3/18/26: Trump Threatens To Leave NATO, US Iraq Embassy Hit, Ben Shapiro Crash Out

21:07or are they just so desperately desperate for delusion that they're willing to like not notice that this piece includes just straight up falsehoods what do you make of this number that

21:21Emily Jashinsky:i see going around a lot in some of the same circles iranian ballistic missile launches have fallen by more than 90 from 350 on february 28 to roughly 25 by march 14 according to publicly available data drone launches tell the same story from more than 800 on day one to about 75 on day 15. And the reason I want to get your take on that, Ryan, is actually because of the next element. Let's put Trey Yinkst, who is the chief foreign correspondent for Fox News, up on the screen. He said, new Israel estimates it will take, quote, a few weeks to destroy the ballistic missile threat from Iran. Quote, it will take a few weeks more.

21:54Emily Jashinsky:A senior Israeli military official told Fox News they still have the capability to launch missiles. The official added that Iran aimed to launch tens of missiles a day at Israel but aren't able to do so. This is due to Israel and the U.S. striking the missiles and launchers belonging to the regime. We are hunting them, the official added. So on the one hand, we have news here that their missile capacity has been decimated, launchers decimated, drone, same thing. On the other hand, there's still several weeks to go. I was hearing last week that this was just a two-week bombing run, that that's all it would take.

22:28Emily Jashinsky:And here, Brian, we're getting competing things from these Israeli and US sources. So I think to be objective about this, the answer is yes and no to your question here. So, yes, we're seeing a massive decrease in the number of launches of both drones and ballistic missiles since day one. But people should ignore the percentage because on day one, they said they were going to make a theatrical point. Right. And that they were going to hit everybody extremely hard. So they launched a huge number of rockets and drones. There was never an intention to keep up this, to keep up that massive day one pace.

23:08So for Israel and the U.S. to take credit for that massive reduction, misunderstands that like, also they didn't even have the capacity. Let's say they have 2 ,500 to 3 ,000 ballistic missiles. If they're doing 350 a day, that's less than two weeks and they're done. Like even if Israel doesn't take out any of their capacity to launch. So there are finite limits to what they have. And so they calibrate that, and so they reduced the amount that they were shooting. Israel has also been, you know, and the U.S. have completely, like, smashed Iran's air defenses, particularly in the west and the south.

23:45I think less so on the east over the mountains, you know, closer to Pakistan. And so, yes, they've had some serious, you know, tactical successes there. But they're still shooting them. They still have, they're now moving into their more sophisticated ballistic missiles. the drones are much easier to import and also to produce. So they can, I think they can keep that up indefinitely. So this, the idea that they're going to completely eliminate all our capacity to project power, I think is foolish.

24:19Emily Jashinsky:Because they still have the capacity to rebuild. Yeah, you can like, and they have, for 40 plus years, they've been developing a weapons industry to withstand a bombing campaign. And so they have entire factories under mountains. So what are you like? Ground troops only. Right. I guess, yeah. I mean, yes, you would. Right. That really is it. And so I'd point people to Yemen. Yemen is much smaller and much poorer. And the U.S. spent many billions of dollars bombing them to smithereens during that short war that they said was going to go 90 days. and after a couple weeks, Trump said, that's it. Like, let's reach a deal.

25:05Houthis have said they'll stop firing at our ships. We'll stop firing at them. If they stop firing at our ships, call us over. And what he said afterwards was like, they were much tougher than we thought because their missile production and launch capacity was inside the mountains. And so ask yourself this. Let's say you're an Israeli defender here and you're thinking this through. Like, if the U.S., with all of its firepower, can't stop the Houthis from shooting.

25:32Emily Jashinsky:Without ground troops. Without ground troops. How are you going to stop the Iranians, a much bigger, wealthier country that has been planning for 40 years? Jeremy Scahill was saying yesterday that, you know, the underground capacity that they have makes what Hamas built in Gaza look like JV. So, and also it's such an asymmetrical conflict. It doesn't take that much to continue causing chaos in Dubai. Which is why they needed the... Or to keep the straits closed. Just, you know, one drone hitting one ship, boom. And that's why all the bluster at the beginning of the war was about the Ayatollah being killed because they were expecting, again, it's Bay of Pigs-esque.

26:21Emily Jashinsky:They were expecting this takeover of the government. They were expecting people to rise up with much more force than has happened so far. And when they say they didn't really need that to happen, the Kurds, immaterial, whatever, to your point, that's the ground troop. Those are the ground troops that the U.S. was hoping would accomplish this on the – to all those points about their infrastructure. That's what they needed to have happen. And they're downplaying that now. But that's where you end up getting the goalposts keep continuing to be shifted further and further out. Right. Yeah. And the idea that the Kurds were going to lead a revolution there, I think, was fantastical.

27:08Emily Jashinsky:Or the Shah's supporters were going to or some combination of both. They tried to pull off and we'll talk about this in the next book. They tried to pull off a major demonstration, anti-government demonstration yesterday. Didn't really seem to materialize. You've got the Balok down in the south. But they're not interested in kind of taking over the country. You've got the Azeris next to the Kurds, but they're not, like, that's not going to work. Pazeshkian. Kamenei actually has some roots in the Azeri population. So it's like that's probably not going to fly. Well, it's OK with the Trump administration, because here is economic advisor Kevin Hassett on CNBC yesterday saying this work could go on forever and our economy will be just fine.

27:57Maybe not for you, but fine. U.S. economy is fundamentally sound and that if it were to be extended, it wouldn't really disrupt the U.S. economy very much at all. It would hurt consumers. And we'd have to think about, you know, if that continued, what we would have to do about that. But that's really the last of our concerns right now because we're very confident that this thing is going ahead of schedule.

28:18Emily Jashinsky:In the same breath there, he said, it wouldn't hurt the economy, it would hurt consumers, Ryan. And that's really the last of our concerns. That's perfect. Saying that it won't hurt the economy, it will hurt consumers is actually the perfect distillation of how people, actually a lot of the people Hassett has spent years criticizing. Think about the economy. Stocks are going to keep going up. That's the economy. The economy is the markets. The good news is that you don't really do much consumption anymore anyway because you have no money. Something like, what, 80 % of the, I don't know if we have the latest charts, a huge portion of consumer activity is now done by the top 10 % to 20%.

29:00Emily Jashinsky:Yes, it is like 80%. So that's one reason they don't actually care as much about the consumer economy because we have systematically destroyed the consumer economy by making sure that people don't have money to spend. I would also then like to ask Kevin Hassett, what was all of the Liberation Day about then? If the consumers aren't the economy, what was that about? You never thought you'd hear a White House telling the public, hey, a wet person shouldn't be afraid of the rain. It already sucks for you. It's going to get worse. But that's the last of our concerns. But I mean, him saying that and saying it rather poorly suggests that they were not prepared for long-term impact.

29:42Emily Jashinsky:And they now are trying to downplay the obvious harms that would come from long-term impact or from a longer war, more drawn-out war, and are kind of doing this on the fly. That's my impression of what we're getting from this is that they didn't expect in a midterm year to have to defend a wartime economy. And now the goalpost keeps getting shifted. Israel is saying, oh, three more weeks, three more weeks. That's what they're telling Fox News. And Trump is saying, we could keep doing this as long as we want. We've already won, but we're going to keep going as long as we possibly can. Yeah. And granted, we gave the nastiest possible interpretation of what he said there.

30:26I don't think he earned the benefit of the doubt, so I don't feel bad. But he did say, tucked in the middle there, we can do something about the consumer concerns, which what he's implying there is that they could do some sort of stimulus, I think, like some kind of government intervention that's going to help consumers.

30:47Which I don't know if that's actually true, if they could actually have the will to do that or the plan to do that. But he was suggesting that they could do that. So, okay, even if consumers do get hurt, we can do something. We'll help you guys out. Don't worry. So you feel better?

31:03Emily Jashinsky:Does that help? I hope you feel better. This is Ashley Akinetti from the Ben and Ashley I Almost Famous podcast. iVeam is built for losing weight and moving forward. iVeam is built for feeling your best and seeing real results. iVeam is a medical weight loss program built for you. Their approach is individualized, virtual, integrative medicine. 99.2 % of patients who've completed the IVIM weight loss protocol achieved meaningful change, dropping an average of 45 pounds. IVIM, built for your wellness journey. IVIM, built for real life. When you sign up right now, you can get a one-month free trial.

31:49Start your personalized plan in minutes by visiting IVIMHealth.com. That is IVIMHealth.com. Subscription required, medication, labs, and supplements not included. Results based on patients who completed the full IV protocol over 68 weeks. Individual results may vary. Not all patients are eligible. Prescription medication may carry risks and should be used only as directed by your provider. Wait, this is a soda? Yeah. And it has protein? 10 grams. No sugar? Zero. And it actually tastes good? It's Sky Pop. Sky Pop Protein Soda delivers the refreshing taste you want from a real soda. Crisp and delicious with 10 grams of complete protein, zero sugar, and just 45 calories.

32:37So you're not choosing between great taste and real benefits. You're getting both in every sip. Sky Pop Protein Soda. Reach for the sky. Get your Sky Pop Protein Soda now at Target.

33:17Emily Jashinsky:All right, let's move on to the embassy in Baghdad, Ryan. Really striking footage coming out of Iraq yesterday. Let's put B1 up on the screen. Maybe, Ryan, you can tell us what people are seeing. Yeah, this is, so you're seeing a lot of footage emerge out of Baghdad where regular people on the streets are just capturing these incredible kind of air battles between the green zone air defenses and the drones that are coming mostly from Iraqi militias. And as you see there, that one wasn't stopped. And you saw a massive explosion inside the U.S. embassy compound there. So these Iraqi militias were empowered by us during the 2003 invasion.

34:05Iraq is a Shia majority country and had been run by a Sunni dictator, Saddam Hussein. When we toppled Saddam, we then allowed the political rise of the Shia population, which is very closely aligned with Iran. Iran sent its own kind of forces and support into Iraq. They were saying at the time, ironically, because you'll recognize this reasoning, it's better for us to fight them there than to fight them here. Very American argument. We have to fight them in Vietnam or Afghanistan or Iran so that they don't fight us here in New York City. Except when our politicians say that, it sounds absurd because it's like they're not fighting us here.

34:53What are you talking about? Now there was 9-11. But they're otherwise not invading the United States.

34:58Emily Jashinsky:Well, I mean, the great irony is that as you create the ISIS comes out of the post-911 Middle Eastern conflicts and very intentionally takes the fight here. Or they inspire people who take it here. Yeah. Yeah. And so the Iranians felt like this was a way to stave off an attack on Iran was to keep keep us bogged down in Iraq. And I guess it worked for 23 years. So all of the strategies inside Iran who were forecasting that the U.S. and Israel were intending to attack Iran at some point, and so we need to stave that off as long as possible, they've been shown to be correct there. Our kind of occupation of Iraq was expected then to enable us to project more power throughout the region.

35:50We built one of the biggest embassies, the Green Zone, in the world in Baghdad. We can put up B2 here. And so the Iraqi militias have this very ripe and nearby target that they have always threatened. Like if you hit Iran, the big strategic vulnerability that the U.S. has always had is this, what you're looking at right here. This is the green zone. And so this is an Iraqi drone that they published this video of them flying for something like two minutes, kind of uninterrupted, you know, throughout the green zone using technical, using communications that are unable to be jammed because they're so close.

36:39Like Iran couldn't do this because they're too far away, but because the Iraqis are right nearby, they can just do this. And then those drones go in and they hit whatever they want to hit. They have kind of free reign. And so you're seeing like massive explosions and huge risk to whatever service members or Americans are still there. A lot of them obviously were evacuated knowing that this was going to happen. And meanwhile, the U.S. attacks continue to be completely insane, or the U.S. and Israel, which we do B3 here, put up this. So we start the war by hitting a girls' school, which if you looked at it on a satellite image, you could see chalk on the, you could see purple chalk near the playground.

37:35You could tell it was a school. It was marked on Google Earth, literally, as the school. Google Earth had the name of the school on there. Now, we've hit a boys' school that's called Shahid Khomeini Elementary Boys' School in Shiraz, Iran. And people are like, how did we do this again? And Trita Parsi points out that Shahid is in the name of the school. Well, hopefully we're not hitting everything named Khomeini. But Shahed is a very common name, commonly used word, but it's the brand of the drones that Iran sells to Russia and Iran is using to hit U.S. bases. So the most logical explanation here is that an intern or AI or a combination saw the word Shahed and were like, oh, ha ha, we found one of their factories.

38:32Let's bomb it. Instead, they bomb an elementary school. Reminds me of another one, Trita Flagged, where they've been hitting all of the different police headquarters that they can find. They bombed in Tehran a thing called Police Park, which that's just the name of a park. It's like trees, benches, grass. And we dropped a massive bomb on Police Park just because it's labeled police.

38:59Emily Jashinsky:schools are closed in iran right now so that's the silver lining here right so um but you're right because the girls school was hit before we understood before they understood they were getting attacked it was right away yep yeah which again for all the people who said iran hit it iran wasn't even firing yet because iran like we started the war and then iran responded a few hours later immediately it was ridiculous and the girl right it was like only one side was firing. We're like, it must have been them. Yeah. Ryan, there's this drop side article we wanted to talk about too before we can put this up on the screen.

39:36Emily Jashinsky:The political uncertainty, as you all write about in Iraq right now, is hanging over the conflict. Break this down for us. Yeah. So for people who followed the kind of Iraq war 20 years ago, remember the name Noriel Maliki, who was, you know, something of a U.S. ally. Yeah. You know, we always had some, there was always a little, you know, he wasn't a curveball or whatever. You know, he wasn't like a total like American plant, but he was an American ally. But because there is some actual democratic pressure and expressions in Iraq now, as they're actually, you know, anyway. Key is responsive to a lot of the anti-American hostility.

40:29And so he's become less of a reliable ally than the U.S. would like in that place because the U.S. is like, hey, wait, I thought we'd do a war. We install people like they're supposed to then just do exactly what we say. Because we don't seem to acknowledge that Iraq is an actual democracy in the sense that they have elections.

40:49Emily Jashinsky:Oh, we acknowledge it. That was our mission of being accomplished. Because every day I'm told that there's only one democracy in the Middle East. Every time I'm like, wait a minute, didn't a whole bunch of Americans die to make another one? What about Lebanon? I constantly hear about them having elections. Because they can't ever form a government in the name of another election, another election, another election. What is that? Why doesn't that count? Is that not the Middle East? Anyway, never mind. And the only democracy is the one where, you know, half the population isn't allowed to vote. So we're now in a place where we're destabilizing Iraq to a very significant degree.

41:29Emily Jashinsky:I mean, we've roughly been in that place for 20 years, but yeah. Kind of re-destabilizing, I guess, would be the word for it. You've got Muqtada Sadr, who was a powerful Shiite, is a powerful Shiite cleric, was a key nationalist figure during the insurgency against the U.S. occupation. And he has been encouraging, again, the Iraqi population to unite along Sunni and Shia lines, not to understand who the enemy is, and he means the U.S. and Israel. Sistani, who was another major figure, maybe the most revered Shia figure, both in Iraq and Iran, issued a fatwa of sorts that didn't go all the way to saying that all Shias ought to fight on behalf of Iran against the U.S.

42:28and Israel, but kind of got very close to that. And so this is, you know, we spent, we lost thousands of American lives and spent trillions of dollars as part of this strategic play to like take over the Middle East. And the place where we did it is not remotely kind of reliable for us at this point. And you continue to have these like crash landings where you've got refueling jets flying over Iraqi air space, and then the militias are firing at them. It's already like an impossible task to try to refuel a jet like just the idea of that at like 500 miles an hour or whatever you're going and

43:10Emily Jashinsky:trying to refuel a jet they're the best of and then you've got the then you're getting shelled from the ground yep yeah so we had one crash uh we had another one do an emergency landing recently um so yeah it's um it's not good for us there's a real like poetic tragedy to the side-by-side in Iran and Iraq right now, watching the prior experiment in nation building, which this president condemned. I don't even need to say this. It's so obvious. I don't actually have to explain it. But watching that experiment continue to crash and burn while you've just started another experiment that's even, that's fueling the continued spiraling of the prior conflict.

43:57Emily Jashinsky:It's just heartbreaking. Yeah, it really truly is. And let's make it worse. Let's put the next element on the screen. This is a Guardian report. UK security advisor attended US-Iran talks and judged deal was within reach. Ryan, this reminds me of some of the reports we got early in the Ukraine conflict as Naftali Bennett, who then retracted his claim, and others would say, listen, these negotiations are really close, but US didn't want Zelensky to make a deal earlier. This actually kind of reminds me of this. Yes. The difference here is that there's still some reasonable debate over whether or not Putin was serious about and was actually willing to go through with, even if the U.S.

44:44had said, okay, we'll accept all these terms. I think he probably would have been, but there's some reasonable debate about whether or not he would have been. It really isn't reasonable debate here. And one thing I, this Guardian reporting makes me proud of the drop site reporting that we did in the run up to the war because what I've always tried to make our North Star is to tell people things in real time when they're still actionable.

45:12Emily Jashinsky:Yeah. Rather than doing the really impressive TikTok reporting about what happened in the past. That's such a good point. When it's too late. Yeah. And you all, in the U.S. media, you get so much of the, and the U.K. too, get so much of the. Postmortem. Here's what, postmortem stuff. I don't want the mort. Like, I don't want that. Pre-mortem. Pre-mortem. So that you don't mort. Yes. That's the whole point, right? Stepping the mort. To give people the information. So Jeremy had a piece where, you know, he didn't use the word surprising. It was like unbelievable, I think, was the word that was used to describe what the Iranians were offering in these talks.

45:55And so what The Guardian is reporting here is that Jonathan Powell, one of the top Britain's national security advisors, sat in on the U.S. and Iran talks. And they write, he, quote, judged that the offer made by Tehran on its nuclear program was significant enough to prevent a rush to war. The Guardian can reveal Powell thought progress had been made in Geneva in late February and that the deal proposed by Iran was, quote, surprising, according to sources. And so he's saying we heard unbelievable. He's saying surprising that like the concessions. And we also heard that the concessions they were making would like be stunning and surprising, et cetera, to like the 2015, 2014 Obama era negotiators that they that Iran went far beyond what they had offered previously.

46:42and instead they went nowhere. One source said that there was, quote, widespread concern about the U.S. expertise on the talks represented by Donald Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and Steve Witkoff, Trump's special envoy on several issues. The Guardian is reporting here what we kind of already saw in public that, like, Witkoff and Kushner didn't really know what they were talking about. And didn't understand. This is nuclear stuff. I don't blame them for not understanding it. I wouldn't.

47:15Emily Jashinsky:I mean, I blame them, but yes. You're supposed to have a technical advisor. So this guy, Powell, brought a technical advisor with him who would translate to him, like, what all of these things mean. And Whitcoff, whenever he would go out and publicly talk about things, he would say, like, industrial grade. And it's like, well, what is it? There's no such thing as industrial grade. Like, that's not even a word that people use. There's weapons grade. I think that's what you mean. What it really fueled was the idea that they were just not remotely serious about reaching a deal. That they were just going through the motions.

47:55And so...

47:57Emily Jashinsky:Well, so is some of that then crossed wires? Because, I mean, we don't know what Whitcoff and Kushner would have agreed to if they had been accurately informed, I suppose. Maybe that's an impossible kind of actual. But maybe they were told, forget it. Like, we're not actually making a deal, so it doesn't matter. Yeah. They quote a Gulf diplomat in The Guardian saying, quote, we regarded Witkoff and Kushner as Israeli assets that dragged the president into a war he wants to get out of. That might be a little generous to the president. Like, their assignments, if they were serious about the talks, find somebody who understands nuclear physics and the nuclear industry.

48:37And they take notes. They sit next to you. They take notes. And then you talk about it later. As you hear Whitcoff talk about it now, like, you're like, God, you like. Because he'll say things like, they told us they have 11 bombs. And they're proud of that. And the Iranians afterwards were like, we didn't say that. We said we have a certain amount of material at 60%. You know, that's at 60%. It could go higher and make bombs, or we can dilute it if you'd like. We can have Russia take it. We're willing to, this is what we have, and we're willing to then, you suggest things, we'll suggest things to make it so that you feel comfortable that it doesn't get weaponized.

49:21Emily Jashinsky:So this Guardian report pops the same day that, as we covered earlier in the show, NATO basically says, no, we're not doing the straight-up from use thing, not happening, which may have been intentional. It may have been a strategic effort to kind of explain or to flesh out the reasoning without explicitly saying we were there and we thought that this war never had to happen, that there was actually an achievable goal on the table that probably would have been better than war, whatever the end of the war actually looks like. So that's actually possible. It's the reason this is popping in The Guardian.

49:56Emily Jashinsky:Could be, yeah. And possible it explains. There are all kinds of explanations for why the NATO countries might not want to get involved with the Shade of Hormuz. but this would be one of them. Yeah, no, yeah, it certainly could be. Also, like, there's no military solution, really. Well. Like, if there was a military solution to it, the U.S. would be able to carry it out on its own. Well, so this is, let's put B6 on the screen. The Washington Post report from John Hudson yesterday. Senior Israeli officials have told U.S. diplomats that Iranian protesters, quote, will get slaughtered if they take to the streets against their government, even as Israel publicly calls for a popular uprising, according to a State Department cable Not an anonymous source, a State Department cable reviewed by the Washington Post.

50:38Emily Jashinsky:Very significant, Ryan. Yes, and B-8 kind of backs that up. If we can put up this, this is a drop site report from last night. As Israel calls for an uprising in Iran, besieged militias vow to crush opposition to the state. So that's sort of backing up Israel's claim. Um, that, so the security services in Iran are, are, are signaling very publicly at this point that they're, they're going to, they're going to see protests at this point as insurgency, basically. Mm-hmm. That, you know, there were several days of protests in December, January or early January that were met with a very hands-off response.

51:23And then by like the third day or so, there was this massive crackdown. As and and as the Iranians say, like the Israeli infiltrators, Mossad, et cetera, you know, started firing at security forces. They fired back. Either way, there was a couple of days where it's like, hey, people are upset about the currency crash. We're going to allow these protests to go. And then at some point they didn't. Now they're saying forget it. The second that there are protests, there's going to be a crackdown. So this is a rare case of Israeli intelligence and Iranian public statements aligning. So there was supposed to be some protests last night.

52:05It didn't seem to be much that materialized. and you can imagine why like if you're it's clear that it would be very difficult to mass that amount of people even as the Israelis are bombing, they're bombing the heck out of

52:25Emily Jashinsky:Basij checkpoints and others energy supplies in UAE and so yeah so now Iran is like is retaliating against energy infrastructure this is there there's been this alleged dispute within between the U.S. and Israel where the U.S. has been telling Israel not to bomb Iranian oil infrastructure they hit it anyway and their argument was now now Iran is going to bomb all the Gulf oil infrastructure but now Trump is out there you know they hit Karg Island but they hit parts apparently away from the infrastructure on the island after of course Brian Kilmeade instructed the president to do this on Fox and Friends We covered that last week.

53:07Yeah, go ahead. And the Iranians keep saying... You're in this place, Oil Island! Then the Iranians keep saying, if you want to take Oil Island, please make our day. Yeah. Putting thousands of American troops on one little island where the Iranians can just fire at them from three directions would be just a military catastrophe. Iveem is built for losing weight and moving forward. Iveem is built for feeling your best and seeing results. iVeem is a medical weight loss program built for you. Their approach is individualized, virtual, integrative medicine. 99.2 % of patients who completed the iVeem weight loss protocol achieved meaningful change, dropping an average of 45 pounds.

53:52iVeem, built for your wellness journey. iVeem, built for real life. When you sign up right now, you can get a one-month free trial. Start your personalized plan in minutes by visiting iVeemHealth.com. That's IVIMHealth.com. Subscription required medication labs and supplements not included. Results based on patients who completed the full IVIM protocol over 68 weeks. Individual results vary. Not all patients are eligible. Prescription medications may carry risks and should be used only as directed by your provider. Wait, this is a soda? Yeah. And it has protein? 10 grams. No sugar? Zero. And it actually tastes good?

54:37It's Sky Pop. Sky Pop Protein Soda delivers the refreshing taste you want from a real soda. Crisp and delicious with 10 grams of complete protein, zero sugar, and just 45 calories. So you're not choosing between great taste and real benefits. You're getting both in every sip. Sky Pop Protein Soda. Reach for the sky. Get your Sky Pop Protein Soda now at Target. Hey, everybody. I'm Bobby Bones. Today we're talking about Thomas Rhett and the Soundtrack to Life Tour. For over a decade, Thomas Rhett has delivered more than 20 number one hits and sold out tours. Inspired by his family and his Nashville roots, he's created songs that have become the soundtrack to our lives.

55:15From Die a Happy Man to Life Changes, you've heard his songs playing at life's special moments. Now it's time to hear them live. Round up your friends to catch Thomas Rhett on the Soundtrack to Life Tour. Get your tickets now at LiveNation.com.

55:28Emily Jashinsky:Let's talk about Joe Kent. He had enough. Sager and Crystal covered this yesterday. Obviously, one of the highest ranking intelligence officials in the Trump administration, Joe Kent, resigned with a letter. We're learning more and more. We're getting the postmortems, as Ryan mentioned earlier in the show, about what exactly went on behind the scenes. as Joe Kent, who was in charge of counterterrorism work close to Tulsi Gabbard, he posts his resignation letter yesterday, delivers it to the president. Apparently, behind the scenes, J.D. Vance had told him on Monday to just think about it. Just think a little bit about this because they had a conversation when Joe Kent said he was going to resign.

56:14Emily Jashinsky:Trump gets asked about this in the Oval Office yesterday after the news breaks. This is C1. Your director of national counterterrorism, Joe Kent, he just resigned today. He said he can't support your conflict with Iran. What's your reaction to that? And did you? Well, I read his statement. I always thought he was a nice guy, but I always thought he was weak on security, very weak on security. I didn't know him well, but I thought he seemed like a pretty nice guy. But when I read his statement, I realized that it's a good thing that he's out because he said that Iran was not a threat. Iran was a threat.

56:53Every country realized what a threat Iran was. The question is whether or not they wanted to do something about it.

56:58Emily Jashinsky:So in his resignation letter, Kent said he did not believe Iran posted an imminent threat. You may remember Tulsi Gabbard herself testified in Congress, what was that, last April, Ryan, before Midnight Hammer, that Iran was not building nuclear weapons. Tulsi Gabbard's actually set, again, to testify in front of Senate Intel today around 10 a.m. So we'll be getting more from that. But this is Tulsi Gabbard's statement. We'll put this up on the screen. Donald Trump was overwhelmingly elected by the American people to be our president and commander in chief. As our commander in chief, he is responsible for determining what is and is not an imminent threat and whether or not to take action he deems necessary to protect the safety and security of our troops, the American people and our country.

57:43Emily Jashinsky:The Office of the Director of National Intelligence is responsible for helping coordinate and integrate all intelligence, provide the president and commander chief with the best information available to inform his decisions. After carefully reviewing all the information before him, President Trump concluded that the terrorist Islamist regime in Iran posed an imminent threat, and he took action based on that conclusion. So, Ryan, reading between the lines of that, it's not hard to see Tosi Gabbard is hardly embracing the claim herself that Iran posed an imminent threat. I saw Glenn slamming this as cowardly.

58:13Emily Jashinsky:I think Sagar did as well. You know, to be honest, I have a totally different take on this, which is basically that I think it's good. There are remaining people in the Trump administration who, when these decisions are coming across the transom, they're skeptical. And I would imagine that both Tulsi Gabbard and J.D. Vance were privately skeptical. If it's the case that they were not skeptical, that's a problem. That's significant. If they were sniffling and saying, oh, yes, this intelligence does appear to show an imminent threat. And that's what they were advising Donald Trump because they could tell that's what he wanted behind the scenes.

58:48Emily Jashinsky:That's terrible. I think it was a brave decision from Joe Kent too. So I don't know what's happening behind the scenes. The problem on the Tulsi point though is there's no evidence that she has any influence in there. She's been apparently cut out of briefings. Right, so if you're, and Kent probably was too. If you're, so if the argument for staying in is that you're gonna use your, you're gonna sell your soul and like debase yourself, but internally you're going to be able to make the argument. That's one thing. But if you're also cut out of the process, like, you know, Sagar probably has more influence in there than Tulsi at this point.

59:27Emily Jashinsky:Well, they would replace her with a like total stooge at some point. So if I had to, like, do I think it's a profile in Courage? Likely not. I'm not saying that. But I also am not like clamoring for some ceremonial resignation, though. I think what Joe Kent did in specifically citing his disagreement being over the question of an imminent threat was was brave as well. So I'm not coming down hard on either side of it, but I also just don't think it's the worst thing in the world to still have somebody who may be like we have a chance that she's being skeptical behind the scenes. Whoever her replacement would be, I'm sure that's not true at all.

1:00:10But a second one, the last thing Tulsi has to do to me is that's the only power she has left is to make a principled resignation.

1:00:20Emily Jashinsky:Yeah. Because then you'd have two back to back, which would tell the public something more than just the one. Yeah. And she's testifying in front of Congress today, which by the time this airs, what I said may age poorly. Maybe she's saving it for there and she's going to just go full worth and resign right there in front of Congress. But what I just said may age very poorly in the next hour because she's probably going to go to Congress today and agree that there was an imminent threat in some way or another. Even though she didn't in her statement after Joe Kent. Probably right. Yeah, it may age poorly in just an hour's time.

1:00:55We've never lost money betting on Tulsi to cave.

1:01:00Emily Jashinsky:the reports yesterday were coming out of places like Fox News where people were just citing anonymous administration officials did you see this happening all day anonymous administration officials were saying that Kent was quote a leaker a known leaker they leaked that he was a leaker incredible stuff and it was getting passed on seriously by people who are otherwise skeptical of the media but are generally supportive of Trump's war being like see this is Kent had to go. Kent had to go. And it's like, maybe apply a little bit of skepticism to anonymous leaks about someone else being a leaker. But that, yeah, I saw Fox News had that yesterday.

1:01:36Emily Jashinsky:Other news outlets had that yesterday. Just completely ridiculous, completely ridiculous stuff all around. Ben Shapiro, not a fan of Joe Kent's resignation letter. Let's roll C3. Joe Kent quit his job at the National Counterterrorism Center and issued a scathing letter designed to undermine President Trump. The letter is deeply, deeply conspiratorial. It states openly that, quote, Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation. And it is clear that we started this war due to pressure from Israel and its powerful American lobby. Now, that is conspiracy trash. It's also kind of strange since President Trump has said that it's conspiracy trash.

1:02:14So apparently Trump is so deeply, deeply enthralled to those strange, powerful American lobbies. We're not going to say it. We're not going to say it. that he apparently has been so bamboozled by them that he's still under the impression that he's his own man. But here's the thing, President Trump is his own man. He makes his own decisions. And as per our usual arrangement, Trump's critics are cowards who are simply unwilling to acknowledge that Trump is the one making the call. But Joe Kent continued, quote, early in this administration, high-ranking Israeli officials and influential members of the American media deployed a misinformation campaign that wholly undermined your America First platform and sowed pre-war sentiments to encourage a war with Iran.

1:02:52This echo chamber was used to deceive you into believing that Iran posted imminent threats to the United States and that should you strike now, there was a clear path to a swift victory. This was a lie and is the same tactic the Israelis used to draw us into the disastrous Iraq war that cost our nation the lives of thousands of our best men and women. Again, the idea here seems to be that President Trump is a moron, misled into war by nefarious Israelis and unnamed influential members of the American media. Don't say it, don't say it. Again, apparently, President Trump has no agency and no thoughts.

1:03:24Kent's letter is replete with this conspiratorial idiocy, including, as we just saw, the idea that it was Israel that forced the original Iraq war, an idea totally and utterly unsupportable by any evidence, given the fact that the actual prime minister of Israel at the time, Ariel Sharon, opposed the Iraq war. This stuff is brain rot. Now, listen, we should all be thankful for Joe Kent's long and honorable military service. We can also be glad that he's leaving, since his ideology is the same as that of Tucker Carlson, the guy who says that the war is disgusting and evil and who has been busy sexting with the Moas.

1:03:56Tucker Carlson calls Kent a personal friend and, quote, the bravest man I know. Frankly, I think that it is a good thing that Kent is not in this position. We cannot have a director of counterterrorism who is somehow advocating preemptive surrender to the world's leading state sponsor of terrorism in the middle of a war. In that letter, Kent also talked about his wife being killed. And let me read exactly from the letter. Quote, in a war manufactured by Israel, and his wife was killed in an ISIS bombing in 2019 in Syria. So Kent really going all the way in. I would argue there's more evidence to say that Israel fueled the Syrian civil war than there is that they drove us to war in Iraq.

1:04:42We had our own motivations to go to war in Iraq. But there were plenty of other reasons that Syria descended into civil war that weren't Israel, although Israel certainly did fuel it and benefit from it and annihilate the Syrian military after al-Sharah took over, etc. But it is interesting that he's laying everything on Israel there. Like this is pretty maximalist take.

1:05:10Emily Jashinsky:Yeah. Well, but then at the same time, to dismiss it as entirely conspiracy trash, it's basically like the same level of CIA intentionally calling things conspiracy theories when you have the president United States, the secretary of state, the speaker of the house saying we struck when we did because of Israel. That is just the plain fact. They said that they have, of course, fleshed the point out by saying it was the precipitating factor of the when it happened. That was the reason for the exact time. And so, yes, there's nuance to it, but they literally said that. And so to claim that what Kent is building here in the argument is just conspiracy trash, that's completely ridiculous.

1:06:04Emily Jashinsky:Now, I've said before, I think we should put plenty of the blame on ourselves because there are a whole lot of people here in the United States, whether because they support Israel or they have other reasons for wanting to take down Iran. They want to take down Iran. They've been wanting to do this for decades. We didn't just do this because of Israel, but the actual conspiracy theory would be to say that the actions of Israel had nothing to do with when we attacked. Yeah, I feel like what's a little bit of what's going on here, you tell me on the right, is they're new to this kind of anti-war posture, and they're kind of feeling their way around it.

1:06:46And Israel is something that they can hold on to and feel stable in their criticism of U.S. war efforts. And so it's just kind of simpler to say, Israel made us do all of these things rather than looking in Medusa's face and staring it down and saying, oh, no, no. Like, yes, they're along for the ride, but they're a client. And the U.S. itself is quite capable of driving all of these horrific adventures without Israel. Is Israel gladly along for the ride and instigating at times? No doubt about it. but to put all of the blame over there feels like a way to kind of wash ourselves of some of the responsibility.

1:07:32Emily Jashinsky:Well, I think the anti-war left comes to its position from an anti, like a generally like anti-imperialist and often, especially the modern left, anti-American, anti-Western perspective, whereas the anti-war right comes at it from a pro-American perspective over and over again. And that's where the people - Yeah, it's gonna be hard as you learn more. It's a different square to circle. Yeah, that's where the people like Ben Shapiro are used to dismissing everybody who's anti-war as anti-American. And so that's how, you know, Tucker Carlson is constantly called an America hater. Or Joe Kent probably, even though he served his country, his wife died for this country, is going to be called an America hater too.

1:08:13Emily Jashinsky:People on the anti-war left in the like 60s and 70s who many people were veterans, got used to being called anti-American. In some cases, they would legitimately qualify as anti-American. But from the right, I think that's a good point, Ryan. It's coming at it from different angles. Right. So they're like, I'm not anti-American. I'm anti-Israel. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You have a scapegoat. Don't blame the king. Blame his advisors. Don't blame Trump. Blame his advisors. You have a scapegoat. Absolutely. And in some cases, is that genuinely not just a trope, but like actually anti-Semitic? Yeah, of course it is.

1:08:48Emily Jashinsky:I don't think it's anti-Semitic from Joe Kent, although he's been accused of that plenty of times. He had a big falling out with Nick Fuentes. I think they had a call about whether Fuentes would back him in that congressional race. And he didn't. No. And they've like Kent is absolutely no fan of Fuentes and has spoken out against that sort of thing. But he's pretty hardcore and like the dissident right, put it that way. So that's interesting. I think that's probably true, Ryan. that if you're coming to this anti-war position from a pro-American perspective, you're looking for scapegoats. And none of this is to excuse or say that Israel's advice here or Israel's role here is innocent.

1:09:30It's not to say that at all. It's to say that we might be elevating them beyond what they deserve. Not in this case, though. Now, I think Trump deserves to blame for going along with this, but Israel drove this war. Like this one, certainly compared to Iraq and Syria, you could say I think they were a driving force of it.

1:09:53Emily Jashinsky:Yeah. Yeah. But then you're getting into semantics. And that's the thing where it's like, this is where the conspiracy theory label is frustrating because it's ultimately labeling a semantic debate, a conspiracy theory. It's elevating something that is a question of like, is Joe Kent literally saying the only reason for this war didn't have anything to do with Donald Trump? He's not saying that. He's saying that Israel played a major role in pushing us into this war and he's using what he would probably argue is persuasive language from his perspective to make the point. But it's not completely like when you have the Secretary of State on tape saying what the Secretary of State said, it's not a conspiracy theory at that point to say that they were part of what drove the war.

1:10:37Emily Jashinsky:And so maybe what you want is for him to use more careful language. That's the criticism that Ryan just made and it's entirely fair but to go and call it a conspiracy theory that's actually I mean again that's the conspiracy theory and it's tricky because it's he's right about this one and so and this is the one that we're in right now he's right about yeah right right he's correct about this one yeah

1:11:16This is Ashley Akinetti from the Ben and Ashley I Almost Famous podcast. iVeam is built for losing weight and moving forward. iVeam is built for feeling your best and seeing real results. iVeam is a medical weight loss program built for you. Their approach is individualized, virtual, integrative medicine. 99.2 % of patients who've completed the iVeam weight loss protocol achieved meaningful change, dropping an average of 45 pounds. iVeam, built for your wellness journey. iVeam, built for real life. When you sign up right now, you can get a one month free trial. Start your personalized plan in minutes by visiting IVIMHealth.com.

1:12:05That is IVIMHealth.com. Subscription required, medication, labs, and supplements not included. Results based on patients who completed the full IV protocol over 68 weeks. Individual results may vary. Not all patients are eligible. Prescription medication may carry risks and should be used only as directed by your provider. What if your soda actually did something for you? Introducing Sky Pop Protein Soda. With 10 grams of complete protein, zero sugar, and 45 calories, Sky Pop Protein Soda offers four delicious flavors with big taste and real benefits. Light, refreshing, and ready for wherever your day takes you.

1:12:46It's anytime protein that helps you reach higher. Sky Pop Protein Soda. Reach for the sky. Get your Sky Pop Protein Soda now at Target. It's tax season, and by now, we're all a bit tired of numbers. But here's an important one you need to hear. $16 billion. That's how much money in refunds the IRS flagged for possible identity fraud. But it's not all grim news. LifeLock monitors millions of data points per second and alerts you to threats you could easily miss on your own. If your identity is stolen, they'll fix it. Guaranteed. Save up to 40 % your first year. Visit LifeLock.com slash iHeart. Terms apply.

1:13:27This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed human.