

A (56:26)

As on you guys usually. That's me.

B (56:28)

Sorry, sorry about that.

A (56:31)

No, the. We have more access to information really than ever before. Yet so much of that information is fake or old. You've got like Elon Musk over at his new platform X. He even unverified the Iranian foreign minister, which is like the only purpose of that is just to sow confusion and chaos. Like you don't have to like or dislike or agree with or not not agree with the Iranian foreign minister, but you want to know if it's actually him.

B (57:04)

Right?

A (57:05)

Especially as like the nuclear trigger gets, you know, closer to being pulled. Like just small moments of confusion can send the world spiraling off into, into places that it wouldn't otherwise have gone if there hadn't been that confusion. So we have to be very careful with what we're, what we're seeing. A lot of this is recycled video. The one I did see that Twitter told their content farmers that if they get caught using, you know, making like AI videos of like war to try to generate money, that they'll be kicked out for 60 to 90 days or something I think every platform should do something like that. I mean, frankly, I think you should do it all the time. But particularly in times of war, they we should do that because, you know, this, this is the biggest war we've had in a time where we have AI that's able to, you know, create, you know, convincing looking videos. So you have to rely on, you know, human sources as well. You know, people who are in the areas, whether it's Tehran or Tel Aviv or anywhere else, who can kind of, who can verify, you know, what, what is being circulated because otherwise it's just so much slop.

C (58:22)

Right. Harrison? We recently learned that the IDF has officials inside the Pentagon, inside the CIA. So it makes sense that even if you don't feel follow the idf, they seem to be high in social feeds no matter what network you're on. The for you page, the curated page on X has a lot of White House, idf, CIA, centcom, whether you follow them or not. So it seems like they have some true infiltration to have war propaganda reaching us. And I'm just so shocked at the top gun looking posters and videos and data points. You know, the IDF saying we pit, you know, 70% of our target. All of this. You would think, oh my God, like we're amazing. If you're western supporter of this war.

F (59:12)

Yeah, it's very true. There's obviously an ongoing information war, not just on X, which is owned by Elon, a personal friend of Netanyahu. He's very open about that. And so obviously the content that people see on their for your pages is generally reflective of pro Israel views. That's been the case for a long time, but also especially and increasingly now on TikTok where Larry Ellison, the Zionist oligarch, is the new owner. And if you go on the for you page there, it's a ton of misinformation and disinformation about not just what's going on in Gaza. There's actually nothing about what's going on in Gaza on that app anymore. People like Guy Christiansen are being censored and are moved off the app. Very prominent influencers, but especially in this war in Iran, there's barely any discussion of it other than some memes. And so when it comes to Israeli actions that they're taking themselves to muddy the waters and cause confusion, the most obvious thing that they're doing is what you mentioned in your intro, which is that they are mass censoring the military censors in Israel are mass censoring any photos and videos. And of the damage that Iranian rockets and missiles are doing to Iran are doing to Israel. And so we actually have no idea how bad the damage has been so far. There's a ton of videos I would contrast, I would say coming out of Iran, we know exactly what's happened to them. We're told, oh, they're this despotic, terrible regime with no freedom. But actually, it seems like there's a lot less censorship in that country because I have a much better idea of what's going on there than I do in Israel. Israel, which we're told is this free democracy, but actually has apparently a lot more military censorship.

B (60:59)

Ryan, maybe you can speak to the censorship happening inside of Israel right now. It seems like very, very difficult, even just speaking to my sources in Tel Aviv on this, like, where they're very sort of cagey about what they're allowed to talk about, what information they're allowed to share. We've seen reports, obviously on rt. We saw cnn. We've seen other a. Reporting literally in the middle of filming certain attacks. They're, They're, I guess, stopped by IDF or other police and told to turn off their cameras and they're not allowed to show it. Can you speak to that?

A (61:32)

Yeah, and there's also, as. As Harrison has talked about, there's a set. There's a censor's office, you know, that has to clear articles that are, you know, articles or videos or anything else. So, you know, there's. There's that, like, regular operation and then during, you know, times where they're being attacked, their argument is you don't want to give any targeting information to Iran. You don't want them to know, oh, hey, we. We missed our target by, you know, 200 meters over here. So they are, you know, pretty, pretty blanket, you know, shutting down any ability of the press or the public either to convey, you know, what. What damage is being done or not done. And that's. That's been the case. You know, they arrested Jeremy Lofredo, if you remember, an American journalist who's done a lot of work for Drop site as well, and held him in jail for a while, charged him, they ended up dropping it anyway. We don't have to get into that, but they, they take that stuff extremely seriously in a way that would kind of, I think, shock people over here in the United States when we're more accustomed to press freedoms. But for many other countries, that kind of authoritarianism around, particularly times of war, is fairly standard.

B (63:00)

Can I just follow up? May both of you guys can Jump in on this. But the American killed in action number, I don't buy them at all. According to our own reporting, and I'm not prepared to give numbers just yet, but six people killed, six soldiers killed? No. So, and as Colonel MacGregor earlier on our show said, we very often slow roll any kind of casualty numbers going back to World War I. In your reporting, are you able to get a sense of how detrimental this has been for the United States side?

A (63:33)

Go, Harry.

F (63:35)

I have no more information than you guys have, which is what the Pentagon has said. And of course, you're absolutely right, and Douglas McGregor is absolutely right, too, that the Pentagon tends to conceal and lie about these figures. Not just American casualties, but the targets that we hit, too. I mean, this was something that you guys, and I say, you guys, as in Ryan at the Intercept, revealed with the drone paper, which was that the casualties of our drone strikes, when we frequently mark them as militants, they were usually just civilians in like 90 plus percent of cases. And that was from the government's own documents. And so I expect to see this concealed for a lot longer. And when it comes to what we're told about who we're killing, I expect that to be just as inaccurate.

C (64:22)

Right. We can thank Barack Obama for that because that was his PR spin is that anyone who was of military age could be written down as a combatant. And the press said, we're fine. We're fine with that. Sure. Totally fine. So we should not expect the press to behave any differently. Were you going to say something, Ryan?

A (64:44)

No. Yeah. No, it's, you know, agree that it would be in character for the Pentagon to slow roll some of these announcements, for sure, particularly as there's the reporting has emerged that, and is completely unsurprising that President Trump is more sensitive to that type of bad press than probably other other presidents. No president wants to have American service members killed on their watch. But Trump is just a little, you know, Trump is more attuned, I think, to the damage that that does to him. And so that that means that anybody who is reporting that is not only, you know, is. Is running it knows that they're running up against the. What the boss wants to put out. So you could imagine that the bureaucracy's wheels would move as slowly as they possibly could.

C (65:47)

So, Harrison, you brought up a good question. You said, you know, this removes all eyes from Gaza, and over the weekend, there were civilian casualties in Gaza at the hands of the idf. What else have we missed this week that you would like to draw attention to?

F (66:04)

I'll actually pass that over to Ryan because Dropsite has the best coverage of Gaza.

C (66:08)

Okay.

A (66:11)

You know, there was a, an op ed published, I believe it was yesterday by Ahmed Khan in the Los Angeles Times. Khan is he, he made headlines in 2024, early 24, when he said, I'm not, he's a major donor to Joe Biden. He said, I'm not giving any money to this party until it puts a halt to this genocide. And he was hoping that that would start a rush of other major donors and following him out the door and demanding that, you know, for the, the sake of humanity, but also for the, you know, the sake of the Democratic Party itself, that they would, they would, they would shift course and put, and put an end to the genocide. They never did that, obviously. So he hasn't given his money to the Democratic Party. What he does with his money is he, he funds relief efforts into, into Gaza. And so he wrote a piece that is that people, I tweeted it, you can find it on the LA Times website, just detailing how insane and Kafka esque it is to try to get aid into Gaza. One thing he highlighted was he's had 15,000 boxes of cold medicine that have been sitting there for five months. And because they have some level of glycerin in them, which Nyquil and other medicines like that have, Israel's saying, no, you can't bring that in because you could extract the glycerin from the cold medicine and then produce bombs out of it. And so then the question is, okay, well then is no glycerin allowed? They said, no, no, no, you can have some glycerin. And well then how much, how much glycerin? Well, we're not going to tell you how much what the, what the level of glycerin is that you can have. Just send more stuff and we'll see if it gets through. So the Kogat, which runs the process of allowing aid and life essentials into Gaza, the Israeli agency responded to his op ed today and said that there is no blanket ban on glycerin. Which, and, but then said glycerin can be used to make bombs. So yes, of course, some cold medicines. And they did like a fisking all the way through of his piece, confirming every single detail. And they confirmed, yes, we have blocked a lot of tents because some tents have tent poles that could be dangerous, but we're okay with other tents. What kind of tents are you okay with? They won't say what kind of occult medicine Are you okay with. They won't say because they're setting up this bureaucratic nightmare for people who to in order to get people frustrated, say, you know what, forget it, like, can't do it. This, this form was supposed to be in triplicate. You gave us four copies. So back to the end of the line. So that's really worth watching because we're going to see conditions in, in Gaza continue to spiral as, as they lock down the ability of aid to get in life essentials to get in while the world is kind of watching, looking somewhere else.

B (69:10)

Guy again to both of you here. But Harry, I'll start with you on the what blind spots? What are your from a reporting perspective right now? What's your biggest frustration? What do you think the biggest blind spots are that we could certainly use some light on shined upon if we could get access to it?

F (69:30)

Well, I'd say as someone who works for the American conservative, it's very frustrating to see now just this media class on the right line up behind the Pentagon and behind the president, just totally unquestioning. In fact, if you question then you're disloyal is what we're told. And there's just this media environment on the right right now that just says that you have to support this war, which is not an American war, it's an Israeli war. Everyone knows that. Marco Rubio admitted it on Tuesday openly. He had to walk those comments back, but he said them nonetheless. And so I guess the fact that journalists on the right are now compelled to support this action, that's been frustrating me the past week.

B (70:16)

Right. And Ryan, this is like access journalism, right? I mean they want to get these interviews. Fox News wants to have these people on their shows, even like the Epstein Binder MAGA conservative media types, you know, they still want to have that access journalism. It's one of my great frustrations. I talk about it all the time. I'm like a broken record. But they are being asked to line up behind the president and they're being asked to line up and support this war. And if you question it, then you're, I don't know, you're anti Semitic, you're anti, you're anti American. Somehow this, yeah, I agree with Harry on this.

A (70:50)

Well, I think I, for Fox and for, I think a lot of the right, this is like a, a homecoming for them. Like they've had to pretend for a couple years now that, that they actually are done with the forever wars and they're against the nation building. They don't like attacking all of these countries around the world because that's what the kind of grassroots energy around MAGA believed. That's what readers of Harry's news outlet believe. But that's never what they believed. So they had to twist themselves into knots to try to pretend that, oh, yeah, we really do regret what happened in Iraq and that was a mistake and we wouldn't do it again. So I think they're delighted now that they don't have to pretend anymore that they're America first and that they're, that they're against the forever wars. So I don't think they need any promises of access or anything else. I think their, their own bubbling bloodlust is, is enough.

C (71:50)

Yeah, they can play the hits, get them back at business as usual.

B (71:54)

Well, I mean, think about it, right?

A (71:55)

Like say the R word again and they can be, they can like go to war. Like it. They couldn't be happier.

B (72:02)

I think it was emblematic yesterday watching that US Marine have his arm broken during that session of the House and, you know, calling out, of course, the House of Representatives for this war, this is Israel's war. It went viral. Of course, McGinnis had his, his arm broken. As a result, he's recovering and, you know, recovering. And then you have Senator Sheehy who got involved also to tackle him. And he's huge ace APEC supporter and receiver of funds from apec. And of course, that would have been when I worked at Fox News years ago. Like if it was reversed, that would have been the story on Fox News. Nonstop coverage of that. An American Marine stands up and shouts down the Biden administration for X, Y and Z or whatever it is.

C (72:52)

I mean, fourth troops was their lower third for, you know, years and years.

B (72:58)

Yeah, but because it's flipped now, no coverage. They'll probably get Dan Bongino out there to tell you why this Marine is something. So it's a, it's amazing how this, this shifts so quickly, isn't it?

C (73:13)

Who are you asking?

B (73:14)

Oh, I'm just, I'm opining. I just. So I, it just, it to me was emblematic of this Fox News shift, you know, but anyway, go ahead, Harry, whoever wants to take it.

F (73:24)

Yeah, well, those soldiers and those veterans are completely inconvenient for the war selling class. That's who runs Fox News. And in fact, the purpose of Fox News is less so to convince Americans to support wars. It's now just to kind of propagandize the President. He watches Fox News all the time and he believes that the sentiments that are reflected or expressed on Fox News are reflective of the general population, even though they're not at all. Polling shows that before this operation, Americans were opposed and even Republicans were split on military action against Iran. Nobody was even asked if they support a war on Iran. It was just strikes against Iran. If you ask people if they supported a war and a regional war in the Middle east on behalf of Israel, I'm sure the responses would be much lower. But they don't care about those types of veterans. Like the one who broke his arm yesterday. It reminds me of what they did, like, you know, I GUESS it was 20 years ago to that NFL player. I forget his. Oh, Pat Tillman.

B (74:28)

Oh, Pat Tillman, yeah. Arizona Cardinal.

E (74:31)

Yeah.

C (74:32)

What is that story? Can you remind us? I don't.

F (74:34)

Well, yeah, he was a veteran and he fought in the, in the war in Iraq. He deployed. And the NFL, which has a major partnership with the Pentagon, they released a bunch of propaganda about him, how he's like a major patriot, you know, a true American for fighting for his country in this war. That's a necessary war, we were told. But he ultimately, after going off to this war, became a major critic, like many of the veterans who had to fight in these wars. That's something we're not told, that the people who actually have to go and fight and die in these wars, unlike the politicians like Lindsey Graham who just send other people's kids to go fight and die in the them, they come out of those wars and they're opposed to war. They become anti war voices, some of the biggest anti war voices there are. And Pat Tillman was killed in action. And the Pentagon completely lied about what happened to him. They said that he was killed heroically by enemy fire. He was killed in a friendly fire incident, the circumstances of which are extremely murky. We still don't really know what happened totally, but they lied about it. And so he was this sort of veteran who was completely inconvenient. His story was for the war narrative. And so they just had to lie about it and bury it.

C (75:48)

What is. You just said the NFL has a contract with a Pentagon. What is it for?

F (75:54)

Oh, I mean, they have major marketing contracts. If you watch the NFL season in November, it's the Salute to Service month. And so all the NFL teams literally wear army gear with the Pentagon or the military logo on it. The army logo, it's in that military green. And so this happens not just in the NFL stadiums.

C (76:17)

Yeah, yeah, I've seen that on veterans.

B (76:20)

Well, the camouflage gear that they all wear, as Harry was pointing out. You know, they all shift up their gear for that.

C (76:26)

Interesting.

E (76:28)

Yeah.

B (76:28)

Ryan, your thoughts on yesterday's the US Marine McGinnis having his arm broken there and just that coverage and how that would have played out on Fox News,

A (76:36)

I believe, correct me if I'm wrong, he's running for Senate.

B (76:40)

Yeah.

A (76:41)

In North Carolina on the Green Party ticket.

B (76:44)

He is.

A (76:46)

Which, you know, that's a pickup opportunity for Democrats. And so I think they're going to. They're going to freak out if, you know, if he starts developing more energy. I know activists there in New York have been pushing Rory Cooper to just say, like, yeah, he'll block arms sales or do block the bombs. I don't know exactly what. There's some specific ask that is not a maximal ask. It's like a least you can do kind of thing. Commit to the least that you can do, and we will get behind you and not support a Green Party challenger. But so far, he has not done it. But I think this puts more. Kind of could put end up putting more pressure on him. And at some point, you would hope that these Democratic Party consultants would learn the lesson of 2024, that, as TA Nehisiko has put it, like, if people don't think you're gonna draw the line at genocide, you know, how are they gonna. How are you gonna draw the line at democracy or anything else?

C (77:43)

Right.

A (77:44)

It's beyond just the question of the policy itself. It goes to the question of your. Your character and your conviction. And it's something where if people don't see you willing to stand up for something that's difficult, then they don't believe you're going to do anything, especially in a time where trust is at an absolute low. Like, you have to demonstrate that you have some moral conviction somewhere.

C (78:09)

Speaking of, though, we don't ask for,

A (78:12)

like, people don't ask for much because they don't expect much much, but something.

C (78:16)

Right. But now look at the slippery, slimy character of Gavin Newsom, who really went out on a limb and said, maybe Israel's not a good actor here. And I'm like, wow. I mean, now you're doing this. Like, it's very hard to believe that Gavin Newsom all of a sudden has the conviction to see what Israel has done, and that will be the lowest bar that he can step over when almost nobody in the Democratic Party is willing to. So it shows us, what do you guys make of this? But you can tell that I'm not inspired by this. What what about you, Harrison?

F (78:55)

Yeah, I agree with you completely. I don't know how credible it is. There were two and a half years to object to the genocide that Israel announced from the start that it was waging, it wasn't like it just, we just discovered, you know, six months ago that they were waging a genocide. There was international media coverage of it and it was the main story across the world. And so he's a coward and all he's doing now is reacting to the polling of young people, especially progressives. But it's across the parties that are sick of Israel. They're sick of paying for their wars, their genocide in Gaza, but also their wars in Syria and Lebanon against the Houthis in Yemen. All the fronts that they're fighting on that we were flying, forced to pay for. They're sick of the Israeli censorship regime that we have in this country. And Gavin Newsom in California has of course been.

B (80:05)

On final thoughts on that. I guess we'll get you out of here on that. But your thoughts on this shift. Now maybe this is where Democrats see an opportunity. They can lie the low hanging bar, the low hanging fruit, so to speak. And Gavin Newsom may be reaching for it.

A (80:22)

Yeah, I think, yeah, I think he's a really, he's a really useful weather vane. He's a really useful kind of gauge for where the, kind of, the base of, you know, the, the not base but like the median politician at the Democratic Party feels the momentum is. So to have him going in that direction is a very clear signal to, to the rest of the party kind of that like, because everybody knows like this, like this, this is a, you didn't quite have Bill Clinton's charisma, but he's like that kind of a political animal, just a, just, just a raw political id, just reaching for power. And so he's going to go where you know that power is. On the other hand, it's always

B (81:13)

kind

A (81:14)

of strange to me to see people object when genocide. I understand why people would object to that connotations, the history of the term apartheid. Like you have a system where based on your, your religion, your background, you have different rights. Yeah, like, like you give us the word then like if, if it's not apartheid. So that, that was the part of, that was the part of it to me that although I'm totally used to it. Yeah, but, so it's not surprising. But maybe he picked that because it is, it's at once inflammatory to a certain segment of the population but at the same time completely Utterly defensible and not even. Shouldn't even be controversial. Like, that's what it is. You got, you know, highways for some people and not others. Like housing for some people and others, courts that you can access if you're Jewish court, military courts if you're not. Like, that's apartheid. And nobody can, with a straight face, claim otherwise. So maybe that was kind of the way that he was being clever about that. I don't know.

C (82:29)

Yeah, I'm not gonna mark him down for bravery here because, yeah, he's had two and a half years.

A (82:37)

Well, he's not trying to be brave. Nothing about anything he does is trying to be brave.

B (82:42)

Sure.

A (82:42)

He's trying to become president just relentlessly. And he thinks that this, at this moment, and I think he thought both, like, that he will do this and then he'll walk it back a little bit. Like, I think both were calculated and forethought.

B (83:05)

All right, well, two great journalists. Great to have both of you here. Ryan Grimm from. From Dropside News. Here's the latest in the COVID of Dropsite News right now. Go check it out. They do an incredible job. And here is the American Conservative. And this is Harrison's latest piece over there in the Iran war entering its sixth day. You can read all of that and more over there. Gentlemen, great to have both of you here on the show. As always. We really appreciate it.

F (83:29)

Thank you.

A (83:29)

Thanks for having me.

B (83:30)

You bet.

E (83:31)

Thanks, guys.

B (83:32)

All right, well, we take some super chats here in a second and get your.

C (83:36)

Here's my super chat. Gavin Newsom looks like he smells hungover.

B (83:40)

He looks like he smells hungover.

C (83:42)

Yeah.

B (83:42)

Yeah.

C (83:43)

That's how I feel when I think.

B (83:44)

Probably does.

C (83:45)

Like, probably. He is slippery and slimy. He's ruined the state of California. And, yeah, I'm not giving him any props for, like, being a weather vane of what the Democrats want to hear. And don't for a second think that he means that he would not support Israel were he in the White House. Of course he would.

E (84:04)

Yeah.

B (84:04)

And I don't know exactly how much money he's already taken from them. So, you know, maybe this is. Well, we have to look into that, too, right? All right. Yeah, we're going to tell you about. We're gonna take some super chats here in a second. Any comments coming in? But first, I don't know if you've seen what's going on with gold and silver prices right now. Of course, as oil prices continue to climb, it's all about protecting your family right now. Like Bottom line, like, you know, I'm sure, like the Warren Buffett's of the world are going to make great money and all that, that's fine. But for me, it's like when you see the markets going up and down in craziness right now and the US dollar is losing its buying capacity and is $39 trillion in debt, is the United States government and we're at war, like, how do you protect your family? You know, when the Soviet Union collapsed, one of the number one things that people bought was vodka because they actually trade vodka at the border. People didn't care about the currency because it was totally devalued. So they're like, do you have vodka? You can, you can pass. Want to pay with vodka? You can. Well, in lieu of that, what else has also sustained for thousands of years? Gold and silver, precious metals. That is incredibly important for us. That's a big part of what we believe in, in our house, is to actually have some of our savings in precious metals. And our friends at Lear Capital can help you do that. They're an American based company, they're patriotic company. When you call them, you're going to speak to Americans. Nod's going to be outsourced to some call center in India somewhere. And they will. They're an education company first. Like my friend Robert Kiyosaki likes to talk about, you know, education, financial education is the most important thing. And so before you ever even do business with them, they just want to have a conversation with you and see if it's even a fit. Because maybe they'll tell you, hey, it's probably not a fit for you, but give them a call and they'll actually send you a gold kit in the mail for free. You could have a couple conversation about it with your loved ones, sit down and say, hey, we've got like the $3,000 sitting in savings right now. Should we maybe convert that to precious metals in a, in A, in our IRA, whatever. They'll walk you through that process. So call them 1-800-613-3557 to get your free gold guide right now. I mean, Eric Sprott just came out, he's a silver legend. He just came out the other day and said that he sees silver hitting three, should be $300 an ounce. Like, no one knows more about the silver market than Eric Sprott. $300 an ounce for silver right now as of this live broadcast on this Thursday. Here's the live, here's the live look right now of silver prices Let me zoom in here. Past that weird Asian lady with the big breasts. Why is that even all on this gold price website?

E (86:42)

I don't know.

B (86:43)

But anyway, so here's the offering.

C (86:46)

New dates. That's.

B (86:47)

Oh, your Asia. Oh, Korea dates. Korea dates. No. You know, I'm gonna buy silver instead.

C (86:53)

I wonder why that's being presented to you, darling.

E (86:55)

I don't know.

B (86:56)

Maybe I'll go to Korea. $82 an ounce for silver right now. $5,000 an ounce for gold. Certainly a nice little. Little pullback. It was like 5,300 just the other day. So this is like a. And it hits this support line right here, which is really nice. So could we see? We still. We talked to Peter Schiff the other day. He believes it's going to be gone back up again. And the same with silver hitting this night's support line here as well. So are we going to see well over a hundred dollars for silver very soon? Anyway, all of that to say ignore Korea dates and check out our friends at Lear Capital. They're Fantastic. Go to learedacted.com or call 1-800-613-3557 for your free gold guide right now. They're a fantastic company, and we support them wholeheartedly. So thanks to them for supporting our show Korea Dates, even though there was a website called Korea Dates. All right, did we have any super chats? It looks like we do. Not today. But Dean. Dean says she is, in fact Korea. And how do you know.

C (87:59)

Dean, Is that your girlfriend?

B (88:01)

How do you know she's. What are you insinuating, darlin? That's right. Why were you sweating David? David says, why were you sweating Korea dates? Oh, no. Like, now there's Arizona's best small town is now an ad up here, so.

C (88:17)

Oh, okay. It heard you. Yeah, it heard me say I'm a married man.

B (88:21)

I'm a married man.

C (88:22)

I'm not interested in that.

B (88:23)

I'd rather go for a weekend getaway in a small Arizona town with my wife.

C (88:28)

Okay, that's a nice save. Very nice.

E (88:30)

You can send me the.

A (88:31)

The Thailand date screenshot, though.

B (88:33)

Yeah, I see that. Yeah, it'll be a lady. Boy, I'll send that to you. Let's see. Yeah, I guess we don't have any super chats or rumble rants today or. It didn't load properly. If we. If you did, I apologize. But you had one super chat. Who said we had one super chat? It's not showing in my dashboard here, but let me. Let me go into viewer activity. Oh, There's a super chat here, okay. It's just not showing up on the viewer activity board. PSA 7 for all ten dollar super chat says, believe it or not, the world teacher, AKA Christ. Holy smokes. I can't read all that.

C (89:06)

I don't think that's a proper sentence. But thank you for the time to

B (89:09)

live in peace is the message. Time to live in peace. Thank you. I appreciate that. That's right. I would love that.

C (89:15)

There's another one.

B (89:16)

Oh, chili pepper. You want to read that?

C (89:22)

Says Israel. Israeli. Benny Gantz, the real boss declares that he won't rule out American boots on the ground. WTF? And in fact, after our. After Colonel McGregor finished being on redacted, he has now posted on X that armed American vehicles are in fact headed to the Iranian border via Kurdistan. So it could be move really fast. So we'll be here. There will be a need for boots.

B (89:51)

So here is Benny Gantz. Here is what he's referring to.

C (89:54)

Do you think eventually there will be

B (89:56)

a need for boots on the ground?

E (89:58)

I would not exclude it for those reasons or other, but we'll have to

B (90:02)

see how it goes forward.

C (90:03)

And will that include Israeli boots on the ground, do you think?

E (90:05)

I exclude nothing.

B (90:08)

So basically I am not going to. I'm not going to exclude the idea of American or Israeli boots on the ground. Who, who frick is Benny Gantz that he can like order Americans. Order Americans to go. Go there. Okay, thanks. Benny Gantz. Well, according to reports today Netanyahu was pissed that the United States might have been having some back channel discussions with Iran to try to try to stop this conflict. And apparently according to reports, Netanyahu called the White House furious. Basically they were calling him the big boss man called from Israel like the bosses in town, like, you know, Trump, you weren't talking to the Iranians behind our backs like. No, no, no, no, we weren't. We weren't.

C (90:51)

Well, in that reporting was that Steve Woodkoff and Jared Kushner actually talked to Netanyahu daily. So they are giving him status reports daily to make sure that they are controlling whatever factions may in fact do that negotiated a peace deal with Iran and making sure that doesn't happen.

A (91:09)

Netanyahu is going to spend his weekend

B (91:11)

at Mar A Lago again, Most likely.

C (91:13)

Yeah.

B (91:14)

JN says $2 $5 super chat. History is repeating itself with the Kurds. US use the Hmong in Laos and Vietnam to fight promise promised land. After US loss they left the among. Why is this blocking me? Can't see it. And Killed? Yes. They were left to be killed.

C (91:33)

Be killed. And in fact, that's what the Kurds are saying right now. Not your lap dogs. We did this in Iraq. You guys left us to die. We're not doing this again. And who can blame them?

B (91:42)

Yeah. John Galt says 100% stage three TDS. I don't know what that was referencing. Maybe Colonel McGregor, because he sent it at 3:29pm No, I don't think Colonel McGregor has TDS. He voted for him. He's. He's a realist. He know. And he actually worked for Trump. So, I mean, again, just look at the facts. It's not a matter of, like, how do you feel about Trump, like tds.

C (92:08)

It's just I have wds, which is War Derangement Syndrome. Under no circumstance will I buy any bullshit that sells war. And that is what President Trump is currently selling. I had Biden Derangement syndrome when he was selling a war with Russia.

E (92:22)

And now I have been waiting for 47 years.

C (92:25)

TRUMP Derangement Syndrome only in response to the war propaganda that's coming out of the White House. So if that's, if that's the label you want to give me right now, that's fine. We wore it for being anti Biden and we will wear it. I don't care. That's fine. But, you know, it's not personal. It's not about President Trump specifically. It's about the government propaganda that's selling a war. So if you want to love President Trump, keep doing that, but you should not buy the. That's coming out of the White House that's trying to sell you a war. But do what you want. Believe what you want.

B (92:57)

So, hey, we have a store. We'd love to tell you about our redacted store. And many of you have been asking for the Silence Equals Complicity T shirt, and it was a limited T shirt from three years ago, and I was wearing it the other day, and many of you wrote and said, where can I get that shirt? Well, we've made it available again

A (93:21)

for.

B (93:21)

On our website. If you go to redacted store.com, it's now available again in white or black. And here it is. You can see the shirt. Silence equals complicity right here, if you want to check it out, right here on our website. So Silence equals complicity. And in white as well, if you want to check it out. We have it. We've made it available again on our storefront@redactedstore.com. so go there and check it out and support independent journalism. We do not mark the prices up. I mean, we try to keep them very close to the production costs@redactedstore.com so go there and check out everything and to support independent journalism. So thank you guys for watching us on this Thursday. We'll have content for you throughout the weekend. We've got a great report tomorrow and a great interview for you tomorrow that we will be broadcasting. So please check that out.

C (94:10)

All right, we'll see you soon, guys. And don't believe the hype. That's, that's what I'm going to say to you right now. We'll see you soon.

B (94:17)

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