How We Got Here: Iran, Trump, and the Deal He Broke

Hey, everybody, and welcome back to the Find Out podcast.

We have had, obviously, a lot of news happen since we last talked. And it was actually Rich's idea that we are going to, this episode is going to be called what the experts refer to as a shit sandwich, which means we're going to put good stuff on one end, good stuff on the other end, and a whole pile of shit in the middle, which is, you guessed it, about the bombing of Iran and its nuclear facilities.

So we're going to start off with some breaking news recording on Monday morning.

So this will still be relatively fresh by the time you get this.

But a judge has ordered that Kilmar Ebrego Garcia needs to be released because the Trump administration has absolutely nothing on him.

So good news there.

I don't think he's been released yet.

We'll see if they actually comply with a court order which they have been known not to do so we'll see on that it turns out all of those human trafficking charges would have been physically impossible to actually pull off so i'm starting to think you guys stay with me here, but I'm starting to think that maybe, um, they, they just manufactured charges to hang on, hang on, hang on, hang on. Don't be throwing accusations around willy nilly rich.
So they could bring him back and actually comply with the Supreme court's orders. So, I mean, that's, that's a minor miracle that they, that they found a way to tuck their tail and bring him back so that they could, you know, charge him with stuff.
And it's like, OK, well, those it won't surprise me if after a few more months it all just dissolves into the ether and a brand Garcia just suffers this absolutely catastrophic trauma to his family that pulls him out of circulation for what nine months probably at that point uh subjects him to misery maybe violence probably violence and uh and his kid didn't have a dad for the better part of the year but i thought we were talking about good things if we're lucky hey abrea garcia is back that's true and if we're lucky um a dad will be back with his wife and his kid here um you know and not too long in the future um all the rest is stuff that needs to be you know we need to keep the accountability on trump for that but i'll but i'll take i'll take back a good person remember when they said that there was no chance he was ever coming back yep he was never touching us again again no not coming back they'll just deport him again yeah so i think that the reason luke that this is good news is obviously that um the checks and balances still work some i mean as katie fang when came on our show a few weeks ago she actually highlighted this fact that that the the courts have actually done a pretty good not great but pretty good job of making the trump administration actually just do illegal like legal things for the most part not entirely and i think that's the really important thing to remember for listeners and for just people on social like the whole like this country is fucked and every everything is screwed like we're never going going to have democracy again. Judges are also humans.
And like all of the people in the administration, like they're barely human, but they're still humans. They they they are.
I don't know about Stephen Miller, Doug. I don't think they are susceptible to the public, the trend of the topic.
Like if if we all just say everything is screwed, they're going to go.'ve all given up no comply no no pre-comply in advance right exactly and and we kind of we said that for a while like that was a common thing to hear was like don't comply in advance and don't obey in advance but it feels like we kind of forgot that for a minute and now we're just kind of going back to the whole like well it, it's World War Three. Well, that's a perfect transition.
So obviously we all know this weekend that President Trump ordered three nuclear facilities to be hit in Iran with those, I think they're 30 ton bunker buster bombs. Yep.
He came out and declared complete and total total success which we have learned now that is not true uh but obviously you know this throws the world into into turmoil we haven't seen what iran's response is yet and we are kind of in a cluster because we have people leading a war that nobody trusts so don't forget he doesn't want to talk to his like you know pkeg said he doesn't want to talk to him you know the the experts that he appointed doesn't want any part of their intelligence no intelligence what's that yeah i mean it's yeah not that he's some kind of a genius but like you would think you'd maybe want the intelligence that goes with that whole branch of the fucking government i think rubio said it's irrelevant when they were like what he said it's irrelevant and then and then vance i think it was vance who said the difference is all of the other presidents from the last 20 years were stupid like that's their that's their god i'm like dude just don't say anything that that i i wouldn't have gotten like i wouldn't have gotten it that poorly if i had just manufactured in my brain their excuses. But to come out and say that the intelligence is irrelevant and Obama and Trump the first time and Biden and George W.
Bush were all just stupid. And that's why we didn't have like you.
It was literally the 2015 agreement was literally torn out by Trump trump so the once again the reason why we're in this is because of something trump did in the past yeah so let's so let's dive into that because i think that you know obviously everybody's talking about this but i want to i think we need to talk specifically about the democratic response to this uh which i think is easily summed up as chaotic all over the place not good coherent yeah gibberish and like scare like just scared people saying nonsense that's how i would describe it i think feckless was a word that romney used at one point and i was like oh no i think it was jd van or uh mike pence i think was the first person i heard he's just feckless i'm like dude like this it's a breach of protocol i can't do that it's unconstitutional it's like it's not a yeah you're allowed to that's the thing like i i've seen that from like it'd be one thing if it's like regular democrats saying it's fucking senators and shit like elizabeth warren tweeted this is unconstitutional it's like dude it is not like there have been every single president in the last, what, 30 years has done this exact thing, like not striking Iran specifically, but deciding that they can use Article two to make specific decisions about what kind of because you're like, just so listeners know, there's a critical difference between Article one and Article two of the Constitution. Article 1 is what states to go to war, you have to be able to get congressional approval.

Declaration of war.

Right. But Article 2 is pretty much a statement that says if you have special military operations, there are specific decisions you want to make that don't amount to war, quote unquote.
The president has the sole responsibility to make those decisions. So you have to the real like the legal central point is how do you define war? And that extremely open to interpretation so that's why people get away with this shit i think the big piece is funding um congress owns funding and and and i think it's article one that says that um no no dollars can be used to fund war unless congress has approved that and so you, if within the working budget, they can drop bombs.
I mean, we're not talking about an invasion and we're not talking about ongoing, like necessarily, if it got to that, they would either need what, um, what Bush got, which was an authorization of four or authorization of force, right. Is what they called it.
I think, um, or a declaration of war, But we haven't actually declared war on anyone since Japan and Germany. So everything in and I don't think we declared war against Italy, which was still part of the part of the axis.
And so, you know, Vietnam, the Korean War, the Gulf War, Afghanistan, Iraq, we never declared war in any of these situations. Every one of these was, they were funded by Congress, and then the decisions, the leadership was the president.
And that's just kind of how we've, so unless you were freaking out about Obama doing unconstitutional things for eight years when he was engaged in the Middle East, you should not try to use the same argument against China. You can be against it without calling it unconstitutional.
Exactly. Don't point at the rule book.
It's just it's just one of the rule book is. Yeah, you can do this.
Well, regardless, honestly, like that, that like tactic doesn't work in this country. We have no the president of the United States, a 34 time convicted felon who incited an insurrection on the U.S.
Capitol. Like this is the way to win a messaging war right the rules don't apply i was telling the day of love tim don't i don't want to rehash this you want to know what i think the messaging ought to be you got to talk about how fucking stupid the republican messaging has been i mean vance was like well we're not declaring we're not declaring war on the iran just the iran uh nuclear depot that'd be like if the japanese were like yeah we're not declaring war on the u.s we're just declaring war on the pearl harbor uh aircraft carriers right like so fucking stupid or like everything or like trump how he was immediately like well we had a great mission now it's time for peace that'd be like if the japanese bombed the fuck out of pearl harbor and we're like oh time for peace like it's just it's a ridiculous fucking idea it is a ridiculous thing but like at the same time though like this is where i like to get into the details of it it's like yes iran sees it as an act of war and we don't like there's just two totally insular perspectives based on the circumstances because like iran is pinned into a corner from this shit and that's why they feel like it's an act of war against them because essentially they don't have a move here they essentially either have to come to the table or make some really really bad decisions to attack american interests they don't have a good move so for them because they're pushing this corner they feel like oh this was an act of war because it fucked us really hard but the u.s and this move frankly put them put us in a better position geopolitically and it gave us more options and it also gave trump like that strongman status that he's looking for in the world like hey you don't come to the table i will fuck you like that as that's the reason why we don't see it as a declaration of war and they do because it's just circumstantially so different for each country i think you're giving them too much credit i think they're not calling it a declaration of war because if they called it a declaration of war they would be congressional approval well i mean it isn't it it's not an ongoing thing talking about regime change like that's not exactly but he's not actually actively pursuing it like i think he's not pursuing it i mean he was like i didn't see anything we were like what if we need to make i make i ran uh great again i think is the word yeah i saw the i saw the truth whatever the tweet or whatever the fuck it is yeah my my primary news source is cnn usually when i'm looking at like major news networks and their headline was like trump considering regime change like what and i clicked into it and read his truth like he is not like there's no direct correlation between what he said and like actually pursue he pretty much said like their leadership clearly sucks wouldn't you want different leaders like he's does not i until i see why not yeah but i mean like he but what like it's just trump's tweets that he had you know a weird poop like he's just the kind of guy like he'll say anything right yeah but thank you for attention to this matter you gotta take it when he reached he fucking spelled his name wrong donald donald you know you know he wrote that one yeah i mean i think i i mean i agree zach like i mean look like he's a bozo and he says bozo stuff but like this to me is also like lowering the bar so that he can jump over it like the media does all the time it's like well trump did it and it's like i don't think that the president should be graded on a curve i think you know and maybe it's not great for media like for clicks if you just say well he was just kidding but like no i'm not trying to do that i mean we we we violated rightly or wrongly we violated someone's airspace and destroyed something that was not ours i mean i don't know how anybody could look at that other than at least an act of aggression.
I mean, it's, it's only a declaration of war because we spend so much goddamn money on our military that they'd be foolish to hit back. Well, yeah, I mean, but there's, but to me, it's such a layered thing.
Like there's so many levels to it where it's like, it's very hard for me just to look at it and go, well, this is a declaration of war. It's like, I said it in our previous episode, we talked about this.
I said, this is Trump's opportunity to thread the needle. And I think so far he's done exactly that is that he really just wanted to like make a statement of like, hey, if you're not going to fucking negotiate on this nuclear deal, which he should never have left back in 2015.
But this is where we're at today. If you're not going to come to the table, I will just fucking destroy your shit.
And then after that, go, look, I don't want to prolong war. I don't want to like go in there and actively try to regime change.
change maybe i'll root for it but i don't want to do it if he so here's the thing if he if he starts to trend towards actually actively trying to change the regime or try to put boots on the ground or going further then he didn't thread the needle then he got entrenched in a fucking war that he shouldn't be in but if he does what i think he's going to do because i called the fact that he would do this and i think he's not going to go further because it's not smart. It's just bad for him across the board.
His base will be pissed off. America will be uncomfortable.
It's bad economically. Trump wants this to be over.
This was his real shot at like, come back to the fucking table. I've had enough of this shit.
And, you know, frankly, I sort of support that general approach. I never thought he should have left the original deal.
The original deal was pretty good. It wasn't great.
But given the circumstances having a nuclear iran is worse to me than what we did i think it's just more dangerous so let's go back let's go back to the democratic response here because i i think it's important to talk about this and we kind of already started to basically shit all over their response but um you know we've seen everything from impeachment talk to support uh john fetterman i didn't even have to know yes yeah and but some of them have offered some pretty milquetoast responses to this too all the way to a democrat no i don't believe an aoc over to to impeachment so we have the full range which again that's like every issue though people like to joke about democrats and disarray but democrats are a disarray there's just no question about it not come up with a coherent response to this even though i think it's very simple what's the simple what is it the simple is and i i actually put this on blue sky i was talking to the guys about this earlier so the my most popular one i've skeet i guess we call them and all it was all I mean, to hear that it is called skeet that's awful taking that from the worst ever but anyways uh so i basically said all i want to hear out of democrats is that barack obama got a deal with iran and they stopped enriching uranium yes donald trump tore up that agreement and then we had to bomb iran's enrichment of and put American lives in danger. Correct.
That's it. That's it.
You're right. That is the correct strategy.
I don't understand. Like I saw, you know, I saw members and I'm not going to call anyone out individually, but I saw members and I see them putting out statements that are like five paragraphs long.
Why? Right. Why? There's no value to it.
It doesn't matter. Yeah.
People don't give a shit yeah just like be against it and i know it's very clear that donald trump put us in this situation like he did like yes you can see that there are charts that like they and these were via via verifiable that they had they had only been enriching uranium up to three percent which every country is do. They stopped.
And then it recently it looks like they had gotten all the way to 60 percent. And now is when you get to the nuclear grade.
So Donald Trump created this mess. Yes.
And now he is trying to get himself out. That's a that's a great point.
But like, I think we need to clear it. Like I want to clear up my perspective.
I totally agree with all that. But now that we're in these circumstances, what was the best way to clean it up? I think that's the question we also have to be asking ourselves as a party is like, do we look at this and go, well, we don't think this is right in a silo? Like, what do we think about a nuclear Iran? Just as you know, in general, I'm curious about that question, because when you add Trump in and all the things that come along with it it's a lot of baggage right well let's talk about just in a silo right do we feel comfortable with Iran having a nuclear weapon because that kind of is the central question of this whole thing no but I will I will no no I am not comfortable with that and I think most Americans are not the answer is no with that yeah well and the world agrees with that because the decision that the world made, what I think in 2003, was that no new countries can obtain nuclear weapons and no nuclear weapons can be bought or sold to another company through the or to another country through the non-proliferation treaty.
And so basically it's keep don't make any more bombs, keep the bombs where they're at and decommission as many bombs as you possibly can because we need to just denuclear the whole world. And that's where we collectively as a species left off because every single person, including people like Vladimir Putin, understand that there is no way that this goes well.
If you fuck with nukes, it's over.

Could you imagine if Iran dropped something on Israel? I mean, it would be... They're over.
Everything's over. And that would be their target.
Yeah, the world is over. No question.
I think at some point, I think one or two or three would fly, and then probably, hopefully, the people who have the most, the leaders who have the most would say, guys, like we might hit, we might be hitting critical mass here. Like, are we going to have 150 fly? Because then it's, it's nuclear Armageddon or it's done, or do we pause here? So like, I don't, I don't think that, but I just, I don't think that's going to happen and we can't let it happen.
That's the decision the world made. And so that's why Iran can't have a bomb.
It's nothing about Iran necessarily for me. Well, yeah.
And I mean, I would say they have they are a well-known funder of international terrorism. Of course, yes.
Which scares the shit out of me, you know, but like but my problem is with this partially is because this is what happens when you have a government you don't trust. And I'm talking about ours.
When you have leaders that lie constantly and they have no problem, like bold face, like things that are like, we all know are false and they say them anyways. So like, you know, and it's the same with Bibi Netanyahu who has been, who has been saying for 25 years, that two weeks away is two weeks away from a bomb.
It's the same. And we have a horrible track record of telling the truth about war.

If we go back to 2002 and 2003, you know, they flat out lied.

Yes.

Like George W. Bush and team Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, idiots row.

Like they, they got us into a war that took 20 years.

It's probably the greatest foreign policy disaster since Vietnam.

No question.

And so like, I don't know what to believe from them i i i just don't and that's an interesting point that's the hard part here is like i don't know if they have a if they are close or not so how can i even because you've already built this how can i make this how can i make this like oh this was the right thing to do if i don't even believe that the standard, that the fucking, that it was like that the reasoning for it was real. I understand that.
That's how I feel, too. Yeah, I mean, that I've seen that narrative a shit ton in the past couple of days of like, this is Iraq again.
And like, that's one thing I just want to call out. Like, I think that a lot of the problem with the Democratic response, just like missing the details of the situation.
Like, Iraq was a massive blunder because the whole thing was a lie. It's a flat out lie made up.
No actual functional information that was verified by anybody led to that decision other than this internal room. So just lie and go.
Iran is different. Iran has made no secret of the fact that they're developing nuclear weapons.
They have the intent and the ability to get there. There have been verified outside sources,

the UN included, that have verified they're doing this. It's a different situation.
Iran, like whether or not they're two weeks away or two years away, that I don't know, but they're working on it and they're trying to get there. Iraq, they weren't working on it.
It didn't exist. It's a critically different thing.
So to me, it's like if we're going to try to package it all together and go Iraq, Iran, it's the same. It's like it couldn't be more dissimilar.
There's one side where it's made up and there's one where it's completely confirmed. That's a different story.
So I think we have to operate within that realm and remember, yeah, it's one thing to say, don't trust the government. The government's lying to you.
Yeah, they did and they still do. But to what extent? The extent's very different here.
So I think that's a critical thing for public trust trust of democrats you can't come out there and say it's the same because it just fucking isn't

oh i don't think it's the same i but i think that that that putting the blame on trump backing out

of the deal is the right play to be making a hundred percent a hundred percent and they're

not doing that no and i've had people texting me this too like i because i posted that thing i had

multiple people write to me and say, why are they not doing this?

And I don't have a good answer other than you have some folks that are very pro-Israel.

And so that they are going to be supportive of military intervention in Iran.

But other than that, I like even those, those folks, which should be like, well, we we had a we had a deal, even though there were some Democrats against the deal.

But like why?

Well, you can ask.

I don't know. It makes no sense.

Well, the answer is some of them who are pro-Israel were not interested in a deal because Israel was very against the deal when that was signed in 2015 or whenever.

Why would Israel be? Wouldn't they want Iran to be not a nuclear power? Because they didn't believe that they would adhere to it, but they did adhere to it. And that is the important context.
Like that international, the inspectors came in, everybody like, you know, I'm not saying they didn't do some bad shit because they are a bad regime. And these are terrible people.
Don't get me wrong, but like they were holding up their end of the deal and that leads me to the point i think zach which i will push back a little bit on this intervention is name the last i have one answer i have one where this is true name one intervention where airstrikes solve the problem i mean i can't i'm not saying this solved i i don't think this solved the problem i think this is this was a tempo setting move from the trump administration this was essentially going we're going to put a stake in the ground and go this is how we're going to react to you from now on because i i think what happened in the last five years with iran was iran got new leadership the biden administration tried to negotiate with them and they were like go fuck yourself we're interested in building a nuclear weapon and get out of my face we're going to do it and then the trump administration said no we're going to come in with our huge dick and just they're going to come to the table with us and they're like no we're not we're going to continue to develop a nuclear weapon and then trump said all right fuck it we'll just actually have a show of force to go you gotta stop that's i think their mindset whether or not it'll work i have no fucking idea but i believe to this day that's where they're at i don't know i i think also just to be clear that the leader has been the same for in Iran for about 30 years. The Ayatollah is the one.
Yeah, I know. I know.
But like the actual sort of a like fake democracy bullshit thing. But it did turn out that apparently that that.
Well, the reason that they didn't do the talks that Trump wanted to is that the president couldn't actually get a hold of the Ayatollah because he was in hiding which kind of shows the amateurishness of this operation that he apparently i don't know if he's communicating through carrier pigeon or what yeah signal yeah signal the super safe uh signal app but i'll say whiskey leaks for not leaking this one i thought it was coming uh well wikileaks wants us in this but that's a whole other conversation but anyways um uh the one one i was gonna say whiskey okay okay um the one that worked was bosnia yugoslavia war in the 1990s with bill clinton damn it's like fucking doing a podcast with an encyclopedia well i wasn't even alive for this shit i don't know about this but i was alive okay and i was i think in college well basically i mean i don't you're gonna make me talk about this far more than i know but basically there was a after the after the berlin wall fell yugoslavia it was in czechoslovakia these big countries started to split apart because they were shoved together uh by the soviet union and the you know the the the different demographics split up and there was a big war. And I believe it was Bosnia.
God, I'm going to get killed on this because I'm going to get it wrong. Was ethnically cleansing the people in Kosovo, which is a very, very tiny country, which was part of Bosnia, I believe, wanted their independence, doing horrible things.
And Bill Clinton ordered airstrikes. We didn't lose a single life stopped it from happening and it actually mostly solved then we went after their leaders uh uh slobodan milosevic was one uh uh i'm forgetting the other guy that they found later but who is i think still in prison um but that was the one issue but i just my point is like iran has now said that they are not going to negotiate right so then that then that's what makes me think.
So what so I guess the question is, what does that mean? Right. What does I don't negotiate? We are not going to negotiate because by threat of force.
Yeah. What's what is the next play that the Trump administration can play if they've taken a diplomacy card off the table? I mean, we got to remember, like, every single person here, it's like it's like eavesdropping on the playground with a bunch of two year olds.
And they're like, you know, my dad has a nuclear weapon. And the other one is like, my dad is the strongest man in the universe.
And you're like, they're all full of shit and they're all just lying to each other. So trying to trying to I mean, they've been saying death to America for like since I was born in Iran.
Right. And so and they're like, you know, this is going to be the end of the world.
And like, we're going to bring, you know, I don't know, death and destruction, blah, blah, blah. They are a plus in just talking shit that they can't back up.
And so and that comes with being a national leader, a global leader that that comes with the job that Trump has and that all of the other developed nations have is you have to be able to listen to fools say incorrect things and know when to address it and when not to address it. And I think that's that's my biggest issue here is they've been saying this.
I mean, we we've seen the graphic now that's like the odometer rolling over from Iran, from Iraq to this was back in Bush years. That graphic was made because it felt like Bush was building the case to say, well, we didn't get him in Iraq.
We didn't get him in Afghanistan. So now we're going to have to go after him in Iran and just chasing Islamic politicians, essentially, and programs everywhere and just bombing everyone.
And so this has been at least a 15 to 20 year conversation where it's like, oh, well, Iran is evil and they want death to America and we have to go after him. And we never did because it was always a bluff.
And so now we've taken the bait and we've spent we haven't heard how much this costs, by the way. It's not cheap to drop 30 ton bombs bombs on countries, it turns out.
We're going to find out that this cost $100 or $200 million probably, and anything after that is also going to cost more money. It cost us $8 trillion to get in and out of the war on terror.
That was the full tally. It was $8 trillion in debt, which was our entire national debt when we started the war on terror.
So the rest of this is going to continue to play out. And that's where people have to decide, was this the time to do this thing? Was this the bluff to call? Or was this just a distraction because he's pissed off that nobody took his bait in the Los Angeles protests and allowed him to declare war on American people? And nobody likes his budget bill.
Right. I mean, nobody came to his birthday party.
Nobody came to his birthday parade. A lot of this, though.
And he's getting his ass handed to him in the courts. That's true.
I mean, the distraction element plays a role. But I think, like, in the end, unfortunately for us, Iran's going to dictate what happens next.
You know, there's just there's nothing we can really do. Whatever their response is.
Yeah. There's really nothing we can do.
And I see only two paths, right that one path is iran decides to be adversarial to this whole thing and really try to ratchet things up and for them the strategic imperative is that trump doesn't want that trump is not interested in boots on the ground forcing him to do more things he wants to get it and get out and be done yeah so iran is like i think that what they're weighing right now is do we do something and risk our own lives tremendously, but also fuck over Trump in a massive way? Or do we just sort of slink into the background, you know, do tiny little things? But really, their second option is kind of do nothing because they're not going to come to the table and negotiate. But they are potentially just going to slink out of this and hope nobody notices.
And I think they do that. But who the hell knows? I think going to say, I was worried for a few days there.
I mean, I figured because the time time zones are flipped, I figured we'd be waking up, you know, either Saturday or Sunday morning to like, you know, Iran retaliates, like Iran attacks, you know, American base or Iran attacks warships and was the Strait of Hormuz. Right.

I mean, we have a presence everywhere on there, but they also have an enormous amount of pressure economically because all of the nations in that vicinity that aren't Iran and Afghanistan.

And I don't really know where how our relations are with Afghanistan, but we have a lot of

allies and there are hundreds of billions of dollars that, that kept pumped out of that, that area every, every day in energy. And so I think there's a lot of vested interest among sort of the, um, the peer countries that all have that shared economic interest to not rock the boat.
And so if it doesn't look like we got their stockpiles, like they're not showing showing like leakage like the radiation leakage that you would see if you hit enriched uranium and so it's possible we took out the infrastructure and slowed down the program enough but not but didn't do so much damage that iran is going to think we have to throw a haymaker now like we have to do the hail mary thing yeah they move their shit they might they might right they moved it and say like, hey, we're five years out now instead of two years or whatever. Right.
And that's going to be a perpetual thing that we chase probably with these people for a long time. There were there was a New York Times report last night that that basically said what you guys are saying, which we actually don't know how successful this has been.
Right. Trump has already been caught in a lie and saying that it was a complete, complete success.
Like an obliter i know obliteration well and they they said basically we don't know where the uranium is yeah but but like as you guys also said like irrelevant the centrifuges it's irrelevant yeah where's the 60 percent rich uranium but but the centrifuges are actually uh and this was in the article they're like welded to the floor so you can't just like pick those up so it's likely that if we if those bombs were successful it got that but there's even photos and like there's a there's another building that's next to the to where it looks like the bombs went in that was untouched now maybe we know what's in there and we weren't going to waste any time with it yeah it does look kind of silly to see a building sitting a large building that's picked up by a satellite it's not touched yeah but i think you know this is goes back to the credibility problem though is that i just don't know um and then you know you know well thank god that we have like the best director of counterterrorism in the world now right like oh the 22 year old 22 year old gardener yeah with no background no background makes no sense this is like when george bush put a uh the guy who was in charge of the uh horse uh the equestrian association in charge of fema during katrina yeah so by the way i keep bringing up bush because i'd want to remind folks because people are always like oh i want to go back to those days he was fucking awful and do not like donald trump is a worst domestic president but donald trump excuse me but george bush was a worst foreign policy president we'll see now he's making a run for it we'll see what happens yeah we'll see i don't know he took a he took a surplus destroyed it lied us into a war in iraq yeah it's a higher thing they sent our economy into a depression and don't forget there were people who got arrested in his administration for doing illegal shit as well so i am not going to go say i think it's important to remember that they're not these are these are not disconnected like he spent eight trillion dollars on a war on terror while ignoring robo signing and we don't have to get into the great recession but while ignoring robo signing and the deregulation of banks and and the runaway everything all of, right? A hundred economic bubbles inflated while he was staring. I mean, he wanted to find Osama bin Laden and he never did.
And so he was his entire focus for eight years was chasing Osama bin Laden. And he ignored everything domestically.
And that that first January that that Obama took office, we lost, I think, nine hundred thousand jobs in one month. That was crazy.
Per month, yeah. It was per month.
And I think for six months, we were losing like high six-figure job counts every single month before the bleeding stopped. So, yes, George W.
Bush caused a lot of problems. And let's not also then lose sight of the fact that what Trump is doing right now is going to cause him to not pay attention to things locally you know those tariffs are blowing up but george bush passed a massive tax cut for the rich that torpedoed the economy and then what saved the economy barack obama coming and pumping a bunch of money into the economy but anyways that's all you know history but like we're repeating ourselves well it's an interesting element of it though like we don't really talk about the economic effect of all this and it's going to maybe be the most important thing of everything i don't think the military side is going to go much further than this i really think it's going to be about like will iran close the strait and like that i saw a story about that this morning of like the big challenge for them is they want to do it but china doesn't want them to because china uses the same fucking spot and they need it so like it becomes one of of those things.
Yeah, they're really like Iran got really fucked by this move. And like they don't have a really good set of response tactics.
And it should be interesting. But the other thing that's interesting is like Trump's tariffs.
It seemed like a lot of economists were coming out in the last few days being like, well, maybe they're not going to be as bad for the economy and that. This is going to fuck that up for him.
Like oil prices are going to to go up unquestionably tariffs are going to have a greater impact because we're going to have a weird supply chain problem if Iran does what we think they'll do this could end up really fucking Trump over in a way that he may be miscalculated on so it could be just non-military for those you don't know the the 20 of the world's oil goes through the straighter so if you just shut that down, then you know, you've lost 20% of your supply. And so you can do the math on what that's going to put.
And my guess is that because oil companies are awful, they're going to check up prices anyways. It will be a 20% increase.
Yeah. Right.
They're going to speculate and shoot up. A hundred percent.
So it might be a good time to buy an EV before. Hey guys.
No, those tax credits are gone yes ev credits i believe so are they fully gone or i'm pretty i think they're pretty i know he threatened to get rid of him but um yeah while we were while we i think started to record um trump posted on truth social can i read it to you guys in real time hearing that i am very excited okay okay what's the truth stay with me here yeah Did I hear former president Medvedev from Russia casually throwing around the N word nuclear and saying that he and other countries would supply nuclear warheads to Iran? Did he really say that? Or is it just a figment of my imagination? Let's all just post about this speculatively, by the way. Did a figment of imagination, if he did say that and if confirmed, please let me know immediately.
What are you requesting? So many things wrong with this truth. Who is supposed to tell him that? This is an old thing.
The N-word should not be treated so casually. He posts on social media.
Jesus Christ. I guess that's why Putin's the boss.
By the way, if anyone thinks our hardware was great over the weekend, far and away the strongest and best equipment we have 20 years advanced over the pack, it is our nuclear submarines. They are the most powerful and lethal weapons ever built and just launched 30 tomahawks.
All 30 hit their mark perfectly. So in addition to our great fighter pilots, thank you to the captain and the crew.
So he covered a little bit of ground in that. But the core issue is that he is just openly asking the world to verify or invalidate the claim that the former president of Russia has offered to or suggested that people are going to supply.
Well, rebranding the N-word, apparently. Iran with nuclear stuff.
So he actually was saying the N-word? He, I read the N-word. The N-word.
He used the word. Yeah, right.
But he did put nuclear exclamation point in parentheses because, you know, he's got to do that. What an awful, awful human being.
What a fucking troll piece of shit. And that's, there's something I haven't seen talked about is that one of the people that was on that crew on the b2 that went to iran was a woman and i have seen him exclusively use the word boys in referring to who went which is such a fucky thing to do oh yeah and it's how he is every time but i don't think it's talked about enough it's fucking terrible yeah i agree that was like hard to hear i just hearing it read out loud is pain dude like's reading it is one thing, but hearing it out loud is like, this guy is nuts.
He's not well. It's so unhinged.
This is why I love sleeping so much because. It's like time travel.
It's like time travel. Nothing can get me there.
Nothing can get me there. It is.
And if it does, you'll never know. Yep.
Time travel, going out where there's no cell service.'s no cell service both are great yes yes yeah but then you wake up and you go oh god i have to look at my phone now it's a trauma dump it takes about 30 seconds you're like oh it's less bad than i expected or worse than i expected so i think this so i guess did medvedev say that because i he did okay so he did say it i I saw it days ago. Yeah.
And yet, um,

well,

but yeah.

And now Trump is like,

did he say that?

Somebody tell me.

It's also bullshit.

Like nobody's going to lend Iran a nuke.

It's fucking insane.

Well,

and that's it.

So getting to the bottom of it real quick,

I don't want people to hear this in panic.

The business insider already has an article about it.

I was distracted while we were yakking because this was happening.

Um,

but they've already debunked it and they've said like i mean russia signed the non-proliferation treaty um there are many many many layers of tactical reasons why it would be absolutely insane like they can actually trace the signature of fissile material from an attack so if anybody did give it to them they would either have to immediately use it or it would get taken away from them and it would be forcefully taken out of their hands it would not be okay for iran if they were to come upon if they were to violate the treaty that the whole world has signed so it's bullshit and yet it's bullshit that trump is now elevating to he's focused and let's and let's be clear medvedev uh even when he was president he really wasn't in. But I think maybe he's the prime minister now or something.
But like that guy has shit talked on Twitter or wherever, like for years. Oh, yeah.
This is what they do. Yeah.
They pump their chests up and like they're not doing that's just like, like you said, that is nonsense. But never going to happen.
But this is why these interventions scare me so much is because Donald Trump is unhinged. He's not a well man.
And he's 79, whatever the hell he is, which apparently used to be a problem that we had a president that old. But apparently now there's no problem with that.
But, you know, that scares me. And then the other piece of this that scares me that and then, you know, maybe we could go into something happier after this.
But is that the Iranian regime is a theocracy. Right.
And that is the thing that scares me about escalation, because if they get it in their head that this is their ticket to heaven or wherever to go all like to go down in a blaze of glory, we all suffer for that. The Iranian people suffer for that.
And it would be, know mass casualties in the middle east to be clear because yes not zach and i did a live a couple nights ago and people were like are we going to get hit in the united states the answer to that is no highly highly unlikely and i don't want to hear shit about some stupid sleeper cells which is really mostly a racist dog whistle don't do it like you know it's it takes it's, it takes time to build a terrorist attack. Yeah.
So of course they said, of course they said it because they want to scare us, but like, come on. So who said sleeper cell? Did anybody actually say it? There's a report, an NBC report that said that they, that the Iranians told the U.S.
Oh, I mean, it's just posturing. Of course they said that.
Also, they know that if they attack the american homeland and it goes back to them you're done they're all they're done but that's the thing about the theocracy thing that scares me is that they do believe that the ayatollah i think is the god's representative on earth yes and so if you know people do crazy shit when that comes into play but yep anyways we'll have to wait and see we are uh we are going to have a an actual expert with us on thursday's episode uh i think we're gonna have dan perry who used to be the bureau chief for the ap in the middle east so he knows a lot about this and so we're going to talk to him then um but i think we've kind of covered it here and because we did say we have a shit sandwich which we want to end with something positive. We're actually going to just talk about something positive that happened in our lives to end with something good because war sucks.
And I don't want to talk about it. I think the thing we did miss though, we have to, and this is kind of part of the, the, what is it? The graham cracker or whatever.
Like this is part of the end of the sandwich, but we never. Graham cracker on a sandwich.
What kind of fucking sandwich are you eating? I'm thinking like a s'more for some reason. The middle of a s'more is great.
That's true. But it's brown.
Anyway, it's fine. We never took a moment to make fun of Operation Midnight Hammer.
Oh, it's such a bad name. It's a terrible name.
It's so bad. When Melania heard that Trump was going to do something called Operation Midnight Hammer, she must have just been laughing her ass off.
She's like, that's not a thing that's ever happened. Just compensating.
Just compensating. What a terrible name.
It's like if they put a prompt in the chat, GPT, of like, what could we name this? It sounds super cool. And it's like Operation Midnight Hammer.
They probably did. Yeah, probably.
It's not the only thing they're using ai for and they didn't ask it to uh to first rule out anything that sounds like the name of an 80s porn it also doesn't make sense what's the hammer like a hammer it just hits the surface of something you're trying to get a bunker buster deep into the need better words it just makes no sense you're putting too much thought into it wait apparently if i was in that room i'd be like this makes no sense dude you know that hegseth was like we gotta call it that because they're getting fucked yeah i'm sure that's what i'm sure that's how that's probably the extent of the conversation with a nice glass of scotch in his hand several 12 oh yeah um okay we're gonna do the positive now and so rich it's your idea so you're gonna go first yeah no i i mean kind of relates to iran because i was thinking my kids birthdays are both this week and we like we spent a day with a bunch of my daughter's friends um yesterday and we're gonna have cake and stuff tonight and my son's birthday is on wednesday and so like it's just a it's a this is a typically is a, typically a very fun week. They're eight and 12 this year.
And so like, we've done this for now the past eight years where we've had a double birthday week and it's a lot of fun. And at the same time, it got me thinking about like, there's just millions of people in Iran who are, who don't want any of this, who should be living their best lives and spending time with their kids, doing the things that they want to do.
And I, you know, it was a good,

it was a good, good reminder that like,

not everybody's asking for this. Like we,

we all just want to be regular people like doing,

doing things with our family, eating and cooking and, and, you know,

going to trampoline parks, whatever. So anyway,

it is going to be a fun week for us because we are safely at home. Very, very far from the trauma.
But let's also not forget not to get like preachy, but let's not forget that this is what most people want. I think around the world is just to be able to just do normal things.
So don't get too hung up on like everybody hates everybody and everybody wants misery it's really a small handful of insecure leaders um who want all the conflict and everybody else is just dealing with it yeah uh luke do you want to go next sure i saw the worst movie of my life this weekend the live action one no i went and saw 28 Years Later. Oh, that's bad? It should have been called 28 Inches Later because I saw a lot of zombie hammers in it.
And this is a movie that takes place in... They should have called it Operation Midnight Hammer.
Yeah. There you go.
It's a movie that takes place in Scotland. It's supposed to be 28 years later after an infection takes over that makes people go insane that like they eat people it's fucking crazy the whole thing was shot on an iphone literally and they acted like that was something good and it's probably the worst cinematography i've seen in my life there's like so their their choice of weaponry is a bow and arrow and every time they hit a zombie with the bow and arrow it does a 360 cam on the zombie of the arrow hitting so it's a video game it's like a video game it's awful and it ends uh there are well i'm not gonna spoil but there are there's fucking ninjas in this movie in scotland that are like power rangers what that sounds ridiculous it is the most great the most ridiculous movie i've seen in my life uh i followed it up with how to train your dragon which was significantly better way better movie but 28 years later is the worst movie i've seen in my life was killian murphy in it no it has uh uh um it has aaron taylor johnson and it has the lady from K Eve who, and it has, uh, no, not, not Sandra.
Oh, the other one. Oh, uh, and then it was in it though.
It's not, it's not killing Murphy. It's, um, fuck Ray fiends or Ray fines.
However, right. Oh, okay.
Okay. Who does kill it.
He, he does a really good job. Like, well, he's an amazing actor the it was the fucking script it was horrendous it's the midnight hammers boyle danny boyle and i need to have words oh man because i thought i saw good reviews for it it has a 93 on rotten tomatoes i don't understand who saw that this is a hot take from you have you seen the other two no oh well but you didn't see my sister saw it was my sister it was my sister's choice in movie i asked i was like do i need to see the other two she goes no it's off it's on by its own i said okay yeah and then so we get it's like we get like 10 minutes into the movie and she's like yeah this is not like the other two and i was like okay because i would kind of say that's kind of like watching Return of the Jedi without watching A New Hope.

See, that's what I was worried about, but there really wasn't anything that wasn't explained.

Okay.

I mean, 28 Days Later is one of the best horror movies ever.

Oh, so good.

So good.

A plus.

Terrifying.

I'm still going to see it, but now I'm looking at it.

I'm like, okay, so don't bring the kids.

No, do not bring the kids.

Oh, I don't think an eight and 12 year old should go to that. Is it still full frontal if it's a zombie? Or is that a different category? Zombie porn, is that different? Dude, there's more than full frontal.
Oh, God. We're talking about good stuff here.
It was fucking crazy. Maybe it's a little bit of good stuff.
It's got a 7.2 on IMDb. It's not terrible.
No, it's pretty good mean you're giving it like a 4.2 read so i'm giving it like a d minus we're gonna have to revisit this i'm getting i'm getting off this zach you're next all right mine's time i mean like i live a super boring life outside of this stuff like so i don't do a ton but like i don't know what i was just thinking about it as you guys were talking like it's sort of like what saying. Like, you just people just want to get up and just fucking do regular things.
And like, I think, you know, for me, once I get out of this whole realm, it's all focused on my daughter. Right.
You know, she's four and she's at a point in life where like she's just growing up so fucking fast and like little things keep getting so much. She gets so much more advanced.
It's like nuts. So I'm just appreciating little moments like she said the fuck dude the funniest thing she's ever said she we i was making my will this week because i you know i'm old enough now with kids and things i need to have a will i make my will and part of my will is like i want my wife to like keep my stuff until she's 18 like don't throw it out i have a pretty like hey don't throw my shit out and we were arguing about that and she's like well just ask evie does evie want this stuff and evie goes no i just want the money what a fucking thing to say i love it i'm just enjoying these kinds of moments outside of the shit well my mind is you go i gotta i gotta just because you reminded, I got a thing that I got to share with you that that.

All right.

Go ahead.

OK, so I'm just like I'm not going to I can't compete with that, but I'm going to go to the movie TV side and just say we've been watching the fourth season of the righteous gemstones.

And it is just the funniest shit that you could possibly imagine. If you like Danny McBride, you should watch it.

The first season takes a little bit of time.

But man, it is hilarious. And I there there was a scene at a lake house i'm not going to spoil it uh that just had me actually laughing out loud which is actually kind of hard i don't it's hard to watch like laugh like and i was dying so danny mcbride is a genius and he makes deplorable people actually entertaining and hilarious so i give him that so that sounds good that's mine That's mine.
All right, rich, what's your thought before we wrap? No, just cause, and maybe we'll have to revisit this regularly because kids do say the funniest shit. And there was a time when my daughter, I think was watching beauty and the beast.
And afterward, she's like, daddy, will you dance with me? Cause you know, there's the big scene at the end. And, and I was like was like of course and so we're dancing and she she goes i get to be i'll be the beauty and you can be the beast and and then she looks at my wife who's sitting on the couch and she goes and mom can be the horse and my wife was just like catching strays like what do i have? What the fuck did I do? What do you say? Fuck me.
Yeah. Well, on that note, I think that's a great time to wrap it up.
So thank you guys as always. Thank you everyone for listening.
And if you get a chance, please subscribe to our Substack. It helps defray costs and allow us to grow, which is findoutpodcast.substack.com.
Also, don't forget to check out our merch at findoutpodcast.com. And I think that's it, everybody.
Thank you,

and we'll see you again on Thursday. Stay safe out there, everyone.