8/3/26: Trump Backs Down On Iran Strikes, US Forced Out Of Iraq, Munitions Run Low Amid War

23:00But this is going to create like the husbandry of resources, which is a disaster ultimately to the prestige and to the image because it was inconceivable even to extreme military skeptics like me that we would be in this situation today. I mean, all the script was written, though, to be fair, when we look at the drone threat, when we look at the intercept, we talked about it for years and years from the Ukraine conflict to the Operation Midnight Hammer, the reduction of THAAD. The script was there, but nobody expected, I think, the third act to go in the direction that it ultimately did. So now what's going to happen?

23:33In my opinion, this like phase two style type thing where we have no war and no peace, it's going to happen for a very long period of time, for exactly the situation that you just laid out. It's just like Afghanistan. Admitting defeat is so catastrophic to the image and prestige and, you know, of the United States and its military that we will throw good money after bad 10 times over just to not have to admit defeat. And Trump will have to be brought to a crushing economic situation to ultimately recognize the de facto Iranian or Imani control of the Strait of Hormuz. Many, you know, the cranks of the people like us were like, why are we in this?

24:13We will all be vindicated in the end. Don't worry. But in the interim, like you said, there are very, very powerful people here in Washington, many of whom didn't even agree or want to launch the war in the first place. We're now like we have to put it all on the lines. Very First World War mentality. You could see it through all ages and all warfare, even though we have a useless and stupid situation. you're like, well, for the future, for us as a nation to be able to survive, we have to continue to do that. And that's how you end up in these prolonged and disastrous quagmires. Vietnam, perfect example.

24:46Highly recommend everybody. If you read and look at the exact situation from how you go to a few thousand military advisors to 500 ,000 American troops on the ground, it took five years. It's nothing. But the logic in which it all happened is exactly the way that it is right now. I don't think we'll end up with ground troops, at least in a prolonged occupation sense like we are with her. But that doesn't make it any less catastrophic.

25:33My first thought is, like, what's up with the snacks? Like, what are we eating? The highlights, the rivalries, the breakout stars, the moments that take over your entire timeline. And the conversations that start during the game and somehow keep going all week. Every week, we're breaking down the biggest stories across women's sports. Naomi Osaka showing out. She beat Sabalenka. Shout-outs to you, Naomi. You get the palm, Naomi. You get the palm for that. Because we're not just interested in what happened, we're interested in why everyone's talking about it. because everyone watches women's sports.

26:04Listen to Everyone Watches Women's Sports on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

26:12Hey, Portlandia fans. Carrie Brownstein and Fred Armisen here. You know us, or rather, you know them. Tony and Candice, Nina and Lance, Spike, and yes, the chicken. We've played a lot of iconic characters over the years, but today we're showing up as ourselves to tell you about Podlandia, AO Rewatch, our brand new podcast. Each week, we'll revisit an episode of Portlandia from the very beginning, breaking down the sketches, exploring the backstories of our most iconic characters, revisiting the Portland locations you know and love, and opening up about our creative process. How did any of this get made?

26:45Why do we think that was a good idea? We're ready to talk about it. And we'll also be joined by the people who helped bring it all to life. Guest stars, collaborators, and friends, including director Jonathan Kreisel, the mayor himself, Kyle McLaughlin, legendary musician Amy Mann, and many more. Kyle is going for it here. You fully improvised, not just words, but a song, a melody. Well, I thought he was going to write, I thought you were all going to write a song. I remember you thinking that. Listen to Podlandia, Ayo, Rewatch on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

27:20This is Chelsea Handler from Dear Chelsea. Every week, the news gets worse, the world gets crazier, and Yamanika is here to tell whoever's responsible, You're the problem. If you come over here to play games, I'ma check you. Okay? If you do some in the news that don't sound good, I'ma play you. Join Yamanika Saunders as she breaks down the week's most problematic stories on her new podcast, You're the Problem, with Yamanika. Do you know I just found out who Sidney Sweeney was? New episodes weekly every Wednesday as part of my new network, the Dear Chelsea Network. If he got a bunch of women, then I should have a bunch of men.

27:59Do better or do less so I don't have to do so much. So join Yamanika each episode as she answers one question. Who's the problem? I'm Yamanika and I'm out. Listen to You're the Problem with Yamanika on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

28:23we're basically all sitting here waiting around for either a catastrophic economic crisis or a catastrophic political crisis because those are the things that would force this to an end and that is the iranian understanding so when will that come you know we're we've talked endlessly about the strategic petroleum reserve about the oil markets there's all sorts of um you know interconnectivities in the economy that very hard even for experts to predict when something is going to break in a catastrophic manner. We're basically waiting around for that or we're waiting around for the sort of political crisis vis-a-vis Vietnam, like a similar level political crisis that forces Trump's hand and forces an end here, although I think he's more impervious to those forces than previous presidents were.

29:12And for him, as long as he's staying out of prison and getting rich, then he only cares so much. But the economic crisis, he doesn't want to be remembered as Herbert Hoover. So that's kind of where we are, just sitting here and wondering when the global economic system is going to completely fall apart in a way that forces their hand. And that's kind of a terrible place to be. Right. And it could take years, years and years. So that's why we really need to buckle in. Let's put A4 up here on the screen. This is very important. Also, You know, we were talking here a little bit about the empire. Well, it turns out that Saudi crown prince MBS is one of the main reasons that these attacks did not go forward.

29:50The kingdom, by the way, even released their readout of the call where they explicitly said the crown prince asked President Trump not to resume major airstrikes on Iran. You never see that out of the kingdom of Saudi Arabia. What they see here is that Salman spoke to President Trump on Saturday, expressed concern over his plans for massive new strikes because, of course, Iran had actually published a list of sites that would be struck in retaliation, many of them in Saudi Arabia, which would have sent oil prices absolutely skyrocketing. Quote, the Saudis expressed concern, asked for clarity about the plan of action.

30:26MBS urged Trump to de-escalate and from launching the strikes, apparently the Saudi defense minister, who I think is the brother known as KBS, came to Washington, 13-hour flight, for a single meeting just with the vice president, J.D. Vance, in which he begged him, please do not go forward with these new strikes, and then flew back to Saudi Arabia. That's how 26 hours on a plane for a one hour meeting in which they saw the situation that dire that they couldn't even just pick up the phone. I think, again, just underscoring that he's got a nice plane. Oh, he's got he's got he's definitely got a softens the blow.

31:01Let's not let's not, you know, cry too many tears for the for the rich princes of the House of Riyadh. But, you know, or the House of Saad. Sorry. But I do think it underscores just how much of a pain position that they are in. how the UAE, so Saudi's in that position too, where remember, they're exporting some oil. The UAE and Bahrain are apparently pissed off at the United States for not escalating the conflict because they're done, they're locked in right now. And they're also, I mean, the UAE's not getting pounded as much, but Bahrain and Kuwait absolutely are. And they're like, hey, why have we been buying all these weapons?

31:34We need more interceptors. And Trump and them are like, yeah, you need interceptors, so does Ukraine, and so do we. So basically, we're the only ones getting them because we're the ones who make it, which is what's making everybody rethink their alliance. But I do think, you know, to the empire point, when you, I mean, imagine this, you have an empire of antiquity. You have the provinces, of which you have guaranteed their security. You start a war, which is disastrous for said provinces. And then the provinces, I guess, usually would say, hey, you need to come and defend us. But when it gets revealed that you can't defend them, then of course you're gonna have to go back to the imperial capital and say, please, please don't stop because you don't have the capacity to defend us, which means that you're actually going to inflict pain.

32:16And that is, as you said, the beginning of the end. None of this will happen overnight. It happens over many, many years. But, you know, it is very easy, I think, at least in this position now, to say generally based upon the course of history, we know where this story is going to go. And none of it is good for the U.S.'s ability to defend, you know, quote-unquote allies. And, I mean, you know, I talk a lot here and I have for many years about NATO and all that. I don't care about Estonia, Latvia, or any of the far-flung post-1990s additions, but I do care a lot about Japan and South Korea, about the UK, I mean, you know, Australia, actual critical trading partners, allies of the United States.

33:01And right now, we're in a situation where that's in question. And that's what I think should scare everybody. You care about Sayurda, Spain, because a place I never knew existed. You didn't even know it existed. Very interested in. Never been. Now, I mean, I got to be honest, it is fascinating. Totally. Yeah, no, I started going down that history rabbit hole too. We'll get to that in a minute. So just one last thing in terms of the allies. The Saudis have enough sort of size and societal strength and position that I think they feel like, you know, they'll be okay out of this war. They don't like the attacks.

33:37This is very bad for them, very bad for their economy, all of that stuff. And so that's why they're coming in like, hey, could we not do this? You know, this hasn't worked out the way that you said it was going to work out because there were was reporting that early on when Trump was saying, hey, it's going to be four days. No problem. We're going to take him out. It's going to be great. The Iranians have been a pain in your butt. Now you'll have more ascendance in the region. They were like, great, cool. When this hasn't gone the way they wanted, now they want out. Now they want a deal. They want this to be done.

34:03They want to go back to sort of normal course of order. Not that that's entirely possible. Bahrain and UAE are more in the boat of sort of like the U.S. empire protectors. This is genuinely existential. UAE is barely a country. I mean, it really isn't quite a proper country. And their whole thing is built on their brand as this luxury respite for the global elite, the global money launderers to come and stay and enjoy and park their money. Being in a war zone is not part of that deal. So they've got a real existential problem. And then Bahrain has a problem as well because their leadership doesn't have a lot of legitimacy.

34:41You've got a lot of Shiites there who are sympathetic to Iran. So they have an existential issue as well. So I think for those countries, you can understand they're in this sort of like all or nothing place as well, where to end the war now is going to be somewhat unacceptable for them because that threat will remain and that threat will loom and will undermine the very sort of underpinnings of their states, such as they are. So I think that's part of why you see a different response there. Let's put A3 up on the screen. You know, I'm not really sure what to make of this, but in terms of what the Iranians are up to or could be up to, there's a report from The New York Times, and we've seen some other reporting, that the Iranians have, it looks like potentially the Iranians have hacked U.S.

35:30water supply systems in seven different states that we know of, Minnesota being one, Michigan being the other. I don't think we know what the other five states are specifically. This is one of those saga where they say, well, it bears the hallmarks of an Iranian hack. We don't know for sure. It's possible. You know, I take it sort of more seriously than perhaps I otherwise would for two reasons. Number one, because Trump wants to downplay it. Like if this was some sort of a, you know, an intel op from the U.S. government or from the Israelis, it feels like Trump would embrace it. Oh, yeah, they're coming after us.

36:03That's why we've got to attack them. We've got to neutralize the threat, et cetera. He has very much wanted to downplay these and even tried to blame the Minnesota government for hacking their own water system. OK, sure. And then the other reason is because Trita Parsi, of course, we have a lot of respect for, thinks that it's possible that this was the Iranians as well as a sort of warning shot. They didn't do anything here that really caused problems. It was more of an announcement of their capabilities of, hey, you know, nice water supply system you have there connected to the Internet. shame if something would happen to it.

36:34Again, I'm not sure, and neither are the analysts who were quoted in this New York Times piece, but it's definitely something to consider and pay attention to because we feel very protected here in the U.S. We have a lot of our own geographic advantages, which are tremendous. And we know that Iranian missiles can't reach our homeland, our shores here. It's a reminder that in a world that is completely interconnected, they still do have potential ways to, you know, disrupt life here as well and get at us and mess with us. And of course, we know that also from every time we go to the gas pump and see what the price is.

37:10I am always skeptical of these types of stories. Everyone should be, too. It does make sense in the way they try to put it in that it would be the horizontal escalation in terms of you mess with our power plants. We're going to try and mess with yours. And it has always been kind of a glaring cybersecurity problem that we have major holes and problems with our utility companies, energy. I mean, even in terms of our airlines, you know, United or American gets grounded every other week because of an IT problem. We don't know why, but that's hundreds of billions of dollars, you know, at stake if that we were to have a sustained shutdown.

37:44So it's very possible that it could be there. Obviously, we'll watch it. like you said too, Trump downplaying it does seem to actually make me think, hmm, maybe there was actually something there. Because if it were real, or if it were something that, or sorry, if it weren't real, if it was like a manufactured thing to try and to escalate the war, then people who would want to use it as a pretext would certainly be crying. So we'll see. They may, knowing this administration, they may turn around and do that sometime in the future. All right, let's get to the military. What's up, fam? I'm sports journalist Ari Chambers.

38:15Hey, what's up, y 'all? It's your girl, Sam Jay. And we're the hosts of Everyone Watches Women's Sports, a new podcast from Together and I Heart Women's Sports. Because let's be real, women's sports is giving us way too much to talk about these days. So Kelsey Finler, she became the first female solo rower to go from California to Hawaii. My first thought is just like, what's up with the snacks? Like, what are we eating? The highlights, the rivalries, the breakout stars, the moments that take over your entire timeline. And the conversations that start during the game and somehow keep going all week.

38:46Every week, we're breaking down the biggest stories across women's sports. Naomi Osaka showing out. She beat Sabalenka. Shout out to you, Naomi. You get the palm, Naomi. You get the palm for that. Because we're not just interested in what happened. We're interested in why everyone's talking about it. Because everyone watches women's sports. Listen to Everyone Watches Women's Sports on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

39:12Hey, Portlandia fans. Carrie Brownstein and Fred Armisen here. You know us, or rather, you know them. Tony and Candace, Nina and Lance, Spike, and yes, the chicken. We've played a lot of iconic characters over the years, but today we're showing up as ourselves to tell you about Podlandia, AO Rewatch, our brand new podcast. Each week, we'll revisit an episode of Portlandia from the very beginning, breaking down the sketches, exploring the backstories of our most iconic characters, revisiting the Portland locations you know and love, and opening up about our creative process. How did any of this get made?

39:45Why do we think that was a good idea? We're ready to talk about it. And we'll also be joined by the people who helped bring it all to life. Guest stars, collaborators, and friends, including director Jonathan Kreisel, the mayor himself, Kyle McLaughlin, legendary musician Amy Mann, and many more. Kyle is going for it here. You fully improvised, not just words, but a song, a melody. Well, I thought he was going to write, I thought you were all going to write a song. I remember you thinking that. Listen to Podlandia Ayo Rewatch on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

40:20This is Chelsea Handler from Dear Chelsea. Every week, the news gets worse, the world gets crazier, and Yamanika is here to tell whoever's responsible you're the problem. If you come over here to play games, I'ma check you, okay? If you do some s*** in the news that don't sound good, I'ma play you. Join Yamanika Saunders as she breaks down the week's most problematic stories on her new podcast, You're the Problem with Yamanika. Do you know I just found out who Sidney Sweeney was? New episodes weekly every Wednesday as part of my new network, the Dear Chelsea Network. If he got a bunch of women, then I should have a bunch of men.

40:59Do better or do less so I don't have to do so much. So join Yamanika each episode as she answers one question. Who's the problem? I'm Yamanika and I'm out. Listen to You're the Problem with Yamanika on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

41:22One of the things that we have learned from this war is what a failure the U.S. basing strategy has been throughout the region. And now we have this extraordinary development we can put up here on the screen. After how many years have we been in Iraq? Because of this war, it appears that we are approaching an actual full withdrawal from Iraq as bases in the Kurdistan region face attacks from Iran and their proxies. Patriot air defense systems that detect and shoot down incoming missiles and drones have already been removed, according to Almonitor and their sources. Let me go ahead and read you a little bit of this article.

42:01They say the U.S. military has started to draw down its last remaining forces from Iraq stationed in the vicinity of Arbeel's airport in the Iraqi Kurdistan region. Well-placed sources tell Al-Monitor. Patriot Mobile air-to-surface air defense systems that detect and shoot down incoming missiles, drones, and other airborne enemy equipment have already been removed from the military compound. The pullout started last week and is ongoing with the bulk of the U.S. forces and their heavy equipment out. All of the Patriot anti-missile batteries had been redeployed to an undisclosed destination, they said, adding that other defensive weapons systems remained in place as of the time of publication.

42:39Regional officials claimed the pullout was Sagar routine and in line with the U.S. commitment to withdraw all its forces from Iraq by a September 30th deadline. That was agreed with Baghdad. So I think we can read the tea leaves here. And I mean, this is pretty extraordinary. Basically, Iran wants us out of the region. And in a way, we are being forced to oblige because we can no longer protect our forces throughout the region. We have to marshal our resources as we run low on all sorts of missiles and missile interceptors and all the rest. So we have to strategically reposition to make sure we can protect, I guess, the most vital assets at this point.

43:20And so after all of this, it is now the Iran war that has actually forced us to fully withdraw from Iraq where we never should have been in the first place. Well, yeah, that's kind of where I was going to start. It's like, well, let's actually look at the history of this base of Kurdistan. This was one of the jump off points between the United States and ISIS where we fought side by side with the United States Special Forces and a lot of the Kurdish troops that helped defeat ISIS both in Iraq and in Syria. But then let's actually take a step back even further and let's think about why these bases and all of that have to be driven out in the first place.

43:53The truth is we invaded this country of Iraq and, yeah, we deposed Saddam Hussein and we turned it by our own admission into an Iranian proxy state in which the Iraqi prime minister has had to come here to Washington and effectively demand, as of a few weeks ago, that we leave. And remember, that was an agreement that was agreed to in the Oval Office in which Trump and the Iraqi PM said, yes, the United States is going to exit the country. But it's going to do so not on terms that are ours and not in terms of a, quote unquote, prosperous Iraq that has the ability to thrive as a democracy, as George W.

44:27Bush and all that sold to us. But one in which there are major Iranian military proxies which have the ability to shoot drones at American service members. And don't forget, this is also where multiple service members died in a mysterious air crash of those two tankers. Let's not forget that, and there's still a lot of questions that surround it. In addition to, just last week, that unexploded drone that actually was exploded by some EOD tech and ended up killing a nearby American service member, that happened in Iraq alongside those three casualties that also happened in Jordan. So we still have forces that are there on the ground having to leave basically unceremoniously.

45:07And in the midst of all of this, especially not on our own terms, does demonstrate ultimately the benefit to Iran and to their strategy. This also comes on the heels of the emptying we've seen previously of the Al-Adid Air Base in Doha, which was a huge base of operations. I used to live very nearby it, CC-17s and these transport planes that were coming in. I was there in 2008. They would be coming in all hours of the day, bringing in supplies and troops and all this other stuff for the war in Iraq. To have to abandon that for the drone or the missile threat is crazy. We also have seen similar situation in Kuwait and Bahrain, in which the air defense either was knocked out or nonexistent.

45:45Troops having to go sleep in hotels. So we've seen this now time and time again, where being driven out, not just of bases, but of the ability to use them for the function that we ultimately wanted, which is the major problem. And I think that you compare this, as we've talked about previously, with the military failure. The truth is we are living through what is technically called a revolution in military affairs. I won't go into all of it, but it is a fascinating intellectual exercise in which the ways in which warfare is conducted and understood is completely changed. I've talked here previously about the battleship and World War II and what changed in the theory of the battleship to project power and how that was blown up in a single second whenever aircraft were able to sink them in a matter of seconds.

46:34It completely changed the understanding of naval warfare at that time. Well, this also happened in the 1990s. I won't, again, bore everybody with the details. But the drone threat and the missile threat in particular, along with the interceptor math and the exchange between those two, is another one I think that we're all living through, and I saw some discussion about that today. And you can actually see it with B-3, which is really shocking. I mean, first of all, when we read this headline, some might even ask, why are we protecting Israel in the first place? But the top U.S. general in the region has now warned the Pentagon, quote, he lacks sufficient forces to protect Israel.

47:11He says that a shortage of Navy destroyers used to defend against Iranian ballistic missile attacks will now have to force the head of European command to prioritize the U.S. homeland instead. He says that the Pentagon this week, he lacks sufficient naval forces to continue protecting Israel from incoming ballistic missiles, illustrating how the ongoing Iran war has imposed the constraints on the military, and that he will be forced to choose between defense of the U.S., quote, homeland as in bases over that of Israel, who, like some others, spoke on the condition of anonymity here to the Washington Post.

47:44But what I think this demonstrates, first of all, is that same empire problem that we had previously. Don't forget that we had a situation where the United States was expending more of our interceptors than Israel was expending of their own, even though they have them. Why? For no reason that has ever been revealed here to the public. Let's not forget that in Operation Midnight Hammer in 13 days, the United States expended 25 % of the entire THAAD inventory. 25 % of everything that we had just to shoot down missiles that were headed towards Israel, not towards the United States. So see now how the defense of Israel, not just in terms of them dragging us into this war or being complicit, et cetera, convincing Trump to do it, but even just the sheer military defense of them, what it has cost us and allies that are actually meaningful and helpful to our country.

48:35I think when you pour these two things together, or a pair of these two things together and then show these Gulf allies, which by the way, you know, I'm not some big Gulf defender, But if you're going to look at it in a balance sheet, you'd say, hey, we get a hell of a lot more from Kuwait or Bahrain or any of these places than we do from Israel, this tiny little country with no even oil or in terms of our trading. And especially if you put them together, you would obviously prioritize one over the other. And I'm not just the one saying that. Remember, we even played Saudis on their own television in the midst of the war who were furious saying they're defending Israel, but they can't even defend us.

49:06It's such a crazy situation. Total. I mean, let's just pause on the wild nature of even having to say, well, we've got a tough choice on our hands. Defend Israel or defend the homeland. Like, how is this even being framed as, I don't know, which way should we go? But it shows you how committed they are to the endless support of this small country in the Middle East, which is, I think, quite insane. Quite insane at this point. Let's go ahead and put B2 up on the screen just to show you some of the state of play here in terms of the economy. Trump says the Iran talks are to resume after the U.S.

49:46called off a major attack. Oil prices are down after the latest taco. So once again, the market's taking seriously whatever Trump is saying here and buying himself some more time. Let's also put B4 up on the screen. This goes to what we're speaking about previously about how locked in the deep state and the military brass is. You've got a U.S. commander who claims he's got a two-week plan to escalate strikes in Iran. The idea here just basically being let's bomb them more and bomb them harder and maybe that'll work. This is also something that was leaked to the Wall Street Journal prior to Trump backing down.

50:26So I think this could also potentially be seen as part of just the, you know, using the weaponizing the press to try to make a credible threat against Iran that would hopefully cause some sort of, you know, create some sort of leverage for the U.S. in negotiations and force Iran to concede things that they have been unwilling to concede. This obviously didn't work, but I also don't doubt, Sagar, that there are plenty of people inside of the Pentagon who find coming to a deal that acknowledges defeat at this point to be completely unacceptable and are floating a lot of wild plans, wild, desperate plans, because wild and desperate plans are all we have at this point.

51:01That's very true. You know, I also think we should pair some of this with the sheer insanity of what it actually looked like, like what this war, if Trump had actually pressed the button and said it would. Let's go to B4, for example. This was the actual plan all leaked out to The Wall Street Journal. It was a two-week plan to escalate strikes. As Trump reiterates for Iran's missile attack, the question is how long the new air campaign will last. The CENTCOM commander had pushed a 10 to 14 day intensive airstrike aimed to cripple Iran's missile capacity despite warnings that the U.S. is running low on defense munitions.

51:38Basically what Admiral Cooper had been pushing, who is the leader of CENTCOM, was, well, what we can do is we can cripple the Iranian ballistic missile capacity a little bit more. if you give me all the spare munitions and interceptors in the entire arsenal. That was his plan. And in addition to that, Trump was also saying we would hit some of these critical infrastructure. But one of the things that we learned after the pause or whatever you want to call the initial ceasefire was even though we'd said we destroyed 95 % of Iran's ballistic missile capacity, it turns out the number was more like 30%.

52:13And then that 30%, a lot of it was able to be dug out, as now evidenced by the fact that they were able to hit one of our bases, which killed several U.S. service members, and have been able to use them all across the region in the interim. So I do think that when we talked previously about CENTCOM asking for unconventional ideas, this idea and this plan is so ludicrous in its actual proposal to basically just continue what already had been done and to, quote, finish the job in terms of the targets as if those targets had done anything, what they were supposed to do in the first place, which was bring down the regime, even in conjunction with all of these insane Israel airstrikes.

52:53So I just want to make sure people know that's what the actual plan was on the table. Yeah, and quite to the contrary, it has strengthened the government by all accounts, as best we can tell from the outside. Put the last element in this block up on the screen here, guys, B6. This is just important to note where we are at this point. This is from the New York Times. It's framed under what they call news analysis, which is somewhere between reporting and opinion. This is Stephen Erlinger, who they say has covered issues related to Iran since the Islamic Revolution in 1978. And the analysis here is going to be very similar to things you've been hearing on this show for quite a while.

53:32They say in Iran, the U.S. appears headed for a strategic defeat. Allies fear with none of President Trump's aims accomplished. and the Strait of Hormone is closed, U.S. allies see dysfunction and vulnerability from the war. To see this sort of analysis in the New York Times, you know, which is very hawkish, very pro-American Empire outlet, is, I think, a significant development in and of itself and a sign of the Times of how undeniable the defeat has become in this war. And, you know, I like how they frame it in terms of our allies' fear. But very much the writing is on a wall here in terms of what we've been unable to accomplish and how on every objective that we claimed during this war that we had, we have gone backwards from where we started.

54:20So everything that, you know, whether it's Iranian pursuit of a nuclear weapon, whether it's wanting to topple the regime, whether it's wanting to back up the protesters in the streets, whether it's in terms of the Strait of Hormuz, On every single one of these metrics that have been floated at times as objectives of the war, we have undeniably gone in the opposite direction and have much, much less leverage in order to secure the aims than we did before we started this foolish war. And that is now being openly acknowledged in mainstream publications like The New York Times. Yep, exactly right.

54:55Right. Yeah. I mean, to the to the extent that it's just saying what a lot of people already know, you know, it's not actually important for what it says, but it's important for where it appears at the front page on Sunday. And that just means things are a lot worse. You know, once once they get to that point, you can you can just bet that it's actually much, much worse in terms of what all of us on the leading edge can see. All right. Should we get to Max Miller? Indeed.

55:51We'll see you next time. pulling back the curtain on how it all got made. And we'll also be joined by the people who helped bring it all to life. Guest stars, collaborators, and friends, including director Jonathan Kreisel, the mayor himself, Kyle McLaughlin, legendary musician Amy Mann, and many more. Kyle is going for it here. You fully improvised, not just words, but a song. Well, I thought you were all going to write a song. I remember you thinking that. Listen to Podlandia, AAO Rewatch on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. What's up, fam? I'm sports journalist Ari Chambers.

56:28Hey, what's up, y 'all? It's your girl Sam J. And we're the hosts of Everyone Watches Women's Sports, a new podcast from Together and iHeart Women's Sports. We're breaking down the biggest headlines. Naomi Osaka showing out. Shout-outs to you, Naomi. The viral moments. I've been obsessed with Kashawn Rock's boxing journey. She looks good. Her combos are swift. And the stories everyone's talking about across women's sports. Because everyone watches women's sports. Listen to Everyone Watches Women's Sports on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is Chelsea Handler from Dear Chelsea.

56:58Every week, the news gets worse, the world gets crazier, and Yamanika is here to tell whoever's responsible, you're the problem. Do you know I just found out who Sidney Sweeney was? If he got a bunch of women, then I should have a bunch of men. Do better or do less so I don't have to do so much. I'm Yamanika, and I'm out. Listen to You're the Problem with Yamanika on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed human.