3/24/26: Trump Iran Negotiation Fantasy, Insider Trading On Iran War, Pentagon Preps Boots On The Ground

20:19The second thing is that he's obviously flailing on the Straits of Hormuz. So, for example, somebody asked him, he said, who's going to be in control of the Straits of Hormuz? Someone says it'll be he says it'll be jointly controlled by who? He said, maybe me and the next Ayatollah. Take a listen to that. On the Straits of Hormuz, who's going to be in control of that? That'll be opened very soon, if this works.

20:40Jeremy Scahill:How soon? And who's in control of it? Will Iran still be able to control the flow of oil? be jointly controlled. By who? Maybe me. Maybe me. Me and the Ayatollah, whoever the Ayatollah is, whoever the next Ayatollah. Look, and there'll also be a form of a, a very serious form of a regime change. Look at Venezuela, how well that's working out. We are doing so well in Venezuela with oil and with the relationship between the president-elect and us. and maybe we find somebody like that in Iran. Still has Venezuela fantasies after the war continues to spiral. Says Mimi, the next Ayatollah. So what is that?

21:25I don't acknowledge the current Ayatollah. So I might have to kill the current Ayatollah. These things can only be accomplished through massive ground force, invasion, nuclear weapons. I mean, I hate to say all these things, but there's just no other option. Like if you have the only off-ramp is basically surrender, which, I mean, as you said, his psyche, not just his psyche. Think about it. Something I've been thinking about a lot is what Joe Kent told me is one of the reasons he resigned to trying to put pressure is he said, I've been inside, and I know how the CENTCOM machine gets rolling. And what he means by that is that there are not guys, the joint staff planning forces, they don't view themselves as political, but they have lived for this in a lot of ways.

22:05So when the president is like, I need all options on the table, they're like, oh, we've been working on this for 40 years, and they start pulling stuff off the shelf. 82nd Airborne, Marine Expeditionary Force. And once that stuff starts to get into the system, the machinery, think about how hard it is to roll it back. Because now they're like, well, we've got to finish the job. It's a military objective. Nobody ever sits back, this is the job of the president and his advisors, to be like, is any of this a good idea? Should we be doing this at all? And that machine, as we see, the carrier's still on their way, the Marine Expeditionary Force is converging, 82nd Airborne planes that are all coming over.

22:40Once that stuff starts, it's very hard not to use it because now it's in theater. Might as well be an option. You take, like I talked about Kennedy yesterday, a supreme act of courage and genuine intelligence to say, no, we're not doing any of this. This is madness. We don't see that right now in the situation room. So if you take that rhetoric and you take this stuff that's all on its way, what other conclusion can you draw? Same with the Iranians. They're so confident right now. It's scary. I mean, and I think, you know, don't take my words for it. Take treatise. It's like he is genuinely worried they're going to overplay their hands and it will lead to their total and complete annihilation to their detriment and to ours.

23:15It'll be bad for everybody who's involved.

23:16Jeremy Scahill:I mean, he just in all his comments and in his decision making, he really has this like childlike understanding of the world. You know, they leaked to Politico. I guess even Barack Ravid wasn't buying this bullshit that the Ghaliboff, the guy who, you know, we put up his his tweet earlier and that Trump was sort of alluding like, oh, we've got a top guy that we're talking to. And of course, they're completely denying it. Anyway, somebody leaked to Politico like, oh, he's a hot option right now. It's like this is not Venezuela, number one. Number two, you're just completely full of shit. Number three, you think you're just going to like swap out some characters in the entire country of Iran with some like 93 million people.

23:55Jeremy Scahill:It's going to be yours. I mean, it's so insane. And this has been apparently the thinking from the beginning of Trump of like, oh, if we just murder the Ayatollah, then it'll all be ours and we can play him like puppets. and do whatever we want. The military knew that was not going to be the case, but he didn't want to listen to them because he had his own idea about like, well, it worked in Venezuela and Bibi tells me it'll work here. So we're just gonna go for it. I mean, it truly is such a like kindergarten level understanding of the world. And that comes out too when he's like, oh, maybe me and the Ayatollah are gonna control the Strait of Hormuz together.

24:32Jeremy Scahill:The Iranians put out a meme. Did you see this in response? saga that was like, you know, it was like a car where you have the normal steering wheel and then you have the kid's steering wheel there that obviously doesn't do anything where it's like, oh, he's pretending to drive the car, et cetera. I mean, just complete mockery of this man because the whole thing is so stupid and so insane. But the bottom line is today, you know, Trump is actually not really in a position to say when this war ends or how it ends. That is on Iran and it's on Israel. He has ceded so much control to the Israelis that, you know, if even if he wants to end the war today, and I think it's possible he does want to end the war today, the Iranians get a say and the Israelis, because of our weakness and our desire, our decision to cede so much of our foreign policy to them, they get a say as well.

25:21Jeremy Scahill:And that's why this thing is such an incredible, intractable mess heading towards Quagmire. Yeah, and why we shouldn't have gotten into it in the first place. Put A5 up there on the screen. This was from the Prime Minister of Israel. He says, earlier today, I spoke with President Trump, believes there's an opportunity to leverage the tremendous achievements, to realize the goals of the war through an agreement that will safeguard our vital interests. But he continues, just a few days ago, we eliminated two more nuclear scientists. We are still active. We will safeguard our vital interests under all circumstances.

25:52At the same time, we're going to continue to strike in both Iran and Lebanon. We are smashing the missile program, the nuclear program. We continue to deal severe blows with Hezbollah. And as we'll show you all later, the strikes continue unabashed and completely. So as of where things stand right now, the negotiations don't appear to be going anywhere. And if they do meet, the two sides are very, very far apart. I find it incredibly hard to believe that the vice president would be in Islamabad sometime this week. Also on the Steve Whitcoff front. Well, what do the Iranians say? Why would we trust you?

26:29We met with you twice. We got bombed both. I do not trust you, period. And as Jeremy and Ryan, remember when Whitcoff and all them were trying to convey the message that their messages were being sent? Yeah, just because they're being sent doesn't mean that they're being replied to. They've never released any evidence that the Iranians actually responded to anything. If anything, this story is confirmation that the Iranians will not talk to the U.S. because the Turks and the Egyptians and everybody else is starting to get involved. And I want to put this up here at the top. We're on the brink of actual regional conflict.

27:00So for example, the Saudis are leaking now to the Wall Street Journal. They said, one more strike on critical infrastructure or water, we're getting in the war. We're going to start striking. The Gulf Arabs have all been leaking to all of these different outlets saying that they now agree with the idea of regime change because their fundamental security is threatened, which means everybody's incentives is for longer, more protracted war. Do you want to go to war? Do you want to send Americans to die for the Dubai real estate market? Okay. Or for OnlyFans girls to be able to live comfortable lives and high rises in Dubai or fitness influencers or losers to make it in the United States to make it over there?

27:38I'm good, actually. All right. And that's what they want for us. Or the Dharan compound. No. Okay. We're good. But that's where the incentive structure is for every single person, including the Iranians, which is why, honestly, I just think this is a genuine nightmare.

27:53Jeremy Scahill:Yeah. Well, I mean, UAE, at this point, they almost have to get some sort of regime change. I know. That's what I'm saying. They're screwed. Already, their brand, Dubai's brand, Abu Dhabi's brand, as like these playgrounds for the rich and almost like a little carve-out from the rest of the tunnels of the region. That's dead. It's over. We've all seen the videos of your airport on fire and bombs landing or drones hitting luxury high-rise buildings. Who of our global elite is going to choose Dubai as their location now? And that's their whole thing. That is really where they've staked their claim.

28:29Jeremy Scahill:So unless they can completely overturn the government in Iran and have some, I don't know, Reza Bulafi or some other puppet government that they feel totally comfortable with, it's not coming back. So, and again, this is, you know, part of Israel's goal in all of this is they, you know, they knew this idea, oh, it'll be a four-day war. They knew that was nonsense that they were selling to Trump, right? And he was dumb enough to buy it and, you know, foolish and arrogant and vain enough to surround himself with people who wouldn't tell him the hard truth and to shut on anyone who might have told him the hard truth as evidenced by, you know, Joe Kent being completely shut out of any of the conversations and the debates leading up to this war.

29:08Jeremy Scahill:So, you know, so now you've got this intractable conflict that just continues to grow. And Israel is happy to have all of these countries in. That is exactly what they want. That's why it, you know, appears that they may have been involved in some false flag attacks to make those Gulf Arab states feel even more under threat. But, I mean, make no doubt about it. Iran is striking within those countries as well because they're like, look, you're complicit. You're hosting these bases. Attacks are being launched from your soil towards us. So, sorry, fair game. That's, you know, that's where we are.

29:39Jeremy Scahill:It really is every week that goes by inching more and more towards total and complete war. And this is also the Pandora's box that's been opened by Gaza and, you know, the barbarism that just is accepted now. Yeah. It's so bad. Let's get to the insider trading. 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 IVM weight loss protocol achieved meaningful change, dropping an average of 45 pounds.

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31:53Find pros for all your home projects at Angie.com. Turning now to insider trading, a very important story that we absolutely cannot just let slide. So we recall yesterday we talked a lot about Trump market manipulation. It turns out that market manipulation definitely worked out for several people, but we don't know any of their names. Let's start with the first one. Let's put it up here on the screen. Here we have from the Financial Times, traders placed$580 million in oil bets ahead of Donald Trump's social media post on Iran talks. Is that normal? No, apparently it's not. 15 minutes before the Trump post touting productive talks, 6 ,200 Brent and West Texas intermediate futures contracts changed hands between 6.49 a.m.

32:39and 6.50 a.m. New York time on Monday, a quarter of an hour ahead of the president's post. $580 million was the notional volume. Trading volumes left at the exact same time, 27 seconds before 6.50 a.m. Futures tracking the S &P 500 jumped in price moments after the oil trade, volumes rising significantly during that time frame. Trump's announcement at 7.04 triggered a sharp sell-off across the global energy markets and jumps in the S &P 500 stock index and European equities as investors dial back bets on a prolonged conflict. The well-timed trades echo the flurry of large, highly profitable bets made on polymarket for the timing of the U.S.

33:27attacks in recent months on Iran and Venezuela. The White House has denied that they had anything to do with this. The only focus of President Trump and Trump administration is doing what's best for the American people. Hmm. Well, it just turns out, though, that, again, it's not just the Financial Times talking about this. Go to the next one, CNBC confirming, and actually were the first people to report this, that the volume in the stock and oil futures surged right before the minutes of Trump's market turning post. exactly at that 6.55 a.m. S &P 500 e-mini futures. She recorded a sharp and isolated jump in volume.

34:04So we don't know the exact profit that these people have made. Some say it could be well over north of a billion dollars for what the eventual bet turned out. Of course, the SEC has not responded for comment about whether they'll be initiating an investigation. The CFTC, so these are the macro bets, but there were hundreds of other bets made in poly market, like in other prediction markets, which were able to trace, which show some level of insider knowledge. Traders at the individual level booking a million dollars or so, and these people booking billions potentially. I mean, and who knows, you know, this is only what we know here in our equities markets around the world.

34:42We have no idea what those countries might be looking into. And this is just like the blatant

34:47Jeremy Scahill:obvious stuff too. These are the people who just, you know, did it. Obviously, who knows what long-term contracts and other people that have out there. And, you know, we can't let this go because I think that this demonstrates a couple of things. This is an undemocratic war. The Congress did not vote for it. The people do not support it. It continues to be advanced on behalf of Israel and then some people here in the United States government. And at the very same time that they are explicitly timing many of their war decisions. Can you imagine trying to schedule D-Day around when the S &P 500 opened?

35:20What are we doing? And that's the point, is that this is not a war that we're all bought into. It's a war which is being waged almost, honestly, directly against the interests of Americans. On my way here to work, every billboard, what am I looking at? $3.99 a gallon,$3.99 a gallon,$3.94 a gallon,$4.01 a gallon. I mean, this stuff, it's brutal for everybody who is living this. At the diesel level, what is it now? $5.50, something like that? You got people all over the country who are getting broken in a single month. We were just looking this morning. 401k withdrawals are at an all-time high. Mortgage rates at seven.

35:55Mortgage rates at seven. I mean, it's like every level across the book, your pocketbook, things are being hurt by this war on top of our strategic position, everything else. And that doesn't even bring in the lives of American service. There's 13 already who've been killed. It's a nightmare. And these people are getting filthy rich.

36:12Jeremy Scahill:And then to add insult to injury, you've got insiders who are making bank. And this is just routine at this point. How many times has Trump come out with some market moving truth social that minutes before it comes out, someone's trading, making big and unusual bets, either on poly market or on the stock market that just happened to pan out, happened to come just before he makes the announcement. I mean, you'd be a fool not to see it at this point. It's utterly discussed. I mean, the stock market is so beyond fake. It's just like a playground for insiders to siphon off even more wealth for themselves at the expense of literally everyone else.

36:49Jeremy Scahill:I mean, to your point, Saga, I'm just looking at the national average now. Today, the national average for a tank of gas, regular unleaded, 398. And for diesel, we're looking at 535. And as much as you directly feel that regular unleaded at the gas pump, that diesel is the part that really triggers, goes throughout the entire economy and very quickly, because obviously that's what all the truckers are having to pay. And that's going to get passed on. They're going to get squeezed, and then you're going to get squeezed. So it's disgusting. And let me add this. The US SEC's ex-enforcement chief clashed with bosses over Trump cases before leaving, according to sources.

37:28Jeremy Scahill:This is from Reuters. So I saw someone flag on Twitter that this enforcement chief over at the SEC had just resigned earlier this month, right before this level of insider trading is clearly happening in conjunction with the war. And so Reuters was able to get the scoop about what was actually going on here. And lo and behold, it was over a lack of enforcement, especially with cases that have ties to Trump and the Trump family. So Reuters reports the U.S. SEC's top enforcement official who left abruptly last week had clashed with agency leaders over the direction of its enforcement program, including the handling of cases with ties to Trump and his family, according to three people familiar.

38:07Jeremy Scahill:SEC Enforcement Division Director Margaret Ryan resigned last Monday after just over six months on the job. Reuters was first to report her resignation email seen by Reuters did not say why she was leaving, and she declined to comment. Two of the people said Ryan wanted to be more aggressive in pursuing charges for fraud and other misconduct, including in cases that touched the president's circle, but faced resistance from SEC chair Paul Atkins and other top Republican political appointees. Of course, they deny it. One case, they say that sparked tension in particular, involved cryptocurrency entrepreneur Justin Sun, a major backer of Trump's family's World Liberty Financial venture.

38:43Jeremy Scahill:That's their crypto grift. Another involved Tesla boss, Elon Musk, big donor, of course, to Trump's campaign, who briefly served as the president's special advisor. So there you go. Top enforcement official wanted to actually attempt to do some portion of her job. The head of the SEC was like, no, we're not doing that, at least certainly not where the Trump family or Trump donors are concerned. And she said, OK, I'm out of here. I mean, this is the state of the country right now. This is the state or the lack of enforcement where, you know, white collar crime, especially if you are a Trump donor or Trump family member or Trump associate, is just legal.

39:20Jeremy Scahill:It's just legal now. And then they want to tell you all about, oh, my God, the Somalian fraud, blah, blah, blah. The biggest fraudsters are in the White House. There's zero doubt about it, especially on a dollar for dollar basis. It would be a lot easier to talk about smelling fraud if you weren't pardoning fraudsters at the very same time and or protecting them. And personally committing fraud at the same time. Who knows? Yeah, exactly. That's the problem. Also, yeah, I just want to say that you guys know SEC records can go have look back period, right? One day, somebody is actually going to look in this.

39:46And I hope somebody goes to jail. I really do. Let's go for B3. Put this up here on the screen, the current market reaction for what we are seeing as of right now. What it currently looks like is that some of the S &P, again, remember, we talk about this stuff early in the morning, S &P 500 futures are pulling back after Monday's rally as oil prices are rebounding. The Iran conflict continues. If I look again, just right now, the Brent futures hovering right around$100 per barrel. And I think West Texas is roughly around 90. So it's going to be a little more manageable and you will likely see a pullback in gas price in midweek and potentially on Sunday.

40:25But of course, if there is some actual, well, apparently the way this, but I'm not talking about like forever, like for a couple of days. That's apparently the way that works. Again, not fully an oil genius or anything myself, but I've been trying to do some reading. Let's put B4 up there on the screen. It's from Chevron. And these are the stuff, this is the stuff where people should really freak out. Because when the Chevron CEO says, Iran war impact not fully priced in and that traders have scant information, you should think, hey, doesn't he have more information because he runs one of the world's largest energy companies?

41:00The CEO cautioned, it will take time to restart production that has been dialed back and to repair damaged facilities. Let me just read you directly what he said. There are very real physical manifestations of the closure of the Straits of Hormuz that are working their way around the world through the system that I do not think are fully priced into the futures curve on oil. What he talks about specifically is that the market is trading on scant information and perception. The physical supply of oil is tighter than the futures contracts suggest. We've got a lot of oil and gas now that is not flowing into the market.

41:36There really is a difference in terms of physical supply versus prior incidents. So he keeps saying, and every oil analyst that we listen to is like the market futures are totally pricing in some sort of taco, some sort of event that if you look at the physical market, doesn't add up. We talked, I think a few, maybe last week, remember about California barrels trading for like$140. We talked about how physical crude oil in Dubai or in UAE that was coming out was trading at like 160. And that's way out of step with where the current futures prices are. And the reason for that is that's the physical oil that's actually there right now, as opposed to what the future bet is on some sort of resumption of flow.

42:21But all of the people who are actually in the know don't seem to think that that's going to happen. So for example, Let's put United Airlines up here on the screen. This is Scott Kirby, the CEO of United. He put out a memo. This was last week. We plan for oil to hit$175 a barrel and staying above 100 next year as the industry faces the worst shock since COVID. Obviously, that matters for jet fuel. And he, by the way, when he says$175 a barrel, he's not talking about jet fuel. He's talking about actual crude oil, which means jet fuel would be trading much higher than that. I mean,$1.75 a barrel, that's like$6 a gallon and staying at$100 over the next year.

42:59Even$100 is a lot. That's right now. So for the next year, we're all signing up for$4 a gallon? I mean, come on. That's really tough. What I was looking at recently, just this morning, is that for every$10 increase in the price of oil for a barrel, it's roughly 0.3 to 0.4 in terms of its increase on inflation. So think that we've already had orders of magnitude more than 10. So we could be at 5 % inflation. Yeah. Literally 1970s energy shock level stuff.

43:27Jeremy Scahill:Yeah. I mean, in terms of people are saying in terms of the like barrel production loss already, it's bigger than the 70s energy shocks. But, you know, Rory Johnston, the analyst we've had on before, he made a good point. He's like, listen, so much of the world now can increasingly just be driven by overconfidently posting through it, but not oil, at least not for long. Hormuz flow still has not resumed. Every day we're shedding more oil from the system. That'll catch up. Can't jawbone 10 to 15 million barrels per day stock draws. So he's making the point here like, yeah, a lot of our economy is fake and based on vibes like Tesla's valuation as one example.

44:05Jeremy Scahill:But oil is an actual like thing that exists. It is a commodity. It is a physical good that exists. And you can't just like post your way through it, even though that's exactly what Trump is trying to do at this point and having some success. I mean, I think the, you know, Chevron CEO was like, you know, they're really not pricing in just how much disruption. I think he is correct. I think Rory is correct in saying essentially the same thing. This is going to hit at some point and is going to get worse. You can't just true social your way out of the problem that you have created. And think about all the downstream effects.

44:39So oil is high, which means demand destruction, pullback, high inflation, high interest rates, stagflation, once again, high unemployment rate, high mortgage rates. I could go on for a long time. Pullback in AI, 10 % correction in the stock market, 15 % correction for the tech industry, mass layoffs across the US economy. I'm just giving you the whole 1970s playbook. And remember, the only way they solved it was 19 % interest rates, which, I mean, that scarred a generation forever in terms of how they think about finances and, I mean, banks, like literally the Federal Reserve. It changed the entire outlook for an entire people.

45:23Student debt would climb, debt servicing, education. I mean, the downstream, I don't even talk about fertilizer, helium, semiconductors, the global supply chain, potential famine, food crisis in the third world, Sri Lanka, India, Bangladesh, already having gas shortages because they all have cooking gas. I mean, you know, this, and so like over here, our problems are just going to be economic. In the rest of the world, like we're talking about life and death.

45:51Jeremy Scahill:Yeah. And if this extends, remember during COVID with Biden, we would often talk about, like there's a significant portion of the country, I think in the Northeast or like way up North where they still use like heating oil or gas. And that spike like destroyed their heating bills and pocketbooks for a long time. So, I mean, you know, I don't want to scare people. I'm pointing out why it's so imperative to pull the war back as soon as possible. But if these people are too believed, it doesn't even look like that's even possible. And then we're going to be in some$4 a gallon. It seems like the base case is$4 a gallon now for over a year, which is really just devastating.

46:29Jeremy Scahill:Well, luckily, the economy was really great before this. So people, I'm sure, have a lot of cushion. They're feeling very confident. They'll be able to weather the storm. Right. Very true. All right. Let's move on. 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. iVeem, built for your wellness journey.

47:03iVeem, built for real life. When you sign up right now, you can get a one-month free trial. Start your personalized plan and minutes by visiting iveamhealth.com. That's I-V-I-M health.com. Subscription required medication labs and supplements not included. Results based on patients who completed the full iVeam 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. What if your soda actually did something for you? Introducing Sky Pop Protein Soda. Sky Pop Protein Soda has 10 grams of complete protein, zero sugar, and real delicious soda taste.

47:48Sky Pop Protein Soda. Reach for the sky. Get your Sky Pop Protein Soda now at Target or Walmart. Why have I asked my HVAC guy I found on Angie.com to change my grandpa's trachea tube? Because I was so amazed by how quickly he replaced our air ducts. I knew I could trust him to change Pop Pop's tube while I was on vacation. Make it quick, young man. Aw, see? Papa trusts you. Uh, I think we should call a doctor. Connecting homeowners with skilled pros for over 30 years. Angie, the one you trust to find the ones you trust. Find pros for all your home projects at Angie.com. Joining us now is Brandon Weicker, great friend of the show and an excellent military analyst.

48:29Good to see you, sir. Thanks for having me, as always. All right, Brandon, let's jump right into it. All of us have been on ground troop deployment watch. Let's go ahead and put this one up here on the screen. New York Times saying that the Pentagon is now weighing the deployment of airborne troops for the Iran war. They focus specifically on the 82nd Airborne whose training exercise had previously been canceled. Maybe you could break down for us some of the military speak here. It's currently going to be about a brigade of 3 ,000 soldiers capable of deploying anywhere in the world for 18 hours.

49:02What would that type of operation look like? What should we look for? Are there movements that are already on the way? What's going on? Well, clearly this is, if you contextualize this with the Marine, the Marine Expeditionary Units, I believe two are being deployed or have been deployed to the region. This to me looks like the administration's thinking is, well, we're going to have a small, light and fast force that will break into one of the targets along the coastline and they will basically overrun whatever defenses are there, capture the land and then be able to sort of establish a foothold there.

49:43and then they can flow in heavier forces. The forces, I don't think this would be a, I might be wrong about this, but I don't believe this is a prelude to invasion of the heart of Iran. I think this is an attempt to establish what's known as sea control. Basically, they're gonna take one of these islands along the coast, and then they think they'll be able to capture it and then build up missile presence there, and they'll be able to basically interdict any kind of Iranian attempts to intervene with the natural flow of shipping through the Strait of Hormuz or into the Strait of Hormuz. And I just got to tell you, Sagar, this whole thing is kooky talk.

50:24This is crazy town level stuff because 82nd Airborne is wonderful. And I've talked to those guys before, but this is not going to work the way they think it is, nor will it work for the Marines, 2 ,500 or 5 ,000, whatever number they're throwing around now. It's sort of been changing off and on. This is not going to work. You need to, you know, the Klaus Witzian model, you need to mass a lot of force to just to take one of those islands. And oh, by the way, our Marines, our 82nd Airborne guys, as the Russians learned in the first few days of their war in Ukraine, they're not going to be facing.

50:59It's not going to be man on man. It's not even going to be tank on man. It's going to be man arrives on island, finds it kind of deserted. it's quiet. Oh, it's kind of nice. But oh, guess what? There's 88 ,000 shot head drones coming your way in waves and then the missiles and then the hypersonics. This is not going to end well. This is going to be Gallipoli from World War I and it will end in us retreating in, you know, humiliation. And I think that's when we start talking about nuclear weapons.

51:25Jeremy Scahill:Do you think there's a possibility, what you said is horrifying and terrifying, and I want to acknowledge that. Do you think it's a possibility, there's a possibility we're being sort of psyoped on this Karg Island idea. I'm just hearing too many leaks about it, too much in the press about it. It seems like we're signaling too hard that that's what we're intending to do. Yeah. And actually there was a YouTube account, I think it was called History Legends, which is this Ukrainian military guy. And he had a very interesting video a couple of days ago, breaking down the three possible locations.

51:55The one he thinks, and this is what I was thinking, because it was one of our first targets we blew up in the air war is this naval base the Iranians have. It's sort of in the Gulf of Oman or off that coastline. So it's technically closer to where our Navy is willing to go. And let's just think about this. Pollyanna Pete Hegseth keeps telling us we're winning this thing so bigly it hurts. Well, we can't even get the Navy within, you know, a thousand kilometers of the Strait of Hormuz, but somehow we're going to land Marines inside? I don't think so. And so there is a possibility or probability that the real target is something like, I think it's the Kanarad naval base, which is along that coastline of Oman.

52:37And that's near Balochistan. And the argument is the CIA has been implanted into Balochistan, which is a breakaway area of Iran. And we have friendlies on the ground. And the friendlies will come in from the back door of the naval base in Iran. And then we'll come in through the front door. It'll be happy. You know, happy times are here again. I don't think, again, this is how it's going to work out. And even if we did take that territory, by the way, it's not really near where we need to be. I mean, the Strait of Hormuz is the problem, not the Gulf of Oman, not yet. So, you know, this is all for show.

53:09This is, again, this is irresponsible and crazy talk from the administration, which we've become accustomed to now on this issue. Let's put C2 up there on the screen. The Israelis compiling some of the plans that we see right now. 2 ,500 Marines, 2 ,000 sailors, three amphibious ships, 3 ,000 paratroopers. I want to throw another one at you, which we've talked a little bit about before. Let's say Trump needs a spectacular off-ramp. What about the nuclear mission? The Israelis just bombed the nuclear facility. Airborne troops can drop right in. Some theory that I have seen now currently is you send airborne in, then you send in the one wave of Marines, and you have another wave of Marines that could come in.

53:46Everybody's recycling in and out of the country. Obviously, though, that would be deep inside. How would something like that play out? Would it give the president the off-ramp that he wants? I don't think any of this is an off-ramp. This is literally escalation. Now, maybe in Trump's mind, you know, this is...

54:04Jeremy Scahill:Escalate to de-escalate, right, Brandon? That's what Scott Bessett told me. That's what Scott Bessett, yes, the military genius known as Scott Bessett. You know, maybe in Trump's mind, that's how it works. But you know, remember, the Russians have had a escalate to de-escalate doctrine for 15, 10 years now, and it hasn't worked for them. I mean, They're still in Ukraine. So, you know, they're kind of winning in Ukraine. But the point is, it hasn't worked anywhere it's tried. When you escalate, and you're up against a rival like the Persians or the Iranians, they escalate along with you. In fact, they've demonstrated, I think I said this before, they demonstrated a remarkable capacity so far.

54:42We go up one escalation run, there they are waiting for us. They just go right with us. This is a very wily group of adversaries we're up against. We've completely misread and underestimated them. So perhaps that's what the president is envisioning. It's not going to go that way. And by the way, how is all those free flowing forces going to put up with contested airspace where air defense systems are still active? They've already hit an F-35. They've already targeted these KC-135. So how are we going to do this without losing a bunch of guys needlessly? And of course, the political ramifications.

55:19You know, Trump is obsessed with having the markets look good. So he has good, good polling or whatever. I don't know how losing a bunch of troops in the heart of Iran to try to take over some nuclear facility or whatever. I mean, this just sounds really, this sounds like something from a Tom Clancy novel and not something from like a real war. But it might happen. The thing is, is like, these are all actually might happen. Like for real. Yes. That one would be very difficult though, because he's going to have to penetrate deep hold. I mean, he might try it, But that thing could really go pear-shaped fast.

55:49Wow.

55:50Jeremy Scahill:So one of our aircraft carriers in the region had to limp back to shore after an alleged laundry fire. What impact does that have on our abilities in the region? You know, I believe there's just one aircraft carrier in the area now. You know, how much does that matter? Well, I believe the second aircraft has come, I guess the third, was it the George H.W. Bush left Virginia. So it's in route. Ultimately, look, I've been a critic of the aircraft carrier for over a decade. I think it is it is an obsolete weapon. I think that it is a sitting duck as we're seeing these missiles are targeting. Whether they hit the Gerald R.

56:31Ford or not is the question. I know that the Houthis came very close to hitting a couple of those carriers a year or two ago and that's why we abandoned the fight with the Houthis the Ford they're claiming it was a laundry fire I am not convinced I personally have no evidence of this this is speculation but I do think that was probably probably clipped by one of those Iranian ASBMs um that's an anti-ship ballistic missile and uh you know they probably are are retreating back to virginia now to get repair and rest the problem is we have one shipyard in the entire united states that can handle the kind of overhaul necessary for these carriers it's backlogged they're saying it'll be 14 months before the ford is is back in action i would anticipate 24 to 28 months uh you have to double that almost because the shipyards are so sclerotic here and they're already at capacity.

57:27So this is a big problem. This is a loss of capabilities. It's a tool out of our toolbox. And we only have, I think, right now, three operational out of 11 carriers. So this is a nightmare scenario at the strategic level, again, because as this is happening in the Middle East, the Chinese are not just going to leave it alone. You're seeing Russia and Ukraine again, starting at it. So our rivals are constantly figuring out how to use this to their advantage. And Uncle Sam is declining significantly, unfortunately. Brandon, let's talk about the combat effectiveness of the Iranian missiles now so far.

58:06So we, day after day, every time I wake up, I see a new hit inside of Israel that I didn't see two weeks ago. We saw Dimona, the nuclear facility area, got hit. We saw, what was it, Arad, I think that's the name, where southern Israel, mass casualty. This morning, Tel Aviv, rubble everywhere. It looks like the Blitz in the middle of London. This seems like a daily occurrence now. What does that tell us? Well, it tells us that, well, I just saw before I logged on, Daily Mail has an op-ed. They're saying the Iranians only have a thousand missiles left. And I'm reminded of, you know, the articles coming out of Ukraine in the beginning when, the Russians are two weeks away from running out of missiles.

58:44They're using laundry machine. This is not realistic. I think a safer assessment is that the Iranians have probably an additional 18 to 24 months left of their missile stockpiles. We're not even talking about the drones. The drones are the real problem. The drones are actually what they're threatening to hit ships passing through the Strait of Hormuz with. They're not threatening to hit them with missiles necessarily. It's the drones. It's the Shahheads. So we're not even addressing the more than 88 ,000 drones that they have in their arsenal, which haven't even been close to used. So in my opinion, these missile strikes are clearly demonstrating escalation dominance on the part of the Iranians.

59:24They clearly have a robust arsenal. Remember, up until a week ago, they're using missiles that were 10 and 15 years old. These were the missiles from 10 years ago. Now they've started upgrading and they've switched munitions to the more advanced stuff. And they're talking about the Qaramshar and some of these other very sophisticated, very lethal missiles. So if you're sitting around listening to the White House and the Pentagon telling you, oh, this war is coming to a close soon, I think the Iranians, unfortunately, have another message for you, which is we've got plenty and we're going to keep coming up the escalation ladder with you.

59:57Yeah.

59:58Jeremy Scahill:So straight and foremost obviously has become, you know, a central question in this war, central objective in this war, even though if we just hadn't started the war, everything would have been fine there. But in any case, that, you know, they've abandoned. Well, it's not a war. It's a non-war war. Right. It's an excursion or whatever the term of art is now. In any case, you know, we've we've abandoned and there was a Washington Post report about this. We've abandoned the idea of, you know, completely destroying their ability to produce an nuclear weapon. We've abandoned the idea of regime change.

1:00:24Jeremy Scahill:So now we're just trying to basically like undo some of the damage that was done. Trump, we played this early in the show, was like, maybe me and the Ayatollah are going to control the Strait of Hormuz together. Okay. What would it actually take though to, you know, forcibly take control of the Strait of Hormuz and make it safe enough that ships feel they can navigate that without getting, you know, clipped by a drone or whatever? It's going to require a force substantially larger than what we've deployed. And it's going to take a political willingness, and I'm not advocating for this at all, a political willingness to see very large numbers of casualties.

1:01:01And oh, by the way, the loss of some of these very expensive platforms, not just carriers, but destroyers as well. Remember, there was a Business Insider interview with a captain of a destroyer during the Houthi fight where he said that never in his career and not since World War II, the Pacific Theater, had the U.S. Navy encountered an enemy as serious as, I'm paraphrasing, as the Houthis were. And of course, we abandoned that fight. Remember, that was the big signal gate. That was part of that whole discussion with Jeffrey Goldberg. They abandoned that fight because it was too much. And now we're talking about going up against, you know, sort of the mother ship of terrorism in the region.

1:01:39And they're like a missile city. And we're going to somehow, you know, we're going to with with two carriers and a handful of destroyers that won't get anywhere near under current conditions. The Strait of Hormuz. Suddenly they're going to punch through land marines, take out all. I mean, this is this is the stuff of science fiction fantasy.

1:01:56Jeremy Scahill:Yeah. So it's yeah. Well, I would respectfully suggest that Israel is the mothership of terrorism in the region. Well, sure. Yeah. In my opinion, yes. I get your point. I know what you're saying. See, Brandon, this is the difficulty of this, is that every day we hear 95 % capacity has been wiped out. 95%. And the Israelis, I think twice now, have claimed that 300 missiles have been destroyed. And it's like, well, I don't know if that's even - The math isn't mathing, as they say. Yeah, it doesn't really work. But the thing is, is that with their drone production, with their oil enrichment right now, the Iranians are in a better position much more than they expected.

1:02:33Right. Initially. At this point, though, how can the United States and, you know, you're political as well. What possible outcome could we see that actually leads to this ending from Donald Trump? I think it would take a sea change of mindset to say, OK, done. Let's sign a fake deal, declare victory and get out. But I just don't see it. And I wonder. That's the Trump of the first year or two of the presidency in 2016. That's not the Trump of COVID. That's not the Trump of now. We're getting the Trump of COVID. Okay, he was committed to lockdowns. He was committed to all that. So this is the worst patterns of Trump coming out, in my opinion, here.

1:03:15And now there's nukes involved. So there's no off-ramp. Whenever he says something about, oh, yeah, we're talking to people, I think he's talking to himself. I think he's talking to Netanyahu. And, you know, I think that they are conspiring to try to keep the markets calm long enough for them to get those Marines in place. And then they're going to do Gallipoli 2.0. And it's going to end in disaster. This whole thing's ending in disaster. So there is no off ramp. You're going to get a bunch of our people killed. And then that's probably going to lead, in my opinion, to Israel then saying, oh, we've got to drop a nuke now.

1:03:51because Netanyahu is deeply committed, and his people, the Likud party, they're deeply committed to this course of action, utter annihilation of Iran, no matter what. So, you know, this is where it's headed, I think, in the coming weeks. Yeah.

1:04:05Jeremy Scahill:Brandon, I think an off-ramp requires Trump's removal from office at this point, because if you're the Iranians, why would you ever deal with this? Why would you ever negotiate with this administration? Well, they've already said that. Yeah, they have already said that, and I believe them, because multiple times, and not just with regard to, you know, the buildup to the 12 day war, but in other instances as well, we've used diplomacy as a ruse. They see what's going on here with Trump just now inventing fake diplomacy and once again, trying to use it as a ruse for whatever his next escalatory plan is.

1:04:34Jeremy Scahill:So you have that. And then you also look at this man who was clearly a menace to the country and the world at this point. So, I mean, is there an off ramp as long as Donald Trump remains president in the United States? I would have thought the institutions would have snapped back into place. And unfortunately, not even people like General Cain ultimately stood up to him and said, this is not going to work. Now, the Navy, it's interesting, the Navy, you know, he's been telling them to go through the strait and the Emeralds keep saying, we're not doing it. So that's interesting that that's sort of not happened yet, thank God.

1:05:10But in terms of 25th Amendment, it requires a vice president who's willing to stand up to Trump. And I don't think Mr. Vance, for a variety of reasons, is willing to do that. He was down in Austin recently with Lonsdale and Palantir guys. And I think the fact of the matter is, you know, that there's not going to be any movement toward actually reasserting some kind of constitutional control here, because you had Wassam and some of these top Vance advisors are leaving en masse, and they're going to be putting in. I was told to expect in the coming weeks, multiple people close to Vance who are foreign policy non-interventionists are going to be leaving for the private sector.

1:05:49So I don't think there's any off ramp there either. I think that when November hits, the likelihood is Democrats win and Massey and Kana do a impeachment, you know, a scheme together. That's going to be the, the, the hope I think for the left. But I don't think the Republicans are going to let it happen either. The Republicans are going to be rallying to their guy who's clearly way off on this one and going to get a lot of people. I mean, Trump is going to get a lot of people killed and he's going to get a lot of people at home hurt with this economic stuff. This is a disaster. Wow. Brandon, last thing.

1:06:24Why are you so confident about the use of a nuclear weapon? You're one of the only people I know who is like, it's going to, or not going to happen, but it's, I meant like 5%, you're like 50. Why are you so confident? Well, because I think that once the land attack, it's so bad in Israel right now. And basically Netanyahu is completely locked in. This is all or nothing for Netanyahu. It's 1945 Berlin. He's trying to move troops around that only exists on a map. So this guy's not operating in the same reality that we are. and so I think what happens is they're banking on one last Hail Mary being the U.S.

1:07:00Marine landings. That's not going to work under current conditions. At that point, Trump's going to probably get cold feet and try to figure out a way to get out of this because he's going to realize this thing's a disaster. And then at that point, Netanyahu is going to say, nope, I'm going, this is it. The Americans are getting cold feet. They can't do it. I got to do it. The only thing I've got are nukes and when all you have is a hammer, everything's a nail. And that's why I think this is – and I don't see any off-ramp. I just don't. Even if Trump were to taco out today, it's like the Israelis don't have to and the Iranians don't have to.

1:07:33You have to have engagement from the other two parties. And so far the Iranians are very confident that they've got what they need and the Israelis are very, very worried. And so they're going to keep doubling down to try to get out of this mess they've created. So that's where we are. And Trump's sort of a passive observer in this whole thing, which is really shocking to see an American president in that position.

1:07:55Jeremy Scahill:Extraordinary stuff. Brandon, it's always great to speak with you. We really appreciate it. Good to see you, man. Thank you. Thank you.

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