8/18/26: Iran Prepares For War, MTG Says Trump Floating Nukes, Fox Shames Troops On USS Lincoln

24:54Meanwhile, of course, our strategy with Iran, now that we have sort of given up on any of the potential military options, although we're going to tell you there are some insane ideas that appear to be contemplated, namely potentially deploying nuclear weapons. But for the moment, we've basically given up on a military strategy vis-a-vis Iran. And we had Scott Besson come out last week and say, we're going to use the most aggressive economic warfare that's ever been used. It's going to be something no one has seen in history. And a lot of experts are saying, well, what could you possibly do that we haven't already done?

25:26Not only to Iran, but Cuba. Ryan pointed out, it's much easier for us to strangle Cuba. Number one, Cuba is a tiny island with a lot less natural resources. Number two, it's right here. So it's much easier for us to institute this effective blockade of Cuba, which is unbelievably cruel and horrific to the population, by the way, what could we do that would be more than that? It really appears to just be bluster because we do not have the capability. They're already sanctioned. We've already done the campaign of maximum pressure. That is all already in place. So it's hard to imagine how we can up the ante economically.

26:02It is not hard to imagine how Iran can up the ante on us, both economically and from a military perspective. I also just want to underscore, Sagar, that politics matters in all of this. The fact that our population is not behind the war and at least some percentage of the service members who are fighting this war are not behind this war as evidenced by the graffiti being written in the dust of some airplane over in the region. That really matters because the Iranians have to be. They are galvanized behind this because it is an existential threat to their country. So it's a very, very different political horizon and landscape here in the U.S.

26:42versus in Iran. And Trump can claim all he wants, that he doesn't care about the midterms and he has no timeline, but he's full of shit. Like, if Trump says something, you almost know that the opposite is the case, right? Well, don't you care about getting impeached? I mean, at the very least, if you don't care about legislation, which you know he don't, like, you should probably care about getting impeached. Exactly. And the investigations that are going to come, like, he does not want any of that. Not to mention the thing that probably will bother him the most is the hit to his ego of if he oversees a historic landslide against him and his party in power, then he can no longer, well, he will, but he can no longer really credibly deny how unpopular and how much of a disaster his presidency has been.

27:22Yeah, so a new statement from Goluboff just dropped minutes ago. He says, The Strait of Hormuz will remain closed until the U.S. blockade is lifted, frozen assets are released, oil sanctions are removed, threats and military operations on all fronts end, and the other terms of the agreement are fulfilled. In this prepared statement, he also threatens a return to active military operations if these conditions are not met. So again, it's not a secret. It's all out there that's in the open. So I am taking a look here at the diesel stuff just to put it into consumer terms because the crack spread, it's like, why should I give a shit?

27:55Well, you should give a shit because 102 plus 90 is what? You know, nearly$200. That's the price of the barrel before tax. So after tax and then showing up at the pump, if you are a person who has a diesel-operated vehicle, right now you are paying about$5.46 a gallon on national average. Wow. All-time high diesel price from June of 2022 is$5.81. Wow. The current estimate is that with the current crack spread and barrel costs after tax, that most people in the national average will be roughly$5.60 to$6 a barrel if the Hormuz stays blocked in the next four to eight weeks. If there is an escalation, another$1 premium could be added to that with a roughly$6.25 per gallon average with an additional dollar on top of that for California and for the rest of the West Coast.

28:49So that is what an actual runaway inflation in diesel looks like. And that would immediately show up in the cost of all industrial stuff, like in terms of trains, in terms of any trucking. I talked about the tow truck situation. Everything like that is going to skyrocket in expense overnight if that will show up. And we're already on track to break the diesel all-time record within the next 48 weeks as it shows up actually at the pump right now. So that's where politics matters. And we're just getting started. And we are just getting started. Exactly. And that's why, you know, you're saying, oh, I think Trump is just going to sit there and take it.

29:25I agree. I mean, I've said about pain. Yeah, it's super painful. Trump is at his lowest approval rating of all time. He doesn't care. He doesn't need to get reelected. I actually don't think he cares as much about the midterms. But, you know, Hoover territory, it takes a while to get to Hoover, right? It took a couple of years, even in the Depression, for things to get really bad and to absolutely shock the political conscience and change the country forever. We're only six months into this thing. I mean, we could be two years of on, off, on again. And, you know, we could reach$7 a gallon before Trump actually buckles.

30:01It's very possible. Well, and the other thing is he's in such a bubble. You know, Natalie is telling him it's going great. and he's both in a class bubble because he and his entire family including apparently baron almost at this point are billionaires and he is also surrounded by a bunch of hand-picked sycophants and then he goes to rallies with like you know the cult that he leads so the pain that people are already feeling really doesn't penetrate that's how he can say things like i'll never apologize for$4 a gallon because to him, it doesn't matter to him. He is not in touch with anyone for whom that is a material difference in their lives.

30:40This is a problem with all presidents, but it's a particular problem with him because of the way he's constructed the ecosystem around himself. He puts himself in a news bubble. He's not even on Twitter anymore to like scroll and see some of the dissent there. He has really cocooned himself from any critique of the, absolutely disastrous policies that he's unleashed. So I think that has to factor into his psychology as well in terms of how he approaches all of this. So like I was saying before, though, even though for the moment there seems to have been a decision to give up on military options, that doesn't mean that there aren't insane military options that may be contemplated from this White House.

31:20Correct. I have been with Rasmussen University since 2013. All virtual. All of my professors throughout the entire journey have been nothing but supportive of making me reach my dreams. Rasmussen professors, they want to see you grow so that you can be what you went to school to be. I'm so thankful for Rasmussen University for being able to make it so easy and seamless. Rasmussen University. Find your seat and start now at rasmussen.edu. This is Ashley Akinetti from the Ben and Ashley I Almost I Miss podcast. Did you know that over 70 % of new parents are combo feeding? They're using both breast milk and formula to feed their baby.

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33:03Apple Vacations, where your story starts. Let's move to now the, you know, well, you said we're not going to sit there and take it, but they might also obviously use nuclear weapons. It's a very remote possibility, but could be a possibility. Marjorie Taylor Greene recently grabbed a lot of headlines saying that the people inside the White House are discussing this. That was immediately denied. However, you have Mark Levin, who the president loves and apparently recommends his television show all the time, wherever he's calling for ground troops and more, basically implying that nukes are now necessary to end the war with Iran.

33:38Let's take a listen. Why is it so difficult? First, the Iranian regime is not going to surrender. it is never going to surrender. You know, we've been in wars before where we fought enemies that wouldn't surrender either. Remember the kamikazes? Remember Japan? Remember the emperor was like a demigod to the people back then? Tojo was very stubborn, very headstrong. And unfortunately, we had to drop two atomic bombs until they would surrender. Obviously, we're not going to do that now. But I'm talking about an enemy that is dug in. An enemy that's dug in. Obviously, we're not going to do that now.

34:23But wink, wink. It wouldn't be the worst idea in the world. The Iranian regime is not going to surrender. Remember Japan. I mean, by the way, even if you're going to take nukes off the table, what he is advocating for, which was Trump's original whole civilization will die tonight, was what the United States was doing before the nukes. which is almost as bad if you ask me. You know, you could kill 100 ,000 people in a single night if you want to just drop napalm from a very, you know, short distance and burn everybody alive. It can happen. We can do that. We could do it all right now. Actually, well, I didn't really want to because it's not the way we're supposed to fight war, but that's what he's implying, and that's basically what he's advocating for is wipe every single one of their cities off the map and burn their entire population alive.

35:10So are we all okay with that? For what? So that they cannot get a nuclear weapon that they don't have and never did? I mean, what is this? It's ludicrous. It's insane. Yeah, and to Marjorie, so MTG, let's put her tweet up here on the screen. Here's what she said. They are discussing using nuclear weapons on Iran in strategy meetings. Yes, you read that correctly. It's real. I'm not speculating. I know, and it's pure evil. She goes on, obviously, about what happened to the Japanese after the atomic bomb was dropped. She says, Trump and his own admin were told by our own intelligence Iran was nowhere near creating a nuclear weapon.

35:45Then Israel said the same line. It's repeated for decades. Iran is only weeks away. She continues, people need to speak out and boldly stop this insanity. America is not untouchable. If and when that happens, everyone, I do mean everyone, will hold all of those in leadership now fully responsible for the rest of human history. Do not use nuclear weapons and stop this war now. Now, again, like I said, the White House completely denied this, said whatever Marjorie Taylor Brown or whatever nickname that they've come up with her. But it's one of those where how could you put it outside the realm of possibility?

36:20Just like with Israel, maybe honestly more so with them. We have more norms in this country than they do over there. They could do it. If they really were feeling the pain, as we saw after 40 days of conflict, they were down to single-digit interceptors. And without the American empire defending and shooting billions of dollars with our own missiles to defend them, they would have been screwed. Hundreds of their people would have died in those attacks. And huge portions of Tel Aviv would have been wiped off the map. And so could we really put it past them not to do it either? I mean, that's another thing.

36:52When we say use nuclear weapons, it may not just be us. You could always farm your workout if you want. And in Israel and even the United States, this term tactical nuke keeps coming back. There is no such thing as a tactical nuke. If you use it, even if it's a small one, which is like Hiroshima, that's a small one, then you still have broken the 80-year taboo and have entered an entire new age. Like any use of a radiation, even device, a dirty bomb or something like that would shatter the entire understanding of war between nations. I don't know how you could rule it out when every other post-World War II taboo has been broken over just the past couple of years in particular.

37:33We watch entire population be starved. This policy was announced. This wasn't a secret. This was broadcast. It was bragged about. And we just stood by. We helped. And the world stood by and watched. So I don't know how you can see what was done in Gaza. I don't know how you can watch Israel just casually annexing whatever territory of their neighbors and destroying villages and, again, announcing this, doing it brazenly, celebrating ethnic cleansing, claiming now they're going to take control of the whole Gaza Strip if they want to. I don't know how you can watch all of that and say, oh, but the nuclear taboo, that's the one that's going to hold.

38:08Why? Why? This president's entire MO is breaking every taboo you could ever think of. That's his thing. So why, when he's backed into a corner and every other military strategy has been proven to either be a failure or unable to accomplish it because of our low munition stockpiles, because of the way we've been chased out of the region and off of our bases, when everything else is off the table, what makes you think that he wouldn't look at this as, well, what about that option? What about that? Is that the way that I can rescue my position here? He is like the gambler, constantly doubling down, doubling down, doubling down.

38:47He cannot accept the loss that would be in evidence if he truly went forward with something like the MOU and acknowledged, okay, Iran now has control of the Strait of Hormuz. So what do you do? You do things that are increasingly insane, And that's the place where we're at now. So that's why you can't possibly take it off the table because you know where we're at and you know who you're dealing with. And we've all had the experience over the past several years of seeing norms, broken, taboos violated over and over and over again that you never would have imagined could have been put. Levels of cruelty that were, you know, are so creative you couldn't have even possibly imagined that.

39:27So I don't know how you could say with any confidence that this would be put off the table. I put it much more in the ball of the Israelis. I just think that it would be so easy to see something like that happen. And considering what they've done. I mean, I saw a video today of them launching like catapults and trebuchets in modern day just to make a point in Lebanon. That's who they are. I mean, look at Ben Gavir. What did he say? He's like, they're less than human. We should kill 30 or 40 of them every single night. And then some Jewish group was like, he shouldn't be saying that. That doesn't reflect Israel.

39:58And you're like, well, he is the minister. It's literally in the cabinet. It's the minister of national security, so maybe it does actually reflect them. I didn't put it out of the realm of possibility. Well, for them, they have genuinely convinced themselves this is existential. Yeah. Well, they made it. They kind of made it existential for themselves. And so they believe that their own security, for their own country to be secure, they have to basically destroy anyone in the region that could potentially pose as a threat. And so, yes, that logic leads you only to one place. And they also, with this group of fanatics that not only is in control of government, but that is consistent with majority public sentiment within the country at this point, they also have convinced themselves that they are inherently the good guys.

40:42And so nothing they could do would be immoral or evil because they are inherently the victims and the good guys in history. And so anything is justified in service of protecting themselves and their state. So that sort of ideology, it's not hard to see how that gets you to the place of, well, maybe we need to use a nuke now. Right. Let's get to the carrier. Shortly after I enrolled at Rasmussen, I was diagnosed with breast cancer. It was like a bomb had just been dropped in my life. I reached out to Rasmussen. They immediately were like, Rosa, take what time you need. You can come back when you're ready.

41:19We are cancer-free today, and I'm just so grateful for Rasmussen for all of their support throughout my journey and for my own village. Rasmussen University. Find your seat and start now at rasmussen.edu. This is Ashley Akinetti from the Ben and Ashley and I Almost I Miss podcast. Did you know that over 70 % of new parents are combo feeding? They're using both breast milk and formula to feed their baby. Whether you're exclusively formula feeding, combo feeding, or just want to back up in the pantry, Bobbi is the formula that I trust to deliver safe, complete nutrition to my baby's bottle. Both of my children use Bobbi.

42:02We loved it so much. Had the best experience with this brand. They're incredible. The customer service, what they stand for. Bobby's organic European style formulas are crafted with clinically backed ingredients and designed for easy digestion, just like breast milk. I did a lot of research before formula feeding, and I loved what I saw from Bobby. Every single batch goes through 2 ,000 plus safety and quality checks before leaving their owned U.S. manufacturing facility. If you want to feed with confidence too, head to HiBobby.com, that is Hi, H-I-B-O-B-B-I-E.com to find your baby's new favorite formula.

43:21We, of course, have been covering the abhorrent conditions aboard our aircraft carriers in the region. Trump was once again asked about those conditions and once again downplayed the situation. Let's take a listen. Mr. President, is there enough food on the USS Lincoln? Yeah, it is. That was a CNN fake report. The Lincoln has been out there for a period of time, good period of time. But over the years, we've had him out there much longer. I was at a group meeting and an admiral came up to see me over the weekend. And it was at a big group and he happened to be an admiral retired. He said, I've been on ships that are out there much longer than that, sir.

44:02And I know people on the link and they say it's beautifully maintained and beautifully taken care of. And other people went out and they found out to be true. It was fake news reporting from CNN. I mean, there are other carriers that have been deployed longer, but this is very close to a record. And we, as we covered yesterday, have incredible difficulties when it comes to resupplying these ships. So that's why the food quality is severely degraded. Because our bases were destroyed in the region, we were unable to supply them in the way that we had planned. And so it is a bit of a disaster. But what pissed me off about that is that everyone's trying to get technical with deployment.

44:40Deployment is not the same as time away from port. It is, by the Navy's own admission, the longest time away from port in their own history. So that's it. Since World War II, a carrier has never spent that long at sea without a port call, which means no time off, working around the clock, difficulty with resupply. So, yes, all of the reports are empirically true whenever we see. So he's like some admiral's like, oh, I spent longer out there. I'm like, first of all, you probably weren't at war, motherfucker. And then second, you definitely had a port call every once in a while in Kuwait, which was probably right where you were.

45:13And these guys are literally sitting out there with nothing, waiting 2 ,200 miles for new fresh food. Yeah. And tampons and hygiene products. Come on. I mean, and you've literally got guys trying to jump off the ship. Yeah, exactly. We're going to deny this reality of what is going on here. It's unimaginable. And meanwhile, so you had Fox News reporter Joey Jones, who is a war veteran, Afghanistan, actually had both of his legs blown off in combat. And he really went on a tear about how lame these people complaining are, etc. Let's take a listen to what he had to say. How weak are you on TV complaining about tuna and noodles?

45:53I'm sorry. You volunteered to serve your country. You can come back, get out of the military, and do like all of these Democrat veterans and complain about it and make commercials and be a sellout if you want to and come up with a new way of doing things. He's the last Democrat president that I remember that was deploying troops. Barack Obama had the army going to Iraq on patrol bases for 15 months at a time eating MREs. I'm sorry, but you're a sitting duck on a patrol base in Iraq, in Afghanistan, a heck of a lot more than you are on a fortified Navy ship sitting in the water. You might have got bored, and I'm sorry.

46:31We did have more fun getting in firefights. I'll say that. But to sit there and say that it was terrible because you had a corn dog and a hot dog, I would have traded a block of C4 to the Taliban for a hot dog by about July 2010. I just do not understand the mentality. If this is a representation of who our military is now, and I'm not saying it is, but there's at least enough for some of these trash rags to print about it. If this is who we are, we're just Rome sitting here waiting to burn. We've got nothing left. It makes me fume. If he sat there and said, we didn't have any clean water to drink, we couldn't take a shower.

47:06I mean, well, I didn't get to take a shower for about six months, but still, you know, something that has something to do with hygiene or, you know, like getting sick. There was a scurvy outbreak and, you know, the guys that were missing legs were only giving wooden pegs instead of metal ones. Then maybe I might have some sympathy. But to that little kid and whoever raised him, Lord, help you if you ever go into a hot war on the ground like millions of Americans have. I can only think what a World War II veteran sitting there who's lucid enough today to see that and think about the six-month journey home from fighting the toughest war we've ever fought after being there for four years was thinking, listening to him complain like that.

47:45The Secretary of the Navy put out his response. That's my response. End of story. There is a lot going on there. Yeah, thank you, Joey. Except those guys in World War II were fighting the Nazis and the Japanese who attacked us. Right. Not fighting a foolish war, which we were losing. And I don't think any of us would be sitting here hand-wringing about the conditions. I mean, we may be still concerned about it. But if it was a war that we felt was just, that we felt was worth the sacrifice of these men and women who signed up to serve the country. But the vast majority of people don't. And so, you know, there's a lot there, not to over-psychologize, but I'm sorry for this man that we sent him to Afghanistan and he lost both of his legs.

48:28And for what? The Taliban is back in control. Right. Like, for what did he and so many of his comrades suffer either physical injuries or mental injuries or lost their entire lives or their families fell apart? Like, we did all of that for years in Iraq and Afghanistan. And for what? And so some people have grappled with that. And it's a very difficult, I know people, as you do too, that served in those wars and have to grapple with the fact that they were away from their families and they suffered these traumas and suffered these injuries and ultimately for nothing. That is a very hard thing to grapple with.

49:07He clearly has taken the other approach of holding on to the idea that no matter what the wars that America's engaged in, it's good, it's just, it's worth its sacrifice. It was worth me having my legs blown off to accomplish literally nothing in Afghanistan. And so now here he is on Fox News berating these men and women as being weaklings and Democrat partisans because they're like, hey, I've lost 30 pounds. He also mentions, oh, maybe if the water was bad, maybe then I'd care. Well, there are reports the water is unsafe. He says maybe you couldn't take a shower. Have you looked at the shower facilities?

49:43You know, the Ford that had to be pulled from the region. Their entire bathroom facilities were not functioning. There were, you know, the toilets were not working. Like, this is a disaster situation to the point, again, that you have men who are trying to jump off the ship. You think it's just because they're a little bit bored, as he put it? I mean, I just can't understand that that mentality, especially given his life path and his trajectory and what he was made to suffer on behalf of a useless war. And yet now you want to be the top cheerleader to push new men and women into another useless war to be away from their family, miss the birth of their children, miss graduations, and to suffer this incredible psychological and in some cases physical trauma and injury.

50:32I don't know. It's hard to wrap your head around. They didn't volunteer to be pawns in a useless war, which we're losing. To feed Trump's ego. By the way, even if they did volunteer and wanted to go fight, I can guarantee you this is not what they had wanted to sign up for. There's a famous Bill Hicks line from the 1990s where he said, I'm in the unenviable position of being for the war but against the troops. It was a joke, but that's the reality now. They're like, we're for the war and we hate the troops. That's basically we've come full circle to like a sketch from back then. And that's what that kind of reminds me of is that you're a weakling if you sit there and you complain.

51:09I mean, you know, if you're a parent, so if you went through something really difficult, don't you not want your kid to go through that? Or like people who you love, don't you want to try and construct a reality where like I really suffered. I want to make sure other people don't have to suffer in the same regard. Maybe I'm just a normal person, I guess, because that's how I also feel. many of the GWAT veterans I know, they're like, I would not wish that on a 19 or a 20-year-old and put them in that position and have Dick Cheney. That's why they have so much hatred for them, is they volunteered with patriotism and with zeal from a commercial and then found themselves watching their friends get blown up.

51:46And then the Taliban come back in power. That's probably going to be one of the most psychologically devastating things of all time. Vietnam, a lot of the people speak in exactly the same tones of like we were, in their case, they were drafted, a lot of them. Imagine you know, plucked against your will, sent into the middle of the jungle. And then you have to watch that helicopter take off in 1975 and North Vietnam take over the whole country. You're like, oh, my God, what was it all for? Yeah. You know, and it all done so casually and carelessly. That's the other part is it also would be one thing if the tone you were getting from leadership was like, I'm so sorry.

52:19We're doing everything we can to relieve this suffering. Instead, you're getting complete denials. Oh, this is fake news or stop being weaklings. Suck it up, buttercup. And it all comes back to the fact that going into this, we did not have anything approaching a sensible plan and strategy. We didn't anticipate that they'd be able to hit our bases. Well, that's something that should have been knowable, should have been knowable. But apparently we didn't plan for that. We didn't plan for the fact that they would be able to close the straightforward. We thought this thing would be Trump, Trump, not we.

52:51I think the military brass and the intel community, they should have raised more objections. But they knew it was not going to be the four-day soiree that Trump convinced himself and that the Israelis convinced Trump of. So it also all comes back to just the complete, casual, nothing-matters, careless nature in which we embarked upon a very serious, deadly, destructive endeavor. And now these sailors are on the front lines of having to reckon with that completely destructive, careless reality that was crafted for them by leadership. And, yeah, they are damn well within their rights to be furious about that.

53:28And their families are damn well within their rights to be furious about that. Right. And just to show you some more about what Fox is doing, they recently put up a graphic. They said, hey, how's gas today compared to where it was? I'm going to play it for you. And if you're watching, see if you could spot the error. Let's take a listen. So President Trump asking Americans for patience and paying a little bit more for gas because the unified message from here is that gas prices will drop quickly once the operation's finished. The president says that he has to do this to make sure that Iran never gets a nuclear weapon.

54:03So if you were watching that, you might surmise that today gasoline is$4.06 a gallon. A week ago, it was$4. And a year ago, it was$4.13 a gallon. And you would say, oh, actually, it's not that bad. You're a boomer. You can take that right to the bank. Fox News said it right. The problem is, is that a year ago, gas was$3.14 a gallon. And let's just think about all the steps that that had to go through to get up on the air. We know we have a graphics team, right? So we go through this. Before we do our show, we go through every single one. And even then, sometimes if there's an error and then there's multiple checks to make sure that that stuff doesn't happen.

54:42But this is the most obvious one where you're like, well, hold on a second. It wasn't$4.13 a gallon a year ago. Nobody caught that. Somebody threw it up there and didn't look at it, not buying it, that it wasn't intentional. Or at the very least, what it does show is that they paid no attention or that it was done in such a way to falsely convey this information to the public. Or they're just so delusional in their own bubble. You know, as multimillionaire news cable hosts that they're like, oh, that's a maybe. Yeah, maybe. You know, they're so delusional about Trump's greatness, et cetera, that it probably didn't strike them as being off.

55:18So, yeah, a cable news show, there are going to be – their teams are so much larger than our team here. There's going to be many more layers of you have the person who conceives of the graphic. You have the person who creates the graphic. You have the producer who approves the graphic. Then you have the person who puts it up on screen. You have all of the anchors who are going to review all of the elements that are going into the show. So you have like a chain of probably something like five people at least who are going to take a look at this thing and sign off on it. It's like, yep, gas was$4.13 a year ago.

55:51It's actually gone down year over year. That's where we are. Good job, President. It's just a little bit more expensive than it was, let's say, a week ago. But we're actually doing okay. So very revealing of the propaganda mindset over at Fox. And lastly, just to show you, it's not just the carriers. There's an overall problem that Seth Harp has been talking a lot about with our military in general. You had the USS Benfold that was apparently stalled in the South China Sea, baking in the sun for four days after what they describe as an engineering casualty. That means they were without galley services, without toilets, without air conditioning.

56:31Potable water also affected the person they were speaking to. Did not respond to a question about how sailors handled waste. Can you imagine four days rocking in the sea, getting seasick, no toilets, no water, no food, nothing? What a nightmare. But I'm sure Joey Jones would tell them no big deal. suck it up, buttercup. Yeah, just got to poll. You're a Democrat if you don't like this. Guys, man, it's so great. And why does it matter? Why does it matter? Oh, engineering happens. How much do we spend on these things? U.S. has been full. Let's look it up. Let's look it up together for the actual cost.

57:12It's a Burt class destroyer. So currently$1 billion according to 1990 fiscal value. So what's that go today? 2.2 billion? Yeah, look, replacement costs, 2.2 billion to 2.7 billion. The ship recently underwent a$32 million dry dock in 2011 for technical and combat system improvement from BAE Systems. So the repairs and the overall replacement is well over$2 billion ship. This is not World War II. You're just cranking them out. We know there's a little bit of defect, but we need to get them out into the field. These are in the, you know, there's a multibillion-dollar piece of equipment, supposed to have the best facilities, goes completely dead for four days in the middle of the water.

58:02Yeah, no update on how the crew was able to fare during that period. People really should be panicking about this because the rot of our military-industrial complex is everywhere. So yesterday I just saw the Pentagon is bragging$23 billion to speed up Tomahawk deliveries. I said, oh, okay, speed up by how much? They don't tell you. Both are a system. The Lockheed company that makes it, they're not telling us how to speed up by much. The Pentagon is not saying what the delivery timeline is going to be. Speed up by one-fifth or by 500%. Big difference. Same number. Then they do the system, and they actually gave us a number.

58:42and it still works out to$3.7 million per missile. So even the cost is still astronomically high. They claim that they'll be able to deliver$1 ,000 within the next two years. We fired over$2 ,000 in the last six months. And so you're like, even for an extra$23 bill and an extra$4 mil per missile, you're still barely replacing 50 % of what you just fired. Like this is the insanity of what we all pay for. Hundreds of billions just flushed down the toilet for nothing. The entire military industrial complex is a rapacious cartel. And one of the most telling stories, I think, in recent weeks is how there was a concept of giving a license to the Ukrainians to manufacture patriots themselves.

59:28And the I can't remember which one of which one of them is it that I think it's Raytheon that produces patriots. Yes, that's right. They were like, oh, hold on a second. Let's not do this. Why? Because they know the Ukrainians are going to be able to do it much faster and much cheaper. And they don't want it revealed how much they are gouging the American taxpayer. But yeah, when you look at I saw again, Seth Harp sharing more pictures from on board one of these carriers showers all rusted out. Again, the amount of money that goes to these things and you can't even deal with the rust inside of the shower.

1:00:04The toilets are breaking like it's disgusting. where is our money going to? And again, drive around McLean, Virginia, and you'll see. You will see where that money is going to. It has to be dealt with. The entire system is broken. It is a complete criminal cartel. They are stealing taxpayer money. And to create a system that at this point has also obviously been shown to be completely outdated in terms of modern warfare, just insanity. And we have to, this is a longer term conversation and transition, but we have to reckon with the fact that we just don't have the power around the world that we thought that we did.

1:00:42The ability to project power, that has all completely crumbled. We're going to have to comport ourselves in a very different way in foreign affairs going forward because we are much more subject to the whims and dangers of the rest of the world than we had persuaded ourselves previously. I think that's a good thing. I agree. Reality is a good thing. You have to deal with people on equal terms. You have to respect other countries. Oh, they do things differently. Who gives a shit? Okay? Sometimes that's just how it goes. You work it out for yourself.

1:01:2916 years ago, I started working as a CNA in the hospital. I loved it. On the day I decided to enroll in the nursing program at Rasmussen University, it was afternoon, my 35th birthday. I was hanging out with a friend, and they had just questioned me what I was going to do with this next chapter of my life. I immediately had said, I want to go to nursing school. So I actually had contact information from an advisor at Rasmussen, contacted her, and actually ended up starting like three weeks later. My name is Cherish Adams, and I'm a Rasmussen University graduate. Learn more at rasmussen.edu.

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