Some More News - Even More News: $200 Billion More For The War That's Going Great

Episode Date: March 20, 2026

Hi. Laywer and advocate for immigrant rights Layla Razavi joins Katy, Cody, and Jonathan to discuss the War In Iran from the perspective of the Iranian diaspora. They talk about the lack of good options (and good potential outcomes) at this point, Trump's inability to weasel out of things, and what exactly he did or did not know about Israel's attacks on an Iranian gas field.As always, we recorded right before that big thing that happened.Layla's blog:https://open.substack.com/pub/laylarazaviJournalist Roxana Saberi: https://www.instagram.com/roxanasaberiAuthor Sahar Delijani: https://www.instagram.com/sahardelijaniHuman Rights Reports--Amnesty International Iran: https://www.instagram.com/amnestyiranHengaw: https://www.instagram.com/hengaw_englishPATREON: https://patreon.com/somemorenewsMERCH: https://shop.somemorenews.comYOUTUBE MEMBERSHIP: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvlj0IzjSnNoduQF0l3VGng/joinSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hi, on today's episode, we talk about how Trump is not going to be able to easily weasel himself out of the war he started. Plus, we dig into his desire to take Cuba and the White House's offer to Democrats to end the partial DHS shutdown. Hi, hello, welcome back to Even More News, the first and only news podcast. My name's Katie Stoll. Thank you, Katie Stoll. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. I'm Cody. I'm here, too.

I've come along for the ride, yeah. Yeah, he's just going to kind of tag along, fourth wheel it. Fourth wheel it because we got a great guest, folks, a returning guest, human rights lawyer, and former executive director of freedom for immigrants. Very excited to welcome back, Laila Razavi. Hi, Lila.

Hi, guys. Thanks for having me back. It's good to be here. Oh, it's really good to have you back. It's great to have you. Very excited to have you anytime, but especially today. Don't worry. Jonathan is also here.

Worry, but I am. Hi. I was worried. I'm still worried, honestly. You shouldn't have been. You can see him on your screen. Well, you should be worried, but not about Jonathan being here. My presence releases the cortisol of others.

Remember that movie? Best Foreign Film, The Cortisol of Others? Mm-hmm. All right. Jonathan Maxing, yeah. Layla. We tried to get you on last week. We had some technical difficulties that we got you this week.

I just wanted to start off by checking in as to how your experience has been like for the past several weeks going on a month. You've talked a lot about the Iranian diaspora. But yeah, how is this hitting you now that we're about one month in? What are your observations? Yeah. It's been a very emotional time for Iranians. There's a whole mix of feelings when I first woke up and saw the news that there had been a strike against Iran. I mean, I felt like I was in complete fight or flight mode.

You know, I immediately thought about my family, friends and loved ones in Iran, the places that we love to go, you know, the cities and places that are historical and where there's so many memories and that mean a lot to us. So that was kind of immediately just like, is everybody okay? And very quickly the government moved into placing an internet shutdown, which is what they've always done whenever there's moments of unrest, they will clamp down on communication with the outside world. So for several days, you're trying to get a message through or see if internet's connected and you can just talk to your family and your loved ones. So the first few days was just like full on anxiety and fear. mixed with some optimism, I think there have been some signs that the regime may be ending and, like, is this really the end? It seems like they've been on their last legs and there's always that hope, like, are they actually going to fall this time? I think as it became very quickly clear, this was not what was happening last June. This was not like a precision military targeted exercise, but a full, on war that is open-ended with a goalposts that seemed to be completely moving every time the president opens his mouth or any member of the administration for that matter. I think there's

just been a growing sense that we don't know how long this is going to be and what exactly the outcome will mean. I will say I'm somebody who was always against war. I didn't necessarily see that a military strike was going to get the objective and the desire that so many Iranians want, But I will say I also know many people, especially those living inside Iran, who felt very desperate and felt that they had done everything in their power. They had voted. They had protested. They had boycotted.

They had done all the things they could do. And facing increasing repression, they really felt like this was their only hope. I do think today, in some sense, Iran is in a very precarious position. My biggest thought as an Iranian is always just like, is my family okay? And once the internet connected and we were able to get in touch and see that they were okay and they were healthy and they were safe, you know, immediately a lot of my anxiety started to decrease. But there's this constant, like, low-level buzz happening all the time. Of course. I have a couple of family members who left Tehran and escaped to the mountains to get to safety.

So while they were on the bus, I went to sleep just thinking, are they safe? What if there's an attack? What if they get hit? There's checkpoints. The Israelis have been targeting the checkpoints to get out the military members who man those checkpoints. But what if they happen to just be passing through one and it stuck? So there's always that trepidation. And then once we saw they arrived and they were safe, you know, then I felt a little bit more at ease. But I think there's just always constant like low grade awareness in the background that this is going on. Of course. I can't, I honestly can't imagine going about your life and not feeling deeply affected and fearful because who knows when you'll get more information. And okay, so your immediate family members are in a place of safety for right now. That's fantastic. But there's more than that. There's their friends and they're the people in their lives and all the places that you know. And yeah, it's hard for me to wrap my mind around. And we're insulated in America away from the reality of everything that's happening and whatever information we do get.

How accurate is it? And yeah. And I also understand what you're saying about, yeah, you can be against the war and against war and not think that it'll help or change anything. And for your family members that live there being so desperate for help of any kind, it just turns out that the Americans are not, and Israel are not about helping at all. They don't care if they make it worse.

It's not about them at all. Until they bring the request to take back your country. Right. How does that like land on your ears when he's, he and I guess we are like bombing this country and first day blowing up a school and so on? and then being like, by the way, it's your duty to take your country back while this is going on. Yeah, I mean, I have to say there's a lot of anger.

I feel personally towards the countries, Israel and the U.S. for having this kind of aggression towards Iran, namely because we've seen in the last couple of days some really disconcerting press coverage, not completely surprising, but really upsetting. First, we saw that the president has said there's a genetic issue with Iranians and spread a lot of xenophobic and racist language about Iranians. And as the leader of the country, whether or not you like him, what he's saying has an effect. When he speaks like that, it just increases discrimination and hate crimes and ostracization. So that in particular is concerning. And as you said, Katie, it just shows how little they really. care about the well-being and fortunes of the Iranian people. And then we also saw yesterday

it came out that there had been a cable sent from Israeli intelligence to the U.S., basically saying they're encouraging Iranians to come out and protest and rise up against the government and saying their senses that the Iranians are going to be slaughtered. And it feels that way, Iranians are kind of the people in the country are just stuck between these opposing forces that are just killing and destroying them. And I want to just share with your audience because I'm assuming a lot of folks who are watching or listening to this are probably folks who are against war and like a lot of us have been, you know, against the Iraq war and have seen what has happened. But I just want to give some context to why it is that people inside a country would be

thinking bombs might be their only salvation. It is, you know, this is coming on the heels of the January massacres where over the course of two days, the regime killed. The numbers of, like the estimates have really ranged, but it seems like they killed around over 30,000 people. Some people have had said 20,000, some had said 40. The most reliable numbers I've seen have been in the low 30,000 range. This is over the course of 48 hours. So to just put it in context, when Israel was committing a genocide in Gaza and ethnically cleansing the entire population, it took them six months after October 7th to get anywhere near that number. So just in terms of scale, it took them six months to do what the regime did in two days. And people saw the body bags just stacked up at the morgues of young people, teenagers, children.

And just today we woke up to the news that the regime executed three more people who had been picked up and arrested during those January protests. One of them is Salh Mohamedi, who was 19 years old. So that's just to kind of round out and give some context. The last thing I'll say about this is that all three governments, in my estimation, have some things that are very much in common. They are all ethno-nationalists, religious fundamentalists, and deeply fascistic and repressive. And so while people constantly make it sound like there's these two sides and these warring governments, I really think it's more of a conversation about who is in power and who's losing out here. And who's losing out has always been the Iranian people.

Yeah. Thank you for saying all of that. Yeah. Another common thread seems to be that the people, are an afterthought, right? It doesn't really matter. For the Iranian regime, it's like existential

entrenching themselves in power. For Trump, it is his own ego and getting to prove that he's the big dog with the power. There's obviously like Netanyahu and I'm not going to try and analyze all of his various motivations, but it's fascism and ego

and the drive to do something. something that to him probably feels like it's his destiny to do, like a deeply violent and evil thing. Whoever should die as a part of it, whether it be people in Iran or U.S. soldiers or people in Israel, they don't care. I appreciate you sharing the information you have because it is so hard to get accurate information in general right now. And I think a lot of people have said, like, well, we can't trust that number. Regardless, it's thousands. but that's a horrifying.

And that in that time period, that is, it's hard to even wrap your mind around how that can happen. Terrifying. But those are the same people that are still in charge. So when we talk about why aren't you rising up, why, it's like, how can you? How can you? Not to mention that you've also got bombs falling all around at the same time.

Why would anybody trust any, any of the people with weapons right now to have their best interest at heart in any capacity. We were talking a bit yesterday about how hard it is to see a positive outcome coming out from this. And I said, you know, that I thought the best case scenario is probably like, there is no good case scenario, but probably the best thing we could do is get out of there because we're only making things worse. and of course that brings up issues of its own. To me it's like are we abandoning people to chaos now or doing it in 20 years after we've done untold.

Making it worse and worse and worse and worse and worse. Having like viewed this conflict from like the 50,000 foot view, do you have any kind of vision of what a positive outcome for people who living in Iran could be from this? Yeah, I mean, it's really hard to see a positive outcome only because I think the options that are in front of us right now all have their own set of really complicated things that they're going to bring up. I was always against the war.

I thought that the government was already fairly weak and on its last legs and was hopeful that it would fall as people continued. And young people were going into the streets in January as they did. in 2022, they were recording messages and calling their parents and saying goodbye and saying, like, I might not come home, but I'm willing to die from my country. And they were just saying, like, even if they kill every last one of us, we're not going to live like this anymore. And they were just going into the street while they would open fire. It wasn't like tear gas, like they were opening fire on people. And I think now that we're where we are, I am very concerned about like an

abrupt and immediate cessation, only because I think, if you think back to like Afghanistan and the way we just haphazardly pulled out of the country, once you are there, you have some kind of obligation as to how you are exiting if that's what you're going to do. Absolutely. And if they were to just stop right now, what on earth is going to happen next? Because most likely the regime will conduct an all-out master again. They are going to see that as like this is their last chance. So it's really scary for Iranians. And I think people in the country who are not part of like the small minority that are somehow connected with and benefiting from the ruling class, the majority of the population is kind of sitting there waiting and hoping. And I think they

expect the U.S. has superior military power and is going to be able to do this. And so if the U.S. were to just abandon people, I think it could have really damaging repercussions. That being said, I think the cost is going to be very high for the United States. It would not be surprising if they pull out, but continue funding Israel to keep its war going solo, but with full financial backing. And the reality is putting aside, I mean, the election and, you know, U.S. politics, what Iran's strategy has been and will continue to be is going after the global market. They can't beat the U.S. on military power. And so the damage that's going to be done is so high that eventually they're going to have to pull out, call it a win, and then Israel will continue

going. And that's also very scary because now you have a situation where you see Iran turn into something like Libya, sorry, Lebanon or Syria, where these were stable countries. They had their own culture and civilization and history. And when the wars started there, the bombing started, you basically just see like a protracted engagement that never really finishes. And so that to me is a really worst case scenario because it will leave the country and the people very much in a weekend position. The most hope that I see is when I see people inside of Iran organizing in any which way.

So there have been things that have come out in Persian language online of people writing out like a people's constitution or writing out calling for human rights activists and lawyers and journalists to come out and say like this is what we want to see for our government. The best case scenario would be to see a international coalition, peacekeeping troops come in, and then you hold like a referendum, an election. You can even do an initial like yes or no vote on the country's government, but nobody is talking about that. There seems to be no political appetite for this. You know, I don't have a lot of optimism for Iran in the short term. My optimism for Iran is in the long term.

It's a really ancient culture and civilization that has withstood numerous invasions and attacks and foreign intervention from, you know, Arabs to Mongolians to Russians to the British and the French. And, you know, we've had a lot of things happen throughout our history. And so my hope and optimism always lies with the people. But I think in terms of this military conflict, like the reason so many people always cautioned against it. And there were always war hawks that wanted to see the U.S. go to war with Iran. There was always that like extreme view, especially within the Republican Party. But there were these breaks within the state apparatus or the deep state, if you want to call it that, that kept hitting the brakes on that precisely because the economic cost to the West would be massive. And so, Katie, to your point, like, I don't think European allies are sitting there going, like, how do we help the Iranian people?

They're saying, my God, how do we reign Trump in? Because he is destroying the market and ultimately going to make bricks more powerful. So no one has touched Iran or helped the Iranian people for a long time for precisely this reason. We should talk because we were talking about kind of the regime's leverage and what most experts thought. thought they would do that the Trump administration did not really foresee. On Wednesday, Israel attacked Iran's South Pars gas field, which is a huge escalation on the country's energy infrastructure, which is something that Donald Trump said, oh, well, we're not going to hit the oil. We're going to leave the oil intact unless this and that. And then hours later, Iran reportedly retaliated by

attacking natural gas facilities in Qatar, wiping out 17 percent of the capabilities there, they say we'll take three to five years to repair. Of course, in the immediate aftermath, everyone is asking Trump, what's going on? How did this happen? And Trump puts out a very clear and easy to understand truth social post, where he says that the United States didn't know about the attack and we didn't want this to happen. And Iran didn't know that the other countries weren't involved, so they shouldn't have hit the fields in Qatar, and then he puts in all caps, no more attacks will be made by Israel pertaining to this extremely important and valuable field. And then this morning, on Thursday, he was brought up to him that Israel contradicted his assertion

that he didn't know anything about it. And then he seemed to acknowledge that by saying, I told him, don't do that. We're independent. We get along great. It's coordinated. So we're We're independent, but it's coordinated, and we told them not to do it, but they did it. We knew nothing. The United States knew nothing is what he said. We knew nothing. We knew nothing. We told them not to.

So it seems like every day now there's like some sort of escalation, which of course pertains to oil infrastructure. What else? Which is what makes Trump immediately be like, uh, what do you? You know, it feels like this is spiraling. from him. Yeah, I think he also, when there's an element that he knows that it, I mean, he obviously knows that it is doing that. And he probably also hears a lot of people being like, so you let another country trick you into doing a war. And he's realizing, you know, Layla, kind of what you were saying, like, even if he stops, Israel's going to keep doing this. This is a campaign that

they're going to continue. And I think he is, this is like a signal of like, maybe regret getting involved in this because clearly they're not going to do what I want them to. They're just going to keep doing this. And I'm going to have to concoct this weird post of lies to distance myself from these, from these actions. But I don't think there's a way for him to actually get out of this situation. Not without ego. I mean, he can't be seen as a loser or weak in any capacity. That's not in his DNA, I guess. The U.S. has killed like 1,100 military personnel from on it's estimated. I think over 3,000 deaths.

Total. That's including the civilians. Yeah. And so 1,100 of those approximately are estimated to be military personnel. And most of the high-ranking officials and leadership have all been taken out. So every day we're seeing names of like top commanders of different facets of the government who've been taken out. So there's a lot of opportunities for them to declare a win at any point.

because they've shifted the goalpost so many time. They have full freedom to just be like, oh, we did X, Y, and Z things we wanted. He can rattle off a whole list of things that they thought out of it and then pull out. But I think listening to you recap that whole thing, Jonathan, what was coming to my mind is the global implications of this. This is like global war. I don't mean to sound like, you know, doomsdayish. No, I'm with you. I'm with you, Leila.

it is. I think it is a version of World War III. Well, so when the oil prices rise like that, what's happening already, you're seeing it in the U.S. and around the world, production costs are going up and food is becoming more expensive. So food insecurity across the global South is also going to go up. It's affecting even countries that are in no way directly involved in this conflict. And one of the things that's so frightening in why I keep trying to hammer home to people. Like, this is not East versus East versus West and like Iran versus the U.S. This is really like religious fundamentalists destroying the planet along with the rich and powerful because I don't think Trump has a religious bone in his body. But, you know, it's really like powerful billionaires and religious fundamentalists like linking

arms and destroying the planet while the rest of us are all paying the price. because if you believe that if you like rule Iran according to your own invented laws, you'll go to heaven. And if you die defending Iran, you'll go to heaven. And if you bomb Iran, you'll go to heaven. Then you are never wrong. So how do you like, there's no moral upper hand or something. I mean, there's no, yeah, there's no, there's no, there's no anything. There's just the war.

This is just a perpetual thing. to continue. Well, yeah, it's been going to go. It's a war that they declared on us 47 years ago, right? Exactly. And we're going to end it in two to 50 weeks. That number keeps changing as well. I mean, even talking about like, you know, the gas prices and food and all these things being more expensive, then you have their vice president go out and say, well, at least we as Americans are suffering less than other countries. Wait. When did he say that? is that we actually worked with a lot of our allies all over the world who are suffering from this frankly more than we are because unlike the united states where we pursued an energy dominance agenda you've got a lot of people all over the world who have focused on a lot of green energy scams and they're hurting a lot more than we are so as much as we've got we got to focus on on getting these gas prices down the reality is overseas they're they're feeling it far worse than we did because we have we've taken the steps to protect our energy economy. Our allies are suffering more than we are?

Why would we... So why are you finding comfort in anybody... Although, why are you finding comfort in anybody suffering? So we're actually sitting fine. It turns into this sort of hierarchy of least suffering where like, well, we got to do the war for the reasons that we'll make up later and we'll change our mind or whatever.

We got to do this. And so all of the negative consequences turn into like, well, ours is better. We rank lowest on the suffering from the war that we have to do for whatever reason. Vanslow's hierarchy of suffering. And also there's like, you know, as much as these guys want so much

to be like end to like globalism, this is isolate, we're our own thing. Like more than ever before, every generation, we are more linked than we could argue. Like, there's nothing we can do about it. COVID didn't convince them of this. Nothing is going to come. convince them. You can't be making money hand over fist and discovering new markets and going into

different areas and not be globalized. We can't have the World Wide Web and our companies based all over the world and make all that money. As I was speaking, I'm like, I guess that's why they keep saying, like, bring our country and our companies home to America. But still, that's your market is international. The new bolt isn't here and the uranium isn't here. Like for us to have all the stuff, we need the stuff from over there. Processing raw material. I would love everything.

I would love to have an electric car. But until that day, the flow of oil through the Strait of Hormuz, which is a phrase I didn't say a few months ago. And now I say every episode. But now we're all experts. Well, I was always an expert on the straight. Obviously. I just never talked about it. But like even though, and even though as Trump likes to say, well, that's China's oil, we don't really get our oil from there. Yeah, it doesn't matter because if it impacts one area of the world, it impacts the price everywhere, which puts the fertilizer and the food and the transportation, it's all connected. You don't like a bunch of mushrooms.

Like, but it's very obvious as soon as you start like messing it up. It's like the series of pipes that all work perfectly. And then you rip out this pipe over there. And then you're like, oh, look at how this thing all fell apart. It should have been obvious before they ripped it apart. But that wasn't even my pipe. I just bent somebody else's pipe. Yeah. And even with the pipes all doing that thing, we were still like burning the fossil fuels.

And it's not like a perfect working system because it's still exploiting people in the global South, et cetera. We all know this. But it's like a very frustrating that the guy, like there was that quote from Trump or a quote of someone quoting Trump, a senior administration official who said,

I just want to do it. Like, Vance told him, I don't think we should do this. And he said, I just want to do it. And that's all it takes. And if he, I mean, and then he'll just say the next day, I mean, I don't really want to do it, but, you know.

Layla, as you mentioned, you know, the strategy being to cause as much pain and there's economic pain around the world as an offshoot of this. And so that's going to apply pressure. And that is the strategy. I get that. Now our president I guess to undermine that

strategy announces that they're going to lift sanctions on Iranian oil. That's already in transit. Not to say in fairness. That's great. But in fairness.

It's just a mess is the point. And now Russian oil sanctions have been lifted and to speak to the weird amorphous version of this being not saying the whole world is at war, but the whole world is implicated. Russia supporting Ukraine, I mean, fighting Ukraine.

There's the connection with Russia and Iran and China and then us in Ukraine. And that applies pressures on global supplies as well. So it really is. Well, it's a cluster fuck. Add some more tariffs. We'll be fine. Add some more tariffs. That'll do it.

What else has happened this week in regards to? The war. They, I mean, we're just, yeah, we're just sort of like, it's a, uh, potpourri now. Uh, the Pentagon is asking Congress for $200 billion more, uh, for the war that was going to take just a couple of weeks and we're actually the anti-war party and we're the anti-war country, we're the peace party. But, uh, I, that's such a huge fucking number. Um, also earlier today, uh, this is maybe relevant to, uh, you.

that request for $200 billion. Pete Hegseth, the Secretary of War. You're talking about the investing in their people clip? Yeah. Let's watch. From the guy who asked for $200 billion to blow up some more schools. On capabilities, you know, Iran's an energy-rich country could be, should be. Instead, like so many other places driven by radical ideology, they've spent that money

instead of investing in their people. that's why you had millions of Iranians protesting because they felt like their conditioned quality of life didn't match what it could be or should be. And what was the Iranian state? There's a reason we call Iran the number one state sponsor of terrorism because they took the money they make

and they invested in tunnels and they invested in missiles and they invested in launchers and UAVs and we are destroying and degrading that in historic proportions but it doesn't mean they won't still have some and try to hold people at issue which is why we're fighting every single day

to continue to compel. And you mentioned embassies and consulates, unlike previous administrations. Yeah, the problem with Iran is that they don't invest the money in the people. They invest it in missiles. End of sentence. Well, I was going to ask, Layla, what's your reaction to watching that clip? I mean, you know, it's, you guys are putting me in a position of forcing me to agree with Hegstaff, which I don't love.

But this is what I was curious about. Yeah. But I will say I think your point was going to be that the regime or government here is doing the exact same thing. They've taken a chainsaw to the federal government, totally obliterated the Department of Education, cut food assistance and cash aid, as well as all of the foreign aid that we were giving to countries across the global south, which we just talked about how they're now going to see higher food prices to, increasing famine and poverty around the world and in the United States. So again, not to sound like a broken record, but I've always found it a bit ironic how much the left and right like sit and fight and argue about these governments. Like there's two sides and a soccer match that's happening and like you have to root for one over the other. It's always seemed to me, I've looked at it from the lens that the people on top are winning. They're all doing okay.

and it is regular people in all of these countries to very varying degrees, of course, who are the ones who are the losers in this equation. It doesn't matter if you're in the U.S. or if you're in Iran. If you're living in Iran and you have money, you can escape from Tehran, get in your car, drive to your cabin or a hotel or a villa, and go hide out in the woods in the mountains and feel relatively safe and inoculated from what's happening. If you are a taxi driver or a butcher and you have to put food on the table for your kids and you have to get to work through bombs falling on the street, you and your family are in imminent danger and you are at risk of going hungry. You need to put food on the table.

And the same as true in the U.S. It's the regular people who are saying prices of oil go up and all of the assistance and public benefits. And the very minimal safety net that exists in most of the United States disappear and being pulled out. from under them. So I just, not to be like too reductive or to oversimplify things, but I've always felt like these governments have so much more in common than they do. That's different. Specifically, I'm speaking about this administration and the folks who are running it. Oh, yeah. And it's like, you know, it's not a one to one, but like, you know, it is deeply ironic. Even like in the name of their Western chauvinism and Christian fundamentalism

that we've talked about here before. Like it's all... Especially with this administration. But we should all be waking up to the fact that this isn't new that these forces have been around a long time, that it's always been this way,

that there's an illusion of power in the American identity somehow, but both parties are essentially, they're not the same, but neither of them are representing the people or have the people's best interest. And they love for us all to be angry with each other and distracted from the fact that they're going to continue doing

exactly what they're going to do, which benefits them. And, yeah, Pete Higgs is standing up there saying something that, while yes, probably largely very true, you can say the same thing about this country. And, yeah, what's the moral high ground? You know? In the same, you know, same breath you're asking. for $200 billion and like slashing

for missiles and Yeah it's absurd. It's absurd. Right. Well it betrays the fact that this was never really about their whole platform about small government and Doge was never really about savings. It was about getting rid of documentaries about Jewish women in the Holocaust is what it was about. Yes. Very important. Cut the DEI. I do want to credit Layla for we set you up to make our point about the hypocrisy and you did it perfectly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Good job, Layla. You knew exactly what we were getting at. I had to get like, I agree with Heg's stuff out of my mouth first. Just like get out of the way and then you go. Yeah, exactly. Jonathan, is there any veracity to the claim that Steve Whitkoff

has been speaking directly to Iran's foreign minister? I think everyone's telling kind of the truth in this because Axios reported this week that U.S. Middle East envoy Steve Whitkoff had been speaking directly to Iran's foreign minister Abbas Arraghji, and that appears to be true in the sense that Steve Whitkoff has been texting him. And Iran... Right, directly to, not with. Speaking directly to, but not with.

Because Iran was like, yeah, he's texting us and we're ignoring that. We're leaving him on red. But it is very indicative of the weakness of the Trump administration's position, right? now because they would love an off-ramp, and as much as the regime probably doesn't like its oil and gas fields being hit, I think they believe they can outlast us in terms of how much economic pain they are willing to absorb, because the regime is willing to absorb

economic pain amongst its people, whereas it looks very bad for the GOP for the American people to absorb economic pain. And once the American people are paying $10 for a gallon of gas or whatever, they don't get to be in power. Yeah. Trump specifically can't handle that. He can't handle the money problems and he can't handle the polling if it ever really gets to like, oh, actually, MAGA is like actually upset.

And he will, yeah, quickly try to find an out. They're desperate. Yeah. I mean, I think either one is fully plausible because in the past when the U.S. and Iran have had back channel communications, which they were even doing during the Obama years or we saw when Israel killed the commander in Syria, it's common for the U.S. to give the regime an out and let them publicly save face. And this administration has people who have loose lips and tend not to follow like government protocol. So I could see either one being true. It wouldn't surprise me either way. Yeah, they know they can only say, well, gas isn't up for us as much as other places for so long.

Which is a great campaign slogan for them. It's really a winning campaign slogan. Or as Kevin Hassett said. But the fact is that the U.S. economy is fundamentally sound and that if it were to be extended, it wouldn't really disrupt the U.S. economy very much at all. it would hurt consumers and we'd have to think about, you know, if that continued, what we would have to do about that. What?

That's fake. It's a fake quote. Kevin Hassett doesn't have a real job or he does. It's the director of National Economic Council, but I have to look that up every time. I know I ended that sentence at a certain spot. It is funny, though. But it speaks to like, yeah, that's the message. But it is like kind of the message of the message of.

of the entire administration right now, because Trump was asked today about, are you gonna put ground troops in? And he said, no, but I could, but no, but yes, a few times. And then he immediately pivoted to saying, the Dow just hit 50,000 a couple weeks ago. They said it couldn't happen for four years and it wouldn't happen, it was outrageous,

but it hit 50,000, which is an extremely odd thing to say when the Dow is now like 4,600 because of the stuff you did. Think about it. Like it's very weird because they're going to keep trying to make that economic argument. Oh, your 401Ks are doing great. Or they were in early February 2026 end of time. That's when time is.

Or they were, but then Biden came in and ruined it for everybody. And now we got to talk about how gas would be lower if we're for Joe Biden. Okay. We are long overdue to talk about what is happening. in Cuba and now is the time, especially since, well, it's really bad. It's a really bad situation. And the president, as we already talked about is, and not just the president, lots of people are suggesting that Cuba is next. And it does seem to be next. Yeah. Well, Cuba's in the middle of a humanitarian crisis on top of the economic pressure that the United States has put on them for years. Trump threatened to tariff any nation that was supplying oil to the island, which has, made things significantly worse. There have been energy shortages and blackouts. City services like hospitals have been really struggling. And it's a huge ongoing situation. And Trump here and there in

between all the other stuff he's doing is just kind of openly musing about taking Cuba. And one of the administration's demands is that the president Miguel Diazcanel must step down. That's not something leaders of countries tend to do very much. So I would like to play this brief clip just to get a sense of how glib the guy is about it. But I think Cuba's the end. You know, all my life I've been hearing about the United States and Cuba. When will the United States do it? I do believe I'll be the honor of having the honor of taking Cuba.

That'd be good honor. That's a big honor. Taking Cuba. Taking Cuba in some form, yeah. taking you. I mean, whether I free it, take it, I think I could do anything I want with it. You want to know the truth? They're a very weakened nation right now. They were for a long time. Very violent, very violent leaders. The tension between I could take it or I could free it is really, really striking. Those are very, very different things. And the fact that, like, he has both of them kind of swirling together.

And it's one or the other I could do either. It just speaks so much to the darkness within him. I don't know. Just like there's nothing there. He doesn't. Yeah. He just doesn't care. And it's so much about like he said there also, I would have the honor of taking Cuba.

It's all about him being the center of it. And whether I free them or take them for myself. I could do either. And they're interchangeable to him. It's really, really fucked up. It's because this man became president by saying. saying yes to a bunch of different types of people. And what they saw in Donald Trump was like,

this is someone that's outside the system. And like you get him in the right mood. You're the last one in the room with him or whatever. You can get him to do what you want. And there are people, Marco Rubio, who have always been their dream to take Cuba. And this man is so happy. He's so happy.

is the one that he can manipulate into doing it. Hey, people like him. And that's what that clip says to me is like, no, no, no. Because, you know, Marco Rubio says one thing. And maybe Stephen Miller says something else. And so he's weighing his options. But he can. He loves that.

He loves the idea that he can do anything. I want to just stress, I mean, Cuba is a big topic. We have never, ever let them succeed. We have undermined Cuba for decades and decades, especially right now. And, yeah, we own the responsibility, a major part of the responsibility for their failure, for not their failure, but for what's happening there for this. And just this week, their entire energy grid went out to a complete disconnection for over 24 hours and it's sputtering online periodically. we have cut off their oil from Venezuela. We are doing everything we can to cause as much destruction as possible.

Galling, there's a little tidbit about how, although the resorts on the island vested in their own generators and stockpile some amount of oil. And so there's this just disgusting disparity between the rich resort. You can go there and have everything you need and the rest of the country just, that running water, power. I mean, it's just food going rotten. It's a nightmare. And it's, you know, it's just, I mean, it's not about Obama, but like a lot of what he does is weirdly. And, you know, Obama kind of opened up with Cuba a little bit before he left.

And here we are. Similarly, Trump going in and blowing up the Iran nuclear deal and then, you know, give it time and all the sort of stuff, even though, I guess, months ago, there was no capability. It depends on the month, I guess you ask him. And, yeah, they're going to take this. I wonder what they're going to do after. Who's next?

Who's after Cuba? Trump will want to focus on the resort, which is probably what he wants to do. The taking it would involve him building a resort there. And the freeing it would be, you can be free as long as I can build my resort, because he's great weather and someone told him they're not in a hurricane zone

like a few seconds after the clip I played he says they're not in a hurricane zone which is nice for a change you know they won't be asking us for money for hurricanes every week do you need me to say they are in a hurricane zone they just got hit Hurricane Melissa was very bad for Eastern Cuba in November

and we've committed millions of dollars to how like it's sorry like obviously he's a an incurious man who stupid and sucks and is bad um but like he and he doesn't read we know that and he talks about how he doesn't read and we know he doesn't read he likes to look into pictures and stuff he needs his report and his pictures so he's looked at maps like when there've been hurricanes in the united states and so he's seen like the path of hurricanes before and he's seen like it's like I don't know how he could

like think that like was he told this by somebody or is it just like a piece of information that he like no they cut his brain is like oh exercise and get rid of your energy or whatever like my theory is I think he wants to expand

the territories of the United States he wants that like weather and his cap and he couldn't get Greenland and so he was probably going to staff and being like give me a place And so then when they say Cuba, he's like, oh, Puerto Rico is such a pain.

And, you know, somebody told him it'll be easier to manage to just get him to shut up about it. That's my conspiracy. They might have even said like fewer hurricanes. And he heard, oh, yeah, there's no hurricanes. That's perfect. Yeah, he's like, great. That'll be the new territory we lump on.

And he probably likes that it's very close. I'm sure, like, he must have known it's close, right? Because he's from West Palm Beach. He must know it's there. It's right there. so he must be like why isn't that part of here I mean he's already talked about Venezuela

which is significantly farther away is the 51st state whoever gets to be the 51st state it really flips it's closer than Puerto Rico what is he like imagine him being imagine having him as your boss

you have to just like say something to placate him and be like yeah yeah we'll get that place and just keep it moving I'm just that's a really good point that is so much of this by all reports and just observation. People not being able to not even, there's no room to speak up and press pushback.

He's gotten rid of anybody that might say no, anybody that might have a backbone, anybody that has extensive experience, works through different administrations. Nope, get those people out. These shoes that are three sizes too big fit great, sir. I love, I love, I love them. trip. Before we leave today, I think we should give a little update on ice and DHS, especially since we have Lela here.

Yes. Have we solved it? Have we solved what? The ice case and DHS? No, they're still around. Yeah, no. There have been, real quick, we haven't updated this recently. There have been, as of yesterday when I put all this together, 41 confirmed deaths in ICE to since Trump came back into office. The latest one that was publicly revealed was a Afghan immigrant who fled here after working with U.S. forces in Afghanistan for years. No cause of death has been released. Federal immigration officials called him a criminal who had been arrested for fraudulent use of food stamps. Why don't you just pardon him?

You love pardoning people for fraud. Just pardon that guy. But underscoring how we treat people in the countries we invade, even the people that help the United States. This is how we treat them. This is how much we care about human life and freedom. Okay. And by the way, I'm sure I'm not like, I'm sure that number is higher and we will continue to learn. Anyway, I wanted to briefly bring up that the White House revealed what its latest offer was to Democrats to end the partial DHS shutdown. And they say, they were like, look at all these concessions we're making.

and I just wanted to go through those concessions real quick. Expand body cam use and they say they'll keep the footage, which is something that is interesting that you feel you have to say. Limit, quote, limit operations at sensitive locations like schools and hospitals and adhere to current law in terms of allowing congressional oversight at ICE detention centers and not deporting or detaining U.S. citizens. And I just- This is wild.

I wanted to ask you, Lela, what you thought about the fact that they are promoting that they say that they'll adhere to current law. As a concession. Is that how to line up with the word concession? Yeah. I mean, it's wild. It's absolutely wild. And in a lot of ways, I think some of the blame here has to lie on the Democrats because they have completely dropped the ball when it comes to negotiating with this administration on anything. And when you look at what Trump has done, they've effectively moved the goalpost so far over to the extreme radical right ring agenda that any little inch that they're moving back, they're like, oh, look, we did this, we did this.

And the Democrats asks to be fair, we're not even anything noteworthy. They were saying like, okay, we'll come over here. We'll come over here. We're still like way far over here. And I'm using kind of this left and right visual. But what I mean is like, what's constitutional and doesn't violate any human rights laws. That's what I mean by this visual I'm giving here. So let's start with them, like the cameras. Okay, the cameras themselves, some people after George Floyd, you know, thought this was like maybe the big salve, but there has been a real concern from community members that in fact those cameras have lended themselves to the state's surveillance apparatus. So saying that they want to have more cameras is just, you know,

know, furthering like Peter Thiel. Also correct me if I'm wrong, but the cameras oftentimes don't show much. It's like it can be, sometimes that footage can be painted in the wrong way, is my point. Yeah, it doesn't necessarily solve much, but it does expand their ability to surveil what's happening in the streets when they're engaging with community members or protesters. Sensitive locations was something that had been adopted as a position by DHS under Obama. And it was one of the first things the administration, day one on inauguration with an executive order rescinded immediately. So saying that they're going to put it back is like, and the way you read it off, it sounds like it will just be minimal.

I don't know that they would be taking it back to what it used to be. The limit could be anything. Yeah. What does that mean? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

So and when I say sensitive locations, just so the audience knows, we're talking about schools, hospitals, courthouses, like places where we want people to go churches. We want people to go there. So you've heard all those stories in the news last year that were coming out with great frequency, that people were showing up to their courthouse hearings and then getting arrested. So people who are following the rules and getting in line, and I'm using air quotes because there's no real line, but that's a topic for a separate podcast. People who are taking all of those steps were being penalized and thrown into detention and

then deported. So that right there is like a ludicrous give that they're offering up. And then oversight, providing congressional oversight and not deporting U.S. citizens, those are things that should be happening. That should be going with hats. And adhering to current law is isn't the concession? The Democrats should like laugh in their face and cuss them out and be like, no, this is what we demand and ask for something real and tangible. But like Schumers asks have all been these piddly little like not wearing face masks and like making sure they have an ID or a badge on. They're asking for such tepid, weak, lackluster things. And I think what it really does is convey to the public, to immigrant communities. You don't really have a leadership opposition party in Congress that

is fighting for you. Yeah, it's ratcheting to, you know, like all these sort of things. Okay, we're going to send this, we're sending this. We're going to do this. We're going to do this extreme thing. We're not going to adhere to current law. And then you have, you know, if you have Schumer, the Democrats, being like, okay, well, chip away at that, that thing. You started out so far away that any chip away, you're never going to get back to, like, close to where it should be. Which is why I think so many of us are fed up that the Democrat strategy for years, even going back to Obama, was just to play further and further to the right and can see more ground and look where it's gotten us. Whereas they go for broke every single time. They're just like, do it and, you know, apologize later or don't.

they just do it and ask for permission after the fact. Yeah, they don't accept the opposition's narratives and the Democrats can't get enough of accepting the opposite's narrative. And they do like Republicans do pay a political price from time to time in midterms and stuff. But I think there's this sense among Democrats that like, oh, this time they've gone too far and no one's ever going to vote for them again.

But like even this stuff people will forget and then in four or five or six years they'll be like okay well that stuff's over the trump stuff's gone and that economy was good that one time so uh and you have enough democrats sort of like playing along and kind of going along with some of these these elements then it's easy to forget that oh no that stuff was actually bad but you can't frame it like that if you go along with it um we saw i mean I don't know, bring this up, but like we saw it a lot with, like, the protests over Gaza and these college campuses in Columbia and the Democrats sort of playing along with this narrative, oh, my God, all these terror supporters, these college students, we got to, we got to shut this down.

And then now Trump is in office and he's taking that even further. But a lot of Democrats have trouble combating that now because they went along with it earlier. And so they just find themselves in this position where they can't actually fight the thing that they kind of said was good originally. But now that Trump is in charge, it's now a bad thing. You hit the nail on the head, Cody. It's like the liberal side tends to live and exist in the conservative frame. And that's why they're always like boxed in and unable to get out of it rather than wholesale

rejecting that narrative and offering a different story and a different vision. And I just want to say about the ICE deaths and custody, it's really disqualification. It's really disturbing. This has been the deadliest year in ICE detention. People die every single year in detention. This has been the deadliest by a long shot. And we're, you know, early on in the year. Yeah.

That's chilling. It's not even April yet. Yeah. Well, the civil rights office that used to conduct investigations for the executive branch where you could file a complaint was shut down early on last year. Oh, okay. So that's one of the reasons. They love shutting stuff down that we need.

that becomes relevant almost immediately. But we need to dump money to send $200 billion to fight Iran. Layla, thank you so much for being here with us today. You are just so eloquent and smart, and we really appreciate you sharing your personal experiences. Thank you. And we'd love to have you back again whenever it makes sense. Is there anything that you're working on,

that you'd like to promote or yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Folks can find me on substack. I'm happy to drop the link if you want to throw it in the show notes. And I can also offer some resources if folks want to follow like on the ground reporting from Iran, voices of real Iranians, since those are so rare and hard to come by. Absolutely. I would love that.

It's hard to sit through everything to know what to, and I do my best. I'm trying to say who is this person where they But yeah It's chaotic out there So I would love that Thank you everybody Like and subscribe

That helps all the things Have a good weekend We'll be back next week Oh We are live streaming Next week Next week Live stream next week

Next Tuesday Next week Tuesday the 24th 24th at March 6th P.m. Pacific, 9 p.m. Eastern, stay up with us. You people on the East Coast are used to staying up for stuff, football and what have you. Yeah, you got to do. That's this. Yeah. You got to do anyway. Yeah. I mean, East Coast lives in New York, and I know that that city never sleeps. So it shouldn't be a problem. Same time in West Palm Beach. So if, you know, tomorrow law, if you happen to be at a

resort in West Palm Beach and you're looking for something to do, you got the internet. Put it up on the big screen. Find the Wi-Fi. Have them dig through a trunk for. the Wi-Fi. Yeah. But yeah, toss aside the classified files. Seven exclamation point

pound sign four. Thank you for the super trap. Super chat. Trump. Whatever. He'll be there for sure. Okay. Have a good weekend.

We. There we go. Love you very much. Say it. Oh, no. Much.