On with Kara Swisher - Sen. Mark Warner On What Trump Is Risking With War in Iran

Episode Date: March 16, 2026

As the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee and a member of the Gang of Eight, Virginia Sen. Mark Warner is among the select few members of Congress who get to sit in on top intelligence briefings. But with the war in Iran now in its third week, Warner says the administration still hasn’t presented any plans to meet President Trump’s demands for the regime’s “unconditional surrender.”  Kara and Sen. Warner talk about what he’s hearing from the administration about its timeline for the war, why the regime is unlikely to fall anytime soon, and why he thinks an unstable Iran could pose more of a risk to U.S. interests. They also talk about the risks the already unpopular war could pose if it drags on longer than the administration anticipates.  Questions? Comments? Email us at [e-mail] or find us on YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, Threads, and Bluesky @onwithkaraswisher. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

If Iran regime survives in this kind of current state, is it more of a danger, less of a danger? I think it could be argued more of a danger. And what happens if we say, all right, we're out and the Israelis say, no, we want to finish this? Does that still keep our troops and our allies in harm's way? Hi, everyone, from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network. This is on with Kara Swisher, and I'm Kara Swisher. The war in Iran has just entered its third week and we're no closer. understanding President Trump's ultimate goals in the conflict.

The administration's explanations for getting involved here have been all over the place. Our objective is to defend the American people by eliminating imminent threats from the Iranian regime. We knew that there was going to be an Israeli action. We knew that that would precipitate an attack against American forces. So if anything, I might have forced Israel's hand. Iran was building powerful missiles and drones to create a conventional shield for their nuclear black male ambitions. And so have their timelines for an end to the war. We've already won in many ways, but we haven't won enough.

Are you thinking this week it will be over? No, but soon. I think so. The operations will end when the commander-in-chief determines the military objectives have been met, fully realized, and that Iran is in a position of complete and unconditional surrender, whether they say it or not. And so it's not for me to posit whether it's the beginning, the middle, or the end. Thousands of people have already died, including some American troops, more than a dozen nations have been dragged into the conflict, and the risk of this ballooning into a bigger global crisis keeps mounting. My guest today is someone I go to a lot on issues like this, Virginia Democratic Senator Mark Warner.

He's the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, and he's also a member of the Gang of Eight, meaning he's one of the few members of Congress, who gets to sit in on top-level briefings. Warner has said repeatedly this was a, quote, war of choice and that he's seen no evidence that Iran posed an imminent threat to the U.S. I think he's really important to talk to right now. I have a very long-standing relationship with him, and he certainly has a lot of insight into what's happening here, being on the gang of eight, and also focusing in on things that are related to each other, especially with Iran, including cyber security, and all kinds of issues.

He has a lot of insights also as an investor and someone in his previous life who understands a lot about the intersection between the economy, government, and these foreign actions. He's just really smart. He also is a little more bipartisan to most people. Sometimes I don't know. I don't agree with him on that, but he actually is trying very hard to get us all to row in the same direction, despite all the efforts by President Trump to row in only his direction. A note to our listeners, we taped this interview on Wednesday. A lot may have changed by the time you're hearing it, but it's not every day we get to talk to a top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee. All right, let's get to my conversation with Senator Mark Warner. Our expert question comes from Washington Post reporter Jason Rezion. He's Iranian-American and was based in Iran.

before he was kidnapped and held hostage for more than 500 days by the regime. If you're looking for some insight to what's happening in the Mideast now and in a substantive way, this one is for you. Don't go anywhere. Support for this show comes from Odu. Running a business takes everything you've got, and a lot of the tools out there that are supposed to make your life easier just aren't great at talking to each other,

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There is this question about whether or not you're actually making a good choice, and what does that say about who you are as a person? So we've fully entered into the morality that's associated with sugar. How did sugar become the boogeyman? And is it as bad as we're led to believe? That's this week on Explain It to Me. New episodes out Sundays wherever you get your podcasts. Senator Mark Warner, thanks for coming on.

Thank you, Kara. Thanks for having me on. I'm thrilled. I always love talking to you. Before we start, I want to reiterate that we're taping this conversation late Wednesday evening and some things may be outdated by the time listeners hear this. So we're going to dive in based on what we know right now. The Trump administration has offered a lot of explanations for the war. You've said, and many people have said, there's no evidence of an imminent threat.

So what is your best explanation for why Trump got the U.S. into this war? Well, I think Marco Rubio kind of acknowledged that Israel had decided it was time to strike, and they figured if Israel struck Iran would, strike back against us as well. But if we're the senior partner in that relationship, this was a war of choice. There was no imminent threat. There was actually no imminent threat, even to Israel, over the longer time horizon with the ballistic missile threat, it would go up. But as you said, you know, there are four different reasons that I've counted that the president said was our goal. The first one was, you know, regime change. Obviously, the new Supreme

leader, since we killed his dad, his wife and his child. I don't know. I don't think, and is normally viewed as much more hardline than even his father, I don't think that's going to happen anytime soon short of either boots on the ground or a major uprising of the people. Secondly, you know, let's go after the nuclear capabilities. That was supposed to be totally destroyed, obliterated nine months ago. And, you know, you think, again, there's been admission that getting the enriched uranium out would require troops on the ground. And, you know, it is buried and still secure. So we're not going to get that.

on ballistic missiles, we have made progress. But even the most optimistic in our briefings are not saying we've gotten rid of all of their, or even the vast majority of their ballistic capability. And then the fourth they added recently was like, let's get rid of the Iranian Navy. And we've sunk some ships. But the ability of the Iranians to use these speedboats, which are literally small and they have hundreds of them to plant, you know, mines in the straits of her moves, which they've already done,

we haven't really been able to take care of that capacity. And along with drones. Yeah, and then let's just remember as well, Iran still has drone capacity. I sure as how wish we had taken Zelensky's Ukrainian offer because clearly we've not built into our military infrastructure, ability to use what Ukraine has already done the best in the world. let's spend a few thousand dollars taking down a $50,000 Iranian drone rather than a couple million dollars. Iran has really not told the hootisies to go full on, which would open up almost another front.

And a lot of the Shia militia groups have taken some actions. What we're seeing is in the public reporting even today that, you know, the embassy at Baghdad and others are like starting to say be on guard because of the Shia militia come. So they got a vote in this. So none of these goals have been met, and I don't see a timeline. We're doing this. So you noted Rubio's point was that Israel was going to strike. So what should Americans make of the fact that Israel is in some ways dictating American involvement here, as you suspect, like you mentioned, where the senior partner here, they couldn't really initiate this major a strike without our support? No, they couldn't.

The question would have been if we would have said, no, we won't go with you, would they still have gone alone? Right. As I'm a long-term supporter of Israel. I stand by that. I'm not necessarily a supporter of all the actions of Bibi Netanyahu's government. But I do feel like, you know, there's been lots of public sector stories about how the president was worked. He was, you know, BB had an audience of one. And a lot of that appears to be true. Yeah. And at the end of the day, we got to look at, you know, this was the America first guy. And shouldn't Americans be supreme? And as we think about the most ultimate decision, which is go to war. I mean, obviously, denuclearized Iran is in everyone's interests, but is it an American interest right now at this moment in time? Well, we got 47 years of a bad leadership. I don't shed any tears for the death of the senior Iranian leadership. But even if you grant the president, hey, he wants to make the case why this is an America's interest. We've got to act now. He did not do that. He didn't make the case to the public. He didn't. sure as hell didn't make the case to the Congress. And again, we keep talking about precedents being set by this guy. And, you know, this is going to be another hard one to reverse in terms of what

happens with the next president, whoever he or she may be, they're not point back and say, okay, I can start this without any congressional approval. So your colleague, Senator Mark Kelly of Arizona City thinks it really comes down to the president's ego. Do you agree? And if so, what are the implications of starting war for his own sense of glory or just because he feels like it? as you said, this as implications for the future. Well, it feels like so much of the president's actions are kind of random and about ego. And then if you take it to the next step, if he had decided, why not prepositioned to make sure that the American citizens in that region are diplomatic,

our military, but also just the tens of thousands of Americans who are passing through on transit or otherwise we're like giving them a little bit of forewarning. or we could have pre-positioned planes that get them out of the region. It seems so ad hoc in terms of why weren't we better ready if we and Israel jointly decided the time and when the first strike was going to be. It just doesn't feel like this was fully thought through. Right. And I feel like, again, back to your point about Trump and his ego, you know,

he felt wind at the back after the Maduro raid. He felt, you know, the last bomb was one and out. and they maybe actually believe that, you know, a short-term bombing campaign would take out a country of 92 million that's got a military establishment as horrible as the regime is really built in. It's a lot harder. Right. And maybe thinking this is maybe his last chance, by the way, because of the upcoming midterms and with all the other pressures. So a few days ago, Trump said the war was, quote, very complete pretty much, and that Iran has nothing left in the military sense. You're in the gang of eight. So have you seen any evidence that you could. And talk about, and this is more completely neutralized, Iran's offensive capabilities. Talk a little bit about that.

No, absolutely not. They still have drones. They still have the ability to mine the Straits of Formuz. Some of those actions have been taken place after he made those comments. They have these other allies like the Shia militias and the Houthis that they've not called upon. They've got cyber capabilities that we've not fully taken out. I know there's been reports of Iranian cells, but they do have the ability either directed or by inspiring people, you know, to take terrorist acts. We've got a bombing at the American embassy in Norway. We've got shooting at the Toronto Consulate. There was some crazy story today that I don't think is true, but saying, you know, there could be Iranian ship off the coast of California that would have drones on it. So these guys are not out of the fight. And, you know, we've got still a lot of Americans potentially in harm's way that, you know, if it doesn't scare the heck out of you, candidly should. But this is where when you burn all your friends, who's going to go the extra mile when it's all about America alone?

Right. So let's talk about the administration. As I noted, you're in the gang of eight. You're one of the few members who are getting higher-level intelligence briefings. How does the information you're getting in private square with what the administration is telling the public about its goals in this war? and how long could it actually last? I have seen no time predictions on any of the goals from regime change to getting, you know, short of troops on the ground, getting the enriched uranium out, literally taking out. So no plans. I've seen no plan to get to, well, let's put like this. I see no plan that meets Trump's criteria of unconditional surrender.

I get to choose who the next guy is going to be. I sure as hell would like to know on Monday, who made all the money when he came out after he had the conversation with Putin? He said, hey, we were almost got him gone. The market bumps, you know, many, many points. I'd frankly like to know who were the biggest winners on that surge because it felt like once the market had closed, he went back and said, well, maybe it's not over right away. Right. So he could have just done that for that or someone knew about it. Yeah, it would like, the White House was freaking out about the oil price. You know, those comments on Monday, you know, did at least steady the oil market. And I think we're down to like mid-80s now. It may have hit 90 again.

But, you know, we were north of 100 before he said those statements. Right. Some pointed up to 110 over the weekend. So, but that's a pretty fast and loose way to play with American foreign policy. And the economy. And the stock market. And the economy overall. Amen.

So how close do you think the administration is to putting boots on ground, this idea that they keep going back. I don't think there's any appetite, and I think, frankly, the military leadership itself, I mean, to go in and think about extracting the enriched uranium, you know, there have been plans and the Israelis, the Americans, I mean, this is, as any entity would, would have contingency plans, but nothing would be easy about that. And it would be a huge, huge risk that I think the military at this point would raise serious objections to. And, you know, again, we've always got the circumstance care of that, you know, the reality of what he said versus the reality of what he feels at this point or the political pressure where he can say,

okay, we won, all done. Well, if after we've said we've, you know, we're going to get their unconditional surrender, we're going to choose the next people. They've had to deal with both the American and Israeli best air forces in the world. So if Iran regime survives in this kind of current state, is it more of a danger, less of a danger? I think it could be argued more of a danger. And what happens if we say, all right, we're out and the Israelis say, no, we want to finish this, does that still keep our troops and our allies in harm's way?

You'd think these would have been the kind of rational questions that would have been asked before we jumped into this. I talked to several of you who have done more planning, and they're like, there's plans. of plans of how to do plans and then when they hadn't seen any plans. And this was a Republican who is also quite privy to a lot of things. There's been no plans that we've seen, no like if this happens then that. There's also no secret plans that Tegseth is talked like with those secret plans you know nothing about. Kara, I only wish I could tell you, you know, don't worry. I can't tell you, but I'd have to kill you because I'm part of the gang of eight, but rest of sure. No plan. If they exist, he is once again,

not following the law by not sharing that with the gang of eight. So as you mentioned, Trump has said he won't settle for anything less than the regime's unconditional surrender. It's very movie-like. It's like he's talking about the Nazis or the Japanese war, too. Before the start of the war, intelligence reports warned that even a large-scale assault on Iran was unlikely to topple the regime. Everyone thought this. Very hard.

They're very hardened people there. So what are the ways this war could end and which one to you is the worst option and the best option? Well, the best option, and I caveat it with maybe just he's done and he says, okay, we declare victory and we've got, you know, tens of billions of dollars spent and at least at this point eight American servicemen killed and are we safer long term or even short term? And the intermediate would be, you know, it goes for another few weeks and you kind of come to the same conclusion, but, you know, you've attritted more of their ballistic missiles, you've taken out

more of their military capacity. And I think the worst would be a semi-failed Iranian state that is still, you know, repressive. Enormously aggressive. And, again, one of the things that has not even been talked about very much, you know, could this reignite some kind of Sunni Shia split across the whole region? So, thank God, none of that is bubble. But if you're talking about worst case, that kind of interdenominational split.

within the Islamic community would be a really bad, bad thing. Yes, that's called dominoes, I believe, in diplomatic speak. So Trump, speaking of making it even more chaotic, has said he's thinking of taking over the Strait of Hormuz where the oil flows through for people who don't know and that the U.S. could escort tankers through the shipping channel to keep oil flowing. On Wednesday, three ships were hit in around the strait.

Sounds disastrous and potentially disastrous to me. Practically speaking, what would escorting tankers look like for the U.S. military? It feels like we'll lose a ship. That's what it feels like. Or if we may not lose a full ship, but we will lose sailors because, again, these small boats, I don't know.

And again, President Macron from France has said he's going to send, you know, potentially French ships through. I have not heard, and I'm sure there must be a plan, but the straits are so small how you, you know, if you're thinking about something like an aircraft carrier, how you actually escort through, particularly if mines have been laid, so you're not going to stop the mines, or if they're sending out these small boats, I guess you can blow them out of the water.

But I've not heard somebody come to us and say, hey, don't worry, we have a plan. We can do it with frigates and elsewhere. Smaller military vessels, I just don't know the answer to that. And I think most of the commentary from retired military has been, you know, this would be very, very, very hard. Very hard to do. And it could make it even more chaotic if there was an explosion or something like that. We'll be back in a minute. Support for On with Carousisher comes from Grooons.

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So if you or your company wants to run the backbone of your business on one unified platform with people at the center, head to rippling.com slash Kara and sign up today. That's R-I-P-P-L-I-N-G-com slash K-A-R-A to sign up. Let's talk about some of the long-term risks, then. the regime seems, as you said, to be digging in, not looking for an exit ramp, as Trump expected. Clerics chose the Ayatollah's son, Moshiba Hamini, as the new Supreme Leader. He is, by most accounts, more of a hardliner. And of course, we've killed his wife and children.

What do we know about the stability of the regime right now, nuclear capabilities? Trump has said he got rid of them, but he didn't, or he said now he didn't. Talk about where they really are. This is where I want us to not just be relying on the Israelis who've got better visibility into Iran than we do. This is where I just am not sure whether particularly our European friends who've got embassy still in Taiwan, whether they still have better contacts, ideas about what the resistance might look like. There were some conversation that even within the group of the, I think, 88 clerks, there was some, you know, it was not a slam dunk that this guy was going to be voted in. But this is, again, where I think we're flying a little bit blind. And usually the theory of the case is, if you're going to have a resistance against an authoritarian regime, you've got to have a leader.

And, you know, we've had lots and lots of intel reports over a number of years that say, okay, we get rid of the Supreme Leader. Who's next? Is there some other viable leader? Is somebody going to, you know, reemerge that we could actually do business with? and the overall consensus was always no. And again, I'm just afraid that he's thinking the Venezuelan model, where Dulci-Rodriga, the president now in Venezuela, was close with Maduro.

Appears to be trying to do business with us, although that still leaves, you know, the overwhelming majority of Venezuelans who voted against Murdoin, maybe out in the cold. And... So does that person exist? A person in the U.S. can work with? I'm sure.

Listen. That also has legitimacy, right? Well, the regime is hated. I'm not a great student of Iran, but I've read enough intel. I've followed enough. You know, the fact that there was, you know, in the immediate aftermath of the killing, you know, some level of street celebration. But boy, boy, you've got to have a leader. You got to have some organization.

And when you've got this, you know, the IRGC, I think much different from even the Assad regime in Syria, you know, We've got 180,000 plus or minus folks. They not only are part of the security apparatus, but they own as an entity about half of the Iranian economy. So a lot of money, you know, probably hated by many. So if there's a regime change and it's not a few hundred that would get killed by the regime change, but potentially tens of thousands who have been so repressive for so long, they're going to fight pretty damn hard.

Yeah, that's true. And speaking of flying blind, you said one of your biggest fears is the U.S. running down its stock of munitions to intercept ballistic missiles without knowing how many more Iran has. Talk about the risk of running down those stocks, even though, generally speaking, the U.S. is in a much better position than Iran to keep dropping bombs. Well, here's the thing we've got to focus on. We have plenty of bombs to drop on Iran in kind of the classic sense.

Airplane comes over, shoots a guided bomb down. What we don't have are the interceptors that can take down the Iranian ballistic missiles that are left or the Iranian drones. I go back to that, you know, $50,000 drone that we're spending a couple million dollar missile on. And this is, again, if there was even thinking about this coming around, why in the hell didn't they say, all right, Zelensky, who offered, I believe, and we'll send a bunch of our drone experts, we'll send you a bunch of them. these right away. They have perfected the ability to take down Iranian drones. They were going to start this war. Why the hell didn't they take up that offer? And my understanding is Zelensky made an offer to Trump in the White House and, you know, nothing that got acted on. Now, I'm not sure we can have gotten them all into region, but it's just not the way you would do something that has this

major of ramifications. Right. We don't have the right munitions. Yeah, we got the right munitions to bomb the hell out of them. We don't have the right munitions to take down the Iranian attack back towards us, and that would hit the whole region. Right. We also saw an alert this week that Iran may try to activate sleeper cells outside the country, which they're well known for. When you think about the different ways they could wage asymmetrical warfare that hurts U.S. interest, what worries you the most, I would assume, in this country, right? Well, it does worry me in this country, and it worries me that, you know, Cash Patel at the FBI has over this past year fired most of the senior expertise on counterterrorism, counter espionage. What worries me is that the, you know, the intel community,

you know, has, you know, Tulsi Gabbard's been chasing, re-litigating the 2020 election as opposed to like saying, how are we going to stay safe from terrorists? And then overall, and this is not, again, this part is not the Trump fault by any means entirely. You know, the intel apparatus moved away from counterterrorism to focus on counter-adversaries like China and Russia. That was, I think, overall, the right move. But again, at this stage, a single incident or two with World Cup coming and others, I mean, we are, but if this goes on, you know, is, again.

We're vulnerable. Like, you're never going to be totally... Of course not. No, in a very good... In a non-cash Patel world, it would be hard enough, as you're saying. But are we ready to protect together? What is in place to do that if these people have left? We still have, you know, lots of operations.

We still have lots of personnel. And we've got a pretty good record of stopping, whether it's a Rennian or other entities as they try to launch these threats into America. in our NSA, our ability to listen in, our ability to break up these groups has been good. It's not like we've taken out a number of them, but at scale. And again, with some of the expertise that has been dismissed by Cash Patel, my level of worry is higher. And because this war is not popular already, I think the American people would be angrier than they are. a terrorist attack along with already, I think, we're at 51 cents, 60 cents of additional gas

prices going up. And the amazing thing on the gas prices is that is because we're still burning down the oil that we've had, or using the oil that we've had, and we're not really feeling the effects of the straight to Hormuz being shut down. So every of us who we get a question from an outside expert. Here's yours. Hi, Senator Warner. This is Jason Rosian. I'm a journalist with Washington Post. I'm also Iranian-American, and I lived and worked in Tehran for many years as a correspondent until I was taken hostage and held by the Islamic Republic for 544 days. What cost should the American public be prepared to pay for this war in terms of lost lives, destruction, environmental, and otherwise civilian infrastructure in the Middle East, but also to our own economy? And for

Finally, there are currently six Americans that we know of who are being held hostage in Iran. What can be done and what is being done to free them right now? Well, Jason, I'm very aware of your story and had been part of the groups that were urging, pressing, to try to get you released. And I'm thankful that that came to pass. But, again, as you said, after over 500 days. in terms of the six existing Americans that are still being held, I am not aware of particularly at this moment of war, what is going on real time. In terms of the expectation of costs, we have

been lucky to date that some of the strikes on some of our embassies haven't resulted and more casualties, some of our strikes on our military or intel agencies or outposts around the region, that's been a lot of ways combined with good intelligence, but the honest acknowledgement. So if we're talking about, you know, even giving the administration all the credit at a billion dollars a day of munitions cost, that doesn't count the cost of rebuilding what has been destroyed, increasing gas prices on an economy that's already a bit wobbly, especially on the job front. And, you know, people struggling with affordability from groceries to gasoline. But as you know, this goes on, virtually whether we like it or not, kind of, almost

everything we make has a petroleum base to it. So it gets into every products. It gets in. I met with one of the CEOs of the airlines today. And, you know, he said so far, they're doing okay, but, you know, that's so far in terms of jet fuel costs going up. I don't say the airline, but as he said, the war is costing that airline $25 million a day. Yeah, yeah. And if this goes for, you know, you can do the math. You go to six months. You're talking about $5 billion.

Right. And this could have a huge effect on our economy. And then finally, Jason, I guess I'd say, I always believe that America is stronger with allies around the world. We have so burned so many of our allies. around the world. And if we take these kind of actions that doesn't think through, you know, will they really be there next time? Right, right. Now, it's not over in the last few months of U.S. military deposed two heads of state, the Supreme Leader of Iran, the Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, even though the same government is still there. And the administration has made

no secret the fact that it wants to do the same in Cuba. Let's say for the sake of the market that Trump is successfully either ending or severely damaging all three regimes. Does that make the U.S. safer? And if so, should Trump get credit for that? And what are your thoughts on Cuba? Because, you know, Lindsey Graham can't keep himself, like, down. It's hard to make a assumption. And I'm not going to react everything just because of Trump. You know, if the Iranian regime had been gone and Iran returned to not just a threat against us and against Israel,

but against, frankly, other nations in the region and in Europe, you know, I'd have to give credit due, but at what cost. I mean, that's not going to happen today, tomorrow, or next week. In terms of Cuba, I think the regime is on its last legs. I was hopeful they would have reformed. I don't think they had. I visited during the Obama period. And I always thought, I was an exchange student in Argentina.

I love South America. You know, I think we've never, we always look east-west, we never look south. But the idea, even when so many of the South American and Central American regimes would be glad to see Maduro go, we would be glad to see the Castro regime moved on, they sure as heck don't want to return to the days of the United States, the gringo being the kind of patron or the, you know, the paternalistic influence over all of that region. Gunboat diplomacy is what you're saying. Yeah, gunboat and just kind of, I think we'd finally built to the point that we looked at Central and South America as partners. We needed to do more, obviously, to slow down the traffic flow of people coming into

America. But to go back to the old guys of the gringo with the big guns, I'm not sure that, again, helps us, since so many of these countries, though, around through South America, one of the things I don't think most Americans realize, most of them have already moved away their vast majority of their trading relationship with China, not with the United States. Yeah. And I don't think us being kind of the big powerhouse, we're going to run the whole continent, North and South America, is going to, you know, moving them away from China. What are the chances of a Cuban invasion or Cuban action?

I don't know, other than the fact that I would say the Cuban regime is, I think this is Trump is right, is on its last legs without the oil that would come from Venezuela, with the fact that, you know, people who are still trying to get out of Cuba at record rates. if he could navigate a transition in Cuba, I think that would be better for the Cuban people. But I'm not going to hold my breath on that, and I still think, while I'm glad Maduro's gone, I'm not sure the Rodriguez administration,

which is still the Maduro folks without Maduro there, is actually making life better yet for the Venezuelans, maybe in terms of the fact that they're going to, with reopening the embassy and potentially getting the increase of the Venezuelan oil again, that may start to trickle through to the Venezuelan people, but so far, my reports is not so much. Yeah.

All right now, one of the biggest beneficiaries of the war right now seems to be Russian President Vladimir Putin. The U.S. has started loosening some of the oil sanctions on Russia, which undermine the U.S.-Nur European pressure campaign against the war in Ukraine, and soaring oil prices will boost the Kremlin's main source of funding for that war. It's been out far as how does the war weaken American's strategic interests in other parts of the world? Ukraine being the center of that.

There is, the one thing we absolutely know that the only geopolitical winner thus far into this war is Vladimir Putin. You know, if the Iranian regime had collapsed very quickly after Syria and after Hezbollah, you could argue then Putin was weakened because his client states. But if the Iranian regime remains, and they have now got, because we've released some of the sanctions, of sale of oil to India, we've given Putin a lifeline of additional funds because it didn't get a lot of attention here, and I'm not even talking about necessarily American sources, but a lot of the Europeans, when I was at the Munich Security Agreement,

were actually slightly more optimistic on Ukraine's chances because the Russians were taking such a cost in their economy and just, you know, any country that's lost close to a million men killed, not one, it killed, you can only maintain that for so long, but this gives, I think, fresh at least fuel to the fire for Putin, and that's not a good thing. Not a good thing. So in talking about the war, Democrats have been visibly torn between their justified opposition to a brutal regime, you yourself, who just said it, and their opposition to Trump's unilateral decision to go to war.

As a result, it feels like the Democrats have a muddled message, there's a problem with the process, not the decision to bomb Iran and kill its leader. Why center on process, especially when Trump was already deeply unpopular before the conflict? By the way, the Pentagon reportedly may ask Congress for an additional $50 billion in emergency funding. Where are Democrats on this, and will you vote against it if it comes for the Senate? You know, I want to see what the request is for. Remember the Pentagon got a huge boost up in the big, ugly bill last summer. So to say, you have an emergency here when you've got a series of additional funds,

you've got to make the case. When they make the request, and I'm sure they will, you know, where do we stand at that point? Is there an end point? Is there a more articulated goal? Or we still got these four goals that we've been bouncing around on? Can we see the plan? So, you know, I'm not going to do an absolute no. I'm not going to, sure, as heck, not do an absolute yes.

I want to see the circumstances and see the request what it's for. You don't want to obviously, nobody wants to hold the lives of our service members at risk if they're not getting the munitions or the tools they need to defend themselves. So this is the kind of conundrum a little bit. Once the war is, this war is started. You have to back them. You have to, you have to back. Obviously, we all would back the troops.

We're no, I think our country, thank God, has moved past that kind of, you know, venom around Vietnam, where even if it didn't like the war, you took it down on the troops. That was awful. The goals, even if it's of like he declares victory tomorrow and gets out, I actually think we've probably made America less safe because a wounded Iran that still got all of these capacities, who knows where they'll stop? I mean, the remarkable thing about the Supreme Leader, the guy that we knocked off from the Israelis knocked off on their first day, he was a bad guy, but he had actually restrained Iran from, you know, weaponizing they're in rich uranium. He had held back on tax against America and our interest.

I got no belief or bet the son. He's not a kid, I think 55, 58, something like that. And I think he's been wounded, too, is a lot of reporting on that. Who's going to be probably more anti-American than his dad since we killed his dad, wife, and kids. Right. But go back to the process part of that question. Why center on the process? Voters, especially Democrats, want the party to make a clear position here. is it important to focus on the process of how it happened? Because this is how it always happens with Trump. He just moves forward and says,

oh, well, come and arrest me if you want kind of thing. Well, if the position is, and this is probably the position of most at this point, stop it tomorrow, stop, stop, stop regardless of the outcome and regardless of the consequences. I just like, you know, as important as it is to have a sound bite answer, I'm too deep in the weeds on this.

You know, it's hard to say stopping tomorrow when he did, I think, something careless and irresponsible to start without making the case. It's much more than process. But to stop tomorrow, I think my job is also to say, is that going to make America safer or less safe? Right. And to me, that's, unfortunately at this point, a bit of an open question. We'll be back in a minute. So I want to shift to something because another thing that's going on here is we've been talking about the war in Iran, but there's a major story related to the Pentagon's decision to label AI company Anthropic, a supply chain risk, a designation historically reserved for foreign companies. The Pentagon's decision was huge implications for how the U.S. conducts war in the future.

Anthropic was involved in the Venezuelan situation. I suspect their technology has been used in this operation. It has. And Anthropics announced it's suing. And obviously, after the Pentagon's decision, Sam Altman announced that his company open ad swept in to make a similar deal. He claimed to include some of the same guardrails that killed Anthropics deal. I'm skeptical. But talk a little bit about these two related things and the impact on these companies that are becoming more critical. The idea of designating American companies a supply chain risk is, I think, completely unprecedented. We've done that with foreign companies, but never with American companies. Right. And a company that, you know, Anthropic, Open AI, Google, there's a lot of arts language models out there that are really good, but nobody would disagree that Anthropics not one of the best. Now, you could go back and fly spec whether Dario, the CEO of Anthropics, should have been, you know, is out there this much in the Department of Defense what they did. But the thing that just why I'm so much on, you know, anthropic side in terms of the court case,

case, is that, you know, arbitrarily saying you're a supply chain risk because you think issues like, you know, whether we should create an AI-driven weapon without a human in the loop, or that we should turn over completely unprecedented surveillance tools that AI models could provide without a frickin debate, I don't want to trust Pete Hacks-F with making those decisions. Right, right. So I very strongly feel that the government's overreached. I think if there is no process, and it's, again, as arbitrary as Hegsef and Trump, without, I think, any real justifiable cause saying we can declare any of you supply chain risks,

you are our best and brightest really going to try to even do business with the government. So their argument is that Anthropic is a private company can't tell a government to use its products, which is what Anthropic was trying to do. On the other hand, it sounds reasonable to say the government shouldn't use these tools to illegally spy on American citizens or kill opposing soldiers, that human oversight. It's also their, if they don't want to sell it, they don't have to sell it, right? That's usually our way. Where's the line of this power from your perspective?

I mean, you've been on both sides of the equation. I've been on both sides. It is a really hard choice. You've got to make some concessions to work with the government. I get that, and particularly DOD, and you know you're doing business with an entity that's job is to both protect Americans and, you know, they kill the bad guy. But to do that without a debate, particularly in an area where we are in such uncharted territory as AI, it just doesn't make sense. This is why, you know, I put a bill out today, bipartisan bill that's going to try to say, let's do a economy, the future commission trying to model after the cyber salarium to say, we've got to put some ground rules in place around AI. But you know, Carol, you know, we have completely stunk at putting any guardrails on social media.

The power of all these companies has only exponentially grown, the idea that we're going to sort this through quickly. And I'm not only questioning about, you know, have we unleashed. And I'm, I'm pro-AI in terms of, I think, ultimately, it will be very beneficial, even around jobs. But, man, I am spooked about the economic disruption, particularly for, like, recent college grads over the next five years. You know, the doom scrollers I don't fully agree with, but they're not without some argument that we ought to go through. the molt box bot stuff about, you know, these agentic AI agents kind of creating their own network, their own religion. Yeah.

That's pretty spooky place. Or just, you know, go back to Anthropic, you know, the fact that Claude, their best model, has in just the last two and a half months, completely disrupted the software industry for a few days on the markets because they, the movement on these AI tools is absolutely as fast as anything Altman or Dario or any of these guys said. And usually the prognosticators, the advocates are wrong about how long it's going to take. This time they may be right. And somehow we got to, you know, and you're part of this debate and I'm part of this debate, we've got to somehow force the countries to come to grips with the fact that we can't punt this.

Does this incident complicate the situation and does it make us less safe? With Claude was really important from what I'm talking to. A lot of people are like, we don't want opening eye. We wanted Claude. Like, that's our best and brightest. Well, there are things like, you know, if you've got a ship and you've got an AI defense system that automatically responds to an incoming missile, that to me is less problematic, obviously. We have variations on that already to, you know, what some people have said, we're going to launch, you know, a thousand drones all at once. And once their launch, you know, we're going to have no control.

They're going to be able to go after targets they want because you don't have any kill switch or you don't have any ability that once launched. Yeah. agency. You got control. Yeah, agency. So I don't pretend to know the answers on that, but I sure as hell don't want to turn that all over to Pete Hagssef to arbitrarily make a decision on a short-term basis. So what's going to happen with this anthropic thing from a guest from you? You know, I hope. I saw that Microsoft, I didn't think filed an amicus brief. I think even Altman, you know, said he supported some of the privacy issues. But he's on every side. He's on it in case you're interested. I care. I know your relationship.

But I just would say this. And I like him, but he's on every side. Yeah, I would just say this. This is why we were so crappy on doing anything on social media. That is child's play compared to implications around this AI debate. So we've got to get our shit together and not thinking from mentally. And I just, I did a couple of AI forums today off the hill. And I want to be optimistic, but I just hope we don't have to go through some, you know,

god-awful event that says, holy crap, why didn't we think about this editor? Right, and the companies have power they possibly shouldn't have. You know, you've seen that with Elon Musk and everybody. Well, we've seen the power. And also, I think they've got to share the responsibility. We can spend a whole other program on just the economic misdistribution, maldistribution, job elimination. I don't think has to happen.

But as we've talked in the past, you know, with a lot of these AI tech big guys, you know, empathy would not be the first word that comes to mind. No. In fact, it's not even in the top 100. So last question, the fact that we're having this conversation about the bombs are falling in Toronto only underlines this urgency. Let's circle back to the war. They've been a lot of comparisons to the Iraq war and fears were repeating that mistake, but at least with Iraq, Congress overwhelmingly authorized the use of military force there

and a big majority of the public initially supported intervention. In hindsight, we know Bush administration built that support on untruths about Iraq's nuclear capabilities, but conflict with Iran is unique because a clear majority of Americans oppose it at the outset. If this drags on longer than the administration anticipates, what happens? What does it mean for the country? I was talking to a very prominent Republican senator, and he said if it's not over in 15 days, it's over for the Republican Party in a lot of ways. I don't know if that's the case. What do you think? What I would say is, you know, there have been so many incidences that I thought, oh my God, this will be the breaking point from our Republican friends.

And again, I'm guilty as charged as still trying to be bipartisan. But man, I have lost a lot of faith with these guys and gals that, you know, there will not be a constraint put in place. And we don't have to get a bunch, but until, you know, a good number of Republicans step up and say, is this really not only the precedent we want to set, but is this the way we want to have our country governed by a single individual without any congressional constraints if they keep ceding power but we you know we bring up our resolutions

we we argue and fight but you know in a system where you still got to get 51 or 21 or 218 17 17 18 in the house we got to get some folks to get religion that this is not the way the country ought to work well there was barjory taylor green we already expecting that plot twist but that was yeah it's like strange things if she can come out come on guys this should be that hard. Well, she's consistent with what she said at the beginning. She's a consistent voice. In that regard, other things, let's leave that aside. But last question, what could it

mean for the country as a whole if you had a game and out? They're not moving or constraining him. You're unable to. What does that mean until at least November? Well, it means that if we don't all get out and felt like hell,

we're screwed. It also means what really scares me and we ought to talk another time about this. So much I'm afraid about what happened in Iran. I am almost equally, if not more afraid, about this president at this moment of time, is going to interfere in a major way in our elections. Or attempt to. Or attempt to.

And I'm not as worried about trying to change the vote after the votes are cast, but I am concerned about using, you know, even, God forbid, a terrorist event or, you know, a piece of raw intelligence is a reason to change dates, close polls, you know, move in troops. And, you know, if that happens and we have a truly corrupted election, I don't know how the country ever comes back. Oh, man. All right.

Not the end of that note. Thank, Senator Warner. Coming back next week for cheerio. Have a nice day. Have you watched heated rivalry. It's so happy. Anyway, go vote. But I really appreciate it.

Thank you. Thank you, Carol. Today's show was produced by Christian Castro Roussel, Michelle Eloy, Catherine Millsop, Megan Bernie, and Kaylin Lynch. Nishot Kerwa is Vox Media's executive producer of podcast. Special thanks to Aiman Whalen. Our engineers are Fernando Aruda and Rick Kwan, and our theme music is by Trackademics. Go wherever you listen to podcasts, search for On with Caroushisher, and hit follow. Thanks for listening to On with Caraswisher from Podium Media, New York Magazine, the Vox Media, Podcast Network,

And us will be back on Thursday with more.