Trump’s “War of Choice” is Causing Chaos and Danger (ft. Sen. Mark Warner)

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Do you anticipate ground forces entering a ronson?

It's clearly not off the table.

We got about 6,000 troops in transit.

We're starting to come.

My gut is, and I have no intelligence on this, that's a tough neck to crack.

Welcome to Raging Modern, Tom Scott Galloway.

My co-host, Jess Tarlov is off today, but we're fortunate to be joined by Senator Mark

Warner, who has represented this state of Virginia since 2009 and serves as vice chair

of the Senate Intelligence Committee.

Senator Warner, really appreciate you taking the time to be with us and what must be a very

intense time for you.

Well Scott, thank you so much for having me, and it's pretty freaking intense.

All right, so let's bust into it.

Obviously, we're following the latest in Iran.

Reports are coming this morning that Iran has used drones and missiles on a U.S. base

in Kuwait, while Israel is claiming to have killed a key IRGC naval commander who

have been instrumental in shutting down the straits of her mose.

Trump is trying to put pressure on Tehran publicly to accept a U.S. authored 15 point

peace plan, which Iran seems to have squarely rejected, claiming through their foreign

minister that no negotiations are underway, and now we're hearing that many of your colleagues

in Congress are growing increasingly frustrated with the administration's handling of the

war, including Republicans who'd previously given Trump lots of leeway.

Senator, how do you feel about how the war in Iran is being prosecuted, and what can

you tell us about the latest you're hearing?

The first of all, let's all acknowledge that the Iranian regime had been bad guys for

47 years, but when President Trump decided to start this war, this was a war of choice,

there was no imminent threat to America.

You'd have thought he would have put the right kind of plan together.

He acts like he was surprised that Iran closed the strait of her mose.

He acts like he was surprised that they were hitting our Gulf allies.

That was totally predictable.

And he started this war of choice without coming to Congress, without going to the American

people.

And he took him a week to say his goal, first goal was going to be regime change, second

was getting rid of the in-rich uranium, third was getting rid of their missile capability,

fourth was getting rid of their navy, none of those had been accomplished.

We've actually got a worse, more hard line regime than before.

In terms of the in-rich uranium, the only way you get that out would be boots on the

ground, minimum of 10,000 folks to guard the perimeter, go down into these bunkers, get

this highly volatile in-rich uranium and take it out all while the Iranians we shoot

nettles.

We have gotten rid of some of their missiles, may still got more, but why didn't the whole

didn't we process that we should have taken the offer from the Ukrainians way back in

December that said, hey, we'll give you all our drone technology, which is very effective.

Instead, we've spent the first four weeks using generally $2.4 million missiles to shoot

down $50,000 Iranian drones.

And now we're running out of interceptors.

You start a war, shouldn't you think that through?

And then on the navy, we sunk a lot of the Iranian navy, but they got still 500 little

speedboats.

Literally you put a mine on them or a bomb.

They can keep the straights of our moves close, almost for as long as they want with that

fleet of speedboats that we've not really got even a strategy on how to take out.

So we're a month in, 13 service members killed, billions of cost.

The Iranians, I think, have got this strategy, which again would be predictable that they

don't need to beat American Israel.

They just need to hold on and they can dribble out their supply of missiles.

And since we so overshot our number of interceptors, ultimately our bases like in Kuwait or cities

in Israel are going to become vulnerable because we've used up all our anti-missile defense.

If the president had come to Congress in the Senate Intelligence Committee and said,

I think there's real justification for trying to further neuter their proxies, diminish

their munitions, manufacturing capability, destroy their navy, potentially push what appears

to be a weak regime over the edge.

Do you think there would have been any justification for limited military action?

Would you, would you and potentially other members of Congress have been more supportive or

just supportive?

I would have been open to that.

I would have been particularly open to it.

They'd explain how we're going to execute, but also if Trump had chosen to do this in

January, when literally millions of Iranians were on the street protesting the regime.

The reason we couldn't do it in January is because the aircraft carrier, the Ford that

we normally had in theater, was off the coast of Venezuela.

And the ability for us to rally any kind of allies like the Europeans and they've been

mixed so far.

But if we'd done it in January, when he was threatened in Greenland, we wouldn't even

have a flyover right so we've got now.

So I think he could have made the case.

We would have asked the hard questions.

And I think they would have been required to explain munitions supply.

Are we going to make sure we get our Americans out of the region safely?

I'm not sure we've got the majority, but it would have been the idea that the Iranians

are bad guys.

I think we would all agree and somehow being able to lessen their influence in the region.

I think he could make that case, but it would have been easier in January when the Iranians

were on the streets.

It would have still been a hard march, but it would have been easier if he actually answered

some of these basic questions.

So combat troops en route or arriving amphibious craft being moved to the region.

Do you anticipate ground forces entering Iran soon?

It's clearly not off the table.

We got about 6,000 troops in transit more starting to come.

My gut is, and I have no intelligence on this, is that it would probably not be about

Carg Island where the Iranian energy infrastructure is.

It would probably be trying to go in to get out the thousand pounds of enriched uranium,

but the military planning for that requires at least 10,000 troops to hold the perimeter,

as well as to go into these caves where the enriched uranium is.

And this stuff is really volatile.

The idea that you're going to be carrying out these volatile canisters of enriched uranium.

Well, if we did that, I would expect the Iranians to go ahead and shoot their own missiles

at these bunkers.

And we can end up with a lot of troops literally bury it alive.

So to execute the extraction of the enriched uranium during a war.

And that is a tough neck to crack.

We have a tendency, I think, in the US to amorphously blob the gulf into one entity.

But obviously there's different nations with a different viewpoint, different relationship

with Iran and with the US.

My understanding is the kingdom is actually quite supportive of continuing to engage in

this war.

There's a sense for the players there and what their complexion of viewpoint is about

where we are now with this war.

Well, the kingdom, obviously, in MBS is kind of keeper of the holy shrines in the Muslim

faith.

They've obviously had part of this kind of historic Sunni Shi rivalry for more than a thousand

years now.

But the kingdom is not as directly exposed as Kuwait, Ukraine, Qatar, the Emirates, who

are really just next door to Iran, who have gotten a dish.

They have been hit much harder by both short-range missiles and by drones than either the Saudis

or the Israelis have even been hit.

So they had different interests, but what has happened, Scott, and this is the part that

I don't think we have processed yet.

Americans are rightfully upset that we're getting close to $4 a gallon, gasoline now because

20% of the world's oil goes through the strait of hormones.

That's not going to go away even if the president, because he feels it and his bones, his words,

can declare victory and leave.

That's with us for months to come.

And if it was just gas prices, that would be bad enough.

But now 20% of the world's natural gas goes through the strait as well.

That's been all cut off.

And matter of fact, the major natural gas facilities in the region have been completely

drained of the gas because if it was there and a bomb, it's an Iranian bomb, it's if

they would turn into fireballs.

So even tomorrow, if they stop, that'll be up for months and months and months before

we get that flow back.

These are fuels at seven bucks a gallon.

All the trucks are most of the trucks in America right on diesel.

That costs 15 to 20% will come through and consumer prices going up fertilizer, which comes

from the region as well is going to go up 40% already, at least in farms in Virginia.

I've heard from aluminum, half the world's aluminum comes from the region and two of

the four world's biggest smelters are shut down.

So aluminum costs are armored at an all time high.

We have helium.

We're the biggest producer of helium, Middle East is a second.

And that helium is used in chips for all of our data centers and there is no reserve

of helium.

So those have gone to record highs and then this is since this is a world crisis.

You know, we're sitting here at four bucks a gallon of gas, it's double that in Asian

countries because they get 80% of their oil from the street.

And you have many Asian countries that we buy a lot of stuff from shutting down their

economy one day a week because they just can't afford to get people to work.

That will again mean prices up.

So when the International Energy Association says worst energy crisis in our lifetime,

much worse than the 1970s gas shock in America because they did so many other domains.

That's what we're looking at.

And again, from the president to say he was kind of surprised by this in the case he just

did not read the intelligence.

There is a reason why presidents as bad as Iran has been and been hesitant to start this

kind of open-ended war with this country that has a lot of resources we have to acknowledge

and can shut down a lot of other resources that come from the region.

Given where we are, where we are, if the president or the secretary of war came to the

Senate Intelligence Committee and said, okay, in addition to yourself as vice chair who

is this is not your first rodeo in terms of overseeing or being briefed on conflict.

Given that there's several veterans, Tom Cotton, U.S. Army officer served in Iraq and

Afghanistan, Martelli, U.S. Navy captain, Jack Reed, U.S. Army, West Point grad, Ranger

qualified.

If there was a consensus among the Senate Intelligence Committee around what the president

should do right now, are you comfortable saying what that advice would be?

You know, Scott, that's a great question and I'm not sure there is a consensus.

And one of the things that is making that consensus harder is the House, I believe Armed

Services Committee, had the Pentagon and DOD up to say, hey, what are these troops going

to do? And even though it was a classified grieving, they didn't tell them anything.

And the House Republican chair came out madder and hell rightfully saying, hey, you guys

are not even going to share what the five, six, seven thousand troops that are moving

into the region are going to be asked to do.

Pretty outrageous.

And there is a challenge is I think the war needs to end because of the energy and cost

and exponentially increasing economic shock that's going to have to the world's economy.

But there is also an argument and I think like the Saudis are making this and hey, you've

started this if you come out of this with Iran, bloodied, but not defeated and the Iranians

can say to the world, hey, we just took on American Israel and played them to a tie.

You know, a wound in Iran with the amount of capabilities it still has is extraordinarily

dangerous, but getting to the point of any of the four goals that the President and

administration laid out, those are tough nuts to crack too.

So I'd love to have that discussion.

I'd love to have it in an open way with Secretary Hagstaff and others.

But I don't have, I don't think I could give you what the consensus would be at this point,

even when we counter military veterans who were on the committee.

When you say played to a tie, I wonder if if we were to try and or if the President, let me

be clear, this is there's no way.

Didn't American people don't support this did not get congressional authority.

It doesn't even feel like even briefed allies or the Senate Intelligence Committee for that

matter. But I would argue right now if they were to attempt to declare victory and leave,

did it actually the RRGC could post a W on the board and say they attacked us.

We stared him down and then after we left, why wouldn't they decide that okay,

we now control the Straits of Hormuz and you ask our permission to come through there.

And Chinese ships can go through, but the kingdom who was not supportive of us and supported

and allied with the US, nope, your ships cannot come through. I mean, wouldn't this,

I mean, this is, it feels like we're on the precipice of the definition of the word quagmire.

And that is we might hear and now to the kingdom's point if we don't identify some objectives

and actually achieve those objectives that leaving now would actually make us less than zero,

worse off than when this whole thing started, your thoughts?

Your train of thought is not a lot of truth in it. And it wouldn't just be the kingdom. Listen,

they have walked the Emirates more than any other nation. So I'm not going to let them get out,

cutter, you know, it's got the world's biggest natural gas field. They wouldn't let them out,

a crane, other places to wait where we've got bases and forces. So your argument

has a lot of validity that, you know, I'm trying to give us the benefit of the doubt and

so we played to a tie because we obviously care old a series of their leadership and we have

taken out a lot of military assets they have. But as, you know, people said at the beginning

of this, there's never been a successful air-only campaign that is really decapitated and

moved to regime. And I think the president kind of got over his ski saying, hey, gosh,

we took out Maduro. That was really easy. We bombed their nuclear facility. He said it was

obliterated. Obviously, it was not. But that was relatively easy. And getting into this war

without thinking through all the implications is a real mess. And you're a point that a

the IRGC could say, no, it's not a tie. We actually defeated both Israel and America.

Is a is a real threat. I've read reports that the president of Finland has proposed kind of a

grand bargain where Europe is willing to engage in convoys to secure safe passage to the

Straits of Hormos in exchange for the US increasing its support of Ukraine. Has there been any

formal proposal and what does your take on that type of agreement? Listen, I think I've heard

those rumors. Nothing has been formally presented to us. But this second Trump administration,

first Trump administration, I didn't agree with the president, but I worked really well with his

team, which we, Steve Mnuchin is Treasury Secretary. Second Trump administration does not share

anything with Congress. Not just the Democrats. It blows off the Republicans. That's an interesting

item, although it would also, and I'm a strong supporter of Ukraine, but oil boy,

the idea we don't only have to shift with European blessed vessels. Does that give the

facto control of the straight to the Europeans? And one of the things that I didn't mention that

should have been frickin' popped through, this administration's choice to relieve Russian oil

sanctions has provided $10 billion to Russia's war machine. The Ukrainians were actually starting

to turn that they've been pretty successful with some recent counteroffences. They've been grinding

down the Russian forces. You put $10 billion into Putin's pocket and much more to come. He's got

a lot more juice to go. And the other one that's just, I am just amazed that people's heads haven't

exploded. He's in the middle of this war. The fact that the administration has taken the

sanctions off of Iranian oil. 140 million barrels, I think it was, that were already in transit.

That gets sold. That's $14 billion. Through the Iranian regime, the very folks who are

bombing us right now were now funding their efforts to take out American troops is Israel

and our Gulf allies. I mean, we kind of live in an Allison Wunderland. Up is down and down. It's up

but literally funding Iran and Russia. Somebody should have thought of that before he went into

this war. There's a lack of clarity around the relationship. Obviously, this is a US-Israel-led

operational and operational on-term. It's now full-blown war. But the president has said or

intimated that Israel, uncertain instances, is acting alone. What is your sense of how tightly

the operation is coordinated with Israel? And what in your view does this do for the relationship

between the US and Israel? Again, a hard tough question. I heard those claims by the president

about the Israeli strike on some of the Iranian energy infrastructure.

But then I hear others say there's no way they could have done that without

help of American targeting. So I don't know. Two, I do think, at least in starting timing that

the president and Marco Rubio acknowledged this, that the timing decision of when was left

to Israel and the whole notion he put before us and then did say publicly, hey, we had to go

ahead and start because Israel is going to strike and then Iran with his backs. We struck first.

But again, I think that I'm a strong supporter of Israel. I have been consistent on that.

I think it's an extraordinarily important ally. Boyle Boy, you know, the undercurrents that

somehow we were outsourcing some of the timing of this war to our Israeli allies.

That's not going to play well. And then I don't think there's any indication that I've heard

that if the president again, he's used the term he'll fill it in his bones when it's the right time

to clear victory. If he declares victory tomorrow, I don't think there's any assurance

that Israel won't continue or that the Iranians won't continue. But Israel,

I may not agree, but they are clear to their public what the goal is. The goal is regime change.

And anything incomplete to capitation of Iran's military capabilities. Anything short of that,

I think they would back into the position that you want. As said a couple of minutes ago,

a wounded Iran with all these military capabilities might be a worse outcome than what the status

quo was. Now, they clearly have been degraded, but there's still got a lot of assets.

And one of the things that is kind of at a macro level, more mind-blowing to me, is that our

Pentagon has said repeatedly we have shortage of munitions, but we are running so low

on the interceptors and long-range attack missiles. I won't give you the numbers because it's

classified, but we are in a really tough position. And Israel is as well right now. So if

Iran can keep bleeding our munitions stockpile down very soon, I think you'll see the American

bases in Israeli cities vulnerable to the Iranian attacks because we don't have the number of

interceptors we need. If you aren't already, please make sure to subscribe to our YouTube page,

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When you think of the most influential American politician of the 21st century,

you probably think of a man. But there's one woman who might fit the bill. She never thought she

be in politics, but when on to break what she calls, the marble ceiling. Then they'd say,

well, why don't you all just make a list of things that the women want and we'll do those.

What? This is in this century, really. So the marble ceiling, it's not a glass ceiling,

it's a marble ceiling. And they all had it lined up. But you go next and I'll go next and I'll

go next. And we're like, well, you know what, we've been waiting over 200 years for breaking in line.

Nancy Pelosi, the longtime Democratic Speaker of the House, live on stage as South by

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This week on version history, our chat show about the best and worst and most important

products in the history of technology. We're talking about a gadget that was meant to be used

on phone lines and was eventually used by the military and then finally changed the music

business forever. That's right. Of course, I mean the vocoder, the thing that let us all play our

voices like an instrument and change the way that we think about our voices. We have a really fun

guest. We have a really fun story to tell. All of that is on version history on YouTube and wherever you

get podcasts. Welcome back. Anyone who's listened to this podcast knows that we have a bias against

the president and that we're not impressed with the president and I have been shocked at the level

of the lack of credibility, qualifications, expertise of some of his appointments.

And it feels as if the chickens of incompetence are coming to roost here.

But I don't know how much of that is my emotion getting in the way. When you hear or when you

do get briefings from our top, you know, from the Secretary of War, do you share our concerns

around just a general? I mean, typically this position is a civilian position such that as the

fear was, if the generals were in charge, we'd still be in Vietnam. What is your general take on

the competence of the people overseeing this effort? I have a huge lack of confidence. I mean,

I have confidence in the number two guy, D.O.D. Steve Feinberg. But he's more on internal operations.

Hanks have to make these decisions and not just about this war, but he recently

declared anthropic a supply chain risk, which is basically a death sentence to America's at

this moment in time. It could switch in a month, leading AI company. And he did that on his own

without any process because he wanted to have absolute control and appears over the ability to

use AI to surveil all Americans or to create an offensive AI-driven weapon without a human

in the loop. Those are policy decisions and this designation of, which has never been used before,

against an American company of a supply chain risk, I don't have confidence that this is a

thought through process. And then I moved to the intelligence side where it is clear intelligence

professionals. I know they're intimidated because people are getting fired for telling the

truth. But the idea, it was pathetic when Tulsi Gabbard's Director of National Intelligence

was basically saying the only person that could decide what is imminent or not is the president.

And that is a totally ridiculous statement since the job of the intelligence community is say,

is this risk imminent tomorrow? Is it imminent in six months, six years? So it is obvious

reflection that they totally blew off the professional opinions of the intelligence community as

well. So I don't have confidence there as well. So speaking of Tulsi Gabbard last week,

you heard testimony from Director Gabbard and CIA Director John Rackliffe in the annual

worldwide threats hearing. What can you tell us of anything was learned by the committee in that

hearing or more specifically Senator, what threat do you think we're not thinking enough about?

I was kind of hesitant. I hesitate to say this, but I think the most serious threat we face right now

is at least some people in this administration's willingness to interfere in this year's midterm

elections in a radical way. You take the president's own words of, you know, we ought to

federalize elections, but Republicans in charge, something that's totally counter to traditional

Republican belief that elections ought to be state and local. You take Christy Nums own

uncomments saying we ought to have voting so we could have the right people vote for the right people.

We got Tulsi Gabbard literally showing up on a domestic warrant looking at grabbing the voting

machines in Fulton County, Georgia and she grabbed machines in Puerto Rico. I believe this could be

a warm up for what's next and I am hugely fearful that some piece of intelligence

accurate or not will be used as an excuse to send in the troops, change election days, federalized

elections. I haven't been spending a ton of my time talking to retired military, retired

intel, retired law enforcement to be willing to stand up if an action like this happens and try to

pre-bunk the misinformation, disinformation that may be used as an excuse to take over

I never thought I'd say that in America, but I am terrified and go back to the world right

threat hearing every year since 2017, last nine years, including the first year of Trump too last

year, there's been a major section talking about foreign interference in our elections.

There was no no section even on that threat and I can promise you, Russia, China, Iran

have not disarmed about their ability to use misinformation, disinformation to try to

screw with our elections as well. Do you think ICE's presence in airports is an attempt to normalize

ICE being in public venues including bowling booths? Yeah, I think this idea of making

ICE who I don't think would operate with the same professionalism that our military does,

many of these folks are brand new hires who seem to be really loyal to this president.

I'm not saying it's a dry run, but if we've heard and there's been public reporting,

you know, the TSA agents and we got to get them paid and fully back to work, but the TSA agents

have been saying, hey, these guys are not helping if anything they're putting us all on edge.

They're not doing anything. So even the possibility that this is a dry run out of concern us.

We just saw a verdict coming yesterday and what could be a landmark trial in New Mexico.

A jury found that meta and YouTube harmed a young user merely by featuring things including

infinite scroll and algorithmic content recommendations. Many are comparing the legal strategy or the

verdict one to the kind of big tobacco moment in the 90s. Do you think this will spark significant

changes from these tech platforms or more lawsuits or will this get undone on appeal?

You know, I'm glad the court ruled the way it did. I think the tech platforms who've lived

under this protection of what's called Section 230 is long overdue for review. And I've spoken,

we've had a flurry of AI summits this week in DC and I am very optimistic about AI

over the next 10 years and the benefits can bring. I am terrified about the amount of short-term

job loss that's going to create exponentially more terrified today than I was even three months ago

when you see products like Anthropics Clawed, rock the software industry, rock the HR industry,

and that's just the current version. And I think the tech community writ large because both the

social media companies have mostly morphed into the AI big hyperscalers. If they don't recognize

that they have not only a moral obligation to our kids, but also an economic obligation

to help people get through this AI transition. I think you're going to have populism from the

left and right come in and, you know, frankly try to stop this innovation, which would also be

a mistake because this is truly a case where we don't want China to win the AI struggle.

Senator Mark Warner has represented the state of Virginia since 2009 and serves amongst

other things as the vice chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee. Senator Warner,

you're always a voice of reason, measured, thoughtful, very much appreciate your service in

these difficult times. Thank you Scott and thanks for having me on it. It's a very much appreciated

as well.