The war is suddenly much more dangerous as gas prices explode

Are we heading to boots on the ground in Iran?

A number of senators were briefed yesterday and they think so.

And we will discuss that.

We will also hear from Donald Trump's press secretary

who continues to refuse to rule out boots on the ground.

And then a critical mistake involving Ukraine, Russia, and drones

that is now wreaking complete and total havoc in Iran.

What's the connection?

I'll explain it.

Democrats have flipped their 10th

straight special election seat.

And Joe Rogan says Trump supporters are right to feel betrayed now,

but he's still saying completely wacky ridiculous stuff about vaccines.

Here's one.

The more you get vaccinated against COVID, the more you get COVID.

That doesn't sound quite right to me, but we will talk about it.

And the orange president, the mango menace agent orange,

call him what you want, completely out of control on truth social

as everything is collapsing around him.

We will discuss all of it and more.

Plus Senator Mark Warner will join us to talk about what he is seeing coming up

as far as the economy if the Iran situation continues.

All of that and more today.

Well, ladies and gentlemen,

are you ready for boots on the ground, troops on the ground in Iran?

Would you be okay if you were to get drafted?

Would you be okay if your kids were to be sent to Iran to fight this war

that doesn't really make any sense appears to be illegal?

And was something that prior presidents had the option to do,

Obama could have done it, Biden could have done it.

We could go back and George W Bush could have done it.

We had the firepower, we had the military intelligence, we had the resources,

but they opted not to do what Donald Trump has done.

What's more likely that all of those other presidents were stupid

and Trump is just a brilliant genius that figured out this is a good idea.

Or is it that Trump is extremely gullible and baited by strong men and charismatic

authoritarians and therefore he's the end that the one who ended up going into Iran?

Well, as Caroline Levitt continues not to take boots on the ground off the table,

we now have heard from a number of senators, including Senator Blumenthal,

about a classified briefing that took place yesterday with regard to Iran.

Elizabeth Warren was in that briefing.

She came out and said, I am distraught by what I saw in there.

My characterization, my paraphrasing, it looks like this is an administration that wants to get

into a broader ground war in Iran.

And Senator Blumenthal said that he came out extremely disturbed

that it seems as though the administration wants a ground war.

Let's listen to what Senator Blumenthal said, then we will discuss.

I emerge from this briefing as dissatisfied and angry, frankly,

as I have from any past briefing in my 15 years in the Senate.

I am left with more questions than answers, especially about the cost of the war.

My questions have been unanswered.

And I will demand answers because the American people deserve to know.

And I guess I am most concerned about the threat to American lives

of potentially deploying our sons and daughters on the ground in Iran,

seem to be on a path toward deploying American troops on the ground in Iran

to accomplish any of the potential objectives here.

And there is also, as disturbingly as anything else,

the specter of active Russian aid to Iran putting in danger American lives.

Literally, Russia seems to be aiding our enemy,

actively and intensively with intelligence and perhaps with other means.

And China also may be assisting Iran.

I got to tell you, Blumenthal looks pretty good for 80 years old, but that's not really the

point of this discussion. When senators go in for a briefing about what is happening and what

is going to happen in Iran, an optional war which was started without any congressional approval.

And they sound this worried that we are going towards boots on the ground.

Everybody should pay attention. And no matter who you voted for, maybe you voted for

Trump, maybe you voted for Kamala Harris, maybe you didn't vote at all. No matter what your voting

history is, you should be asking yourself, is this a battle worth sacrificing American lives for?

Knowingly, even just with the air war and what's been taking place so far,

we have lost American service members and Trump, as well as Pete Hegseth and others have said,

we are going to lose more Americans. It's just a reality. Is this a worthwhile sacrifice?

And for what, as we see gas prices now up 32% over the last few months, I'll get back to that in

more detail. And we question what even are the goals? Because all of the ones that have been

mentioned, we are not achieving so far, even though Donald Trump says that it is basically complete

as far as achieving our goals is concerned. We also need to consider, or maybe I'll say it a

different way, the key point is not that anything was announced about sending troops to fight a

ground war in Iran. That lawmakers came out sounding as though that's where they expect the

administration to go. While Donald Trump has said the primary objectives are complete,

should terrify everybody because it means Trump is either clueless or lying about the war,

either one is a problem. And every indication is that this administration is not presenting

the truth of what's going on, or they simply don't understand what it is that's going on. Now,

at the same time that this briefing was going on, this is so, it's, it's wild. The briefing is

going on and senators are coming out going, damn, it looks like the administration wants to fight

a ground war. Meanwhile, Caroline Levitt is saying the president is not ruling that out. So so far,

everything is building up a picture of this is going to be far more than just some airstrikes.

As for boots on the ground, the president has talked about this repeatedly, wisely. He does not

rule options out as commander in chief. So again, I would hesitate to confirm anything that a

Democrat on Capitol Hill says right now about the president's thinking. Expect sudden diagnoses

of bone spurs to go through the roof. If indeed it looks like we are getting closer and closer

to that sort of ground deployment. So what's going on here is that the White House is kind of laying

the groundwork for a bigger war with Iran without formally admitting it. And behind closed doors,

briefings with senators, they are painting a picture that certainly suggests a willingness

and maybe even an interest in a ground war. Publicly, the White House press secretary continues

to insist we would never take that off the table. Trump is not going to take that off the table.

We didn't hear no boots on the ground. We didn't hear any of that other than we don't rule

options out. Donald Trump is keeping all options on the table. And I think that that's maybe the

most important part of the clip. If you understand how slow escalation works, the message goes from

no one's talking about boots on the ground to that's not an option we would take off the table to

and this is now forward looking. We're not at the point where we're ready to commit ground troops

yet to it's looking like we may need to and it's slowly builds over time. And once a White House

starts keeping this on the table for a while, the longer this goes and the longer boots on the

ground stays on the table, the more we are getting closer and closer to some kind of full-scale

military operation and ground war. And so I'm not here to tell you, hey, ground war confirmed.

That's not where we are. The headline is massive warning signs piling up and it is impossible

to ignore. Does Donald Trump care about the human cost? I don't think so. Does Donald Trump

primarily concerned with himself with legacy and how he is perceived and liked or disliked? Yes.

And on a political level, this is substantively dangerous even before any kind of formal troop

announcement. So if you've got sons and daughters that could be deployed and you voted Trump,

I want to hear from you. Does this all sound worth it to you? We have just learned of a critical

mistake that the Trump White House made. It relates to Iran, but it is also about Ukraine and

Russia and it relates to drones. Let me explain what's going on. We recently learned that a few

months ago, Ukraine came to the White House and they said, listen, we have a battlefield-tested

answer to the drone problem that now the United States is struggling with in Iran and apparently

Donald Trump's team did nothing about it. It's sort of like, hey, warning about pandemics

maybe will disband the pandemic response team rather than listen to them. So let me explain

this. There's a reason that Ukraine may be saying, what's the connection between Iranian drone

warfare and Ukraine? Ukraine has spent years fighting against Iranian-designed drones because Russia

started using the same basic systems against them. Putin invaded Ukraine years ago. They've been

using the same technology that we are now fighting against in Iran. So Ukraine came to Trump

with firsthand knowledge. This wasn't theory. This wasn't hypothetical. They've been fighting it

for years. And according to the reporting, Zelensky's team showed up and they brought a presentation

to the White House months ago and said, hey, we are aware and have low-cost interceptor drone technology.

We have air defense ideas. We have sensor systems that we have tested successfully.

Trump was reportedly interested enough to say to his team, work on it and no follow-through ever

happened. And so now we have a situation where, as we've been talking about, Iran has the

lower-cost capability of continuing this war with the drones. The United States military is

struggling with the asymmetry of how to fight these relatively inexpensive drones with our very

expensive equipment. And we have no idea what to do. But Ukraine came to the White House and said,

hey, we do have an idea what to do. And we now are hearing from U.S. officials willing to speak

off the record, including to Axios, that this was a tactical mistake. Before the Iran war,

it would have been a brilliant thing to understand these systems and know how to fight against them.

Now, again, I want to just interject here. This has nothing to do with whether we should have

gone into Iran. This has nothing to do with whether Trump had congressional authorization to do this.

He didn't. This has nothing to do with whether the goal of regime change is even plausible,

given that the regime has already appointed the son of the Ayatollah to be the new Supreme Leader.

I'm just saying that just merely on a strategy, if you were going to do this,

the exact drone technology that Ukraine warned us about and said we can help you with

has become a problem today for the United States. They fly low. They move slowly. They're hard to

detect. And we're using expensive interceptors against these cheap targets. And so we had an

opportunity. And if you're saying, well, David, why do I care about this? Well, you care about it

because it is your tax money that now is being wasted at a faster clip than it otherwise would

have been if we had listened to what the Ukrainians had to tell us. It is Americans who now are at

risk of being killed if this escalates as a result in part of our inability to deal with these

cheap, not Ukrainian, Iranian drones. And so this starts as kind of a military mistake.

But then part of it is ego, part of it is politics, part of it is about competence or lack

thereof. And Trump world has mostly treated Ukraine as an irritating thing rather than listening

to people who actually know what's going on and could have provided important information. And

we know Trump is irritated with Zelensky. He finds the entire thing irritating. Now the bigger

humiliation is the irony, which is that Ukraine, which Trump and parts of his movement often

dismissed. They go, oh, these Ukrainians are so annoying and they should just settle and give

Putin some land and whatever. It seems as though the Ukrainians better understood the threat

from the Iranian drone program than Trump himself did, who seems regularly surprised by what's

going on. So clean takeaway here, critical error by Trump in the White House. They let ideology and

attitude override basic military common sense. The Ukrainians knew how to deal with the drones.

They offered to give the information to the United States. Trump said do it and then nobody did

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signs up on my website, Alex Jones sheds one more tier. And that is, I mean, listen, I can't say I

hate it. That's for sure. Gas prices have exploded 32% over the last few months. I want to remind you,

Donald Trump campaigned on lower prices, lower costs, instant relief for working people on

energy, on groceries, on chachkis, knickknacks and souvenirs. Everything was going to be cheaper.

And instead, we now are seeing gas prices jump at a speed that we have not seen for a really,

really long time. Gas prices are now up. Look at this. 32% from their low just a few months ago,

they bottomed out mid January at $2.73 a gallon. We are now at 360 per gallon. That is a 32%

increase. And gas prices are up 70 cents per gallon in a few days. The fertilization president,

has not really turned out to be that. And the affordability president has certainly not turned out

to be that. Now, I don't know if you would call this ironic or whether you would call it just

desserts, but some of the biggest gas price increases are having in Trump's supporting states.

Georgia is seeing a massive explosion there. Indiana has seen gas prices skyrocket, West Virginia,

the Trump loving state of West Virginia. And Trump's core promise, which is I will make life cheaper

for you. We will make America affordable again. Exactly. We will make America safe again. Exactly.

None of it is really actually America is getting safer, but it has nothing to do with Trump.

Crime rates have just been declining for 30 years, but that's a different story. If Trump hadn't

made these promises about affordability, the gas price spike would be less of a political liability.

I've explained to you before that even moderate gas price changes don't change that much for most

people in the immediate as far as the cost of gas is concerned. If you draw, I think the average

that Americans drive is like 800 miles a month or something like that. If you average in people

who drive very, very little and people who drive a lot, I think it's something like 800 miles a

month, but I may be misremembering. If gas prices go up 50 cents a gallon for the average vehicle

and the average 800 miles per month of driving, it's not that big of a change, but there's two

problems. One, over time, if you have sustained higher gas prices, everything gets more expensive

because most of our stuff is shipped via means that use oil-based petroleum-based fuels for

transportation. That's number one. And number two is that Trump promised. But you promised,

he promised that everything including gas prices would get cheaper. Now, the first reaction from

the White House was to say, this is going to be a small and temporary increase in gas prices.

Later, it'll be cheaper. Electricity will be cheaper. Oil will be cheaper. Gas will be cheaper.

But as they've continued to say that, the prices just go up and up and up.

And so that's a pretty bad message when voters are going to the gas pumps and paying more

every single day that they fill up for the last two weeks. Reuters is also reporting that rising

gasoline prices are going to push February inflation numbers up. So when you look at the broader

inflation numbers, you also have to consider Trump is raising the overall inflation rate.

And what most analysts are predicting is that gas prices will settle around 370 a gallon.

That means we've got 10 more cents to go. Again, we're at 360 a gallon right now.

This is not for premium. I was just looking at the other day of the gas station

where I was getting getting my car inspected. I have an EV so I don't go around filling my gas pump.

But still, I look at the prices. We had a premium in the $5 range. But this is this is regular gas

at 360 right now. Analysts are saying expected to go to 370. And then even if Trump backs off

of this entire Iran war, gas prices are going to stay elevated for a period of time. So the point

is Trump sold voters. I'm going to bring you lower costs and he's not doing it. Now a couple of

things Trump could do. He's already tried the first one. Say it's temporary prices are going to

come down quickly. Analysts say that's not going to happen. Second, deescalate the conflict.

Actually do something geopolitically that will bring oil prices down and eventually bring gas

prices down. Well, it seems like he's leaning on that. Trump could release reserves from the

strategic petroleum reserve. This is believed to provide about 15 cents a gallon of relief

temporarily. Trump could blame Biden or Iran or Obama, which I don't know that people will buy

at this point in time or Trump could try to get prices to decline elsewhere to bring down the

overall price level. But that seems very difficult right now. The real problem is that Trump made

promises. He couldn't keep. He wrote checks that couldn't be cashed. And now all of the options

quite frankly make him look either weak or wrong or desperate or all three. All three things

that Donald Trump really doesn't want to get tagged with. Caroline Levitt had a tough day yesterday.

It was a really tough one for Caroline Levitt. She was going to have to tell extra lies. So she

wore an extra big cross necklace. The bigger the necklace, the more lies I expect Caroline to tell.

And very often it comes true. Caroline was asked, why did Trump claim that Iran bombed their

own school with a Tomahawk missile? We don't even believe they have when no one else believes

that to be the case. Listen to Caroline's answer. This is a classic. Why did President Trump say yesterday

that Iran may have he have Tomahawk missiles when there are only three other US allies plus the US

that have those missiles. Again, President said yesterday he will accept the conclusion of this

investigation by the Department of War. I know there's been a lot of speculation in the media about

who may be responsible for this. We're not going to get ahead of the Department of War and the

conclusion of that investigation. The president has a right to share his opinions with the American

public, but he has said he'll. That's the trick right there. That is they love doing this.

They go, Trump has every right to speak. Caroline, nobody was asking about rights. There was an

example of this with Trump when Trump has been asked previously, hey, are you, are you considering

pardoning Jelaine Maxwell? And Trump goes, I have every right to do it. And of course, our reaction is

nobody's questioning that. We're asking you whether you're going to do it because having the

right to do it doesn't really mean anything, but doing it would raise a major red flag. And it's

the same. These people are like clockwork. Why did Trump make something up absent any evidence?

Trump has every right to give his opinion. Yeah, no, we're not questioning his right to do it.

We're questioning the prudence of doing it. Oh, but he is the right to do it. Not about rights,

Caroline. It's simply not about rights. Next reporter, again, this was a really rough one for

Caroline Levin. Caroline Levin was asked, why did Trump do this based on his feeling of what was

going to happen? And Caroline Levin goes, well, his feelings were based on facts. And I get back

to the oval office after this. The president said yesterday for the first time that he had to strike

Iran because he believes that Iran was going to strike US targets within seven days. And then he

then bumped that down later to three days. Where is he getting that? Well, that's not the first time

the president has said that he chose to launch Operation Epic Theory because he felt as though

Iran was going to strike the United States in our assets in the region first. Again, I

addressed this in the last briefing. This was a feeling the president had based on facts.

Facts provided to him by his top negotiators who had been engaged with the Iranian regime in a good

faith effort. The Iranian regime was lying, deceiving the United States of America,

clearly trying to continue their nuclear program to create a bomb that would of course threaten

the United States of America. Again, their ballistic missile arsenal, they were rapidly and

aggressively increasing that by the month to a place where they would essentially build immunity

for themselves where a future president or president Trump would not be able to launch this

incredibly successful operation. And so the president, again, as I have reiterated and he has said

was not going to sit back and allow the Iranian regime to threaten or to attack the United

States of America any longer. But there are no U.S. leaders or Israeli leaders who are making

those same claims. So is he making this up to justify his decision to go to war now? The president

is not making anything up, Nancy. He is looking at this every single day based on intelligence,

based on facts and based on intelligence that he himself and his negotiators have

consumed based on their, again, negotiations with the rogue Iranian regime over the past year.

And the president and his team tried in a good faith way to reach a diplomatic deal through

peaceful means with the Iranian regime and Iran shows this path to death. All right, I think you

get the point. The funny part is none of these supposed facts about the immanence of attacks or

the rebuilding of nuclear. None of those facts are actually supported as facts by experts who

increasingly are saying none of the justifications make sense. Number one and Caroline's claim that

all of the goals have been substantially achieved is also untrue. If the goal was to destroy the

supposedly rebuilt nuclear capabilities, we have no reason to believe that that has taken place.

If the goal was to achieve regime change and get away from the

Iatola's family from being in control, well, that didn't happen because they have appointed

the son of the Iatola, the Iatola who was killed. The Iatola's son has been appointed

the new Supreme Leader. So that didn't happen to destroy their missile capability. That reporter

that hasn't happened. What is she talking about when she says that the objectives have been

substantially achieved? That doesn't make any sense. Now on a different topic, Caroline Levitt

was asked about the Save Act. The Save Act would be extraordinarily oppressive when it comes to

voting rights. And one of the things that seems to be acknowledged by Caroline Levitt here

is that while she denies that the Save Act would make voting more difficult for married women,

she actually acknowledges it. Listen carefully to what she says and see if you can pick it up.

And as far as married women who have changed their name, if they're already registered to vote,

they're entirely unaffected by the Save Act and for the small fraction of individuals who

have changed their name or their address, they can still register to vote, of course,

they just have to go through their state processes to update that documentation. And this is

something that the American people married women and minorities and people all across this country

who Democrats are insultingly saying cannot do this. They're already doing it every day,

going to the Social Security Office, going to the DMV. And I think it's frankly insulting that

the Democrats are saying that there are certain groups of people in this country who aren't smart

enough to update their documentation to allow them to vote. No one is arguing that people,

Democrats, women, minorities aren't smart enough to update documents in order to be able to vote.

What we are saying is that number one, many of the underlying documents you need under some

of these voter ID schemes are not free documents. Sure, the voter ID may be free,

but the documents you need in order to register are often not free documents depending on the

state you're in. Number two, you have to go and update your registration. A lot of people

can't take two, three, four, five hours, depending on where you live during normal work hours

to go to the DMV, for example, even if it's free, you're losing wages when you do it. Not everybody

has transportation. The point here is I don't know any people on the left in my space, right?

I sometimes people will email and they go, look, look at this person, this content creator,

if you've never heard of who believes this thing, the mainstream view in the part of the left that

I occupy is not that the problem is inherent to so-called voter IDs or registration or these

schemes. It's that there are a lot of other ways in which they will disenfranchise people,

even by forcing people to lose wages or pay for documents they need in order to justify the

ID, et cetera. The ID itself is not really the problem, the implementation, and the whole point

of it is. And of course, if Republicans didn't believe that this stuff would help them win,

they wouldn't be doing it. They wouldn't waste their time on something they believe would be bad

or even neutral for them. They know it will be good for them. Finally, Caroline Levitt asked,

we are getting a report that 150 US service members have been injured so far in Iran. Is that

true? And Caroline Levitt goes at sort of in the ballpark. Questions for you today, Alex.

Thank you. Reuters has reported that about 150 US service members have been injured so far. Can you

confirm that number and elaborate on that? I can't confirm the exact number. I know it's within

that ballpark, but I would defer you to the Pentagon for a specific number of wounded or injured

The White House that is providing daily updates about Trump's successes in Iran

simply isn't sure about the exact number of troops who have been injured. Interesting.

What on earth is going on here? Democrats have flipped their 10th consecutive special election.

Maga just lost another one. This is very good news about what we may be approaching in November.

Democrats have flipped another Republican seat. This one's a New Hampshire, a special election.

Bobby Boodman defeated Republican Dale Fincher 52 to 48. Now interestingly, this was a district

that Trump won by nine. This is politically ugly for Republicans. Trump was plus nine.

The Republican is minus four. That is a 13 point swing since November of 2024. Now also

interestingly, Boodman had lost his seat twice before to the Republican incumbent. So this was not

like an obvious democratic pickup on paper. This was a competitive race and especially with Trump

having won this district by nine and Boodman haven't taken some losses in the past.

This was a completely plausible race for the Republican to win in the Democrat to lose.

But Republicans realized this isn't looking so good. They started massive dumps of money into the race.

And they saw a whole bunch of money raised by the Republican Dale Fincher from outside groups,

outside groups spent extra money on their own. Republicans tried to get help from major players.

They sucked in the Republican state leadership committee, Americans for prosperity, the Koch

network group, and the winner Boodman ultimately raised only about $12,000 had no outside support

and still won. And so on a sort of individual level, this is pretty embarrassing for Republicans.

But the bigger picture level is what this means for November as Democrats are just continuing to

flip these special elections. Now one of the main sort of issues in this race was school vouchers.

Boodman opposed school vouchers and the Republican Fincher wanted something called the education

freedom accounts of New Hampshire, which are essentially vouchers. And that seemed to be a relevant

issue. The Republican only recently moved into the district had to run as a right in candidate.

So there are definitely some things here that would make us say, well, I don't know that the full

13 point swing represents the true change and the will of the voters. But you can't deny the numbers.

10th straight special election flip for Democrats since Trump's second term began. Republicans have

flipped zero Democratic seats during that same period of time. So if you just look at that,

it is a disaster for the Republican party. And the real story as I look at this is that Democrats

are overperforming in actual elections and Republicans are getting rejected by real voters time

and time and time again. So can we extrapolate vote by vote point by point to what's going to happen

in November? Of course, we can. Is it possible that Democrats take the house, but by the slimmest

of slim margins completely possible? That's absolutely a possible outcome. Is it also possible that

this is a building blue wave? If we get out there and make it happen and Republicans could lose

40, 50 or even 60 seats in the House of Representatives, 100%. And so if I were Maga,

not that I'm giving them advice, but it's just sort of like reacting to what we're seeing in the

real world. If I were Maga, I would be very skeptical of this message of total dominance that

is being sold to them by people like Donald Trump and Stephen Miller and others, because you have

what they are saying and what they've been saying now for what is it? 17 months or something like

that since Trump won five and yeah, 17 months. For the last 17 months, they've been saying we're

dominating. We're crushing. I have 94% approval rating from Republican says Trump. And then you

look at the election result and you go, Democrats are winning everything. Democrats are taking every

special election. Democrats are flipping red seats in red states and just wait until I tell you

probably tomorrow about what is going on with Marjorie Taylor Green's old seat in Georgia.

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description. Is Donald Trump running an illegal war in Iran? What is the actual law? Did Israel

bait, goad or trick Trump into going to war with Iran? What is happening behind the scenes in the

sense of are there any things that democratic senators can do to try to restrain Trump's power here

and how higher gas price is going to go? I spoke to democratic senator Mark Warner about all of that

and much more. Now we will be speaking with senator Mark Warner representing the state of

Virginia. Senator really appreciate the opportunity to speak with you. We're in the middle of a number

of calamities. One being what appears to be Schrodinger's war. It is and it is not a war. It is over

but it is also just ramping up depending on whether you listen to the president or to the secretary

of defense. Can you tell me just a little bit about what you and your colleagues kind of believe

deep down about how long this is all going to last? David first of all thank you for having me

on and appreciate what you do to help get the word out. Let's start with the fact that this is a war

of choice. I'm the ranking member on the intelligence committee. I remember the gang of eight. If there was

any imminent threat to America from Iran, I would know it. There was not and there was not even

an imminent threat to Israel over the longer term. The rise of Iranian ballistic missiles

but this was didn't have to happen at this moment in time particularly when there was still some

option around diplomacy. That would be the first one. So the president because the Israelis

are going to move decided to go ahead and attack first with the Israelis and what's been remarkable

is that he can't seem to get a story straight on what the goals of this war is and I know

that first they tried to deny it was a war they don't he uses the word term war all the time

himself but it was I wasn't going to be regime change. Well that's obviously not going to happen

since the Iranian picked a new supreme leader who was more conservative than the former supreme

leader and the new guy. It was the son of the supreme leader at the Americans have killed his

father his wife and his child so not a lot of opportunity there. Then the goal was to try to get rid

of the Iranian nuclear capabilities which the president claimed had been obliterated last June.

There was talk and acknowledgement that we were really going to go after the enriched uranium

it would take troops on the ground. That seems to be kind of not on the table right now so the

ability to really destroy Iran's nuclear capabilities is not going to happen and then on the

ballistic missiles there have been some of those taken out but they still have I can't get into

the numbers or details but they still have a lot of capability there and then they added a fourth

criteria recently about getting rid of the Iranian navy and while many of the major naval

ships that Iran had have been sent. Some they've you know they've still got lots of these small boats

that could really wreak havoc in the streets of Hamuz where all of them the oil goes through.

So on all four of those goals I don't think we're anywhere close to achieving the president's

objectives so we don't know how long this is going to last. I will point out that on Monday afternoon

because I think the president got spooked with the markets going down. It looked to me like he was

almost manipulating the markets by going out and saying hey we're almost done here.

Markets recovered and then once the markets recovered he said you know he kind of went back to him.

No we've still got more to go and even today they're saying you know Hegseth has said this is

going to be the most mighty attack day yet of the conflict and I would just point out as well.

You know Iran still has some cards to play you know they've really not called on their proxies the

who needs to attack yet they've not called on the Shia militia groups in Iraq to attack.

So we are you know you know I don't award with at this point no dependable end unless the president

gets so spooked by the gas prices that he just declares you know unconditional victory and

if that were the case I most feel like Iran might come out stronger than it went into this conflict.

Well that's a very interesting point because I do think there are now reports that people around

Donald Trump are saying you've got to figure out an off ramp here. There was a report that Friday

Susie Wiles was literally running around the White House screaming about gas prices and they're

trying to figure out what to do. It wouldn't surprise me that Trump gets so spooked that he does

declare unconditional victory. I just don't know as you're pointing out that this is necessarily

Trump's escalation to end at this point because there is talk of Iran being able to tolerate you

know Iran is a poorer and less resource country than the United States but they have a sizeable

military and they have the ability if they so choose to tolerate a war of attrition to continue

making life very difficult for the United States. There's talk of sleeper cells which Donald

Trump was asked about recently and he said we're looking into that which to me suggests he doesn't

really know anything about it but it is an area of concern. I don't know that it's even Trump's

place now to decide when this is really over because the Iranians also have a say in that.

Absolutely and again this is where the lack of pre-planning has been astonishing to me you know

if we kind of the sense this was a war of choice and we knew when the Israelis were going so we

were going why we didn't do a better job of getting our personnel out of the region not only a

diplomatic and you know intel agencies but just the American tourists who were transiting through

the region you know we're behind most of the European countries and getting our our nationals out

that's gotten a little bit better but boy people were I got an awful lot of calls from pretty scared

Virginians for a number of days about how do we get out of this war zone obviously we didn't

pre-cut why are this with most of our European allies and then you know when they started asking

questions you know the President has struck out about against the UK for example

because the UK was actually trying to follow their own laws that they couldn't participate until

there was a you know some strike against them they had participated now since the strike against

Cyprus there seems to be a lack of understanding amongst those allies you know the Gulf allies

I think it depends upon the country but many of them are in a vulnerable position right now and

you did raise the issue of whether we call sleeper cells or cyber attacks Iran's got a pretty

capable cyber capability and whether there are quite a quote sleeper cells I want I don't want to

get into but you could see Iranian-inspired individuals in America saying all right we're going

to take action on our own and unfortunately this administration particularly with cash patrol and

FBI has degraded and gotten rid of so many of the senior people around counterterrorism can

arrest be a nudge I don't think anybody who's an expert in this field would say on those fields

that we are safer now than we were say a year ago I'm generally pretty skeptical of claims

that the Trump administration has done a to distract from B or B to distract from C partially

because I just don't think that they're that capable and well coordinated but it is true that

since the start of this Iran war the number of Google searches related to the Epstein files

have dropped dramatically and so I'm not suggesting that this was a proactive campaign

but it does seem to be the case that a lot of attention has kind of gone away from that topic

what's your sense of where that issue stands right now we still haven't gotten the full

unredacted files etc I still do not understand why

this these files are still dribbling out why the FBI I'm sorry the Justice Department

has not followed the law other than the fact that you are senior people at DOJ trying to slow

this process down I would I would say though that you know while there are a lot of legitimate

questions still around the Epstein files the idea of going to war and driving up gas prices on

average 47 cents a gallon so Americans are paying 125 million dollars a day more out of their

pockets to buy gasoline that's a that's a pretty wild you know wag the dog counter fairy because

I'm not sure that puts Trump overall in a better position no no I agree with you what is your

sense with regard to the oil and gas prices you know I often for over a decade I've been telling

my audience presidents have relatively little influence over gas prices a lot of this has to do

with global supply issues black swan type events etc one of the things presidents can do is declare

a gas tax holiday which will temporarily make gas a little cheaper they can dig into the strategic

petroleum reserve or the third one is they can get into a military conflict with a nation that is

either a big oil producer or controls supply what is your sense now of the trajectory of oil and gas

which is already affecting so many people as you said an extra 125 million a day total

is that the the factor that may get the White House to do a 180 I think is I think your comments are

accurate about the president's team freaking out about gas prices I think back to you know

when we had high gas prices and President Biden was a little bit kind of the twitching between

this is where Americans see the most and when you see such a dramatic increase in such a short

period of time I almost felt bad for Chris Wright the energy secretary I was on a Sunday show with

him and he was trying to say hey no problem here yeah which you couldn't pass the smell test

I'm worried on a couple of fronts you know the only country that is directly benefiting

from this war on on oil so far is Putin and Russia you know the administration has even given

relief to allow more oil sales to India this fills up Putin's coffers while the Ukrainians were

actually you know not getting a lot of reporting but we're taking out so many Russian troops

that the not saying the balance it flipped but the Ukrainians are more than holding their own so

giving a lot more money to Vladimir Putin isn't an America's interest and I don't think even if

there was a cessation of hostilities that you're going to see the gas prices go down anywhere

back to where they were two weeks ago and the idea that the president said well maybe this is a

chance for Venezuela oil to come up and that will be a new supply source I mean the Venezuela oil

infrastructure was so degraded that it'll take at least a couple of years and even then many

of the oil companies are reluctant to go and go back into Venezuela and you know there have been

I don't think we know enough to know you know with the president some of the strikes on the

Iranian oil facilities how much of that supply could be cut back and you know the just uneas that

are still going to remain after the conflict particularly if Iran's regime is still there the uneas

that will be coming out of Saudi be coming out of you know Bakarang being coming out of the

Emirates you know are they going to go back to full production and and you know even if the

straits are most reopened will they reopen at the same flow and won't there have to be additional

protections and the idea that again the president and others have said that you could escort

ships through I'm not a naval expert but that's a pretty narrow straight and if the

Iranian still have at least all of these kind of small and mid-sized speedboats that could at

least harass those tankers again that's not a good sign so I think we're going to see you know

is it even if the conflict the fighting part comes to an end and Iran's still there I don't think

you see oil you know hate to say you know it's still going to be probably north of 80 bucks north

of 75 bucks a barrel and that'll be passed on to American consumers when it comes to the question

of Israel's role in this you know my perspective has been I'm a very big supporter of Israel

existing and I am a very big critic of the Netanyahu administration what do you make right now

or what's your best assessment of the degree to which Netanyahu go did baited or forced use

whichever word you believe is appropriate Donald Trump into getting involved in this and for

context we looked at a secretary Blinken's comments that there were attempts to pull president

Obama into something similar but he understood what the point was and resisted there were attempts

to pull president Biden into something similar it seems in a sense Trump fell for it

I am also a very strong supporter of Israel and I've been criticized by someone in the democratic

party for being such strong support I do feel you know the cover 7 the tap was awful and I do

think there is a rise of anti-Semitism in American around the world but I also think when Americans

are being put in harm's way that we should not be in any way outsourcing our foreign policy

decisions to any other government any other ally anywhere and I worry that

this the current Israeli administration along with some allies in Congress just

beat on him beat on him beat on him and I fear that they may have made the the argument hey

Mr. President look how easy it was in Venezuela look how easy it was with your

strike against the Iranian nuclear facilities which again the president claimed that it

obliterated those facilities obviously not that I can't say but the idea that he could have been

convinced this was going to be an easy in and out operation you know has a ring of truth to it

it seems the theme is and I'll let you go after this that Trump is very manipulatable by people

who he sees as strong in the sense of you know think back to Putin in Helsinki where Trump

Trump comes out and he says forget about what our own intelligence agency said Putin denied hacking

very strongly and I believe him and then the Kim Jong Un summit where Kim Jong Un makes the same

promises that North Korean leaders have been making and not sticking to for decades and Trump

goes look at these great promises he just gave me and he believes it it seems that that's the theme

here yeah and it's he obviously is attracted to strong men he thinks of himself as a strong

way of theory you know he seems to have a huge affection for authoritarian leaders and it's not

uncommon knowledge here in DC that you know the way to influence Donald Trump is be the last

person to talk to him before he makes a decision or before he goes on TV yes and whoever's the

last person in his ear ends up those words coming out of his mouth that's not the way that we

ought to be running our country or shirts heck should not be the way we should be running our

foreign policy when we now are up to eight American service members who've been killed in this conflict

and even with the president and hexf's own predictions unfortunately the high probability of

more to come Senator Mark Warner Democratic Senator from Virginia thanks for your time today

I really appreciate it David thank you as well.

You need only look at Donald Trump's truth social page where he has been losing his mind and

suffering meltdown after meltdown after meltdown because so much is crumbling around him and much of

it has to do with this failed incursion into Iran a war of choice that Donald Trump started let's

take a look at some of his posts from the last few hours Donald Trump posting quote if Iran has put

out any minds in the hormones straight and we have no reports of them doing so we want them

removed immediately if for any reason minds were placed and they are not removed forthwith

the military consequences to Iran will be at a level never seen before if on the other hand they

remove what may have been placed it will be a giant step in the right direction additionally we

are using the same technology capital T technology and capital M missile capabilities deployed against

drug traffickers to permanently eliminate any boat or ship ship attempting to mine the

hormones straight they will be dealt with quickly and violently beware there's a lot of if Iran

has done this that or the other thing and the growing takeaways that Trump has no idea what's

going on there and quite frankly I don't think Trump cares Trump has run a lot of this war from

Florida from his various golf courses in Florida to the extent that he's running anything at all

and you'll remember when the decision was made to start this war it was JD Vance in Washington DC

in the situation room and Trump just playing quite literally playing golf in Florida and

then announcing a war and then playing golf in Florida and DJing and the Mar-a-Lago ballroom or

whatever and a lot of ifs and ands which suggests Trump doesn't really know what's going on another

example Trump posting quote if Iran does anything that stops the flow of oil within the

state of her moves they will be hit by the United States of America 20 times harder than they

have been hit thus far additionally we will take out easily destroyable targets that will make

it virtually impossible for Iran to ever be built back as a nation again death fire and fury

will rain upon them but I hope and pray that it does not happen this is a gift from the United

States of America to China and all of those nations that heavily use the Hormuz straight hopefully

it is a gesture that will be greatly appreciated thank you for your attention to this matter yeah

why hasn't China said thank you to President Trump and again we've spoken with Ruth Ben Giot

about the obsession that authoritarians have with being thanked have I been appreciated

enough today for everything I've done for people most important element to this the number of ifs

on these posts that suggest Trump doesn't really know what's going on completely off the charts

now meanwhile after saying we don't know whether Iran did or didn't put any minds or whatever

Trump posts the following quote I am pleased to report that within the last few hours we have hit

and completely destroyed ten inactive mine laying boats and ships with more to follow inactive

so wait a second first it's I don't think they've placed any minds but if they did there's going

to be hell to pay then it's hey you know what I guess they did because we just destroyed some

mine laying boats but they were inactive so were they laying minds or weren't they what did you

just destroy do you have any idea whatsoever I don't think he does and then shifting gears

completely to energy where I believe that this is the prototypical example of being penny wise

and pound foolish Trump saying quote America that's my emphasis America is returning to real

energy dominance today I am proud to announce that America first refining is opening the first

new US oil refinery in 50 years in Brownsville Texas Trump calls it a massive win for American workers

he thanks partners and he says that this will fuel US markets strengthen our national security boost

American energy production blah blah blah we are dominant et cetera this is really an example

of missing the forest for the trees it's like a you're in a sinking boat and you're trying to

empty it out with a thimble it's being penny wise and pound foolish Trump's hair brain decision

to go into Iran has now seen gas prices spike 32% from their lows just three months a two months

ago and then Trump's going we're opening one refinery open the refinery I think we should be

moving away from fossil fuels regardless but open the refinery but the idea that that's going to

take away attention from or even counter act what you are doing to the gas and oil markets with

the war is laughable and then finally Trump asserting some insults quote I predict that

representative Thomas massi will go down as the worst Republican congressman in the long and

fabled history of the United States Congress even worse than crazy Liz Cheney cry in Adam

Kinzinger and Marjorie trader brown remember green turns to brown under stress they are all

misfits and losers but massi who is running against a great American patriot in the Kentucky primary

will hopefully lose big I love Kentucky president DJT loyalty as the only currency the most important

reminder about how Donald Trump operates and he knows a lot of this stuff is going south on the

bonus show today taloriko polling really well in Texas lawmakers trying to lower housing prices

and much more I'll see you then