Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 3/5/26: Trump Preps Forever War, Hegseth Rages At Media, CIA Kurdish Psyop, Congress Backs Iran War

Episode Date: March 5, 2026

Krystal and Saagar discuss Trump preparing forever war, Hegseth rages at media, CIA Kurdish psyop, Congress backs Iran war.     To become a Breaking Points Premium Member and watch/listen to the show AD FREE, uncut and 1 hour early visit: www.breakingpoints.comMerch Store: https://shop.breakingpoints.com/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Hey guys, Saga and Crystal here. Independent media just played a truly massive role in this election, and we are so excited about what that means for the future of this show. This is the only place where you can find honest perspectives from the left and the right that simply does not exist anywhere else. So if that is something that's important to you, please go to breakingpoints.com, become a member today, and you'll get access to our full shows,

unedited, ad-free, and all put together for you every morning in your inbox. We need your help to build the future of independent news media, and we hope to see you at breakingpoints.com. Good morning, everybody. Happy Thursday. We have an amazing show for everybody today. What are we in, Crystal? We do a lot of updates for you. A lot of comments from Trump and Hegset and others with regard to the war raising more questions on they're answering. Continuing in that direction, we've got lots of updates with regard to the kinetic action in the war system. specifically, including what appears to have been a sci-op from our government and the Israelis about a Kurdish invasion of Iran. So we'll break down for you what we know there. We also had

the war powers resolution vote in the Senate yesterday. It went down effectively along party lines. We're also looking at a potentially $50 billion supplemental funding request from the White House for more arms to fund this war effort. And Democrats, a number of them, apparently going along with this or open to going along with this in any case. We're going to take a little trip down memory lane, look back at some of the very clear-cut comments that were made by, oh, I don't know, Trump, J.D. Vance, Stephen Miller, RFK Jr., Tulsi Gabbard, and others saying we will not go to war with Iran. Pretty funny that that's what their line was then, and obviously we are where we are now. And also, more and more American politicians are framing this as a religious war. So Emily is

going to join us to tell us what the hell is going on with that, because this is not. our area of expertise. So she's going to break it down for us. She's our religion correspondent. Speaking of that, thank you to everybody who has been supporting our show, Breaking Points.com. We do have our free trial going on right now. Let's put it up there on the screen. You can sign up right now with the code BP326 at breaking points.com for a free month trial. We really appreciate all of the support for our show, the ability to have our ensemble cast with Ryan and Emily, who are integral parts of our team, in addition to all of the incredible guests that we've been able to field, all because of your support.

Sincerely, thank you. But more importantly, I think, Crystal, now is a time more than ever. With the mainstream media, we're going to play a clip later on in our show where they're like, oh, we can't show you that because Israel doesn't want us to, where we're trying our best.

I know there's so many people here and around the world doing their best to digest what's going on. We take this responsibility really, really seriously. And at a time like this, I feel like this show has never been more important than ever. I mean, I feel that weight for sure and feel really fortunate to have the partnership with DropSite as well, gives us access to exclusive news from around the world. And yeah,

if you're watching cable news, I think we don't really need to make the case for why it's important what we're doing here. We've had a huge surge of both, you know, people tuning into the show and also premium subscribers. So thank you and welcome to those of you who are newly in. That's right. Let's get to the latest. That's right. Let's go ahead and start here with some latest comments from the secretary, Hegseth, about the timeline of this war. It's supposed to be a couple days. Then it was supposed to be a couple weeks. And now it might be eight weeks. It might be eight months. Here's the secretary at a press conference yesterday at the Pentagon. Let's take a listen.

In a few days, in under a week, the two most powerful air forces in the world will have complete control of Iranian skies, uncontested airspace. I hope all the folks watching understand what uncontested airspace and complete control means. It means we will fly all day, all night, day and night finding, fixing, and finishing the missiles and defense industrial base of the Iranian military, finding and fixing their leaders and their military leaders, flying over Tehran, flying over Iran, flying over their capital, flying over the IRGC, Iranian leaders, looking up and seeing only U.S. and Israeli airpower every minute of every day until we decide it's over.

And Iran will be able to do nothing about it. B-2s, B-52s, B-1s, predator drones, fighters, controlling the skies, picking targets, death and destruction from the sky all day long. So, the direct quote, you can say four weeks, it could be six, it could be eight, it could be three. Let me read you a quote from February 7, 2003, Donald Rumsfeld. It could be at last, you know, six days, six weeks. six months. There you go. So if you all want to know exactly the situation that we're in right now, already boots on the ground remain on the table. Here is the press secretary, Caroline Levitt, refusing to rule that out at the White House podium. Let's take a listen. Could you tell us about the president's current thinking about ground troops and whether they could

be used? If they were to be sent into Iran, what would they be used for? What's the situation? Well, they're not part of the plan for this operation at this time, but I certainly will never take away military options on behalf of the President of the United States or the Commander-in-Chief, and he wisely does not do the same for himself. I know there's many leaders in the past who like to take options off of the table without having a full understanding of how things could develop. So, again, it's not part of the current plan, but I'm not going to remove an option for the president that is on the table.

The president had a feeling, again, based on fact that Iran was going to strike the United States, was going to strike our assets in the region. What was that last part? What did she say? the president had a feeling, again, based on fact that Iran was going to strike the U.S. because, by his own admission, Israel was going to strike them, quote unquote, no matter what we were going to do. I mean, this is full-fledged, open-ended conflict. We're going to spend a lot of time, I think, in the remainder of the show, just to show everybody how the war continues to widen.

The oil markets are already roiling. There is a matter of days, only days, while oil storage in many of the Gulf countries will run out, which will significantly hinder the president. production facilities, Qatar, LNG, already bringing down production and downstream production. Iraqis have been closing their oil fields. They only have six days before their entire storage is taken up. The Saudis have two months. Interceptors are all running low. Boots on the ground are one of the last things that might be able to change the tactical picture as it is. Secretary Hegeseth, we didn't play this clip, but it's important for him to say that he noted that we'll be

shifting in munitions to the type that we will be using, which will require U.S. aircraft to spend much more time deeper inside of Iran and also within theoretical range of Iranian air defense system. So previously, you know, these B-2s and others are fine from very, very high up. Now they're going to be moving to different. This highlights the munitions problem, which we've been beating the drum here on the show every single day. There is not a single off-ramp, quote-unquote. Both sides are leaking. The Iranians say they've rejected three different overtures from the president. The president and his team have been leaking that they've rejected multiple calls from the Iranians. Who knows what is true? I also think we should

really caution everyone. The censorship in the Gulf and Israel is out of control right now. The number of videos we're able to get open source are dramatically lower. That's being taken as evidence that the war is going better. Not true. It's that censorship is ramping up in all of these countries to make sure that we have no idea what's going on. Pay attention to these statements. The fact that they're having to shift munitions means that they're running out in some cases. If you're looking, look at the prices of oil, look at the statement specifically about production. And then later on on the show, we're going to show everybody some satellite imagery. which uncontested show some of the damage the Iranians have already been able to make on our own basis.

Yeah, that's right. And, you know, there are indications that they were able to strike inside of Israel yesterday. You know, there had been this whole like, oh, the pace of their missile launches has slowed down. But it looks like they had consolidated a larger launch yesterday. But, again, it's very hard to confirm any of this is very hard to confirm exactly what the damage was within Israel. There are also not fully confirmed reports, but a little more solid drop site is reporting this. that there was a U.S. flagged oil tanker that was struck and oil was leaking now. So again, with regard to the wider economic fallout, that is significant. And there was also a report that in terms of boots on the ground, which you'll recall,

there were a bunch of senators, Democrats included, who went into a briefing and came out of it indicating we're really even more frightened and concerned about where this is going, seemingly indicating that the possibility of boots on the ground was floated there. So there is a report that there's a dispute between Marco Rubio and Pete Hegeseth. Hegset, who's a total psycho, pushing for a ground invasion and Rubio more concerned about getting dragged in to yet another Forever War. Is that report accurate? I don't know. I mean, the supposedly they're at each other's stores, et cetera, et cetera. This is the palace intrigue. But that is what is being reported. And, you know, at this point, given the number of officials who will not take it off the table,

and these indications coming from the briefings that senators are getting, there is no doubt that this is a live possibility. I'll put one more thing out there that I was seeing this morning. We haven't even gotten to cover all of what appears to be more insider trading on polymarket with regard to, you know, oh, this guy happened to call that Maduro was going to get kidnapped. Oh, he happened to also call the date that Iran would be attacked. Well, now he's placed a bet on U.S. ground troops invasion.

So read into that what you will. Well, and I can, look, we'll get to that in a little bit in our update on the Kurdish surge, but we do want to make unambiguously clear what the president and his administration have now said is that this war is a result either of failure, inability, or support for an Israeli preemptive strike on Iran. The president said just yesterday repeating Israeli propaganda that Iran was two weeks from a nuclear weapon. Take a listen. If we didn't hit within two weeks, they would have had a nuclear weapon. If we didn't do the B2 attack a number of months ago, they would have a nuclear weapon.

And when crazy people have nuclear weapons, bad things happen. So we're in very good shape now. I want to let you know that. And we will continue forward. So if you're tracking six months ago, they were close to a nuclear weapon. Two weeks ago, they would have also been two weeks away from a nuclear weapon. And 47 years ago, they were also one week away from the nuclear weapon, aka they've always been just one week away. from a nuclear weapon. I mean, it's a meme, but it's not funny. Because one of the things that we've

seen now is that when the administration is pressed on this, and they'll say, why now, right? Why now? Obviously, one of the why nows is Israel was going to do it. Allegedly there was nothing we could do about it. BS, but that's their explanation. If you dig further, they go, well, their ballistic missile shield was a immunity shield from the ability to stop anew. It's like this galaxy 60 chess level nonsense. but Donald Trump is now saying unambiguous, look, I know that nothing matters or whatever, but like two weeks away from,

it's literally not true. IAEA says it's not true. U.S. intelligence says it's not true. Not even the Israelis were claiming that they're a week or two weeks away from a nuclear. This is the first time in history. They're not the ones who are even giving that level of pretext. And this is now being parodied, you know,

about by the president of the United States, bandied out by the Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of State every single time that they're out in public. and going on the record in a WMD style propaganda, I even saw somebody use the term, we don't want to see a mushroom cloud as evident, which is, I mean,

Oh my God. Look, I know a large, a lot of the people who are watching right now were literally not even alive to see all that. In fact, I'll talk about this later, one of the troops who was killed was literally not even alive whenever that propaganda was made. He was born four to five years after 9-11,

and he just died in Kuwait fighting in another Middle Eastern. war. But just to think about how the recycling of the talking points of the personalities of Dana Perino, I saw a screenshot of her yesterday. It was like war in Iran going so successful. I think it was Tommy Veter. He's like, privileged to be alive to watch her shill for a regime change war as a bush flack and now on Fox News. Britt Hume, who was there for both, is doing the same nonsense. Condoleezza Rice was on yesterday on Fox talking about, oh, President, Mr. President, finish the job the same cast of characters who are here to sell us the same lies. Yeah, which is why it would have been really important to excise all of these people from

public life, but the vast majority of them just failed up and are still with us and in some cases in control, powerful institutions today. So, no, I mean, it is so insane that we are now in this rapidly escalating, out-of-control escalation, regional war with unknown cascading, damaging impacts. And the President of the United States cannot even tell us why. Can't even tell us why. Can't tell us why. Can't tell us why now. Every day from a different official, we get a different explanation. Now, to be clear, I'm opposed to all of those explanations. But it is utter insanity that they launched this without even having their story straight about what we're doing, why we're doing it,

and why we're doing it now. You are asking the American taxpayer to foot the bill for billions of dollars, the estimate is a billion dollars every single day that this goes on. You are asking these service members to risk their lives for a conflict that you cannot even explain why we're doing it

and why now. it is so insane that we're at this place, and yet here we are. I mean, there is very little public support for this. We have all sorts of problems here at home. You know, they just refuse to extend the ACA subsidies as one example. You know, the cost of this war already could have covered the cost of the increase in premiums for millions of Americans. So, you know, that's where we are. And every day the president comes out and has some new story about what the hell is going on here. Yeah, and a new Pentagon estimate from Nancy Yusuf. She's a longtime Pentagon reporter.

I've known her for years. She's very good. She says the internal assessment is $1 billion per day that the war continues to go on. That's probably on the low end because it doesn't even factor in all of the downstream costs about moving a carrier strike group. I mean, I've talked about this on our show before. A single carrier strike group operating costs, just to be able to keep them where they are is about $100 to $200 million. There are two carrier strike groups that are currently there in the region, not to mention all. of the munitions, not to mention then all of the lost munitions and the ability to replace them,

which we can't even do at the current rate. We're hundreds of billions of dollars of equipment, of man, military are already there. And then the actual cost just of ramping things up is now some $1 billion per day. It's absurd. Let's also take an update here on this girls' school bombing that happened on the first day of the campaign. Yesterday, during the Pentagon briefing, there was was a map that was displayed to the public. And actually, on that map was a specific red diamond, which was on both sides of Minam, which is exactly where that girl strikes,

that girls' school strike took place. So there's a lot of questions now as to whether it was actually the United States and not Israel that carried out that strike. They're saying that there's an ongoing investigation, but he was asked about it by the BBC. Let's take a listen. Can you give us an update on what the administration knows,

what you know now about the reported strike on a girls' school in southern Iran on Saturday? All I know, all I can say is that we're investigating that. We, of course, never target civilian targets, but we're taking a look in investigating that. Red tie in front. Just on the basis that with the information you would have, your reconnaissance abilities, ability to gather information, I mean, it's several days on now. So is there any clarity on whose munition this was? We're investigating it. are investigating it. And again, to make clear, if you look at the map that was there and you plot the scroll right there, it's literally right in the cluster zone. Obviously, I mean, Israelis,

I've already seen their own propaganda. They're like, it wasn't us, but if it was us, it would have been fine because it was an IRGC base. In fact, there's some questions here, because apparently it was near an older IRGC base as to whether this was updated intelligence, but this is exactly the problem. I mean, who knows? Put together that strike package, was it AI? you know, that was used to say plot all of the known places and then feed that into the military. The fact that they're not ruling it out immediately, I will tell you, having covered many of these things, that's a problem. That's a big, big problem. This is the total Israelification of the United States of America.

I mean, this is exactly the type of, to the extent that Israel would ever get pressed on, you just murdered a bunch of children, you just murdered a bunch of patients in a hospital, whatever. When it would actually become a problem for them, this is what they would say, oh, we're going to investigate it. We'll get back to you. And then do they ever investigate it? Do they ever get back to you? Let alone, are there ever any consequences for anyone who was part of that decision making? You know the answer to that. And we can put the next piece up on the screen because we now have more reporting about exactly how this strike went down.

And again, the Israelification of the U.S., it was apparently a double-tap strike. And you guys know what these are intended to do. You hit an area once. This area happened to be a girl's school with children, you know, age roughly like seven to 12, who were murdered, okay? Then people gather, they, you know, they get the survivors, parents rush in, first responders to try to help, to try to, you know, staunch the bleeding and help anyone who can be rescued. And then once they've gathered, what do you do? You hit them again. That's apparently, according to reporting here from Middle East Eye, that is what happened in this case. And I just want

you all to remember that five seconds ago, this president and this whole regime was talking about how much they care for the Iranian people. They want the Iranian people to be free. They want the Iranian people to throw off their oppressors. They stand with the protesters in the streets. And now, here we are murdering their little girls. And, you know, furthermore to the Israelification of this war, what appears to have happened is initially there were, you know, these precision strikes that took out a bunch of the Iranian leadership, including assassinating the Ayatollah. And they were hoping. hoping that would just lead to some sort of regime collapse, which I think also was the hope when Israel

initially went into Gaza because he talked about it all the time. And that didn't happen. So now what are they doing? They're just carpet bombing Tehran. They're using fewer precision munitions, more just dumb bombs to drop on a location and cause severe damage. And there is an irony here as well because some of the regime's biggest opponents, the Iranian regime's biggest opponents, are in Tehran. Like that's where the, you know, more secular, more highly educated, more liberal, like the, you know, the various protest movements have largely started in Tehran. There are other, you know, areas of resistance to the Iranian government as well within the country. But Tehran is a hotbed. And that's the place where the most death and destruction and chaos, which Pete

Hexsath is out there bragging about, that's where they really focused these bombing campaigns. Look, like I said, we don't know if it was us or not. I can just say, having covered the Pentagon, usually these investigations and all. If it's not us, they usually say pretty quickly, and if it is, it drags on for a while before somebody does eventually admit it. And it will be a gigantic handle, and it should be. And I saw some of these in Afghanistan in Iraq covered, do you remember that hospital that was struck in Afghanistan?

I covered that entire thing. It was a total nightmare. A lot of the initial statements that came out for the military were totally not true. A lot of the investigation later that followed up, it was horrific what actually ended up. happening. I really hope that it wasn't us. However, you know, part of the danger is that between us and Israel, it's going to be a big, you know, it's like, are we going to just come out and say, actually, it was them? And then they're, you know, they're very happy to say, actually, no, it was us.

And what somebody did it, you know, and initially there was some Israeli claims. They're like, oh, it was a failed IRGC missile and all of that. There's no evidence now currently to suggest any of that, but this will be a major, major hit to the prestige of the U.S. military. And, I mean, Even if it was Israel, it was done in a joint conjunction with U.S. Israeli strike, there's a lot of complicity that comes in that, too, for not just selling the weapons, for supporting or being part and attached to something like that. And it does show you even the dangers of a so-called precision bombing campaign, which Professor Robert Pape has really been warning about. I mean, between it being, you know, a dot on the map of the strike locations and the fact that they

will not say that it was not us, I mean, it seems pretty, there are two suspects. Israel or the U.S. And the fact that we're not denying it at this point, I think makes it pretty clear what ultimately happened here. And your point about AI, I think, is a really important one just to pause on for a moment. Part of why Gaza was so deadly and so horrifying is because it was the first, you know, AI enabled ultimately genocide. And the amount of target generation that was created is what helped to enable the death

and destruction in Gaza. and now you have, you know, they're still using Claude. They're still using Anthropic, even though they're having some whole spat over that. And, you know, anthropic, as much as they have this brand that they've publicly created, oh, we're the good guys and we care about humanity, blah, blah, blah, well, that's the AI that is being used to generate strike packages and presumably to help create the level of death and destruction and the deadly nature of what's going on here.

You know, the estimates are at this point somewhere around 1,000 Iranians who have been killed, although it's very difficult to know precisely what the numbers are for them. Canadian women are looking for more. More to themselves, their businesses, their elected leaders, and the world are at them. And that's why we're thrilled to introduce the Honest Talk podcast. I'm Jennifer Stewart. And I'm Catherine Clark. And in this podcast, we interview Canada's most inspiring women.

Entrepreneurs, artists, athletes, politicians, and newsmakers, all at different stages of their journey. So if you're looking to connect, then we hope you'll join us. Listen to the Honest Talk podcast on IHeart Radio or wherever you listen to your podcasts. Ego Woda is your host for the 2026 IHart Podcast Awards, live at South by Southwest. Hello, is anybody there? Raised by a single mom, Ego may have a few father-related issues. Are we supposed to talk about your dad? Her podcast, Thanks, Dad, is full of funny, heartfelt conversations with actors,

including fellow S&L alums, comedians, musicians, and more about life and their wonderfully complicated relationships with their fathers. I think and hope that's a good thing. Get to know Ego. Follow thanks dad with Ego Wodom and start listening on the free Iheart Radio app today. Hi, this is Joe Winterstein, host of the Spirit Daughter podcast,

where we talk about astrology, natal charts, and how to step into your most vibrant life. And I just sat down with a mini driver. The Irish traveler said when I was 16, you're going to have a terrible time with men. Actor, storyteller, and unapologetic Aquarian visionary.

Aquarius is all about freedom-loving and different perspectives, and I find a lot of people with strong placements in Aquarius are misunderstood. A son and Venus and Aquarius in her seventh house spark her unconventional approach to partnership. He really has taught me to embrace people sleeping in different rooms, on different houses and different places, but just an embracing of the isness of it all. If you're navigating your own transformation, or just want to chart-side view into how a leading artist integrates

astrology, creativity, and real life, this episode is a must listen. Listen to the Spirit Daughter podcast, starting on February 24th on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your podcast. So let's then turn to what I thought was one of the most single, disgraceful utterances by a U.S. Secretary of Defense ever. Here is Secretary Hegseth, who is chastising the media for covering the deaths of American soldiers. and not appropriately cheerleading the war on enough. I couldn't believe it whenever I saw this happen live. Let's take a listen. This is what the fake news misses.

We've taken control of Iran's airspace and waterways without boots on the ground. We control their fate. But when a few drones get through or tragic things happen, it's front page news. I get it. The press only wants to make the president look bad, but try for once to report the reality. the terms of this war will be set by us at every step.

And so he is saying that the fake news does their part by trying to make the president look bad because some tragic things happen. Can you imagine a more disgraceful statement where he is chastising us for covering the deaths of American soldiers? American soldiers, by the way, who it appears were not in a properly fortified tactile operation center who, by their own admission, I mean, one of these women who has killed. in the strike had apparently spoken to her husband, according to his own interviews, about how she was worried about what was going on. She was working here in the tactical operations center. And what they had done is that they were fighting like the last war. So they put up these walls

that were around the operation center, which were designed for suicide bomb attacks. But anybody who has watched literally anything about the now four-year-long war in Ukraine knows that that's not how it was going to come any sort of attack. It was going to be by a suicide drone. And that is exactly what happened, which appeared to have a direct strike directly on here, which raises a whole number of questions. Number one, why was there no counterdron stuff that was even prepared? Right now, the U.S. military is scrambling and is going to buy counter-drone technology from the Ukrainians. Not sure why we have to buy it, since we're the ones who paid for it, but okay. So we're going to buy all of this counter-drone technology stuff

from the Ukrainians, which means that we didn't do any studying. We actually didn't prepare properly for a lot of the bases. By Donald Trump's own admission, they have said that they were not prepared for some of the strikes that were on the Gulf. So that means there wasn't an active, active planning that happened inside. And now six of these Americans are dead. And what's worse about it is that they keep saying, oh, that's just the first of many to come. They keep saying, oh, more casualties could be more. I mean, God only knows, are there more that they haven't told us about? Hope not, right? Having covered this for a long time, usually they just come out within 24 hours, but at the very least, they're expecting more. And the fact that they're expecting and preparing

a public for more, and this is the way that they want to cover it is beyond disgraceful, beyond disgraceful. So let's, you know, they don't want us to cover, apparently these troops, because it's bad for morale. It's not our job to do morale. That's not our job at all. Let's put, let's put some of these up here on the screen. The Pentagon is now IDed six of the soldiers who were killed in the Kuwait attack. All, all, many of them were attached to this Army Reserve unit out of Des Moines, Iowa. And actually, from their ranks, you can see that many of these were very senior U.S. Army personnel. But the one that sticks with me is this one, Sergeant Declan Cody. He was 20 years old. He was a student in, he was a student who was studying information systems

who was taking classes online from Kuwait and, again, a member of the U.S. Army Reserve. And I want this to also show everybody, too. These are people who never, I mean, look, they volunteered. I'm not stepping away from that. But it shows you the problem of our over-extended empire, is that our bases have to be staffed by U.S. Army Reservists because we don't even have enough troops to be able to staff all these bases, even in a potential active war zone.

And here you have a 20-year-old kid who had his entire life ahead of him, who was born, and I just can't get away from this, four to five years after 9-11, who just perished in another American war in the Middle East. How does that not break your heart? I've covered so many of these over the years, written obituaries for kids younger than me. I wrote my first obituary for a kid who was younger

than me nine years ago who stepped on an IED in Iraq and know so many people who were wounded or even families of the people who were killed who were over there. And now we have another one. And the Secretary of Defense is telling us that it is basically this is 2002-2000 era BS. Freedom isn't free. The only way to support our troops and mourn our dead is to support the war. It's to support the president. And there is nothing less patriotic actually than that. We're not falling for this bullshit again. We are not falling for this bullshit again. I just think it's so, it's not just about disgrace.

If you ask me, there hasn't been enough media coverage, actually, of these people. Because we should learn the cost. We talked about the girls. They're dead, little girls are dead. Who knows who killed them? Now, these people, they're dead. I mean, these American soldiers are dead at the decision point of the United States president and of the Israeli president.

And their blood, it's on the, it's on our least. leadership. Yeah. And we should be able to say that without being denigrated as cowards or anti, you know, anti-war, anti-American. It's anti-American to mourn the deaths of a 20-year-old kid who was in Kuwait, right? It's just, it really, really gets me. It reminds so much of how they were trying to, during the Rock War, hide the coffins coming home. They didn't want photographs. They didn't want pictures of that because, yeah, they don't want people to actually grapple with the costs. And, you know, the elites of this country, it's not there, sons and daughters, by and large, you go and fight and die in these wars. Barron's not going to be headed over there anytime soon. And they

seem to view all of this, like it's some kind of game. Or a TV show, yeah. TV show is, I mean, obviously we have a reality TV president, but Pete Heggsat, too, is primarily TV personality. And he's a man who is clearly out of his depth, and he knows that. And so he has adopted this persona that he thinks makes him look like a tough guy. And he's a done. And he's a these sort of like habits of discourse that he's drawn from, you know, what he thinks Trump would say and Trump's the ultimate, you know, the ultimate daddy figure for the MAGA right. And so he thinks that by lashing out at the fake news media trying to make the president look good, look bad rather, that he's going to look like a big man.

He's going to look like he's doing the right thing here. And, you know, I mean, this whole presser where he's talking about, we're going to rain down death and destruction, he's playing a character. He's decided he wants to adopt this persona of like a comic book villain. And that's his whole approach to this because he does not know what he's doing. Before this, I mean, at the very beginning of the administration, we're reporting about how the Pentagon is total chaos under him. Like, he has no business being in this position.

And what a disgrace that now we have American service members dead. We have Iranian civilians dead. We have people dead throughout the entire region. wady soldiers who've been killed, guards, random personnel, airport guys. I mean, the Israelis are blown up the police stations in Iran because they want to have foment chaos and civil war and some sort of uprising. And the president of the United States cannot even give a straight answer about what the hell the goal is and why we're doing it. Just think about that. And, you know, I keep coming back to some of the emails that reveal the way that these people

just do not see others below the elite. elite class as being truly human. So they're happy to throw, you know, your sons and daughters into a meat grinder because, you know, for whatever reasons, because Israel pressure does, because I want to look like a big tough guy, because I feel like more of a man when I can send American fighters in potentially to their death. And, you know, that's, it's sick. It's depraved. And that's exactly what's going on here. I want to call now for a video, which is put out by the White House, where they literally edited war that is currently happening with an intro from a video game just to show you the entertainment value.

Let's take a listen. So there you go. They're literally tweeting out, that's an actual video. We're released by the White House of the United States of America with the title, courtesy of the red, white, and blue. Country music, lyrics, and video games.

It's not a game. It's not a game to the family of a 20-year-old. It's not a game to a mother of two. And think about, you know, some of these people, you read their stories in this NBC News article. They're like, oh, she loved gardening, you know? And these people are dead, Not to mention some of these girls and others.

In Iowa, they're mourning them. You know, the university of this kid went to, they're talking about, oh, he was so great, loved his work. His father and sister talking about this. His sister was talking about how upset she was, thinking about how scared he was near the end. People shouldn't have to think that. Or if their lives are going to be on the line. And everyone's like, oh, they volunteered for it.

I mean, look, yeah, I think they volunteered, you know, with the theory, at least I think, the theory that their lives would not be fodder for video games. and for, you know, egotomaniacal power plays or being jerked around by Israel or weird religious holy wars, exactly. And so that is the ultimate, you know, screw you, I think, to an all volunteer military force. Yeah. And look, the military brass,

the chair of the Joint Chiefs, was warning. Like, it's not like they didn't know, right? I mean, we're not a rocket scientist over here, and we've been tracking this problem with the stockpiles of weaponry and interceptors in particular. You know, this drone technology has been used extensively in Ukraine, these Shahid drones. And so this was all known. It was all very predictable.

And yet, you know, these individuals, these service members were in completely unprotected in like a triple wide trailer. And the U.S. rushes into this thing because of whatever. basket of weird reasons, many of which we still don't even know, but with this, yeah, this holy war, you know, justification now increasingly coming out. And of course, Hegset's got his crusader cross tattoo, et cetera, et cetera. Trump, who knows what's in the Epstein files and what his and the money he's taken from Miriam Adelson and what all's going on in the background. And he feels like such a big tough guy after Venezuela. And all of that fuels now us being pushed into this

conflict that the American people do not support. And so, yeah, it's sad. These, these, these individuals trusted the American government to take their lives seriously and to not risk their lives without a good reason. And ultimately, you know, they were betrayed. Yeah. That's the bottom line. Exactly. And I don't, I think everybody should be able to say that. Canadian women are looking for more. More to themselves, their businesses, their elected leaders, and the world are at them. And that's why we're thrilled to introduce the honest talk podcast. I'm Jennifer Stewart. And I'm Catherine Clark. And in this podcast, we interview Canada's most inspiring women. Entrepreneurs, artists, athletes, politicians, and newsmakers, all at different

stages of their journey. So if you're looking to connect, then we hope you'll join us. Listen to the Honest Talk podcast on IHeart Radio or wherever you listen to your podcasts. Ego Woda is your host for the 2026 IHart Podcast Awards live at South by Southwest. Hello, is anybody there? Raised by a single mom, Ego may have a few father-related issues. Are we supposed to talk about your dad? Her podcast, Thanks, Dad, is full of fun. funny, heartfelt conversations with actors, including fellow S&L alums, comedians, musicians, and more about life and their wonderfully complicated relationships with their fathers. I think and hope that's a good thing. Get to know Ego.

Follow Thanks, Dad, with Ego Wodom and start listening on the free IHeart Radio app today. Hi, this is Joe Wintersstein, host of the Spirit Daughter podcast, where we talk about astrology, natal charts, and how to step into your most vibrant life. And I just sat down with a mini driver. The Irish traveler said when I was 16, you're going to have a terrible time with men. Actor, storyteller, and unapologetic Aquarian visionary. Aquarius is all about freedom-loving and different perspectives, and I find a lot of people with strong placements in Aquarius are misunderstood. A son and Venus and Aquarius in her seventh house spark her unconventional approach to partnership.

He really has taught me to embrace people sleeping in different rooms, on different houses, in different places, but just an embracing of the isness of it all. If you're navigating your own transformation or just want to chart side view into how a leading artist integrates astrology, creativity, and real life, this episode is a must listen. Listen to the Spirit Daughter podcast starting on February 24th on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your podcast. Turning now to some updates on the battlefield, a huge decision leaking. out now from Washington. Let's put this up here on the screen. Do keep some of this in mind that

things are fast moving and this itself could be a bit of a change. But what they are reporting is that Trump calls on the Kurds to aid U.S. effort in Iran, quote, offers support. In my opinion, they're dramatically underplaying this because they say, quote, in calls this week to Kurdish minority leaders in Iran and neighboring Iraq, President Trump has offered, quote, extensive U.S. air cover and other backing for anti-regime Iranian Kurds do take over portions of Western Iran. This is basically the 2001 Afghanistan model, and this is the closest that we are going to come now so far of an admission about boots on the ground. In fact, Crystal, if you pair some of the fear of those Democratic senators, I believe that this is what it was about. Because just to explain,

if you weren't following, the way that it worked is that we had these so-called special forces, advisors that were on the ground with the Northern Alliance. They were calling in airstrikes. We had air cover that would come in, support the Army. The CIA, actually, I believe the CIA officer where the first person was even killed in the war in Afghanistan. So you could see that this is exactly the way that this would happen. We know from some previous reporting already that many of these Kurdish separatist groups inside of Iran have had CIA munitions provided to them now for weeks in addition to Mossad. It would make sense, too, because we know from the Mossad and from others, that there was a lot of smuggling to inside of Iran during the protest movement, which

would make sense. Now, we also know in northern Iraq, which is where all the Kurds, is Kurdistan, as part of that country, that many of these groups, you know, it's like transnational in terms of moving back and forth. There's a lot of loyalty, of course, and support from the military. There's a military base. So if there was a U.S. support civil war effort, this is exactly what it would look like. This would, of course, be a direct effort to balkanize and destroy the entire country. That's what you do. This is civil war. This is the Afghanistan, Libya, Syria model. What you do, you pour a bunch of weapons into a group, and you basically say, we've got your back. You don't actually have their back, as the Kurds, I think, have learned for many years,

but you will be a useful tool. Yeah, they probably have. I don't know. This time, we promise, right? This time, so we're going to give you a bunch of weapons, we'll give you some air cover, and we're going to use you as a tool, as a cudgel to basically try to destroy the regime. In the interim, who's going to take that laying down? Oh, Ankara. I'm sure that the Turks will just be like, oh, for sure, we'll allow an independent Kurdistan to happen. Nope, not going to happen. There will be some funneling itself of weapons, perhaps their own use of airstrikes. Everything I'm talking about already happened in Syria, literally within the last decade. We know that this will happen. And then what's going to happen? Well, that's going to inspire some sectarian conflict,

which usually goes super well, right, for the United States. We've definitely got a handle on that. It's nationalism, let's say, amongst the Iranian population, which is still loyal to the regime. they'll call up young people. It's as if the Iran-Iraq War, one of the bloodiest conflicts in human history, had never happened before. Look at their capacity for suffering, for death to be able to absorb all of these losses,

even whenever we're striking them from the air. So this is not just an effort at regime chain, it is an effort at regime collapse, a full-blown insurgency. 92 million people live in this country, so many different popular, with Azeris and all these other people, who we're all talking right now,

they'll get involved, their proxies and others will funnel weapons, and it will look like Syria or Libya, completely collapsed, failed state, except with 10x the population, refugees going everywhere, already seeing reports about people trying to leave the country of Iran. Yesterday, somebody was talking to me about this Pakistani faction on their border and their own, you know, funding that we could potentially use as a cudgel there. This is a nightmare. I mean, prepared to get acquainted with terms like belocco. Balokies and Kurds, and now there's a Christian population, Azaries. It's not just one homogenous population who all hate us, regardless of what the Trump administration is trying to sell us.

This is the most dangerous turn yet. This is the Syria-Libia model. They don't want to declare victory, and I think this is why the Democratic senators were sounding the alarm. There is no possibility of some sort of armed incursion where you just give them the weapons where there aren't U.S. Special Advisors on the ground. That's a boot on the ground, regardless of how they want to define it or not happen in Afghanistan, happened in Libya, happened in Syria as well. And that's why we just withdrew all of our, why do you think we had all those bases in Syria

for exactly operations like this? So this is, I mean, also, the last thing, this is an absolute confirmation. This is going to happen forever. Like you don't, six weeks, eight weeks, no. This is a years-long commitment at this point if they're going to go down this road. So we don't know.

I mean, some sources claiming that it's already happening, some saying no, that that's fake news, but regardless from the very top, the president of the United States on the phone with regime change activists saying, oh, we're going to give you air cover. That's it. That's as long as it gets in terms of foreign entanglement. Yeah, there's a lot to learn from those. I can put B1 up on the screen because initially there were these very certain reports from all of the regime stenographers, like the Baroque revides, et cetera, that Kurdish forces in Iraq had launched a ground military offensive into Iran, that this was happening. They had crossed the borders. They were in Iran. And we covered. before how, you know, we had taken out a bunch of these border guards along the border to

enable exactly this. So it felt, you know, it seemed credible and it's exactly the kind of shit that we do all the time and that the Israelis would be interested exactly for this reason to try to collapse the state. This seems to have been, based on what we can tell, put B2 up on the screen, more of a sci-op and wishcasting than it was an actual reality in terms of facts on the ground because the leaders of various of these Kurdish factions denied that any, you know, of this was happening. So this is from DropSight News, some exclusive reporting from them. They say multiple media reports, including some citing anonymous U.S. officials have indicated Kurdish militants have now crossed from Iraq into Iran in order to seize Kurdish territory and spark an uprising.

The reports follow claims the CIA has been seeking to arm Kurdish fighters to destabilize Iran. Such an incursion remains a future possibility, but well-informed sources tell Dropside News no such evasion has yet to take place. Journalist Alexis Delumi, who has, is in Syrian and Iraqi Kurdistan reporting for drop site. Incredible, they have this person, reports that three sources from the Kurdish liberation movement with knowledge of the situation have told him no such invasion is underway and that PJAK, the only Kurdish organization with robust military capacity that is part of the coalition being discussed is unlikely to make such a move at this moment. Now, what have these reports done? Well, for one thing, you know, they

create the idea in the public that you are going to have this uprising, that you have these forces coming in, that there's this ground invasion. And by the way, of course, they don't talk about our direct involvement in any of this, that there's this natural organic uprising. It also makes these Kurdish forces targets for the Iranians. And in fact, there were reports yesterday that the Iranians started bombing some of the Kurdish forces and factions as a result of this reporting saying that a ground invasion had already begun. All of this is a long way to say there are already multiple siops that are being operated by our government, by the Israelis, no doubt by the Iranians as well. And so be very, very leery of any of the information that

comes out, wait until things are confirmed with evidence because the information warfare is just as thick and just as heavy-handed as the actual warfare on the ground. That's exactly right. It's very important, but also you can gleam at, you can glean this. What you can gleam is that they want the impression of a civil war to happen, to widen the war, to collapse the regime, to get them afraid inside. None of this is consistent with any of the current statements, like at least that are on the record from the Secretary of State, from the vice president. They're like, look, we just want to degrade their capacity. And we would prefer if somebody took over who was better, but we're not going to do very much. about it. That's not the same thing. That is not what we are watching all happen in front of our eyes.

Let's actually take a look now at some of the strikes that are coming out from Tehran from a limited amount of video that we've been able to see. By the way, we should get some better video. We have a couple international journalists that just crass the Iranian border this morning. But you can see, I mean, it's a disaster. I mean, this is in broad daylight, just blowing the crap out of buildings. This is a city of what? Ten million people? Yeah, millions of people in a highly urban area. There's some reporting I've seen that a large portion of the city has been evacuated, but what you could really take away, I think, from that is that these are, look, again, we don't even know if it's U.S. or if Israeli strikes. The U.S. government has already said,

oh my God, you know, so much is happening. We haven't even cut this. Did you notice the Secretary of Defense and General Kane brag? They said, some of you may remember Iraq 2003. we have dropped twice the amount of bombs from 2003, Shockin'A. And I was like, wait, we're bragging about that? I was like, do we look back on that as a victory? Did anybody at the White House go, do we really want comparisons to Shockin'aw? So they're telling us, you can literally take their own word for it.

We've dropped two times the amount of bombs in Shockin'aw in the middle of Iraq, if you remember what all of that look like. So remember again about censorship and about some of the video, very limited amount that is already coming out. we should hopefully be able to get a little bit more information as some of these international journalists continue to cross into Iran. Let's also, again, just to underscore that point, here's a clip from CNN where they're openly saying, hey, we would show you this, but the Israeli government doesn't want us to. Let's take a listen. 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. Okay, so we're not going to show you that. I mean, thanks for the honesty, I guess, But it does demonstrate, and we've seen this from Trey Yanks, from Jeremy Diamond, now from CNN and others. They're very consistent about, hey, we can't show this to you because the Israeli government won't less. In fact, there was a CNN Turk crew, filming crew, who was arrest detained on camera while they were filming in the middle of Israel. And the Israelis were like, hey, you got to stop. And they took the camera down. And they started taking it.

You remember during the 12-day war, they did the same thing when you were showing some of the damage that had already happened. We do know just from the ballistic missile alerts that there were tons of alerts last night. And I wake up this morning, nothing. There's no video at all. It's like, really? You intercepted all of them? I don't think so. And yet that's what the level of war reporting is right now.

Remember in Gaza, too, that they would often take journalists on a ride and then confiscate or check their footage whenever they were coming out. And they said, you're only allowed to report whatever we tell you. So everyone would be extremely wary of what that looks like. They're still not allowing international journalists inside of Gaza. So, I mean, that, yeah, that's the level of control. And look, it goes without saying it's crazy how these, quote-unquote, journalists, they just accept this. Like, they don't even feel ashamed when they're telling you, like, oh, we're not going to show this because the Israeli government doesn't want you to. I feel like, I mean, they definitely would feel more sense of upset if it was the American government telling me if it was Trump, you know, who was saying, oh, you can't film that.

They'd be like, screw you, we're going to film it anyway. press freedom, but when it's the Israeli, oh, we've got to listen to the Israelis, can't show that, et cetera, et cetera. It's crazy. To that point, you know, let's put B-10 actually up on the screen because, you know, it's clear that the person who really has the broader plan in mind and is driving the train at this point is Benjamin Netanyahu. So it's very important to pay attention to the Israeli press, to statements from Netanyahu and his, you know, crew of total psychos that are over there in Israel that are driving the show that have their own, like, you know, biblical, religious, like, blood feud ideas in mind here as well. But in any case, this was an important article from the

Financial Times because it has some reporting about the way the Israelis are thinking about this. And it says, Israel expects weeks-long war against Iran, in other words, not some quick in and out. There was some reporting that Netanyahu was concerned that Trump may have been talking to the Iranians through back channels and had to like check in and make sure that there's not any possibility that this war is going to end anytime soon. I'm not sure that those, you know, back channels were open anyway, but Netanyahu had to check in and make sure that the war was going to keep going. We need more death, more destruction, more chaos, more refugee crisis, etc. In any case, an analyst told the financial time, summarizing the Israeli government's position, quote,

if we can have a coup, great. If we can have people on the streets, great. If we can have a civil war, great. Israel could not care less about the future or the stability of Iran. That is a point of difference between us and the U.S., I think. Washington is more concerned about nation-building and threats to their regional partners. So put that together with the reporting about the, at least arming of these Kurdish factions and trying to push them to invade and spark some sort of a local uprising. and you can see whose plan is in control. Now, I don't know what the Israelis sold Trump. I don't know what Trump is dumb enough to believe

in terms of what could be accomplished, whether he really did buy that if you just take out the Ayatollah, then, you know, they're going to greet us as liberators with flowers in the streets, and we're going to have this great democratic Iran that's going to love the United States of America and want to do all sorts of business deals with you and the Trump Tower, Tehran is going to be going up any minute.

I don't know if he was actually dumb enough to believe that, but now that he has, certainly been disabused of that notion, if he had that notion before, well, what other plan can there possibly be other than we want to collapse this entire state? We just want chaos. We just want mayhem. The literal quote here is, if we can have a civil war, great. Think of how sick that is. Think of how destabilizing. You're talking about a country of 90 million people. Think about the blowback and spiral effects that we can't even contemplate at this point. I mean, we just have the roadmap of like Iraq and what we saw happen there, Libya and what we saw happen there.

You know, it's incredibly unpredictable when you destabilize or when your goal is to thoroughly destabilize a country as large and as diverse and is important for the global economy as Iran is. And yet, you know, that's what that's what Israel is aiming for. And by, you know, for whatever reason, the U.S. has decided to go along with that plan. So that is the actual plan that is in action now. And to Saugers point, there is no way this thing is going to be quick. We are not going to be getting out of here anytime. There's only one. Trump would have to make the heroic decision, the actual heroic decision of saying,

I fucked up and this is over. That's it. That's the only decision. He could have, after they assassinated the Ayatollah. Just declare victory. He could have claimed that this was some glorious victory and they're going to, you know, they're not going to do a nuke. And so we can mission accomplished.

See you later. Let's just not talk about this again. And he didn't take that, you know, he didn't take that opportunity for, you know, reasons that continue to remain somewhat shrouded in mystery. And let's just say now that all, at this point, we're in it. You know, now Americans are dead. Now installations, bases are hit. Let's put B6 up here on the screen.

Fighter jets falling out of the sky. Right, yeah, three fighter jets, which have all been shot down. At least there are some reports that are more. Accidentally, accidentally by the Kuwaitis, apparently, shows you the level of coordination. This from the New York Times, which were shown. showing you some of these images demonstrate some of the bases which have been hit, and you can actually see the various different structures, all of which have either been wiped out. These are very sophisticated suicide drone strikes by the Iranians, very targeted at radar

systems and communications specifically, because those are the coordinating radar from much of the interceptors and others. This could explain perhaps why we've seen some of the strikes that have already happened, Iranian strikes, inside of the Gulf countries, because they rely on some of these communication infrastructures and radars to be able to be able to be to be to be to be to be able to to be to be to be able to coordinate their air defense and they say u.s. military communication infrastructure highly classified making it difficult to determine what exact systems but the targeted location seemed to indicate Iran was aiming to disrupt the

ability to communicate and to coordinate and I mean look we've already seen problems with that in Kuwait they say Iran has attacked the military communications capacity even recently as June whenever tried to hit Qatar in multiple of these instances we saw and that Kuwait or sorry that Qatar base is really troubling because you could see a big impact that happened in one of those images. And just to beat the drum on our stockpiles, let's go to B7, please, and put this on the screen. This is the clearest sign yet so far that things are not nearly as rosy as they're trying to paint. Defense executives are now planning to meet at the White House as strikes on Iran diminish stockpiles.

So basically, it's like an emergency summoning to the White House. where the White House is going to read them in the Riot Act and they're like, hey, you guys need to create more missiles. And they're like, we can't because it's not just a process which gets spun up overnight. It actually takes years,

which is why people like us have been talking about this for years. It's all out there. It's public record. They have to show this, literally they have to show and allocate the number of missiles and interceptors

and all these other things that they buy in Congress. I've gotten so much pushback. As if you know. It's not about me knowing. It's like they public. the document, literally. Congress can even tell you. That's because they have to report to them. It's all in files. You can go and check it for yourself if you want to. What we see inside of this

report, this summoning of these defense executives, is that even if we try to throw the money at them, that the timeline for production takes years. Like you could literally try to nationalize the industry. And even with that, you could not X the capacity enough to be able to fulfill already what we have used in this conflict. So that means that we have a couple of options. You have to use, as you were talking about, dumb bombs. It's not exactly right, but like we have a large stackpile of these J-dams. But what we don't have are these interceptors, these Tomahawk missiles, or nearly as much. And the capacity to replace them is extremely difficult, and they're massively expensive.

So that means, while we do have stockpiles elsewhere, that you have to take it from there. Well, there's already a huge shitstorm in the military, because a lot of people who are in charge of defending the Pacific are like, we can't give this up. because if we give it up to you, A, that leaves us super, super unreliable over here to all of our allies, Japan, South Korea, all of these actually massively important countries to the United States, China, Taiwan, all of these problems that we're having. I was listening to Brandon Weikert this morning in an interview, and he was speculating that it's based on some reporting or things that he had heard, that there are Chinese and Russian intelligence that are being shared, could explain why the Iranians have the ability to hit some of these things. I mean, can you put it

out of the question. The United States is basically doing all those strike packages for the Ukrainians. We're spying on the Russians and then giving the coordinates to them. Why do you think they wouldn't want to? And this is great. They get to test all of our munitions, deplete them, see exactly how they work and strike at our capacity. And what are we doing all of us for? I've seen all this 5D chess. Oh, this is all about a message to China. This is what a joke. Nonsense, right? This is one of the best things. A message to China that we're pathetic and allow our service members to be blown up in triple wide trailers. protection. Right. And the Chinese are like, oh, okay, they're like, this is great. They're like,

we could turn this into their Vietnam or they're Afghanistan. Let's flood as much of this as we possibly can, make it difficult, bog them down. There's nothing they could want more. It's the same thing that we used to argue about in Ukraine. They argued it with some sort of deterrence. Nope. If anything, it actually depleted, as we, as they already are admitting, they are literally admitting the United States military that we sent a huge number to Ukraine and we don't have the capacity to backfill some of the people in the Gulf. And of course, we haven't even talked enough about the hundreds of thousands, if not one million plus Americans who are basically stranded all across the Middle East, who have no way to get out. The State Department is like, is emergency trying to create an evacuation

scenario now. And now they're competing, though, with the military for military aircraft to be able to use to get them out. There's no planned evacuation as of right now. So we have almost a week of hostilities that are happening and people are sheltering in place if they want to leave. I read a story about some mother who had to take a bus for seven and a half hours and it takes six flights to be able to get back to Chicago. Can you imagine that she's a pregnant lady? She's sitting on a bus for seven and a half hours from Israel to Egypt and then has to catch a flight like to nine different places before she can come back to Chicago. That's one person. She's lucky enough to be able to get out. So think about the number of people that can with small children or others. It's a nightmare. It's a total nightmare. Yeah, absolutely. And just to go back to that, that article about them, you know, rushing into defense execs and demanding that they produce more. is really extraordinary because also keep in mind, Trump was just posting on true social about how our stockpiles are virtually unlimited. We could do war forever if we want. I mean, the man is just, he is just such an incredible liar. And then you see the panic behind the scenes of like, oh my God, we got to get these guys in here and hope that yelling at them somehow magically creates

more stockpiles. It doesn't work that way. And somehow Trump, I think he, because he has faced so many times where he is, we've said it before, he's like the luckiest man on the planet so often, things just, the ball happens to bounce his way. And, you know, all the critics said that Venezuela would be a disaster. But look, I could not Maduro and it went fine in his view. This was no problem whatsoever. You know, all of the tariffs, they said they crashed the economy. Well, they weren't great for the economy, but, you know, the stock market kept going up. So he looks at that and he was like, they were wrong. Everything was fine. I think he just doesn't live in a reality where anything matters. So when he hears these generals who came in and we're like, listen, we have no

answer for these drones, these like $30,000 to $50,000 drones that they can spin up like crazy and produce mass quantities of. We really have no answer for that. Our stockpiles are already low. We cannot protect all of our allies in the region. Like our Gulf allies are also running low on interceptors. This is a bad idea. He just does not take that seriously because he thinks, well, these type of experts have said I was wrong before and I've always proven them wrong. I know more about this. And by the way, my friend Netanyahu is telling me that this is all going to be great. And Bebe here in D.C. all the time talking to Trump on the phone, talking to other officials on the phone all the time. And when you have a, when you have someone like Netanyahu and his government with a really clear goal and a very clear ideology and they know what they want and you are working on someone

who is as stupid and easily manipulated and without any sort of grounding principles as Trump, that is part of why, you know, from the beginning, I've thought that this was very, that we were very likely to end up in this place. Not to mention the fact that in the first term, Trump was extremely hawkish towards Iran as well, that they, in different ways, tried to foment a coup and a regime change in Iran as well in the first term. That was why I was fairly confident that, unfortunately, we would at some point end up in this place, and here we are. It's really bad. Let's put B9 up here on the screen just to highlight some of the issues about a broadening conflict. So we had actually a very troubling incident yesterday where it appeared an Iranian missile was actually fired at Turkey. So at a U.S. base, which is in the country. U.S. Navy destroyer shot down the missile. But this was one of the first times other than the British military base, which was struck in Cyprus. There are NATO allies, which are already. being ensnared. Now, remember, I mean, Turkey, this is a very difficult problem for them. You've got

airbases of the United States and Turkey. At the same time, the Turks have okay relations with the Iranians. They apparently summoned the ambassador over this strike. And there was even some report that they may have had another one, but they're also going to be very against any sort of Kurdish uprising, which is in the country. But you can see how very quickly these things can spiral out of control. Another censorship thing I want to know is we haven't seen video of this. but Qatar, Kuwait, and others keep talking about Iranian fighters, which they're able to shoot down, which come very close to striking U.S. bases. So that's very significant for a number of reasons that they still have the ability to take off, let's say, you know, a couple of days into the

conflict. You would expect there would be one of the first things to go. And so far, the air defense systems and others have all been able to hold up. But it only takes one for it to create like a serious mass casualty or crazy style of men. Last thing on here before we move on we wanted to flag weird incident, B-11, let's put it up here on the screen. This is from the UK media. They are saying that a drone attack on their base in Cyprus, Cyprus was hit by a Shah-head-like drone on Sunday, but confirmed it was not launched from Iran. So where was it launched from? And they haven't been able to tell us. So serious questions here. Cypriot authorities said that the assault executed was an Iranian drone, most probably deployed, they think, from

Hezbollah from Lebanese territory. But that shows that you've got drones that are not just in the country, but also being able to spread out, let's say, either in Syria via proxy, Hezbollah, they could attack in Israel. They could attack other bases, other territory. So that's significant, I mean, what is, isn't Cyprus? It's hundreds of miles away from Iran just to show their their own limited power projection. And the Houthis haven't even gotten fully involved yet. Do they hand their hands on these drones and their ability to try and go after? The United States said they were going to escort ships in the Straits of Hormuz that will put them much more in the, you know, in the launch range of some of these anti-ship ballistic missiles and also

potentially some of these drones as well. Yeah, this drone situation, there's two possibilities. One is that it was Hezbollah and two is that it was a false flag from Israel, which I don't put either one out of, yeah, I don't put either one out of the question. And both possibilities raise the, raise alarms about the escalatory nature of what has. has been unleashed here because Iran has deployed this mosaic defense where because they anticipated that, you know, there would be an attempt to decapitate the government, they really spread decision-making out among these different military units. So their military commanders are authorized to sort of freelance. Like they have whatever is in their purview and they are allowed to make decisions

on their own independently. They don't have to wait for some order to come down from the top. What does that mean? It means you've got a bunch of military commanders out there who are freelancing, who, you know, perhaps are firing missiles or using drones in ways that if you had a cohesive, like, top-down military structure, they may think better of because of the possible escalatory nature. Now, I also think, I mean, based on what we're seeing from Iran, that they have calculated that since this is an existential threat, they also need to make the Gulf countries feel some pain and recognize that this is a problem for them in the hope that they will put pressure on the U.S. to pull out and end this war. So I do think that is part of their strategy. And then with regard to Israel, they have the same incentive to broaden and spread this conflict. They want as many countries engaged in this war as possible, which is why I don't think it's insane to float that, you know, you could have false, whether this was one or not, that you could have false flag attacks from Israel.

We talked earlier about that report from Tucker, that you had Mossad agents in Gulf countries that were caught trying to foment terrorist attacks or trying to. to commit terrorist attacks. They're denying. Yes, there's denials all around. But again, these are things that you cannot put out of bounds because that is the interest that the Israelis have. They want this to broaden and spread as much as plot.

Drawing Turkey in? Absolutely. They're all for that. All the Gulf countries, they want them brought in. They want everybody engaged in this fight because that's what serves their interest. And so that's why, you know, the only country that maybe even theoretically has an interest in not allowing this thing to spread is. us. But when you have the Iranians and the Israelis both wanting this to escalate and spiral,

that is very likely what you're going to get. And of course, that is already what we see, you know, in terms of the direction of this going. And I mean, from the U.S. too, like, we sunk this Iranian frigate that was over in the Indian Ocean that was not armed, actually. And we, you know, shot a torpedo at it from a submarine. Pete Higgs that was bragging about it. we allowed, you know, didn't go and try to rescue any of the sailors either, which apparently is something even the Nazis did during World War II would go and, you know, rescue sailors after, you know, after they struck their boats. But in any case, so it's not like we're really trying to contain this thing and de-escalated either because that was quite far from the main theater

of action. Yeah, actually, that's the submarine thing is actually kind of a political problem in India. There's a lot of discussion around it. I'm sure. Well, because they had invited them there for some naval exercises. So there was a naval exercise. So, it was a naval exercise. So, in the Indian diaspora, actually, or sorry, in the Indian, like, discourse over there, they're like, hey, are we going to allow this? Like, we're going to invite people over here. Are we going to talk to the United States?

They're like, yeah, it was international waters. Should we have had an escort? These people saluted our own prime minister. You know, they're worried about their own threat to the prestige. I was literally reading some of the Indian papers this morning. So, look, I mean, it's already spread. There's a cut, you know, literally insane to think about torpedoes being launched. They're saying, I think, the first time since World War II,

which is insane. And yeah, I mean, the level of how it's already spread and impacted global gas prices, which are already ticking up diesel prices, actually went over $4. I think there were some reports about California jet fuel futures and others. Like the level of economic damage that this could inflict in a matter of weeks is going to be immense. And the president and his team appear to only be waking up to that now. It's not as if they really planned for any of it by their own admission. And that will only further extend, let's say, the U.S. military having to escort ships in the Straits of Hormuz.

Canadian women are looking for more. More to themselves, their businesses, their elected leaders, and the world are of them. And that's why we're thrilled to introduce the Honest Talk podcast. I'm Jennifer Stewart. And I'm Catherine Clark. And in this podcast, we interview Canada's most inspiring women. Entrepreneurs, artists, athletes, politicians. and newsmakers, all at different stages of their journey.

So if you're looking to connect, then we hope you'll join us. Listen to the Honest Talk podcast on IHart Radio or wherever you listen to your podcasts. Ego Woda is your host for the 2026 IHart Podcast Awards, live at South by Southwest. Hello, is anybody there? Raised by a single mom, Ego may have a few father-related issues. Are we supposed to talk about your dad? Her podcast, Thanks, Dad, is full of funny, heartfelt conversations with actors, including fellow S&L alums, comedians, musicians, and more about life and their wonderfully complicated relationships with their fathers.

I think and hope that's a good thing. Get to know Ego. Follow Thanks, Dad, with Ego Wodom, and start listening on the free IHeart Radio app today. Hi, this is Joe Wintersstein, host of the Spirit Daughter podcast, where we talk about astrology, natal charts, and how to step into your most vibrant life. And I just sat down with a mini driver. The Irish traveler said when I was 16, you're going to have a terrible time with men. actor, storyteller, and unapologetic Aquarian visionary. Aquarius is all about freedom-loving and different perspectives,

and I find a lot of people with strong placements in Aquarius are misunderstood. A son and Venus and Aquarius in her seventh house spark her unconventional approach to partnership. He really has taught me to embrace people sleeping in different rooms, on different houses and different places, but just an embracing of the isness of it all. If you're navigating your own transformation or just want to chart-side view into how a leading artist integrates astrology, creativity, and real life, this episode is a must listen. Listen to the Spirit Daughter podcast starting on February 24th on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your podcast. So the Senate voted yesterday on this war powers resolution.

We could put this up on the screen. It failed effectively along party lines. you had Federman voting with the Republicans, Rand Paul voting with the Democrats, and so it failed 47 to 53. And, you know, I think it's noteworthy, both that you had all the Democrats except Federman hanged together. But more importantly, you know, there's been a lot of talk and you see a lot of kind of like MAGA influence or some number of MAGA influencers. Megan Kelly, right, obviously Nick Fuentes and Alex Jones are opposed to this. You see some people like that. The war room people are uncomfortable with.

what's going on. So you see a lot of like loud voices who are on the right, who are opposed to this war with Iran. But if you look at the polling, the Republican base, they're largely on board with it. Oh, yeah. You know, it is more of an online phenomenon, the opposition than the reality among the Republican base, which just says like basically, oh, Trump is doing this, so we support it. So I think the fact that the Republicans hung together and did not, remember, this is not even about authorizing war. This is a vote to say, like, this power russ with us, that even the Susan Collins of the world, who is very likely to get her clock clean by Graham Platner in the fall, even they felt like the right political calculus was to vote against this. Now, you have to

factor into that not only the like political base and the fear of Trump and his ire. You also have to factor into that the money from APEC and other Israel lobby types. And the ideology too. That's a great point, too, some of these people just genuinely believe in endless war. Many of them genuinely believe in endless war. And so that's how you end up with the situation where even though you have some 70% of the country that is like, no, we don't want this, you still have every Republican Senate, save for Rand Paul, saying, we're going to let the president do whatever he wants. Right. And that is the scary part. You know, I mean, to stick on that, one of the things I personally hate is people wish casting an al-a.

So there's been, like you just said, there's a lot of people like, oh, this is a screw you to the base. And I never use those words, you know what I say? I say it's a screw you to the country. Because the base is always gonna stick with him. I grew up in Bush country. 5,000 US troops were killed.

They didn't care, okay? They all stuck with him till the end. He's my president. I'd like to have a beer with him. You remember all that? They say that till 09. That's what a lot of these people were saying. Today they would all claim that they were all against it.

Not true, I remember. But that's the reality. The base, they'll stick with him. Now the rest. to the country, independence, the 51% let's say he voted for him, that's a whole other story. Those are the people who are much more on the fence, people who are not self-identified actual Republicans. Many of them, one of the things that can explain this number is when you start self-identifying

other than as a Republican, and then you disagree, it shoots the Republican number support up for the war. But let's not make any mistake that all of these people are loyal to Donald Trump and to party ideology itself. I will say in the Senate case, vote, what you see with the Susan Collins and the Murkowski's and all of them is I do I actually think Susan Callins and Lisa Murkowski they vote against Trump all the time all the time right and they've been able to survive it's very telling to me that the one thing they won't vote against

him on is Iran because they support the operation line I don't think that we can adequately describe the way that in Washington brain this is a justified operation to the extent that it's gone bad it's because Trump hasn't done it the process way properly but he didn't prove us They didn't brief us properly. It's like, that's all they care about. They don't care about the fact that we're in a bad conflict, period, end of story. This is going to be just like 2004. The war Democrats, they're already emerging, and we're seeing some of this. And yes, just like 2003, there are only extremely limited, extreme, like count on one hand the level, the type of people

who will speak out either against party or against ideology to say this is ridiculous. One of them is Congressman Thomas Massey. Here he is. Let's take a listen. As to why we launched this, preemptive war. The president says we had to strike first because an Iranian strike was imminent. Meanwhile, the Department of Defense conceded there was no evidence of an imminent Iranian strike. Some told us this war was about nuclear weapons, but six months ago, we were assured our last strike on Iran decimated their nuclear program. So which is it? I think the most candid answer came from the Secretary of State who told the press that Israel forces, our hand and dragged us into this war.

There is Congressman Thomas Massey. He's going to be one of the very few Republicans, if at all, who end up voting against it. And look, this is a valiant effort from Congressman Massey and from Rokane, others, Tim Cain, who forced the War Powers Act vote. But look, now let it all be on record. It's out there now. We can hold these people at the very least cattle. You did not even want to vote for the ability to vote whether this is something that you

have an interest in. Okay, we got you. We hear you loud and clear. What's going to come next is the supplemental funding, though. That's the big issue. Well, and that is the purpose of these votes. I mean, they're not even, let's imagine a world where they actually did pass the war powers resolutions. It's not like we really think that that would constrain Trump.

What this is about is putting people on the record for history so that forever it is marked down in the history books, who did what, when. Because again, you're going to have so many people after the fact when this thing, I mean, it's already gone bad. I don't know how anyone's supporting it already, but when it is an undeniable, complete catastrophe, and Americans reject it overwhelmingly in a way that is, again, undeniable, you're going to have all kinds of people pretending they opposed it from the jump. So at least for these politicians, we can get them on the record. Where did you stand? What did you do at the beginning? Did you even have the guts to claim the power for Congress to weigh in on this thing? Or did you just say, yes, sir, Mr. President, whatever mayhem and madness you want to do, go ahead and go for it.

So let's go and put C3 up on the screen because, to Saugers Point, the next battle is over, Munding. Now, have you heard anyone in the media say, how will you pay for it? How will you pay for it? The roughly billion, probably more dollars a day that are being spent currently. The $50 billion reported supplemental funding that they're going to ask Congress for. This is Mike Johnson, Speaker of the House, says Congress will pass Iran war funding when appropriate. So, $50 billion more.

What else could that $50 billion be spent on? Do you have any ideas in your head? Maybe health care, maybe housing, maybe education, maybe infrastructure, you know, maybe jobs, all kinds of things that could be done with this $50 billion. Rather than, you know, killing little girls in Iran or risking our service members' lives in the Middle East. Seems like the American taxpayers probably have some better ideas of how they would like these funds to be spent. And yet, you know, from the quote-unquote opposition party, you can put this up on the screen, Politico reached out to a bunch of senators on the Democratic side to say, hey, you know, you have expressed some concerns about this war, and all of the Democrats saved for Federman have expressed those concerns, and all of them saved for Federman voted for the war powers resolution. What about the supplemental funding? Schumer, before you can feel satisfied about a supplemental, and I haven't seen it, you have to know what the real goals are and what the end game is.

You see there, he's not ruling it out. He's saying, oh, we just need more information. We need a better briefing. Okay, again, process concern, not opposition. Delaware Senator Chris Coons, who absolutely sucks all the time. A senior Democratic appropriator says he expects the Pentagon will send Congress a supplemental funding request and vowed to, quote, make sure we are making all the investments we can to keep U.S. troops safe. Kuhn said the Trump administration needs to testify in an open hearing. So American people can get questions answered about the failures and planning that led to the sum of the challenges, losses, and mistakes in the sport.

Okay. So again, process, they need to speak to the American people, but ultimately he's going to fund it, is bottom line what he's saying there. Our friend Alyssa Slotkin, she said, I don't rule anything out, comma, I mean, we're in it. Tim Cain also said something similar, even though he's been great on leading the push for this war powers resolution. But when it comes to funding the war that you claim to oppose, you're open to voting for the funding of the war? I mean, this makes no sense. If you oppose the war, you oppose funding the war.

It is that simple. And so the amount of, you know, of capitulation, the amount of, frankly, ideological support from the Democratic Party is insane. They are so disconnected from the base of the party. And so with their vote on the war powers resolution, you know, the fact that they stayed lockstep except for John Fetterman, that is a proof of how strongly, adamantly, the base is opposed to this thing. And not just from a you didn't brief was concerned, but outright directly opposed to this thing. They knew they could not vote against this war powers resolution because there would be held to pay from the base. You saw Mark Kelly say like, oh, I don't know how I'm going to vote on this thing. And I guarantee you who got slammed with phone calls. And next thing you know, guess how he voted? He voted for it. So they are under tremendous pressure from the base. And yet they think they can get away with voting to fund this thing. It is absolutely insane to me. Well, you know, trip down memory lane back in 2007, Nancy Pelosi, you might remember this, where she tried to fund the Iraq because it was right after the 2006 victory for the midterms.

Pelosi was negotiating funding with the Bush administration. And what she did is she put a withdrawal timeline on the funding for the administration. But even that was something that many of the progressive Democrats who were inside at the time, so we're saying, what they were saying is like, no, you need a much faster withdrawal timeline because they didn't want to support the surge. Bush ended up vetoing it, and they did eventually win that entire funding battle, which of course kept American forces in Iraq. What they wanted to do was they wanted to fulfill their claim that they had, right, was basically, we ran on ending the war in Iraq,

and the president now wants to surge troops in Iraq. We cannot then continue to fund what we ran against. But the moderate leaders in the Democratic Party, so-called, like Nancy Pelosi and others, who became the Speaker, said, no, no, no, we can't do that because we have to play ball with the Bush administration. And so what they ended up doing,

actually was kind of knifing what had happened and continuing to fund that, not to mention what happened with Barack Obama. You're watching the exact same thing now play out, is you can't say, especially in this case, Iraq was a whole other story, right? Because we had our troops on the ground, et cetera, like, you know, obviously many Democrats had voted for it. In this case, if you're going to be against it, then how can you continue to fund it? It's ridiculous, right? If you're saying that the best possible thing would be to force

the administration's hand by saying, no, you can't have more money to continue operations, you need to figure out some sort of diplomatic solution, that is the best way to go about it. But they failed to do that under Bush. They also failed to do it multiple times under Obama. This is how the bipartisan consensus keeps going. And the more that the money is flowed, that's the only thing that allows the administration to continue to operate. That's the disaster, I think that we're seeing in all this. So we have no war powers. I mean, Glenn made this point, I thought it was so good, is that when the framers put together this idea of the Constitution, they actually theorize that the co-equal branches of government would fight as hard as they possibly could for maintaining their own institutional power within the system. And they actually never could. have imagined that you would have an entire branch that would just hold up its hand and surrender to what was going on in the White House. And this is a political culture now, which has been normalized over the last 25 years from Bush onward because, and I want to make this the most, because they do not want to bear the political consequences of their actions. Even the Democrats, like you're

saying, Mark Kelly and all these ways, but they'll vote for the war powers resolution. But the real fight is going to be on funding. The real fight is going to be on how you're actually working to make sure that this doesn't continue to happen. They're happy to take the vote to tell the base they didn't vote for it, but are you actually going to do everything to keep it away? No. And then same with many of the so-called anti-war Republicans. I mean, Josh Hawley, some of these other guys. They all voted for this. I mean, it's ridiculous. I mean, this is the most consequential war vote you will ever take as a member of Congress, at least so far, in your entire term. And you're like, nope, actually, not only does the president have the ability, we don't even have the ability

to weigh in. It's ridiculous. It's ludicrous. Yeah, that's all that position. Yep, the only Republican who voted against it was Rand Paul. And then in the house, you've got Tom. Thomas Massey and we'll see if there are any others who join him whatsoever. I wanted to show this as well. This is a Marine retired Marine who protested in a congressional hearing. And let's put this up on the screen, guys. This is C5. And you can see him being wrestled out.

That guy in the suit, that is a freaking senator, Shih. And in the process of doing this and trying to remove this man who, I don't know if you heard what he just said there. He said, nobody wants to die for Israel. I think that's a pretty salient point. In any case, they broke this man's arm, including this senator who's, for some reason, gets involved here with the police trying to remove this retired Marine. I mean, just wild to see that whole scene play out. And, you know, man. Reminds me in my childhood. That's what a racquet. Absolutely. I mean, a retired Marine having his arm broken because he says, nobody wants to die for Israel.

Pull the country. Ask them. Do people want to die for Israel? Because that's what Marco Rubio tells you is going on here. He set a plane that that's what's actually happening here. Now, I think that is not the entire truth. But there's no doubt that the people who have been the most relentless in pushing

for this are all of the most hardest core Zionist in this country and obviously the Israeli government themselves. Do you remember Tim Shea? Do you remember the little factoid about him? Is he the one that got in the fight with that a reporter? He's the one who with Megan Kelly got into that whole dispute about the circumstances in which he was shot. Oh, in the national park. Oh my God. Yeah. That's the guy. He,

yes, that's right. Bizarre story. The whole circumstance was very, very strange where a National Park Ranger was like he shot himself and he claimed he got shot. And anyway, there's so, just, just saying the bottom line is he shot himself and then lied about it is the TLDR of how that went down. That seems to be the evidence as to where things currently point. Ego Wota is your host for the 2026 IHeart Podcast Awards, live at South by Southwest. Hello, is anybody there? Raised by a single mom, Ego may have a few father-related issues. Are we supposed to talk about your dad?

Her podcast, Thanks, Dad, is full of funny, heartfelt conversations with actors, including fellow S&L alums, comedians, musicians, and more about life and their wonderfully complicated relationships with their fathers. I think and hope that's a good thing. Get to know Ego. Follow Thanks, Dad, with Ego. WOTOM and start listening on the free IHeartRadio app today. Hi, it's Joe Interesting, host of the Spirit Daughter podcast, where we talk about astrology,

natal charts, and how to step into your most vibrant life. And today I'm talking with my dear friend, Krista Williams. It can change you in the best way possible. Dance with the change. Dance with the breakdowns. The embodiment of Pisces intuition with Capricorn power moves. So I'm like delusionally proud of my chart. Listen to the Spirit Daughter podcast starting on February 24th on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your podcast.

I'm Amanda Knox, and in the new podcast, Doubt the case of Lucy Letby, we unpack the story of an unimaginable tragedy that gripped the UK in 2023. But what if we didn't get the whole story? Evidence has been made to fit. The moment you look at the whole picture, the case collapsed. What if the truth was disguised by a story we chose to believe? Oh my God, I think she might be innocent. Listen to Doubt, the case of Lucy Lettby, on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an IHeart podcast.

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