3/2/26: US Jets Crash, Hegseth Won't Rule Out Ground Troops, Gas Prices Surge, Austin Shooting

This is an I Heart Podcast.

Guaranteed Human.

Hi.

It's Joe Interstein, host of The Spirit Daughter Podcast, where we talk about astrology,

natal charts, and how to step into your most vibrant life.

And today, I'm talking with my dear friend, Christa Williams.

It can change you in the best way possible, dance with the change, dance with the breakdowns,

the embodiment of Pisces Intuition with Capricorn Power Moves.

So I'm like delusionally proud of my chart.

Listen to The Spirit Daughter Podcast, starting on February 24th on the I Heart Radio app,

Apple Podcast, or wherever you listen to your podcast.

I'm Amanda Knox, and in the new podcast, Doubt, the case of Lucy Letby,

we unpack the story of an unimaginable tragedy that gripped the UK in 2023.

But what if we didn't get the whole story?

It has been made so fast.

The moment you look at the whole picture, the case collapsed.

What if the truth was disguised by a story we chose to believe?

Oh my god, I think she might be innocent.

Listen to Doubt, the case of Lucy Letby, on the I Heart Radio app,

Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

This is Special Agent Regal, Special Agent Bradley Hall.

In 2018, the FBI took down a ring of spies working for China's Ministry of State Security,

one of the most mysterious intelligence agencies in the world.

The Sixth Bureau podcast is a story of the inner workings of the MSS,

and how one man's ambition and mistakes opened its vault of secrets.

Listen to the Sixth Bureau on the I Heart Radio app,

Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Hey guys, Saga and Crystal here.

Independent Media just played a truly massive role in this election,

and we are so excited about what that means for the future of the show.

This is the only place where you can find honest perspectives from the left and the right

that simply does not exist anywhere else.

So if that is something that's important to you, please go to BreakingPoints.com,

become a member today, and you'll get access to our full shows, unedited,

ad-free, and all put together for you every morning in your inbox.

We need your help to build the future of independent news media,

and we hope to see you at BreakingPoints.com.

Good morning, everybody. Happy Monday.

We have a big show for everybody today. What do we have for a soul?

Yeah, the entire show is you guys will not be surprised.

Still learning is going to be focused on Iran.

We've got a million updates for you this morning, including three fighter jets

being shot out on the sky and what is being claimed as a friendly fire incident.

President Trump saying there are going to be more dead Americans.

We're taking a look at the markets this morning as they open.

Also already blowback here in the U.S.

and abroad against our illegal aggressive war against Iran.

We've got some polling indications that the American people are unsurprisingly,

not behind this whatsoever.

And then we have two major gigantic guys.

We're so fortunate to get to talk to Professor Jeffrey Sachs this morning,

and also Professor Zhang, his first appearance on the show.

He made back in, I think, May of 2024, three bold predictions.

One, Trump was going to win.

Two, that he would go to war with Iran.

And three, that the U.S. would lose that war.

So we're going to check in with him about how he thinks that prediction

is panning out if anything has surprised him

in the build-up in the early phases of this war.

So it's going to be a huge one today.

Yeah, that's right.

All right, let's go ahead and get to the latest updates out of Iran.

All right, guys, we're going to start this morning with shocking images.

Let's put this up on the screen.

This is a U.S. fighter jet.

After being hit, allegedly by friendly fire by our Kuwaiti allies,

falling out of the sky.

And this is reportedly one of three fighter jets

that sent calm is saying hit by friendly fire.

The Iranians are saying that they are claiming responsibility

for at least one of these jets,

but our government is claiming this was friendly fire from the Kuwaitis.

Three U.S. fighter jets being shot out of the sky.

Now, as far as we know, all of the service members on board,

those fighter jets, all of those pilots are safe.

There are some crazy videos out there, too,

of them being recovered.

And one of them, the Kuwaitis, who find one of the pilots,

says, let's call an ambulance.

The other one says, I, he's American.

Let's just leave him.

Give a sense of the way that people in the region outside of leadership

feel about American service members and about this operation overall.

But soccer, I mean, before I even get into any of the other elements

and we have a whole slew of them, I did your reaction to this.

This is a commiliation on the world stage.

This is equivalent to what happened whenever those fighter jets were lost

on the carriers in the middle of high seas.

And this is what we've been warning about here for weeks.

This is about military readiness,

lack of coordination with allies.

You have drones.

Air, I mean, by sent-com's own admission

in this alleged friendly fire incident.

By the way, they call it a parent-friendly fire.

So obviously, the facts are still not 100% known.

Is you had Iranian aircraft, Iranian missiles,

and Iranian drones all in the sky at the same time.

Each one of these aircraft has a pilot,

a weapon systems officer.

That's why there's six crew that have been ejected

and they're at least safe for now.

Thank God.

But these are 100 million dollar aircraft per piece.

So the $300 million just got evaporated in the sky.

The scale of what is happening here is unbelievable.

We're talking about potentially tens of billions already in munitions

in aircraft and other assets,

which are already lost and have been used in this operations.

But perhaps more importantly,

is you don't want to have these emperors have no clothes moments

because you're looking at the seat of the global empire.

And look, we're going to show you plenty of stuff.

We are capable of vaporizing a lot of things,

but in long sustained kinetic operations,

as we're already watching,

we have four Americans dead as of this morning.

Four Americans are already dead.

The president and the top general keep saying,

more to come, more to come.

Maybe there have been more and they're not even telling us.

Well, the president actually indicated in an interview

with the New York Times that they're likely are already more dead.

And in a, I can't even call this really a speech,

but a hastily edited statement that Trump gave yesterday,

he spoke about how there will likely be more dead Americans out of this war.

Let's go ahead and take a listen to that.

Earlier today,

CENTCOM shared the news that three U.S. military service members

have been killed in action.

As one nation we grieve for the true American patriots

who have made the ultimate sacrifice for our nation.

Even as we continue the righteous mission

for which they gave their lives,

we pray for the full recovery of the wounded

and send our immense love and eternal gratitude

to the families of the fallen.

And sadly, there will likely be more before it ends.

That's the way it is.

likely be more, but we'll do everything possible

where that won't be the case.

But America will avenge their deaths

and deliver the most punishing blow to the terrorists

who have waged war against basically civilization.

They have waged war against civilization itself.

Interesting. He doesn't,

yeah, interesting. He doesn't send his own military

age son into this supposedly worthy cause.

And we can put a two up on the screen.

This is the court I was referencing to the New York Times.

I'll read this whole thing. Mr. Trump spoke from Mar-a-Lago

about 36 hours into the conflict.

Soon after he received news of American casualties saying

he could only spring briefly

because he was about to meet with the generals.

He acknowledged that his administration expected

more casualties based on projections.

Three is three too many as far as I'm concerned.

And of course, Asagra said,

it's now up to four.

One of the wounded service members

to come to their injuries.

He goes on to say,

if you look at projections, they do projections.

It, you know, it could be quite a bit higher than that.

We expect casualties,

but he professed confidence around wood in the end,

bend to America's and Israel's will.

The country has been very substantially weakened

to put it mildly.

In other comments that he gave recently,

Soger, he also was asked, okay,

you want the regime,

you're going for the regime change.

How is this going to work?

He offered a number of different theories,

including one of them being that the IRGC,

the Revolutionary Guard Corps,

would just surrender their weapons to the population.

They would just hand over their weapons and give it up.

Look, I mean, it's not time for a victory lap,

but it's true.

If you've been watching the show,

what have you been saying?

They're on a sugar high from Venezuelan from Mednight Hammer.

They really believed that it would be the same.

They didn't want to believe any of the people

from the top general, Dan Cain,

to many of the other advisors who said,

this one is very different.

If you want to know how fucked we are,

let's put a three up here.

Jonathan Carl at ABC News talked to the president last night,

and he was asked about possible candidates to take over Iran.

They were killed in the initial attack.

Quote, the attack was so successful,

it knocked out most of the candidates.

It's not going to be anybody that what we are thinking of,

because they're all dead.

Second or third place is dead.

He is enamored at the strength of the U.S.

bond, or actually, even in this case,

is these really bombs that were able to take out these leaders.

But this fantasy idea of the IRGC,

just handing over their weapons

to the people.

Yeah, I'm sure that's going to happen.

The very same people that just killed a bunch of the protesters

who rose up against them.

I mean, this is an incitement to civil war.

Already, there are massive reports coming out of Iran

of attacks on border stations.

You know, why do you think that you want to do it?

This is the Syria model.

You eliminate the border,

and you flood it in with a bunch of friendly aka CIA-backed assets.

Does anyone want to tell me who the great enemies

of the Shia people are?

Al-Qaeda.

I mean, we've got an Al-Qaeda leader

sitting on the throne in Syria right over there.

Just think, this is going to be Libya on steroids

if the Israelis and I guess the Americans now get their way.

We're screwed.

They had no plan.

They really believed some sort of Delci Rodriguez thing

was going to happen.

And another way where you can see the lack of coordination.

Look at the Gulf.

These guys have been caught completely flat-footed.

The Kuwaitis are throwing things up in.

This is not a sophisticated military.

You have Doha.

I mean, I used to live in Doha.

I am watching places where I know

with ballistic missiles falling out of the sky.

Just train them.

Some of these hotels,

you and I have been to these hotels.

Can you imagine Dubai?

I've slept in that airport a million times.

A close down?

Yeah, it's gone.

It's hard to...

I mean, the Dubai piece is wild.

It's crazy.

And because the whole brand proposition of Dubai

is like, oh, we're sort of exempt from any instability

from the region.

We're like exempt from that.

Because this is where the global elite keep their money.

Right?

This is where you can go and buy these

palatial multimillion dollar luxury properties.

This is where you can go on your, you know,

your exclusive vacation and, you know,

with the beautiful beaches and the manufactured,

you know, super high-end luxury hotels

and all of this, the tallest building in the world,

et cetera, et cetera.

Now you've had some of those hotels hit.

You've had them struck.

You have all these videos coming out of people

who are shocked.

And there are tons of Americans there, by the way.

But people from all around the world,

the global elite all around the world,

this is a manufactured playground for the rich

that is now taking hits by Iran.

The damage, this will cause long-term

to, you know, their whole sort of value proposition there.

You can't even wrap your head around.

Then we're going to get to the market fallout.

You know, you had Saudi Aramco.

You had some of their assets hit.

You have Qatar completely shutting down

their LNG production.

Already massive impacts.

The straight-to-formers is de facto closed

because the insurers won't ensure the cargo ships

that are going through there

because the Iranians have attacked a few ships

that are there in the region.

And so the insurers say,

no, you can't travel through there.

So that's all it took.

That's de facto closed now.

Something that's over.

I mean, we've been hearing about threats

and how dire that would be

because 20% to 25% of the world's oil

passes through there.

So, and it happens to be the, you know,

the oil that's most influential

in terms of setting the price for the market.

So it's an extraordinary disruption.

You know, you could sort of,

I think equate it perhaps to the level of disruption

we saw in the early phases of the Ukraine war

in particular.

That's at least where we are already.

And we are mere days into this war.

So you have US fighter jets

either being shot out of the sky by Iranians

or by our own allies.

You have damage to our allies throughout the region.

We're going to ask Professor Sachs later on

about this clip of a Saudi analyst saying

the Americans abandon us

and only care about protecting the Israelis.

You have already dire warnings and concerns

about the number of interceptors

that we have remaining.

The Iranians, which look,

they're taking a lot of damage.

I mean, they've had hundreds of people killed,

huge damage in Tehran and other places in the country,

these horrifying images,

obviously, these schoolgirls,

the hospitals that are being hit, etc.

But they also seem to have learned from the 12-day war.

And their strategy is we're going to send out

all of these drones, which it's the similar drones

to what the Houthis were using.

By the way, the Houthis are joining the fight,

Hezbollah is joining the fight.

These 20 to $30,000 drones

that they can produce, mass produce,

and just send out.

And you exhaust the stockpile of interceptors

of both the Israelis and the Americans.

And then later on, you hold your bigger stuff

for later on.

Now, that's a risk for them

because it's possible that their ability

to launch those missiles gets destroyed.

That's certainly the goal of the US and the Israelis.

But, you know, it's not a crazy bet

that they're making right now.

And they know that we have much less stomach-for

and capacity to take damage than they do

because for them it's existential.

For us, we don't even want to be doing this shit.

Right, yeah, we're already four more lives

than this entire thing was worth.

And all the people at the top are telling us

are that they're going to be more.

Why don't we show some of the video

just so you guys can see?

It's not just us talking.

This is a region which is on fire.

I mean, nobody has seen scenes like this, literally ever.

I mean, even at the height of the Iraq War,

it was in the middle of Iraq.

This is West Jerusalem last night.

I mean, that, look at that.

Can you imagine living in the middle of downtown

and watching a missile?

Densely populated.

Densely populated.

I've been to West Jerusalem.

That is crazy.

Look at this.

This is in Kuwait.

You can see an American soldier,

American servicemember filming this.

Do you hear what he says?

They're starting to dial in our buildings

that was a suicide drone.

This is from the Straits of Hormuz.

This was a skylight, I believe,

is the name of the ship which was attacked.

There's already been one confirmed death in an attack

on a ship which was off the coast of a Ma'amon.

This is Tehran.

I mean, this is unbelievable.

There were even video coming out late last night, our time,

where you could see that the bombs were so light,

they were lighting up the mountains behind them.

Who knows how many thousands of people

are being killed there right now?

This is in Israel, in Beth Shamesh.

I talked about this in my update.

That's the Borj Khalifa,

which we mentioned in the middle of Dubai,

probably one of the most iconic hotels in the world.

Here we have in the middle of Beirut,

you have destruction everywhere.

Hasbola has launched attacks into the middle of Israel,

not to mention the F-15s that we just talked about,

that went down.

That happened just, you know,

middle of the night, our time,

in the middle of, what was that?

In the middle of Bahrain.

That was in Kuwait.

Sorry, in Kuwait, you have crazy

situations playing out in Bahrain.

You know, a lot of people may not remember this.

Bahrain has this very significant Shia population,

but they're ruled by a Sunni kingdom, right?

Well, guess what?

Every single time the Iranian drones

are making impact in Bahrain,

the local Shia are cheering.

This is some Arab Spring stuff,

which, by the way, the United States actually intervened

on their behalf to actually make sure

that they could quash the Shia opposition inside of that country.

This is tens of thousands of Americans who are housed there.

This is a full-blown regional conflict.

The price of oil, the price of gas,

everything is being affected.

I mean, the number of people who are dead now

has got to be probably in the thousands

considering the number of casualties,

which is happening.

The vast majority of these are going to be in Tehran.

As you said, I mean, look,

these are Gaza-level images.

We're talking about hospitals and schools

and all this, which are getting struck.

And I'm not going to let the Iranians off the hook either.

They hit one of the biggest hospitals

in, it was a Palestinian hospital in West Jerusalem.

But this is war.

This is the totality of all of it.

And how do you pull back from here?

The off-ramp that Trump, I think,

really believed that he could do Midnight Hammer again.

He's like, I'll bomb them

and then they'll capitulate and negotiate.

But he didn't understand, which we did.

So it's not like he didn't have this same information.

No, because at a certain point,

fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me.

Well, you could see all of this playing out right now.

For them, they're like, I'm not going to be bombed.

You're going to kill the Ayatollah.

And then I'm going to come back to the negotiating table with you.

Also, the people with the monopoly

on the use of force, the IRGC,

they are the people most loyal to the Ayatollah.

They are the, you know, what do they tell us?

Oh, there's psychopaths.

They're, yeah, they hate us, okay?

You think that they're going to be the ones

who have all of this control over the military

and they're just going to turn around

and they're going to say, oh, here you go, Mr. President.

No, okay, they'll fight to the death.

They have tens of thousands of these people.

This, I mean, the whole thing, this is a disaster.

Does that, even if it ends today, it's a disaster.

It's already an utter, shameful, destructive, chaotic catastrophe.

It, I was telling you before, Zara,

it's hard for me to think of a more reckless action

taken by any country, not just our country,

but taken by any country in modern history.

I mean, in terms of level of recklessness, it exceeds a rock.

I mean, the lies that were to,

we don't know what the objective is.

We don't know what the goals are.

We don't know what the strategy is.

Our allies are not with us.

They don't even bother to manufacture consent.

It's complete and utter insanity.

And I think you have to chalk it up to, you know,

Trump being high on his own, supply with Venezuela,

being a complete fucking idiot.

And also, I mean, you have to look at the Epstein files and go,

I don't know, maybe that is part of what's driving the calculus here

because the whole thing seems so incredibly insane.

And now you've got effectively, so the Iranians have engaged,

you know, what they call their mosaic strategy.

So these IRGC commanders are relatively empowered

to make their own decisions.

So even if you keep taking out Iranian leaders,

they are still empowered to keep going.

That makes it very difficult to see an immediate term regime collapse.

Not to mention, like, look, I'm not saying that the current government

in Iran is super popular.

I don't think anyone knows what the popular is,

but they do have a base of support.

I mean, there were people who came out

who were mourning the assassination of the Ayatollah,

deeply upset, and it will predictably have an impact

of a rally around the flag effect,

and stoking Iranian nationalism within the country.

So, you know, the, I think what has happened here

is Trump thought that their initial salvos would be devastating enough

that the regime would either topple

or they would be on such thin ice or such shaky ground

that they would feel they had to come back to the negotiating table.

And that is not happened.

That is a fundamental miscalculation that, you know,

if you were listening to Treat the Party,

if you're listening to us,

if you were listening to Jeffrey Sachs,

if you're listening to Professor Beersheimer,

you would have known that is not what is going to happen here.

In 2023, a story gripped the UK,

evoking horror and disbelief.

The nurse who should have been in charge of caring

for tiny babies is now the most prolific child killer

in modern British history.

Everyone thought they knew how it ended.

A verdict, a villain,

a nurse named Lucy Leppie.

Lucy Leppie has been found guilty.

But what if we didn't get the whole story?

The moment you look at the whole picture,

the case collapses.

I'm Amanda Knox,

and in the new podcast Doubt,

the case of Lucy Leppie,

we follow the evidence and hear from the people that lived it

to ask what really happened

when the world decided who Lucy Leppie was.

No voicing of any skepticism or doubt.

It'll cause so much harm at every single level

of the British establishment of this is wrong.

Listen to Doubt,

the case of Lucy Leppie,

on the iHeartRadio app,

Apple Podcasts,

or wherever you get your podcasts.

Hi, this is Joe Winterstein,

host of the Spirit Dollar Podcast,

where we talk about astrology,

natal charts,

and how to step into your most vibrant life.

And I just sat down with a mini driver.

The Irish traveler said when I was 16,

you're going to have a terrible time with men.

Actor, storyteller,

and unapologetic aquarium visionary.

Aquarius is all about freedom-loving

and different perspectives,

and I find a lot of people with strong placements

and Aquarius are misunderstood.

A son and Venus and Aquarius

in her seventh house spark her unconventional approach

to partnership.

He really has taught me to embrace people sleeping

in different rooms,

on different houses,

in different places,

but just an embracing of the isness of an old.

If you're navigating your own transformation,

or just want a chart side view

into how a leading artist

integrates astrology,

creativity,

and real life,

this episode is a must-listen.

Listen to the Spirit Dollar Podcast,

starting on February 24th,

on the iHeartRadio app,

Apple Podcasts,

or wherever you listen to your podcast.

I'm Clayton Neckard,

and in 2022,

I was the lead of ABCs,

The Bachelor.

Unfortunately,

it didn't go according to plan.

He became the first bachelor

to ever have his final rose rejected.

The internet turned on him.

If I could press a button

and rewind it all I would.

But what happened to Clayton

after the show?

Made even bigger headlines.

It began as a one-night stand,

and ended in a courtroom,

with Clayton at the center

of a very strange paternity scandal.

The media is here,

this case has gone viral.

The dating contract.

Agreed to date me,

but I'm also suing you.

Please search for it.

This is unlike anything I've ever seen before.

I'm Stephanie Young.

This is Love Trap.

This season,

an epic battle of he said she said,

and the search for accountability

in a sea of lies.

I have done nothing to get hurt

by the f***ing bachelor!

Listen to Love Trap

on the iHeartRadio app,

Apple Podcasts,

or wherever you get your podcasts.

So now here we are.

The president announced

this devastating war

where now American service members

have been killed.

Announced this,

you know, from his golf club,

down at Mar-a-Lago,

wearing a ball cap

and a shirt and no tie.

He then went on to a fundraiser,

a million dollar fundraiser

with put his tie on for that part.

We have only heard that from him.

These little interviews,

where he's calling up various,

you know, New York Times

or whoever to give them two-minute interviews.

One other, you know,

pre-edited statement

that we just put out,

no live address,

not taking any questions.

You do have a Secretary of War

Pete Hegseth out this morning,

as we speak,

giving some sort of a press conference.

There were no administration officials

on any of the Sunday shows.

Just think about this.

They have brought us into an illegal war

with no congressional approval.

No public approval, no public support.

And then they are hiding from us.

They won't even tell us

what is really going on,

what the goals really are,

what the planning for this is,

and what is going to happen next.

They don't even have enough respect

to go out and defend their positions

on the Sunday shows.

And we can put,

we have an element to that effect.

This is a part to a 11 guys

that you can put up on the screen

just showing what I'm saying here.

But this is one of the things

that is utterly stunning to me.

You have now a massive regional war

with all of these strikes on allies

who are in there,

taking damage and Dubai

and the straight of Hormuz shutdown.

Four service members at least killed

and more wounded.

And the Israelis take all this stuff.

And they didn't even go

on the Sunday shows.

Put a 12 up on the screen here as well.

White House just called a lid for the day,

meaning Trump's not expected

to make any appearances before reporters.

That was at 430 on Sunday.

I mean, Saga, what can you even,

what can you even say about this?

Yeah, we're screwed.

And it's not just about screwed.

It is reflective of,

remember after Venezuela,

Secretary Rubio did a press conference

the next day.

Now, you could say, look,

I opposed the Venezuela thing.

But there was a plan.

You kidnapped Maduro,

put Delcy in power.

We're good to go.

They don't know what to do now.

I really believe that they're in

way over their head.

Already, it has gone past

what they already expected

of a full-blown regional war.

The coordination wasn't there.

You have multiple Americans who are dead.

The Iranians did not capitulate.

They thought we could just punch them in the face

and they're just going to keep coming back.

But what did we say here over and over again?

They have planned

that they're going to take 90% casualties.

And that actually did happen at the top.

Yeah.

All of them are dead.

All the national, they didn't care.

They have it dispersed.

They have it ready to go.

The entire regime,

basically, at the top of the national security establishment

has been killed.

Didn't stop a bunch of missiles

flying into Israel last night.

Israel got pounded.

Yesterday, remember this, too.

Israel has a massive amount of censorship.

They're broadcasting the IDF telling,

do not post videos because it gives

the battle damage assessment.

We have no idea what the catastrophe is like

inside of Israel.

But you look at that image of that missile

and there were videos of ambulances

on the way there.

God only knows how many people were killed.

Or the damage that happened.

So keep in mind that it's already

gone past what they expected.

And now, that's why he's scrambling.

He keeps floating these things.

Oh, we'll talk to them.

Yesterday, he said,

where we'll be talking?

Barack Reved goes on TV

and goes when he says talking.

He doesn't mean talking to the current regime.

Who's he talking to?

The Shah's fail son,

the Pallavi idiot.

Like, that's what we're dealing with.

And it's catastrophic.

I mean, beyond.

Because, like you just said, with Iraq,

Iraq was worse,

okay, in terms of damage.

But the plan was there.

Install like my Pallavi.

We go in.

We find the fake WMD.

Done-industed.

The coalition provisional authority.

We didn't have a real plan,

but we had a fake plan.

This one, they don't even have a fake one.

I mean, they truly have no idea what they're doing.

The Secretary of Defense is talking while you and I are now.

He says, it's not a regime change war,

but the regime sure did change.

We did not start this.

We did not start this war.

This is literally what he says.

We didn't start this war,

but we will finish it.

The aims are not regime change,

even though the regime has changed.

We're just going to kill the Navy,

sink the Navy.

We're going to make sure that they can no longer project power

outside of the region.

What does that even mean?

That means that's meaningless.

So we're going to replace the government via the air,

which has literally never happened.

Ever.

Yes, that is worth underscoring,

because I was listening to Robert Pape on this.

Who studied?

He's an expert on this, right?

He studied all of the,

since in the history of air power,

being used in military conflict,

do you know how many times it has worked out

that a regime has been placed purely

through air strikes?

Zero.

Zero times.

That is how often this has worked out.

And yet here we are with all of this arrogance,

with all of this egotism,

with all of this idiocy,

thinking this will be,

this will be the one time that it's worked.

It will work with a government that has survived

so much of us trying to destroy it for close to 50 years.

This will be the time that does have

some popular race of support by the way in the country.

This will be the time that it works out.

What a bunch of fools.

You know, on these fake negotiations that we're going on

that were clearly just a ruse in order to,

you know, buy them time so that they can

amass this whole amarta in the region

and all of the air power that we have remained,

you know, all of the interceptors we have remaining

and all of that.

There are reports that, you know,

Kushner and Whitcaw,

they couldn't even understand

what the Iranians were offering.

Because if this was truly about nuclear weapons

and we, you know, Dr. Tritoparsi,

we've had on this show many times

and he was speaking to another,

I think, over on MSNBC, we speak into them.

He said, listen, I was an informal advisor

to the nuclear talks back

under the Obama administration.

And there is no doubt

that what the Iranians were offering here

went way beyond what Obama was able to achieve.

They offered significantly more concessions.

So if Trump wanted to just take that win

and say, look at what I did,

what Obama could never do, blah, blah, blah.

That was there.

But again, there are, first of all,

that was never the goal.

I mean, we've heard, oh, we care about the protesters,

we care about freedom,

but we care about the ballistic missiles.

Then we had, oh, we're worried about their navy

and, oh, and by the way, the way

we're still worried about the nuclear weapons.

Which we told you, we obliterated during the last war.

So, you know, I don't want to give them credence

to any of the lies and bullshit that they've told here.

But if it was really about nuclear weapons,

if it was really about the nuclear program,

they offered far and away,

beyond what the previous nuclear deal entailed.

And there are reports that Kushner and Whitcoff

could not even comprehend what was being said to them.

And that is, again, it's intentional

because they weren't there to negotiate.

They were there to install and buy time

for this pre-planned operation.

Yeah, that's right.

Now, let's turn to what we have now so far.

So, one of the, what are the pretext

that the president gave nuclear weapons?

Here's Senator Ted Cruz saying openly,

no evidence they were close to nuclear weapons.

Also backed up by a Democratic Senator.

Let's take a listen.

In terms of containing the risk,

who's securing the nuclear material

that you say still exists within Iran?

Who's doing that?

Look, the quantity of nuclear material,

I didn't say anything one way or another on that.

What I said is they were building nuclear weapons

a year ago and our bombing took that out.

They also had an ongoing desire to rebuild them.

I don't have present-day intelligence

on what progress they had made

towards rebuilding nuclear weapons

since we bombed their facilities.

I have no indication that they were anywhere close

to getting nuclear weapons

because our bombing was devastating.

And Margaret, that's one of the reasons

I urged President Trump now is the time.

I think the president has started a war of choice.

There was no imminent threat to the United States.

So, the decision to put our service members in harm's way

and bases around the region in harm's way

was entirely based upon the president's decision

not an imminent threat to America.

I saw no intelligence

that Iran was on the verge of launching

any kind of preemptive strike

against the United States of America.

None.

None.

None. That is from Ted Cruz.

And so these are two as pro-war as it gets

if you think that those people are lying.

By the way, if you want a little bit more

of a view into how bad the situation is,

here's Senator Tom Cotton saying

that there will be no large ground force in Iran.

Not, did you hear the word?

No large ground force.

Not no ground force.

Take a listen.

The president of the United States warned the American public

that there could be casualties.

American casualties.

Does that mean the U.S. is putting boots on the ground?

No, Margaret.

The president has been clear that what we should expect to see

is an extended air and naval campaign

that's designed not only to continue

to set back Iran's nuclear ambitions,

but most importantly to destroy its vast missile arsenal.

Many more missiles in the United States

and Israel have air defenses combined

as well as the missile launchers

and its missile manufacturing capability.

Now obviously one risk of that kind of campaign

is that an aircraft could be shot down

and the president would never leave a pilot behind.

So no doubt we have combat search and rescue assets

in the region that are prepared to go in

and extract any down pilot.

But boring that kind of unusual circumstance, Margaret.

The president has no plan for any kind of large-scale

ground force inside of Iran.

Large-scale ground force.

Now one of the reasons we have to play you clips

of Senator Ted Cruz and Senator Tom Cotton

is the White House explicitly said we're going to allow

the senators to do the talking for us

on the Sunday shows as you referenced earlier.

It is not a rule out there of American ground troops.

That will set foot on Iranian soil.

Well, I've got an update for you this morning

in this PTAG-Seth press conference

that's going on right now.

He got asked by a reporter,

are there currently any American boots on the ground in Iran?

And he said no.

But we're not going to get into the exercise

of what we will or will not do.

Let's take a listen to that.

Two questions for you.

First, are there currently any American boots on the ground

in Iran?

No, but we're not going to go into the exercise

of what we will or will not do.

I think it's one of those fallacies for a long time

that this department or presidents or others

should tell the American people this and our enemies,

by the way, here's exactly what we'll do.

Here's exactly how long we'll go.

Here's exactly how far we'll go.

Here's what we're willing to do and not do.

It's foolishness.

And so President Trump ensures that our enemies understand

we'll go as far as we need to go

to advanced American interests.

But we're not dumb about it.

You don't have to roll 200,000 people in there

and stay for 20 years.

We've proven that you can achieve objectives

that advance American interests

without being foolish about it.

Now, will we be bold about it?

Are we willing to be decisive about it?

Do we put months and months of planning

into what kind of effects we want to achieve?

Absolutely.

But going forward, why in the world would we tell you,

you, the enemy, anybody,

what we will or will not do in pursuit of an objective?

We fight to win.

We fight to achieve the objectives.

The President of the United States has laid out

and we will do so unapologetically.

I mean, and sogret, what's fear?

Well, they can't because now we're in it.

We're in it now.

That's what scares me is what there is no offering here.

I mean, Trump cares about one thing.

It's how things, his ego and how things look on TVO and money.

You know, those are the things he cares about.

And for him to have said,

we are going to, there's going to be freedom in Iran

and explicitly, remember guys, explicitly frame this

as a regime change war.

And to go in and get your nose bloodied,

have American fire jets falling on the sky

and getting killed.

And the Iranians are saying, no, we're not going back

to the negotiating table.

How are you going to get out of this?

And you will not listen to my words.

They will not accomplish their goal here

of regime change through air power alone.

So what are you going to do?

What are you going to do?

And now we already have him saying,

oh, you know, we can't rule it out.

We're going to do what it takes.

Every day that this goes on, that Kuwait thing,

I mean, that we're lucky that more people

have not already been killed.

And by the way, we don't even know what,

the real knowledge it only takes one.

Look at Afghanistan.

Do you remember how we would have the deadliest day

in Afghanistan?

It just takes one Taliban guy, one lucky RPG.

And you've got like 30 seals shot out of the sky, right?

That's it.

That's all it takes.

And that happened twice in the history of the war of Afghanistan.

Helicopters, they're on their way to something,

routine mission, boom, all right?

Now, 25 people are without a son,

we know, a son, their widows,

gold star families.

That's all it takes.

That's all it takes.

And then that changes everything.

Now, don't forget this.

This, I mean, one of the pretext for the war

is about what Iran did to the United States

during the war in Iraq,

which was basically take over much of the insurgency

and supply them with the sophisticated means

to manufacture these IEDs.

This is called, it was an EFP, if I recall,

which is a very specific deadly type of IED

that was dramatically more lethal than anything else

that was seen on the battlefield.

Now, look, that's true.

It is true.

They are responsible for hundreds of deaths

in the war in Iraq.

We shouldn't have been there in the first place.

But I love that this pretext is now currently being used.

If you wanted to strike Iran for doing that,

that would have been the time.

There are people alive watching this show today

who probably, or there are people

who are watching this show today,

literally, probably right now,

who were not even alive at the time when all of that happened.

You can't use some 20-year-old pretext.

If you wanted to kill them, you should have done it then.

And you think the Bush administration wasn't up to it?

Do you know why they didn't do it?

Because they were bogged down in Iraq already.

And they're like, well, there's nothing

that we can really do if we want to branch into Iran.

That's really what this is about.

And but also think about what that means,

is that we're supposed to believe

that this army, which, yes,

has this conventional capability right now

of ballistic missiles and all of that,

is just going to go quietly into the good night.

If by your own admission,

they were capable of killing over 1,000 Americans

through all these IED,

what you think they still don't have all that technology?

You think the IED still doesn't work?

Not even in terms of occupations,

service-sponsored terrorism,

we're talking the blowback segment.

There's some very sketchy stuff going on

with that terrorist attack.

You got a guy with an Iranian flag,

or with Iranian flag underneath his guard

with the praise Allah, sweatshirt,

got pictures of the Iranian leader in his house,

according to police authorities.

And this guy is from Senegal.

What the hell is going on here, right?

I mean, this is bad.

And we had no, like, planning or anything.

You know, I had to fly after the day after.

It's the first time in, I don't even know a decade,

where I'm like, I don't know, man, you know?

I mean, it shouldn't even be a question, right?

It's one of those where I was like,

hope so, by the way, it's flying from Austin

in the time that this terrorist attack literally broke out.

How many people are going to have that up there?

You think I'm going to Dubai anytime soon,

which is the gateway to much of Asia

for a lot of, for a lot of Americans?

No, most people shouldn't.

This is the danger in what has now been unleashed.

And yeah, even though it's day three,

they're not backing down.

If Trump says it's going to take what, four weeks,

is that what he said?

That's what he said four weeks.

We'll see.

Already, just yesterday in the New York Times,

he floated cannibalizing global stocks of ammunition.

He says it won't be difficult.

We have tremendous amounts of ammo.

We have ammo stored all over the world.

This is a nightmare.

If you care about China and deterring Taiwan, we're done.

All right, we're done.

We're already probably 50% blown

through the interceptor stock.

We have maybe three or four weeks left.

And last thing here, I'm just seeing this now

because European gas prices skyrocketing like 50%

because of all the shutdown of the Katari LNG production

and everything that's going on.

The EU has now reached a quote, panic moment.

As not all member states have sufficient energy reserves,

a leading energy analyst says the EU is likely to do what?

Increase energy imports from Russia.

So congrats, guys.

Way to go.

Yeah, congratulations.

Actually, congratulations to Putin.

The Kremlin doing back flips right now.

Oh, yeah.

Oil at 100 will fund the war in Ukraine for five years.

For all of you Neocon idiots who supported,

taking or doing the war with Iran and quote support Ukraine,

you just bought another 100K casualties on the battlefield.

So congrats to you.

In 2023, a story gripped the UK,

evoking horror and disbelief.

A nurse who should have been in charge of caring

for tiny babies is now the most prolific child killer

in modern British history.

Everyone thought they knew how it ended.

A verdict, a villain, a nurse named Lucy Leppie.

Lucy Leppie has been found guilty.

But what if we didn't get the whole story?

The moment you look at the whole picture, the case collapses.

I'm Amanda Knox.

And in the new podcast, Doubt, the case of Lucy Leppie,

we follow the evidence and hear from the people that lived it

to ask what really happened when the world decided

who Lucy Leppie was.

No voicing of any skepticism or doubt.

It'll cause so much harm at every single level

of the British establishment of this is wrong.

Listen to Doubt, the case of Lucy Leppie

on the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcasts,

or wherever you get your podcasts.

Hi, this is Joe Interstein,

host of the Spirit.org podcast,

where we talk about astrology, natal charts,

and how to step into your most vibrant life.

And I just sat down with a mini driver.

The Irish traveler said when I was 16,

you're going to have a terrible time with men.

Actor, storyteller,

and unapologetic, aquarium visionary.

Aquarius is all about freedom loving and different perspectives.

And I find a lot of people with strong placements

on Aquarius are misunderstood.

A son and Venus in Aquarius in her seventh house

spark her unconventional approach to partnership.

He really has taught me to embrace people sleeping

in different rooms on different houses and different places,

but just an embracing of the isness of it all.

If you're navigating your own transformation

or just want a chart side view into how a leading artist

integrates astrology, creativity, and real life,

this episode is a must listen.

Listen to the Spirit.org podcast,

starting on February 24th on the I Heart Radio app,

Apple Podcast, or wherever you listen to your podcast.

I'm Clayton Neckard, and in 2022,

I was the lead of ABC's The Bachelor.

Unfortunately, it didn't go according to plan.

He became the first bachelor to ever have

his final rose rejected.

The internet turned on him.

If I could press a button and rewind it all I would.

But what happened to Clayton after the show

made even bigger headlines?

It began as a one night stand and ended in a courtroom

with Clayton at the center of a very strange paternity scandal.

The media is here.

This case has gone viral.

The dating contract.

Agreed to date me, but I'm also suing you.

Please search for it.

This is unlike anything I've ever seen before.

I'm Stephanie Young.

This is Love Trapped.

This season, an epic battle of he said she said,

and the search for accountability in a sea of lies.

I ain't done nothing to get hurted by the f***ing bachelor.

Listen to Love Trapped on the iHeart Radio app,

Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Turning now to the global markets.

Absolutely royal to this morning.

We'll start with the most important.

Let's put this up here.

On the screen, Qatar Energy has now stopped all LNG production.

If they shut down production, 14 trains,

a statement's word suggests that is 20% of the global output.

A single company is the world's largest LNG producer.

European markets spiking 50% this morning

for liquefied natural gas indicating

that they may have to wait for it by gas from Russia.

In addition, we are now watching oil, a skyrocket.

In price, guys, can we go ahead and put that one up here

on the screen from before.

Oil markets that are currently at least 10% of a spike

and it is potentially headed for some $100 per barrel.

Already they are indicating that gas will likely rise

within the next week as there's some restock and negotiations

that are currently happening.

As I indicated to everyone earlier,

let's put B2 on the screen.

You can see that the insurers have already said

that they're going to dramatically raise the insurance price

for any ship which is in the vicinity of the Straits of Hormuz

at least by as much as 50% several $100,000 per shipment

for probably not only the world's choke point for oil,

but in particular, this will massively impact markets in Asia

where they have a predominant number of their amount

of their oil moves through.

Also, you have significant amounts of other goods

that move through the Straits

and the shutdown of that could cause crises

in the Gulf very, very soon.

Now, in terms of our own markets,

we're recording this right after the market open

so we can go ahead and put the CNBC tear sheet up on the screen.

Keep in mind, we are doing our best right now

because things may move and change by the end of the day.

But at the moment that we are recording this,

it looks like the Dow is down by 500 points by down at least 1%,

about a 1% drop in the S&P by 100.

A 1% drop in the NASDAQ.

The Russell is down by about 1.68% and US 10 year,

it looks like it's down by about 4%.

The VIX, which is like a volatility index,

up some 17.9% and gold and Bitcoin,

both moving a little bit in a higher direction.

The dollar also increasing in value.

So you can see that there's already been

global market reaction.

But by far, I would say the number one headline

out of this crystal is LNG,

liquefied natural gas.

Remember, this is how we're all getting electricity

and so our electric prices might be going up.

Energy, LNG and oil are global commodities.

So just because the price goes up somewhere else,

doesn't mean that it won't necessarily affect you.

And then we also will have to show you this.

Saudi Aramco, let's put B1B up here on the screen.

This was video just coming out this morning.

Saudi official telling all Arabia that suppliers

at Saudi Aramco are, quote,

not the result of a direct attorney strike,

but were caused by falling debris from an intercepted drone.

But regardless, obviously a drone going after Saudi Aramco,

the largest oil refining export facility

in the entire world.

The refinery was a capacity of some 550,000 barrels per day

in a significant portion of the global oil supply

in that single field at that processing facility.

So the Iranians are waging a full-blown economic war,

I think on multiple fronts.

So if we think about the Gulf states outside of Saudi,

if for them it was energy plus prestige.

So they've crippled now the Qatari gas field.

Now that they've already had bombs and things go off

in the middle of Doha, falling intercepted missiles.

The UAE, the way that Dubai was trying to get

past its energy image was to become this global powerhouse

for the rich, the Fairmont Hotel and the Burj Khalifa,

literally on fire, right?

You've got all these Western girl influencers

who are probably being paid to be over there,

like hanging out in tank tops with the gym,

now scrambling to the airport.

Oh, oops, except you can't get out

because the entire airport shut down.

Semaphore reporting this morning,

the going rate for a PJ out of Saudi today

is 350 grand for a single one-way flight.

Which is for a single one-way flight.

So the princes might be able to make it.

Some of the people who pay those influencers

might be able to make it, but if you're there

on a tourist visa, you're stuck for the time being.

The entire region's airspace is basically shut down.

I think a single commercial passenger plane

has left, I think Abu Dhabi.

Like in the last 24 hours, if you look at global air traffic,

it's all going around.

I mean, I mean, you got missiles, drones,

and all this stuff that's flying up there.

Don't forget what happened in Ukraine.

You remember when those passenger planes

got accidentally shot out of the sky?

Yeah.

Yeah, accidentally shot out of the sky, literally so.

I mean, this is serious stuff.

This is danger.

This is extremely dangerous.

And the global economic impact in the gas market,

we haven't seen anything like this since Ukraine.

Except now, ironically, we're going to massively fund

the Russian war effort.

So congratulations to all of the Neocons

for dramatically enriching the Kremlin.

Yeah, I mean, those images of the burning Dubai hotels

are crazy.

And the theory is that Iran targeted some of these hotels,

because surface members have been,

have been moved off of bases to be kept safe.

And so the Iranians targeted with these.

Again, these are like $30 to $50,000 drones

that they're using on mass, that they mass produce.

This is the same thing that, you know,

the Houthis were armed with by the Iranians,

that they're using to, you know, attack hotels in Dubai.

Crazy, crazy stuff.

Let's put this B6 up on the screen.

The financial times had good analysis

about what all this could mean.

They talked to an analyst who said,

yes, oil could go up to, you know, $100 a barrel.

They said, how dangerous would that be to US growth?

Given the fact that we are largely energy self-sufficient

at this point, it is a different dynamic than, you know,

in the 70s or whatever.

And they say, but that doesn't mean

an interruption to Gulf oil flows would be irrelevant

to the US economy, given the impact on oil benchmarks.

A sharply higher global oil prices can inflict pain

on US consumers and corporate America.

This would feed into higher gas prices,

placing a visible strain on consumers.

Many of whom are already complaining

about a cost of living crisis

ahead of November's crucial midterm elections.

Oil of $100 a barrel could push consumer price inflation

from 2.4% in this year to January to above 4%.

Fed targets 2% inflation is measured by the annual change

in the price index for personal consumption expenditures.

In the short term, it would make the US Federal Reserve

less likely to cut interest rates,

which of course is something that Trump has been wanting them to do.

So you're talking about interest rates staying relatively high.

You're talking about inflation overall,

because of the way, of course, oil prices feed into everything

and you're talking higher prices at the pump.

And, you know, you ever call back at the beginning

early days of the Ukraine war, there was polling

that people were like, yes,

I am actually willing to pay more at the pump

because I believe this was an unjust,

unprovoked war of aggression from the Russians.

We want to support Ukraine like we want to be on their side.

We're willing to take some pain.

Think we're both a little skeptical

at the time of how long that would last rightly so.

But this time, I want to see the polling.

Go ask people.

You willing to pay four bucks a gallon for gas

so that we can do whatever the hell we're doing right now

and have American service members killed, et cetera?

There is zero appetite for this.

I mean, going into this war, you had maybe 20 to 30%

of the American public who were like, yes, we're with Iran.

Many of them live right here in the broader DMV region.

In any case, you think that people are willing to pay any,

like, have any pain in their lives because of this?

And then you look at the fact, you know,

we've had these massive cuts to the social safety net

this year, you've had healthcare cuts,

you've had, you know, you had the whole doge thing

and all kinds of, you know, things that were,

that have been made more, the life made more difficult

for people.

And meanwhile, we're letting $100 million fighter jets

get dropped down to the sky reportedly by our allies

and God only knows how much is being spent

on this whole absolute catastrophe.

They'll never tell you.

I mean, do you know, do you want to know

what the operating cost on a B2 bomber is?

That's a 36 hour mission from the United States over there?

It's millions of dollars, everything that thing,

even every time it leaves the base, every Tomahawk missile,

hundreds of thousands, half of them, not half,

but a decent number of them,

sometimes they don't even explode.

In Nigeria, a quarter of them didn't explode.

That's what I'm saying.

And then, you know, the amount of money that were spent,

the general cane this morning said,

more troops already on the way.

So we already had tens of thousands of troops

who were in the region now, we're saying more troops.

Anybody remember what it was like in the middle of Iraq?

Oh, you know, God, you know, I really feel already,

there was a report coming out for one of the guys

who was injured.

Navy reservist 911 dispatcher.

I mean, this person probably signed up, you know,

for extra money, I mean, look,

I'm not saying he's not a patriot or any of that,

but he probably never imagined he's going to be

in the middle of a war zone.

What do they tell you?

Like one week at a month, you know?

Yeah, one week at a month or whatever.

And it's, I mean, just, this is what I watched

this happen with Iraq.

I know people like that, they're ensuring

that they're fired, firemen in the national guard.

Next thing you know is pulling this 16 month tour in Iraq,

right?

Watching people getting blown up by IEDs.

We may not be that far away from that.

Unfortunately, considering what Secretary head

sector this morning, but considering, you know,

just on the global economic implication here,

it's only day three.

We got to shut down here in LNG,

even if things quote unquote go back to normal.

Like if the war ended today, think about already.

You have the Straits of Hormuz problem.

The Iranians at least have some limited amount of deterrence

in that region.

You also have a hardline faction in Iran,

which I'm doubtful is ever really going to truly surrender.

Then you've got the Gulf Arab prestige.

What's happened to them?

Have we talked about the UAE stock market?

I think we have, yeah, B3.

Put that one up there.

The UAE literally is closing its entire stock exchange

for two dates in order to stop the amount of drop

in order to stop the losses that they're likely to incur.

We'll talk about this later with Professor Jong.

I mean, you had an Amazon data center take a hit

in the middle of the UAE.

That is disastrous for them.

Because their whole economic pitch was,

hey guys, we've got plenty of cheap energy over here.

There ain't no, there ain't no nimbyism out in the desert.

Build whatever you want.

Take as much, suck as much oil out of the ground.

We'll power it for you.

And we've got millions of dollars to boot.

You think they're not going to rethink that?

All of these data center companies

and others, they're going to be building them

out in the Middle East.

I mean, this is a, I mean, an absolute disaster already.

Also, what we have shown for the Gulf,

they can't have nearly that much faith in the United.

For years, the trade was we sell you the oil,

we buy your weapons, you protect us.

It's not working.

I mean, at the very, with these drones,

there's not much you can do against them.

As far as I know, from what I talk to some of the experts,

the way that the Ukrainians deal with these Iranian drones,

you put a belt fed machine gun and you just fire it at them.

That's basically all you can do.

Although that requires a lot of ammunition,

which even then we're already talking about having

to cannibalize global stocks.

Our companies, our defense base is not prepared

for the spin up that was going to be required.

If this lasts more than three months,

we're going to have serious problems.

Serious, serious problems.

Like we're going to be down to the absolute scraps.

This is what the generals were warning about.

I just saw a report this morning from inside of Iran.

They say, so far Iran has declined three requests

from mediation from de-retérons perspective.

The country possesses the capacity and preparedness

to sustain high intensity conflict

for a period of approximately 60 to 90 days

within this strategic calculus,

accepting a ceasefire in early stage

would not constitute an advantage.

Rather, it would carry greater long-term strategic costs

than continuing the confrontation.

For them, they're going to say,

let's take as many casualties as we can,

to sustain 60 to 90 days,

inflict maximum damage on all of these people,

cripple them and bring them to high-risk strategy, right?

Because, I mean, look at the video,

so we've already showed you who knows

how many thousands of people are dead in Tehran.

You think these rallies care about civilian casualties?

They're carpet bombing that place

from what we already saw last night.

So, I mean, it's a catastrophe.

Like literally it could end today

and already everything has changed.

Absolutely the case, absolutely the case.

And I just can't get some of these images

on my head that plane plummeting to the ground.

The, you know, there's one going around,

we didn't put it in the show

because we weren't 100% sure that this is real,

but it appears to show an American service member

on the ground surrendering as a local Kuwaiti

who found him, you know, has a stick over his head,

ready to beat his ass.

I mean, humiliation, like this is horrifying, humiliation

and we're supposed to be the, the whole point

of all of the foreign adventurism

from this maniac of a president that we have

is supposed to be about maintaining our status

as the undisputed global hegemon.

That's what it's, that's what really at its core, you know,

and he functions in this like mob boss ego-driven way.

That's what it's supposed to be throwing our weight around.

This is what it means to make America great again, blah, blah, blah.

You have these images of American service members

at the mercy of just random local people in Kuwait

or in other places that are supposed to be our allies.

It's, you know, how are you gonna persist

as the global superpower

when this is the level of humiliation

that you're already suffering?

And listen, I mean, let me be clear, like there's no doubt

our military is much bigger than the Iranian military.

Like us and the Israelis, we can inflict much more damage

on them than they can do to us,

but for them, this is existential.

They will fight to the death.

And by the way, a lot of people in the Iranian government,

like they actually believe in what they're fighting for.

Like they are actually committed to some principle.

It might not be principles we agree with,

but they are actually committed to some principle

and willing to fight for those principles,

which we're seeing not to mention

that they're fighting for their lives

and the very existence of their country

and their government to continue.

They have, I mean, to say they have more skin in the game here

is just like an unbelievable understatement.

So listen, the economic warfare is going to be just

a central to this as the military warfare.

And the Iranians know that with our allies and Gulf,

they are incredibly vulnerable.

These Israelis and their whole defense tech sector,

they're very vulnerable.

They think they are actually willing to take some pain

in order to take the Iranian government off the map.

And let me say something else about our great Israeli friends.

Do you think that they care that much

if we're weakened in the war?

No.

Because guess what?

Then we're not as much of a factor in the Middle East.

They can be even more of the undisputed heavyweight

in the Middle East throwing their weight around.

So they don't give a shit.

They don't give a shit about American lies.

They don't give a shit about American equipment,

American hegemon, they don't care.

You could argue they have an interest in seeing us

get into this foolish war and be humiliated

and have our economy tank and collapse on the global stage.

So listen, that's why paying attention

to what happens here with oil, with natural gas,

with the tourism economies that all of these

Gulf Arab states have tried to build up.

All of that is going to make a huge difference

in terms of how long the US is going to be able

to sustain any sort of political will for this conflict.

And I'll tell you, that war power's resolution

vote is going to be very interesting this week.

As you already see, as you already see,

like blowback obviously in terms of the markets

and we're going to talk about the global blowback as well.

I hope that we get the vote.

I'm not sure.

All right, let's get to blowback.

In 2023, a story gripped the UK,

evoking horror and disbelief.

The nurse who should have been in charge of caring

for tiny babies is now the most prolific child killer

in modern British history.

Everyone thought they knew how it ended, a verdict,

a villain, a nurse named Lucy Leppy.

Lucy Leppy has been found guilty.

But what if we didn't get the whole story?

The moment you look at the whole picture,

the case collapses.

I'm Amanda Knox.

And in the new podcast, Doubt, the case of Lucy Leppy,

we follow the evidence and hear from the people that lived it

to ask what really happened when the world decided

who Lucy Leppy was.

No voicing of any skepticism or doubt.

It'll cause so much harm at every single level

of the British establishment that this is wrong.

Listen to Doubt, the case of Lucy Leppy,

on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

or wherever you get your podcasts.

Hi, this is Jo Winterstein, host of the Spirit Dollar Podcast,

where we talk about astrology, natal charts,

and how to step into your most vibrant life.

And I just sat down with a mini driver.

The Irish traveler said when I was 16,

you're gonna have a terrible time with men.

Actor, storyteller, and unapologetic, aquarium visionary.

Aquarius is all about freedom loving and different perspectives.

And I find a lot of people with strong placements and Aquarius

like are misunderstood.

A son and Venus and Aquarius in her seventh house spark

her unconventional approach to partnership.

He really has taught me to embrace people sleeping

in different rooms on different houses and different places,

but just an embracing of the isness of it all.

If you're navigating your own transformation

or just want a chart side view into how a leading artist

integrates astrology, creativity, and real life,

this episode is a must listen.

Listen to the Spirit Dollar Podcast,

starting on February 24th,

on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

or wherever you listen to your podcast.

I'm Clayton Neckard, and in 2022,

I was the lead of ABCs, The Bachelor.

Unfortunately, it didn't go according to plan.

He became the first bachelor to ever have

his final rose rejected.

The internet turned on him.

If I could press a button and rewind it all I would.

But what happened to Clayton after the show

made even bigger headlines?

It began as a one night stand and ended in a courtroom

with Clayton at the center of a very strange paternity scandal.

The media is here, this case has gone viral.

The dating contract.

Agree to date me, but I'm also suing you.

Please search for it.

This is unlike anything I've ever seen before.

I'm Stephanie Young.

This is Love Trap.

This season, an epic battle of he said she said,

and the search for accountability in a sea of lies.

I have done nothing to get hurt by the f***ing bachelor.

Listen to Love Trap on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

or wherever you get your podcasts.

Turn now to Blowback.

Of course, the term coined originally by the CIA back in the 1950s

about operations abroad, which made Blowback on the United States

at home, is already materializing as a result of this Iran conflict.

Let's start already with a very sketchy and strange incident

in Austin, Texas, where I literally was at the time of this shooting.

Let's go and put this up here on the screen.

The FBI is currently probing a Texas bar shooting

that killed two and wounded 14 as a possible terrorist act.

So what they say is that the gunman was wearing clothes

with an Iranian flag design, and the word's property of Allah,

killed two people and wounded 14 in early Sunday morning

at a Texas bar.

The FBI already investigating the shooting.

Already, there's some indications that this man had pictures,

actually, of the Iranian leader in his home at the time of the shooting,

whenever it was busted down by the FBI.

He was killed in the incident by the Austin Police Department.

However, all of the circumstances around this are extremely bizarre.

The perpetrator appears to be a Senegalese naturalized citizen

of the United States who came back, I believe, under Bill Clinton,

over St. Avisa, married a US citizen was able to get a green card

eventually became a naturalized US citizen

under several years ago.

So it's been a citizen for over 15 years.

But I mean, you got a person here who is, again, literally from Senegal,

which I didn't even know there are a lot of Muslims in Senegal,

but whatever, who is now apparently some sort of acolyte

or inspired by the attack on the Iranians,

which has already happened on the very day of the attack.

I mean, look, if you ask me, you shouldn't be here,

but you're here now.

I mean, what do we do?

This is the exact problem that we have right now.

I mean, some of the right-wing fever dream has always been like,

look, there could be like terrorists for the people.

But like, actually, I mean, for real though, this is crazy.

You literally have a guy from Senegal

who's been the naturalized citizen with pictures of Iran.

Look, he could be crazy, right?

I mean, I'm not going to put that past anybody.

But of course, it's the same problem

that we would have during the global war on terror.

And I'm not saying that's, you know, just because people are here

and they want to throw a terrorist attack,

start a terrorist attack, doesn't mean

that we shouldn't do something abroad,

but you should think about it a little bit.

And maybe the FBI director shouldn't be chugging beers in Milan

at the time, allegedly, around the same go time

that the order was issued by the United States government.

So did anybody think about it?

At all, they're like, hey, maybe we should

heighten our terror alert.

Maybe we should think about potential terrorist attacks here.

Or is that going to happen here at home?

Apparently to them, the cost was worth it.

Not worth it to me.

Yeah, and not worth it to me.

And here's the thing, as without buying into a bunch of unproven

whatever about Iranian sleeper cells here in the US,

is it any support?

Like, do you think our actions around the globe right now

are going to make people love us?

Do you think they're going to inspire love for this country

and desire to see to our wellbeing?

And we oversaw a genocide for years.

I mean, that was our genocide as much as it was the Israelis.

Just utterly obliterated Gaza.

We just bombed alongside the Israelis.

We just bombed schoolgirls, murdering over 100 of them.

Already, there have been something like eight hospitals

in Iran that have been bombed, just a bully,

just a bully throwing our way around, might make's right,

no care concern about the barbarism.

And look, the Ayatollah was not only the leader of Iran.

He was also a spiritual leader for Shia Muslims, okay?

And just imagine, if we seem to have this sort of

antiseptic view of like, oh, of course,

we can just like assassinate world leaders.

That's fine and good.

And by the way, his family was wife and his grandchildren

and whatever alongside it.

Imagine that was done for Trump and Melania and Barrett.

Like, just put it in that perspective.

How do you think that's gonna make people feel?

And of course, if you can't project your own

like consciousness onto the situation,

you don't have to because we lived through the Iraq war.

We saw the way that it created chaos and spun up terror groups

and caused all sorts of problems, not only for our service members,

but created chaos through the entire region

and dealt a devastating blow to the US in terms of,

you know, the future in the status of our country,

not to mention the amount of money

and obviously the horror and the lives lost that, you know,

of our own service members

and also the many innocent civilians,

millions of innocent civilians who were killed

in that conflict as well.

So no, I mean, it's entirely predictable

that far from keeping us safer,

which is what we're being sold, far from keeping us safer

or preventing some undefined risk,

this has created much more danger

and put everybody at much more risk.

That is the direct impact of what we're doing.

I'm gonna be at risk.

You better be for something important.

It better not be for some shit like this.

Let's continue, by the way, to your point.

I mean, already the signs are all around the globe.

Let's put this video up here on the screen.

This is from Baghdad just yesterday,

inside of the green zone to the perimeter

where the US Embassy is the most expensive US Embassy ever built

where you could see thousands of, maybe hundreds of protesters

with flashbang grenades and other things

that are all going off, clashes between the security forces.

Shall I remind everybody,

there's a massive shea population inside of Iraq.

That was the whole problem that we had

with the civil war that broke out.

Well, here is exactly the reason.

We know one of the things that we've talked about

is that how Iraq became basically an Iranian proxy state

as a result of the US invasion.

This is pro, you know, prototypical example.

Number one, they have a lot of sympathy.

You have US bases, embassy, and air bill.

We had some video, actually, at least some of,

we know for sure that there was some sort of Iranian strike

on an air bill in northern Iraq

where there's a significant amount of US forces

and ammunition which is stored there

and, of course, was under attack

by, purportedly, some shea militias

and potentially even some of these Iranian drones.

They're also major confrontation that happened in Pakistan.

Can we put this video up here on the screen?

I mean, what you're watching here was this consulate

in Karachi, in Pakistan, violent clashes

in two instances where at least 10, 15 people were killed.

The Pakistanis are saying that it's by the local security forces

but you could also see, you know, US personnel

are behind these walls and these compounds

and it has erupted all over Pakistan

with violent protests against the United States.

You can see very clearly that this is already happening.

I mean, look, just read a book.

We talked about Israel, sure.

I mean, look, you know, I'm not excusing in any way.

Al-Qaeda, but I do think it's important to understand

what led to the attacks on 9-11.

It was US bases in Saudi Arabia.

It was this fanatical belief at the US of the Great Satan, et cetera.

But a lot of it was also about Israel and Israeli attacks.

So now we've had just had the situation in Gaza.

We've also had now the assassination of the Ayatollah

who was not only the leader of the country

but a literal religious figure inside

for millions of shea Muslim all over the world.

Well, all of this is going to be seen as a US attack

not only on the religion.

So you could look at it at a secular level

about attacking this other country

under insane pre-tenses.

You could look at it at a religious level.

You could look at the current US support for Israel.

You've got these Gulf populations.

They're sitting on ticking time bombs, these monarchies.

Oh, yeah.

Because, I mean, Bahrain, I talked about earlier,

Bahrain has a huge shea population.

I think it's a majority shea.

I think so.

Now, they are literally rioting in the streets

where they are cheering on Iranian drones,

which are landing in the middle of Bahrain.

You have Saudi Arabia.

It's about 50, 50.

There you go.

So it's like a 50, I knew it was a decent number

but I wasn't exactly sure.

But let's say in Saudi Arabia,

they have always had this problem.

The deal with the clerics is you guys say what you want.

We get to keep all the oil money and live in London.

Cool.

I get to have my Ferrari.

You guys get to do what you want.

Well, the population there is going to be furious right now,

especially.

Not only in terms of Iran,

but if this becomes some sort of massive alliance

with the United States,

and especially if they find themselves fighting

on the same side as Israel,

they're not going to like that.

Doha Qatar, same problem.

You have this delicate balance of tribes, Kuwait,

as well, with their own population.

We may have unleashed a literal same level of Arab spring

and re-questioning of a lot of the security doctrine

that everyone quietly lives with in the Gulf and just accepts.

But right now, they're asking big questions,

like we're going to talk later about this clip of a Saudi

on Al Jazeera who's like America has abandoned us.

They're letting us get struck so that they can strike down Israel.

And this is the other problem with constraints on our military.

We literally have to choose.

And of course, we're choosing Israel,

which we have to do by law.

I mean, think of the UAE, okay.

Somewhere around 90% of the population in the UAE

are foreign expats.

It's wealthy foreigners,

but it's predominantly actually the poor laboring class

that are brought in and treated horrifically

like indentured servants effectively.

And so, if the wealthy foreigners,

I'm going to find some other destination for my money

that's not getting bombed.

How about that?

If they leave, then you have an economic collapse.

And by the way, the indentured servant class

who are there driving the taxis

and doing the door dash and all that sort of stuff,

you think there aren't other places in the world

they might prefer to go also that isn't getting bombed.

And by the way, if the economy collapses there,

there may not be so much work for them there anyway.

Like, you're talking about a very precarious system here.

And you know, again,

I come back to that photo that, you know,

I don't know if it's real or not,

but I do know the video of the service member

who got picked up and the local coities are like,

ah, he's American, just leave him.

There were, we've got video also of the Bahrainis

who were celebrating as they're watching their own country

get bombed by Iran because it's, you know,

US assets that are being hit.

Like, that's what we're talking about here in the region.

Just like here, the view of the leaders do not necessarily

represent the view of the public.

And, you know, we've had to sort of pressure

and control the Europeans to go along with this at all.

They're all issuing statements at the top

that are like supportive in general,

but they're not exactly, they weren't excited

about this fight either and their populations

are gonna be even more opposed to it.

And they're the ones who are facing 50% spike in LNG prices

right now, like, ah, I guess we're gonna have to buy more

from Russia at whatever prices is on offer there.

So, no, I mean, it's, it's, it's unbelievable.

It is absolutely unbelievable.

And these are just, like, we're in the early days here, guys.

We're just seeing the rough edges of what is going to,

to come to pass, you know, in Pakistan alone.

It wasn't just that one incident at the embassy.

There have been 30 for this, according to Dropsite.

35 people killed in Pakistan,

amid protests over US-Israeli attacks on Iran.

At least 35 civilians have been killed across Pakistan

after protests erupted, denouncing the joint US-Israeli

strikes on neighboring Iran that also killed

Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

The death toll was 16 people in Karachi, seven in,

I'm gonna screw up these names, Giljit,

six in Skardu, six in Islamabad,

according to local journalists.

And local journalists are claiming that it was not just

local police that killed the ones at the,

the protesters at the embassy,

that marine security guards were also involved in that.

So, I don't know whether that's true or not,

but that is what's being reported locally.

Yeah, I mean, exactly.

We're not exactly sure what's happened.

I've looked for the marine stack,

because it would be insane, dude.

It's a US marine open fire on a crowd.

Hasn't been any confirmation.

The Pakistanis were saying various different things

that were out of their mouth.

But regardless, it's bad, right?

I mean, what you're watching is a heightened alert

and think about this, too.

You know how many, I don't even wanna know the number

of American citizens who are stuck

in Dubai International Airport

or Doha International Airport or Abu Dhabi's Airport.

I mean, you do know how many people fly

from here to Asia via the Gulf,

tens of thousands of people, probably per day,

that are moving through the country.

Just think about that entire choke point

where all of these people are now stuck.

When I lived in Qatar,

you couldn't even like throw a,

this was 2008, you couldn't even throw a brick

without hitting another American citizen

or somebody from the UK.

Dubai is even more British and American, right?

And foreign, they're even where I was.

The expats are everywhere.

They're all over Jordan.

There are, I mean, anywhere where there's oil

in the UAE, all of these people, their lives,

I mean, they're probably, they're gone, right?

They're gonna be selling their houses and their cars.

Within a year, I don't think any of them

are gonna keep living there.

This has dramatically shifted that.

The blowback section, too, I think is really important

just to consider.

And look, I wasn't even talking about Iranian sleep,

although again, I still think it's weird,

the circumstances of all of this.

It's still bad if it's just like a quote-unquote

lone wolf attack, which you could easily expect

as a result of this, right?

Especially with the population and all these people

that we have in the country.

We have no idea in some cases who any of these people are.

And you've got that, and then you've got

the international situation.

Every US base is now on a heightened alert.

We've got confrontations with Turkey,

which is a NATO ally.

I mean, there are Americans who live all over the world