The Majority Report with Sam Seder - 3597 - Iran Will Decide When This Ends; Justice Democrat in Illinois w/ Juan Cole, Kat Abughazaleh

Episode Date: March 10, 2026

It's News Day Tuesday on The Majority Report   On today's program:   Donald Trump continues to deflect and mislead when asked about the American Tomahawk missile that struck a girls' elementary school in Iran. After a reporter pressed him on why he is the only person in his administration claiming the missile may have come from Iran, the president responded with apparent indifference, saying he "doesn't know enough" about the incident.   Candidate running for Congress in Illinois' 9th District, Kat Abughazaleh joins the program a week out from her primary. Check out her platform here.   Juan Cole, Professor of History at the University of Michigan and founder and editor-in-chief of Informed Comment, joins the program to discuss the wars in the Middle East.   In the Fun Half:   Chuck Schumer is very frustrated with the Trump administration contradicting themselves over the timeline of the War but has expressed no frustrations over the war in general.   Jake Tapper brings on Israeli American 'Journalist' Emily Schrader to explain how happy that Iranians are to be bombed.   Fox News encourages democrats to stop talking about the price of oil because it is carrying water for the Iranian regime.   Zionist "Journalist" Olivia Reingold demands answers from Mayor Mamdani about posts his wife has liked.   all that and more   To connect and organize with your local ICE rapid response team visit ICERRT.com The Congress switchboard number is [phone]. You can use this number to connect with either the U.S. Senate or the House of Representatives. Follow us on TikTok here: https://www.tiktok.com/@majorityreportfm Check us out on Twitch here: https://www.twitch.tv/themajorityreport Find our Rumble stream here: https://rumble.com/user/majorityreport Check out our alt YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/majorityreportlive Gift a Majority Report subscription here: https://fans.fm/majority/gift Subscribe to the AMQuickie newsletter here: https://am-quickie.ghost.io/ Join the Majority Report Discord! https://majoritydiscord.com/ Get all your MR merch at our store: https://shop.majorityreportradio.com/ Get the free Majority Report App!: https://majority.fm/app Go to https://JustCoffee.coop and use coupon code majority to get 10% off your purchase Check out today's sponsors: DELETE ME: Get 20% off your DeleteMe plan when you go to joindeleteme.com/MAJORITY and use promo code MAJORITY at checkout. COZY EARTH: Go to cozyearth.com/MAJORITYREPORT for up to 20% off. NAKED WINES: To get 6 bottles of wine for $39.99, head to NakedWines.com/MAJORITY and use code MAJORITY for both the code AND PASSWORD.  SUNSET LAKE:  Head on over to SunsetLakeCBD.com and use coupon code "Left Is Best" (all one word) for 20% off of your entire order. Follow the Majority Report crew on Twitter: @SamSeder @EmmaVigeland @MattLech On Instagram: @MrBryanVokey Check out Matt's show, Left Reckoning, on YouTube, and subscribe on Patreon! https://www.patreon.com/leftreckoning Check out Matt Binder's YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/mattbinder Subscribe to Brandon's show The Discourse on Patreon! https://www.patreon.com/ExpandTheDiscourse Check out Ava Raiza's music here! https://avaraiza.bandcamp.com

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Now time for the show. It is Tuesday, March 10th, 2006. My name is Sam Cedar. This is the five-time award-winning majority report. We are broadcasting live steps from the industrially ravaged Gowanus Canal in the heartland of America,

downtown Brooklyn, USA. On the program today, Kat, Abogazela, running for, Illinois's ninth congressional district in the Democratic primary, which is happening in a week? Is it March 17th? I believe so, yeah. Also joining us, Professor Juan Cole, Professor of History at the University of Michigan, founder and editor-chief of informed comment, author of multiple books.

Middle East expert will be talking about the Iran War. Speaking of the Iran war, Trump increasingly incoherent as his advisors beg him to end the war, or at the very least, assuage the markets. Meanwhile, five Democrats go around Chuck Schumer and threaten to shut down the Senate over war hearings. First two days of Iran war cost at least $5.6 billion just in the bombs alone. Doge.

Trump delaying a Texas Senate race endorsement to leverage a Senate vote on the Save Act. He really, really wants to make it harder to vote because he thinks that's going to help him in the midterm. I don't think so. Speaking of midterms or elections,

there's a special election in deep red Georgia today to replace Marjorie Taylor Green. There are 14 candidates. There's no primary. Three of them are Democrats. It was a plus 28 Trump district, but who knows? Meanwhile,

Mike Johnson facing an even narrower margin as a California representative, Kevin Kylie, now claims he's an independent. He's seen the light. We rarely, rarely get that in reverse. What's that?

Republicans going independent. Oh, well, he's a little nervous about his seat. Oh, yeah. States asked judge to continue their monopoly claims versus live nation after Trump lets them off the hook. I'm sure they didn't pay for that pardon. DOJZ Martin facing ethics charges and Pete Hankseth spending millions of dollars on lobster tails. All this and more.

on today's majority report. Welcome, ladies and gentlemen. Thanks so much for joining us. It is. Newsday, Tuesday. Newsday, Tuesday. Yeah. And we have...

The lobster tail thing. They really think they're in Mad Men and they don't understand that that is supposed to be a critique of that behavior. Yes. No. I mean, look, Hegsith realizes he is already gone further than he was ever destined to go. I know. And I'm happy to be here. Energy just oozes off of him anytime he's in front of a camera.

He's playing with the house money now. That's his attitude. It doesn't matter. And he gets to cash in at some defense contractor on a board seat where he'll show up four times a year. Maybe unless he's had a rough night the night before and get paid a million dollars for something. If you're at a hotel with him. Folks are asking me, I think, I think I mentioned this yesterday in the program.

Mike Lawler, Staffer says, Sam, were you supposed to debate Olivia Rheingold last night? She posted a video on this morning talking about how she was supposed to. We will play that video. I was supposed to be on CNN last night, but I got bumped because Donald Trump and his war. It was a very ridiculous segment about tweets. No, no, no, Instagram likes that Mom Donnie's wife had made prior to him being mayor.

For the most part, I had no problem. I mean, like I would subscribe to, I think like 90%, I don't, 95%, 98%, just like without even any debate. I'm not on Instagram. I don't know how to exactly work it. So it's not a one-to-one comparison. But the idea that this was going to be a cable news segment was even more sort of like prioritizing it in the midst of, and I mean, let alone the fact that Zoron was just the victim of an attempted attack by a bomb that was lobbed at Gracie Mansion. It's unclear if he was the attempted victim.

It's unclear. Okay. Well, there were Islamophobic protests outside that were the impetus for said bombs. So either way. Not seeing the show. refresh. But of course, you wouldn't know to do that because technical troubles abound. But let's get to this. Donald Trump and the, you know, I think the biggest story is not that I got bumped from CNN last night. Donald Trump went on the television program yesterday, or I should say,

to start to give updates on the Iran war. He seemed to have gone to like two different places yesterday. But the bottom line is he was floating towards the end of the day that he felt like the Iran war

was done. Now, I'm quite convinced that he's trying to figure a way out of it. We had talked about this yesterday. I think we had even played the I can't remember his spokesperson's name now. Levitt.

Leavitt. Caroline Levitt. saying, well, Donald Trump will decide when they have unconditionally surrendered, regardless of what they say. He decides whether it's an unconditional surrender, which suggested to us that this is a guy looking for an exit ramp and certainly is getting a lot more pressure as the price of oil goes. I don't know what they thought was going to happen. We'll talk to Professor Wong Cole about this.

But it was at $120 a barrel to start Monday. And then when Trump goes on and filibusters about how he wants to end the war, he says at least, although their actions don't seem to match that rhetoric, then it fell to $90. So the question is, is how much is this psychopath just going out there and trying to manipulate the market to make himself look better and still engaging in these bloodthirsty war crimes whenever he wants to the next morning? I mean, my guess is that they want to get out. They realize this is going to be a problem. and they're trying to figure out how to get out of this situation because, and we'll talk more about this with Professor Cole, it's unclear that Iran at this point thinks it's in their best interest to disengage because, but we'll, you know, like I say, we will talk to Juan Cole about that. But here is Donald Trump. And this is fascinating. First off, note that his energy was incredibly low during this.

But aside from that, he sort of gives up the ghost pretty quick, but let's play this first time he's asked this question. It's in regards to the bombing of a school, elementary school in Tehran, where at least 100 school children were killed and approximately 175 people in total were killed by the United States. And here's Donald Trump trying to dance around that for a moment. This number, yeah. Go ahead. Please.

Go ahead. There's a footage that showed an American missile strike and a Tomahawk missile likely destroyed that Iranian girl school. So will the Americans, will the U.S. accept any responsibility? Well, I haven't seen it. And I will say that the Tomahawk, which is one of the most powerful weapons around, is used by, you know, is sold and used by other countries, you know that. And whether it's Iran, who also has some tomahawks, they wish they had more.

But whether it's Iran or somebody else, the fact that a tomahawk, a tomahawk is very generic, it's sold to other countries. But that's being investigated right now. Yeah, all the, other countries have tomahawks or other countries bombing Iran. But, you know, it is very in keeping with Trump to admire the power. of the weapon used to inflict pain and harm and death upon little girls seems to be something that he really enjoys. Iran doesn't have Tomahawks.

Right. They do not have Tomahawk missiles unless we have been secretly selling them to Iran. But the point being that it's obviously conceivable that we have sold Tomahawks to other countries. But for instance, like Australia or United, you know, Britain, Japan and Netherlands, I believe, or other. But none of these people are engaged in a bombing campaign against Iran. And what if they were just generics, like when you get the CVS brand of your band-aids? We do a lot of white label, Tomahawks. So they become other types of...

I could barely muster a joke about it. Jared, who are you selling those to you? Slingshots. Some people market them as slingshots. We call them tomahawks. Catapults. Some people sell them as catapults. A reporter decided to do a follow-up question

and note that the reporter was a white male. So the question gets answered. But credit, credit. Credit, credit here. This is guys from the New York Times, Sean McCreech. And this is perhaps, besides Caitlin Collins, like the only good question I've seen, like, posed to Donald Trump in recent weeks and months. Yeah. You just suggested that Iran somehow got its hands on a Tomahawk and bombed its own elementary school on the first day of the war. But you're the only person in your government saying this. Even your defense secretary wouldn't say that when he was asked standing over your shoulder on your plane on Saturday. Why are you the only person? in saying this because I just don't know enough about it I think it's something that I was told is under investigation but Tomahawks are are used by others as you know numerous other nations have tomahawks they buy them from us but I will certainly whatever the report shows I'm willing to

live with that report I get you are you know the there's nobody as the reporter asked no Republicans it seems like not even his own sec uh here This is John Kennedy, Republican in Louisiana. This was his quote. It was terrible. We made a mistake. Other countries do that sort of thing intentionally, like Russia. Interesting.

We would never do that intentionally. I think the department is investigating it now, and I'm sorry. I'm just so sorry it happened. It was a mistake. Spare me your pearl clutching, Kennedy, as you vote to send endless arms to Israel, because that would be the more prescient example here. And like, we civilized folk are above this kind of.

thing. No, no, no, no, we just outsource it to Israel and subcontract our child killing out to them. This time, this time this was us, we just did it more directly because the president got his rocks off about killing and hurting little girls again. Seems to be a theme. I don't know anything about it, but to the extent that I do, I'll blame other people. I don't know. It's obvious on day one, what had happened. And just the idea that it gets strung out this long is in and of itself a victory for them because it is meant to essentially amateurize the horrors that we've created. When we look at Israel, they're doing the same thing too with Israel now, where Israel supposedly was the ones who blew up these refinery and depots

outside of Tehran that have essentially doomed millions of people to the, you know, the potential for new cancers and diseases as petroleum rain rains down upon them. And they blame Israel. But I just just quickly, one more point. Without prosecuting the Bush war criminals, this is what we've enabled. That really, this is what we've brought. All right. We've got to take a, in a moment, we'll be talking to Kat Abugzella and Professor Juan Cole.

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We are back. Sam Cedar, Emma Viglin. On the majority report, it is a pleasure to welcome to the program, Kat Abugzela, running for Illinois's ninth congressional district in a primary cat that has How many Democratic candidates vying for this? 16.

Wow. I love the laughing in the background. No, that's insane. Why so many candidates? Do you have an idea? I mean, I love it. It's a competitive primary. I was the first one to launch

and the only one to launch before the incumbent announced to retirement. And I actually said, because there hasn't been a competitive primary in this district since before I was born, I was like, hey, if anyone wants to run, I will help you file the FEC paperwork. No one in this race took me up on it, but I am very glad that we have a competitive primary. And right now there are three highest polling candidates.

I am in a close second single digits from first. And of those three, I'm the only one that hasn't met with or submitted a position paper to APAC, which I thought was a low bar, but apparently not. Okay. Well, that is, that's impressive that there, I mean, it's impressive to me that there are, are candidates, Democratic primary candidates who are sort of like openly courting APEC? That seems nuts to me at this stage. Yeah, it really is. And the one who is backed by APEC, they just release their second attack out against me. And it's just as dumb as the first one.

But the other candidate who is now speaking out against AAC, which great, that's awesome, claims that he met with them because he meets with everyone. even people he disagrees with. And personally, I don't think APAC is someone you should meet with, even if it is a differing position. Genocide and manipulating elections isn't a differing position. That is where I draw the line at least. Well, you're relying on small dollar donations, right? That's your campaign is based on that.

Yep. We are the only campaign in this race to be funded by majority small dollar donations. Which is interesting because, you know, you see how some of these candidates, it's almost like, once they get the APAC tag, they become so politically toxic that they can't fundraise in another way. So then they become more reliant on APAC. We're seeing this with Haley Stevens in Michigan. But I'd imagine that that's something that's happening in your race as well. Definitely.

And it's kind of crazy because there are, I think there are people across the country that are, you know, nice people. Maybe did good work before taking APAC support. but A-PAC knows it's toxic, which is why it operates now with dark money packs. And it's made these candidates toxic as well. If they don't win, then that's always going to be a stain on their career. How did they run ads against you? What were the nature of the ads? Because we know that they're running, you know, in New Jersey 11, for example,

they funded an ad campaign hitting Tom, gosh, what was the name of the camp, Malinowski from the left. and it ended up benefiting the actual left-wing candidate in the race. Yeah, so they've attacked, they started attacking the person that's currently in first, two single digits between us, doing similarly to what happened in New Jersey 11, attacking him for not being pro-Israel enough despite saying that he'd fund the Iron Dome, that he supports anti-BDS legislation at the federal level. And then I think in the past couple weeks, they've realized,

oh shit, I'm going to win this thing. So they first released an ad that was AI generated that quoted my high school newspaper twice. And the whole idea was who is Kat Abu Ghazale? And the new ad that they released, which they released in the same text thread as their other dark money pack because Apex getting sloppy is about how I'm a fake that takes money from Saudi arms dealers and billionaires and Republicans, which. As far as the last two, quite an allegation for APEC to make, also wrong. Yes. Let's get to endorsements. I mean, we're at the stage of the election.

You're a week out from the election. You earn the top three essentially in all the polling that exists at this point. And A, is there any sense that there's going to be a coalescent? there are other progressive candidates in this race. Is there going to be a coalescing from your perspective? Because this is an opportunity to get a seat and sort of move that seat to the left for lack of better way of expressing this versus two people who are out there trying to, you know, court A-PAC in some fashion.

What's your sense about that? Do you have an opinion on that or what? Yeah, so we're really lucky that we have multiple progressives in our race, but we don't have ranked choice voting here. We don't even have a runoff, so someone could win this race with 20%. And that means that essentially there are three candidates, the ones that we've been talking about, that are the most viable. Of course, I don't know what's going to happen.

I don't think any vote is wasted. I always encourage people to vote for the candidate that they most support. But no, I don't think any coalescing will happen. I'll say on my side for organizations, like that I've been endorsed by in my application. I did commit to dropping out if it seemed like we didn't have a likely path to victory, but I think that everyone has the right to run for office, especially if they've fulfilled all the requirements.

I mean, you go out there, you get those signatures, you're on the ballot. Well, let's talk a little bit about those endorsements. You got quite a few of them from sort of progressive organizations. Tell us about a couple of them. Yeah, so I've been endorsed by Justice Democrats. That one was pretty recently, as well as PALPAC, which is the Peace Accountability and Leadership PAC in response to APAC. I was one of, I believe, their first non-income endorsement, which is really exciting. I've been endorsed by Congressman Roqana by, if not now Chicago, by the Sunrise Movement, both Chicago and National. The Nurses Union here, the Justice Coalition, state representative Abdel Nassah Rashid, A lot of people, this race has so many folks in it and it's gotten so messy that there's kind of this sense of I don't want to touch that race with a 10-foot pole. But we're very proud of the coalition that we have built, especially as a grassroots campaign. Well, I read on your site that your district is one of the more Jewish districts in the country, which I hadn't realized.

I think there is this false notion from the national press. we saw this in Zoran Mamdani's race that in some way criticizing Israel's genocide is a liability with Jewish voters. What have you found in your kind of stance on this and how the people in your district or potential district have responded? Yeah, that's absolutely not the case. You know, despite everything about how I look, I'm Palestinian-American. I have been advocating against this genocide for years. I've been advocating for Palestinian statehood, essentially my entire life. And I remember when I launched my campaign, people saying that there is no way anyone would ever vote for me because there is such a large Jewish population here. In fact, Skokie,

which is in the district, had the largest proportion of Holocaust survivors outside of Israel after the Holocaust. And I personally find that idea of they would never vote for a Palestinian so offensive, especially when Jewish people have consistently been the greatest allies in fighting for Palestinian and liberation. Our lives and our futures are inextricable from each other. And the idea that just because you are Jewish, you have to support the actions of the state of Israel or that they're one and the same is so offensive. And most people don't support what is happening in Gaza or the West Bank. Give us a sense of like, in the event that you do win, and we should say this is a very blue district, the winner of the Democratic primary is going to end up being the Congress person.

person from this district. Where do you see yourself concentrating? I mean, members enter into Congress. They're a committee assignments that they're looking for because they want to focus on a specific issue area. What would be yours? So I'm a researcher and journalist who covers the far right. I worked for Media Matters, Mother Jones, the Tao News. And part of why I ran is because I was like, well, they're going to do something. Democrats are going to do something after Trump is reelected. And then they didn't. So first off, it's about stalling this president's agenda, however possible, working towards impeachment, conviction, and removal, the abolition and prosecution of ICE. And truly stalling this agenda, however we can, we have to be more creative, whether it's in exploiting parliamentary procedure or using our resources in a different way.

Like our campaign uses our office as a mutual aid hub. the Democratic Party is a massive donor base and we could be fulfilling people's material needs right now and also showing through our actions, our values, especially when people are so disillusioned in politics rather than just making a bunch of promises and talking like Gavin Newsom. Also from March 18th till Election Day in November,

like you said, this is a very Democratic district. And so if we're able to win this, we're going to be using our resources and our platform to get progressives elected nationwide. Lastly, I know that there's a, DSA endorsed candidate in your race. But as you're saying, your polling kind of puts you in the position where of the lefty candidates, you're the one most likely to pull this off.

What is your position on DSA despite not getting that endorsement? And do you feel that you could kind of embrace certain, at least, tactics from DSA or have alignment on policies with DSA going forward? Yeah. First off, I am a dues-paying member of DSA. I have been for my entire adult life. I should say that there are actually, I don't believe there is a DSA endorsed candidate in my race. There was a recommended candidate for a-

Yeah, for a chapter that was in the farther suburbs, which still fantastic for that candidate. We did not pursue the DSA endorsement because I believe that was happening around our indictment. Things have been crazy over here. But I am a Democratic socialist. I'm a dues paying DSA member, and I have been for my entire. adult life. We should say the indictment was not on, was one in which I think you could take some pride in. Oh, yeah, yeah. Actually, the last time I was supposed to come on here was after my arraignment. Yes. And then, yeah, I, that was a little crazy. So I've been indicted for

protesting ICE. My trial is May 26th. If anyone is free, it'll be really, really stupid. But yeah, I mean, there's a reason this administration is coming after me and why I and some of the most effective critics of this administration have been indicted. And it's because everyone I used to report on and win against Stephen Miller, Elon Musk, Tom Holman, they run our country now. They know me, and they don't want me in power. I want to ask us, I have watched the breaking points interview you did with Crystal Ball and Ryan Grimm regarding a leaked email that from an advisor to you who has since left the campaign regarding, characterizing you as an interventionist to the extent that we know what that means.

I'm not sure. But, and also regarding your perspective on Taiwan, I would encourage people if they're really invested in this to go into that interview because it was about as in depth of a candidate an interview I've seen on a very specific topic. But broadly speaking, just give us the broader answer for that, for those people who may be afraid that you are going to lead a massive campaign in the House to not just to perhaps get into a war with China. Yeah. No, I mean, look, war with any country and especially China is the last thing that I want. When I talk about dropping strategic ambiguity specifically militarily, it's because we have a madman as the president. And if we have

a president who is even somewhat predictable as pretty much all of them since Nixon in one way or another have been, I wouldn't dream of touching it. But I also firmly believe in self-determination. And if people disagree with me on this, that is fine. But this is, especially as a Palestinian person, extremely important to me. It's why I also don't believe in touching the one China policy politically. If the people of Taiwan democratically vote for reunification, we should absolutely support that. This stance that I have is not for China as a boogeyman or for control of Taiwan. This is specifically because of self-determination. Once again, if you disagree with that, that is your stance. But that's important to me. And this is an act for deterrence. We need to be

investing in diplomacy. And we also need to be looking at China as a trade and innovation partner. But that's not possible with Republicans where they are now. And it's also not possible when any country is doing imperialism that includes the United States, but it also includes Israel, it includes China. It includes Russia. Imperialism and wars of aggression are bad. And I feel very strongly about that. Got a week left, literally a week before the voting starts, or I should say, is there early voting in this district?

There is early voting. And we also have same day voter registration. here. So you can take your ID and a piece of mail that confirms your address on there and go to the polls. They will register you. They will give you a ballot. A lot of cases you don't even have to do a provisional ballot. So your ballot can be counted right then. Election Day is March 17th. If you want to know more, if you live in the area, this district goes from uptown, Chicago, up to Evanston, West Descoki, and then all the way to Algonquin and Crystal Lake, it's gerrymandered to hell. You go to catforilinois.com slash vote. If you live in Illinois, please sign up for one of our reach trainings, which is an app

that essentially cross-referferferferferferferferance, you know, to let them know to vote if they're in the area. You can do that at catforilinois.com slash events or sign up for phone banking or door knocking. And then finally, we need people to donate so we can keep up with the APAC ads that they've been blasting across platforms. If you can donate any amount at catforillinois.com, that would be fantastic with over 60,000 donors. Our average donation is still just $32. I'm looking at the polling

here. There's a public policy polling from February 20th. There's an impact research from earlier in the month of February. You are in second place with essentially the same in both those polls. The guy who is

leading BIS has dropped. and essentially like this is this is the this is the race there's um and so if folks want to get a progressive in there that's been endorsed by justice democrats the sunrise movement uh the teachers union etc nurses nurses sorry nurses union this is an opportunity seven days to go i imagine you know, people knocking on doors is going to be hugely important in a race where you have so many candidates who are running. So many.

And we could use any help we can. And like, here's the thing. We are going to help elect progressives all across the country. And all of those polls, polls no matter what, I mean, no one knows what's going to happen in this race because there are so many variables, mainly that we are targeting everyone, not just likely primary voters which skew older, whiter, affluent. We have a lot of young people in our coalition, a lot of immigrants, a lot of poor people. I'm a renter myself. Our own polling was the only one to include categories for renting. We need everyone and we can win this thing. And I just got to say,

I didn't know that you were doing the live streams in place of calling hours for donations. We have an I am about that from Sean from PA saying it's a really good idea. Just something to, I think for other candidates to note as like the people are trying to adapt to the digital age, that that could be a really interesting way to get people engaged. And everyone hates called that. No one's picking up their phone when they see a number that does not come up as a contact. Right. And it sucks to constantly call rich people and beg for money, which is what every candidate in the history of America has had to do.

So we play Hades too instead. Cape Abexella, we will put a link to a cat. at cat for what is it cat for Illinois.com F-Linois.com. Illinois.com. All right. We'll put a link up there. Good luck. Thank you so much, guys.

Great to see you. Thanks so much, Matt. Thanks for joining us. Good luck. All right, folks. We're going to take a quick break. When we come back, we're going to be talking to Professor Juan Cole, Professor of History at University of Michigan, founder and editor-in-chief of informed

comment. We'll be right back after this. We are back. Sam Cedar. Emma Vigland on the Majority Report, it's a real pleasure to welcome back to the program. Professor Juan Cole, Professor of History in Middle East Studies at University of Michigan, founder and editor in chief of informed comment at informed comment.com. Professor, welcome back to the show.

Thanks so much for having me, Sam. It's great to see you. So give us a sense. I mean, what I really want to get to is, you know, sort of like what's going on in within Iran on some level because I have to say, I mean, you and I had dozens of conversations about the Iraq war over the years, you know, starting, you know, over 20 years ago now. And there was a massive buildup. There was, you know, like a wind up, I should say, to the war. there were multiple countries involved across the globe. There was granted embedded reporters in Iraq. So, and there was occasionally independent reporters.

We're just not getting like the same level of information. I guess CNN has folks in Tehran, but we're not getting information outside of Israel. It's unclear. It seems much harder to access what's going on. Big time. I think, you know, I can remember, Sam, when we first started talking, there were these alarmist reports that all of our media was controlled by eight corporations. Yes. I think we're, we may be going towards one.

And we've become more and more of an oligarchy, both with regard to, socioeconomic affairs, but also with regard to media. And so the major, even when we started talking, Facebook didn't yet exist, and Twitter now has become X. They have algorithms that suppress things that they don't like. And they suppress news. They suppress controversial postings. So the media landscape is very murky. And, you know, back in Iraq war days, I could go on the internet and look at locally Iraqi newspapers from towns in Iraq. I find it difficult to do that in Iran because they're also highly controlled.

And so it is a very different situation, but I think it's because our politics have shifted so heavily towards oligarchy. That's fascinating. And I was hoping that you would still have actually. access to those things, frankly. Well, but I wanted to mention this because we were right on the topic here. We had meant to ask you about this, how the satellite company planet is essentially delaying its imagery out of the Middle East by 14 days. This is a stark change in, I sent this in our chat. This is a stark change from how they'd approach the war in Ukraine, where that satellite imagery was more readily available.

I'm wondering what you take from this announcement because this also comes as the Israelis are heavily censoring information about the efficacy of Iranian strikes within Israel. Well, I don't know the details of that satellite delay, but it certainly makes things murkier and probably deliberately so. You know, Israel is not actually a democracy and has very heavy military censorship. Sometimes newspapers appear with blanks in the front page because the military censors didn't let the news through. So we don't know, I don't think, very much about what's actually going on on the ground in Israel. There are a few people like Lori Goldman have tweeted out when they're very heavily hit. But you would be arrested if you showed up with your iPhone trying to take a picture of the damage in the aftermath of an Iranian strike in Israel. So we don't know very much about that front.

Lebanon we know more about because the Lebanese are natural anarchists and they are sending out reports. and Iran itself, of course, is an autocratic government, and we don't know everything that's happening there. So it's very murky. But, I mean, I think, Emma, to your point, the overall picture of what's going on is not so hard to discern. The United States and Israel bombing the bejesis out of Iran, they are attempting to afflict into attrition on Iranian drone and missile launchers in order to make the country helpless. And they haven't succeeded.

And moreover, Iran has figured out, it may be a kind of self-defeating strategy, but also an effective one of not only hitting at Israel or at US bases, but have, interfering with the commerce in petroleum and gas that comes out of the Persian Gulf, which could throw the whole world into a deep recession. All right.

I want to get to that. Let's start, let's sort of like a tick down this. Let's assume that, you know, sort of it is the case. I mean, we can see images. Obviously, we've seen images of like the petroleum rain. I don't know how else to describe it, which, you know, God. knows the impact it's going to have on those 10 million people living in Tehran. I mean, you know, just in terms of like cancers down the road and whatnot.

But based upon your understanding of Iran, how effective, like, and it seems almost impossible to to glean what the Trump administration's goals are here. Israel, it seems a little bit more possible that they're looking for some type of like Balkanization or internal strife in Iran, which would theoretically preoccupy them for who knows how long. What are the chances of that? I mean, explain to us the difference between like the efficacy of the Iranian revolution in terms of creating a stable, low-to-the-ground regime, as opposed to what we would see in perhaps

Latin American countries where you have like sort of strong men come in and fall in military coups? Yeah, Iran experienced a revolution in 1978, 79, which social scientists find that's extremely important for the subsequent unfoldment. of politics. It was a mass revolution. And in the aftermath, they established a parliament which has representatives from all over the country, and in parliament, they fight for their districts. So there's been enormous spread of education, rural schools, electrification, women's literacy has more than doubled. The whole country's literacy is quite high now. It is a mobilized population.

And for all the discontents with this government, it's not like a one-man dictatorship. There are regime supporters who form popular militias on the streets of all the cities in the country. And, you know, there's a lot of internal spying and so forth. But there's also an ability to mobilize people. There are layers to this thing. So, you know, the Israelis think in ethnic terms, and they hope to break Iran up ethnically, as they hoped to break Iraq up ethnically.

But, you know, 90% of the country is Shiite. And it's a little unlikely that appealing to these small Sunni ethnicities like the Kurds or the Baluch is going to do more than, you know, cause some local turbulence of a minor sort. And doing that also brings in the neighbors because Turkey is not going to be happy with a Kurdish resurgence in Iran. And Pakistan is petrified of the Baloch rising up because they'll rise up on both sides of the borders. So all you're doing is giving Iran allies if you take that tack. I just want to just follow up on this one more question.

We should say that the regime is obviously very brutal. I mean, they've just killed anywhere from like, I don't know, it seems four to 10,000 people in those most recent protests. But what, do you, do we have a sense of how many people are finding, are, have bought into the sort of like the theocratic revolution? that took place there? Opinion polling, such as it is, because it's difficult to do in an autocratic state, suggests that the regime's hardcore supporters are as few as 15%. People are not generally enthusiastic about this government, and we saw in mid-January masses of people in the streets.

It looked like it was going towards a 1978-style revolution. And as you say, it was viciously repressed with very high casualties. They shot into crowds. But now, you know, things have changed all around because if you, you can't come into the streets if you're afraid of being bombed. And the steam has been taken out of that movement. And moreover, then your neighbors will look at you and say, what are you on the side of the Israelis? And so I think, you know, this is really and Trump intervention in Iran has squelched what was becoming a movement. And quite unfortunately so.

It probably has strengthened the regime. I want to just go back to what you were saying about Turkey because Turkey is a NATO member and Israel has been threatening them openly. And then you also have, of course, the relationships with the GRCC countries in the United States that are, you know, financial in nature, perhaps less inextricable than our relationship with Israel, obviously. But Trump's financial involvement in the GRCC countries, I think, is also important here because it appears like Iran's strategy is directed towards perhaps targeting them because they know that. that they'll have more, it's more banged for their buck with drone attacks on GRCC countries than lobbing missiles into the Iron Dome that are most likely going to get intercepted. So could you expand on both Iran's relationship with Turkey and then also the other Gulf countries and how that changes the dynamic here?

Turkey, as you say, is a NATO member. And they have used their levers in NATO to marginalize Israel. So because of the Gaza war, NATO is not conducting joint military exercises with Israel any longer on the grounds that Israel has violated the laws of war and is not a suitable partner. And the Israelis are furious about Turkey's access to the inner workings of Brussels and the way it can marginalize them. And they would very much like to take Turkey down a peg. I think it's very difficult for them to do that because,

NATO has Article 5. An attack on one is an attack on all. If the Israelis attack Turkey, I think it will bring in at least some of Europe against Israel. So, you know, the Israelis talk big. You know, the cabinet members, not marginal people, people with real power. They'll talk about, oh, you know, eventually we may take Damascus. Or we have to take Turkey down a peg.

And Turkey is a huge country compared to Israel. There's seven million Jews in Israel. They're nearly 90 million Turks. And they have an excellent military high-powered weapons and jets. And the only thing they don't have is a nuclear weapon, but then they have an American nuclear umbrella. So I wouldn't pay too much attention to what the Israelis say about Turkey. It's just its threats.

And the same thing can be said about Erdogan's. empty threats against Israel from Turkey's side. But with regard to the Gulf countries, I said, I mixed up IRTC and I meant to say GCC, the Gulf countries, just clarifying that. Yes, yes. The Gulf Cooperation Council. Yeah, you know, the Gulf Cooperation Council is the Arab oil monarchies. They're largely, though they're Sunni. And they have given the United States, its bases to protect themselves. Iran has been hitting those bases, and in particular it has been hitting radar and communications technology. They've been able to take out. I'm an army brat, so I take no pleasure in saying this. I hope our guys are safe, but the Iranians have hit

very expensive hundreds of millions of dollars worth of radar and other communications technology on these bases in places like Kuwait in order to prevent the Americans from protecting Israel from Iranian missiles and drones. And they've been very effective at it. They have also hit hotels and airports and oil facilities and back. Bahrain and so forth. So it hasn't only been a matter of targeting the Americans the way the Iranians portray it. They've also tried to inflict some damage on civil society and the Gulf countries.

But the main thing they've done is that the Gulf Arab states live on oil and gas. I mean, 20% of the world's supply of oil and 20% of liquefied natural gas comes out of the Gulf. I don't, people don't, in America, don't seem to understand how vulnerable we all are to this. It has been cut off effectively. Qatar, they don't have a place to store all this stuff. So if they can't export it, they have to stop exporting it. So the Gulf countries have been drawn into this by Iran as a way of punishing the United States. And it's going to work that we will be punished.

Yeah. I mean, let's talk about this. I mean, from what I've read, we're already two months out. If it were was to stop today, it would take at least two months for this to work its way through the system. To, like you say, you've got, if you can't export the oil, certainly can't store it in many of these facilities. You can store it to a certain extent, but also this becomes a vulnerability, I would imagine, at one point. And so how much aside from like what this country and perhaps the world is going to suffer from an economic standpoint, which is just going to increase, both in terms of fuel and in terms of food, because a key, a couple of key elements of fertilizer is produced in this region. What's going to happen, like let's say this was to end tomorrow.

and certainly it feels like Trump sort of is starting to realize like I may have gone in over my head here and there may be more problems than I thought this was going to be. But be that as it may. If it was to stop tomorrow, what is your sense of like how these GCC countries are they going to say, you know what? maybe we shouldn't have these U.S. bases here. Like this, if the idea is that we were going to get protected, I mean, I think, you know, like at one point their protection came from their own people. But it seems like they've sort of like figured that out. Like we're just going to have to disperse enough of the benefits to everybody so that as a regime we're secure.

Then it became we're being protected from Iran. They clearly have basically marked themselves as a target. because of this. So what happens, are we going to see as much like, I don't know, the UAE having comedy shows or whatever, like,

are we going to see a disinvestment? Well, Dubai, I think, is what you're referring to with the comedy shows and the nice hotels and the, I've been to buy, it's a wonderful place and I really regret the damage being inflicted on it. But it's been economically, It's a finance hub, and it depends on expat labor. It depends on an illusion of security.

And I don't know. This is a heavy blow to it. I mean, it has had heavy blows before the 2008 meltdown hurt it. But how it comes back from this is not clear to me. And so there may be permanent damage to the Gulf over this. I don't know what they're going to do about security going forward. There are two things to say. First of all, Iran is not going to relent until it gets a reset on its security. It's not going to put up with, it's not Gaza. The Israelis have this cynical phrase they talk about mowing the grass. They used to bomb Gaza every once in a while. Iran is not going to put up with that. They're a big, country and not a poor one and they have capabilities which they're demonstrating.

So they want to fight this to a point where everybody understands, you mess with us and you can't drive your car. You mess with us and you can't get in your car and go shopping for groceries. You can't go in your car and go visit your aunt. You mess with us and your way of life is over. They want that message to get through. So they're not going to stand down until they get an understanding of that sort. And the Gulf, as you say, has put all of its eggs in the American basket.

Some other countries have not, like Djibouti, the small port on the Red Sea. They gave the Chinese a base, along with the British and the Americans. And you may see something like that, that they may diversify. their security arrangements. This whole thing could be an enormous boondoggle for the United States and a big boon for China. Well, I mean, the fact that China already brokered these talks between the Iranians and the Saudis a few years back is really important to note here. The other part is how this benefits, I think, both Russia and China, because now you have

these Asian countries that are going to be desperate for energy. for oil. They can go to Putin and he can charge them an inflated price. And on the China front, this gives them a partner in like the global, a global hegemon potentially, or superpower, that is going to, you know, perhaps say, we'll have your back in the way the Americans don't. They're just all in bed with the Israelis. Oh, I guarantee you that at embassies in the goal, both the Russians and the Chinese are telling the people that the Americans are fickle and they're not really supporting you and they got you in all this trouble. You should come with us now.

And I mean, I heard a Russian diplomats say these things to the countries nearly a decade ago, already then. But it fell on deaf ears at that point. That's right, Emma. The other thing to say, though, is that China has been diversifying, its energy. So 53% of new automobile sales in China last year were electric. And the energy analysts suspect that China has reached peak oil, that every year from here on end it will use less. And this coming oil shock, because we haven't seen the real shock yet, the coming oil shock,

is a good argument for them to accelerate that process. They've got a program of buying up clunkers the way Obama did here. So they're trying to get the heavy gasoline using vehicles off the streets. And they've reduced their subsidies for the electric vehicles because it was costing the government a lot of money. But they may put them back or there may be other kinds of incentives. but I expect the Chinese to go even more heavily towards electrification of transport. Most oil is used for transport. So if China goes in this direction, you know, it takes other countries with it.

The ties and the Indonesians and others are looking at these EVs. And the Chinese EV technology is so far ahead of what they have. B-Y-D, is that what it is? Those things go 500 miles on a charge. and they are significantly less expensive than your average U.S. car. And they're going to be making them in Canada soon, too, right? I mean, within a couple of years. I mean, so, you know, I'm already thinking, like, how do I get over to Canada and smuggle one of those in?

But I want to get back to what you had said earlier in terms of Iran. this is the thing that I don't think has seemed to have seeped into American consciousness that we are at the point right now where we do not control the timeline of the like it's harder to tell because we haven't seen images coming out of Tel Aviv just you know very sporadically and the U.S. has you know the U.S. population has no idea of like what's what's going on in the golf i mean you know the it it took three years before people knew i think in iraq that there were sunni and shia uh Muslims um and we're all waiting to see if donald trump decides to end the bombing but what you're saying is that iran is

basically dictating the timetable of this from your perspective like how much pain Like, what are the pain thresholds that they can, A, impose on the United States and Israel, and I guess to a certain extent, the rest of the world? And where do you think that they'll decide, like, that's enough? Yeah, well, as I said, I think they won't stop until they get, they're convinced that the world has gotten the message. It's, it's, they've taken our energy hostage. I don't know what you guys are paying for your gas bill last winter every month, especially in the cold snap in January.

But imagine a doubling. Now, some analysts will tell you, well, the United States has its own natural gas from fracking, and it has its own petroleum and we mainly import from Canada and Mexico, so we're not dependent on the rest of the world. It doesn't work like that. It's one global market. I mean, it's segmented a little bit.

But the prices track pretty closely between, say, Brent crude, which is the North Sea oil from Britain and the West Texas Petroleum, which is the American, they go pretty much in tandem. So it's because it's one world market. if there's upward pressure on prices, it affects everybody. It doesn't matter whether you have oil or not. Your oil becomes expensive because everybody wants it. If you take 20% off the market, the price doesn't go up 20% because both demand and production are inelastic. It's very hard to produce a lot more oil, especially since the swing producers are in the Gulf. so you're going to compete for a lesser amount.

Everybody's going to compete for it. And it's very hard to not use it. If you've already bought a gasoline car, then you've got to buy gasoline. If you've got to get to work that way, you don't have choices. You can't just absent yourself from that market. So demand is inelastic. Supply is inelastic. If supply goes way down, then you've got more and more people competing for less and less oil.

It becomes a bidding war, essentially. for every gallon of gas. It's exactly right. And it happens all over the world simultaneously. It is going to happen in the United States as well. Well, so in terms of like Iran dictating this timeline, then the question is, how does Trump get to declare victory? Because we played a clip of Caroline Levitt yesterday saying that Trump can declare unilateral

surrender and he gets to determine what that means, which basically means like they want to win the PR battle here. But, I mean, if you have the son of Haminae as the leader and you still have the regime in place, I'm desperate for an off ramp for this, but I don't even know how Trump can spin this as a even regime change victory at all because it's literally the son of the guy that he just killed. Yeah, that's awkward. Yeah. Yeah. As long as much to Bahamanei is the leader in Iran, relations with the United States are going to be tough. They may improve when Trump goes out.

But, yeah, you know, I think the Iranians really, as you say, are the ones who will determine when all this ends. And it's not – the Americans and the Israelis think, well, they have a limited number. of missiles and missile launchers will attract them. And after a while, they won't be able to do anything. But it doesn't work like that. They have these Shahid drones, which costs like $20,000 or $30,000 to make a piece. They can make 400 of them a week, and they're making them as we speak. And they had a big stockpile of them.

I don't know, 30,000, 50,000 is not clear. And many of them can be launched from under the sand. So it's very hard to see where they're being launched from. So they can go on hitting near neighbors, Kuwait, Bahrain, the UAE, and Saudi Arabia for a long time. You know, attrition is not going to happen anytime soon. And as I said, again, the Americans don't understand. who the Saudis and the Qatari really are in the world. They're like the world's country billionaires.

You know, how we're always complaining the billionaires are pushing us around and so forth. But these guys, I mean, the Saudis have a trillion and a half dollar investment fund and a trillion and a half dollars in reserves. They have like $3 trillion walking around money. This is not money that they need to build roads. or run the country. I mean, this is just loose change in their pockets. Imagine what you can buy with that. So they're not going to put up with this stuff. They're going to put enormous pressure on everybody to cut this out and to make a deal with Iran that everybody can live with.

And of course, they're peeved at Iran because Iran has attacked them and they're furious about it. But they also don't want to get involved in a war with Iran, which they know they can't win. They're small countries. They have small populations. Iran can outlast them. And it's nearby. Iran can even do guerrilla work against them. So they're going to be a major player in settling this thing. And they're very upset about Israel.

People always think about them as potential allies of Israel. And the Israelis are hoping now the Iranians attack them. They'll swing around to Tel Aviv. I'm going to tell you, they are furious. They're livid with Israel for dragging them into this. And they're not going to have this going on. mowing the line every once in a while so in other words is the Abraham Accords are those dead A B is you know MBS on the phone with Donald Trump and

me like thank you for let me slide on the murdering of a journalist but I'm gonna need a little bit more you need to shut this down type of thing and well and I guess like the third question is like what was Israel thinking. Like I can understand, frankly, Donald Trump, people coming to him and saying, you should do this. It's going to be just like Venezuela. You're going to own part of Iranian oil. And you're going to be, you're going to be the guy who beat Iran and him going, okay, and just doing it. And then finding out two weeks later, it doesn't feel right. But what, like, is Netanyahu just doing this just to keep Israel involved in a war for his own personal thing? Or does he actually believe

like this could work out? Well, Netanyahu is the victim of his own success. I mean, he's been in power a very long time, and he has accomplished many of his goals over time. He, you know, has destroyed the Palestinians and reduced the Gazans to fourth world status and deprived them of potable drinking water and so forth. And he's whipped the Egyptians into shape. The Egyptians are basically cooperating with him. And they're the major nearby military power. And they, you know, the government in Syria, which was an enemy of Israel's, has been overthrown. Hezbollah has been taken down. So Netanyahu went from what he saw as victory to victory in not only securing security for Israel, because security actually in the long term would require good relations with neighbors, but in acquiring power and fear.

And so he thought he can do to Iran what he's done to these others, to the other neighbors. And Iran is a different kettle of fish. It doesn't work like that. He doesn't understand Iran. It was one of the problems with the Israeli elite is that although they are in the Middle East,

they don't know very much about it. But it's as if, you know, you had Polish people running the place. In fact, you know, of course. It's as if the reality is what it is. But like, can you talk more about Iran's, how Iran may react in terms of nuclearization? You know, I know we probably have to let you go soon. But I was thinking about how the Kim Jong-un, right, the never promised to denuclearize, looking kind of good right now, especially when you see what happened when, uh, to Gaddafi,

uh, after he made an agreement at the early part of the 21st century and then was impaled and assassinated. Um, and now Iran, after they did a deal with the Americans, the JCPOA, okay, we're going to bomb your entire leadership, kill 1,300 people, including, uh, little girls, and also do a kind of an act of eco-ecoa. side and allow the bombing of these oil fields that they're going to cause all this damage to the population. Like, they are creating more incentives for more countries to create nuclear weapons as a deterrent.

Oh, absolutely. Well, from the, from the inception, when the French and the British connived at getting the Israelis a nuclear weapon, they set off an arms race in the Middle East. Iraq had a nuclear program for this reason. And Iran, you know, this is controversial, but in my view, the Islamic Republic has never wanted a nuclear device. They were pursuing what is sometimes called the Japan option. You know, Japan, everybody knows they have lots of plutonium and they're good at technology. So if they wanted to, the Japanese could make a bomb pretty quickly.

and they hope that since everybody knows that, it has a deterrent effect, that North Koreans won't dare come for them because, you know, the response could be that Tokyo would suddenly be armed with nukes as well. So I think the Iranians were trying for that, but it didn't work. The Japan option didn't work.

And they have a, because it's a theocratic state, and Americans, oddly enough, don't understand this. Americans are much more religious and most industrialized democracies, but they still don't understand religion. Like the Iranian leadership always said it doesn't want a nuclear device because you can't use it without killing large numbers of innocent civilians, and that's against Islamic law of war. They genuinely believe that.

And people push back against me. They said, well, they don't, obviously, they don't genuinely believe it, and they're hypocrites or they're lying or whatever. And I said, okay, does anybody believe that, the Pope has a condom factory in the basement of the Vatican. No, I don't. Because we take him at his word that he doesn't approve of birth control. He issued an encyclical.

Well, the leader of Iran, Chaminet, issued numerous encyclicals that making an atomic bomb is illegal in Islamic law. Now, they've killed that guy. And the way Islamic law works in Iran is that the Fatwe is that the Fatwa, or the considered legal opinions of a dead jurisprudent don't count. So now the new guy has to make a fatwa. And we don't know what that's going to be. And it could well be that Iran goes towards nuclearization. It has a lot of underground facilities.

It still has a lot of highly enriched uranium. And I also think that the Saudis will. The Saudis are not going to put up with being vulnerable. You know, the Israelis bombed Doha and Qatar last September, and that set off alarm bells all in the Gulf that we need better protection. So they went to Pakistan and said, would you protect us? And the Pakistan has a nuke. And the Pakistanis said yes. But now the Saudis are calling Islamabad every day and saying, what are you doing to protect us?

You promised you would. And the Pakistanis don't want to get involved. So I wouldn't be surprised, but the outcome of what Netanyahu has done is to push the entire region towards nuclearization. Professor Cole, it is always incredibly informative to speak with you. Not always cheery, I have to say, but I suspect we'll be turning to you in the coming weeks. hopefully not the coming months about this, but it seems conceivable. Really appreciate your time. Folks should also check out informed comment.

It has been a read of mine now for 20-some-odd years, which is also a little disturbing, but thank you so much for your time today. I really, really appreciate it. Thanks so much, Sam. It's great to see you, and nice to meet you, Emma. Nice to meet you as well. All right, folks. That's it.

for the first half of the program today, which of course ended up being the first two-thirds of the program. Or five-fourths of the program? Four-fifths of the program. Definitely not that. The first five-fourths of the program. Mathematics. Well, listen, hey, I don't know if you work with lumber at all,

but that's not so crazy. Go in and try and ask for one-end, a one in one-and-fifth width on a board ain't happening six-fifths got his ass huh you got his ass bam folks in the meantime it's your support that makes this show possible lizzie he can't even talk right now you can't even make an argument anymore can you Matt's getting very emotional you're having an emotional breakdown there you go Folks, it's your support that makes this show possible. You can become a member at Join the Majority Report.com.

When you do, you only get the free show free of commercials, but you also get the fun half and you can I-M-S and I don't know if we'll be taking phone calls today, but hopefully maybe tomorrow. Maybe tomorrow we'll only have one guest since we had so many and we'll get into calls earlier tomorrow. But it's your support that keeps this show keeping on. you can help this show survive and thrive by going to join the majority report.com and becoming a member. Also, just coffee.com, our longest sponsor, I was probably saying that, you know, Just Coffee 17 years ago, maybe it was, when we had Professor Cole on breakroom live.

Oh, we had him on. He was a redactivity. regular guest on the Major Report on Air America. Wow. Just Coffee.coop. Fair trade, coffee, hot chocolate. Use the coupon code majority. Get 10% off. Get the Majority report blend.

Matt. What's happening in the Matt Leck Media Universe? Yeah, Left Reckoning coming up right after the show today. More around coverage, because it's all David and I can think about, frankly. So we talked with Cuba of The CIS Revolution, who's got a new series, What Fresh Hell? over on that YouTube channel, talking about the view. He's in Warsaw, so we talked about the view from Europe a little bit. So check that out.

And we also, I double-dipped my senator from North Dakota, Kevin Kramer, being, citing the Bible as a reason we need to do this war in Iran. So check that out right after the show today. You're not sold on that. I'm pretty skeptical, actually, yeah. Uncommon Murgonizer. I just want to get this, I want to make sure that we get this in the, first half of the show.

I'm currently capping off some Wayne scotting with 5 fourth, 5 fourths, uh, PVC. That's what I asked for at the lumberyard. What? That's me thinking.

Maybe I should go work there again. No. Actually never know. Oh, wait. Oh, we're still on there. Damn it. Oh, we're not. Oh, my bad. Sorry. Three months from now, six months from now,

And I don't think it's going to be the same as it looks like in six months from now. And I don't know if it's necessarily going to be better six months from now than it is three months from now. But I think around 18 months out, we're going to look back and go like, wow. What? What is that going on? It's nuts. Wait a second. Hold on for, hold on for a second.

Emma, welcome to the program. Hey. Fun pack. Matt. Drew. Fun pack. What is up? Everyone, fun, have.

No, Miki. You did it. Fun hat. Let's go Brandon. Let's go Brandon. Bradley, you want to say hello? Sorry to disappoint. Everyone, I'm just a random guy.

It's all the boys today. Fundamentally false. No, I'm sorry. Women's... Stop talking for a second. Let me finish. Where is this coming from, dude? But dude, you want to smoke this?

Seven, eight. Yes. Yes? It is you. Oh, for me? I think it is you. Who is you? No sound. Every single freaking day.

What's on your mind? We can discuss free markets and we can discuss capitalism. I'm going to just know what. Libertarians. They're so stupid though. Common sense says, of course. Gobbled euk. We fucking nailed him.

So what's 79 plus 21? Challenge men. I'm positively clovery. I believe 96, I want to say. 857. 210. 35. 501.

1.5. 38. 911 for instance. $3,400, $1,900. $6, $4, $3 trillion sold. It's a zero-sum game. Actually, you're making me think less. But let me say this.

Hoop. You call it satire. Sam goes it satire. On top of it all, my favorite part about you is just like every day, all day, like everything you do. Without a doubt. Hey, buddy. We see you. Hi, folks, folks.

It's just the week being weeded out, obviously. Yeah. Sundow Gunza. But you should know. People just don't like to entertain ideas anymore. I have a question. Who cares? Is enabled, folks.

I love it. I do love that. Look, got to jump. You got to be quick. I get a jump. I'm losing it, bro. Two o'clock, we're already late, and the guy's being a dick. So screw him.

Sent to a gulaw? Outrageous. Like, what is wrong with you? Love you. Love you. Bye-bye.