3/9/26: Trump Doesn't Rule Out War Draft, Fox Coverup On Trump Fallen Soldier Disgrace, Desalination Plants Struck

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17:32Rory Johnston:Let's put A3 up here next on the screen just to show you. Everything is rolling towards ground troops right now. I just, I don't see a way out of it. NBC News, Trump has a privately shown interest in U.S. ground troops in Iran. His comments have been focused on the idea of a small contingent of troops that will be used for specific purposes. Let's go to the next one just to continue to fill this out. This is from A4. There's been a cancellation of an army exercise, quote, fueling speculation about Middle Eastern troop deployments. The elite 82nd Airborne Division, which specializes in ground combat and other fraught missions, is now awaiting new orders after an unexpected change of plans.

18:10Rory Johnston:The Army abruptly canceled this major training exercise. This was stationed at Fort Bragg in North Carolina. Brigade combat team of 4 ,000 to 5 ,000 soldiers ready to plow on an 18-hour notice for missions as varied as seizing airfields and other critical infrastructure. So you could see paratroopers now who are getting involved here. And in fact, what we see initially is that some shape of what this strike would look like for ground troops. Let's put A6, please, on the screen. This is from a friend Shelby Talcott over at Semaphore. Trump's Iran options include a special operations raid on nuclear sites.

18:46Rory Johnston:So what it would do is a special unit mission has long ready to, quote, counter WMD mission where their job is to go in and get loose nuclear material, fissile material, centrifuges, destroy them. And this is part of the folly of the entire thing. We're told that this is all about nuclear sites. Well, we've bombed some of the nuclear sites, but by U.S. intelligence's own admission, it's all now underground and they can't get to it. They can't continue to bomb it. So to go and get it, what do you have to do? boots on the ground. And so in this instance, you can't just have some special operations team insert when the Iranians know you're probably coming.

19:23Rory Johnston:That's why you would have the 82nd Airborne. You're going to have to send thousands of troops in. So the special operation can do it. Those guys have to provide security to be able to come in if anything goes right, airlift them out of here. You can easily see how much of a disaster that this could easily be inside. What? You think that the Iranians don't read the news? What do you think they're going to do right now. They're going to surround that thing and turn it into, you know, a death trap. And I'm not, I'm not saying that we are not capable of doing something like this, but perhaps it would cost a lot of lives.

19:53Rory Johnston:And what's shocking too, is the cavalier nature that they're already talking about death, not just of America, but not just of Iranians, but of Americans with Iranians. I mean, Hegseth, he's a psychopath. He's like, anybody still alive, they may not be alive. I mean, he's literally like a video game character. And, and, and actually I do think it's worth meditating here on the White House's propaganda. Everything is like Iron Man, Tropic Thunder. Like they're trying to meme this into existence. It's some of the worst aspects of like 2003, you know, rah-rah Americanism, which South Park used to do such a good job of parroting.

20:27Rory Johnston:But to show how insane things are in the White House, they will not even rule out a draft, okay? So A5, let's take a listen.

20:36Saagar Enjeti:Mothers out there are worried that we're going to have a draft, that they're going to see their sons get and daughters get involved in this. What do you want to say about the president's plans for troops on the ground? As we know, it's been largely an air campaign up until now. It has been and it will continue to be. And President Trump wisely does not remove options off of the table. I know a lot of politicians like to do that quickly, but the president as commander in chief wants to continue to assess the success of this military operation. It's not part of the current plan right now, but the president, again, wisely keeps his options on the table.

21:15Rory Johnston:Wisely keeping his options on the table for a draft. I mean, it's, first of all, politics-wise, think about that. That's going to rocket to every mom of a 17-year-old in the entire country. All these young men who voted for Trump.

21:29Krystal Ball:All these young men who voted for Trump.

21:32Rory Johnston:I mean, I have no words. By the way, I mean, I've given you my counterintuitive take. I supported Draft for exactly this reason. I'm like, hey, if you want to, you know, if you want to send America's sons and daughters to the war, the whole population better be bought in or people should riot over the -

21:47Krystal Ball:Send Barron first and then we'll follow.

21:50Rory Johnston:In the First World War, the prime minister of the UK, his son was killed on the front line. The entire, like, highest echelon of society, all of their sons were killed and like actually thrown into combat, not some rear action. And that showed that the society as a whole was actually into the war. And I'm saying the war was good, but that's the last time that we've ever seen anything like that. From that point forward, the elite of the elite, they always get in the rear echelon. And of course, since Vietnam in particular, the way we got around that one is all poor, young and black, young black and white men are the people who went and fought and died in the war.

22:25Rory Johnston:Same thing, unfortunately, happened with the war in Iraq and Afghanistan. They all volunteer military force. They are primarily targeted. I mean, look, there's a military culture in the South and a lot of these working class communities literally across America. And they're the ones who predominantly suffered while people like me, you know, got to go to college. It's shameful, actually, that they're allowed to perpetuate something like this.

22:45Krystal Ball:Yeah, I mean, my daughter's a senior in high school. The recruiters are at the high school all the time, you know, and who is interested in that? The people who, yeah, they're not on the college track. They're looking at the economy. There, you know, this is a way to be able to have a stable job. And next thing you know, you're being sent not sent off to fight some war for Israel in the Middle East. Just to I just want to drill down a little bit on why there is increasing likelihood, if not certainty, that U.S. ground troops are going to be on the ground. Because, you know, I think part of why we are in this place at this point and Robert Pape, Professor Pape, has been doing a lot of this analysis and predicting this for a while, which is why it's worth listening to what he says, is, you know, you are not going to be able to accomplish either a regime change or destroying the nuclear material from the air.

23:32Krystal Ball:So, you know, in Iraq, it took a year of searching the country to figure out there were no WMD. OK, so you are not going to be able to figure out where it is. You are not going to be able to bomb it into oblivion or have confidence that you've bombed it into oblivion without being there on the ground. So option number one is you fail, right? Trump tacos, that's what I'm hoping for. Trump tacos, you know, bombs something or kills the next Supreme Leader and is like, OK, we're done. Great job, everybody. Let's go home. In that scenario, number one, Israel, of course, not going to be satisfied with that.

24:06Krystal Ball:Number two, it's not clear that Iran would accept that at this point because they're looking at this. Their new Supreme Leader just had his father, mother, wife and son murdered by the U.S. and Israel. So I don't think he's going to be in like a really conciliatory mood here, number one. Number two, their strategic calculus now is that they have to hit us hard. They have to make us pay and suffer so that we don't do this again. So even if Trump tacos at this point, it is no guarantee that the thing is going to be over. So that's option number one. And of course, Trump, you know, he wants to save face, etc.

24:42Krystal Ball:So and you've got a lot of forces from Israel that are continuing to push in this direction. Number two is that you have some sort of ground invasion to try to obtain and destroy this nuclear material so that you can have your mission accomplished moment there. Number three, I guess, is that you like deploy a nuke or something completely insane like that, which we're going to talk about a little bit more of the possibility of that in World War Three, which, quite frankly, at this point, you can't put anything with Netanyahu and Trump in charge. You cannot put anything off the table because the level of death and destruction that these men are comfortable with is completely insane.

25:18Krystal Ball:I think Trump, thinking about his legacy, I don't think he cares whether that legacy is like as a good leader or as a notoriously evil leader. I think he's just more interested in leaving a gigantic mark on the world and wanting to be remembered. And so, listen, if you're going in that direction, being the first president since World War II to drop a nuke, again, I'm not saying that's what's going to happen, but I don't think that you can put it off the table.

25:45Rory Johnston:I actually wouldn't rule it out, not just because of Trump, but really because of Bibi. Let's put A7 up there on the screen. Trump says to the Times of Israel, it'll be a mutual decision with Netanyahu regarding when the war ran. So America literally, you know, we're giving up all of our sovereignty. It's a mutual decision with Bibi Netanyahu, literally a client state. not exactly somebody who's an equal ally slash partner in this entire thing, but he's the one who's gone all in. We're going to talk later about those oil strikes. It was Israel, apparently, and they're saying, oh, the U.S., they were very upset about the strike, fake, whatever.

26:15Rory Johnston:If you're not going to do anything about it, don't leak it to Barack Ravid, just like Joe Biden's entire presidency did. But their level of barbarism, which we all saw, remember, it's not just Gaza, because Gaza was barbarism at a humanitarian level, But their barbarism in terms of their like gangster action in the whole region is really what showed. It's like, oh, these fuckers will do anything. Like Doha, Qatar, Jordan, or sorry, Lebanon. Like all over the entire Middle East, Syria. They're mass murdering civilians in Lebanon right now.

26:45Krystal Ball:Literally.

26:46Rory Johnston:I mean they're saying we're going to turn Dahiya, area of Beirut, into Kanyunis. This is Smotry. They say this stuff out loud, how they're going to level. I've seen hotels, buildings just completely collapsing in the middle of that city. So that is why I actually wouldn't rule out anything because you never know where Israel will force your hand.

27:06Krystal Ball:And especially when you layer on the number of religious fanatics who are wanting to bring about the end times. How can you rule anything out? And that's in Israel and that's here too. So, again, I sort of feel like I had a blind spot for how much that ideology is significant, both in terms of some of the base of the Republican Party, but more importantly, in terms of the leadership. I mean, you think about Huckabee, you think about Hegseth, you think about Trump's spiritual advisor, and then he has this messianic vision of himself. This is scary stuff that we're playing with, very scary stuff that they're playing with.

27:43Rory Johnston:Let's turn now to Donald Trump here. This should be a national scandal. So, you know, I thought that the – remember what the tan suit, latte salute, all that stuff under Obama. That was Fox News Fair. Here was Trump at the dignified transfer, literally dead American servicemen where he's supposed to be saluting, and he's wearing a baseball cap. Take a look at this. I mean every other person is not wearing a baseball cap because that's not what you're supposed to do in this type of situation. the USA cap, apparently it's the exact same USA cap that was worn whenever he announced the war. Remember, in the middle of the night, literally at what, 2 a.m.?

28:20Rory Johnston:And then we didn't hear from him for like 24 hours on what the hell was going on there. What's even crazier is this Fox News and the way that they covered it, where they actually played old footage of the dignified transfer, apparently to cover up the baseball cap. Let's go ahead and put this up here on the screen. So as you guys can see all here, they used old footage of a previous dignified transfer, apparently to mislead the audience about the fact that he did wear a baseball cap during that. So, I mean, that is so crazy. Now, Fox News, I guess, to their credit, did eventually apologize after this was pointed out.

28:54Rory Johnston:Let's take a listen.

28:55Trita Parsi:Before we move on, we want to acknowledge a mistake made earlier on our program. During our coverage of yesterday's dignified transfer, we inadvertently aired video from an older dignified transfer instead of the ceremony that took place yesterday. We deeply regret the error and extend our respect and condolences to the service members' families. We honor the sacrifice of those six American heroes.

29:17Rory Johnston:Yeah, sure. I'm sure that was - Inadvertent.

29:20Krystal Ball:Yeah, inadvertent. Just a little oopsie editing together a clip with a previous dignified transfer. I mean, especially, here's

29:25Rory Johnston:why I actually don't believe it, because did none of the hosts, like everyone saw the pictures, and then they played that, immediately if you and I were doing that, I'd be like, hey, that's the wrong side. Like, well, how did something like this happen? Nobody in the control room, nothing. Yeah. Not buying it. That only happened because it, uh, it got leaked out there. But what's even worse. Look, I mean, as people know, I'm a dress code, uh, fanatic, but you know, it's not just about that. Uh, it's also about what it represents, which is about date. It's not, it's called a dignified transfer.

29:53Rory Johnston:It's about respect for the people who are dead. What's even more disrespectful is Trump basically saying, yeah, this is probably going to be the first of many. I hate to do it, but that's part of war, whatever. Right. Literally, the Lord Farquaad meme. Let's take a listen.

30:06Trita Parsi:I'm going to end up coming back to Dover for more of these such dignified transfers. Sure, I hate to know, but it's a part of war, isn't it? Who are you with? The Washington Post. What do you say? It's a part of war? The deaths are a part of war, yeah. It's a part of war. It's a sad part of war. It's the bad part

30:31Rory Johnston:Sad part of war, bad part of war. I mean, it's just so comfortable with the deaths of American servicemen. You know, another thing, and we shouldn't let this one go unnoticed. Anyone notice Tulsi Gabbard there in full uniform doing her salute? How many times had her on the program talking about, oh, I never want to see Americans come back. You know, my time as a medic really informed my views. There she is sitting in front of coffins coming back from this now war with Iran. Again, one of them literally a 20-year-old kid born four to five years after 9-11. It's so disgusting.

31:01Krystal Ball:She and J.D. have been very quiet, haven't they? Yeah, they should be. Very quiet. I mean, it is utterly shameful and insane. I mean, we're now at a point where they're actively floating. We can't rule a draft out where it's almost certain that we're going to have boots on the ground, where they're so cavalier about the death that is going to come to U.S. service members and additional injuries and casualties. Just really wild stuff. And then in terms of, you know, the cost for everyday Americans, we're going to talk more extensively about the price at the pump, what that's going to mean. Not only there, but we all live through COVID.

31:37Krystal Ball:We know the way this ripples throughout the economy. We know the level of disruption and how much ordinary people suffer when you have these kinds of supply shocks. So Trump got asked, hey, are you worried about gas prices? And so cavalier about this as well. Very easy when you're a billionaire, I guess. Let's take a listen to that.

31:54Trita Parsi:Are you worried about gas prices right now? No. This is a short excursion into something that should have been done for 47 years. 47 years it's taken to do this and no president had the guts to do it.

32:08Krystal Ball:Short excursion, no big deal. There's a new talking point from his lackeys, his administration lackeys, which is like short-term pain for long-term gain. That's what they're selling to the American people right now.

32:20Rory Johnston:Long-term gain of what? For some fake threat from Iran? Exactly. Complete bullshit. Exactly.

32:24Krystal Ball:And also the pain, what they're projecting is not going to be short term either. Let's be clear about that too.

32:29Rory Johnston:Even then, I mean, people spent like$200 million more on gas last week than they would have previously. That's a lot of money last time I checked. I mean, look, we're going to talk to Rory here in a bit. This just came across the wire. $4.99 a gallon today for diesel. $5 a gallon. I mean, does anybody else – how many segments we do here on this show about diesel and trucking and food inflation? This is where it all comes from. And apparently they don't give a – they do not care. at all about us. Okay, let's get to water desalination because that's very important and a major escalation in the war.

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35:34Krystal Ball:We have now had multiple attacks on regional desalination plants, including a strike on a significant one within Iran. This is obviously a war crime, but it's also opened up a new escalatory front. This is actually something Professor Zhang talked to us about, how vulnerable this entire region is. and actually the GCC countries outside of Iran, they're the ones who are more reliant on these desalination plants because they lack freshwater sources within their own countries. Let's go and take a listen to Trump getting asked about a U.S. attack on an Iranian desalination plant.

36:11Trita Parsi:Iran today accused the U.S. of hitting a desalination plant in Iran, and they said that might open the door to other strikes on infrastructure, non-military. They must also open the door to other strikes against them. Can you respond to that allegation? Did the U.S. have a de-drunk? They are among the most evil people ever on Earth. They cut babies' heads off. They chopped women in half. What they did, take a look at October 7th, take a look at what they've done over the last 47 years. So I know nothing about a desalinization plant other than to say, if they're complaining about a desalinization plant, And we complain about the fact that they shouldn't be chopping babies' heads off.

36:52Trita Parsi:OK.

36:52Krystal Ball:So complete deflection there and then just uses some of the Israeli, like, atrocity propaganda.

36:58Rory Johnston:But what is he even talking about? Well, he's, he linked it to October 7th. Yes.

37:02Krystal Ball:And he's claiming that Iran is now behind, which, you know, all of the reporting suggests Iran had nothing to do with October 7th outside of Hamas, obviously being, you know, allies of theirs. But yeah, just complete deflection, uses all of this debunked atrocity propaganda, tries to make it so that Iran is directly responsible for October 7th, etc. And we're already seeing the consequences of this new escalatory front. Let's put B2 up on the screen. We now have Iran struck, caused material damage to a desalination plant in Bahrain. First time they say an Arab country has reported Iran striking a desalination plant.

37:39Krystal Ball:So just to be clear, U.S. strikes an Iranian desalination plant and they say, OK, all right, game on. Let's go. Two can play this game as well. Let's put B3 up on the screen just so we can take a measure of how impactful this is. So these are the countries in the region listed out here by their level of dependency on these desalination plants, which, of course, convert saltwater into freshwater. water. Okay, the most dependent, 90 % of their water coming from desalination plants is Kuwait, then at 86 % Oman, then at 75 % Israel, then at 70 % Saudi, at 60 % Bahrain, which was just struck, 50 % Qatar, 42 % the UAE, and Iran.

38:26Krystal Ball:Now, they have some water issues, but it is not nearly the level of the GCC or Israel, only 2%. Iran is, the tweet here says 3 % dependent on desalination. The chart says 2 % U.S. allies in the region at 40 to 90%. Think about that. Think about that. If you are whole, like Kuwait is basically wholly dependent on these plants, which are vulnerable, and the U.S., you know, running out of interceptors and not doing a good job of defending these allies anyway. And your move is to attack an Iranian desalination plant, just completely opening up that front. Yeah, this is extremely dire for these countries.

39:06Rory Johnston:Well, I will also raise another one. Are we sure it was us? Are we sure it wasn't the Israelis? Because this is something that they love, right, to see the broadened war. And then immediately, the strike that happened back on the GCC countries, as we've been talking about, they don't care at all about the GCC. They would be happy to see them collapse. Also, It's funny. When I lived in Qatar, all of the Americans, we would always joke because gas was literally cheaper than water. So gas would be like 89 cents a gallon, whereas water would be a dollar a gallon if you wanted to buy it from CVS or some sort of grocery store.

39:38Rory Johnston:That is how different things actually are over there, especially for fresh water. So you can think and just talk about how you've got only a certain amount of runway whenever it comes to water desalination. But the bigger point is about civilian infrastructure. So this strike on the water desalination plant and the closure of the Straits of Hormuz literally is a choke point for every single person who lives in the Gulf. Because think about it. Everyone talks about the Straits of Hormuz just for oil. But it's not – remember, they have huge food. Like all their food comes in from there. Everything.

40:12Rory Johnston:If you've ever been to these countries, everything is imported. Literally, there's nothing out there. It's a desert for fresh food.

40:19Krystal Ball:Not food sufficient, not water sufficient. Everything has to be reported.

40:23Rory Johnston:Everything is either flown in or shipped in. And if you, two weeks is all they have for runway whenever it comes to food or water. I mean, it is a disastrous situation, especially for the civilian populations of a lot of them. Not to mention, what, a million plus Americans who are all living in the country. Good luck getting out right now. Look at Dubai Airport. You know, we're going to show you some of that stuff later on. I mean, the civilian infrastructure attacks, This is designed to inflict maximum damage on all of the population. So it's really dangerous.

40:52Krystal Ball:And to your point about who did this, so put B6 up on the screen. The Israelis blamed UAE, okay? UAE is completely denying this, that they struck this desalination facility. And they also hit back at what they described as inappropriate Israeli conduct. So, you know, it definitely, there is a full-scale disinformation campaign coming from the Israelis. Why? Because they don't want this to be a limited conflict. Their incentives are all in the direction of dragging as many countries into this thing as they possibly can. So, you know, I think given the breadcrumbs here, I think you're probably right.

41:36Krystal Ball:The most likely suspect here is Israel. But ultimately, it doesn't matter from a, you know, whether it's the U.S. or Israel, because certainly the Iranians blame us for everything that's being done to them right now. And you already had, we're going to talk to Trita more about this, but you've already had, you know, the Iranians made this sort of outreach like, OK, regional Arab countries, if you don't attack us, we're not going to attack you back. Trump immediately comes in and undermines that. And now, you know, that very fragile sort of accord to limit this and contain the conflict and step back from the escalation chain that has already been completely destroyed.

42:17Krystal Ball:And clearly Israel here trying to keep that regional escalation going by saying, oh, it was UAE. They're denying it and saying, you know, basically you all are outrageous for the, you know, the disinformation that you're spreading. We can put B7 up on the screen here as well to see, you know, this analysis, senior analyst on Israel. The crisis group says much of what Israel, Israeli media is reporting in Gulf states is disinformation appears to be part of an effort to escalate the war further between Gulf and Iran. And the, you know, I think that's just like undeniable at this point what they are up to.

42:53Krystal Ball:But last thing here, put B4 up on the screen. You can see the way that the Iranians are reacting. So this is the foreign minister of Iran. He says the U.S. committed a blatant and desperate crime by attacking a freshwater desalination plant on Kashim Island. Water supply in 30 villages has been impacted, attacking Iran's infrastructure's dangerous move with grave consequences. The U.S. set this precedent, not Iran.

43:18Rory Johnston:Yeah, and that's why they already attacked in, what is it, in Bahrain? Bahrain. And just, I mean, Bahrain, remember, where are all those Americans who are in the Gulf? In Bahrain. Like in Kuwait and all of these countries are massively dependent on these water desalination. So I actually think, look, this is a broader war theory. Like what do you do? Let's go back to the history of all warfare. It starts out just troop on troop. Then it's like, well, when you get gridlocked, what do you do? Oh, well, now we have to wage war on the enemy's ability to sustain the front. So what do you do? You no longer care as much about that.

43:52Rory Johnston:Air power is going to go and attack, remember, ball bearing factories. and all of these places of infrastructure that sustained the war effort. This is what, if you think back to World War I, what did they do? Why did they have unrestricted sub or U-boat bombing back then? To literally make sure that the Britons couldn't continue the war effort on their home island so that they couldn't continue to send food or any supplies to the people who were on the front. The same things that the Allies did to the Germans. We would attack their food supplies and all these other things. Again, same thing. We wanted to cause mass famine to make sure that the population would stop supporting the war.

44:24Rory Johnston:This is what total war looks like. The Civil War. How did it end? Go through Atlanta, burn everything to the ground. This is the problem with sustaining these types of conflicts. And it's literally a fight literally to the death. And then you have to say, who has the ability and the will, or at the very least the will, to want to fight to the death? I don't even want to pay 50 cents more per gallon. The number of American dead for me is already, it's seven too high who are confirmed. Who knows what the real number is. So for the rest of us, we're out here being like, oh, diesel,$5 a gallon, huge disruption to our life.

44:56Rory Johnston:Jet fuel is going up. Anybody who wants to fly. By the way, our Asian allies are getting hammered. You know, the South Korean index is down 15 % over the last five days. They're getting destroyed because all their oil comes from the Straits of Hormuz. The Japanese, 90 % of their oil comes from the Middle East. The Nikkei 225, I checked this morning, is down like 9 % over the last five days. They're getting hammered, the entire world. For what? for literally nothing. And then you've got interceptor stocks that are all falling, civilian infrastructure. This is textbook for any war which doesn't initially find smashing success in the first couple of days.

45:32Rory Johnston:It doesn't have a choice by strategic logic. I mean, theoretically you do, which is to say, oh my God, this was a horrible idea. Trump's not going to do that. And even if he wanted to do that, Israel's not going to let him at this point. And even if they did, then what are the Iranians just going to say, yeah, okay. They're like, no, no, no, No, we're not done with you yet.

45:48Krystal Ball:And normalizing those attacks on civilian infrastructure, that is to Iran's benefit. Because this is the sort of stuff that's very easy to attack with the drone, right? And so this is a game they can play all day long. And so what have you accomplished so far in this war? You have a – you decapitated the head of the regime. Now you've got a harder line person who has been named as the supreme leader, the son of the previous Ayatollah, who just had his whole family murdered by you. So congratulations. You've got another Kamani who is more hardline than the previous one who's now in charge. Okay.

46:24Krystal Ball:You've likely unified, actually, the Iranian people behind this government, given that they are under siege and under attack. You have now your economy being destroyed in real time. I mean, true threat of like a global depression situation already just with the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. You are now in, you have failed to accomplish whatever the goals are, not that you've been real clear about what those goals even are, so it kind of makes them unaccomplishable. But you have not collapsed the regime. There isn't civil war. There is not certainly a regime change. You do not have control of the nuclear materials.

47:00Krystal Ball:They continue to be able to strike within Israel. I'm seeing lots of reports this morning about attacks from Iran in Israel and also on GCC member states as well. And now you're in sort of this bind where you're very likely to end up sending ground troops in and having many, many more Americans dead. That is what's been accomplished, quote unquote, so far in this war. It could not be more of a cluster. Like it's just an absolute disaster and very hard to see how we get out of this any time soon because Trump, you know, there are no good options for Trump to walk away. And as I said before, even if Trump tried to walk away, not at all clear that the Iranians would be like, okay, hey, good, let's go back to the way things were because they know that they would just be courting another attack yet again in the future.

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