TRIGGERnometry - Life Update, Iran War and British Politics

Episode Date: May 27, 2026

Triggernometry is proudly independent. Thanks to the sponsors below for making that possible: - We use Ground News to escape the echo chamber and stay fully informed. Go to https://ground.news/triggernometry to save 40% on the Ground News unlimited access Vantage plan. - Take 10 minutes to get life insurance cover today, through Ethos. Get your free quote at https://ethos.com/trigger - Limited Time Offer: Get Huel today with our exclusive offer of 15% OFF online with code TRIGGER15 at https://www.huel.com/trigger15. New Customers Only. Thank you to Huel for partnering and supporting our show! - Take Hillsdale College’s online courses for free at https://hillsdale.edu/trigger Join our exclusive TRIGGERnometry community on Substack! https://triggernometry.substack.com/ OR Support TRIGGERnometry Here: Bitcoin: bc1qm6vvhduc6s3rvy8u76sllmrfpynfv94qw8p8d5 Shop Merch here - https://shop.triggerpod.co.uk/ Advertise on Triggernometry: https://trigger-brands.com | or enquire at [e-mail] Find TRIGGERnometry on Social Media: https://twitter.com/triggerpod https://www.facebook.com/triggerpod/ https://www.instagram.com/triggerpod/ About TRIGGERnometry: Stand-up comedians Konstantin Kisin (@konstantinkisin) and Francis Foster (@francisjfoster) make sense of politics, economics, free speech, AI, drug policy and WW3 with the help of presidential advisors, renowned economists, award-winning journalists, controversial writers, leading scientists and notorious comedians. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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I know. Who would have believed that? Not your parents. There's a lot of people talking about problems, but you do it in such a funny way that it makes for a very nice, pleasant, enjoyable, light-hearted, read, laughing at your expense. This war, you know, the Operation Epic Fury is wonderful, but this might go down as Epic failed.

Only 27% of American voters are actually in favour of this war. This is obviously not Iraq. But in terms of impact on the world, I think this could be worse. this could be worse. Now, for our American viewers and listeners, don't switch off. Don't switch off just because we're talking about

in British politics. This episode is sponsored by our friends at Hillsdale College. Right after this episode, go check out the incredible online courses, which are absolutely free at hillsdale.edu slash trigger. All right, Francis,

we haven't done one of these for a couple of months. So welcome back to us. Yeah, welcome back. It's, well, a lot has been happening. particularly in your life. Well, in both of our lives, but I've taken nearly two months to go on paternity before my second son was born and after, which has been great. And you've got a new book out.

Yeah, absolutely, which is... Francis Foster, published author. I know. Who would have believed that? Not your parents. And certainly not any... Not the publishing industry either. But actually, it is a fantastic book.

It's got a lot of media attention already. It's very funny, which is obviously your thing, but it's also very pretty... point and you talk about going through teaching as a teacher and also teaching, like a supply teacher basically, in different schools around the country. And you tell stories in a very self-deprecating and funny way. I really enjoyed reading me and I'm not surprised how well it's doing. Well, thank you very much. No, because I felt it's really important. If you think about our show, we talk about, a lot of what we talk about is young people, why young people are the way they are. not enough people go, well, that's schools, but also we need better quality teachers,

and also we need to support teachers because you can talk about decolonizing the Crip and everything like that. It's really difficult to do that when a kid's about to throw a chair at your head. And you've spoken yourself about homeschooling and the fact that you may be thinking about it. And the reason is, is because our education system is in crisis. And that's kind of what the book deals with. Yeah, but it's also very, very funny and enjoyable to read, which I think is why people are, you know, there's a lot of people talking about the problems, but you do it in such a funny way that it makes for a very nice, pleasant, enjoyable, lighthearted read, laughing at your expense.

Yeah, I can tell you, mate, like the actual experiencing that, that wasn't as funny. No. But no, but what I wanted to do with the book is because, look, we are in a very difficult time, and we're a very difficult time, societally, politically, economically, culturally, all of these things. but also, I feel that there are ways to talk about an issue. And you can talk about an issue and you can go, this is terrible, this is, and of course it is. But unless you're able to bring a little bit of levity to it,

then you need a little bit of sugar to sweeten the pill. Otherwise, it will be a book where you put down and go, well, that's depressed me. And actually kids are funny. I remember once when I was teaching, there was a boy in front of me and I hated him. And I know that's not professional. He was 12 years old, but you can objectively hate a 12 year old, trust me.

And he was disrupting every lesson. Every lesson he was a nuisance and stopping everyone from learning. And I was teaching the lesson and in my head I said the words, why are you such a dick? Except I didn't say it in my head. I said it out loud. And the kids all stopped and looked at me. And there was this one little girl in the front row, very sweet,

wouldn't say booed to a goose, looked up at me and went, because he just is. Well, it's funny you say that because I actually don't think that's true. And it's interesting how it connects with the time I've taken off to be with my family. Because I just look at how much effort it takes with children. Yeah. And I think about, you know, we've talked endlessly with guests and also between us and your experiences teaching, just recognizing how much societal dysfunction comes from early childhood problems that are to do with the fact there's basically not enough adults around, particularly dads around,

to deal with the developmental challenges that kids face, to be there, to help instill discipline, to help instill some kind of respect for rules and order and all of that kind of thing. And so that 12-year-old is probably, that 12-year-old can't be saved at the level of the school. No. Because they've been ruined by the early childhood experiences, effectively, right? Of course.

And if you look at things like gangs, what gangs actually do, and nobody talks about this enough, what gangs do is they groom the kids. but how can a group of young boys groom another young boy? Well, the reason is, is that young boy doesn't have a father figure. He doesn't have positive male role models in the house. If you think about a young boy growing up in a place like where I taught, in East London, in Dagenham, or in South London in Croydon.

Dad's not around for a multitude of different reasons. So it's mum working three or four jobs. struggling to make ends meet, and as a result, working three or four jobs, never being in the home. So she's never in the home. So the kid basically raises himself. Boys crave male approval, particularly from older males, and male attention. And if you think that this boy then goes into school, where he's most likely to be taught, statistically speaking, by a female teacher with female support staff, with female senior management, that boy then doesn't have any contact with positive male role models. So the only male role models that he sees are the gangs, and he craves that.

And what the gangs do is they're smart. They look for kids that are vulnerable, and what they also do is they target special needs kids. And special needs kids are particularly vulnerable. Because if you've got a special need, let's say you've got, you're very dyslexic. every day of your life you go into school and you fail you fail Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday you are asked to do things that you cannot do and every time you're asked to do them it has a profound impact on your self-esteem and if all you know as a kid are losses that is devastating in the book I talk about

one boy I covered a lesson for a colleague who had to go off and do a meeting and it was a year examined, year two kids are seven, eight years old. And I put the exam paper in front of him. And by the way, I don't think we should be examining seven, eight-year-olds. I think that's unimaginably cruel. I just want to make that clear. He looked up at me and he said the words to me, Mr. Foster, I can't read. And I said to him, Terry, just try. And he goes, I can't read. And I said, please try. Because I was told that I had to, he had to take the test. He had to do it. The kid couldn't read, so we were already saying up to failure. And he literally put his head on the table and cried. And I said in the book, I then got a member of senior management to take

him away. And the only thing left of him at the end of the lesson was his tear-stained exam paper glinting in the June sun. And you look at what we're doing to kids outside, inside. And it's no wonder It's no wonder we are where we are I was just going to say that I mean you forget there is a happy ending to that story He's now Labour MP

No he's with the Green Party mate And it's very good But no But you go back to those kids And so if you could take a kid like Terry Who every day came in and failed It was a very sweet kid

The first time he's ever had someone say Well done or you're doing well We'll be a gang member Right. The news doesn't just tell you what's happening. It often tells you what to think is happening. And these days, the biggest red flag isn't what's said. It's what gets left out. That's why I use Ground News. It's the only app that compares how the same story is covered across the political spectrum and show you what whole audiences are not being told. The Blindspot feed is one of my favorite features. Every day, it flags upwards of 20 stories that are being ignored

either by the left or the right. Follow along at ground.com. News slash trigonometry. Like this, a new study from UC San Diego found that climate change cost almost twice as much as we thought, because earlier estimates left out damage of the oceans. That's a pretty big update, and yet no coverage. Literally zero came from right-leaning outlets. All this, a recent Gallup poll found trust in the media has hit a record low, with just 28% of Americans saying they trust newspapers, radio and TV to report the news accurately and fairly. That's a staggering result, but if you only read left-leaning news, you likely never saw it at all.

go to ground.new slash trigonometry to get 40% off their unlimited advantage plan, the same one we use, and stop being managed by the media. Of course. And, you know, for that reason, it's interesting because obviously masculinity and the role of man and fatherhood and all of this has became such a big talking point in the last 10 years. And I think Jordan Peterson obviously was a crucial voice in talking about that. And then, you know, we've talked about this before, how you can track the deterioration of what masculinity is thought of as in the type of influencer that is perceived as being, for answering those questions, right? So you go from Jordan Peterson, who I think just an incredibly overwhelmingly positive figure, you know, and then you just, you cascade down all the way to, I don't even know what the latest retardation is in clavicular or whatever, right? But like Andrew Tate is starting to seem quite reasonable compared to some of these morons, right?

But I just feel like I've taken nearly two months off now. And you know how much I love what we do and I love work. And I've always just spent a lot of time doing it and been fully invested in it. But I feel like I only really truly became a man in the last couple of months because of being able to have the luxury. And I acknowledge completely, most people can't remotely have that luxury to do. do that. And I didn't do it with my first son. I took two weeks off, but taking more time off now to be there to look after my wife, particularly before, during and after the birth, and really connect with my older son now, because obviously I'm spending most of the time with him while my wife is

recovering from birth. So that, that to me really has been the most formative experience when it comes to what being a man is more than anything else. Like being a man is not driving lime corvettes and smoking cigars, you know, it's, but, but you don't know that sometimes. And I think people don't, a lot men don't hear that message about the formative part of what masculinity is being there to provide for other people, to protect for other people, to look after other people. That is a message that you don't hear very often now. And I've just really enjoyed this time. And it, and it is also an investment. You know, the children who have a father that is heavily involved in the lives, are going to have completely different life outcomes. And I can see why, because I look at

different sort of family setups. And I just go, like, if I had to, I think about single moms, and I just got, I have no idea how they do it. I have no idea how they do it. It's literally an impossible job. It's impossible job. And I know some single moms who, like, they've absolutely I couldn't do that. I absolutely could not do that. And so it's just been a great time for me to reflect on all of this stuff. And it's weird because everyone's going like, oh, are you sleeping off, whatever. I actually come back rejuvenated, to be honest. This episode is brought to you by L'Oreal Group. Beauty is a powerful force that moves us. That's why L'Oreal Group has built a business that is inclusive at its heart with 100% of its brands, championing diversity. With 25,000

and professional opportunities for people under 30 worldwide and 54% of leading positions held by women. Diversity is a strength that helps L'Oreal group create the best beauty products for all people. Visit Loreal.com to learn more. Yeah, and I can see that with you. It's been a while since I've seen you, but you look so happy.

You look rested. I didn't expect that. I would be honest you, mate. I thought you were going to... Yeah, I never... Actually, Dina, social media guy, he posted a clip of me talking to John Anderson, the Elon retweeted.

it's done. And I looked at myself there. I was like, that guy looks sick. Because I'm just pale and whatever. The sun has helped as well. Yeah. But you know, you do. You look rejuvenated. It's been a wonderful time for you, which has been great for, you know, all of us to see, just how happy you are and whatever else. But, and for me, it's always a salutary lesson because so often in our society, we've framed children as being a burden. We've framed children as being this thing of like, oh, once you have kids, the fun stops. Once you have kids, you know, it's all over. And I make the point in the book, I much prefer doing this than teaching. I want to make that absolutely clear. But when I think about, I don't think there is a more

important job than being a teacher. I genuinely... Well, there is being a parent, but yeah. Yeah. But if you think about the impact a good teacher has, literally transforms lives. Every single person in this room, whether it's you and me talking, the production team, or if it's people watching, everybody can name that teacher who changed their life for the better, however it was. And I really do think we need to actually change the way we talk about kids. And we need to change the way that we talk about the joy that they bring. Because it's not the only reason. It's a multifaceted complex problem.

But part of it as well is kind of seen as this joy killer of the, oh, you've had a kid, that's boring. It's like, well, that's kind of the meaning of life. Look, the thing is as well, it's not like it's easy at all. But I think what often happens is people who don't have kids in particular, I hear them talking about this. And they go, oh, you know, I talk to parents. Like, you know, when I talk to my, uh, parent friends or whatever, you know, all I hear about

is how difficult it is and this and that, which is true, which is kind of like parents will vent about the difficulties that they face because kids are not easy. Like my son's favorite word is no, you know. I wonder where you go that from. And actually, it's kind of funny. One of the great things about having kids is you kind of look at it and you, you think about like, you know, we, I think it's quite natural to think about the way you are as the kind of the sum total of all your work and achievements and whatever.

I look at my four-year-old, I'm just like, he's an asshole just like me. I wonder where I got that from, you know, very stubborn, very independent, which is great. This is what you want, you know, your kids, you want them to be like that. I can't even remember where I was going with this. Oh, yeah, yeah, so it's not easy. And people will vend their frustrations. But it's also a joy like you've never felt. Yeah, totally.

And I also think, look, it's interesting. My mom is staying with us at the moment, and her and I were having this conversation because she was sort of stress testing my arguments, because this is what we do in the kids and family, basically, just argue with each other about kids. And she was saying, well, you know, you've got a fair bit of public influence. I'd be very careful about promoting the idea of kids to people, because she works with kids, and she's like, I see all sorts of different environments and whatever. But I think the thing, I'm certainly never encouraging people who, if you've made your mind up that you don't want children, I don't think you should have children. I think that would be a terrible idea, right?

But if you were sort of through the inertia of modern life and the technological changes, people forget about this, right? But one of the main reasons that people are having kids in far fewer numbers now is urbanization. I remember I took my father to, we did like a father and a son trip to Uzbekistan last year. You talk to people in Uzbekistan. Uzbekistan is not exactly the most like super developed country, beautiful place, wonderful people, but it's poor, it's country in Central Asia, whatever.

You talk to the people there, they basically say, the moment somebody moves from a village to the city, they go from having seven kids to having two or three. Yeah. You know, and that's, you know, I think I've talked about this before on the show, there's a guy called Desmond Morris who wrote a book called The Human Zoo. And he basically talked about the fact that when people live in cities, they behave in very similar ways to the way that animals behave in zoos,

where they stop having as much offspring. They get depressed. There's a lot of interpersonal violence, all of this other stuff. So the reason that people are having fewer kids today is very largely to do with technology. It's the urbanization. It's the pill. It's other forms of contraceptives.

So what I'm saying is, the inertia of current society now is for people not to have children. Whereas 100 years ago is the exact opposite. It was almost inevitable that you'd have children, even if it was totally the wrong decision for you. So when I talk about it, I'm never encouraging people who really don't want to do it, to do it. I'm not saying it's the right thing for everybody,

but what I do think is a lot of people are now by default. Their default setting is having kids, difficult and expensive and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And all of those things are completely true. And yet, it's also, if you could feel what it's like to have a child, if you're on that fence, I'm just trying to balance out the perspectives that you are getting through the informational space that you're exposed to you by also telling you the other part, which is sort of unfashionable to talk about.

You know, it's like, it's very unfashionable for people to talk about having kids from a positive perspective. You go and watch stand-up comedians talk about their kids. Most of them will be very negative about it. You know? And likewise with everything else that you're likely to be exposed to. And I just, I don't think that's a balanced perspective on the issue. I think it's helpful to remind people what a joy and a pleasure it is while also being difficult and expensive on the rest of it.

I have people in my life who depend on me. Most of you listening do too. And if you're honest with yourself, you've probably had that moment where you think, what happens to them if I'm not here tomorrow? It is not a fun question, but ignoring it does not make it go away. This is why I think today's sponsor,

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at ethos.com slash trigger or click the link in the description of this episode. That's E-T-H-O-S dot com slash trigger. Application times may vary, rates may vary. It's a great point. And then there's another part of this conversation that we've touched on many times, actually, in the history of trigonometry, which is we've lied to women about kids,

and we've lied about the nature of fertility. The idea that you can just freeze your eggs and then have a baby whenever you want, I mean, if you look at the stats from IVF treatments, success rates vary depending on what study you look at anywhere from 29% to 33%. Those aren't good odds. They're one in three odds. And what we're effectively doing as a society is fertility-wise, we're drinking in the last chance saloon, which is all well and good, but not everyone's going to get served. Because they just ain't time. No. And I think, you know, I was trying to be very careful talking about this issue because these are very sensitive things for people. But those are not good odds. No.

If you were to say we're going to gamble a very important decision in our lives on something and there's a 33% chance of success, you wouldn't think that's a good bet, really. No. And I think we need to be sensitive about this. Of course we do. But I think it's also important that we talk openly about it because I think there's a lot. a lot of myths that are being spread around the technology, and I've seen my own friends go through it, and you see that the impact that it has on them, these aren't easy decisions. And look, life sometimes happened. You don't need the right person until later on in life.

Of course, and it's not about blaming or saying people should do things at a point when it's not right for them. But we just do need to have the conversation go, look, later on, it might be possible, but these are the odds and this is what could happen or could occur. And I think that's really vital. I completely agree with you. I think we should have someone on to talk about the reality of fertility, partly because I think certainly when we talk to people in privately, we meet a lot of people now who are our age or a bit younger,

who or a bit older, frankly, who either are kind of in a desperate situation or who've missed the boat. Yeah. And it's something that a lot of women in particular find very difficult to talk about, because once it's no longer going to happen, I mean, it's got to be an awful place to be. And so I think, I guess what I would say is that there's just not a lot of conversation to reflect a much larger underlying reality. I was thinking about this the other day with politics.

Like, you know, it's funny, the impression you would get, about the range of acceptable political opinions in the country is totally not what it is based on what you see in the media. For example, is it really possible that literally nobody in the world of football in this country has come out and expressed the sort of concerns that we've shared on the show? Is it really possible that a bunch of millionaires are massively in favor of like a wealth to? and they're all left wing and all the rest of it. I just don't think that's true. In fact, we both know that's not true, right? From direct personal experience,

there are many people in the world of football who don't feel that way or other sports, professional sports. But if you open your newspaper or if you watch TV, you will never see anybody. Simon Jordan is the only person from the world of football, and he's not a football player, right, who will express anything remotely approaching a contrarian perspective.

on these things. Yet there are people from almost every major professional sport in this country that contact us privately or follow our show, and we know what they think about it, boxing, football, rugby, you know, other sports. And that's also true of this conversation in that because there's just some, for whatever reason, we don't even need to get into it, something is not talked about enough. The reality that exists on the ground is not reflected in the talking point conversation stuff that you see on TV and in the newspapers. And that's kind of where we've always seen our role, really, is to pierce those bubbles and to connect the reality on the ground

with what's actually being talked about out loud. And I think also, it's very eloquently put, but also what we do here is we challenge and debunk myths. And there's been a lot of myths that we have debunked from the time that we started this to where we are now, everything, you know, from defund the police to mask wearing and all the rest of it. We weren't the only ones, of course not. But we were, we played at a small but significant part.

I would like to think, and I'm sure you do as well. And I think this is a very powerful, but also very damaging myth, as a lot of myths are, which is you can have it all and you can leave it right until the end of your fertility window and then you can have your kids. And I really think that that we need to sit down. Some people can. Some people can. I mean, in fairness, that is exactly what my wife and I did.

We had our first one at 39. We had a second one of 43. Yeah. Right. But we are very, very unrepresentative of, and very unusual. So people don't believe me when I tell this story. Yeah. My wife's grandfather was the 18th of 18 kids in a peasant Ukrainian family.

Yeah. He was born when his mother, nobody believes when I say this, but this is a true thing. His mother was 63 when he was born. Wow. Yeah. She was the 18th of 18 and his mother was 63. So, like, you know, genetics is a part of this,

and you might come just from a lineage where that's more possible than it is for other people. But statistically speaking, what we've done is... You were the outlier. Yeah. You're the outlier. And we need to be honest about that. And we also, there's a lot of women

who pass a relatively early age can't have children and also as well like men. It's not just women, it's also guys and just go, look, the quality of your sperm. My sperm's brilliant. I've seen it, yeah, pretty good.

What? Like, you know, the offspring. Welcome Francis is my wife. No, I wouldn't. Well, anyway, I am now. I am now. We sleep in separate beds. Anyway, so that was weird. But if you look at like male with particularly male sperm and correlation with autism rates,

particularly as sperm gets older, it becomes more correlated with producing kids who have autism. You go, well, we all need, and people look at me and go, Francis, what about you? Yeah, you're right. You're right. I'm not saying, I'm not part of this particular issue because I obviously am. But I do think we actually need to be honest about this.

And one of the things we need to do is get a fertility expert to sit down and not from a position of, you know, you do this and you should do this and wake up. But just go look. You live your life as you want. You made the decisions that you want. That's the beauty of the West. That's one of the best things about our culture is that you can go and live the life that you desire within certain parameters. But this is a true. and then you were now more informed,

and then you were able to make your choice with the information at hand. Speaking of, you know, difficult conversations, I mean, one of the things that happened while we were doing our separate things is the war in Iran continued. It was interesting because we gave that issue a lot of coverage when it first started,

and when we were in America, that was a developing story. And I would guess I would say, you know, we interviewed Senator Ted Cruz, We interviewed Medi Hassan and had the discussion with him. We interviewed Robert Pape. And there was, I don't know if you remember, a few weeks ago, there was a ceasefire that was agreed.

And at that point, I got sort of like told you so messages from a bunch of former guests and other people going, I told you this would be over quickly. I told you this wouldn't be such a bit. I told you, look at Robert Pape, it was so wrong about the, that, da, da, da, da, da. Man, because I look at the news now, it's still going on. Not only that, I mean, they're talking about a deal, but I don't know that a deal is going to be done quickly.

And if it is, I don't think there's any evidence to suggest where we sit today that that deal is going to be any better than the deal might have been done before this war ever occurred. I mean, don't forget, global Brent crude oil prices are now 60% higher than they were a year ago. And by the way, you know, the reason this a lot of people, have stopped talking about this issue is, you know, everyone gets tired of talking about the same thing. And so, like, it was like the war in Ukraine. It was everywhere for a year. And then everyone just kind of moved on.

The war didn't stop. But the thing with Iran is, like, I think most people don't realize that the economic impact directly, and I'm not talking about a 3% increase in the price of whatever. I'm talking about real economic impact. We'll last for years from this. The IEA called this the biggest disruption to. the global oil market in history, what's happened. And that's not just, it's not just oil. It's gas, it's fertilizer, it's all of this stuff. And most of the impact hasn't been felt.

So what's happening at the moment is it's like there's no more food in the supermarket, but your fridge is still mostly stocked. So you are still able to eat for now. And what we're doing now is we're running down on gas supplies. We're running down our oil supplies around the West. And by the way, there's no one talks about this, but I think it's worth raising as an issue. is a direct result of the war in Iran, both the United States and Britain and many other countries,

they've lifted sanctions on Russia. Yeah. Like, that has impact. I don't know if you saw this. The United States just said that they would not be providing interceptors to Taiwan to be able to defend itself in the quantity that they were going to

because they need them for the Strait of Hamas. They need them for the Middle East. They need them for the... This is a thing that's not over, and it's going to continue to have an impact to say nothing about the fact that you missed one planting season with fertilizer issues, that means less food next year.

And that's where we are today. Ted Cruz, who we had on our show, who said this would be over very quickly, blah, blah, blah, you know, if this is still going on by the time of the midterms, we've clearly failed. He's now warning that President Trump may be, from what I read, kind of caving to early on these negotiations. And so Trump is now extending it and whatever.

But my point is, all those people who were delighted about the ceasefire, several weeks ago, I don't hear from them now. And the longer this goes, the less convinced I am that the people who cheered this war on from the beginning were right. I don't see it that way, if I'm honest. Spring is coming, which sounds great in theory. More going on, more to do, less time to actually eat properly. Story of my life.

This is where Hewold comes in, H-U-E-L, sponsor of the show and genuinely something we've been using at trigonometry. I am absolutely the person who gets to midday and realizes I've had coffee, just coffee, not even a good coffee. So I've been keeping your black edition around to stop myself from doing that. On the days, I'm out the door fast, I grab a black edition ready to drink. It's a complete meal, not a snack, not a supplement, an actual complete meal. 35 grams of protein, 27 essential vitamins and minerals, no artificial sweeteners, gluten-free, and it's under 5 pounds. Cheaper than a meal deal and it actually keeps.

me full. Chocolate peanut butter is the one, by the way. Genually good. Then when I'm home and I've got a bit more time, I use the black edition powder. Blend it with milk and ice if I'm being fancy, shake it with water if I'm not. Same complete nutrition. 40 grams of protein, just a different format depending on how the day's going. Between the two, I've basically stopped skipping meals, which if you know me is an achievement. Shut your face, I'm not that fat. Here's a limited time offer. Get Hewled today with my exclusive offer of 15% off online with my code Trigger15 at hughal.com slash Trigger15. New customers only. Thank you to Hew for supporting Trigonometry. Well, let's look at what we've learned from this war. What have we actually learned that if you

attack Iran, you can kill the leader, you can kill the top brass. But the reality is, Iran have a stranglehold on the world's economy because of the strait of her moon. they can close it down like that just through one drone attack. So the reality is, unless you are going to commit to putting boots on the ground in order to try and get rid of the leadership, you are not going to get rid of them through airstripes. They're too entrenched. It's not going to happen. And by the way, the moment you do that, that doesn't only affect Iran.

That doesn't only affect the Middle East. It affects every single country in the world. And also as well, you look at those Middle Eastern countries, they're now more fearful of Iran. Because the UAE and other countries are looking at Iran and going, well, if we antagonize them in any way, they're going to lash out like they lashed out before. Iran, you could argue in some ways have come out of this stronger than they went in. Because they've got some very powerful cards to play. they have played them, and they have played them in a very effective manner. And there's been a lot of bluster from Trump and the Republican Party in America,

flexing of the muscles. But it's like I was talking to you. It's kind of like a UFC match, where Iran have got the opponents in a chokehold, and the opponents have punching him in their head, but they're still in a chokehold. And there's no letting go. Yeah. That's the way it looks at the moment. Obviously, it can change day to day.

But I just see, you know, I think there came a point when I just, just stopped listening to what the administration was saying, to be honest, because every day it was like a new thing. And clearly it's designed for misdirection and, you know, rah, rah, ra, cheering the war on. I just, as I look at it as we sit here today, end of May, it's been three months. I don't think, as we sit here today, there's any evidence at all that you're, I mean, clearly, you're not going to get regime change, which is one of the things that people talked about, right? I mean, Ted Cruz wanted that. He talked about this on our show. That's not going to happen. Let's be honest. Is there ballistic missile program going to be, okay, some of it's been

destroyed, but are they going to have a ballistic missile program after this war ends? Yes, they are. Are they going to have a nuclear program? We don't know. That's what's been negotiated, but I don't see why they'd let it go. Because one of the things you've got to remember, right? Yes, the U.S. is also blockading the strait. Yes, that's hurting Iran. Yes, that's hurting China, blah, blah, But Iran have every incentive to hold on for dear life because the longer this goes, the more desperate the Americans become. That's just a fact. That is the fact of this process. And so they're not rushing into anything.

And of course, they want to come away from this with some elements of their nuclear program intact. And now they also have, at least in their own mind, but also in the minds of other neutral countries, the legitimacy to take more control over the Australia from us. and, as you say, to keep a chokehold or to threaten to have a chokehold on the global economy through that. And so, you know, we, one of the things that was very clear to us from our US trip,

and we can't talk about the conversations we had because they were had in private, but it became very clear to us that the administration made these decisions not as part of a big vision and strategy, but as much more of an instinctive, you know, We did Venezuela. We got Maduro. Now let's do this. We're on a roll here. That literally is the way people in the administration told us it was made. That's what we know, right? It's not something we've just made up. There was no strategy. And I'm afraid I want America to come out of this and the rest of the West to come out of this with a great result. And Iran should not be allowed to get nuclear weapons. It should not. But at the same time, I think if you look at, where we are today, it seems to me very unlikely that any of those objectives are going to be

fulfilled. And the damage that will have been done to the world economy is going to be significant. It already is significant. Well, I was looking at the polling from American voters. Only 27% of American voters are actually in favor of this war. The vast majority of them are quite annoyed by this war, and they say, Why are you focusing on wars abroad when, A, you promise that you wouldn't do that. And B, there are very real significant economic problems in the country. And then you've got to look at, so the Strait of Hormuz and the crisis in the Strait of Hormuz is going to affect the whole world economically.

But as a result of affecting the whole world economically, it's going to affect the whole world politically. What's that going to do to politics in our country? For example, if I was Zach Polanski, I would be saying, well, you know, do you really want to go with the right? Do you really want to go with the right that has aligned itself with Donald Trump, who is for a war, which has meant that life is already incredibly difficult for you, they've made your life more difficult. But the very little money that you've got in your pocket, you've got nothing, you've got even less now, simply because they decided to fight a war. And that would be the smart point. It would be.

And look, the fair counter argument is what I said earlier, which is Iran can't be allowed to have nuclear weapons. And maybe the argument is, well, how do you get them to not have them except for bombing them? I don't know. But I think it just seems like this war has been, it was ill thought through. And look, Epic Fury as a military operation, massive success. Well done.

You know, you bombed out of what you wanted to bomb. You destroyed this. destroyed that. But this war, look, I don't know how this is going to end. I hope that Trump can pull out some kind of magic trick out of a hat and the art of the deal and all of this other great stuff. Right now, this war, you know, the Operation Epic Fury wonderful, but this might go down as epic fail this war in the total sum of what it achieves. That obviously depends on the deal. We don't know what that's going to look like at the moment. But right now, it's not looking good.

No. And one thing that I've always been baffled by, and I haven't understood, there's a lot of very intelligent people who are working in the White House. There's a lot of very intelligent advisors, military strategists, so on, so forth. But the straight-of-whole moves, I mean, that's pretty obvious what would happen. Why did they not predict this? And if they did predict this, why didn't they have a strategy for it? Did they not foresee that this was going to happen?

Because everybody that I've spoken to with any type of military background or Middle Eastern geopolitical expertise, when I asked them about it, they went, oh, yeah, that's pretty much, everyone knew this was going to happen. And you think, well, if that's the case, why did nobody create a strategy in order to deal with it?

And this is where, you know, you have to say that the questions some people are asking of the Trump administration, you know, the administration prioritized loyalty in the second term because they had to, because their first term was spent dealing with leakers, dealing with people who were dishonest, dealing with people who were borderline traitors in some cases, right? So they had to prioritize people who would be loyal over other things. And so perhaps, you know, one of the things that caused this is there was an overfocus on loyalty

and therefore there's nobody who's prepared to speak truth to power in that White House, or not enough people, or the questions aren't. I don't know. I'm not there. And so I can't judge. But given the conversations that we had in private in the US and also what we've seen since, I mean, let's be honest, our conversation with Robert Pape, I think it's approaching a million views now. And there's a reason for that, which is everything he said turned out to be correct. Yeah. Basically, right? I don't remember a single thing he said that has not transpired in the two months since we sat down with him. I went to my dry cleaner the other day

to pick up some suits. There's a turn. There's a turn. And he went, I watch, I goes, oh, I'll watch your podcast. I'm so, oh, yeah, which one did you watch? And he, the Robert Pape. And he basically said,

I didn't understand this war and how it was going to turn out. He goes, I listen to that, and now I do. Yeah. And that's pretty worrying. Yeah, because what he was saying, for people who didn't watch it or don't remember, is basically America's put itself in a trap

and this will either get worse or America will have to capitulate effectively. That's what he would say. That's because of the geography and the economic realities, those are the only options. Or he talked about the fact that America could try and escalate by putting boots on the ground,

which would be even worse in both of those two things. That's kind of where we are. I'm afraid. It's just where we are. And I take no pleasure in this because, as I say, I think Iran is a regional threat.

Them having nukes is not something the world should accept. And I applaud President Trump for trying to do something about it, but I just never thought that this was the thing to do, given the lack of a clear strategy for how to achieve their objectives. And I also, you know, I have to be honest, man, I empathize with a lot of the pro-Iranian activists and the Iranian protesters in Iran. Let's call it what it is, man.

They were sold a lie. They were told, rise up, and your freedom is at hand. But that was never actually on the tape. It was never going to happen. The American founding is one of the most consequential political experiments in human history, and it nearly didn't happen. A group of people who had everything to lose decided that some things were worth more than safety,

and the world has never been the same since. Hillsdale College have made a film about exactly that. It's called Revolutionary America. It's narrated by Tom Selleck, and it brings the founding to life through the people who actually lived it, alongside historians who understand what was genuinely at stake. What struck me watching the trailer is how seriously it treats the audience. No editorializing, no revisionism.

Just the story told properly with the weight it deserves. This is a theatrical release, not a streaming drop, and it only runs for three days. May 31st to June 2nd. Go to Hillsdale.edu slash revolution. Find a theatre near you and buy your tickets. That address again, hillsdale.edu slash revolution. And I learned this when we were interviewing Richard Minter and Aymond Dean.

Yeah. And Aiman said there's roughly 200,000 soldiers in the IRGC. Not all of them are highly ideological, but the majority of them are. Right. And that's discounting the secret police. That's discounting the military. And then you think to yourself, well, these people, they're going to rise up. But, I mean, that's certain death.

And then you think to yourself, what we actually did is, well, these people were promised to lie. And as a result of that, some of them lost their lives. And what my worry was when the whole conflict started is I just remembered Iraq and Afghanistan, and I thought to myself, please not again. Please, we cannot make the same mistakes we made 20 years. or years ago. We cannot go down that path. I don't want to see that. I don't want to see the people dying on either side and then the effect it had on our psyche, which is still being felt nowadays.

The people of Iran are perfectly entitled to rise up and try and have the government that they want. That's their right. But for other people outside to effectively say to them, rise up and we will come and help you and then not help them. That's a whole different conversation. And that is what happened. That's what happened. That's my issue. The people of Iran, you know, I get it. No, totally.

Totally. And also, I think your comparison is very, very apt about Iraq in particular. But I think we should be honest. In terms of loss of life on the western side, this is obviously not Iraq at all at the moment, thank God. But in terms of impact on the world, I think this could be worse. I really do. I really, I mean, the Iraq had called impact on the global economy, really. Iran is having one and will have one over time.

So I hope it gets resolved quickly and we'll obviously monitor it and we'll get back to what we used to do before we took the time off, which is do live streams regularly with people who can comment on these things in a much more knowledgeable way. so we'll keep tracking this issue. And then, of course, we've had the domestic politics side of things while I've been away, which I have not been paying much attention to, and I have to say my mental health has improved massively. So maybe you can update us. So this is effectively what happened. Kirstama is our beloved prime minister.

Indeed. Wes Streeting said that he no longer had faith. Well, hold on a second. You're skipping over some bits. First of all, there was the Peter Mandelson thing. Yes. Right? So he was appointed despite everybody knowing that he was an answer's best friend, basically. Is that fair? Yeah.

So that put pressure on Stama. Then there was the local elections in which Labor performed terribly. So did the Tories. Yeah. Reform did it very well. And there's now pressure on Stama to go from his own ministers and backbenchers. And that's where Westry. Yeah. And then Red Sreating said that he no longer has faith on Kea Stama to be able to lead Labor to victory in the next election. and everyone just looked at him and went, I mean, yeah, of course, which then precipitated a challenge to Keir Stahmer's leadership, which came from Andy Burnham, who is the mayor of Manchester, of Greater Manchester. Now, for our American viewers and listeners, don't switch off.

Don't switch off just because we're talking about British politics. Andy Burnham can't challenge Keer Stahmer because Andy Burnham is not a minister, a member of parliament. So Andy Burnham needs to become a member of parliament. So the Labor MP for a place called Makerfield, which is where my father's from actually, stood down and they have what is called a by-election, which is a small election in that particular constituency, in that particular constituency to see who will be a member of parliament to replace them. And at the moment, Andy Burnham is slightly in the lead. We have reform just behind

and we have restore on 7%. Greens put in a candidate, then they took out a candidate because it was like, well, it's mainly white people, 96% white, so, and their working class. So this really isn't our, you know, we're not going to do a lot here. Conservatives look like they're going to lose their deposit.

So it's very, very interesting to see where this will go. And my favorite part of all of this is Keir Stahmer said he's going to help Andy Burnham canvas for votes, which is the biggest cock block I've ever heard. Well, we will see what happens with it. Obviously, we don't know exactly. I mean, I don't think Starma is going to last a year. It's hard to see how he would. But maybe, I don't know, we'll see. And obviously, the fracturing of the right is another ongoing thing

that we'll keep monitoring as time goes on. For Restore to be on 7% is from a low start is obviously significant. And if they, if, if, if, if Burnham squeaks in and that restore vote could have been added to the reform vote, you can obviously see that playing out in the general election where the thing that was almost, I would argue, inevitably going to happen, which is a reform win, maybe not a reform majority, but a Farage's prime minister. That might be something that does not happen because of the split. Which if you're on the right, I would imagine it would be a terrible outcome. But that may be what happens. It may be a terrible outcome because it may be in a general election. Let's say Greens take a significant chunk from Labor. Labor do OK.

The Greens are not. If it's a choice between reform and or restore and the left, the left will unite. Yeah, maybe. we'll see. We will see. We will see. But my point is something else. And Andy Burnham will put on the burker. Say the magic words. And you know what? We're going to get a safer country, mate. Of course. The laws will be rigorously enforced. There will be a lot less theft.

Yeah, there will be. And living in London, that might be a good thing. No, that will, anyway. So, but what it may happen is that we're going to be faced with a coalition no matter what. And it might be very difficult for people to form coalitions because nobody is in any clear majority. And the political system is not designed for it. Yeah. So we will see what happens. But in the meantime, we'll watch Labor stab each other in the front. And we'll keep covering that issue as well over time now that we're back.

And we've got, by the way, people don't know this. We still haven't released some of our incredible interviews from the American trip. We've got Dwar Kes-Pattel. We've got an amazing interview about the fact that depression isn't caused by a chemical imbalance that we recorded here. We've got a great interview with San Anthony Beaver about Russia and Russian history. Loads of others. We've got an interview coming up with a teacher who went viral during his testimony

in Congress talking about the impact of screens on kids. Just like loads of amazing stuff, some of it which I haven't even mentioned yet to come out And also we're getting stuck back into recording some amazing interviews that people will, if they are supporters of ours on Substack, they're going to get a chance to ask their questions and to know who those people are. And get all of that brilliant extra content as well. And also, we've got one of my favorite interviews that we did in America that we haven't spoken about, that you have mentioned, which is the wonderful interview with Ed Hussein and the history of the Muslim Brotherhood.

And Islamism. And if you are in any way interested as to why, to truly understand why Islamic fundamentalism took a stranglehold in certain countries. Why is it that we're seeing the very real effects of that here with terrorism, the anti-Semitic attacks? You have to watch that interview. It explains everything.

And Ed in that interview is utterly magnificent. And it gets a little spicy at times as well. It does. It does. So with that, everybody should get your book Uneducated, appropriately titled by Francis Foster. It's fantastic. It's already doing really well. And by the way, Francis, if you buy the book this week, it really helps Francis to get on the Sunday Times bestseller list. So make sure to do it when you hear this, when you watch this straight away.

Don't put it off. Do it now. Give them your money.