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1:13

Welcome to Pod Save the World. I'm Tommy Bitor. I'm

1:15

Ben Rhodes. We are doing

1:17

a bonus episode because you guys might have

1:19

seen the news that the Israelis responded to

1:22

the Iranian response to their previous response. They

1:24

attacked them last night and we're going to

1:26

talk about it. Some of you might be

1:28

wondering, why are you guys doing a bonus

1:30

for this and not Iran's massive strike on

1:33

Israel from over the weekend? And the reason is

1:35

because we're human beings with small children. So

1:37

leave us alone, okay? But

1:40

we're going to talk about the

1:42

latest and the seemingly endless tit-for-tat

1:44

in attacks between Iran and Israel,

1:47

this time with Israel hitting targets in Iran. We're

1:49

going to talk about the insane logic of deterrence

1:51

and escalation that you hear about constantly in D.C.

1:53

that seems to be driving all of this. We'll

1:56

talk about what the White House knew about what's

1:58

happening, their response so far. We'll also touch on

2:01

movement on efforts to deliver more military

2:03

assistance to Israel and Ukraine, by the

2:05

way, in the House of Representatives that

2:07

might happen this weekend. There's

2:09

some more sanctions on Iran. There's sanctions from the

2:11

White House on right-wing extremist settlers in the West

2:13

Bank, and we'll talk about what it all means

2:15

for the Palestinians in the war in Gaza. And

2:18

then we'll take some questions from the Pod Save

2:20

the World Discord because you guys had some great

2:22

ones, as you always do, discorders. Always,

2:24

always. All right, Ben. So

2:27

should we just start with what happened

2:29

last night? Why not? So

2:31

here's what we know, well, what we think we know.

2:34

So Israel launched some kind of strike deep

2:37

inside Iran on Thursday night. They hit targets

2:39

in the city of Isfahan. Israelis

2:42

reportedly targeted a military base there. Iranian

2:45

officials told the New York Times that

2:47

the attack was carried out by small

2:49

drones, these quadcopter drones, and they were

2:51

launched from somewhere inside Iranian territory. On

2:55

Thursday night, this was all very confusing because

2:57

on Thursday night, U.S. officials were telling Western

2:59

media that it was a missile strike. Iran

3:02

seems to be denying and downplaying what happened and

3:05

saying, no, it was these quadcopter drones. But

3:07

I did talk to someone in the U.S. government

3:09

who told me that the attack was more than

3:11

just quadcopter drones, although this person would not elaborate,

3:14

so we'll probably find out in the coming days.

3:17

Isfahan is where Iran does a lot of missile

3:19

production and research and development. It's home to an

3:21

Iranian airbase where they store F-14 Tomcats. They

3:24

bought from the United States back in the day then,

3:26

before the Iranian revolution in 1979. There's

3:30

four small nuclear research facilities in

3:32

Isfahan which were not targeted

3:34

or hit, according to Iranian state media.

3:37

Iranian state media also said they shot down some additional

3:40

small drones in another part of the country that's about

3:42

500 miles from Isfahan. So

3:45

it was a very tense night because

3:47

the president of Iran, Ibrahim Raisi, had

3:49

recently said that quote, the tiniest act

3:51

of aggression, end quote, on Iranian soil

3:53

would draw a response. The

3:55

Iranian foreign minister, I think, was on

3:57

CNN just hours before the Israeli attack.

3:59

attack happened saying, quote, the next response

4:02

from us will be immediate and at

4:04

maximum level. So scary stuff. So

4:06

Ben, I think that's all that we know so far.

4:08

Please correct me if I missed anything or added anything.

4:11

And just generally what did you make of Israel

4:13

deciding to launch this strike deep

4:16

into the Iranian territory? Well,

4:20

the other thing that we don't know, right, is exactly

4:23

what, if anything, happened in other countries.

4:26

Because there was some reporting last night about

4:28

potential strikes in Syria and Iraq, but we

4:30

haven't got a lot of fidelity on that

4:32

either. But

4:35

look, when I saw that there

4:37

was an attack inside of Iran

4:39

in Isfahan, your

4:41

first reaction is, OK, well, that's a

4:44

pretty significant action by Israel, because in

4:47

the same way that we haven't seen Iran launch

4:49

direct attacks into Israel, we

4:52

haven't really seen Israel launch standoff

4:54

strike attacks inside of Iran. We've

4:57

seen Israel do some other things

4:59

on a more unattributed basis inside

5:01

of Iran over the years. A

5:04

lot of scientists. Yeah, or cyber

5:06

and things like that. Or that they also

5:09

did that pretty daring raid where they raided

5:11

a warehouse full of old IRGC

5:13

documents that included a lot of information about

5:16

Iran's nuclear program before 2003. That's

5:18

right. So they've done lower

5:21

key things. But then

5:23

the more that information came out over the

5:25

night, it was pretty clear that this

5:28

was not a very significant military

5:30

action. In other words, given

5:33

that in the same way we talked about how Iran

5:35

had, despite launching a barrage

5:37

of things at Israel,

5:39

Iran left some things in reserves,

5:41

say the Hezbollah rockets in southern

5:43

Lebanon. Obviously, Israel could

5:46

have launched a much bigger strike inside

5:48

of Iran. And

5:50

so it felt like they did the kind of

5:52

minimal amount that they needed

5:54

to do to feel like they hit a target

5:57

inside of Iran without trying to

5:59

escalate this further. So, in

6:01

a strange way, they were trying

6:03

to answer the mail on, you know,

6:06

yes, we're willing to strike Iran, even

6:08

though the United States told us not to, but

6:11

we're going to do it in

6:13

a relatively minimalist way that is

6:15

designed to avoid further escalation. So it seems

6:17

like we're still on this, you

6:20

know, both sides trying to save face and

6:22

indicate that they're willing to do something they

6:24

haven't done before, but trying to

6:26

calibrate it in a way that manages

6:29

escalation. So that seems to be like

6:31

where we are. Yeah. And

6:33

so to add to that, I mean, President Raisi

6:35

of Iran gave a speech on Friday.

6:38

He didn't actually reference the Israeli strike at all. He talked

6:40

about what they had done over the last weekend and about

6:42

how it was a sign of the power of the Islamic

6:44

Republic. The Iranian foreign minister

6:46

said, quote, the Zionist regime's media supporters in

6:48

a desperate effort tried to make victory out

6:50

of their defeat while the downed mini-drones have

6:52

not caused any damage or casualties. So that's

6:54

according to Iranian state media. So he's clearly

6:57

trying to de-escalate as well. In

6:59

Israel, you got the far right

7:01

national security minister, Itamar Ben Gevir.

7:04

He posted a message on social media

7:06

with one word saying, lame. So

7:09

extremist voices in Israel are pushing for

7:11

more too. So Ben, you

7:13

know, we talked about this a bit in the last episode,

7:15

but we just wanted to again touch on how stupid

7:18

the logic of deterrence is. So

7:21

as I read the news this morning,

7:23

the same people who were saying that

7:25

Israel had to respond to the Iranian

7:27

strikes to restore deterrence now seem to

7:29

be praising them for responding in a

7:31

way that appears to have had absolutely

7:33

zero military value. So basically the

7:36

strategy is let's have Iran

7:38

and Israel repeatedly fire drones and missiles

7:40

at each other and hope that they

7:42

miss. That's the plan. And

7:44

every time I guess we're just one miscalculation,

7:47

one failed missile defense system away from

7:50

some sort of massive war. And

7:54

we also know for a fact that if

7:56

Iran's attack over the last weekend had killed

7:58

a bunch of Israelis, the Israeli response

8:00

would have been massive because they're telling the media

8:02

that. So basically Iran

8:04

was reckless and lucky. We

8:07

also know that the Israelis drastically

8:09

miscalculated how Iran would respond to

8:11

the Israeli military's strike in Damascus

8:13

in early April to kill the

8:16

bunch of top Iranian generals. The

8:18

New York Times reported that Israel thought the

8:20

Iranian response would be quote, fairly limited, including

8:23

small scale attacks by proxies and a small

8:25

scale attack from Iran. When

8:28

the stakes involve, how do you think

8:31

the logic here has gotten so broken? Yeah,

8:34

that's a great question.

8:37

And you're right to note, by the way, that the

8:39

Iranian response was clearly

8:41

to downplay this. I mean, I

8:44

sent you some things last night. The IRG2 is putting out pictures

8:46

of kind of tiny little drones sitting in your

8:48

hand. They're trolling each other. But

8:50

they're trolling each other. But I mean, it's

8:52

a good thing, I guess, that they're downplaying

8:54

it because it suggests that they're not looking

8:56

to escalate. And so

8:59

in a way, it's good that both sides are

9:01

trying to act like they're moving on. It seems

9:03

like neither Israel or Iran wants to escalate this

9:05

further in terms of direct exchanges of fire for

9:07

now. But in terms of

9:10

your question, I don't the logic of deterrence

9:12

makes no sense here, because first

9:16

of all, both sides don't

9:18

look stronger for the actions they took. So

9:21

Iran doesn't look stronger for having fired

9:23

a bunch of missiles and drones at

9:25

Israel and had them all shot down.

9:29

And now I don't think, and actually Israel

9:31

could have taken the win, as Joe Biden

9:33

apparently told them to do. But

9:36

instead, now I'm not sure they look super

9:38

strong by launching a kind

9:40

of pretty minimal strike at Isfahan.

9:43

So what deterrence has been

9:45

achieved or restored here? And

9:49

I think if we're honest about this, this

9:51

feels a lot less like some kind of genius military

9:58

strategy around deterrence. and

10:01

more about domestic politics in both countries.

10:03

And let's just name that and be honest about it. It's

10:06

like the Iranians felt embarrassed

10:08

that their embassy compound was hit

10:10

in Syria. Felt like they need

10:12

to do something. There's some interesting reporting

10:14

that's come out too, Tommy, that suggests that

10:16

some of the Iranian proxy groups were like,

10:18

hey, we keep being in

10:21

the crosshairs of Israel. We keep

10:23

launching attacks, where are you? And

10:25

maybe the Iranians felt like they needed to

10:27

kind of maintain some credibility with their own

10:30

proxies to show that, okay, we're willing to fire

10:32

some things at Israel too. Whatever their logic was,

10:34

it felt like it was more about domestic

10:37

political consumption or

10:39

regional consumption by their proxies than it

10:41

was about some deterrence theory. And

10:44

then the same thing, Israel got out over

10:46

its skis and announcing that they had to

10:48

respond. So they kind of boxed themselves

10:50

in by saying that they were gonna

10:52

do something. And so

10:55

therefore they chose to do something designed

10:57

to not escalate things. And so I

11:00

guess the one thing that was achieved

11:02

militarily by both sides is that they

11:04

both demonstrated that they're willing

11:06

to take shots at each other, but

11:09

I don't think it created some

11:11

deterrence dome by

11:13

doing it. And to your

11:15

point, it just shows the kind of irrationality

11:17

of where we are in

11:19

the Middle East, particularly, and maybe even

11:21

generally, that you

11:24

feel the need to risk starting 443

11:26

to just what? Say

11:30

face. So that some deterrence

11:32

analysts can

11:35

mouth talking points about doing deterrence when

11:38

this whole thing has just been a cycle

11:40

of escalation. Yeah, and I reached out to

11:42

someone very smart who I respect who said,

11:44

well, he thought the goal of the strike

11:46

was for Israel to kind of show what

11:48

they could do, their capabilities, to do these

11:51

quadcopter attacks in the city where there's real

11:53

military infrastructure. But Israel has done Exactly

11:55

these kinds of quadcopter drone attacks

11:58

before in Iran several times. I'm

12:00

not sure toy by that but more broadly

12:02

but I mean act Against Diplomacy is about

12:04

putting yourself in the other guy shoes and

12:07

trying to see the world like they do

12:09

in people in Washington are incapable of doing

12:11

that with around like last episode we played

12:13

it a clip the center Tom Cotton saying

12:15

imagine if the Us with Israel and we

12:18

had three hundred drones and missiles fired at

12:20

us like they did you know like they

12:22

had to respond but you never hear Tom

12:24

Cotton say imagine if the Chairman of the

12:26

Joint Chiefs was assassinated while visiting Us embassy

12:29

abroad because basically that's. What happened to Iran

12:31

in Syria to cotton never tried to put

12:33

himself in Iran shoes because it his mind

12:35

they're the bad guy and again for the

12:37

thousand time. No. One is saying

12:39

or Iran is. Bob has good. leaders

12:41

are good actors. They're not speed. You

12:44

have to try to understand their perspective

12:46

into your point about domestic politics. day

12:48

of Extremists And they have moderates in

12:50

their government Like any other government read

12:52

their politics. They have to worry about

12:54

external threats like any other country. And

12:56

let's be honest, they're relatively weak in

12:58

the region when compared to their neighbors.

13:00

Israel has nukes the Saudis in the

13:03

Emeraude. He's have Us weapons and bases

13:05

that are a lot more modern than

13:07

the A fourteen. Tom Cats. The De

13:09

Botton, you know, Nineteen Seventy Five. Whatever.

13:11

when I Tom Cruise was fine. I'm

13:13

around and do with the previous Top

13:15

Gun. So you know that this is

13:17

oppressors like Iran. supports these proxy groups

13:19

in the region because that's their version

13:21

of Nato. That that's their security blanket,

13:23

right of these shitty little you know,

13:25

proxy forces in Iraq and Syria and

13:27

Hezbollah and Hamas which decide to say

13:29

they're not lethal, but I mean that

13:31

sort of where they're coming from. I

13:33

just you know you never hear anyone.

13:36

Think. That way, or try to understand

13:38

where and ibraheem race he might be

13:40

coming from in terms of his political

13:42

future. Yeah, I

13:44

know they're couple their points to this.

13:47

Which is the real. Deterrence is different

13:49

though. Deterrence it Israel. I totally. I

13:51

mean. That to impugn

13:53

a verb. The. Person he

13:56

spoke to be like Israel's

13:58

deterrence. Iran knows that Israel's

14:00

capabilities are. You know Israel

14:02

has significant standoff strike capabilities.

14:04

Mit the air capabilities. Israel has

14:07

nuclear weapons, right? That's a lot

14:09

of deterrence. The reason that Hezbollah.

14:12

Has not been fully activated. In.

14:14

Terms of firing thousands of rockets

14:17

are drawn. It's is because if

14:19

Israel used all those capabilities, they

14:21

could essentially kind of carpet bomb

14:23

Hezbollah and launch pretty significant strikes.

14:25

And Iran? that's the not. like

14:28

a pinprick strike in Islam, you

14:30

know, zip. On the other side,

14:32

Irans deterrence is not. Necessarily

14:35

know it's and capabilities as out of

14:37

Iran is that hurts is actually more

14:39

Hezbollah. It's the fact that they have

14:41

this significant force with thousands of rockets

14:44

a good really rained down significant chaos

14:46

on on is wrong ways that are

14:48

harder for missile defense technologies to deal

14:51

with some and so neither side is

14:53

actually utilize the thing that is their

14:55

maximum to turned into situations. It's more

14:57

this kind of performed of exchange and

15:00

showing the were willing to cross new

15:02

lines new were willing to push the

15:04

envelope. Which to me feel more

15:07

dangerous than it feels deterrence. The other

15:09

thing to be concerned about and this

15:11

is what like a Tom Cotton is

15:13

consistently failed to see Your point about

15:16

domestic politics is ultimately Irans bigger played

15:18

a deterrence is to try to get

15:20

a nuclear weapon. This is why we

15:23

had a nuclear deal that shipped out

15:25

all of their enriched uranium that had

15:27

inspections. I know we've harped on this,

15:30

but the point is, All.

15:32

The things that have happened I think

15:34

make it more likely that Iran is

15:36

calculating right now we better weather on

15:38

a covert are over basis, probably covered

15:40

basis. Know we better near double down

15:43

on the idea that we need a

15:45

nuclear deterrent because if not around content

15:47

of Israel can kind of do these

15:49

kinds of things with impunity. It's the

15:51

last thing I'd say we don't really

15:53

know what happened yet. that is contradictory

15:55

reports about missiles going into Ron Versus

15:57

as you said, drones inside the country.

16:00

Your there's an intelligence costs to and

16:02

will never know the true answer to

16:04

this. But if Israel utilized kind of

16:06

intelligence network said to has inside of

16:08

Iran to kind of launch something from

16:11

within or honor, well that's a burns.

16:13

As said to row, that's something that

16:15

that they knew before. they probably can't

16:17

turn Baghdad so that's another piece of

16:19

this. Yeah, The

16:21

real utterances: The friends and middle on the web and. Whether.

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today. You can do

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this when you Angie that. So,

18:16

okay, when Israel hit that IRGC target

18:18

in Damascus in early April killing the

18:20

top IRGC generals, they reportedly gave the

18:22

US almost no warning. It was kind

18:24

of like real time warning. This

18:27

time with this latest response, there's

18:30

a bunch of reporting that says the US

18:32

was told on Thursday that Israel planned to

18:34

retaliate against Iran in 20 to 48 hours.

18:37

They had some sort of heads up. The White

18:39

House has been

18:41

today very conspicuous in terms of saying nothing. Like

18:43

I reached out to some folks who were like,

18:45

look at me responding to you by saying nothing,

18:47

which I totally get right. They're trying to like

18:50

deescalate, kind of take the air out of this

18:52

thing if they can. But as

18:54

a former press guy, what this will probably mostly

18:56

do is get a bunch of

18:58

reporters really mad as everyone else in the

19:00

government leaks what happened. But regardless then, Secretary

19:02

of State Tony Blinken, he's in Italy right

19:04

now meeting with the G7 leaders to coordinate

19:06

new sanctions on Iran. Basically

19:09

every leader in the G7, including President Biden,

19:12

asked Netanyahu not to retaliate. Biden

19:14

line, as you said earlier, was take the win, but

19:16

it seems like he refused to save face. Then,

19:20

how long does Netanyahu get to tell every

19:23

other Western democracy to fuck off while

19:25

expecting total support from them? Literally,

19:28

a couple of days ago, the US and

19:30

the UK were shooting down drones

19:32

fired at Israel. Then

19:34

they asked him to take the win, both Rishi

19:36

Sunak and Joe Biden, and he just declined.

19:40

Thanks, thanks, but no thanks. I'm good. I'm

19:42

going to do my own thing. Yeah. I

19:44

mean, it felt like he tried to split the difference, right?

19:48

On the one hand, Netanyahu didn't take

19:50

the win. He felt like he had to do something.

19:52

On the other hand, what he did was kind of

19:54

calibrated to not have a

19:57

massive escalation. It's kind of like you

19:59

use the school. analogy last time, Tommy, that

20:01

like there's a big, we're the big brother

20:03

to Israel and, you know, they kind of

20:05

fight with us standing behind them. This is

20:07

kind of like they were

20:09

walking back towards our side of the schoolyard and

20:12

we're like, come here, come here. And then they just kind

20:14

of ran back and kicked around in the shins one more

20:16

time. And then, you know, like, but, but to me, like,

20:20

it is just notable. Sure,

20:23

we had an influence, I think, in

20:26

moderating this response. And yet, how many

20:28

times can we read news cycles of

20:31

the US publicly saying don't do something

20:33

and then then you just does it?

20:35

I mean, there's still clearly this, I

20:38

mean, that's not normal, you know, and

20:41

at some point, US policymakers are

20:43

gonna have to absorb the reality that, that

20:46

then you know, listening.

20:48

Yeah, although I guess it's more normal than you

20:51

think if you include like settlement construction. Well,

20:53

yeah, I mean, that's been going on for a long

20:55

time. That's true. Yeah. So the administration,

20:58

the United States and the G7, I think, put

21:01

forward a bunch of new sanctions on Iran. I

21:03

don't know the specifics of them. I have zero

21:05

confidence that they'll matter. But I mean, yeah, I'm

21:07

just gonna like, oh, that's

21:09

gonna be the thing that does it. You

21:11

know, I mean, there's nothing so performative and

21:14

routinized about these sanctions announcements. And there's

21:17

no evidence that they work. And actually,

21:19

I'm gonna say like, there's a

21:21

recent, just the last few days,

21:23

I saw like a report out that Iran

21:26

has sold more oil to China

21:28

in the last five years

21:31

than ever before, essentially. China

21:35

is not participating in sanctions. Right.

21:37

And the more we use sanctions

21:39

and overuse sanctions, the more other

21:42

countries, including China and India, just

21:45

start to ignore them

21:47

because they're so overused. And so

21:50

other than a political messaging strategy in Washington

21:52

to be able to say, we put

21:56

some new sanctions on Iran, it has no impact in the

21:58

real world that I can see. Yeah. I

22:00

do think Tony Blinken is about to go to

22:02

Beijing for meetings with his Chinese counterpart. So interesting

22:04

that that's happening. Hopefully there's no fucking spy balloon

22:07

incident that blows it up on the way. So

22:10

Ben, let's broaden this to Gaza. Over

22:12

in the House, Representative Speaker Johnson immediately

22:14

put forward a resolution condemning Iran for

22:16

its strike on Thursday. Thirteen Dems and

22:18

one Republican, Tom Massey, voted against it.

22:21

Johnson is also trying to pass supplemental

22:23

funding bills for Israel and Ukraine and a

22:25

bunch of other priorities this weekend. Interestingly,

22:28

the House seems to be coming

22:30

together in a bipartisan way to overcome

22:32

objections from Marjorie Taylor Greene and a

22:34

bunch of far-right morons. So the Israel

22:37

aid bill is up to $26.38 billion.

22:42

Some of that money will go towards paying for

22:44

U.S. military operations over the weekend, last weekend, to

22:46

shoot down all those Iranian drones and missiles. That

22:48

stuff costs a lot of money. But

22:50

according to the Times of Israel, $5.2 billion

22:53

goes towards Israeli missile defense

22:55

systems. $0.5 billion goes towards

22:58

purchasing more advanced weapons systems. And then

23:00

there's $1 billion for weapons production more

23:02

broadly and then a bunch of other

23:04

stuff. It's not worth getting into. So

23:06

key point is this is not

23:09

just funding for missile defense systems

23:11

or defensive-only systems. Switching

23:15

gears to the Rafa invasion, The New

23:17

York Times reported that White House officials,

23:19

led by Jake Sullivan, had a virtual

23:21

meeting with their Israeli counterparts in Israel

23:23

over their Rafa invasion plan. Remember, Rafa's

23:25

at city in southern Gaza, where about

23:28

a million people are seeking shelter or

23:30

living in tents, zero

23:32

infrastructure. The U.S.

23:34

side once again came away thinking that not

23:36

enough planning was being done to protect civilians.

23:39

So we'll see how that plays out. The

23:42

CIA director Bill Burns publicly

23:44

blamed Hamas for rejecting the latest

23:46

six-week ceasefire and hostage release proposal.

23:49

The very sad sticking point

23:51

seems to be that Hamas

23:53

does not have 40 hostages

23:56

in its control to release

23:58

specifically women and civilians. It's

24:00

not clear if that means those

24:02

hostages are being held by other

24:04

militant groups like Palestinian Islamic

24:06

Jihad or that just many of them

24:08

have died, but very, very grim. Here's

24:12

a clip of Tony Blinken talking about

24:14

those ceasefire talks from earlier today. The

24:17

only thing, the only thing

24:20

standing between the Gazan people and

24:22

a ceasefire is Hamas. It's

24:25

rejected. Generous proposals

24:27

from Israel. It seems

24:30

more interested in a regional conflict than

24:32

it is in a ceasefire that would immediately

24:34

improve the lives of the Palestinian people. It

24:38

continues to move the goalposts. And

24:40

the world needs to know and needs

24:42

to understand, again, that the

24:44

only thing standing between the ceasefire and

24:47

a thousand people is Hamas. I

24:50

was really hammering the blame Hamas messaging recently.

24:53

On Friday, the US announced more sanctions on

24:55

far-right extremist settlers, which is a good thing,

24:57

including some close allies of Itamar Ben Gavir.

25:00

And on Thursday, the US vetoed an effort

25:02

at the United Nations Security Council to recognize

25:05

Palestine as a full-member state at the UN.

25:07

So that's kind of the grab-bag stuff, Ben,

25:09

of what's happening in Washington and New York.

25:13

Yeah, I mean, a lot of different pieces of this. On

25:16

Rafa, you can sense the administration

25:19

is really alarmed, as

25:21

they should be, about the potential humanitarian

25:23

catastrophe if the Rafa operation goes forward.

25:25

And frankly, just the extent to which

25:28

that would extend this

25:30

war. If they go into Rafa,

25:33

that's a potentially multiple, multiple weeks. And

25:37

people have to start to realize that I think

25:39

everyone kind of assumed at some point this will just get to

25:41

a ceasefire and there'll be kind of a return to normalcy and

25:44

a lot of aid will get in. There

25:46

is a reality in which we're talking in

25:48

a couple of months, and it's much worse

25:50

in terms of the humanitarian situation in Gaza.

25:52

Tens of thousands of more people have been killed. It's

25:55

still open-ended. That's where

25:57

a maximalist Rafa... perhaps

26:00

even any kind of significant Roth operation

26:02

could land. And

26:04

you saw the administration at the G7,

26:06

they put out a statement together with

26:08

the other G7 countries reiterating

26:11

their opposition to a full-scale military

26:13

operation, Roth, and saying that it

26:15

would have catastrophic consequences on

26:17

the civilian population. And

26:20

so you can kind of sense the alarm. Now,

26:22

that brings me to the aid package. It

26:25

is, I really

26:27

worry about this package. What

26:30

message does it send to the world that

26:32

we're simultaneously saying, this will

26:35

have a catastrophic consequence for the civilian

26:37

population in Gaza that is already at

26:39

the brink of famine, and

26:41

then we are shoveling out the door? What's

26:44

the number now Tommy? 26

26:47

billion. $26 billion in military aid? I

26:50

would vote against this thing if

26:52

I was in the House unless

26:55

it was only defensive weapons,

26:57

okay, we're going to restock the Iron

26:59

Dome, we're going to resupply air defense

27:01

systems, but there's offensive weapons

27:03

in this package that are being

27:05

used in Gaza. And

27:08

how can you simultaneously

27:10

say that this Roth operation

27:12

should go forward, be warning of

27:14

you got Sam Power out there

27:16

saying famine is here? That's the USAI

27:19

director saying that, and

27:22

then just give billions of dollars in offensive weapons?

27:25

Yeah. I just think we haven't absorbed

27:27

what message that sends to the world. Ben, it

27:29

gets worse. It gets worse. The

27:31

Wall Street Journal reported that separate and apart from

27:33

those aid bills that the Biden administration is considering

27:35

sending more than a billion in weapons to Israel.

27:37

I imagine this is from like previous funding. That

27:41

tranche includes $700 million worth of tank ammo and $100

27:43

million worth of mortar rounds.

27:48

I'm sure there's probably someone in the Pentagon that's

27:50

like, no, no, no, this is a long-term resupply

27:53

that would be necessary to have in a stockpile

27:55

in case there's a broader war with

27:57

Hezbollah or a broader war with

27:59

Iran. But again, I don't

28:02

know if that context is accurate, but even

28:04

if it is, it doesn't matter. The message

28:06

it's sending not just to the world, but

28:08

also to people within the Democratic Party who

28:10

desperately want a Democratic president to end this

28:13

war are just getting the finger left and

28:15

right by these weapons transfer processes. That's

28:17

right. And

28:19

on the blame Hamas part on the

28:22

ceasefire, absolutely. I mean, if Hamas is

28:24

becoming transigent and won't say yes to

28:26

any ceasefire deal, that's terrible and

28:28

that deserves to be called out. However,

28:31

I don't see

28:33

why the logic of that message

28:36

is therefore that this Roth operation has to

28:38

go forward. Because number

28:41

one, the hostages aren't being rescued

28:43

in the military operation. So

28:45

they're dying in the military operation. And

28:50

so if your logic is because Hamas wouldn't agree

28:52

to a ceasefire, it's somehow

28:54

okay to have a famine in

28:56

Gaza. It's somehow okay for this

28:59

Rafa, like that's a dangerous logic.

29:01

There should be a ceasefire because

29:03

there should be a ceasefire. Because

29:06

there's a famine in Gaza. Because

29:08

this military operation is not rescuing

29:10

hostages. Because this military operation has

29:13

killed over 15,000 Palestinian children. So

29:16

ideally, yes, there's a negotiated ceasefire

29:18

that secures really some hostages, but

29:21

we have to, I'm willing

29:23

to stand behind the proposition that there should be

29:25

a ceasefire in any case, morally,

29:28

strategically, for all kinds of reasons, including

29:30

for Israel. Because I just don't think

29:32

going forward with this Rafa operation and

29:34

killing another 10,000 Palestinians is

29:38

not gonna destroy Hamas. It's not gonna

29:40

achieve their military jetses. It's not gonna

29:42

secure the hostages release. So I worry

29:44

that the blame Hamas message, while totally

29:46

necessary and right, if that's what's happened

29:49

in the ceasefire negotiation, that it'll be

29:51

used to suggest that therefore, this

29:53

kind of totally, I

29:58

don't even know what to call this military operation anymore. It's

30:02

not okay because you don't like Hamas.

30:05

It's catastrophic. It's like what are we

30:07

doing here? Yeah, look, I'm with you.

30:10

Hamas is a terrorist organization. What they

30:12

did on October 7th was evil and

30:14

indefensible. You cannot ever justify mass occurring

30:17

civilians. I just, I cannot ever think

30:19

that's okay. Doesn't have to be a

30:21

freedom fighter or Israeli military, you know,

30:23

tanker. Yeah, and just one other thing on this,

30:25

Tommy. If Hamas is obstructing a

30:28

ceasefire negotiation, maybe it's because they want

30:30

this operation to go forward. Maybe it's

30:32

because they know that they're gaining support.

30:35

Maybe it's because they know that Israel

30:37

is being isolated internationally. These

30:40

terrorist organizations try to bait you

30:42

into these actions. Israel, Al Qaeda

30:44

wanted the United States to overreact

30:46

to 9-11. Like, so

30:48

stop and think, use your heads.

30:51

Like the very fact that they are trying

30:53

to be arsonists doesn't mean that you burn

30:55

everything down. Yeah, let's take

30:57

some of these great discord questions that'll

30:59

also let us come back around to

31:01

this UN Security Council recognition question. So

31:04

Deb W. asks, Iran has air

31:06

defense systems like the Iron Dome

31:08

or way less sophisticated. To

31:11

what extent do we have air defense systems that

31:13

are not classified? Are our

31:15

cities protected by deterrence while Iran's

31:18

are protected by active anti-ballistic missile

31:20

systems? So Deb, rest assured, we

31:23

have lots of missile defense

31:25

systems. We got interceptor sites

31:27

in Alaska. We have interceptor

31:29

sites in California. There are

31:31

missile defense systems on Navy

31:33

ships. There are forward deployed

31:35

THAAD systems in Guam, South

31:37

Korea. There's Patriot missile batteries

31:40

in all sorts of NATO countries. Israel

31:43

has additive additional

31:45

systems like Iron Dome that

31:47

are designed to intercept shorter

31:50

range rocket fire, smaller

31:52

projectiles. We don't need those unless

31:55

some real shit goes down in Mexico and Canada,

31:57

in which case, we might have to rethink this

31:59

one. I imagine then there's probably some kind

32:01

of iron dome-like system around the White House

32:03

or something, you know, like really, you know,

32:06

strategic locations. But we don't need blanket iron

32:08

dome coverage here in the United States, thank

32:10

God, because of, well, oceans. I

32:13

know you're being pretty, you

32:16

kind of sleep at the switch on the Canada. Yeah,

32:18

I know. Well, listen. The one

32:20

thing I'd say to kind of make Deb freak

32:22

out a little bit though is that the one

32:24

exception to this is that there's never been a

32:27

clear demonstration that when we're

32:29

dealing with sophisticated intercontinental

32:32

ballistic missiles from, say,

32:34

Russia, that we have assurance that

32:36

we could shoot those down. Yeah, all of them down.

32:38

This is the Raiden. It goes all the way back

32:40

to Star Wars. But so we have the best missile

32:43

defense systems in the world, but

32:46

there may be, you know,

32:48

from our more sophisticated adversaries,

32:50

you know, capacity

32:52

to evade them. We have not, thankfully,

32:54

had to test that proposition, but in

32:56

training runs, these things are not 100

32:58

percent. Yeah. Yeah. And

33:01

that's why nuclear war is not worth testing. That's not worth testing. Yeah.

33:04

A lot of the sort of modern

33:06

nuclear missiles have something called a MERV,

33:08

which is basically they have separate payloads

33:10

that can separate apart and separate reentry

33:12

vehicles. So one missile can hit a

33:15

bunch of targets. So yeah, to Ben's

33:17

point, the more you learn about this stuff,

33:19

the less you ever want it to come to

33:21

fruition. More tested. Let's just not mess around here.

33:24

Spiffy asks, when governments are

33:26

considering their response to an attack like this, do

33:28

they tend to measure the proportionality against the damage

33:30

done by the attack or the scale of the

33:32

damage it could have done? Is

33:34

there an active law for this? Obviously thinking about

33:37

Israel, but a U.S. national security perspective would be

33:39

interesting to hear, too. So

33:41

great question, Spiffy. Proportionality

33:43

drives a lot of the rules and restrictions in the

33:45

law of war. So that is a key part of

33:48

it. But to your point earlier, Ben, I mean, in

33:51

this case and frankly, in

33:53

Iran's case, I think that politics was

33:55

driving. Yeah. This

33:57

is that shaving face. This is that showing tough. This is about

33:59

appeasing. using the far right in both countries. But

34:01

what do you think? I

34:04

mean, yeah, I think you're right.

34:07

To Spiffy's specific question about

34:09

law, there is a proportionality

34:11

kind of doctrine in international

34:13

law that allows for a

34:16

certain kind of response, that

34:19

it's not disproportionate. But yeah, I agree with

34:21

you, Tommy. This

34:25

was about politics. Iran

34:27

felt angered, embarrassed, exposed

34:29

when their embassy got hit and

34:31

their senior people got killed. So

34:34

they did something. If they

34:36

had killed a lot of people in

34:38

Israel, if say some of those missile

34:40

defense systems had failed, I think

34:42

Israel would have felt compelled to blow

34:45

up more stuff and kill people in Iran,

34:47

less because of the laws of war and

34:50

more just because of public attitudes. And

34:52

again, nobody

34:54

likes to act like politics comes into this.

34:57

In my experience, politics is usually the number

35:01

one factor in the decision making by other

35:04

countries and in some cases by the US

35:07

in terms of what you do. I think

35:09

the question is, how do the Israeli

35:11

people feel about this response?

35:13

Our voices, like Itamar Ben Gevir, the

35:15

ones driving the narrative because

35:18

that's not good. Or if

35:20

they threaten to leave the Netanyahu coalition, if he

35:22

doesn't know more, that's frightening. I mean, a lot

35:24

of the coverage I saw this morning from

35:27

sort of Western correspondents doing live shots

35:29

at Tel Aviv or Jerusalem was sort

35:31

of like, look at how life

35:33

is carrying on and no one sort of seems to

35:35

care about this and everybody is unfazed. Hopefully

35:38

that's a pervasive sentiment

35:40

and people are not

35:42

demanding their government do more to take out the

35:45

Iranian threat. But I don't know. I'm

35:47

nervous about it. Well, here's the problem too, is

35:49

that I saw a poll that said like 52% of Israelis

35:52

did not think that there

35:54

should be a strike on

35:56

Iran, which is good, except

35:59

as in this country. So this is not

36:01

to single out Israel. The loudest voices are

36:03

usually the most obnoxious in running a maximalist

36:05

response, right? And so we dealt with this

36:07

constantly in the Obama years where the

36:10

media narrative was constantly dominated by

36:12

people calling us weak, you know,

36:14

by Lindsey Graham, by Tom Cotton,

36:16

by John Bolton's The World,

36:19

by the Brett Stephens's.

36:22

And they weren't representative of public opinion, but

36:25

they could kind of drive, they had a lot of political influence

36:27

and they had a lot of megaphone in

36:29

the media. And in Israel

36:31

right now, Netanyahu's coalition depends upon

36:33

the support of guys like Ben Gavir. And

36:37

so even though Ben Gavir may

36:39

not represent a majoritarian view, you know,

36:41

he kind of has to be listened

36:43

to. And

36:46

that's kind of the dangerous dynamic. Yeah,

36:49

it is all very, very frightening.

36:51

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you Angie that. Travis

38:27

asks. Not that I want this, but

38:30

at what point do things escalated for

38:32

Biden to have no choice but to

38:34

deploy troops, even if just in defensive

38:36

operations? Ah, I got some bad news

38:38

for you Travis. Ah, we got troops

38:41

there. There's truth in the region. We

38:43

gotta base in Bahrain. We had a

38:45

big basin, a cutter, there's a Us

38:47

troops in Kuwait, the U A E

38:49

A Rock, Syria, Jordan or member that

38:52

the alternative Cel auditorium. On top of

38:54

that. Ah, there's additional aircraft

38:56

carriers and naval assets constantly

38:58

being sent to the region.

39:00

There's all these reports, the

39:02

Us. Air Force flying additional

39:04

serve overflights over. You. Know the

39:07

Middle East more broadly. So there are

39:09

tons of Us military assets and people

39:11

in the Middle East that are in

39:13

firing range of Iran if they wanted.

39:15

If they decided that you know what

39:17

like we're going all and they were

39:19

not just hitting the Israelis board and

39:21

hit the Americans because they're supporting Israel

39:23

itself. the risk is already there. Yeah,

39:26

I'm one of the reasons why you

39:28

mentioned before that the Israelis notified the

39:30

U S in advance. That's a big

39:32

reason why. I mean part of it

39:34

is to d conflicts right? and so

39:36

if we're doing something they don't want

39:38

to know us to see something that

39:40

looks unusual in the sky and shoot

39:42

it down or something. But I think

39:44

also. The. us probably takes

39:47

what's called force protection measures are after

39:49

an israeli strike on iran in other

39:51

words they may need to kind of

39:53

alert their own air defense systems just

39:55

in case iran decided to say you

39:57

know what he of this crosses the

39:59

line we're going to take a

40:01

shot at US personnel or facilities

40:03

in the region. So there's not

40:07

only their troops there, but I think they're probably

40:09

on relatively high alert. And

40:11

the challenge is one of the reasons that

40:13

Biden has tried to kind of deescalate

40:15

this circumstance is he doesn't want

40:18

them to get drawn into a

40:20

conflict, but they're there. Yeah.

40:22

And one thing I think we all should be watching is

40:25

remember when these Iranian proxy groups

40:28

took a strike at that drone strike at the

40:30

base in Jordan and killed a couple two US

40:32

service members, the US responded

40:34

pretty heavily, but also it seemed like the

40:37

Iranians called their buddies in these proxy

40:39

groups and were like, please chill out,

40:41

like stop doing this. Don't go the

40:43

Americans into getting more

40:45

aggressive. You have to wonder, Ben, will

40:48

they maintain that posture? Like will the

40:50

proxy groups, I mean, the Houthi rebels

40:53

in Yemen, they're

40:55

firing off shit like a drunk guy on

40:57

July 4th. They're just firing missiles into the

40:59

Red Sea all day every day. But these

41:01

proxy forces in Syria and Iraq, and then

41:03

as you mentioned many times, like the Hezbollah

41:05

as an arsenal, if they all decide to

41:07

be like, okay, we're going to go after

41:09

American bases now, that would be very bad.

41:11

And that would create enormous pressure on President

41:13

Biden. Or the American, say,

41:16

embassy in Baghdad. In

41:18

the past when there have been ratchet

41:20

attentions between the US and Iran, to

41:22

those old enough to remember, they're still

41:24

a green zone. There's still a kind

41:26

of security perimeter around where

41:28

the US embassy is. And that could be vulnerable

41:31

too. So it's not just troops. In some cases,

41:34

what's more vulnerable at times is these US

41:36

diplomatic facilities because they're not as hardened as

41:39

say a bases. And so that enters

41:41

into the equation too. Yeah, that

41:43

was something we all learned the hard way during

41:46

the Arab Spring. And after the Benghazi attacks,

41:49

there's a lot of Americans serving

41:51

in dangerous places for deployed. And it's very hard

41:53

to have eyes on all of them at all

41:56

times. Then WhySulami1

41:58

asks, Why would

42:00

the U.S. veto the resolution for Palestinian

42:02

UN membership? It seems to be in

42:05

complete opposite to recent calls from the

42:07

U.S. for a two-state solution. Great

42:10

question. Great observation. You want to start

42:12

with this one? Yeah, before I

42:14

do, though, not to undermine the seriousness of

42:16

the question, is it Y-Salami? It's

42:19

Y, the letter, capital S, Alami,

42:22

the number one. I see. So it's

42:24

not like someone questioning whether you would eat salami.

42:26

Oh, no. Okay, good.

42:28

Good. I just want to

42:31

get it clear because I like salami, so I

42:33

could have answered that question. I'm with you. Okay,

42:35

so this is a perennial question. In

42:39

the Obama years, for instance, we

42:42

were quite outspoken against settlement construction.

42:46

And multiple times, I remember pretty

42:48

clever countries at the UN taking

42:50

direct language from Barack Obama's statements and

42:52

making them UN resolutions and then forcing

42:56

us to take a choice. Over

42:59

my objections, veto

43:01

those resolutions, we finally let – we

43:04

finally abstained at the end of the Obama administration and

43:06

had one of those resolutions go forward. I

43:09

think that this is an important question because

43:11

there's this kind of knee-jerk view

43:13

in Washington that we can't pursue

43:17

any recognition of a Palestinian state at the UN.

43:21

In the constant refrain you'll hear, I'm sure it

43:23

will be in the talking points. I'm sure it's

43:25

in the talking points that they used to justify

43:27

this veto. We believe that

43:29

any resolution should be negotiated between the parties.

43:32

It's clearly not happening. There

43:35

is no negotiation happening between the parties. The

43:38

Israeli government, as currently constituted, is

43:41

outwardly against the establishment of Palestinian state.

43:44

And so I believe that recognition of

43:46

a Palestinian state in international forums like

43:48

the UN should be on

43:50

the table for the United States. There should not be a de

43:54

facto veto. And

43:56

at a minimum, why –

43:58

it's not unlike what we've been saying. about military

44:01

assistance, why would you

44:03

give away all of your leverage? Israel clearly

44:05

doesn't want the United States to pursue any

44:07

recognition. It could be through a General Assembly

44:09

resolution that is less kind of binding, or

44:11

it could be through a Security Council resolution

44:13

like this. But if the US

44:15

indicated that it was open to some

44:18

form of international recognition of a Palestinian

44:21

state, unless Israel

44:23

did X and Y, I

44:25

think Israel would be far more likely to do X and

44:28

Y in terms of ... So this

44:30

is one of those things where it's somehow

44:32

ingrained in US policy to remove

44:35

any of our leverage, and

44:37

I think that doesn't make any sense. If you believe there

44:39

should be a Palestinian state, you should

44:41

be willing to stand behind that position in international

44:43

forum like the UN. And

44:45

if you believe that you want it

44:47

to be negotiated, you should at a minimum use

44:50

that as leverage to try to get Israel into

44:52

a real negotiation. Yeah.

44:56

It's at best

44:58

an incoherent US

45:00

policy. And that's not a criticism of President

45:02

Biden. That's a criticism of us and everybody

45:04

else going forward. No, we ... I thought

45:06

this was illogical when we were in government.

45:09

So to take their argument of good faith,

45:11

it is quite clear that

45:13

the Biden administration thinks that

45:16

the best path to

45:18

achieving a two-state solution, the creation of

45:20

a Palestinian state, will come through this

45:22

process of trying to get the Saudi

45:25

government and the Israelis to normalize relations.

45:27

I think the idea is that in

45:30

cutting this deal where the US would

45:32

basically have to give the Saudis some

45:34

sort of security guarantee, kind of a

45:36

NATO-like, Article 5-like guarantee, it sounds like,

45:38

maybe even a civilian nuclear infrastructure. Imagine

45:40

Mohammed bin Salman with a nuclear infrastructure,

45:42

if that sounds like a good idea

45:44

to you. We disagree.

45:47

Some sort of weapons shipments probably. And

45:49

the Israelis, they would have to give

45:52

some sort of meaningful steps towards the creation of

45:54

a Palestinian state. Now, I'm much

45:56

less hopeful than Biden's team is that

45:59

that could happen. happen or that

46:01

Netanyahu has the flexibility to

46:03

take whatever steps would be required to get this

46:05

normalization deal done, but that seemed to be what

46:07

they think is the best path and

46:10

then talks between the two parties, Israelis and the

46:12

Palestinians. I agree

46:14

with you, Ben, that the normalization at the

46:16

UN should be on the table. The question

46:18

I've always had, though, is kind of, okay,

46:20

let's say either the United Nations General Assembly

46:22

or the UN Security Council gives

46:26

the Palestinian state, recognizes the

46:28

Palestinian state, then what? You

46:32

snap a finger and it magically creates a

46:34

Palestinian state with a government and infrastructure and

46:36

territory. There would then have

46:39

to be a process of, what, expelling all

46:42

Israelis from certain parts of

46:45

the West Bank or Jerusalem. For

46:48

people who think this is a clean option, it is far

46:51

from that. It's not,

46:53

and you're right to flag that. But

46:56

look, the reality is these resolutions do matter. The

46:59

reason that the West Bank and

47:01

Gaza are treated and viewed

47:03

as occupied territories is because of

47:06

existing UN resolutions. It creates a

47:08

basis, international law creates a home base,

47:10

a place to come back to. Now,

47:12

to your point, it's not like the US

47:14

would just wake up yesterday and decide, you

47:16

know what? We're going to

47:19

now all of a sudden support this resolution that

47:21

is legally binding on the

47:23

Christian Palestinian state. The question

47:25

is twofold in my mind.

47:28

Why not introduce this into the process? Let's

47:31

just take the Obama years. When John

47:33

Kerry was trying to negotiate

47:36

two-state solution and Bibi Netanyahu

47:38

was clearly, in my view,

47:40

never that serious about that, why

47:43

didn't we give John Kerry the leverage to say, you

47:45

know what? We're open

47:47

to recognizing a UN resolution that

47:49

has recognition of Palestinian state and

47:51

takes positions on final status issues

47:54

like borders of an Israeli and

47:56

Palestinian state. All of a

47:58

sudden, that's a lot more leverage for the the US

48:01

mediator in that negotiation. So

48:04

the first point is, again, bring this

48:06

into the conversation around Saudi normalization. Try

48:09

to design a whole package that

48:11

has, as a part of it, some kind of

48:13

UN recognition. By the

48:15

way, that also allows you to shape

48:17

the UN resolution so that it takes

48:19

into account some of Israel's

48:21

concerns. And then the second

48:24

thing is, this seemed very dramatic, because

48:26

we did debate this option in the

48:29

Obama years, and it seemed incredibly dramatic

48:31

to shift positions on UN recognition. However,

48:34

that's because we were closer in time to

48:38

peace efforts that almost got there. Camp

48:40

David in 2000, Annapolis in 2006,

48:43

we had a couple of rounds. As

48:45

this Israeli government drifts

48:47

further and further and further away from

48:50

a negotiated settlement, and as Israeli

48:53

settlement construction just eats away at

48:55

what might be a Palestinian state,

48:57

I think things like this that

48:59

once seemed like far out

49:01

options have to become more and more

49:03

normalized as, wait a second, unless

49:06

we're willing to abandon a two-state solution forever,

49:08

this has to be on the table as

49:10

one way to short-circuit the process and get some

49:13

oxygen back into the concept of Palestinian state.

49:15

Otherwise, by the way, what are

49:18

we looking at? We're looking at a one-state solution. And

49:22

everybody says that they don't want

49:24

that, because that either has the

49:27

demographics of Israel being potentially a

49:29

majority Palestinian with second-class

49:31

citizenship or mass expulsions

49:33

of Palestinians. There's not

49:35

another way. Yeah, there's not a better path. Real

49:38

quick, I was looking at Haaretz.

49:40

Apparently, ABC News is reporting that

49:42

Israeli aircraft fired three missiles at

49:44

Iranian air defense radars near

49:47

one of their nuclear facilities, near

49:49

Natanz, near the Natanz nuclear facility, which

49:51

is their main facility. So

49:53

obviously, we can't verify that report, but maybe that's

49:56

why this U.S. government person was saying to me,

49:58

no, it wasn't just the U.S. government. these

50:00

quadcopter drones, there were more elements

50:02

of this strike. So worth

50:05

noting, but also good that despite that reality,

50:07

it sounds like the Iranians are downplaying it.

50:10

Before we go, we should just give President

50:12

Biden some credit. They did put forward

50:14

more sanctions on these prominent,

50:16

far right Israeli

50:19

settler extremists. This

50:22

is based on an executive order that President

50:24

Biden put together. He seems to be slowly

50:26

ratcheting up the pressure. I'm

50:29

with you, Ben, that I would love for

50:31

that pressure to get to senior Israeli

50:33

elected officials like Itamar Ben Gavir or

50:37

Smotrich, who are really the problem here, but

50:39

it seems like they are sanctioning people closer

50:41

and closer to the top. So that's good.

50:44

Yeah, to give them credit on a few, I think

50:46

Biden had an influence

50:48

on this strike. Like

50:50

we said earlier, I think it was more

50:52

minimalist than it probably started. I

50:55

think that this is an innovative

50:57

new tool of the US at going after

50:59

kind of extremist settlers. I agree

51:01

with you. The leadership, I mean, Smotrich is literally

51:04

the leader, the West Bank settlers, and he's

51:06

in the government, right? So

51:08

ultimately, I think he needs to be a

51:10

part of this. But again,

51:12

you see them turning the dial. The question

51:14

is, like Rafa is the key point. This is

51:16

what people should be watching is, well, two

51:20

things. Is aid getting in? And

51:22

it seems like it's kind of not really getting in like

51:24

it should. But if

51:26

Rafa goes forward, there's a

51:28

real question on the table for ... I

51:31

mean, I just don't know how you can continue in

51:33

the status quo in that scenario. But

51:36

again, saying you're against it

51:38

and giving $24 billion in assistance is a bit

51:40

challenging. Tough messaging

51:42

square to circle. That's

51:45

the main issue is, will our actions be

51:47

aligned with our words? Yeah, always a

51:49

challenge in this issue. Okay, well, that's

51:51

it for us today unless, Ben, I

51:53

know you've spent the morning doing a

51:56

deep dive into Taylor Swift's new album. Didn't know if you want

51:58

to do a 30 second review for the people. people or have

52:00

we just, you know, we're not ready yet? So

52:03

I started, I was

52:05

on this at midnight Eastern time.

52:08

That's one of the good things about being West coast when you have

52:10

a good night album drop. I

52:13

could scout the album out for

52:15

my daughter. There's

52:17

some F-bombs in there. I

52:20

made, that's fine. She hears them on the

52:22

show. Yeah, exactly.

52:25

It's a really, this is good, this is

52:27

good content, Tommy. This is like

52:29

closer to the dad rock of folklore. The

52:32

nationals deeply involved. The

52:35

writing, I just got to say like

52:37

Taylor Swift is really

52:40

jacking up her songwriting game here. Not just

52:42

the diss tracks, like there's some

52:45

good takedown of Kim Kardashian, but like

52:49

she's a good writer. I have to say. So

52:52

people should check it out, it's good. Yeah,

52:54

the diss tracks are coming. It's very Drake,

52:56

J Cole, et cetera, et cetera. That's

52:59

it for us for this week. Pray

53:01

to God there's no other bonuses this weekend. Let's

53:03

not have bonuses. Nothing good. Yeah, it's never good. Done

53:06

with this bonus nonsense. One thing, last thing we should

53:08

say, Tommy, is a good thing if the Ukraine

53:10

aid gets out there because everything

53:12

you read about this is that

53:14

they are literally, they just don't have ammunition

53:16

on the front line. Yeah, and it's like

53:18

the stat you always read is if the

53:20

Russians have a 10 to one fires advantage,

53:23

meaning they're firing 10 mortar shells

53:25

for every one that comes back to them, they will

53:27

be able to take all this territory back and it

53:29

will be very, very bad. So keep

53:31

an eye on that. Well, I'm sure we'll talk

53:33

about that for the show coming next Wednesday. So

53:36

thanks again for listening and talk to you soon. If

53:39

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