Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 4/6/26: Trump Moves Iran Deadline, Israel Hit By Missiles, US Pilot Rescue Operation
Episode Date: April 6, 2026Krystal and Saagar discuss Trump moves Iran deadline, huge missile barrage in Israel, US pilot rescue operation. Trita Parsi: https://x.com/tparsi?s=20 Brandon Weichert: https://x.com/WeTheBran...don?s=20 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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just in time for the market opening. So we'll bring you up to date with all of the latest machinations
in the Iran war as of this morning.
We also are going to take a look at a significant Iranian strike
within Israel with significant damage and casualties there.
Israel also hitting a South Fars petrochemical facility
that's really significant inside of Iran.
So I'll break that down for you and the significance there.
We're also taking a look at this allegedly successful raid
to rescue the airmen who had crashed inside of Iran.
I'm going to take a look with Brandon Weigert at what happened there
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Shortages just now beginning to develop the censorship regime that has kicked in to block us
from an accurate understanding of the damage, especially to U.S. and allied facilities in the region.
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your message from the president. Yeah, so let's put this up on the screen. I mean,
in the ranking of most insane Trump truth slash tweets, this has got to be up there and it's a very
high bar. So Trump put this out. He says, Tuesday will be power plant day and bridge day all
wrapped up in one in Iran. There will be nothing like it. Exclamation, multiple exclamations.
Open the fucking straight, you crazy bastards, or you'll be living in hell. Just watch.
Praise be to Allah, President Donald J. Trump.
So I guess in Trump 1.0, we had the Infrastructure Week that never came to pass.
And in Trump 2.0, Infrastructure Week means promised and threatened war crimes against Iran.
That's the difference between Trump 1.0 and 2.0.
I do actually think this is the craziest and the worst one because the previous contender was fire and fury and rocket man.
But that wasn't in the middle of an actual war.
This is a war. This is a wartime thing.
when our producer sent it to us, I was like, this is not real.
There's no way.
I know I had to verify too.
I was like, oh my God.
I mean, it just is shocking because, I mean, I made this joke privately, but the thing about
the madman theory is you're not supposed to be mad.
You're only supposed to be acting mad.
Well, what if you are mad?
I mean, for real.
And that's the real danger that we're all walking into.
So obviously there's the war crime aspect to this.
This is not generally the way, you know, the way that we would fight in World War II,
even the fire bombing of Tokyo, it was never, you know, supposed to be, we're intentionally
firebombing civilians. The way that we would justify it is that there's a lot of factories
in that civilian area, but we would never explicitly say we're doing this to try and kill as
many people as possible, even though that was the goal. This time, we're just saying it. We're just
saying that loud. No, we're going in to emiserate the population to destroy all of the nuclear
power plants and or the gas petrochemical facilities.
gas fields, the bridges, and we're doing so explicitly to trying to destroy their infrastructure
and to immiscerate the population to compel the regime to a deal. Now, of course, that is not
what's working right now. And in fact, that bridge strike that happened over the weekend was on
a unconstructed bridge. Like, it was halfway through its construction. And again, the Pentagon,
it wasn't even in use yet. It wasn't in use. And the Pentagon comes up. We're like, well, we need to
deny the enemy a critical logistics hub. And you're like, again, you know, look, if you want to go back,
Yeah, blowing up bridges is a long time part of warfare, probably like one of the oldest things
that people do.
You seize a bridgehead, you take a bridgehead, you blow it up.
But there is an ostensible military purpose.
This is just do it to do it.
And in order to show the capacity of the United States.
And it is, first of all, obviously, for the Iranian population, what a nightmare and a disaster.
But second, really, you know, for the United States, by taking any of this veneer off and just
further creating the situation where it's just America and it's just Israel.
It's like the Israelification of the United States.
States of our military, which, look, I mean, people know I'm not like a big norms guy or any of that,
but I do believe in honor and, you know, of the United States of America. And you may say that
Iraq and Afghanistan, it was horrible. And I agree. I never would have, I didn't want to be in those
wars. But we did not conduct ourselves in that way. I never thought I'd be sitting here defending
some of that. But the truth is, is that America put its sons and daughters on the line. Now, we
shouldn't have been there in the first place, but to try and protect civilians, to try and make
a better way of life. Now, I agree. Nation building doesn't work. We shouldn't even be doing that.
If we are going to fight a war, then let's do it, quote, properly. But even in this, the bigger
strategic picture is totally missed because we are not getting anywhere closer to opening the
fucking straight. Right. If that's what you actually want to do.
Right. I mean, there's so much to say about this. First, on the war crimes aspect of this,
there's some reporting that they've just basically decided any and all infrastructure is fair game.
that, you know, the previous limitations, which basically the idea is that if you hit a piece
of infrastructure, there has to be a truly justifiable, directly military reason and something
that can't be accomplished in another way. They're throwing that out the windows. No, we're going to
hit electrical grid, bridges, whatever we want to, whenever we want to. Also, allegedly, there
are people in the Pentagon and in this administration who are very happy to see what Israel,
with our support, of course, the whole way,
we're able to get away with in the Gaza genocide
because it meant, okay, guess what?
Now, we don't have to play by the rules at all.
Like, if they can starve and bomb an entire trap population
for years and no one really does anything about it,
okay, then it's no holds barred.
The problem, of course, is that then it's no holds barred for everyone,
including our adversaries.
In a lot of ways in this sort of an engagement,
our adversaries benefit more from being no holds bar.
It enables that level of asymmetric warfare.
It puts our own, of course, service members and civilians in the region and American civilians in the region at risk.
I mean, even this business of, oh, our bases are getting hit.
So we're going to put all of our soldiers in civilian hotels is deeply dishonorable and very likely a violation of the laws of war as well.
But so there's that aspect of it.
And then the other part of it, let's talk about this whole open the fucking straits.
Last week, days ago, we were told by Trump, number one, oh, it's not that big of a deal to us.
whatever, we don't really care. Europe, if you like the straight so much, why don't you go and open it?
And in the very same speech, it will open naturally anyway.
Obviously, we know at the time that was a lie. This is a big deal that Iran doesn't actually have the
straits of hermuse close, but they have control over who goes through and who doesn't.
That is a dramatic new global geopolitical reality. It's obviously a problem for the globe,
for the U.S. in particular. And so this, you know, pretense of like whatever, like, weilo,
even care, you guys do whatever you want with it, was always bullshit. And so this is Trump
getting very frustrated, I think, in showing his hand here that this actually is a key objective
and the Iranians have no intention actually of ever going back to the previous status quo with
regard to the Strait of Hormuz. They'd be pretty stupid, right? Because it's the only card
that they have. They have their missiles, they have their drones, and they have the Straits of Hormuz.
And the Straits of Hormuz is enforced, really, with the missile and the drone threat. And you could
actually take out 100% of the missiles, which, of course, remember, they told us they did. And
obviously they haven't, and they would still have the drones. And even then, it would really only take
a few shoulder-fired missiles and a couple of speedboats with the IRGC has prepared for years to be able to
wreak enough havoc that the strait remains effectively closed. As of today, there are more tankers that are
moving through the strait than before. Why? Because they're paying Iran. They're paying them.
I mean, that is a new, that is actually a way worse reality for the world, because now you have no
international passageway, you know, that generally trade is able to move through completely unencumbered.
but now you have an effective Iranian veto over one of the most critical choke points on the whole globe,
which directly undermines America's entire reason for entering this in the first place.
Should we put A2 up there on the screen just to show all of you, Trump, you know, over the weekend,
claiming many of Iran's military leaders who have led them poorly and unwise are terminated,
along with much else with the massive strike in Tehran.
So more decapitation and assassination strikes in Iran.
But more importantly, he keeps saying things like negotiating,
have been given absolute immunity from death, basically, again, using the Israeli model that they did with Hamas, where, oh, well, we'll negotiate with someone.
If we don't like the way they're negotiating, we'll kill them.
Or if we do like the way they're negotiating, we'll kill them because we don't want to negotiate with them too much or, you know, exactly, in the right way.
So this is the problem.
And, like, right now.
There hasn't, though, been much confirmation of this in terms of significant deaths among the Iranian leadership.
So I don't even know if this is accurate.
We just don't, like, really people need to understand.
We really do not know a lot about this war.
We're going to do the censorship stuff in a bit.
But even it's like inside of Iran, you know, they're putting out all kinds of nonsense, you know,
claiming various different things that aren't true.
We're putting out all kinds of nonsense where you clearly cannot trust a lot of the numbers.
And then recently, and I'm sure you've read this, there have been a lot of dispatches of people going to the straight.
Things there are a little bit different than the way that they're being sold to us.
Right.
So there's all this international subterfuge.
The UAE has shut things down.
Oman, everybody is cracking. You know, all these journalists going into Oman right now, they're like,
yeah, you can write but no pictures. You can do that. You're not allowed to go into the straight.
So just keep that in mind that everything that we are hearing is all either second or third hand,
or if it is, it's a written dispatch. And even then, who knows if the ability to get some of the
actual information out of those countries is all that useful. Let me go ahead and put a three up on
the screen. So we had another deadline moved once again. He'd put in place this 48-hour deadline. Then
And Trump extended that by an additional 24 hours.
Now the deadline is Tuesday at 8 p.m.
This is, you know, the very latest of a, you know, a move of a deadline by Trump.
This is a repeated pattern from him.
We can put a 4 up on the screen, which I think lays this pretty out pretty clearly.
On March 21st, Trump said you've got 48 hours on March 23rd.
He postponed that for five days.
Then on March 26th, that was postponed for 10 more days.
Then on April 4th, we were told 48 hours.
And then on April 5th, this was postponed to April 7th, 8 p.m. Eastern time.
Let me go ahead and put up Barack Reveed's report from this morning.
He's got, you know, his latest dispatch here timed just before the market's open and make sure that things don't get too chaotic here to buy Trump a little bit more time to figure out whatever the hell he's doing.
Reveed writes in last ditch push, the U.S., Iran, and a group of regional mediators are discussing the terms for potential,
45-day ceasefire that could lead to a permanent end to the war, according to four U.S.-Israeli and
regional sources.
So you notice who's not a source there, the Iranians.
U.S., Israeli, and quote-unquote, regional sources, which could be the Saudis, could be, you know,
UAE, could be someone who's basically just parroting the U.S. line.
Here's, oh, no, we're totally going to get a ceasefire, guys.
Don't worry.
We're getting really super close here.
Meanwhile, if we put the Jim Shudo tweet up on the screen here, and this is, you know,
his reporting and other outlets have this reporting as well. Iran has rejected a temporary
ceasefire in its war with the U.S. and Israel saying it would allow adversaries to pause and
prepare for the continuation of the war. We're calling for an end to the war and for preventing
its reoccurrence foreign ministry. A spokesperson was cited as saying by Iran's state news
agencies. So they're saying, absolutely not. Why would we give you a temporary ceasefire when we know
your interceptors are running low? We know we have at least the capacity to shoot down some of
your fighter jets over our airspace. We know, obviously, we're going to talk about the strikes within
Israel. We know we're still able to exact damage. And we know that you all are running out of
a material on a variety of friends. I'm sure you would love to pause and regroup and be able to
come back stronger. But we need to make sure that when this thing ends, we are not just going to
go back to another war down the road like what happened with the 12 days. This is the sadness is that
now actually would be a great time to have a ceasefire. But it would record.
not just cooler heads, but tremendous acts of courage from the Iranians and from the United States
and from the United States to be able to restrain Israel. Because right now is right before any sort
of real precipice, right? It's before we're going to invade with ground troops or further escalate
and destroy all these power plants. If you're the Iranians, you finally have the West paying
attention. You have them totally, you know, held up in the Straits of Hormuz. You've created
this new power dynamic. You never really will have a better hand to play. Your population is not
further immisorated. The only problem, though, is that Israel is hovering above this whole thing
where they don't want a ceasefire because they need to further destroy the Iranians regime. They want
to collapse it, turn it into a rump state, just like what's happening with Syria. And so for the
world, for the United States and for Iran, it actually, everything would be good going to a ceasefire.
But Israel is like this, you know, rogue actor that's on top of it, but of course has prime position.
And then, of course, Israel and the U.S.'s relationship has created it so that the U.S. can never really
have any credibility in its diplomatic negotiations with the Iranians. All logic points to total
war and has been pointing that way now for quite some time, which is, again, it's a real tragedy,
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Let's put A6 up here, just showing Donald Trump's, you know, continuing reiteration.
This is a Wall Street Journal interview that he gave yesterday.
threatened to destroy all of Iran's power plants if the country's leaders don't agree to reopen
the strait. If they don't come through, if they want to keep it closed, they're going to lose
every power plant and every other plant they have in the whole country. So what this means is that
he's not just threatening civilian infrastructure, but every other plant could even be a reference
to some of the petrochemical facilities, which is what makes things a bit complicated. He wants
to take the oil, but maybe he wants to destroy the oil. Really, once he wants to do is collapse
the country into a place of absolute chaos. But what we have watched over this course is that every
single time the U.S. has escalated, the Iranian regime actually is getting stronger. So what they're
doing is that they're, and I'm talking about internally inside of the country, they're arresting,
they've shot protesters already. A couple of people were executed. They've made it so that if
anybody who's aiding and bending the enemy is going to get the death penalty, I mean, can you think then
about a situation where the government will have maximum control if you have no power and you're
totally reliant on authorities to deliver the basics of food, water, and shelter. That's actually
going to create a better position for them to be able to have total totalitarian rule inside. So that's
not what's really going to happen. The arms, remember, they've got 100,000 people or so. They've been
preparing for this for a long time. That would also make it obvious that this is a total war. They're like,
okay, we're in this to the death, obviously waiting for a ground in.
invasion, and Trump is not ruling that out. A7, if we can, he again spoke on the phone with the
Hills, Julia Manchester, said he is not ruling out ground troops, even if they do not make a deal.
He also said, no infrastructure targets are off the table. I think when you combine a couple of
things, the raid, which we'll talk about in a little bit, to go into rescue one of the downed U.S.
airmen, this has, you know, without giving away too much about what that was, I still really
truly believe that like with Venezuela, we will learn exactly the wrong lesson. So we had this amazing
CIA Delta Force operation to go into, you know, to save this down U.S. airmen. That's incredible.
But that's not, that's proof of a couple different thing. You look at it one way. Wow, we're able to
establish this air base. Well, on the other hand, you know, this F-15 is not even supposed to be
shot down, period, because we're supposed to have air dominance or air superiority over the country.
So how did that happen? By the way, I spoke with a few military sources. From what I understand,
the Iranians have been watching, waiting, and learning. So they have been watching all of these
air sorties all across the country. They've been coordinating with China and with Russia. They're not
using any new technology. It's all 1980 stuff. But they're just sitting there and watching that
F-35, watching that F-15, watching the A-10. They have some drones and some other things that are
using the coordinate information to try and make it so it's a little bit easier to go into PINPrik.
Remember that the Houthis also were able to click.
an F-35 in that program. Well, these are, those guys are not even the Republic of Iran. These are just
some dudes with missiles like hiding out in caves. They're smart. They study and they watch and they
learn. And so what they've been able to do is to down these, this incredible air platforms.
You're like, okay, well, that's a huge problem. Second, in the raid, you had these two C-130s
that had to get blown up. That's a 200 million dollars in aircraft. A bunch of, a bunch of helicopters,
like four different helicopters that were there. So hundreds of millions of dollars.
in air assets, then even when they were able to extract,
there's report of like some sort of a gunfight that happened in the country.
The official story is a C-130 wheel got stuck in the sand.
Two C-130 wheels got stuck in both of them.
Yeah, maybe.
And very, as you know, I am very skeptical of this official story.
We can talk to Brandon about this.
But to your point, well, and here's kind of like why the logic of this war
just becomes inevitably up the escalation chain.
because let's say the official story is correct, and they executed this incredible brave mission,
and they got out the airmen, and our special force is so amazing, blah, blah, blah.
Well, that emboldens Trump.
Then he feels, oh, my God, we're such badasses.
Like, let's go for it, right?
Let's say that it was kind of low-key, a catastrophic disaster,
and you ended up with having to destroy $400 million worth of equipment on the ground,
barely got your asses out without, you know, potentially hundreds of lives loss of U.S. service member,
kind of attached.
You weren't able to actually
to accomplish the goals
that, you know, beyond this rescue,
which there were possibly other goals
beyond the rescue of this one airman.
So, well, that means then now
you're frustrated, you're humiliated.
What does that mean?
You have to escalate.
You have to do something else.
So you could see these true socials
either as he feels emboldened
and his confidence just like coming out of Venezuela.
He thinks that he loves
that seeing the American military be such badasses.
And so that makes him want
go further, or you could see it as frustration and lashing out, which also makes him want to go further.
So either direction leads to effectively the same result.
And everything turns on the knife's edge, right?
So even in this, you know, operation, look, I mean, who cares ultimately about aircraft getting
blown up?
We saved a guy.
That's great.
However, let's look back to Venezuela.
If this warrant officer, the guy who got the medal at the state of the union, if he had not
just like been an absolute unit and he'd been just like one other person, you know, and he'd been just like
one other person, everybody on that helicopter is dead. Like, that's literally a completely other
sort of. So, like, you don't want to keep putting yourself where things turn on the knife
side. No, right now, it's turned out, it's working somewhat favorably for the United States. We're
able to execute this. But look, I mean, we still lost F-15. We lost two A-10s. We lost all these
helicopters. We've gotten all these MQ9 Reaper drones, which are getting shot down. We're losing
billions of dollars with aircraft already as a result of the war. Remember that?
Rural villagers in Iran who were firing on our helicopters and doing whatever they can to, you know, to make things life tough as well.
Showing also that, oh, oops, you know, we're not being greeted exactly as liberators, are we, right?
And so now imagine a ground invasion.
But the worst case, my greatest fear was he was taking POW.
Because now it's Vietnam all over again.
Remember all those POW MIA flags back from the 1970s and 1980s?
Now we're going to go and save our boys.
We're going to have some crazy-ass Delta Force missions to trying to go and do something,
some sort of a nightmare. I mean, who knows, you know, how stuff like that would work.
I think we're going to have to go kidnap somebody, try and make some sort of a hostage exchange
or something. It would be real madness. Let's put A8 also, just to show everybody, this,
remember, is the alleged negotiator with the United States. This is Galabaab, the speaker
of the Iranian parliament. He's responding to Trump's true social. Your reckless moves are
dragging the United States into a living hell for every single family. Our whole region is going
to burn because you insist on following Netanyahu's commands. Make no more.
mistake, you won't gain anything through war crimes. The only real solution is respecting the
rights of the Iranian people and ending this dangerous game. So remember, they've rejected the
temporary ceasefire. This is their defiant response to the power plant blow up. And, you know,
they also know that Trump is really trapped in this market, you know, problem of his, where he both
doesn't want to appear weak. He's moved the deadline. How many times now? One, two. This is the fourth
deadline move. I think this is the fourth
deadline. Now to
the Tuesday, 8 p.m.
Eastern time for what that's
going to look like. They know that
this would unambiguously
send oil prices soaring
because Iran will almost certainly
respond by blowing up
multiple other energy infrastructure
across the Gulf. So then
what's going to happen as a result of that?
They'll probably further take control
of the Straits of Hormoos and it will
get much, much worse. So
All around, like, we're in a bad position.
Yeah.
I've said it now for weeks.
I do not see a possible way out from here.
Like, you have to basically lay on your sword, which he's not going to do, especially after
this special operations rate.
He's running high.
He's doing a press conference today around 1 p.m. at the White House.
I wouldn't be surprised if the airman was there and would be flown overnight to appear
like a big celebration from the U.S.
So that's the mindset of everybody who's in Washington right now.
Yeah, I mean, could be.
And then the media strategy has also been interesting.
Like, they didn't send really anyone out on the Sunday shows yesterday to talk.
Zero.
I don't think anybody, right?
Not a soul, not even like a Bessent to talk about the markets or whatever.
Nobody.
And instead, you have Trump calling these various reporters and saying various insane and contradictory things.
Trey Yankst over at Fox News has been one of the recipient of some of these phone calls.
We'll talk about some of his reporting.
It's not reporting.
It's just Trump right telling him later.
Yeah, we sent arms to the protesters via the Kurds.
Yeah, we totally did that.
But in any case, let's take a listen to this quick soundbite of Tray telling everybody that,
you know, one of the things Trump said is, oh, we're going to go in and take the oil.
Let's take a listen to that.
The president tells me if they don't make a deal and fast, I'm considering blowing everything up
and taking over the oil.
The president went on to say you're going to see bridges and power plants dropping all over
their country.
Blowing everything up and taking the oil.
Okay, you know, good luck with that.
I mean, we just continue to get new objectives, new goals every single day.
And, you know, no straight answer about this war.
What this war is even about it.
Is it about the straight of four moves?
Which is only closed because of the war?
Is it about taking the oil?
Is it about the nuclear program?
Is it about the ballistic missiles?
Every day, there's new shifting explanation.
So this is just the latest of, oh, we'll just blow everything up and take the oil.
Yeah, okay, good luck with that.
Yeah.
And, you know, to the point about, like, the logic of the war, it starts to become, this is very
First World War-esque, the logic of continuing the war is to try and defend the territory
which we took in the opening days of the war. They're like, well, we can't give that up. We've lost
too much for this scrap of land. So now we have to lose 10 times more to make sure that we don't
lose this scrap of land. And then vice versa, right? Well, now we have to defend this one scrap.
It's like, it didn't even matter. It's not even all that important, except millions die.
Yeah. As a result of that, right? You can imagine we take Carg Island and then it's like,
oh, we have to defend car guys.
We have to defend.
We've wasted too much.
We've come too far to go back.
Too many lives have been lost, too much equipment lost, all that.
Remember from the address, he even said, like, we have to avenge their deaths as 13 Americans.
You know, that's another thing where for all of the talk about how great things have gone,
I feel like it's very minimizing for all 13 Americans who have died as a result of the conflict.
And this, you know, those refueling tankers, which got, that was a big deal.
And nobody talks about that, right?
But for some reason, you know, we will, we underanalyze the disasters and we over-celebrate a lot of the victories.
When you really balance it out together, you know, we're not anywhere closer to the strategic aim of the war.
And many of the claims by the White House by the Pentagon have proven to be absolute nonsense.
There's no air superiority, total air superiority over Iran.
They obviously still have a huge amount of their ballistic missile capacity.
It's certainly not 95 percent destroyed.
The regime remains stronger than ever.
and the Straits of Hormuz is under de facto Iranian control.
So it has been a failure, I would say, on all four of the major, like, strategic goals that were laid out in the beginning of the war.
All right. Let's go ahead and talk a little bit about what's going on with Israel.
Canadian women are looking for more.
More to themselves, their businesses, their elected leaders, and the world are out of them.
And that's why we're thrilled to introduce the Honest Talk podcast.
I'm Jennifer Stewart.
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And in this podcast, we interview Canada's most inspiring women.
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So if you're looking to connect, then we hope you'll join us.
Listen to the Honest Talk podcast on I Heart Radio or wherever you listen to your podcasts.
I'm Lori Siegel, a longtime tech journalist.
And consider my new podcast, mostly human, your bridge to the future.
Anyone can now be an entrepreneur.
Anyone can build an app.
And it's very empowering.
Each week, I'll speak to the people building that future, and we're going to break down what all of this innovation actually means for you.
What I come to realize is that when people think that they're dating these AI companion, they're actually dating the companies that create this.
We're experiencing one of the greatest tech accelerations in human history.
And let's be honest, that can be messy.
There's no playbook for what to do when an AI model hallucinates a story about you.
But it's my belief that we should all benefit from this moment.
Mostly Human will show you how.
My goal is to give you the playbook, so you can benefit.
The reason I say agency is because if we can give power back to people,
then I think that's probably the best thing we can do for your mental health.
Listen to Mostly Human on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
You know Roll Doll, the writer who thought up Willie Wonka, Matilda, and the BFG.
But did you know he was also a spy?
Was this before he wrote his stories?
It must have been.
Our new podcast series,
The Secret World of Roll Doll,
is a wild journey
through the hidden chapters
of his extraordinary, controversial life.
His job was literally to seduce the wives
of powerful Americans.
And he was really good at it.
You probably won't believe it either.
Okay, I don't think that's true.
I'm telling you.
The guy was a spy.
Did you know Dahl got cozy with the Roosevelt's?
Played poker with Harry Truman
and had a long affair with a congresswoman.
And then he took his talents to Hollywood,
where he worked alongside Walt Disney and Alfred Hitchcock,
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The true story is stranger than anything he ever wrote.
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All right, so there was some significant,
damage within Israel due to an Iranian strike and an apparent interceptor fail. Let's go and put this up on
the screen. So this is from Heretz. We now have some news that of deaths here. So rescue teams recover
the bodies of four victims who were killed in an Iranian missile strike. This original headline said
that four were feared trapped. Now we know that rescue teams have in fact recovered those bodies.
They carried out careful operations at a six-story residential building struck by an
Iranian missile on Sunday night before were trapped on the building's bottom floor as the top
three floors collapsed.
And obviously what's significant here, Haifa's been hit a number of times actually seems
to be a real focus of Iranian efforts.
And in addition, obviously the fact that you had an intercept or fail here and you have the
Iranians able to still exact this kind of damage and actually kill Israelis within the state
of Israel is quite extraordinary and just shows you, obviously, they aren't backing down.
and they feel very much like they have the upper hand in a lot of ways.
Well, it's what we just talked about,
is that when you open the door to destruction of infrastructure and civilian death,
well, then when Iran is able to do it on a much more limited scale,
nobody's going to cry for you, right?
Like, the Israelis are like, oh, well, they are targeting civilians,
and you're like, well, you know, it's one of those where they're kind of just doing
what a lot of you guys have been doing,
which I think neither party should do it.
I think it's bad, but you can obviously see the degradation of Iranian
or the degradation of Israeli air defense systems of their missile interceptors, their arrow two
and threes are running rapidly low. Remember that analysis I brought everybody. If they track of the
first 16 days of war had continued, they would have run out as of a couple of days ago. And so they
have to severely ration. The reason why Iran continues to strike Haifa is because of those oil
refinery facilities. And actually, you can see it very obviously in the response of the Israelis. So
Can we put 812 up there on the screen in retaliation for this strike, Israel just this morning
attacked the largest petrochemical facility in Iran.
According to the defense minister Katz, two facilities were responsible for 85% of Iran's
petrochemical exports that have now been put out of operation.
So obviously, this is in retaliation for multiple of these strikes, which have pummeled
Haifa and the oil refineries over there.
Israel is responding. The problem, though, is that it's not like Iran just responds to Israel
and continues to hit their refineries. When their infrastructure goes out, then they respond to the U.S.-Israeli
coalition of the UAE, Qatar, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia. Already A-11, if we can, up there on the
screen, you could see the statement from the Ministry of Electricity and Water Renewable Energy
of Kuwait, assault on two power generation stations and water desalination plants in Kuwait.
Remember, Iran is way less reliant on desalination plants than the Gulf countries who only have like two weeks supply or something like that of water.
It would be an absolute mission critical disaster for them if this didn't end up happening.
And we are setting the stage because we're still, what, 36 hours away from Trump's deadline.
And if that does actually happen, the power plant strikes, we will see exactly this time of attack times 10.
God only knows what the straits of our moves.
indoor ground operation. So it's total war in the region. Yeah. And we also haven't even,
the Houthis have sent some sort of almost like warning strikes, but they have not operated
to close the Bob El Mondeb Strait, which would further paralyze the oil markets.
Now, I will say you were alluding to the fact there has been some reporting from the
Strait of Formos that more is getting through than is readily available, but there's still no
doubt the millions of barrels of oil a day that we're getting on the market are no longer
getting on the market. And also significant in terms of how this missile was able to evade
Israeli interceptors that were fired at it. So apparently, number one, the warhead on the ground,
this is a separate thought, but the warhead actually didn't detonate. So it would have been far more
catastrophic for the Israelis if it had. It collapsed one building, but you would have had obviously
a larger blast zone. But apparently it was able to, it was able to sort of eviscerally, it was able to sort of
evade these interceptors and also to split into multiple pieces. And so this is a demonstration of
higher level Iranian technology as well, which is part of why they've been able to continue to
do the damage that they have. We know that according to our own intel, that something like only a
third of their missile stockpile has been destroyed. Another third may have been damage or buried,
but they've been able to access, re-access that sometimes within the same day. So they still have
significant capabilities, they have still significant steps up the escalation chain that they could
take. Within Israel, the public is overwhelmingly in favor of the war, although the support for it
has slipped some, as people are getting a little tired of living in bomb shelters all the time,
and then with the Gulf states, you know, the logic for them is basically like, look, we're in
this thing now. If you leave Iran with this regime in place, we are totally screwed. This is not a
situation that we can live with. It is untenable. I agree. So you have UAE in particular saying,
like, listen, we'll go all in with you. We will be active combatants. They're the ones going to the
UN to try to get this resolution passed of like use any means necessary to reopen the straight of
Hormuz. So this hardening of logic is occurring on both sides, truly. That's the problem.
Also, literally while we're recording, this is from Trey Yanks and multiple other reporters,
heavy incoming fire towards Tel Aviv. They are reporting. Jim Shudo is there for CNN.
He is saying similarly on the ground in Tel Aviv, quote, there are,
unusual number of explosions during this air raid, multiple interceptions or attempted
interceptions, possibly indicating multiple incoming missiles, three air raid warnings all in a row.
So some very heavy missile incoming fire over Tel Aviv, the major city in Israel,
demonstrating, again, of their missile capacity. And remember, they are rationing.
They have been basically firing a number of missiles, but more in recent days than they did
in the two to three weeks. They exhausted many of those.
interceptors. And that's why a lot of their stuff is now able to get through. They're saving the
suicide attack drones and missiles for very precise targets in the Gulf. And we expect that to
continue. And there will be some cope and potential propaganda from the U.S. government around how
about if we take out the power plants that this will reduce Iranian ballistic missiles.
I was reading how exactly they're able to fire these missiles. It is First World War-S.
They have field telephones, which the type of things where you can crank like this,
with buried underneath telephone wires between commanders
who will pick up the phone and be like,
fire at this target as a retaliation,
and they have literal messengers.
Like if you've ever watched the movie in 1917,
that's what, remember they cut the telegraph wire
and the guy has to go and deliver a message,
that's literally what's happening.
So this is, I mean, it's effectively bomb-proof.
Like, if they figured it out over 100 years ago
on the Western Front, that's basically being recreated,
just to show you all warfare eventually reverts down to the mean
of messengers,
field telephones, buried wires.
And if you want to communicate,
you will eventually figure it out
in terms of the answer for,
wait, why are we not able to disrupt it?
It's because they're like, okay,
our phones are bugged,
can't use WhatsApp.
That's what they're doing.
Even if you wipe out the power plants,
it's not like you're going to,
you're not going to cut every wire.
That was, you know, very often,
those were literally some of the goals,
often of some of the artillery
and mortar missions from the First World War.
And then even when they were cut,
you just use bodies and messengers.
So that's the reality of war.
and it will just continue. It's really bad.
All right, we've got Brandon Weikert standing by.
Let's get to it.
Canadian women are looking for more.
More out of themselves, their businesses, their elected leaders, and the world are out 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.
you'll join us.
Listen to the Honest Talk podcast on IHeartRadio or wherever you listen to your podcasts.
I'm Lori Siegel, a longtime tech journalist.
And consider my new podcast, mostly human, your bridge to the future.
Anyone can now be an entrepreneur.
Anyone can build an app.
And it's very empowering.
Each week, I'll speak to the people building that future.
And we're going to break down what all of this innovation actually means for you.
What I come to realize is that when people think that they're dating these AI companion,
they're actually dating the companies that create this.
We're experiencing one of the greatest tech accelerations in human history.
And let's be honest, that can be messy.
There's no playbook for what to do when an AI model hallucinates a story about you.
But it's my belief that we should all benefit from this moment.
Mostly human will show you how.
My goal is to give you the playbook, so you can benefit.
The reason I say agency is because if we can give power,
back to people, then I think that's probably the best thing we can do for your mental health.
Listen to mostly human on the IHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
favorite shows.
You know Roll Doll, the writer who thought up Willie Wonka, Matilda, and the BFG.
But did you know he was also a spy?
Was this before he wrote his stories?
It must have been.
Our new podcast series, The Secret World of Roll Doll, is a wild journey through the hidden
chapters of his extraordinary, controversial life.
His job was literally to seduce the wives of powerful Americans.
What?
And he was really good at it.
You probably won't believe it either.
Okay, I don't think that's true.
I'm telling you, the guy was a spy.
Did you know Dahl got cozy with the Roosevelt's?
Played poker with Harry Truman and had a long affair with a congresswoman.
And then he took his talents to Hollywood,
where he worked alongside Walt Disney and Alfred Hitchcock,
before writing a hit James Bond film.
How did this secret agent wind up as the most successful children's author ever?
and what darkness from his covert past seeped into the stories we read as kids.
The true story is stranger than anything he ever wrote.
Listen to the secret world of Roll Dahl on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Very excited now to be joined by our friend, Brandon Weikert.
He's a senior editor at 1945.com, great friend of the show.
Good to see you, man.
Thanks for joining us.
Thanks for having me as always.
So, Brandon, we want to go through the story of this raid inside, deep inside of Iran.
to rescue a weapon systems officer who is part of an F-15 crew, which was shot down over Iran.
Of course, there's now an official story from the Pentagon.
We want to get some of your reaction to all of that and potential some other theories.
Let's go and start with Donald Trump's announcement.
We'll put it up here on the screen.
He says, we got him, my fellow Americans, over the past several hours,
the United States military, pulled off one of the most daring search and rescue operations in U.S. history.
He talked specifically about how all of the, you know, it's a miraculous,
operation, et cetera. The official story of the operation was recounted here by Jack Murphy. He is the
journalist, actually, who broke the initial news that this weapon system officer had been recovered.
Let's take a listen to what he said. We're going to get your reaction.
But the broad pieces of it, as you know, there was a F-15 pilot on the ground who was escaping
and abating for about 24 hours inside Iran. And from what we can tell about the effort to get him
back, they did a lot of airstrikes to keep the Iranians off of his back. The Iranians have
flooded a lot of assets into the area. We're actively searching for him. And meanwhile, we have
to get, you know, a ground team helicopters and actually extract the guy. And as we now know,
they set up what's called a FARP or a forward air refueling point. So for like people who aren't
familiar, when you have to fly helicopters, but also airplanes sometimes, especially long distances,
you have to set up some sort of like a fuel depot.
You know, I did this many moons ago for little birds in Iraq, you know,
just driving out somewhere and taking a fuel blibet, out leaving it in a field for a little bird pilot sometimes.
This is a little bit more elaborate.
There's a C-130 aircraft flown in that was refueling some of these helicopters.
And this kind of plays into, you know, how the pilot was actually pulled out of there.
So they occupied this improvised landing strip, set up the FARP,
and the pilot was eventually pulled out by Littlebird.
So they went in and extracted him, but then on the way out, the C-130 got, as I understand, a wheel stuck in the sand.
It like sunk into the dirt, and the crew was trying to dig it out.
And that resulted in some delays.
It took them a while to get off of that far.
And the Delta Force element that was standing by as a quick reaction force was actually called in.
They came in and helped blow up the aircraft.
I mean, I know one C-130 was blown.
Some media reports are saying two C-130s.
I also believe at least one helicopter was blown up.
I guess they just determined that they could not recover them and get them home for whatever reason.
And after that happened, you know, whichever new aircraft, probably helicopters that they flew in the QRF on,
they got everybody on those and flew them back home.
And they were back over the Persian Gulf, probably around 1130, Eastern Standard time last night.
And that was pretty much the end of the operation as far as that's concerned.
But, I mean, the air strikes are still ongoing.
So that's the official story, Brandon.
First, zoom out.
Tell us a little bit about what happened here.
What does it say strategically about some of the problems already with the United States?
then of course, you know, the bravery of the people who also pulled this off.
Yeah, well, I'll start with that last part first.
I mean, I know that there's a narrative the administration is putting out, and I know there's now a
counter-narrative possibly on social media.
I'll just say in either event, I think the professionalism of the U.S. military was on full
display, and, you know, these people that we have as an all-volunteer force are extremely competent,
and they can execute missions under a lot of pressure.
you know, even under some of the most strenuous circumstances.
And so with that being said, I think we have to look at the larger picture here and say,
this was our first taste of real ground combat in Iran.
And, you know, we probably got the whizzo and the pilot as, you know,
the administration has said.
We've gotten them back home.
But look at what it cost us in the process.
My colleague, Larry Johnson, who's a former CIA analyst, has said that's about $400 million worth of taxpayer equipment.
that was destroyed in the process of this operation.
That is not sustainable, especially if you look at some of the logistical problems we're having already.
Not only are we cannibalizing Indo-PACOM stockpiles for interceptors and some of these JASM ERs,
which are very long-range, extended range, long-range strike missiles, but also we're already
pulling KC-135 refuelers out from the Boneyard, which usually indicates that we really are strapped here.
for stuff. So the idea that we kind of had to blow up some of our own equipment there is,
which is the story coming out of the administration, is very disturbing because we can anticipate
if there is a larger ground operation planned, as people have been saying, it's going to be
even costlier than what we went through. This is a snapshot. And as for the operation itself,
it does seem, it does seem like there was a lot of resources thrown into recovering to individuals.
Now, I know we don't leave our people behind, and we try to, even if they're dead, we try to organize missions to bring their bodies home.
That is something that's gone on.
The Ranger ethos goes back to the French Indian War, so we don't leave men behind.
I understand that.
But the people online who are questioning the official narrative, I think, are not wrong to, because not only has this administration been very misleading in its official statements about everything in the war, but also it's a lot of resources and a lot of money thrown.
into one mission set.
Yeah, so basically, I read the Reuters inside story of what happened.
I read the Wall Street Journal inside story of what happened.
And so the narrative is effectively, you know, this one F-15 was down.
The pilot was rescued really quickly.
The other guy was, you know, it was very difficult to find him.
He's able to, he's wounded, but he's able to sort of clamber up the side of this mountain,
send off a distress signal.
They're able to pinpoint where he is, the CIA.
also ran some sort of misinformation up to sort of throw the Iranians off of the case.
They bring in something like 100 special operators on these C-130s.
The C-130s immediately, both of them, get stuck in the dirt.
Now, I saw the pictures.
We just saw some of the pictures.
I don't know anything.
It looks like the ground's pretty hard there.
But who knows, these are very large aircraft, very heavy, et cetera.
They bring in these little bird helicopters on the C-130 transport planes.
Those are then used to go and grab the sky, bring him back.
But since the C-130s can't get off the ground, they have to destroy the C-130s, plus some reports say two, some reports say four of the little birds, bring in other aircraft to then rescue now this roughly 100 men and potentially women who are now stuck behind enemy lines, get them all out, et cetera.
At the same time, you've got Reaper drones and others who are firing in the surrounding area to keep the Iranians or anyone else away from the area where this rescue is happening.
So what are, as you listen to that narrative, I agree with you.
It's not, you know, it seems to me in line with the ethos of the U.S. military that it would not be crazy to expend that amount of resources.
But is it actually necessary to expend that amount of resources?
Is this the way that a rescue op would normally go?
Is this the normal amount of like, I don't know what the proper language is?
But is this the sort of stuff that you would bring to that?
Would you normally bring in 100 men to accomplish this sort of thing?
what would be the reason for that?
The only thing comparable to this level was actually the failed Carter administration Operation Eagle Claw,
which actually was very similar to what occurred in Iran this last weekend,
where Carter had a bunch of C-1, a bunch of transport planes,
meet Navy elements in the middle of the Iranian desert,
and they set up kind of a refueling, temporary refueling station,
and the whole thing went pear-shaped from that moment onward,
which it was very similar to here.
And of course, in that case, though,
you had a lot of American hostages at the embassy,
so they needed to have an even larger military force
that was able to kind of go in and get,
theoretically get them out.
So for two guys, it just seems like a lot of resources were expended.
Now, the argument, I think, would be that the Iranian territory
is very well defended, and this was very deep inside their territory.
So they needed to have a,
stuff to punch a hole, land, refuel, and then go out and, you know, execute their mission.
And under a lot of, a lot of hostile fire, which we saw those videos coming out of Iran,
it looked like something from, you know, like a battlefield video game where it was just
incoming everywhere and very confusing modern combat situation.
So I think probably this is not the norm in terms of the amount of resources expended,
but this is a pretty extraordinary instance.
And if, you know, whether it was just a rescue operation or a rescue operation plus something else,
the fact the matter is this is a preview of what to expect if the president really does pull the trigger
on putting a larger force on Karg Island or Kashem Island or some other part of Iran,
it's going to be a very messy situation.
And I think that's what we're trying to underscore here.
You know, nobody is saying, nobody is trying to underplay, even if the official story is correct,
about how great it is to get a pilot back.
But, you know, it doesn't make you a nini to say,
look, that's really great that that happened,
but let's zoom out a little bit.
We weren't even supposed to have aircraft being shot down, period.
I mean, we have two A10s go down.
Can we go ahead and put, what is it, B5 up there on the screen?
You have two A10s that go down in the span of 24 hours,
apparently as part of this operation.
You have F-15.
I mean, that alone is a couple hundred million in air.
aircraft, two combat rescue helicopters, an F-16 has to declare emergency, land safely.
A strato-tanker declares emergency over Israel, has to land, and Iran also claimed that it had
fired another U.S. jet.
Now, the last one has not been confirmed.
All the rest of them, it's very clear, especially when you combine some of the tanker
incidents that brought down those four Americans who died a few weeks ago over Iraq.
It is very obvious.
many of our airmen are in much more harm over Iran than they ever were in the global war on terror,
which is a shock to the system and would be only 10 times more if there was any sort of ground invasion.
So I just really would love your perspective on that.
Yeah, no.
The administration keeps saying that we have total air control, and this experience clearly indicates that that is not the case.
The air defense network of Iran may be degraded.
I fully admit it is likely degraded because of our attacks over the last, what, month now,
but ultimately it is not destroyed.
And I think that any American who has family in the military should be aware that this mission set is not exactly as the Pentagon is claiming.
It is not this walk in the park.
It's not this spike the football moment.
This is a very dangerous and high-tempo operation.
It's straining our people.
It's straining in the military.
It's straining the already strained equipment.
and its draining our already finite supplies of critical weapons and material at a time when
the whole world seems to be stretching the American military juggernaut. So this is not the
rosy scenario that's being depicted in American corporate press. And I think this is very
dangerous because I think this also this leads the president actually. I think the president
starts thinking, oh, well, you know, if this is a cakewalk, I've got total control. I can then
do the next step, which is to put more troops on the ground. And, and,
We'll wrap this up in a few weeks, and that is not going to be the case.
All right.
So let's talk about the alternate theory.
No one is saying this is proven, but we certainly can't take this administration's word for literally anything.
We also can't take the Iranian regime's word for literally anything.
So it's left to all of us to look at the evidence and ask us if we think that it makes sense and comports with reality.
So here is one example of the way this theory is being put together.
Let's go ahead and put this up on the screen.
So this is from a visiting assistant professor.
at Fletcher School. And he says that he believes this was not just about rescuing this one airman,
but that this was actually unrelated to the pilot rescue mission. And the attempt here was to
go in and try to grab the nuclear material. So I'll read what he lays down. He says,
emerging evidence suggests that U.S. operations south of Isfahan, marked in red on the map,
were unrelated to any pilot rescue mission. The downed American pilot was reportedly located in southwest
Iran near these different provinces that news names I definitely will screw up if I try to pronounce,
marked in blue on the map, not central Iran. Instead, this appears to have been a failed
Heleborn insertion aimed at locating uranium within Iran. The recent dismissal of season,
U.S. generals may not be coincidental, may reflect internal resistance to such high-risk operations.
Given Iran's increasingly effective air defense and the apparent failure of this mission,
the viability of future Heleborn incursions, deep into Iranian territory is now in serious doubt
and may need to be abandoned.
So the idea here is effectively that, you know, I think it's not in doubt an F-15 went down
and there were two individuals on board who had to be rescued.
When they were rescued, how they were rescued, whether this was a rescue plus or whether
the guy was already rescued and then they just used that as a cover to try this thing
so that they could declare mission accomplished even if it went sideways.
I think that is all, all of this is, you know, is pure speculation at this point.
But basically what people are looking at is the fact that you had so many resources devoted to this, that it was really close to Isfahan, which is reportedly where most of the enriched uranium is, that there seems to have been an attempt to set up effectively sort of like a temporary base in this agricultural airstrip, that this attempt apparently failed and, you know, that you had to blow up all of this equipment and then, you know, have others come in and to the rescue, that this is.
is indicative, potentially not of at least just a pilot rescue, but it may have been another
mission that ultimately failed. Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, I wrote for the Daily Caller last week
an opinion piece analyzing why I thought if we did do a ground incursion, it would be the Tom
Clancy uranium hunt because that seems to be what President Trump has been fixated on is the
prospect of an Iranian nuclear weapons breakout. He's been talking about this for years,
And to be fair to him, this is not something new.
He's been talking about it since the 2016 campaign
when he was opposed to the JCPOA that Obama negotiated.
So that would have been the most consistent.
And if you were doing the ghost recon,
uranium hunt in the middle of the desert,
the kind of equipment that was brought in
and the kind of planes that were brought in
and the kind of outlay of resources,
that's all consistent with a uranium hunt.
You know, they needed to set up
an airstrip. They did. They needed to be able to have, you know, hold the territory long enough
for heavier equipment to ultimately be brought in. That didn't happen. But it very well may have
been the next step if this was just more than a rescue operation. And the fact that it's in Isfahan,
you know, or just near Isfahan, that that's the real, that's the real thing that has a lot of
very learned people. This isn't just internet conspiracy theorists. This is, you know, very learned
people who are experts in foreign policy and national security who are suggesting that,
hey, there's more to this story because the kind of resources that were brought to bear are
not consistent with two people being rescued. Furthermore, the F-15 that was used in question is a
two-seater strike eagle. That is a very specific aircraft that is used for certain kind of
at times suppression of enemy air defense, seed missions. That indicates to me also that there
was some kind of escalation in the offing when that airplane was deployed in the
first place to go out and, and I believe it was deployed near Carg Island. So ultimately,
there's some, there's some very odd things going on here that do not align with the official
narrative. And I think, look, it genuinely could be both. The guys nearby, hey, also, we need to be
able to test, put a landing strip down. Let's put all these people. If this works well, then we could
build off of this. Last question. Right. So that's my last question for you. Are you more, so some people
saw, oh, maybe Trump will take this as an off-ram. Knowing his psychology, especially with Venezuela,
they're going to sell this to him as a stunning success. This only makes ground troops more likely to me,
curious for your view. Oh, I think we're going in somewhere into Iran. I think now, if anything,
you saw that very troubling Easter message from the president. And, you know, I was at my church
yesterday, and we are, they're all very pro-Trump, but even they were like, why did he say such a thing
on Easter of all days? It's, you know, well, I think it's because he was
reacting likely to what was really a disastrous. I mean, they pulled it off in terms of getting
the pilots back, which again, that's excellent and good job. But ultimately, 400 million dollars
worth of equipment lost and, you know, the Iranians now have this big propaganda victory,
etc. I think that Trump now is going to want to double down because he's going to want to
basically reassert his control over the situation, which means ground troops are next somewhere.
And that, you know, this is a snapshot of how badly things could go and they will go badly.
And then after that, of course, the next escalation is nuclear weapons.
And as you know, I'm still very fearful that that is ultimately where this is headed in some fashion.
Yeah, absolutely.
So you mean to tell me, open the fucking straight, praise be to Allah was not the Easter message
that churchgoers were expecting from our president.
How strange?
No, no, no.
It was very jarring.
We're like, wow.
I'd actually love to hear the cope on that one,
but that's a segment for another time.
Thank you, Brandon, for your time.
We always appreciate your analysis.
Yeah, have a good one.
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