3599 - Trump Claims Higher Gas Prices Are Good; Iran Refuses to Relent w/ Murtaza Hussain

Summary

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Podcast Summary: The Majority Report with Sam Seder

Episode 3599 - Trump Claims Higher Gas Prices Are Good; Iran Refuses to Relent
Date: March 12, 2026
Featuring: Emma Vigeland (Host, in for Sam Seder), Murtaza Hussain (Dropsite News), various co-hosts/commentators

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Episode Overview

On this episode, Emma Vigeland steps in for Sam Seder to deliver a deep-dive into the explosive and rapidly deteriorating situation in the Middle East—focusing primarily on the Trump administration’s escalation of war with Iran and the resulting global oil crisis. The episode is anchored by an extended, in-depth interview with Murtaza Hussain (Dropsite News), who dissects the military, economic, and geopolitical fallout from the current conflict, the implications for US domestic politics, and the interplay of interests among corporations, Israel, and the US political establishment. The hosts also take aim at Trump’s new public spin on higher gas prices, the profiteering of defense contractors like Palantir, and the political inertia of both parties in the face of a widening catastrophe.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Trump’s “Higher Gas Prices Are Good!” & Economic Fallout

• Trump’s Spin on Gas Prices:

  • Trump now argues that higher oil and gas prices are ultimately “good”—a line meant to justify the havoc wrought by the war in Iran. Emma and co-hosts parse Trump’s statements, highlighting their candor in admitting the wealthy benefit while ordinary Americans suffer ([05:50]-[10:37]).
  • Quote:
    “So the spin now is that you may be paying more at the pump, but it's really good for making me and my friends rich. It's amazing to have him just say it out loud.”
    — Emma Vigeland ([10:37])

• Distribution of Profits:

  • Cites a Science Direct study: 50% of American oil profits go to the top 1%; 84% to the top 10%; bottom half get only 1% ([09:33]).
  • Wealth inequality is described as surpassing the Gilded Age, with commentators railing against the oligarchic concentration at the top ([11:33]).

• AI, Tech, and Energy Policy:

  • The Green New Deal is mocked by Trump as a “scam,” yet the hosts argue Trump’s halting of clean-energy infrastructure made the current crisis worse ([07:07]-[09:16]).
  • US data center booms (to power AI) are driving up electricity costs—“AI guys are all in bed with Donald Trump and they're raising energy prices as Trump is killing projects…” ([07:07]).

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2. The Middle East on Fire: Iran, Israel, and the “World War” Frame

• Strait of Hormuz Blocked:

  • Murtaza Hussain details how the Iranian blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, which handles 20% of the world’s oil, is unprecedented, with no historical parallel ([33:37]).

    • Crude oil prices more than doubled since war’s start.
    • US options are grim: escalate and invade, or accept surrender of regional control to Iran.

  • Quote:
    “In the 80 years it's been used for this purpose, it's never really been shut down at all. Now we're over a week now of disruption… crude oil today has already exceeded $100 Brent crude per barrel... You are really, you've almost generated a situation where you're almost guaranteed a global recession or global depression.”
    — Murtaza Hussain ([33:37]-[36:44])

• US Military Stretched Thin:

  • US redeploying missile defense from places like South Korea to the Middle East; this strains US deterrence elsewhere and may embolden adversaries like China or North Korea ([42:16]).
  • Ammunition for interceptors running low; warning times for Israeli cities reduced, increasing risk ([66:10]-[69:40]).

• Iranian Resilience:

  • Trump miscalculated Iranian regime vulnerability—it's a durable, deep-rooted state, not a “personalistic regime” easily collapsed ([49:34]).

  • New Iranian leadership is more hardline and uninterested in negotiation after years of US duplicity, including JCPOA abandonment ([53:47]-[54:10]).

  • Quote:
    “The US doesn't really have that option anymore. So they're trying to bomb Iran in submission and...that seems to not be working. It seems to be having the opposite effect.”
    — Murtaza Hussain ([33:37])

• World War Analogy:

  • Emma and Hussain argue this conflict amounts to a world war, masked only by geography and Western attitudes ([48:13]):
    • “If this was in Europe and there was a country that was attacking seven other countries, bombing them...I don't think we would have any hesitation in calling it a world war...”
      — Emma Vigeland ([48:13])

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3. The Corrupt Corporate-Political War Nexus

• Palantir and the War Machine:

  • Palantir’s central role in providing AI tools for targeting Iranian and Gaza strikes discussed in detail:

    • CEO Alex Karp lobbying for more contracts, openly pitching the war’s “benefits” to Republican and MAGA constituencies ([15:54]-[25:29], see Karp’s CNBC clips).
    • Notable Quote:
      "No more Gen Z boss in the mini...And that means they get to be back in the home. That's almost the implication of what he's saying."
      — Left Reckoning ([25:45]), dissecting Karp’s remarks about AI displacing “highly educated, often female voters."

  • Critique of tech firms’ self-serving “AI arms race” logic.

  • Palantir’s soaring share price, driven by taxpayer money—described as a “self-feeding loop” where political donations guarantee contracts ([24:31]-[25:29]).

• Historical Comparison:

  • Palantir compared to Nazi-era arms manufacturers. The implication: today’s corporations will be remembered for enabling state crimes ([12:22]-[13:25]).

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4. Political Complicity & Failures—Both Parties

• Democratic Responsibility:

  • Murtaza asserts Democrats tacitly supported the war to politically “trap Trump” or benefit by proxy ([54:10]-[55:36]).

  • Democratic Party has become more hawkish post-Obama, partly due to the influence of the pro-Israel lobby ([55:36]).

  • Quote:
    “A lot of people in the Democratic Party wanted to have a war with Iran, but they just didn't want to be paid this horrible cost...they want someone else to do it. And so Trump just happened to be the patsy...”
    — Murtaza Hussain ([54:10]-[55:36])

• Israeli Influence & Intelligence:

  • Noted that both Israeli interests and possible blackmail (Epstein ties) might be exerting leverage on Trump ([61:06]-[65:02]).
  • Ilhan Omar is one of the few elected officials openly discussing Mossad honeypot tactics and US politicians’ vulnerability ([61:40]).

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5. Worsening Casualties & Global Instability

• Military and Civilian Deaths:

  • Massive casualties across the region:

    • Israeli bombings kill hundreds of children in Lebanon.
    • US admits at least 140 wounded service members, numbers expected to rise ([65:02]-[69:18]).
    • Real casualty numbers are likely underreported due to censorship.

  • Quote:
    “Some deaths in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia have been reported as...medical conditions without any other explanation. So that's a way you can also fudge the data a little bit...This is only the early phases of the war, and the war is not really...Nothing has been settled...”
    — Murtaza Hussain ([66:10])

• Strategic Shifts:

  • Iran using waves of missiles to exhaust Israeli/US interceptors; saving advanced weaponry for future strikes ([69:40]).

  • War likely to become protracted, with Iran willing to absorb punishment and US/Israel unequipped for a war of attrition.

  • Quote:
    “America and Israel...are designed to fight short, quick, decisive, brutal wars. They're not meant to fight long wars of attrition. Iran's military is meant to fight a war of attrition...”
    — Murtaza Hussain ([69:40]-[72:01])

• Economic Downturn:

  • The panel warns of a severe recession or depression, as higher energy/fertilizer prices ripple through every sector and supply chain ([56:46]-[59:41]).

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “[Trump]’s gotta do the weave and pivot. …When oil prices go up, we make a lot of money. Who’s ‘we’ here?” — Emma Vigeland ([08:47])
• “We have put the Gilded Age in the rearview mirror. It looks quaint compared to what we see now.” — Left Reckoning ([11:33])
• “The age of oligarchs.” — Emma Vigeland ([11:56])
• “No business model for these AI companies besides selling it to the government to surveil you and to kill kids.” — Left Reckoning ([20:40])
• “I don't think the US is structurally capable of making a deal with Iran.” — Murtaza Hussain ([54:10])
• “Members of Congress are saying this...the US is sort of dog walked into a war by the Israeli Prime Minister.” — Murtaza Hussain ([56:46])

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Important Timestamps

• Trump’s Kentucky Rally & Gas Price Spin: [05:50]–[10:37]
• Profits & Wealth Inequality Analysis: [09:33]–[11:56]
• Palantir/AI/War Profiteering Segment: [12:22]–[27:31]; Karp’s CNBC pitch: [16:18], [21:28]
• Interview with Murtaza Hussain Begins: [33:14]
  • Strait of Hormuz shutdown explained: [33:37]–[36:44]
  • US military stretched, redeployments: [42:16]–[45:20]
  • Comparison to World Wars/China’s Role: [46:08]–[49:34]
  • Durability of Iran’s regime, poor US calculations: [49:34]–[54:10]
  • Democratic Party Complicity: [54:10]–[56:46]
  • Israeli Intelligence/Epstein/Trump blackmail discussion: [61:06]–[65:02]
  • Military casualties and censoring reality: [65:02]–[72:01]

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For listeners seeking in-depth, critical analysis on the intersection of US foreign policy, war, corporate influence, and media spin, this episode is a comprehensive and scathing examination of a historical crisis unfolding in real time.

Transcript

[Emma Vigeland]

You are listening to a free version of Majority Report with Sam Steder. To support this show and get another 15 minutes of daily program, go to Majority FM please.

[Sam Cedar]

The Majority Report with Sam Cedar.

[Emma Vigeland]

It is Thursday, March 12, 2026. My name is Emma Vigeland in for Sam Cedar and this is the five time award winning Majority Report. We are broadcasting live steps from the industrially ravaged Gowanus Canal in the heartland of America, downtown Brooklyn, usa. On the program today, Murtaza Hussein of Dropsite News will be with us to talk about the latest on Trump and Israel's criminal war in Iran. Will Iran relent in the strait and more. Also on the program, Iran's new supreme leader issues his first statement saying the attacks on Gulf countries and Strait of Hormuz closures will continue as oil prices spike and people start to feel it at the pump in the U.S. u.S. Intelligence has determined that the Iranian regime is not at risk of collapsing collapse anytime soon. Whoopsie. Multiple ships have been attacked in or near the strait. Every Senate Democrat except for John Feder Shrek calls for the probe of the for a probe of a the strike on the girls school in Iran which was confirmed to be on the US target list. The Pentagon tells lawmakers that the Iran war has cost over $11 billion in less than one week. The Israeli military drops charges against five soldiers caught raping a Palestinian prisoner. On camera

[Murtaza Hussein]

they did arrest the woman who leaked the video though.

[Emma Vigeland]

I'm glad they're on top of Israel has killed at least 630 people, 91 of them children in Lebanon in just the past week. If this were Europe, do you think that there would be any hesitation about causing Israel bombing seven countries? A World War I third of Americans, 82 million people say they have had to cut spending to pay for health care costs last year. Skipping meals and other examples. 85 year old Jim Clyburn is running for re election. Yes.

[Ilhan Omar]

Yes.

[Left Reckoning (possibly a co-host or commentator)]

Disgusting.

[Emma Vigeland]

What everyone wants more gerontocracy. John Thune single signals that the Senate will debate the mass voter disenfranchisement Save act next week as Cornyn reverses his position on the filibuster to pass it amidst a primary fight. And lastly, Kash Patel says UFC fighters will train FBI agents this week. Don't you feel safer already? All this and more on today's Majority Report. Welcome to the show everybody. It's an M Majority Report Thursday. Hello Matt. Hello Brian. Hello audience. Glad to be back. I mean the news. Not so much. Not so much. I'm excited to talk to Murtaza Hussein about some of drop site's excellent reporting on the Middle east, on this conflict, etc. But let's start here because Trump is not now basically saying that you just got to suck up higher gas prices. That's what his spin is this morning. But the national average for a gallon of gas has jumped around 35 cents in a week. And experts on energy are essentially saying that this is like the largest supply disruption in the history of the global oil market. Just to underscore the significance of this, the Iranians have shown no signs that they want to let up here because what their objective is going to be is to cause enough pain to the west that they're not going to indiscriminately bomb civilians and their country again. I mean, the new supreme leaders, father and mother were just. I'm not sure if it was actually his mother, but father and the wife of the Ayatollah were just killed in these strikes. Dozens more of senior leadership and at least 1,300 people in Iran have been killed, let alone the environmental catastrophe that the Israelis and the United States set off by bombing the oil. Despots, Despots. Depots, Depots, depots, despots. Definitely not right. Sometimes those similar words get mixed up in my brain. But this was Trump yesterday at a rally in Kentucky. Now we're moving from calling the war in Iran a limited operation or an operation to something different. Oh, it's like a little jaunt, potentially. Here he is with his new spin on this criminal war in the Middle East.

[Sam Cedar]

The end of the year, we did an excursion. You know what an excursion is? We had to take a little trip to get rid of some evil, very evil people. It should have been done. For 47 years, they've been killing our people. 47 years.

[Left Reckoning (possibly a co-host or commentator)]

Cattle.

[Sam Cedar]

47 years. And I can only say this. They were all prepared. They're very strong. You know, they're going to try and take over the whole Middle East. They were going to knock out Israel. They don't know what the hell hit them.

[Murtaza Hussein]

Right?

[Sam Cedar]

They don't know what hit them. They got hit by the American military. They don't know. They say, what the hell is happening. They didn't expect anything like this to bring down energy costs for American workers and families and businesses like this one. We ended the green news scam.

[Emma Vigeland]

You know, the scam bringing down energy costs, huh? First of all, a little excursion to get rid of some really evil people,

[Left Reckoning (possibly a co-host or commentator)]

the people that wanted to take over the Middle East. And it's not Israel?

[Emma Vigeland]

Yeah, as the opposition leader to Netanyahu who is endorsing the Greater Israel theory. And that guy's supposed to be the liberal in the Israeli body politic representation. Yeah, no, we're pretty sure we know which entity in the Middle east is trying to take over the whole thing. So he's talking about how the Green New scam, which was never passed, but Biden did have some green related infrastructure projects as a part of his legislative agenda that the Trump administration just halted, even sometimes in the middle of construction that would have brought down energy costs for people because our grid is so overloaded right now. So due to the giveaways to AI and the data centers that are trying to outpace local opposition and build and build and build and use all of their energy and raise people's electricity prices, they can beat the clock before they're regulated. Those guys, the AI guys are all in bed with Donald Trump and they're raising energy prices as Trump is killing projects that would have helped energy prices and starting a criminal war in the Middle east that is resulting already in just a week in massive increases for prices at the pump. As I mentioned, it's been a 35 cent increase in a week. And the markets are starting to understand that and not listening to Trump talk, trying to talk people off the ledge. Right. As the markets close. So this is where Trump is moving his messaging at this point. He's gonna, he's gotta, he's gotta do the weave and pivot. The United States is the largest oil producer in the world. He said this morning, by far. So when oil prices go up, we make a lot of money. Who's we here? But a far greater interest and importance to me as president is stopping an evil empire, Iran, from having nuclear weapons and destroying the Middle east and indeed the world. Sure. I won't ever let that happen. Thank you for your attention to this matter bubble.

[Left Reckoning (possibly a co-host or commentator)]

I'm sure the whole freedom across the other side of the world thing he cares about. As much as all of my buddies are going to get rich off of the price of liquid natural gas going up and we're actually going to be insulated from the price y' all schmucks feel at the pump.

[Emma Vigeland]

And it's interesting you say that because this was an analysis here done by Science Direct where they looked at the fossil fuel profits. And this is a chart here that shows that 50% of all profit. I'm going to read here from the study. Claims by U.S. beneficiaries are held by the top 1% of wealth owners and 84% by the top 10%. And you can see here that in contrast, the bottom half the population receive hardly any profits at all, only 1%. The top 0.1%, 131,000 households, received 26 times as much as half of all Americans on profits for oil.

[Left Reckoning (possibly a co-host or commentator)]

So, yeah, rich assholes who are going to stand to benefit from being investors in this stuff, they'll happily pay, fill up their Maseratis with $5 a gallon gas. It's you, everyone else that works for a living that's going to have to feel that. And that's just, you know, look, freedom, it's worth it. It's a small price to pay.

[Emma Vigeland]

So the spin now is that you may be paying more at the pump, but it's really good for making me and my friends rich. It's amazing to have him just say it out loud.

[Left Reckoning (possibly a co-host or commentator)]

It's true. These people are insulated from all of this stuff. They don't care. They don't care if there's a recession. They don't care about any of that because if there's a recession, they just

[Emma Vigeland]

get to buy stuff up for free on the cheap. That is why wealth concentration at this level is so dangerous is because they're the ones who can benefit from the dip. We saw that income inequality got worse after the Great Recession because Obama and the Democrats, along with the Republicans, ended up bailing out the banks as opposed to homeowners directly. And it's not like that money trickled down. We saw that. It caused allowed them to reset and continue to rip off people and buy politicians and get richer and richer.

[Left Reckoning (possibly a co-host or commentator)]

I mean, they are marching on us. Zucman, who worked with Thomas Piketty on the inequality and capital in 21st century, points out, like it's been every year, every year since then, they've reached record highs in the amount of wealth concentrated at the top. We have put the Gilded Age in the rearview mirror. It looks quaint compared to what we see now.

[Emma Vigeland]

Yep, the age of oligarchs. And speaking of those oligarchs, here's another piece that I wanted to kind of hit on as we're marching or we're in the midst of this horrific war. Just bringing up the name Krupp, I think that's how you pronounce it for this reason. Nazi Germany's arms manufacturer. Some of the.

[Left Reckoning (possibly a co-host or commentator)]

Oh yeah, big steelworks. Krupp.

[Emma Vigeland]

Krupp, yeah, just some of the companies, corporations that worked closely with the Nazis during Hitler's. Hitler's rule is. It's important to point out that there will be many corporations and companies that are known that will be complicit when we look back in this moment in history. But I'm not sure if there's one company and corporation that will be more complicit in Trump's crimes, both domestically and internationally, than Palantir. Palantir was a part of helping the IDF create their AI Lavender bombing technology kill lists in Gaza where they had different programs, including one that was called Daddy's Home, where they would bomb residences with anyone that they suspected was a Hamas militant and it didn't essentially matter if their entire family was there.

[Left Reckoning (possibly a co-host or commentator)]

Yeah, anybody they suspect of being a Hamas militant means any male from the age of 12 up.

[Emma Vigeland]

And we know from the Epstein emails that Peter Thiel was connected with Jeffrey Epstein and then Epstein connected him to Ehud Barak. And that was conveniently when Israel, shortly after that, ended up opening its Tel Aviv office and was a part of the Palestine laboratory experiment where they essentially test out surveillance and weapons technology on the Palestinians in Gaza. And this is how Palantir got to where it is and why it's one of the biggest corporations in the country right now and also on the backs of the US Taxpayer. We there is no company that I think has gotten more contracts under the Trump administration than Palantir. In July, the Army issued a contract with Palantir worth up to $10 billion over a decade. And that includes a nearly $800 million intelligence targeting software. This thing called Maven. And Maven uses Anthropic's AI tool. Claude and Anthropic has been getting a lot of for trying to say that they don't want the Trump administration to use some of their technology. In fact, the Pentagon ended up retaliating against them because they had some sort of some qualms about the use of their technology in wartime. Now, cynically, my view is that Anthropic is looking beyond the Trump administration to a new administration that might want to have the good AI on their side. OpenAI is angling in the same way as the Palantir gets richer and richer. But Karp, Alex Karp, the said on CNBC that they're still using this technology. It's integrated into Maven. So for all of Anthropic's kind of public stance on this, their technology is still being used right now in wartime by Palantir. Palantir also, of course we know is gotten billions and no bid contracts for ICE and the number of federal contracts that they had doubled in 2025.

[Left Reckoning (possibly a co-host or commentator)]

So that's a company reliant on taxpayer money. They don't do anything else besides that.

[Emma Vigeland]

And here is Palantir CEO Alex Karp talking about why he supports Trump's war on Iran. I wonder why, given all the context that I gave you. He was on CNBC this morning and this is him lobbying for even more contracts from the federal government. You should view this appearance in that light.

[Alex Karp]

All power of the total power of our fleet and our all of our resources and bring it to bear against adversaries and enemies has shifted the way in which war is fought. And I have read that Palantir's Project Maven is the core backbone of that. And then I've also read that all the allies, Arab and non Arab, in the Middle east may or may not be users of our platform as well. And that's expanding rapidly. I think the most important thing, leaving aside the heroism of our troops, which is the most important thing, is our adversaries and enemies are witnessing an ability to fight that they don't have and they are going to very find it very hard to acquire for a couple of reasons we have for better or worse. As many know, I've been essentially an anti neocon. I don't really believe in the wars we fought in the past but. But because I don't believe in regime change or. And that's one of the reasons I'm supportive of this policy that we currently have. But it. We. The. The. What you want is to have a capacity that no one else can replicate. And America is the center of the AI revolution.

[Emma Vigeland]

No.

[Alex Karp]

The large language models in the battlefield are only useful if powered inside an ontology. And that's our ontology. And yeah, I guess I've read we're at the core of everything and maybe that's. Maybe that's exaggerated.

[Emma Vigeland]

Maybe. Yeah.

[Left Reckoning (possibly a co-host or commentator)]

For investor pitch.

[Emma Vigeland]

Yeah. On cnbc. So it's. I found that amazing. I've not been supportive of regime change wars in the past. Did he say that on Joe Rogan or something like that? They know that. They have some issue with their past statements on this. But with this war, which the Trump administration said was for the purpose of regime change until they said it was actually for to destroy their nuclear program. But they'd already destroyed the nuclear program last year. They now know that they can't do regime change. US Intelligence assessments have shown that the infrastructure of the Iranian government has stayed in place in spite of the sadistic bombing campaigns that our government has engaged in. And anybody who has any Familiarity with the Iranian state would have been able to tell the administration that, but they still use the concept of regime change to push this war forward. So Karp is just, like, lying based on the past 48 hours of changing PR from the Trump administration because it's another public bid for more free money from our government.

[Left Reckoning (possibly a co-host or commentator)]

We have the AI revolutions given us capabilities that the Iranians could never imagine. Like the capability to double tap a school and then pretend like, oh, whoops, oh, whoopsie daisy. That was a mistake somehow, with our great capabilities.

[Emma Vigeland]

So that's the big, I think also reason that he's probably on television is if it gets out that Palantir's supposedly incredibly precise technology of AI bombings was involved in selecting this target, this school for little girls that may have been a military installation 10 years ago. We had Robert Pape on the show to talk about how it is a complete fallacy that in the smart bomb era, that one, that one, you can institute a regime change which Karp is now saying he's not in favor of.

[Left Reckoning (possibly a co-host or commentator)]

You can't aerially bomb your way to victory.

[Emma Vigeland]

Right? You can't aerially bomb your way to victory. But also, we know that, you know, even they don't have the. They didn't have the intelligence necessary to know what they were striking. Even if they can be precise in the way that the Israelis can, where they send a drone down and assassinate a doctor in a hospital, know exactly where he is. And that's probably Palantir's technology, too. Well, it looks like US Maps might have been outdated, and Palantir's technology can't solve that, buddy. So, like, they're constantly trying to oversell the, the, the efficacy of their technology. And they'll do that also by saying, like, God, it could be this really terrifying tool, but we could also use it for good.

[Left Reckoning (possibly a co-host or commentator)]

Oh, sure, yeah. They don't have a business model besides selling it to the government to surveil you and to kill kids. There's no business model for these AI companies to exit all the amount that people have invested in. It's a big. It's a big house of cards. And the only way it's being sustained is based on government money.

[Emma Vigeland]

And this is the other angle that he took, trying to appeal to Republicans in the Trump administration on its economic benefits. This was immensely cynical as well, because he's going to try to drive a wedge here and say that AI is going to be liberatory, maybe not for all people in America. We're going to have to start to Concede that they're going to take jobs away from people. But worry not, Trump administration, they will benefit. It will benefit. Wink and a nod your voters.

[Alex Karp]

Maybe industry has to support the war fighter. The one thing though that I think even now is underestimated by all actors in industry and including in Silicon Valley is how disruptive these technologies are. If you are going to disrupt, disrupt the economic and therefore political power significantly of one party space, highly educated, often female voters who vote mostly Democrat and military, and working class people who do not feel supported and you feel like that's, you believe that that's going to work out politically, you're in an insane asylum like that. You cannot have this technology disrupts humanity's trained, largely Democratic voters and makes their economic power less and increases the power, economic power of vocationally trained working class, often male voters. And, and, and so these disruptions are going to disrupt every aspect of our society. And to make this work, we have to come to an agreement of what it is we're going to do with the technology. How are we going to explain to people who are likely going to have less good and less interesting jobs from their perspective and how is it that we are going and by the way, on the military thing, these technologies are dangerous. The only justification you could possibly have would be that if we don't do it, our adversaries and will do it and we will be subject to their rule of law. So you, if you decouple this from

[Emma Vigeland]

the support, they're rule long. All right, that's really good. That means that we need the Americans to get behind our AI technology because we have copyright protections here in the United States and intellectual property and in other countries that's not necessarily the same law. So as we talk about this as an AI arms race, you need to give us boatloads of money because we need to keep up with the Chinese here, but keep up with them, they will keep up with us. That protect, protects our, that protects our, our wealth and our intellectual property.

[Left Reckoning (possibly a co-host or commentator)]

And it's, it's foolish. It's, it's throwing good money after bad. China last year created an AI that basically does everything you need with, with using less energy. They will continue to do that. There's nothing you can do to stop them from continuing to do that. So betting that we're going to be able to create an AI God that keeps America the innovation capital of the world, we're losing that. It's because of people like this, because we keep giving them whatever they want instead. And instead of solving Real problems like how do I get from Chicago to New York? It's to give these freaks money so they can put everything you've ever done and everything you ever scrolled, every like checkout page you've ever shopped online into a fucking database so they can protect your information for marketers. And if you say anything bad about their allies, they can create a dossier on you so the government can track you down. Like we're not solving real problems because of crackheads like this guy.

[Emma Vigeland]

Yeah, yeah, that's, that's exactly right. And he, when he mentions there too the. Well, let's put up three just so we. To bolster your point about how much money has been given. Like this is Palantir. This is a chart from a month ago. Palantir went public on the New York stock exchange in September 30, 2020 with a price of 725 per share. It closed on its first day trading at 950. And now you can see at least in February it was at $147 a share. And that is in large part due to your money, taxpayer money giveaways by the taxpayer for the enrichment of guys like Alex Karp.

[Left Reckoning (possibly a co-host or commentator)]

And the rich people that are giving money to Palantir, they want to, they're throwing money at politicians to make sure that the government, their politicians make sure the government gives money to Palantir. It's a self feeding loop.

[Emma Vigeland]

And the last thing on this is that when he's appealing there to the MAGA base and says that it's a good thing, white women are going to be impacted more by RAI replacing their jobs.

[Left Reckoning (possibly a co-host or commentator)]

No more Gen Z boss in the mini.

[Emma Vigeland]

Yeah. And that means they get to be back in the home. That's almost the implication of what he's saying. Now it is true that white collar workers, which is what the implication of what he's saying when you look at them as a whole, are a little bit more disproportionately women on like the entry level. But it's, they're more disproportionate on the lower level white collar scale. I was reading there's something in Pew that was analyzing this from a few months ago. They're overrepresented in lower paying jobs in like the kind of, the more professional setting that he's saying is only going to be impacted there. So yeah, they might, their jobs are likely to be replaced by AI. But what he's talking about with men in manufacturing, working class males. No, no, no. It might be even worse in those situations, we're already seeing how AI manufacturing and AI Robotics are replacing those jobs at a rapid rate. Manufacturing jobs are on the decline under Donald Trump rapidly after we bounce back under Biden due to infrastructure investment. So what Karp is saying there is a lie, saying it on a national news platform, a financial news platform, in order to appeal to a specific Republican constituency and stave off a popular anger, a populist anger about AI, which is pretty bipartisan. And when you look at some of the polling on this, especially in areas where their data centers are really harming electricity bills and the environments in certain communities, Karp has got to be aware of some of that backlash. Plus this really unpopular war where your AI technology is telling the Americans time to bomb this school might be a problem.

[Left Reckoning (possibly a co-host or commentator)]

Hakeem Jeffries, you going to take their money still?

[Emma Vigeland]

Apparently. Apparently. In a moment we're going to be talking to Murtaza Hussein. But first, a word from our sponsors. Raise your hand if you've been putting off a dental cleaning, an annual checkup, or honestly, any kind of doctor's appointment while podcast audience My hand is up to when something feels off. I'm tempted to self diagnose, just you know, look things up on the Internet, spiral downplay, then say I'm probably fine. Well, if that sounds familiar, this year let's do things differently. Let's find doctors we love and book appointments with zocdoc. Zocdoc is a free app and website which helps you find and book high quality in network doctors who so you can find someone you love. We're talking about booking in network appointments with more than 150,000 providers across all 50 states. 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Stop putting off those doctor's appointments and go to Zocdoc.com majority to find and instantly book a doctor you love today. That's Zocdoc.com Majority Zocdoc.com Majority thanks to Zocdoc for sponsoring this message. We'll put a link down below in the video and episode descriptions and at Majority fm. And lastly, are you numb to it yet? This insane ride of life that we've been living lately? You've got AI coming for your jobs. Geopolitical turmoil, to put it mildly. The market's bouncing around everywhere. It's no wonder most of us are hunkering down, saving and looking for ways to protect our futures. You've heard of life insurance, but did you know that it's cheaper than you think? For around the same price per month as one of your streaming services, you can get the right life insurance policy. The younger you are, the cheaper it is. Like double the price if you wait to buy a decade from now. 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Get the right life insurance for you for less and save more than [e-mail] majority save more than 50% on term life [e-mail] majority today to get started. That's SelectQuote.com majority they shop, you save. Link below in the video and episode descriptions and at Majority fm. Quick break. When we come back, we'll be joined by Murtaza. We are back. And we are joined by once again by Murtaza Hussein, reporter covering national security and foreign affairs at Dropside News. Murtaza, welcome back to the show.

[Murtaza Hussein]

Thanks for having me, Emma, of course.

[Emma Vigeland]

Good to see you. Good to talk to you. Let's start here. What is the latest on the closure of the Strait of Hormuz because the new line from the Trump administration is short term pain for long term gain. What is your assessment of that spin? What is the long term gain here?

[Murtaza Hussein]

Well, it's really a risable statement and I think Trump has gotten himself into a situation which is far more serious than he may have calculated at the beginning. For those who don't know, the Strait of Hormuz is a passageway, relatively narrow maritime passageway through which 20% of the world's energy transits. And you can imagine the knock on effects of a disruption of that strait for even a few hours or a day or so in the 80 years it's been used for this purpose, it's never really been shut down at all. Now we're over a week now of disruption and total shutdown up the strait to various degrees. And it looks like the Iranians are digging in to shut it down for a long period of time. So crude oil today has already exceeded $100 Brent crude per barrel. It was from about $68 start of the war. So that's an unbelievable sort of parabolic increase in a short amount of time. And the market is still pricing in a relatively short war, although there's no really indication of an off ramp here. So, you know, this is kind of a devastating situation for first of all, the global economy, obviously the American economy, American domestic politics be impacted, but also the whole structure of the American empire is very much based on the idea that the US Is the protector of this area, of the Persian Gulf, of the Gulf Arab countries around the Strait of Hormuz, in the Gulf and then also off the strait itself in the maritime traffic. And it turns out that the Iranians can control the strait. The US does not have the ability to defend the countries around the Gulf, does not have the ability to defend the strait from someone taking over the Iranians in this case. And, you know, if they were to, let's say, launch a major operation to open it, that would take, you know, a very long time to get together. Even escorting ships through would take a very long time, would be very dangerous as well, too. You could make weeks or months even to organize the logistics for that. And then very likely you'd have to invade Iran. You'd have to invade Iran in the coastal areas bordering the Gulf to sort of regain control of that. And that would be an incredibly difficult task. We suffer. You need, like Iraq style, beyond level of invasion force again, which would take a very long time. And during all that time, the strait is still closed and the global economy is still being impacted. So you are really, you've almost generated a situation where you're almost guaranteed a global recession or global depression, even as a result of this huge shock to global energy markets by this decision to launch the war and then for the Iranians to close the strait. So I really see only a few really unenviable options for Trump now. The first is you could do that, I think escalate and start a much larger war with Iran, including a ground invasion and what have you, to try to open the street by force again. It would have all the negative consequences I talked about, on top of you being very unpopular in America. The war is already unpopular, being worse, ground invasion and casualties and all these things, it would be devastating. Secondly, he could just sort of back up. He could declare the war over and say he's done with it, regardless of what's going on in the ground. He's hinted that he is on the verge of doing that anyways. He's almost, he's been saying several times he wants to wrap it up already. It's only been about two weeks now. But then what do you do then? Is he effectively surrendering the strait and the Persian Gulf to Iran? Because Iran would be the have demonstrated they have the power, were able to have control over it. So what does that mean? All the Gulf Arab countries will reorient themselves towards accommodating Iran. Iran's status will be tremendously boosted as a result of that. So that's not really a great option for Trump either. So I don't really know what his end game here is. Maybe he can negotiate something with the Iranians and give them something that allows them to back off or makes them feel comfortable backing off. But I'm really skeptical of that, too, because the Iranians don't trust any US Negotiating position because the last two negotiations, the US Attacked them in the middle of the negotiation. That sort of duplicitous behavior and diplomacy was not even done in World War II. Because, you know that, you know, whatever morals ethics aside, you may need to talk to someone later on. You may need them to trust your assurances in negotiation. The US doesn't really have that option anymore. So they're trying to bomb Iran in submission and cause all the civilian casualties, just harm them and so forth, see if they'll break. That seems to not be working. It seems to be having the opposite effect. They nominated even more hardline Supreme Leader who today gave his first address, saying that first and foremost, the war is not going to end. We're not opening the strait. So now what? So I don't see a really a good offering for this by any means.

[Emma Vigeland]

And the. The Trump administration and the US Is claiming that it's destroying these Iranian mine layers. It does not appear that they are successful, but they are trying to at least kind of give the impression that they're having some impact on the mines that the Iranians have laid in the strait. What's your assessment on that?

[Murtaza Hussein]

Well, these mine layers, they're just like speedboats, and the Iranians apparently have thousands of them. And I think the US Centcom said it's short 16, some of which may have been inactive. That really doesn't really move the needle too much on the subject. The Iranians can just place a few mines in the strait as close. If they place thousands or tens of thousands of mines, you can imagine how long it would take to clean that up, even if the war did go in America's favor later on. So it's not really such a pertinent issue. But secondly, there's two things. First of all, the Iranians have developed ballistic missiles which can be used to lay mines as well, too. So there are certain types of missiles they develop which you fire them in the strait and they discharge mines anyway, so you don't even need the boats. They thought through many different ways of doing this. And secondly, the Iranians don't need to mine the straits to close it. All they have to do is declare the strait is closed. And that's closed because ships won't take the insurance cost of going through an air region that they view is dangerous. The ship's crews won't want to do it, even just for their own safety as well, too. And most of the ships, or all the ships that have been hit so far have not been hit by mines. They've been hit by drones. And the drones are launched from within Iran. So the mines are really a secondary issue. They built all these redundancies into their strategy for closing the strait. And I think the fundamental problem this whole conflict is is that from Trump's perspective, this was an issue on his checklist. He was trying to get off before he moved on to Cuba or ICE or a million other things. From the Iranians perspective, this is a conflict they've been preparing for for several generations now, the day that the US Came to try to invade them. And they view it as an existential issue. And the Trump administration has said it's an existential issue for the Iranians, so they're sort of viewing it appropriately. So they have thought of this a million different ways, what they would do in the situation. And the Trump administration has seemingly done no preparation for this. I'll give you one more quick example. The reason that the Iranians are even able to shut down the strait is because these bases that the US has built around the Gulf, which is supposed to protect the strait and protect the countries in the Gulf, they were evacuated before the war because the US didn't want to take casualties. And now those bases are being hit very heavily. Radars are being knocked out, all these things. There have been some casualties in Kuwait as well, too, and maybe in Saudi Arabia from the attacks and these bases. But now you don't even have the bases necessarily necessary to project the force to reopen the strait in the first place. So how do you even get out of this without going a million times more deeply into it? And if you, even if you do invade Iran, I don't even sign. Clearly you'd win that war. It's a very mountainous country. It's nine people. They've been preparing a game for the invasion as well, too. So, yeah, I mean, I think that we're headed for a huge economic catastrophe here, barring some sort of, you know, unlikely at the moment, diplomatic off ramp.

[Emma Vigeland]

The claim that. Well, actually, let me Pick up on something else that you said there. Cuz I think that's really important where you're talking about the interceptors and the United States running low on them. We saw, and you know, them getting hit pretty hard. We saw that Korean media ended up publishing a few days ago an image of the United States dismantling one of their defense systems from South Korea to send it to the Middle East. Obviously, North Korea is one of the few nations isolated from the west that has refused to denuclearize. And so it appears that the US Is so desperate for this kind of technology that Trump doesn't really care if this ally is put in a difficult position. And also, I think they took some heat domestically for allowing the construction of this previously. But perhaps you can shed some light on this.

[Murtaza Hussein]

So these missile interceptors, they're a very important part of America's defense strategy, not just in the Middle east, but globally. Because what's happening right now is increasing the risk of a war in Asia. Because the reason is not a war in Asia is because people, the countries in Asia that the US has, you know, conflicts and hostility with, believe the cost is too high or they believe their missiles won't get through or things like that. So if you move the missile batteries out of Asia, it makes the idea of, let's say, North Korea attacking South Korea or China attacking Taiwan more attractive because they feel that, well, it could be coming easier. Now the missile batteries are gone and we're building up our own missiles ourselves. You know, the balance of forces is getting more on our side. So this is actually increasing the risk of a major war in Asia at the same time, either now or in a year or two. Because, you know, one thing that's very important, these missile batteries are not easy to replenish. The US Makes a couple dozen a year, and they fired no one knows how many in this war. But in the last 20, 25 war, Israel, Iran war, they fired about 25% of all their missiles. So, you know, years, conservatively of production are being expended on this and giving, let's say, the Chinese a very perfect window of opportunity to, let's say, attack Taiwan or attack US Interests in the region and become the hegemon of that part of the world. So it's really cannibalizing all aspects of America's, the imperial American system, the physical footprint of it, to fight this war, which is a war of choice and for which no one has actually defined any objective at all in Iran, and no one's defined the end game. It's really crazy. So you mentioned that the intercepts are running out too. These figures are classified. But you can kind of see the impact a little bit because in Dubai, which is a beneficiary of a lot of American interceptors, the interceptions are not happening anymore. The strikes are happening on Dubai more and more heavily. And this is going to cause a death spiral for Dubai because the whole attraction of Dubai and the other Gulf Arab states is that they're a completely safe haven for capital and individuals from around the world to come and invest and things like that. That's clearly no longer the case. The US Is not able to defend them. It's defending them. They're being hammered. And then the next shoe to drop might be Israel. Like Israel is now engaging another war with Hezbollah. They're being hit. The Iranian focus is now shifting to the Gulf states to hit Israel more often. So if they run out of interceptors and start running low, then what happens? Exactly. So I see this is complete Pandora's box which has been opened. And like I said, the implications are not just for the Middle East. They have implications for Europe and the war with Russia, but also for the war which may take place, which now odds are being increased with China or with North Korea. And that war would be magnitudes more damaging than the war with Iran. As bad as the war with Iran has been, that would be truly a situation which would be deserving of the description of a world war if that were to happen. And people before the Trump administration, even people in the current administration, have warned about this and warned not to do it, and yet they're doing it as we speak.

[Emma Vigeland]

Well, I guess for South Korea's purposes, they can maybe be a little bit less concerned about an attack from China, in my estimation, because why would China really do anything except sit back and watch the United States expend enormous amounts of military resources right now, destroy their global standing in the world. Especially when China's reliance on oil that's to going coming through the strait is less significant than some of the other countries. Like say, I know Pakistan is experiencing that crunch right now. South Korea is likely to be impacted. Japan as well. But China can kind of just wait this out and essentially say like, hey, the U.S. you want to punch yourself in the face, go for it.

[Murtaza Hussein]

Well, this is just an unbelievable. So like the knock on effects are so crazy because you mentioned Pakistan and many other Asian countries. There's like rationing happening in these countries. People have been told to work from home and not drive their cars entire Countries you talk about hundreds of millions, maybe billions of people who are currently going through this in Asia at the moment. And one country is not affected is China for a number of, number of reasons. They have strategic reserves for situations like this. They're large, well resourced country. But also Iran is still selling its own oil through the strait. Its own ships are passing. They're selling more actually at higher prices. And who's buying them? China's buying them because China was willing to sort of ignore the sanctions and buy the Iranian oil. It almost makes you think that this is somehow coordinated so strategically perfect for China in this situation because it's heavily damaging all the rival or competing powers around them in Asia. They're okay, they're still getting oil even. And it's also draining America's resources, political attention and, you know, many other critical factors they would need to contain or compete with China in the future. This does remind me lot of the position of the US in the world wars because before the world wars the US Was not a global superpower. European countries were global superpowers. And it seemed like it was almost like an invulnerable position of superiority. What happened in the two world wars is the European countries exhausted themselves fighting and by the end of World War II, the US had taken much more of a supplementary role later in the conflict. It wasn't one of the initiating parties that suffered most of the damage or loss. It was the only country stagnant and became the global superpower which exists today. What China is doing is very similar. They are not getting involved directly in the Ukraine war or the Iran war. They're feeding weapons, they're giving intel, they're giving other sources of support to help Iran or help Russia and keep the war going longer. But they're not going to waste their own resources getting involved in the war, of course like that. They're just sitting and capitalizing on the benefits. And I do think this is going to end up being a historical turning point one way or another, given what they're doing, which frankly is quite wise.

[Emma Vigeland]

I mean, so China has these reserves. They also are much further along on the renewable energy front where they have that capacity where the United States doesn't and of course some of the other smaller Asian countries that are going to be impacted by this. When you're comparing it to World War II, I had been kind of thinking about this. I was listening to Jeffrey Sachs speak about how this is already a world war and I don't see how you can classify it as any other classified any other way. If this was in Europe and there was a country that was attacking seven other countries, bombing them, invading them in the way that Israel is, and as the proxy of the United States, I don't think we would have any hesitation in calling it a world war. But because of kind of, you know, Western privilege, there's a sneering at the sovereignty of nations in the Middle East. And also Iran, of course, that prevents it from kind of being classified as such. But certainly also with all these Western countries involved in this multination war, it would be fair to classify it as such. And obviously, the US And Israel are on the sides of aggression and cruelty.

[Murtaza Hussein]

Well, yeah. You know, it's also very important that a lot of these countries, several countries, been hit by Israel, several countries have been hit by Iran now, too. The Persian Gulf as well. Iran is a very different country from a lot of the other countries that the US has fought in the last decade or two decades in the Middle east in the sense that it has a sort of. It wasn't created by Sykes Picot. It has its own natural borders. You could say it was a civilization which was destroyed and then recreated itself several times in history as well, too. It's much more. The foundations of his statehood don't have a recent providence. That's why I think that when Trump thought that he just killed one guy, the whole thing would collapse. He didn't really understand what the situation was. It was not a personalistic regime centered around a dictator who, you know, his bloodline or whatever or his personality sort of defined the state. And without that, it would just be anybody. No, it's a deeply entrenched system, and maybe it's not popular to the majority of people. Maybe it's a third of the people's support it, but that's a lot. In a country of 90 million people, that's enough to create a strong social base. And you can see that the government has not collapsed. So these characterizations of it seemingly did not match reality, these very optimistic characterizations of what would happen should the war begun. So I do think that, I don't know, it's really going to become now a contest of political will. And in some ways, it does seem to me that as bad as it is, the best option for Trump maybe should just be to walk away now and just declare victory. You can say he destroyed the Iranian navy or killed such people and just say he won. And, you know, his supporters, many of them almost have this uncritical support of him. Maybe they'll buy Enough that we can walk away. But, you know, I don't really know what he's gonna do other than that, other than going more deeply in and getting into situations even more of a disaster.

[Emma Vigeland]

I agree that domestically, politically, it would make the most sense for him to do that, but he has been, I mean, really talked into this by Netanyahu, by seemingly Lindsey Graham. The reporting was that Laura Loomer and Tom Cotton were some of the voices that he was listening to. And if you're listening to Tom Cotton, that is perhaps the most bloodthirsty person in the Senate. And yes, I'm including Lindsey Graham in that. Graham is just much more vocal and enjoying his appearances on cable television after a few drinks or something like that. But, you know, it is pretty horrifying that Trump seems to have listened so quickly to the neocons and acted with such urgency that. And look, this is part of his proclivity as well. I don't want to let him off the hook there, but the way that he launched this war seemed to have such little forethought that it's hard for me to view it as anything except him kind of ordering his cronies to act immediately.

[Murtaza Hussein]

Well, you know, Trump's, you know, whole self image is as an iconoclast. He's like the person who does what everyone else says you can't do and then he gets away with it. And it seems like that was working for him. He was on like a gambling streak where he was hitting like he killed Cousin Soleimani in 2020. Nothing really happened. He bombed the Iranian nuclear program. Nothing really happened. Just last month seems a long osi January, he captured Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro again. He got away with it. So I guess in his view, this was just another sort of thing he was going to do that someone said he couldn't do and then he would win and he'd be seen as a maverick. But he miscalculated because the Iranians, actually, it's a very important and sort of ironic aspect of this is that the person, one individual who was holding back the Iranians from retaliating more forcefully even in the last Trump term was Ali Khamenei. Ali Khamenei is a very elderly, was a very elderly man. He was very risk averse. He had a policy of not having a war with America and not developing a nuclear weapon, not having peace with America either, not giving up the nuclear program itself, but just not crossing any threshold, staying in a gray zone all the time. He's a very cautious individual. And many other people that the US has killed in the last two years were very cautious. Hassan Nasrallah was also a very cautious individual. So now he has a younger generation of people, more hardcore in Iran who never agreed with this and who view it as existential crisis. And they've been preparing for this.

[Emma Vigeland]

Murtaza, Sorry, just to interject, who also witnessed what happened to Gaddafi when he gave up his nuclear program and the United States still overthrew him and he was executed in the most gruesome possible way. And younger leadership, I would imagine, in Iran is saying, like. Like, we don't want to end up like this, or I don't want to end up like my dad.

[Murtaza Hussein]

Absolutely. They know very well. And he was credibility in negotiating these things in that nil. Now, like, you can say that there were some US Administrations which are more conciliatory, but you have to look at the whole view US System in its totality. I don't think the US Is structurally capable of making a deal with Iran. They made one in 2015 under Obama. It was torn up a few years later. That was pretty much it. There's no real, you know, consensus for that without that. And, you know, it's really kind of depressing a little bit, because I would even say that the Democrats, while they did not, they're not the ones who initiated this war. I think they also helped lead Trump into this. We had some reports about this at drop site. It was not that they egged the war on explicitly, but they didn't really oppose it. And I think the reason is, and people said this is that they view it as an opportunity to trap Trump, to destroy the Trump presidency, destroy the gop. It'll destroy Iran and kill off people in Iran anyways. But, well, we get our political win out of it. And a lot of people in the Democratic Party wanted to have a war with Iran, but they just didn't want to be paid this horrible cost that's now going to be paid by Trump and the whole global economy as a result of that. They want someone else to do it. And so Trump just happened to be the patsy for Netanyahu and for some of the Democrats and these people around him he mentioned who was stupid enough to do it, stupid enough to sacrifice his presidency and enter this quagmire that US presidents have resisted doing for over 30 years.

[Emma Vigeland]

And when we talk about the Democrats, I think it's also notable that when, you know, Iran has no incentive to negotiate with the United States or the Israelis any further because the jcpoa, the Iran nuclear deal that you just referenced, it being torn up immediately by Trump when he got into office in the first term meant that the, the, the Democratic Party actually retreated into a position that was way more hawkish than Obama's even policy on that. Like to the, to your point about where the Democrats are right now, Chuck Schumer, who was against the Iran deal, became the leader of the Democrats in the Senate. And the Israel Lobby for, for their money got even more powerful because the, in a post Obama world, not to say that Obama was antagonistic to Israel, but at the very least, this was not something that the Zionist lobby wanted. They kind of quadrupled down their efforts on the Democratic Party and were able to buy them as opposition and undercut them. And that's part of probably why we're in this position.

[Murtaza Hussein]

Totally. I think it's the corruption and infiltration of the American political system. And it's not just me saying this, you saying this. You know, members of Congress are saying this, Chris Murphy was saying it. Many other people are pointing out, Bloomberg and mainstream news organizations are pointing out that the US is sort of dog walked into a war by the Israeli prime minister, by the prime minister of a foreign country. The manipulation of the people around him, people who are basically almost like acting as agents of Israel, who are embedded in the US Government. Jared Kushner, Steve Wyckoff behaving in that manner. They were instrumental to engineering the circumstance. And it's so glaring this time that it's almost hard. It's a conspiracy to deny it at this time. That's supposed to be a conspiracy to say it's happening. And I do remember the run up to the Iraq war. And in retrospect, it was seen as such a scandal and unprofessionalism and failures and deceit that led to the war. That was a masterclass in professionalism and honesty compared to this. This is a periodic sort of, you know, reprise of that episode. They didn't even bother trying to get the American public on board with the Iran war. There's no sort of public campaign explaining to them. There's no campaign explaining to them now. No one's really prepping them for the possibility, as I laid out earlier, that they may have to invade Iran in huge numbers and take casualties and engage in occupation of Iran for a period of time. Even that all has not really happened. And I think that, you know, it's really sort of a sad sort of commentary on the state of American democracy because the people in Power now feel that they can just act with impunity. They don't even have to talk to people about it. They don't have to talk. They're treating the American public basically like subjects of a king or an imperial ruler. That's the way that Trump and the people, his courtiers around him, viziers around him are acting. And I think that eventually what's going to force people to pay attention to this and not be very happy is when the economic pain starts hitting, which is going to be very, very soon. It's already started with gas prices and so forth and you know, gas prices just one after you can fill in your car. The entire economy is sort of built on this substrata of transportation costs. Everything will go up. Plane tickets, food, you name it. And fertilizer. Yeah, fertilizer. Yeah. Fertilizer is one of the critical export points of fertilizer of the whole world also, you know, the whole AI data revolution so forth, it relies on power and also helium and things like this for manufact sharing of chips and running data centers. So the whole US economy is built on AI, then what? And the whole US economy, a lot of it's built on the investments from the Gulf Arab countries flushing money back into the US at this point in these sort of tech investments and so forth, that's all going to dry up. Then what happens? We're in a very, very dark situation potentially. Unless someone can think of a way out, which maybe would have to entail making some other very unsavory compromises.

[Emma Vigeland]

Absolutely. Actually, let's put up the Ilhan Omar thing because we'll maybe play this later. But Chris Murphy said on Ms. Now that Israel made us go into this war, which I think is a really interesting development to see at least the Democrats that feel that they have a future in politics as opposed to Chuck Schumer understanding that politically that's the correct line. But I was fascinated by this clip from job site from last week where your reporter Julian I'm so sorry it starts with the last name Andreoni asked. Thank you. At drops at. Your colleague asked Ilhan Omar this question about potentially compromising information on Donald Trump that the Israelis may have. Now I'm open to this theory, but I'm actually curious about what you think about it because I think, you know, there are forces beyond simple blackmail that propel the United States into wars of aggression that we don't need to consider. But Ilhan Omar responded to this question and was not dismissive of it in a way that I Thought was kind of interesting given the fact that she has more information than we're going to have in some of these briefings as it relates to Epstein and as it relates to, you know, wartime things. So here is a question from Dropsight about whether or not Trump is caught in an Israeli honeypot.

[Ilhan Omar]

There is to thrive on our backs.

[Murtaza Hussein]

And then the last question is we've

[Brandon]

done a series reporting on Jeffrey Epstein's

[Murtaza Hussein]

ties to intelligence agencies, namely the CIA and the Mossad.

[Brandon]

There was an Israeli spy named Yoni Koren who was basically directly under Ehud Barak who stayed in his New York

[Murtaza Hussein]

City apartment for several periods of multiple weeks on end. He negotiated a back channel between Russia

[Brandon]

and Israel during the Syrian civil war. I mean this is geopolitical and I'm

[Murtaza Hussein]

wondering whether you think there's any self protection going on. We spoke about special interests, but do you think there's any self protection going

[Brandon]

on related to those ties between Epstein and Israel?

[Murtaza Hussein]

And then what's coming with the Epstein Palestine?

[Ilhan Omar]

Well, you know, I called the Republicans the pedophile protection party and their chief in command is the President of the United States. Back to Russia gate. We've always talked that about what blackmail for the President looks like. There's always been talks about the fact that there are compromising photos somewhere out there. Maybe those compromising photos exist either with the Russians or with Israelis. And I wouldn't put it past these spy Asians to use. You know, Honey pot has been used by Mossad often, very documented when it comes to their operations in Palestine, when it comes to their operations in Lebanon, when it comes to their operations in Syria and in Jordan. So I wouldn't be surprised if one of those operations includes President Trump.

[Emma Vigeland]

Little wink and a nod at the camera. Is there any besides her and Rashida Tlaib, federally elected Democrat that is speaking so plainly about Israeli intelligence honeypots. I just give her credit for even acknowledging that reality cuz 99% of politicians won't. But the fact that she wasn't dismissive of how the fact that Trump could be implicated here is really interesting to me.

[Murtaza Hussein]

Yeah, well, you know, we're all wondering what compelled this almost like suicidal decision for his presidency at the best of a foreign leader to do so much. And that's the theory which you know, if you look at the chronology of the events of the war and so forth, it's kind of very much timed around these Epstein file disclosures and certain key depositions that are happening in the Epstein case. That's not to say that the war was launched for that reason, per se. I don't have any evidence to suggest that, but certainly it's being used conveniently to snowball and sort of like snow in, you could say, the public focus on that subject. I do wonder at this point, how bad could any photo or whatever of Trump be at this point to, you know, his supporters don't care anyways. A lot of bad stuff in the files have been released, you know, one way or another. What could it really be to force him to do that? I don't really know. Another theory people have had is that maybe he's threatened, maybe that now threatened him or his family. I really don't know about that, to be honest. There's so much there. Trump is such a cipher. He's sort of someone who's very much. Although he's decisive in some ways, he's also very much susceptible to influence by the people around him, his court individuals, people around him in the White House and so forth. And they can use various forms of coercion and incentivization and manipulation, of which it could be some negative information about them. No one knows. It could be financial pressure. It could be many different things. That's the problem with having sort of a corrupt government. When you have public officials who are corrupt, they don't necessarily act in a way which is rational towards national interests. You don't have public servants. You have people who are acting on their own personal benefit. And I think that Trump is obviously an individual like this. He's an individual that's par excellence and it leads to these questions. So I would like to see if Ilhan Omar has information about that or suggestions about that. I would hope that that becomes public in the future, because I think the public needs to know, especially since they're killing and dying now in a foreign country for reasons which are to this day very unfair.

[Emma Vigeland]

Lastly, before we let you go, Murtaza, I just wanted to ask you about what the dam damage to Israel and some of the other deaths and injuries to U.S. troops, like what those numbers and what that damage actually looks like. You're not going to know fully. No one knows. There's very strict censorship out of Israel about Iranian missiles penetrating the Iron Dome, Although we've had some unconfirmed footage come out of Israel. They could arrest you for publishing that. I mean, we talk about Israel as a democracy, but they have. They're not letting Western reporters into Gaza, but Iran is letting Western reporters into their country to report on this, just to give people a sense on Tuesday, the Pentagon kind of whispered, 140 US service members have been wounded, which was a lot higher than had been previously known. And we're getting kind of slowly them announcing the deaths of US Service members. What has dropsite found and what is your view on what the actual damage to both Israel and kind of US Forces and installations actually is?

[Murtaza Hussein]

Well, since the start of the conflict, I've been getting messages from people who are connected to military, military families saying that there's a tremendous number of US Wounded in Germany and elsewhere have been evacuated. And, you know, I think the public disclosures about this have not really been very forthcoming. I think what they're trying to do is drip out this information such that if you were to release information about a very large number of people injured or killed in the war right at the beginning, you might generate opposition to the war continuing right up front. So I do think the deaths sometimes have been harder to conceal in the sense that people in the military families tend to talk to each other and these things get out. Some deaths in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia have been reported as like, medical conditions, people deployed there who died in medical conditions without any other explanation. So that's a way you can also fudge the data a little bit. And then the wounded, you know, you mentioned there was a stark disclosure by Reuters earlier this week about 150 wounded in that attack in Kuwait. That's a lot of people. And some number of them are apparently serious wounded people who could still pass away. So this is only the early phases of the war, and the war is not really. Nothing has been settled by any means at this point. So Trump has been saying he expects the numbers to rise. So that suggests he maybe have more plans for escalating the conflict. It's hard to say at the moment with regards to Israel, you know, it's very important that during the 2025 war, the last war within Iran and Israel, there were this huge number of videos that came out of Israel, of ballistic missiles striking targets in Israel, in some cases doing very devastating damage, destroying whole city blocks, huge military buildings, security buildings in Tel Aviv were hit. And I think they would not like to reprise that, you know, information disclosure. They don't want the situation again where people are looking at those videos and assessing the damage and, you know, extracting political insights from that or even intelligence insights. This time they're making very much under lock and key, but you get them some hints of what's going on there. Because as you can see the report in the Israeli press, the numbers of property Damage claims, people fairly wounded in attacks and so forth. I don't think we really know at all, but it doesn't sound very good. And secondly, it's a very, very important detail we have gotten from Israel is that because of the Iranian destruction of many of the sensors in America's integrated missile defense system in the region, those sensors are supposed to give people in Israel advance warning for when missiles are coming. So you should get like 10, 15 minutes of warning. Now you're getting like two minutes or you're not even getting a warning. Sometimes the missiles are just hitting. So that shows you these centers are degrading a lot and they're being struck more often and more harshly. And last night on Wednesday, the Hezbollah and Iran launched an integrated shared attack on Israel. Hezbollah launched many, many missiles from Lebanon, while Iran's launching from Iran. They're coordinating each other. That's meant to overwhelm the system, such as whatever exists today. And I think the operation is still ongoing as well, too. We've been told at drops I reported this, that the Iranians want to focus more on hitting Israel in the future and not the Gulf states. So, you know, one can.

[Emma Vigeland]

Wow. Due to their success. Due to their success. That's, that's, I mean, because the, the hypothesis had been the drone attacks, you're going to get more bang for your buck, for lack of a better phrase, attacking the Gulf states. And then you can put pressure on the US that way. But is that kind of the assessment now is that the missile attacks have been effective enough that they're going to continue well on Israel?

[Murtaza Hussein]

What we sort of glean from this, and it kind of makes sense according to strategy, is that the initial waves of missiles were not meant to hit any. They're meant to exhaust the missile interceptors. So they fire the lower end, older missiles at Israel during that time just to kind of, you know, drain that down a little bit. They're saving the good missiles for when the defenses are down and that's when they're firing. That's what they said publicly and reported as well, too. They're saving those missiles in eastern Iran and the missile bases, which haven't really been hit, to hit Israel when the defenses are weaker, and then they can extract a lot of damage. So really every missile fired now is an investment on a larger attack. Attack expected to come later. So that's actually why the Israelis and the Americans would like to end the war too, because leaving aside all the economic consequences I mentioned, their situation starts looking very unenviable. The Longer the war goes on. And you know, America and Israel, their militaries are designed to fight short, quick, decisive, brutal wars. They're not meant to fight long wars of attrition. Iran's military is meant to fight a war of attrition. So their advantages militarily start to accrue the longer the war goes on. And there's a example of this from the Iran Iraq war. The Iranians fought an eight year war with Iraq. A million people died in that war. Many of the leaders of the country are veterans of that war. So what's going on right now is not really the worst thing that's ever happened in that per se. They've been through things like this, worse things in the past. Whereas for the US And Israel, they don't really have any desire or capacity to fight a conflict like that. It would disrupt the Israeli economy. We have mentioned all the reasons. It would be very disruptive in America. They don't really want a conflict like that. So, you know, we have sort of a misalignment of expectations here. The one thing is that how much punishment are the Iranians willing to take? And it seems like they're willing to take a lot because their view is that if they just, you know, tap out today, what's going to happen is that the U.S. israel are going to rearm themselves in six months. They'll be back hitting them again with the advantage again. Better to just do it all now, bite the bullet, accept that we're going to take a lot of suffering now, but hit them nonstop, keep going for months, years, whatever it takes to keep the, to gain the advantage, at the end of which you may be in a very, very different situation. So I think that's the situation. And the missile interceptors are basically exhausting at the point that myself and others expected them to exhaust in the war. And the world get a lot more painful for the Gulf Arab state and for Israel if should the Iranians continue to fire.

[Emma Vigeland]

Murtaza Hussein, reporter covering national security and foreign affairs at Dropsite News. I mean, one of the best in the business right now. Can't thank you enough for your work. Really appreciate your time today. Thank you. With that, folks, we're going to wrap up the free part of this show and head into the fun half. We will read your IMs, we'll probably take your calls. We'll see how it goes. Matt, what's happening on with the Jackman show and with left reckoning?

[Left Reckoning (possibly a co-host or commentator)]

Yeah, great. Left reckoning earlier this week, tomorrow on the Jackman show Ido Elam, the refusenik from Israel, will give us a update on what it's like being anti war in Israel in this current moment. He's going to record that with David soon, siren permitting. And also Curt Hackworth and Jose Luis Granada Ceja, I believe, will be talking about Shine Bomb's debt relief and other stuff that's going on with our neighbors south of the border. So check that out. Tomorrow, new time at 3:00pm Eastern Time. Jacobin show will be on after a little bit after Majority Report.

[Emma Vigeland]

So check that out, Check that out. And also today, it's all right. Also today I'm gonna be on the Bituation Room with Francesca Fiorentini. We did sell out the live show that is in, you know, a week and a half in la. But if you want to watch it, you can become a member at, not join themjorityreport.com but you can become a patron of the Bituation Room. But I'm gonna probably be doing Francesca's show like once a month going forward just because we like to chat, we like to enjoy our time together. So I'll be on today, this afternoon, pretty shortly after this show wraps. Hello, Brandon.

[Alex Karp]

Hello.

[Emma Vigeland]

How are you today?

[Brandon]

I'm doing wonderfully. How are you doing?

[Emma Vigeland]

I am doing well. What's happening on the Discourse?

[Brandon]

Well, a lot of things are happening on the Discourse. Before I tell you, I just want to say that yesterday was my mother's birthday, so. Happy birthday, Mom.

[Emma Vigeland]

Oh, happy birthday, Brandon's mom. That's very wholesome of you.

[Murtaza Hussein]

Of the country.

[Brandon]

Exactly. She may not be the mama, love the country, but she's the mama love of my heart and also me, literally. That being said, over on the Discourse, we are, I mean, we stream every morning between 8am to 12pm Eastern. So head over to the Discourse with. With brandon over on YouTube. We should have some more clips out today. We've been following. I don't know if you've been following the Jimmy Dore Alex Jones debate.

[Emma Vigeland]

I have not, no.

[Brandon]

So, yeah, I mean, we've been following that. We've also been covering the UK's attempt to get rid of jury trials for a certain subset of cases there. So, you know, check out the discourse over on YouTube over on Twitch where, you know, use your third eye, remote view it, whatever you want to do.

[Emma Vigeland]

All right, do it, folks. We'll have. Just do it soon. We are going to head into the fun half. Join the majorityreport.com Just Coffee Co op, you know the drill. See you in the fun half.

[Sam Cedar]

Okay, Emma, please.

[Emma Vigeland]

Well, I just. I feel that my voice is sorely lacking on the majority report.

[Sam Cedar]

Wait, look. Sam is unpopular. I do deserve a vacation at Disney World, so. Ladies and gentlemen, it is my pleasure to welcome Emma to the show.

[Murtaza Hussein]

It is Thursday.

[Left Reckoning (possibly a co-host or commentator)]

I think you need to do Cobra for Sam.

[Ilhan Omar]

Yes, please.

[Sam Cedar]

No, no. I'm going to pause you right there. Wait, what? You can't encourage Emma to live like this. And I'll tell you why. Someone's offered a tour. Sushi and poker with boys. Tour, sushi and poker with boys. Who was offered a tour?

[Emma Vigeland]

Yeah.

[Sam Cedar]

Sushi and poker with boys.

[Murtaza Hussein]

What?

[Sam Cedar]

Tour, sushi and poker.

[Emma Vigeland]

Tim's upset.

[Sam Cedar]

Twerk sushi and PUL with poop. Boys was offered with twerk sushi and that's what we call biz. Twerk, sushi and poker with two boys.

[Emma Vigeland]

Right.

[Sam Cedar]

Twerk sushi and we're gonna get demonetized. I just think that what you did to Tin Pool was mean.

[Emma Vigeland]

Free speech.

[Sam Cedar]

That's not what we're about here. Look at how sad he's become now. You shouldn't even talk about him. I think you're responsible.

[Emma Vigeland]

I probably am in a certain way. But let's get to the meltdown here.

[Sam Cedar]

Sushi and poker with the boys.

[Murtaza Hussein]

Oh, my God.

[Sam Cedar]

Wow. Sushi. I'm sorry. I'm losing my mind. Someone's offered a tour. Sushi and poker with the boys. Sushi and poker with the boys.

[Murtaza Hussein]

A little kid.

[Sam Cedar]

Think I'm like a little kid Think I'm like a kid I think I'm like a little kid Think I'm like a little kid had this debate 7,000 times. A little kid Think I'm like a little kid I don't care. I'm losing my mind Some people just don't understand. So I'm not trying to be a dip right now, but, like, I absolutely think the US should be providing me with a wife and kids.

[Emma Vigeland]

That's not what we're talking about here, all right?

[Sam Cedar]

It's not a fun job.

[Murtaza Hussein]

A twerk.

[Sam Cedar]

That's a real thing. That's a real thing. Real thing. Willie Walker. That's a real thing. That's real. That's a real thing. That's real thing. Real thing. That's a real thing that's offered. Ladies and gentlemen, Joe Rogan has done it again. That's a real thing.

[Brandon]

I think he might be blowing it out of proportion.

[Sam Cedar]

Real thing. That's a real thing. That's poker. Let's go, Joey. Sushi and poker boy.

[Murtaza Hussein]

Take it easy.

[Sam Cedar]

Sushi and poker. Things have really gotten out of hand. Sushi and poker with the boys. Sushi. You don't have a clue as to what's going on live. YouTube.

[Emma Vigeland]

Sam has like the weight of the world on his shoulders. Sam doesn't want to do this show anymore.

[Sam Cedar]

Anymore.

[Emma Vigeland]

It was so much easier when the majority were for it was just you.

[Sam Cedar]

Let's change the subject through Rangers and

[Murtaza Hussein]

Nicks are doing great now.

[Sam Cedar]

Shut up.

[Emma Vigeland]

Don't want people saying reckless things on your program.

[Sam Cedar]

That's one of the most difficult parts about this show.

[Emma Vigeland]

This is a pro killing podcast.

[Sam Cedar]

I'm thinking maybe it's time we bury

[Emma Vigeland]

the hatchet Left his best trump pilot twerk.

[Sam Cedar]

Don't be foolish and don't tweet at me. And don't the way this all of these people love it.

[Emma Vigeland]

That's where my heart is. So I wrote my honors thesis about it.

[Sam Cedar]

Oh, sorry. She wrote an honors thesis.

[Murtaza Hussein]

I guess I should hand the main

[Sam Cedar]

mic to you now. You are to the right of the unformed policy.

[Emma Vigeland]

We already fund Israel. Dude. Are you against that?

[Sam Cedar]

That's a tougher question I don't have an answer to. Incredible theme song.

[Emma Vigeland]

Hi, bumbler.

[Sam Cedar]

Emma Viglan. Absolutely one of my favorite people, actually. Not just in the game like period.