Iran’s Trump Card: Hormuz | EYES ON GEOPOLITICS

We break down the Iran MOU, the fight over the Strait of Hormuz, Lebanon’s role in the deal, and why the panel sees the agreement as a major strategic win for Tehran and a serious problem for Washington. We also dig into Iran’s nuclear program, Hezbollah, U. S. military messaging, bad battle-damage assessments, and whether the United States still has any real leverage left in the next 60 days of negotiations. GhostBed ⬇️ https://www.ghostbed.com/team FOR 10% off! Support the show on Patreon:⬇️ https://www.patreon.com/TheTeamHouse Marc's new article: https://engelsbergideas.com/author/sam-worby-marc-polymeropoulos/ Subscribe to our newsletter!!!! https://teamhousepodcast.kit.com/join Jack's news outlet:⬇️ https://thehighside.substack.com/ Find Jon Hackett here:⬇️ Jon's Twitter: https://x.com/jonathanhackett Jon's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thejonathanhackett Jon's books: https://www.amazon.com/stores/author/B0C5L659N5?ccs_id=e11a2062-f8d3-498e-bfd7-7d2f3869caf6 Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thejonathanhackett Twitter: https://x.com/jonathanhackett Check out Mick's new podcast here:⬇️ Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/at/podcast/pub-and-porch-applied-stoicism/id1836955475 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1k3QPmkAMwnGJxMLDwUSSd?si=n6piIu8XRcag1Z0K43A3bQ Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@UCd0Hq6QFk8CoTu5j-VU0Ong Find Mick Mulroy here: Fogbow ⬇️ https://fogbow.com/ Lobo Institute ⬇️ https://www.loboinstitute.org/ Twitter ⬇️ https://x.com/mickmulroy?s=21&t=-Ze3F_Ix2vlJ18KFvORTCA LinkedIn ⬇️ https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-patrick-mulroy-31198b52/ Bluesky ⬇️ https://bsky.app/profile/mickmulroy.bsky.social Mick’s publications ⬇️ https://www.loboinstitute.org/publications/publications-of-michael-mick-patrick-mulroy/ Whitefish security summit ⬇️ https://whitefishsecuritysummit.com Find Marc P here: https://x.com/Mpolymer Find Andy Milburn here: Twitter ⬇️ https://twitter.com/i/flow/login?redirect_after_login=%2Fandymilburn8 LinkedIn ⬇️ https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewmilburn2023 Substack ⬇️ https://amilburn.substack.com/ Andy’s book ⬇️ https://www.amazon.com/When-Tempest-Gathers-Mogadishu-Operations Bluesky ⬇️ https://bsky.app/profile/andy-milburn.bsky.social Find Jason Lyons here: LinkedIn ⬇️ https://www.linkedin.com/in/jason-lyons-666873316?u Bluesky ⬇️ https://bsky.app/profile/bgsilverback73.bsky.social "Karl Casey @ White Bat Audio 00:00 — Start 03:26 — Iran’s Strategy After the MOU 09:16 — Iran’s Resistance Economy and Regime Survival 14:42 — The Art of a Bad Deal 19:56 — The Missing NSC Process 24:49 — Proxies, Ballistic Missiles, and the JCPOA Problem 31:42 — Verification, HEU, and the Lebanon Fuse 36:42 — Pentagon “Happy Math” and Bad BDA 48:12 — A Possible Clandestine Nuclear Program 54:50 — Iranian Leadership Splits and the Search for Moderates 01:01:11 — Can the Strait of Hormuz Be Reopened by Force? 01:07:23 — CENTCOM, Military Advice, and Strategic Failure Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-team-house--5960890/support https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-team-house--5960890/support?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=rss.

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• 0:57Speaker 02

  All right. Hey, everybody. Welcome to another episode of Eyes on Geopolish. We've got a full crew today. Andy Milburn, Mark Polymoropoulos, Jonathan Hackett, Mick Mulroy. The boys are all here. Too many Marines, but we'll figure that out at some point, I hope. All right. We've had a dizzying week with the memorandum of understanding. I'm going to do a little bit of context for people just because if you're following on Twitter and stuff and reading an article here and there, it changes every 12 hours, essentially, of what's going on.

• 1:35Speaker 02

  We signed a deal basically remotely with Iran for the 60-day ceasefire where they were going to talk about the larger issue of the nuclear issue and enriched uranium. In that 14-point plan, these are just some of the basic points. You guys can correct me and add a little bit more context on top of that. There would have been the Strait of Hormuz opening to normal, the US blockade lifted.

• 2:07Speaker 02

  Uh, some talk about opening up and giving some money to Iran like their, um, their frozen assets. And then there was also talk of a $300 billion, I guess sovereign wealth fund or reconstruction fund. That was supposedly going to be paid out by the majority of the GCC countries or the Gulf countries. Uh, at least 150 billion of that was supposedly secured for that. Um, the other 150 billion, I don't know where it's coming from. Some say US, some say, you know, US is denying that obviously. Um, over and the big caveat, the big boy, the big issue that looks like what will could kill this ceasefire is Lebanon and what's going on with Israel and Hezbollah. Who have been trading back and forth clearly out of Israel.

• 2:53Speaker 02

  Uh, I would say Netanyahu's been playing it kinda down the line, trying to like weasel his way like he's good at because he's a politician at the end of the day. But the ultra right homies like Gavir have been freaking out about this, you know, saying that we're not going to stop the war no matter what. They're not, no, no deal is going to stop us unless we're involved. Um. That's just like basically like the top little layer of it.

• 3:19Speaker 02

  It's been dizzying because I've been trying to keep track of this shit for the last week and it's been. I, I was just, I was just fed up. I was like, you know, who knows what will happen. Vance was supposed to go to Switzerland. He delayed it. He eventually showed up today. They're meeting now. Um, and Steve Wykoff and Jared Kushner are there of course, so everything will be great. I'm sure of it. Uh, Vance did bite back, um, at specifically Gavir. He kinda, he kinda kept Netanyahu out of it and gave Netanyahu a little bit of credit. While going at Gavir and the all, the far right of the war cabinet.

• 3:57Speaker 02

  Um, pretty harsh words too, you know, you, you know, there was a, I think a quote saying there's a country of nine million people and you can't just kill your way out of your problems. And I'm going to be honest, for the first time probably ever, I'm agreeing with JD Vance. Um. So you guys give us some context, let us know, you know, what you guys are thinking, what you guys are tracking. Um, I'm going to start with. Let's start with Milburn today.

• 4:24Speaker 03

  Well, you know, I'm going to be fairly short because I know Mark wrote an excellent essay on what a tremendous success this for the United States, the MOU is. So I think we should to sum that up. But why don't we, you know, just open with what just happened. So just three days after signing, Iran shut the straight again over Lebanon, right? Because that was part of Iran's stipulation that Lebanon become part of the deal. So even the US and Iran's own government can't agree if it was actually closed. CENTCOM apparently

• 5:02Speaker 03

  saying traffic's flowing. But, but you know, this brings up an interesting point. And you know, I mentioned Mark's, Mark's article. And, and of course,

• 5:19Speaker 03

  I think it really, there's the fact that the US failed in our strategy. We really didn't have a strategy. We had a list of targets. It was kind of vague. There was no defined end state. Yes, that is a story in itself. But I think, and this is where John's expertise, I think, will come in. I think it's fair to say Iran did have a strategy, and it's one they've been preparing for years. You know, a lot of people talk about the mosaic doctrine, which is kind of decentralized command. It's kind of mission command, which is our own doctrine. But it really worked. I mean, they anticipated that they would lose a lot of guys at the top of the pyramid. And they designed a system that could still continue to function. So that worked, number one. And again, I'll

• 6:04Speaker 03

  keep this brief. Number two, they've built an economy that was some extent resistant to sanctions. I mean, John's already talked about the fact that the IRGC didn't suffer too terribly from the pounding that the Iranian economy took for all the reasons that we've given on this show. But also, the fact that, you know, through deals with China and elsewhere, Iran has again, designed its economy so that, so that sanctions are no longer such a, such a weapon as as they used to be.

• 6:42Speaker 03

  And the last thing I'll say on that, on their strategy, which I think is really important. It's what they went after, you know, all these firing of missiles and drones and they had. Yeah, they had an extensive inventory, but it wasn't random, you know, they went after key targets. They went after, they'd identified what makes, when US employs air power, what really makes that work and it is the, what high density or high demand, low density items it depends on. And that is our command and control nodes, right, especially AWACS aircraft. Our tanker fleet, which actually is quite limited and it's aging.

• 7:27Speaker 03

  And it went after both of those on the ground. For instance, in Saudi Arabia and PSAP and caused extensive damage. And also ground based command and control as well as air defense. Our radars, our ability to sense, all of these things were on Iran's target list. It wasn't simply, hey, we're going to just fire shit and show they were not beaten. They were very careful about what they hit. They understood clearly the imbalance between, you know, the cost ineffectiveness

• 8:07Speaker 03

  between interceptors and drones and missiles, especially drones. And that isn't just about, you know, that cliche we always hear about that, you know, a Patriot interceptor costs X million dollars and a Shahab missile costs 20 to 30,000 dollars. It's not just about that, it's about depth on the bench, how many interceptors we actually have, right? How many we need globally in order to sustain our commitments? And they understood all that and they kind of let us try. And the last thing. Was that targeting of Gulf countries was very carefully deliberately done.

• 8:52Speaker 03

  And instead of, yes, it did piss off the Gulf countries, but it but it also had the effect of driving a wedge between the US and our partners here because Iran could show that we could not protect them. We had not gone to the effort to build a coalition. And then when it really mattered, you saw UAE and Saudi Arabia saying at key parts of this conflict, no, we're not going to support. And I believe, I think it was Kuwait, right? That said, no, we're not going to allow our bases to be used for further strikes on on Iran. So again, you know, this MOU is kind of a, I think, a natural follow on.

• 9:35Speaker 03

  They they they sustained a beating, but all they had to do was survive. They did that. They sent a message of resilience. We've all seen these Lego videos that were masterfully made. And now they've they've controlled the negotiations. Do I like that? No, of course I don't like that. I'm just commenting on on how they've they they've triumphed and they've really understood the cloud switching thing about war being politics by another means.

• 10:05Speaker 02

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• 10:10Speaker 04

  Yeah, I'll branch off of what Andy mentioned about the economy and sanctions and all this. You know, the regime has been framing their economy as a resistance economy since the 1990s. And in Farsi, they actually call it this a resistance economy. And what that means is a resilient economy that can survive external impacts, whether those are sanctions or reductions in capacity, or just actual logistical challenges of getting things in and out of the country due to geopolitics. They've designed their economy to survive this way. And it's very clear that their structuring of that was successful. And that doesn't mean it was successful for the Iranian people. It means it was successful for the regime elites, the small minority of people in and outside of Iran, who are able to maintain their safety, security, and their grip on power throughout this really high intensity

• 10:55Speaker 04

  conflict against their country. You know, the US is very good at overwhelming fire superiority. This is something that we're very good at. We're very precise at that. We can put a lot of ordinance on targets very rapidly in a very large geographic dispersion, which we saw was true, especially in Western Iran during the war. Despite that, Iran was able to use, as Andy mentioned, very precise, careful, deliberate strikes on allies and partners in the region for non-military purposes. And that's a contrast to what it seemed the US strategy was, was a purely operational or campaign-level strategy of striking a certain series of targets or a target deck to affect a military outcome, whereas the Iranian regime, the IRGC, was thinking beyond the military objective.

• 11:38Speaker 04

  They were thinking about political outcomes and impacts of their military actions, which again is, just like Andy mentioned, a Clausewitzian concept where military is a policy instrument. It is not an end. And it seemed that Iran was using that and understood that, that if they hit Qatar or they hit Kuwait, there will be political ramifications that, true, there is some sacrifice on their side that are negative impacts for Iran, but they will also negatively impact the United States. So they're kind of using that concept of the Samson option that Israel actually uses for its own nuclear policy, where they understand that once they unleash this weapon, it will harm them, but it will also harm their enemy in a way that's beneficial to them, unleashing this strike. And Goliath, the Speaker of Parliament, who's now in Switzerland, sitting across the table from J.D.

• 12:21Speaker 04

  Vance, negotiating a very uneven settlement right now in favor of Iran and against the favor of the United States. Yesterday, Goliath, before he got on an airplane, said that he is a post-war economic commander, which again underscores this understanding of economics for Iran, for the elite in Iran, that it's about the money. It's not about protecting their people, it's not about political institutions, it's not about these esoteric philosophical concepts that we appreciate in the West. It's about surviving and enriching themselves and surviving to enjoy that enrichment. And a lot of their money, almost all of it, is not in Iran. It's in Europe, it's in Hong Kong, it's around the world, it's in Canada, billions of dollars. And they've designed these systems to protect those dollars and protect themselves.

• 13:05Speaker 04

  And if you see, for example, Goliath's son is, has hundreds of millions of dollars in Iran and outside of Iran, he posts on Instagram, other IRGC commanders, their children have yachts in the Mediterranean, that on Instagram, these are not secrets. And there's even a website called, I think, like The Children of the Regime or something like this, where you can go see their daily lives documented, them spending just untold amounts of money, none of this money from work they ever did. This is from either oil sales or other illicit activity. Right now, Iran has a special program where if you own a vehicle in Europe, you can import it into Iran and just pay a small tax on it and now you can bring it into Iran. So you can buy it in Germany, for example, and then bring it to Iran. There's sanctions that are supposed to stop this from happening, but it's happening.

• 13:50Speaker 04

  It's just totally allowed, right? And even, I think we've talked about it before, companies like Audi, for example, or BMW, they know about these sanctions. So what they do is they they take the vehicle slightly apart and they'll put little pieces in between the doors and windows and things and it arrives in a box. So it's not technically assembled in Europe and they'll bring it to Iran, take the little pieces out, reattach everything and now it's a vehicle that should not have been there in the first place. And it's not the average person doing this, it's the elites. And the reason I'm kind of pushing this elites button is because these are the people in Switzerland right now negotiating with the United States on a $300 billion cash infusion. Again, money is their objective. We are about to give them more of it. They use this money for very specific reasons, like we mentioned, corruption and things like this,

• 14:34Speaker 04

  but also to fund Hezbollah. After we exited the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action in 2018, the Hezbollah funding levels went up from about $250 million a year to a billion dollars a year until last December. We don't have 2026 numbers yet, but there's going to be more of it. And we can see that this connection to Hezbollah remains relevant because that's why the negotiations were threatened this past seven days in the first place is because Israel and Hezbollah were fighting war in Lebanon. And Iran said, that's point number one on our 14-point plan. You've got to stop fighting in Lebanon, Israel, or else we're not going to negotiate. So they're telling us that this is important to them financially, for security reasons and many other things in between. And they're not going to give up on this point.

• 15:16Speaker 04

  So I think focusing on Lebanon and economics of this conflict are probably the two most important things if the US wants to do anything to salvage this disaster happening in Switzerland right now.

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• 18:05Speaker 00

  ChatGPT for Teens is designed to help teens learn, think critically, and grow their skills. ChatGPT for Teens supports active learning by breaking concepts down. Rather than giving teens the answer, study mode helps teens work through problems and interactive quizzes test their knowledge and provide immediate feedback. Safety protections are on by default, and parental controls offer families additional options like setting study hours and quiet hours. Visit chatgpt.comPARENTS to learn more. OnDeck is built to back small businesses like yours. Whether you're buying equipment, expanding your team, or bridging cash flow gaps, OnDeck's loans up to $400,000 make it happen fast. Rated A+ by the Better Business Bureau and earning thousands of five-star

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  TrustPilot reviews, OnDeck delivers funding you can count on. Apply in minutes at ondeck.com. Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by OnDeck or Celtic Bank. OnDeck does not lend in North Dakota. All loans and amounts subject to lender approval. So Jonathan, you gave, I think you raised a really good point. I don't want to reiterate all the great things you guys said, but I think that, and it's an article I did write in Engelsberg Ideas, which you guys were referring to. I think the title was "The Art of a Bad Deal." I co-wrote it with Sam Werby. But it's the idea of putting

• 19:18Speaker 02

  a carrot forward deal, and it's exactly what you're talking about, Jonathan. Like, so I guess, first of all, the wisdom of that is kind of beyond me. We're actually putting carrots for it. J.D. Vance, in a press interview, basically came out and said, "We're not doing that." And I think he's lying. I mean, of course, the press never challenges him on anything because everything I talked to, all the oil analysts, everything, they said that Iran is going to get between the ability to sell oil and, which is the waivers, as well as some relief of some Type of assets, you could be six to 20 billion right off the bat. Um JD Vance is saying it's not going to happen, but I so, you know, first of all, where's the truth on that? It looks like it actually is going to happen. But again, the idea of putting carrots forward first just doesn't make any sense.

• 20:02Speaker 02

  And it shows how desperate the United States is. And I think that that is that is certainly problematic. The other piece I would add, and you know, I'm, I'm there, you know, maybe Mick is too. Oh, Andy, who knows, the kind of the resident is Israel whisperer. But it's the notion of, look, I don't care with you if you like Bibi Netanyahu or not. But the idea of linking this to Lebanon, the US allowing this is insane. Um, you know, I live in Northern Virginia, uh, uh, right across the way is DC. Um, if, you know, if I, you know, I live in Vienna, if, uh, I don't know, if McLean was getting pounded and was evacuated because someone's firing from DC, um, that would be a problem. And yet we have not managed to link this. So the Israelis do need to have kind of freedom of action.

• 20:45Speaker 02

  You know, uh, you can, you can debate whether or not they should have gone into Southern Lebanon with ground forces. I think that's just unwise. But the idea of, you know, removing that ability there to strike back Hezbollah, uh, the US did Israel a terrible favor. Uh, and in fact, let's not forget Hezbollah is a terrorist entity that killed more Americans up until, uh, nine 11 than, uh, than Al Qaeda. And so, um, I, I think that was a, that was an awful mistake. Overall, it's the notion of, uh, I think Jonathan, you're right, Israel survived. Andy, I think you said this, I mean, it's not Israel, uh, Iran survived. I think both, uh, Jonathan and Andy said that, um, they control, they demonstrate they have the control of the Strait of Hormuz. That's what we're, the MOU is just to, to, to reopen the straight because Trump panicked about the economy. Period. That's it.

• 21:30Speaker 02

  Um, it's a, it's a cash, it's a transaction of funds for reopening the, the, uh, the straight. So they demonstrated that, um, again, linking the linkage to Lebanon was a terrible diplomatic error by the United States. Um, uh, and then this inclusion of, of some type of financial relief, which is Jonathan says is so paramount to the, uh, to the regime, the Iranian regime. I'll finally, you know, it's something I stupidly have done every day on Twitter. I'm having fun doing it. I post how many days it's been, uh, each day since January.

• 21:59Speaker 03

  13th and it's 159 days right now since President Trump said help was on its way. And you know, and a lot of us were exercised about things like the the botched Afghan withdrawal for good reason. We criticized the Biden administration. I certainly did. Though I worked for a network, MS Now, which is super pro kind of Democrat and supports Biden. I was on there every day howling about it. I just was, period.

• 22:23Speaker 03

  This, this is going to be seen as a betrayal of the Iranian people. Again, help is on its way. As protesters were on the street, they stayed out there. They got slaughtered. And we are doing nothing to help that. And in fact, if you talk to anybody, the infusion of whatever it is, 6 billion, 12 billion, God forbid the 300 billion. That allows the regime to further survive. You know, bottom line is, I think we have done a great harm to the ability for people like all of us. We don't, we don't do this anymore. Maybe some of you guys do clandestinely. I certainly don't. I sit on my ass in Northern Virginia. But the idea of going out into the field and working with indigenous groups and making promises. We don't look so good right now. And I think that's a, you know, and if you, I was just at a conference in Sweden.

• 23:10Speaker 03

  There was a whole bunch of really, really famous Iranian academics there. Anti-regime, but to a T, they said that in the beginning Iranian people welcomed. The US and Israeli strikes, they do not do so anymore now. And there is the incredible feeling of betrayal right now. Again. You're going to have the scene at some point, but I hope not. Maybe it's politically suicidal for JD Vance of him shaking the hands of Valibov. The, the, from the Iranian side and, and Mick, I thought of you today. This, that, you know, and of course I freaked out. This is, this is my not promised practicing stoicism. But when JD Vance at the beginning of the talks said to the cameras, I love Pakistan. There's nobody on the planet who served in Afghanistan who says those words. I love Pakistan.

• 23:55Speaker 03

  And so I just saw that and I thought of all of us, Andy and Jonathan, you too. A little cringe. One more thing, Dee. I got something for you. Look at this. Little I love freeze thing.

• 24:05Speaker 02

  Hell yeah. Love that.

• 24:07Speaker 03

  That's my, that's my two cents.

• 24:12Speaker 03

  Well, I'm going to start with something. I agree with all you guys.

• 24:16Speaker 02

  Uh, this is stuff I can remember you said the I'm gonna start with a positive, right? And the positive had nothing to do with the MOU.

• 24:24Speaker 03

  World.

• 24:24Speaker 02

  Major James Capers uh finally received the Medal of Honor. Uh, way overdue, most, most Marines certainly, but people from the special operations military community have been waiting for this for a long time. He uh, he actually came and spoke to us at uh.

• 24:44Speaker 02

  And I mean, it, it was such a memorable speech that like, I, it all came back when I was seeing him get the Medal of Honor. So let's start on a positive note. Uh, now. One thing I would start advocating for, I haven't stopped advocating for, is to get the NSC back up and running in full splendor. Like, get the careers back in there, get, get people that uh can talk about like, well, are we really gonna change the regime if we do airstrikes? Are we really going to, are they not going to close the trade? These are all things that would have been discussed, all the potential like, okay, if we do this, they'll do that, what are we gonna do? Are we willing to adhere to and take the economic pain?

• 25:29Speaker 02

  Right? And what is the economic pain? There's experts in every one of these areas that could have informed up the chain of command all the way to the, you know, the actual principles.

• 25:41Speaker 02

  I think Secretary Rubio is a, a very capable person, but he can't be both. He can't be the Secretary of State and National Security.

• 25:50Speaker 03

  It's glad.

• 25:50Speaker 02

  Did somebody?

• 25:50Speaker 03

  On, where is he? He's hiding, he's hiding.

• 25:53Speaker 02

  Yeah, because the company doesn't agree with any of this. Let's face it, we all know that. Like, everybody knows that, everybody knows that, right? But I'm just talking about the process and process matters, right? Because I don't think we'd be in this position if um that was something that was actually done before the decision. Uh, get somebody like Jack Keane, you know, General Keane, or somebody that has the gravitas and has the uh, anyway, so uh, if we done, if we had done that, I don't think we'd be in the situation we're in. So to go down the list of strategic objectives we had before watching this. Regime change, I know now they're saying they didn't plan on that, they did. They said it over and over again, helps on the way, Marky just said it.

• 26:35Speaker 02

  Um, they said we actually did have regime change before it was clearly we didn't. And then the, so uh, that was an objective, we're not gonna. Meet it. The intelligence community said that wasn't gonna happen. Uh, you're not gonna do, you know, an air war where people just quit. It's never gonna happen. Uh, yes, we did strike and do the decapitation strikes and, you know, I'm somebody that if you kill servicemen and women of the United States or CIA officers, you should always be on the list. So there's zero love lost in the decapitation strikes, but strategically, all it did is give us a younger, more pissed off version of the regime. Right? So we went from an eighty-six-year-old Ayatollah Khomeini to a fifty-six-year-old Ayatollah Khomeini.

• 27:20Speaker 02

  Right? And we now have Lahidi as the IRGC commander. These are P and he is, I'm sure, and correct me if I'm wrong, Jonathan, one that has always been advocating for Iran to have a nuclear weapon. Like, has been the guy that's always been like, hey, you're wrong. No thought was on not having nuclear weapons. Let's get a nuclear weapon, right? So strategically, we did not change the regime. We now embolden them. And with these financial benefits, it's going to put them in place probably in perpetuity. Right? If they actually realize the unfreezing of assets, I think there's around a hundred billion total if you look at restricted frozen assets. But immediately, like twenty billion, if you could sell your oil, sanctions are gone.

• 28:05Speaker 02

  That's around eighty billion a year. This three hundred billion dollar reconstruction fund with really baffles me because what are you reconstructing? We struck military targets. Are we gonna ask the Gulf countries to pay to reconstruct the military targets that we used to attack them and cause them damage? I don't see him doing it. Uh, and it's the logic behind it is just, it escapes me. Uh, so we didn't change the regime. So what did we do that's positive? We did destroy their navy. We did destroy their conventional navy, the air force. But we then are giving them all this financial incentive. What do you think they're gonna do with it?

• 28:45Speaker 02

  They're gonna replace the ballistic missiles that we did degrade, that we talked about so much as it, as a plus, which I talked about as a plus. The concern with the ballistic Missiles that it's going to protect their nuclear program. So we had to degrade it. Now we're getting them money. What do you think they're gonna do? They're gonna rebuild their ballistic missiles. And now the White House is defending their ability to have missiles. Why? Why? I mean, this, that was the biggest criticism, or one of the bigger criticisms of the JCPOA. Didn't address ballistic missiles. Didn't address proxies. So that's not even on our list of objectives. And it's still not being discussed in the MOU or in Switzerland right now. Proxies and ballistic missiles. We're not defending their ability to have

• 29:27Speaker 02

  ballistic missiles and their proxy forces, obviously, are, we're not even talking about them doing that. So that's not helpful at all. Now. So we haven't met necessary objectives. The other one, of course, the biggest one, the priority one, is no nuclear weapons. And although the White House was saying that they agreed to give up their highly enriched uranium, they did not. It's right in the agreement. You can look at the MOU. It's not a secret. They did not. They did not. They haven't agreed to do anything on their nuclear front. In fact, Poseski, President Poseski just came out and said, they're never gonna agree to not enrich uranium. He just came out and said that.

• 30:07Speaker 02

  So if that's the case, the almost the best we could do, and I don't like this, I'm just pointing out what I think is fact, is to get back in something that looks exactly like the JCPOA.

• 30:18Speaker 02

  Right? We're given a billions of dollars, they're gonna enrich uranium. What are we gonna try to keep them to 3.67 maybe? That's what it was. And I know that it was gonna expire, but we could have simply made it better rather than tear it up.

• 30:34Speaker 02

  So. I think I've hit every major point. I, we should probably go on some of the nuances, but I would like to see the next 60 days turn us around. Right? I want to see the United States come out strategically ahead. We are not headed there right now. You're not. Everybody knows it. Doesn't matter what party you're in, you know, right, left, center. People can see that this is not happening. The Strait of Hormuz, I'll, I'll stop on that. Strait of Hormuz is not actually open. The Iranians have not agreed to give up their control of the Strait, only to bring it to pre-war levels. And then in the future, they're gonna charge fees. We all know it's coming.

• 31:14Speaker 02

  In fact, they already closed it again, but so it's even, that wasn't a war objective because it was open before. And we haven't gotten that back to where we want it. So what's the alternative? I had a friend tell me, you know, he picked the best of the, all the terrible alternatives. I don't agree with that. I think we actually had him on the rope economically. I think we, and I, we, we, if we didn't want to take the economic pressure, we shouldn't have done this in the first place. We shouldn't have done it in the first place, because the worst case is you do it, you then cave, and this is gonna change the power dynamics in the Middle East and around the world. They now know that they have an economic nuclear weapon.

• 31:55Speaker 02

  And we have confirmed it. So I think we have to take the, the heat a bit on the economic side of this. But continue on, and if, if they rupture the agreement, we should view that as thank goodness. And then we can go back and start negotiation this again. I know it's, there's no easy answer to this. I'm not saying that. But I want America to come out on ahead. I want Iran, the regime, not the Iranian people, to come out way in their, in the rear. Uh, you know, in other words negatively. So we're not headed there right now. It's super concerning and I'd like to see, uh, you know, the smart folks come together and come up with a plan for the US to turn this around, starting from a difficult position.

• 32:38Speaker 02

  Mick, one, one quick thing on that. There are no smart folks. The NSC doesn't work. Trump doesn't listen to anybody. So I agree with you, you know, this is a hope, but there's, there's nothing I see on the horizon that shows any indication of anything positive happening. Jared Kushner and Steve Whitkoff and JD Vance are the ones who are in Switzerland. That's a recipe for disaster.

• 32:59Speaker 03

  Um, you know, so, so the idea, there is no one, there's no one coming to the rescue, there's no smart people involved. Um, uh, and, you know, so I just, I don't see how that is ever going to occur. Uh, I don't know, you know, Marco Rubio is fleeing from this because of 2028, he wants to be president and this is a disaster, he knows it. Um, uh, you know, uh, and, and I'd go back to, you know, the court of the state department's gone. Um, at least most of my friends in the agency are long past, uh, are long gone. You know, it's, I, I mean, I was asking even one of my former, uh, uh, you know, counterparts in Mossad, I, you know, and he, he basically said, how can everyone have made so many mistakes on Iran? Like, we all collectively used to actually be pretty good on this. Um, but

• 33:43Speaker 03

  there's nothing I see on the horizon that is optimistic that we're going to do anything positive here. In fact, Trump is bored. Um, Rubio wants to go off to Cuba and everyone's focusing in the midterms. I mean, I think you, Mick, you might've said this, that this is the worst case scenario that we start something and don't finish it. We've kind of poked the bear. Um, uh, but if you're gonna, you know, if you want to poke the bear, you better kill it. And we didn't. And there's, I mean, if, if anybody thinks we're going to resume military confrontation in any serious manner, they're on, they're on crack. Um, Trump wants nothing to do with it. I didn't think CENTCOM or the Pentagon do as well because of, because of, you know, the, you know, depletion in stocks. Um, and plus, there's a question of can it actually work? Uh, uh, what more can we do without putting in ground forces? So, you know,

• 34:27Speaker 03

  I mean, those are all, those are all good points. I mean, I'm really pessimistic on this. I don't know. And so, but here's Mick, here's, here's my question to you. This is actually important because we all can sit here and criticize, and I'm great at that. Okay, so what do we do? And what, you know, or what could we do? Or what, what do you, I mean, knowing that there's, we have incompetent people in charge, that's the thing that drives me nuts. I don't see anyone's, you know, I, I like, I mean, I don't like watching Fox News. I like watching General Keen because he's up there and he, he laid into Sean Hannity the other day, as he should. Uh, thank God, someone in that crazy network Saying something uh uh normal and so you know I I don't see I I'm not I don't have room for optimism. I don't know. Well, I get your idea. What you're saying is it's unlikely that they're going to pull these people in like this make perfect fair.

• 35:11Speaker 03

  But I think there are people out there that could could be very valuable in an N S E. I mean, they're they're careerists, right? The the military didn't empty of experts. The Department of Energy didn't empty of experts. The CIA didn't. The State Department. Yes, I know a lot of there. There's still people there. There's still people there. A lot of people left. I think there are a lot of people are gone. I don't know. And you could bring them back. I mean, they could be retired, right? You can still bring them back to the N S E. I know maybe I'm, you know, tilting the windmills here, but I think like it's not going to be an easy task. But if it if it doesn't happen, then we already know what the outcome is here. We're seeing it. We're seeing it, and I don't want that for the U. S. I don't care about who's president, whose party benefits and stuff.

• 35:53Speaker 03

  I just want to see this uh not end up the way it's headed for the for the U. S.

• 36:01Speaker 03

  And the region, all our allies in the region.

• 36:05Speaker 03

  I actually make last point is is a really key point. We've certainly lost credibility in the region and and to your point, Mark, I I mean. And yours too, Mick, actually, the, you know, I know it sounds like my hand wringing. But it's difficult not to wring your hands at this point because, look, the, you know, we we. When you look at the details, let's let's take the whole framework deal, what it says about. In the enriched uranium, right? I mean, that potentially, potentially that gives the greatest cause for optimism in this whole sorry mess, okay?

• 36:47Speaker 03

  But when you look closely at that, because uh the framework deal has Iran agreeing to downblend its enriched uranium, basically dilute it. So it's no longer weapons grade under I A E A supervision. So, you know, on the surface, that looks like real progress.

• 37:05Speaker 03

  But then you look at the actual language in the agreement and then that's kind of the the minimum methodology. And the material itself never leaves Iran. It stays on Iranian soil. So while the real terms get negotiated over over the next 60 days.

• 37:22Speaker 06

  And they're not agreeing to stop enrichment, right?

• 37:25Speaker 03

  That's right. Yeah, exactly. You've got a commitment to a process, not a commitment to an outcome. And nobody's actually verified anything yet.

• 37:35Speaker 03

  You know, to your point about, I mean, it's like just a dreadful divorce settlement. Right? It's I have we made all these all these things are flowing in Iran's favor before they even have to do anything.

• 37:50Speaker 03

  And the IAEA's, what's his name? Grose? I mean, he he was in Switzerland this past weekend, still working out what this even looks like in practice. It's not a there's no inspection happening. The inspection's being negotiated. So it it's really it's hard to be optimistic. But I think and you know, the same thing about Hezbollah.

• 38:18Speaker 03

  You know, I and I think I think this is an interesting point, not because I'm about to bring it up, but I think we have to be, you know, you have to approach this from a point of view of real politic. Is Hezbollah? Okay, bear with me. Is Hezbollah a real threat to the United States? I I get it. They've killed Americans in the past, but I'm not swayed by that, nor should anyone, I don't think not. And because, I mean, otherwise we would have never we we would never have made peace with Germany, for Christ's sake.

• 38:48Speaker 03

  60, 70,000 Israelis moved out of the neighborhood. I get it, but that doesn't affect us. However, Hezbollah is absolutely disruptive to the region. So it is in our interest. It is in our interest to pursue them.

• 39:02Speaker 03

  But you can't you're not going to bomb them into oblivion. I mean, this so firmly entrenched, right? In Lebanese society. I mean, you can you can read anything about this by people who understand. Hezbollah, that you have to approach it from by, you know, bringing, bringing influence on Lebanon, supporting Lebanon to do what it needs to do in order to enforce the, you know, UN resolution, what was it, 1701, all those things. Bombing, the bombing has done very little. You know, we are here though, and this is the really pessimistic point, we are here

• 39:42Speaker 03

  because we just didn't anticipate, and I don't know how we didn't anticipate, that Hormuz would turn out to be Iran's trump card, no pun intended, right? And that was an improvised, you know, Iran built its entire war strategy around Hormuz back in, in oh five, oh six. And, and I just don't understand why we didn't understand that, because the US military flagged Hormuz, I, we all know this, right? It's not, it's open, open source. US military flagged Hormuz as the single biggest risk of a war with Iran for decades. And, and it was in all the briefings, the Joint Chiefs warned about it before the strikes even started.

• 40:27Speaker 03

  And the assumption was going in was that Iran would either back down or the Navy could just reopen the straight by force. But, you know, who, who, who even gave that advice? I mean, and, and now you can't undo that through negotiations. Iran knows the power that it has, it's been proven. And that is what no amount of negotiation in this next 60 days can undo. And Iran knows that.

• 40:53Speaker 02

  You offended Mickey, ran away. No, I'm joking, no, I'm joking. He picked. I was gonna pick on him too, because I want to talk about Happy Math from the Pentagon. Because, you know, we had talked about on the show so many times before about the briefings from Hegseth and to Dan Kane. And, and I, and I challenged everybody here that, you know, that my thought was, you know, the military has lied to us before, and I think they're, they're lying to us again. And I know that's hard for folks, I did not serve, you all did. I think we have to question all those briefings, including from Dan Kane. I, I really do. And so, you know, I think history, Hegseth is a fool, but.

• 41:30Speaker 04

  But history might not be as kind because you know, you know, the all the all the programs that seem to have been obliterated, other than the Iranian Navy, which is the bottom of the sea, but not really because of all the fast attack ships and everything, all the all this all their drone, whatever they have. I don't know, I'm not, I'm not so sure that we didn't go through a whole nother exercise of the military not being truthful, or maybe the BDA was bad at the time, but they said it. And if you had believed that, then the war is essentially over, and it's not. So to provoke Andy and Jonathan, Jonathan, what do you, what do you think on that? I think back to Vietnam, when we had the whole body count problem, where we had these whiz kids who were extremely intelligent engineers that Sekhmet Maknammer surrounded

• 42:11Speaker 04

  himself with to try to get ahead of the Vietnam problem that that they inherited in the 50s, and so from France in particular, because France basically gave us their problem and told us to handle it. And that's what we did in Vietnam in the early years. And in order to get ahead of it, we thought of how can we, how can we rationalize what we're doing there? And they decided to start doing this body count thing. Well, what that did was it incentivized people on the ground to, first of all, claim KIA's that did not happen. And second of all, to kill civilians to increase the number. And this especially on the on the Vietnamese partner force side, because that would increase the amount of resources they could get, the higher the body counts were, whether they are real fabricated or other people that were killed that were not the enemy. That was all designed so that these numbers could come in. Because that's what the whole thing was focused on was how

• 42:56Speaker 04

  many died, how much damage was done. Numbers, numbers. And that's exactly what you're talking about, Mark, where in the modern world, we don't actually have that exact incentivized problem. But we do have a very similar issue where the Department of Defense, because that's what it's called by law, not Department of War, the Department of Defense is trying to advertise successes that don't exist. And they're doing that with numbers. Because it's hard, it feels like it's harder to argue numbers, because you see these things, oh, I see the imagery, I see the bomb striking the target, that must have been a destructed, a destruction of an enemy target. Well, let's go on the ground and actually evaluate, was that an enemy target? Was that a transporter or reactor launcher? Was that a point of origin site? Was there a mortar there? We will never know, because we on the on the US side are not Actually going on the ground to do battle damage assessment.

• 43:42Speaker 04

  We had this problem in Iraq, even if we were in the same area. If we couldn't actually get to the target to evaluate if it was struck or not, we couldn't be totally certain that that was the right target, the right time with the right impact that we're saying that it was. And you know, the same thing with drone warfare. If you don't have someone on the ground, a human source to validate or signals intelligence to validate that that was actually destroyed. You can't be totally certain that that was destroyed. And if we're on the order of 30,000, 50,000 strikes in a week or in a month. Every one of those strikes needs to be validated. And, and the law of large numbers kind of indicates that if you're not validating small numbers of targets, you're also not validating large numbers of targets. So there's this kind of runaway problem where you don't really know. It's almost like shooting in the dark. You know, you're shooting, you're definitely expending rounds. But you're not really sure, like, where are those rounds hitting?

• 44:27Speaker 04

  And, and are they actually causing more problems than, than there were before you fired that round? So there's a lot of challenge here without us actually being on the ground to evaluate and, and you could be on the ground a lot of capacities. Like I said, it could be recruited sources, human sources. It could be, it could be really exquisite signals intelligence that's used in a particular way. It could be other, other things besides ground troops. But ground troops really help because that's us. And so you could trust us.

• 44:51Speaker 02

  Didn't the Pentagon know better? I mean, I, I hear you, but again, so, so they're doing these briefings and they're going to Trump and showing him all this stuff and he's getting mesmerized. So Trump was a doofus, thinks we're winning. But so.

• 45:02Speaker 04

  We'll get the same problem. Trump won. We have the same problem against ISIS. Because, and I remember this because I was in Syria and Iraq during this time in Jordan as well, where we would, you know, deliver up our, our strike battle damage assessments and things like that. They would get restructured and repackaged before, like they would leave us, our teams. And on their way up to the president, they would change. And this was that time when Trump's name had to be inserted dozens of times into his president's daily brief in order for him to even pay attention, not even to absorb, but to just pay attention. And I remember we got our national intelligence priorities framework designed and set down to us for collection. It was not approved until Trump got to put his digital, you know, that really weird signature he has in like size 48 font on the actual matrix for our collection matrix.

• 45:46Speaker 04

  That was, that was, that had to happen or else it couldn't get approved. So this is the person that's listening to this stuff. He will only consume what he likes to consume. So what's happening is these hangers-on, these palace hangers-on around him are changing the material and changing the information in a way that he'll, he'll actually digest, which means they have to alter its actual subject matter and fundamental truth. That's, that's my belief and I saw it during Trump one where they would actually modify things that we said on their way to the president's daily brief so that he would actually keep his eyes open on the page that's being dictated to him because he's not reading it. It's being dictated to him and he has to hear his own name. So this is that same person now 10 years later, eight years later, 80 years old, just turned 80, barely can stay awake.

• 46:28Speaker 04

  And so now think about how, how much of a challenge it is to even hold his attention long enough. He doesn't care about what's happening in Iran. He cares about his image, his legacy, these things. And so the people around him are trying to feed him information that makes him believe that his legacy is positive. And you can see in what he's saying on, on social media, he believes the, the things he's saying. I don't, I don't think he disbelieves what he's saying. And I think the information, if he saw what was actually true, he might not have such a positive attitude toward what's going on with Iran and, and related issues.

• 46:58Speaker 03

  I, yeah, and John, you know, also there's, there's the fact, and I'm not defending the military here, Mark. Look, uh, there, there's, there is an explanation that should have taken place whether or not Trump wanted to listen to it or not. And I don't know if that explanation occurred, but you know, BDA, as, as John pointed out, is, is really tough unless you have boots on the ground and it's, it's complex. I mean, you, there's three parts to it, right? I mean, you, you, you've got the physical damage assessment and, and that alone is quite difficult, you know, if you're doing it just from the air. All right. What is your, uh, you've, and you, because you're comparing, um, pre and post-strike pictures, right?

• 47:43Speaker 03

  Which is difficult. That are dispersed and moving. Um, you're doing, you've got a functional damage assessment, which, which asks the harder question, you know, if something was hit, can it still do its job? So give an example, I mean, we're going after missile launchers. A missile launcher with a cratered support building can, can still do its job. It's completely operational, right? But it looks as though it's destroyed and it's easy to explain as such. And then you've got the really harder part, which is a, a system assessment, which zooms out further. And if individual nodes are destroyed, can the broader system still function, reconstitute? And so, you know, understanding all that and the analysts understand that.

• 48:28Speaker 03

  Getting operational commanders to understand all that in itself is quite difficult, to be honest with you. I think John will agree. And then, and then when you're packaging it for a president who has for quite a short attention span, that's, you know, I'm under, I'm understating that, then it becomes near impossible. So even without intentional duplicity, uh, the, the, the whole BDA thing was bound to go wrong. And when you're talking about a, a, a system assessment, you know, let's take the Navy as an example. I, someone somewhere along the line should have told him the conventional Iranian Navy was never a threat.

• 49:07Speaker 03

  The threat was always, always small boats, mines and drones, oh, oh, and missiles, of course, in that order. Um, missiles can be fired from anywhere and hit the straight. Anywhere in Iran, Iran's a big country. It's easy to disperse missiles. The Iranians use decoys, um, very easy to, to hide missile launches there. I mean, all these, all these factors play in. Um, what is absolutely unjustifiable is the extreme confidence shown by guys in uniform when they briefed. I agree with you because they should understand what I have just explained because I'm not, I'm not an intel analyst.

• 49:50Speaker 03

  I'm an operational guy, but I, I at least understand that. Um, and, and so there was a sense of. Of misleading the American public. I do agree on that from people who should have known better, or maybe they didn't. Maybe truly they have reached four star rank, being quite ignorant about what BDA involves. Or, or you get to senior levels and you realize that you're there and if you'd say anything against the grain, you will not be there any longer. That could be it too. Wisdom, and I'm just throwing this out there, and just for whatever, you know, you guys know this, but like, this has nothing to do with the, you know, an F-35 pilot, or someone on a US ship somewhere, or US Marine, like, you know, the people on the ground,

• 50:34Speaker 03

  this is not them. I'm talking about the leadership who have to brief the President of the United States on how the conduct of the war is going. And Dan Kane, the Chairman, has been given a pass, because Pete Hegseth is such a complete and utter fool. Kane has been given a pass, but Kane also was involved in these briefings. And I don't think President Trump gets his Rosie a picture without Dan Kane providing that Rosie picture. And I think, you know, it's fair to go back and say, because right now, I mean, some people, I think some people, especially on the right in the United States, are like, hold on a second, I thought we were winning. We're kicking their ass every day. All we saw on Fox News was death and destruction from above. And wait a second, now the narrative, of course, on the right has shifted, that we kind of screwed the pooch on this, but, you know, there is something to be said. Oh,

• 51:17Speaker 03

  Mick came back. Mick, I was, I was talking about something that you had, we had talked about before, and perhaps disagreed a little bit, previously, just has to do with kind of the military briefings that were provided over the last several months. And, you know, we had all given kind of Dan Kane a pass. But, but I think we do have to go back, and because with the happy math, and all the things, and then Andy and Jonathan talked about the difficulties in BDA, but I do think we can go back and say, well, hold on a second, you know, the President has been briefed nonstop that we're winning. The military and these Pentagon briefings, even though Hegseth is kind of a fool, Dan Kane has been sitting there and saying kind of a lot soberly, but saying the same things, and it turns around,

• 51:57Speaker 03

  turns out now that, well, hold on a second. So I do think it's fair to at least kind of question that, going back to things such as Andy said, you know, military briefings in Vietnam with body counts, and, you know, there is, you know, I look back to times in Iraq and Afghanistan, military briefings turned out really not to be correct. I think it's fair to just raise that now, as we're sitting in a place where it looks like we're not coming out. I don't think we're losing this war at all, but we certainly, you know, we didn't win. Not yet. This should be something that's reviewed by basically the the the armed services committees. They need to review like, because the intelligence assessment is going to come out, right?

• 52:40Speaker 03

  And then they can look at what was briefed and what was the case. And they can, you know, sometimes it's just mistakes because they they adjust their assessment. Um, but it needs to happen because uh, the history needs to be correct and we need to make sure that the president's getting the right information and obviously the American people, because at the end of the day, uh, we pay for it, right? Um, I did right before I had to jump on it, yeah, uh, to another media outlet. I did have a question for you guys because I heard somebody talking. She was on the uh, House Intelligence Committee. Now she was trumpeting the idea that Iran signed this thing and said they want to have a nuclear weapon.

• 53:25Speaker 03

  As a big positive, I would say, look, like they they've agreed to not have a nuclear weapon. I don't know how many different times and yeah, right? And then she said, and you can look it up, um, they, she had seen intel, which is kind of an odd thing to say, that they have a clandestine nuclear program, which kind of countered her whole position. You know, it's like, so what does it matter if they're signing a document to the great Satan that they're not going to have a nuclear weapon? And then she's, and then then it was like, wait a minute, what? Because I mean, I don't have access to information anymore, but um, she said that yesterday, uh, as if she had read it recently. So if they have a clandestine nuclear program.

• 54:09Speaker 02

  Make it, sorry, repeat that a little bit. You broke up a a little.

• 54:13Speaker 03

  So she was saying as somebody, as a member of the the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, that she had seen intelligence, that they have the current clandestine. Nuclear weapons program. I don't know if that's true. I haven't, you know, I don't have access nor what I want it because I talk about this stuff too much. So if that's the case and we know it. What is it we're trying to negotiate? And what do we care if they're writing things that they clearly aren't intending to do? You know what I mean? Like, do you think that's accurate? I guess this is a question for the group. And then the, the other part is. How far advanced are we? Because we're only talking about the, the parts of the nuclear program that we think we know. You see what I mean?

• 54:58Speaker 03

  Is there one that's utilizing these fortresses that are imprentable right now? I don't know. Uh, because that throws a big monkey wrench in the whole. I think scenario going forward.

• 55:11Speaker 04

  Well, when Khomeini sent the delegation, he said that there had to be a certain number of the Supreme National Security Council members that would approve of the negotiations. There's 12 of them. It required nine yes votes. All 12, of course, voted yes, because it's an authoritarian regime. But in that statement saying that all of them agreed, they said they're going to approach these talks with total distrust. That's a quote, total distrust. So as you mentioned, Mick, they're going to go sign this piece of paper with the great Satan with total distrust. I would lean more toward the clandestine nuclear program being true than them agreeing to give up nuclear weapons verbally or on a piece of paper in Switzerland. And I think that's very important to understand, you know, actions versus words. You know, there's a lot of words being thrown around right now because there's a financial

• 55:53Speaker 04

  incentive for them to look like they're doing what they say they're doing until they get their hands on that cash and they're going to put some, that's going to get diverted. And that was the big, uh, you know, dispute with the JCPOA was that if we give them a credit facility or some kind of special purpose vehicle with money for humanitarian supplies and things, that that would divert cash for them to use somewhere else in a negative way, you know, for purchasing dual use weapon systems or actuators and other, and rocket systems, right? Um, and again, 300 billion is a lot more than what was with the JCPOA. So even if that was used in a very strict humanitarian vehicle and they claim there will be no weapons and no nuclear, you know, equipment being produced, that's what they say. They approached this with total distrust. They said that.

• 56:36Speaker 04

  I would take them at their word. They don't trust the West. They have never trusted America. That has been death to America, death to Israel since 1979 and remains so. And that's actually what Ansar Allah or the Houthis in Yemen, that's their slogan is death to America, death to Israel. Even it's on their flag and that's an Iranian proxy force. So I think we would be kind of deluding ourselves with idealism and hope, just wishing and hoping that the regime is being honest. They're telling us that they don't trust us. I feel like, how can you, how can you look at that and just ignore that and say, no, they're going to sign the document and they're going to follow it.

• 57:09Speaker 02

  I have a philosophical-ish question. Um, and I know the Iranian regime is shit and terrible. But can you blame them?

• 57:17Speaker 04

  For trying to get a contest and?

• 57:19Speaker 02

  No, not being able to trust us going into these negotiations. Have, you know, looking at the his, looking at the, yeah, absolutely. But looking at the history, can you blame them? Especially if their one goal is regime security, which Ja, uh, John's incredible book, Iran Shadow Weapons, points out.

• 57:40Speaker 04

  Yeah. I mean, I guess from their perspective, they don't trust us. We don't trust them and.

• 57:47Speaker 04

  The question is like, wouldn't you be trying to get a nuclear weapon? I mean, I know it's not popular to say, but for pragmatic reasons, like if, like, what would you be doing if you were in their shoes right now? What would you be advocating for with the Supreme Leader? Seriously? Look at North Korea. You guys aren't, yeah.

• 58:05Speaker 03

  I miss issue. I think it was a couple of things. One is you have to see which member of HIPSE said this, you know, that, you know, which, which member of the committee, some of them are complete idiots. And so who knows if, if, if she said this, she probably shouldn't have. And number two, there has been some reporting that suggested when the Israelis came to, uh, President Trump and, um, uh, and kind of convinced, uh, convinced him for the nuclears, for the strike on the nuclear facilities, it had to do with something new that they had uncovered. So there is, there might be something murky out there and it's probably less.

• 58:36Speaker 03

  You know, conclusive that there is a clandestine nuclear weapon program. Because by the way, just that in and of itself, if it was real, that leaks. Sorry, it does. It ain't our collection, so that would leak in a second.

• 58:47Speaker 06

  Apparently it did.

• 58:48Speaker 03

  But, but I think there's probably some nuance there on that. One, the one thing I wanted to raise with you guys, which, you know, so it was interesting. So CNN reported, essentially, there's some side agreements on the MOU. And, and then insinuated that there are leadership splits within Iran. And I was going back and forth with some CNN commentators and they said, okay, that might be true because you really have the political types who are in Switzerland now. But, but the idea that somehow there's, there's leadership splits and that, you know, first of all, the, the political folks can come out on top, but that, not that the IRGC is still controlling everything, I, I wonder if it even matters.

• 59:29Speaker 03

  But, and you see this theme with, especially with Vance and Trump, who, you know, they say things, I don't even, because they've been briefed, but you know, there's reasonable people we're dealing with or there, you know. But, so I guess the question is, do you see any leadership splits? And if there are, does it even matter considering the IRGC are the ones with the guns?

• 59:48Speaker 06

  So the only thing I've heard on leadership splits is these, these folks that we obviously consider hardliners, the hardliners don't. And they basically told them, don't come back if you concede anything that we told you not to concede. Like, they're not actually like Goliath and Haraqi, you know? Like, they're, they're, I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, but most of what I've heard is they have been told, like, even if you want to concede something, if we told you not to, don't do it.

• 1:00:19Speaker 03

  So it doesn't matter.

• 1:00:21Speaker 06

  Yeah, right. Yeah.

• 1:00:25Speaker 03

  But you know, there's always this search for moderates. I mean, Jonathan, you have a pretty good sense of history of US-Iranian relations. I mean, from, you know, Bud McFarland's key in a birthday cake or whatever the fuck we did then. I mean, we always have this incredible desire to find a moderate to speak to in Iran and it never works and we end up becoming, looking like naive idiots.

• 1:00:43Speaker 04

  Yeah, and actually, for the listeners, what Mark's referring to is the Iran-Contra affair, where when we secretly went to go agree in Iran to delivering weapons for drugs and so on, and all that scandal, there was a cake also delivered off the aircraft with a key in the cake, which is kind of a fascinating part of our history. I recommend people go read about if they haven't read about that. But it's interesting. We gotta explain that more. Like, why would we put a game? It was like a trust exchange.

• 1:01:10Speaker 03

  Yeah, I mean, yeah.

• 1:01:11Speaker 04

  And it was actually organized by an Israeli businessman, and that's the one who recommended putting the cake, or putting the key in the cake. It's a whole interesting scenario.

• 1:01:18Speaker 03

  It's embarrassing, though. I mean, it's really, it's a humiliating story, but again, it's just-

• 1:01:22Speaker 02

  Was the key bugged?

• 1:01:23Speaker 03

  No.

• 1:01:26Speaker 04

  But if you're looking at today, right now, in Iran, the question about, is there a split? The answer is yes. And the way I can, I can confirm that. So, you know, the regime pays a lot of people to go out in the streets and do these pro-regime protests to make it look like there are people in Iran, like, widely supporting what's going on. Now, these have actually gotten a little bit out of hand, because the people that are supporting the negotiations in Switzerland, on the pro-regime side, are actually telling these protesters to please stop protesting. And they're not, because they're being controlled by IRGC elements, who are telling them to continue protesting. And you can actually see this played out on different Iran-controlled media outlets. You know, there's the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting, which is the IRGC-controlled media. Then there's a Ministry of Intelligence-controlled broadcasting station also. And there are different narratives

• 1:02:10Speaker 04

  on both of these, even though they're both pro-regime. On the Ministry of Intelligence side, and the Foreign Ministry-supported media, they're saying that these protests are going down, and people are leaving the streets. And on the IRGC side, they're actually amplifying and saying more people are coming out to the streets to protest the US negotiations with Iran. So there is certainly-

• 1:02:28Speaker 03

  I love this. It's interesting, and we geek out on this stuff. The big question for you, then, does it matter? Does it, is there, I mean, so, so, you know, we're seized on this. You see an intelligence report, there's splits, okay. Does it actually matter with the final Iranian position? How can the US take advantage of this argument? And maybe I'm totally wrong, is it doesn't matter? Because the hardliner's gonna point out anyway.

• 1:02:48Speaker 04

  It does matter, because the way that we are defining moderate and hardliner is shifting. They're, they are all hardliners, in my opinion. If we say moderate, we're joking to ourselves, we're just talking in relative terms. But there's one person that's on the delegation in Switzerland that tells me that this matters, and that's Goliath.

• 1:03:06Speaker 04

  I actually saw yesterday, I think it was on CNN, he was described as a moderate, and I had to reread that sentence because I was like, how are you calling this guy a moderate? He is a deep-seated, hard-lining member of the old IRGC crew that should have been whacked on day one. And in fact, the US asked Israel not to kill him, him and Vahidi, both. Because we wanted to negotiate with them because we didn't really understand who these people were. And now we see who they are, and he's there in Switzerland. So if he is there in Switzerland, then whatever he decides is going to be the law of the land. Which is a very important point. It's not that they sent Aragchi this time, or Poseschkin. There's a reason Poseschkin is not on the delegation. Because Poseschkin has zero control over what happens. He can say a lot, and he does say a lot, on social media, but it's the IRGC who's in charge.

• 1:03:48Speaker 04

  Goliath has held almost every important position in the IRGC that exists. And now he is the Parliament Speaker, so he controls the Majlis also, which is like their senate. He controls that now. And he's the one that's leading the delegation. It's him, Aragchi, the Foreign Minister, it's representatives from the Supreme National Security Council, it's the Central Bank Director of Iran, who's a sanctioned individual, but has a black diplomatic passport and travels to the United States, to DC, and oil representatives. So it's the Ministry of Oil. This is the delegation. So to your point, Mick, this, yeah, exactly. This is about the Straits of Hormuz and the movement of oil. This is not about resolution of conflict. It's about a specific economic outcome, as you mentioned, Mark, that Trump got flustered with what's going on economically and is trying to find a way out.

• 1:04:32Speaker 04

  That's why those people are at that meeting. So that there can be a way out for the US government to somehow get out of this with something.

• 1:04:40Speaker 03

  It seems like we're getting our asses handed, but, I mean, the Iranians are really good negotiators, I mean, but just, you know, I mean, this is, I mean, I hate to say this, Mick, I'm like, I'm with you on this, but I want us to win, but you have this select team versus Witkoff and Jared and JD Vance. I just, how do we win in this?

• 1:04:58Speaker 04

  Well, plus, these negotiators on the Iran side have been negotiating, the same people, the same named people have been negotiating for 40 years. They're super experienced. Yeah, they've met every American delegation and they've seen them come and go. It's kind of like us going to Afghanistan every year, and we meet the guys for the first time, they've been there the whole time, you know? And it's very similar to that.

• 1:05:22Speaker 06

  So I mean, like, we're trying to come up with ideas, and maybe I'll throw this to Andy. In fact, I will throw it to Andy.

• 1:05:30Speaker 06

  One of the biggest issues of getting ships to the Strait of Hormuz is getting ships to accept that it's safe enough, even with US military escort. You think there's a way that we could basically ensure all these ships and even put our people on it to try to get the free flow? Because if we took that away from them, this becomes a different discussion. Like, I'm throwing it out there, I don't have any basis to know whether that's a potential, but I think we need to start thinking out of the box right now, because we're headed down to an Iranian successful outcome of this. Like, is that a potential with the military escort and the military umbrella that would be over, that we could start getting the free flow?

• 1:06:15Speaker 03

  I think in answer to your question, I mean, and I hate to say this, but there's the military side, there's no clean military fix. The military side could be used to enable a negotiated agreement about Straits of Hormuz. That's a tough part about this. I mean, keeping it open by force is what the blockade already tried. It just turned the strait into contested space. You know, it didn't really solve anything. So a long-term military commitment to hold a 21-mile-wide waterway against mines, fast boats, and drones is not a strategy. You know, I mean, it's a liability, right?

• 1:06:54Speaker 03

  So the real fix, and it's not a good answer, I mean, it's the only answer, it's just not a satisfactory one, is it's a slow, structural approach, right? Reduce dependence on the strait itself. Saudi and UAE pipelines already bypass, you know, they're already working on bypassing the straits with exporting their oil. But that's, you know, that's a long-term approach.

• 1:07:27Speaker 03

  Find ways to make the cost of closing it land on Iran's own economy specifically, not just spike prices for the whole world. Right now, the threat works precisely because the pain is global and diffuse, it's not concentrated on Tehran, so we can find a way to do that.

• 1:07:45Speaker 03

  Yeah, I mean, Hormuz isn't a problem you can solve. And it's a fact of geography and Iran will always be able to lean on it. The real progress is making that leverage work less by finding ways around it and also directing some of that pain back on to Tehran. So it can't be solved by the military, which of course pains me to say. And while I'm here and I know Dee's about to shut us down, he's got to go on to more important things.

• 1:08:20Speaker 02

  No, I'm loving this.

• 1:08:22Speaker 03

  But Mark and Mick have both kind of said, brought up the point that we need guys who really know what the goals are and how to negotiate. And we talked about, or we should talk about, what would they do? So very briefly, I think they need to handle Lebanon first, right? Because it's a live fuse. Iran has explicitly tied Hormuz access to Lebanon ceasefire holding. And we just watched it use that exact justification to shut this straight down three days after signing the MOU. So Israel isn't a party to this deal. Washington's having to manage a partner it doesn't control. You know, it doesn't control the clock.

• 1:09:05Speaker 03

  And that's going to mean real pressure on. They're going to have to bring real pressure on Israel, not just public statements asking for restraint, because restraint hasn't worked. And until that is solved, and I mean real pressure, I mean, whatever leverage we have with Israel, it's a time to use it. Because our interests as nations have diverged. And again, I don't always agree with J.D. Vance, but he's right in that point. And Lebanon can make the whole thing blow up in our face unless we clamp it down right now. And the way to do that is bring pressure on Israel. That's number one. Number two is get the nuclear mechanism verified, not just promise, right? So.

• 1:09:52Speaker 03

  Sixty days isn't gonna solve the problem, but it's enough time to convert the vague language into a binding, kind of verified agreement.

• 1:10:06Speaker 03

  Similar to the Jikpoa, right? With real inspection access, a real timeline, something that casts Iran a real price if it walks away. And then the other way, the third thing is we've got to stop spending leverage before Iran has moved on anything. The blockade's gone, the frozen assets are already moving. That was round one and it went before anything was verified. So whatever's left, the reconstruction fund, future sanctions relief has to stay strictly conditional this time, tied to confirmed verifiable steps, not handed over on good faith alone.

• 1:10:52Speaker 03

  So, you know, I mean, the honest bottom line is nobody seriously expects sixty days to resolve the missile program or the proxies or the stockpile. The real test is narrower.

• 1:11:05Speaker 03

  And that is what we can salvage out of the language from this MOU. I think taking the steps we've already taken. And at the same time, when it comes to Hormuz, looking for a longer term solution where we are not so dependent on Hormuz. Because this whole talk of us keeping it open militarily is absolutely impractical. And it plays right into Iran's hands. So we want to figure out a way to remove that Trump con from Iran. This makes you wonder, like, when they talked about the straight closing and we knew it was going to be closed. What was the plan?

• 1:11:39Speaker 03

  What was the plan to either keep it open or prevent it from closing? Or, I mean, that's what you talk about in the policy coordination process. I mean, it's Yeah, this is Absolutely, this is where I have a problem with CENTCOM. You know, and I think I suspect that Mark is right on this, that

• 1:12:02Speaker 03

  I mean, I don't know what advice was offered, but I feel that if you offer advice, if you're at that nexus, right, between policy and strategy, and you have four stars on your collar, you should be willing to throw your career away for the sake of the nation. If you are offering advice and you know that not following that

• 1:12:23Speaker 05

  Hi, I'm Jenna Ashkowitz. You might know me from Glee. This is At the Table, the food allergy podcast, a show about food, connection, and what it really looks like to live with food allergies. Each episode, we hear stories from real people like Daniel.

• 1:12:37Speaker 06

  People would always think I was lactose intolerant, so I just kind of shortened my explanation to, I'm deathly allergic in a big way that defined a lot of my childhood.

• 1:12:48Speaker 05

  And while there are challenges, there are moments that remind you you're not alone.

• 1:12:54Speaker 07

  One of the best guys that I dated, he made a point to memorize all my food allergies.

• 1:12:59Speaker 05

  So join us and hear their stories and more because living with food allergies isn't just about what you can't eat. It's about still having your seat at the table. Brought to you by Genentech and Novartis. Listen to At the Table, the food allergy podcast on America's number one podcast network, iHeart. Follow At the Table and start listening on the free iHeart Radio app today.

• 1:13:19Speaker 00

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• 1:14:14Speaker 03

  Advice that's going to be disastrous to your country's interests, then it's time to resign.

• 1:14:21Speaker 03

  And and we didn't see that. I don't know what happened. I don't know why CENTCOM wasn't banging the table harder on that piece. But it does make me suspicious and very disappointed, of course, not that anyone's really losing sleep over my disappointment.

• 1:14:37Speaker 06

  I don't know that they didn't say that, you know, here's your options and they all are not good. I don't know, but.

• 1:14:42Speaker 03

  Yeah, I mean, I, yeah, absolutely. I'm saying in order for, but there needs to be some bite to that, right? Here's your options. But if if the boss goes down a path that you know is going to be disastrous, then what do you do? Just troll along and say, okay, well, he didn't take my advice. No, as a four star general, you owe your country a little more than that. That's just my belief. You get treated like a like a pro consul, like a viceroy, people geneflucked in front of you. I mean, those of you wearing a uniform, no, I'm not exaggerating. It's unbelievable the way we treat four stars as though they're gods. When the time comes, with that, you know, the whole Spider-Man thing, right? With with great power comes

• 1:15:25Speaker 03

  great responsibility. And that includes being willing to say, okay, I'm going to walk away from this because I what you're going to do, what you're about to do by not following my advice is going to seriously hurt our interests. I know that all the fucking all the counter arguments to this, blah, blah, blah, you are, you know, I'm not challenging civilian control of the military, far from it. I'm saying that the military has a very key role in in in in in the long run, helping political leadership not do things that are disastrous. I mean, look, the Southcom commander, the chief member, he resigned, he retired. Yeah.

• 1:16:10Speaker 03

  You want to know parties? I just, you know, so there is that option. So I just, I think it's Yeah, and it does happen occasionally, very occasionally in the US military, two occasionally. I mean, Greg Newbold was probably the last time a three star or four star resigned over a question of principle. And that was at the outset of the Iraq War. And Andy, the reason why I think it's fair to ask these questions is that the the possibilities I hope it doesn't get that way for a complete strategic disaster right now for the United States is real. I mean, that's how bad it could be. No, I, I, I agree with you. Hundred percent.

• 1:16:49Speaker 03

  I mean, this is a, this is a doozy, you know? That, that's why I'm saying it's not okay to now, hey, you didn't take my advice. And so I'm still going to draw my pay and be genefucked to, uh, no, it doesn't work that way.

• 1:17:06Speaker 03

  In my mind.

• 1:17:09Speaker 03

  Of course, I never made above Colonel. Maybe that's why, but.

• 1:17:16Speaker 02

  Man, oh, man. Okay. What a show.

• 1:17:20Speaker 02

  We'll see what happens. Obviously this week and we're gonna, once we get off here, we'll probably be looking on our Twitter to see about any kind of updates and stuff like that with the talks in Switzerland right now. Um. Yeah, I don't know what else to say. We're doing plugs. John Hackett, great book. Iran Shadow Weapons, A Theory of a Regular War. Those links are in the description. Mick Mulroy. The Whitefish Security Summit. Link is in the description coming up in February of next year. Mark, I'm gonna put the link to the article you wrote recently down in the description as well that we mentioned. So check that out. Of course, Andy Milburn, uh, When the Tempest Gathers, great autobiography. That link is in the description as well. Do us a favor. If you like the show.

• 1:18:01Speaker 02

  Hit like, hit subscribe, rate it five stars and, uh, check out our Patreon, patreon.com slash the team house. For free episodes, early episodes and helping support the show. Guys, a pleasure as always. And happy Father's Day.

• 1:18:17Speaker 04

  Ah, happy Father's Day, guys.

• 1:18:19Speaker 02

  Happy Father's Day to John, to B.

• 1:18:21Speaker 04

  Yeah, that's right.

• 1:18:22Speaker 03

  Very cool. Really? Wow.

• 1:18:27Speaker 02

  Mick's always looking for beers, always.

• 1:18:29Speaker 04

  He is, yes.

• 1:18:31Speaker 03

  The miracles of modern, of modern medical science. It doesn't matter what age you are now. You can still procreate. Get on you, John.

• 1:18:40Speaker 02

  Thanks, thanks, guys.

• 1:18:46Speaker 06

  Hey guys, I want to take a moment to tell you about the Team House Podcast newsletter. If you go and subscribe, it's totally free and what it will do is aggregate all of our data, all of our content that we put out, the things that are on the Team House, on our geopolitics podcast, Eyes On, things that I write journalistically with Sean Naylor on the high side, anything else that we have going on, books we recommend, upcoming guests that we have coming on the show, and also filtering in some fun stuff in there as well. If you go and check it out, we send it out just once a week. We don't want to spam you guys. It's just a kind of roll up of all of our content on a weekly basis. You can

• 1:19:30Speaker 06

  find our newsletter at teamhousepodcast.kit.com/join. Again, the website for that is teamhousepodcast.kit.com/join. So we hope to see you there.

• 1:19:44Speaker 05

  Hi, I'm Jenna Oshkowitz. You might know me from Glee. This is At the Table, the food allergy podcast, a show about food, connection, and what it really looks like to live with food allergies. Each episode, we hear stories from real people like Daniel.

• 1:19:59Speaker 06

  People would always think I was lactose intolerant, so I just kind of shortened my explanation to I'm deathly allergic, in a big way that defined a lot of my childhood.

• 1:20:10Speaker 05

  And while there are challenges, there are moments that remind you you're not alone.

• 1:20:15Speaker 07

  One of the best guys that I dated, he made a point to memorize all my food allergies.

• 1:20:21Speaker 05

  So join us and hear their stories and more, because living with food allergies isn't just about what you can't eat. It's about still having your seat at the table. Brought to you by Genentech and Novartis. Listen to At the Table, the food allergy podcast on America's number one podcast network, iHeart. Follow At the Table and start listening on the free iHeart Radio app today.

• 1:20:41Speaker 00

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• 1:21:38Speaker 04

  The link will be down in the description.

• 1:21:44Speaker 05

  Hi, I'm Jenna Oshkowitz. You might know me from Glee. This is At the Table, the food allergy podcast, a show about food, connection, and what it really looks like to live with food allergies. Each episode, we hear stories from real people like Daniel.

• 1:21:58Speaker 06

  People would always think I was lactose intolerant, so I just kind of shortened my explanation to I'm deathly allergic, in a big way that defined a lot of my childhood.

• 1:22:09Speaker 05

  And while there are challenges, there are moments that remind you you're not alone.

• 1:22:14Speaker 07

  One of the best guys that I dated, he made a point to memorize all my food allergies.

• 1:22:20Speaker 05

  So join us and hear their stories and more, because living with food allergies isn't just about what you can't eat, it's about still having your seat at the table. Brought to you by Genentech and Novartis. Listen to At the Table, the food allergy podcast, on America's number one podcast network, iHeart. Follow At the Table and start listening on the free iHeartRadio app today.

• 1:22:40Speaker 00

  ChatGPT for Teens is designed to help teens learn, think critically, and grow their skills. ChatGPT for Teens supports active learning by breaking concepts down. Rather than giving teens the answer, study mode helps teens work through problems, and interactive quizzes test their knowledge and provide immediate feedback. Safety protections are on by default, and parental controls offer families additional options, like setting study hours and quiet hours. Visit chatgpt.comPARENTS to learn more.

• 1:23:08Speaker 01

  OnDeck is built to back small businesses like yours. Whether you're buying equipment, expanding your team, or bridging cash flow gaps, OnDeck's loans up to $400,000 help make it happen fast. Rated A+ by the Better Business Bureau and earning thousands of five-star TrustPilot reviews, OnDeck delivers funding you can count on. Apply in minutes at ondeck.com. Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by OnDeck or Celtic Bank. OnDeck does not lend in North Dakota. All loans and amounts subject to lender approval.

• 1:23:43Speaker 05

  Hi, I'm Jenna Oshkowitz. You might know me from Glee. This is At the Table, the food allergy podcast, a show about food, connection, and what it really looks like to live with food allergies. Each episode, we hear stories from real people like Daniel.

• 1:23:57Speaker 06

  People would always think I was lactose intolerant, so I just kind of shortened my explanation to I'm deathly allergic, in a big way that defined a lot of my childhood.

• 1:24:08Speaker 05

  And while there are challenges, there are moments that remind you you're not alone.

• 1:24:13Speaker 07

  One of the best guys that I dated, he made a point to memorize all my food allergies.

• 1:24:19Speaker 05

  So join us and hear their stories and more, because living with food allergies isn't just about what you can't eat, it's about still having your seat at the table. Brought to you by Genentech and Novartis. Listen to At the Table, the food allergy podcast, on America's number one podcast network, iHeart. Follow At the Table and start listening on the free iHeart Radio app today.

• 1:24:39Speaker 00

  ChatGPT for Teens is designed to help teens learn, think critically, and grow their skills. ChatGPT for Teens supports active learning by breaking concepts down. Rather than giving teens the answer, study mode helps teens work through problems, and interactive quizzes test their knowledge and provide immediate feedback. Safety protections are on by default, and parental controls offer families additional options, like setting study hours and quiet hours. Visit chatgpt.comPARENTS to learn more.

• 1:25:07Speaker 06

  Cash Flow Crunch on Deck's small business line of credit gives your business immediate access to funds, up to $200,000, right when you need it. Cover seasonal dips, manage payroll, restock inventory, or tackle unexpected expenses without missing a beat. With flexible draws, transparent pricing, and control over repayment, get funded quickly and confidently. Apply today at ondeck.com. Funds could be available as soon as tomorrow. Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by OnDeck or Celtic Bank. OnDeck does not lend in North Dakota. All loans and amounts subject to lender approval.

• 1:25:43Speaker 05

  Hi, I'm Jenna Oshkowitz. You might know me from Glee. This is At the Table, the food allergy podcast, a show about food, connection, and what it really looks like to live with food allergies. Each episode, we hear stories from real people like Daniel.

• 1:25:58Speaker 06

  People would always think I was lactose intolerant, so I just kind of shortened my explanation to I'm deathly allergic, in a big way that defined a lot of my childhood.

• 1:26:09Speaker 05

  And while there are challenges, there are moments that remind you you're not alone.

• 1:26:14Speaker 07

  One of the best guys that I dated, he made a point to memorize all my food allergies.

• 1:26:20Speaker 05

  So join us and hear their stories and more, because living with food allergies isn't just about what you can't eat, it's about still having your seat at the table. Brought to you by Genentech and Novartis. Listen to At the Table, the food allergy podcast on America's number one podcast network, iHeart. Follow At the Table and start listening on the free iHeartRadio app today.

• 1:26:40Speaker 00

  ChatGPT for Teens is designed to help teens learn, think critically, and grow their skills. ChatGPT for Teens supports active learning by breaking concepts down. Rather than giving teens the answer, study mode helps teens work through problems, and interactive quizzes test their knowledge and provide immediate feedback. Safety protections are on by default, and parental controls offer families additional options, like setting study hours and quiet hours. Visit chatgpt.comPARENTS to learn more.

• 1:27:07Speaker 01

  Cash flow crunch? OnDeck's small business line of credit gives your business immediate access to funds, up to $200,000, right when you need it. Cover seasonal dips, manage payroll, restock inventory, or tackle unexpected expenses without missing a beat. With flexible draws, transparent pricing, and control over repayment, get funded quickly and confidently. Apply today at ondeck.com. Funds could be available as soon as tomorrow. Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by OnDeck or Celtic Bank. OnDeck does not lend in North Dakota. All loans and amount subject to lender approval.

• 1:27:45Speaker 05

  Hi, I'm Jenna Oshkowitz. You might know me from Glee. This is At the Table, the food allergy podcast, a show about food, connection, and what it really looks like to live with food allergies. Each episode, we hear stories from real people like Daniel.

• 1:27:59Speaker 06

  People would always think I was lactose intolerant, so I just kind of shortened my explanation to I'm deathly allergic, in a big way that defined a lot of my childhood.

• 1:28:10Speaker 05

  And while there are challenges, there are moments that remind you you're not alone.

• 1:28:15Speaker 07

  One of the best guys that I dated, he made a point to memorize all my food allergies.

• 1:28:21Speaker 05

  So join us and hear their stories and more, because living with food allergies isn't just about what you can't eat, it's about still having your seat at the table. Brought to you by Genentech and Novartis. Listen to At the Table, the food allergy podcast, on America's number one podcast network, iHeart. Follow At the Table and start listening on the free iHeart Radio app today.

• 1:28:41Speaker 00

  ChatGPT for Teens is designed to help teens learn, think critically, and grow their skills. ChatGPT for Teens supports active learning by breaking concepts down. Rather than giving teens the answer, study mode helps teens work through problems, and interactive quizzes test their knowledge and provide immediate feedback. Safety protections are on by default, and parental controls offer families additional options, like setting study hours and quiet hours. Visit chatgpt.comPARENTS to learn more.

• 1:29:09Speaker 01

  Cash flow crunch? OnDeck's small business line of credit gives your business immediate access to funds, up to $200,000, right when you need it. Cover seasonal dips, manage payroll, restock inventory, or tackle unexpected expenses without missing a beat. With flexible draws, transparent pricing, and control over repayment, get funded quickly and confidently. Apply today at ondeck.com. Funds could be available as soon as tomorrow. Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by OnDeck or Celtic Bank. OnDeck does not lend in North Dakota. All loans and amounts subject to lender approval.

• 1:29:47Speaker 05

  Hi, I'm Jenna Oshkowitz. You might know me from Glee. This is At the Table, the food allergy podcast, a show about food, connection, and what it really looks like to live with food allergies. Each episode, we hear stories from real people like Daniel.

• 1:30:01Speaker 06

  People would always think I was lactose intolerant, so I just kind of shortened my explanation to "I'm deathly allergic", in a big way that defined a lot of my childhood.

• 1:30:12Speaker 05

  And while there are challenges, there are moments that remind you you're not alone.

• 1:30:17Speaker 07

  One of the best guys that I dated, he made a point to memorize all my food allergies.

• 1:30:23Speaker 05

  So join us and hear their stories and more, because living with food allergies isn't just about what you can't eat, it's about still having your seat at the table. Brought to you by Genentech and Novartis. Listen to At the Table, the food allergy podcast, on America's number one podcast network, iHeart. Follow At the Table and start listening on the free iHeartRadio app today.

• 1:30:43Speaker 00

  ChatGPT for Teens is designed to help teens learn, think critically, and grow their skills. ChatGPT for Teens supports active learning by breaking concepts down. Rather than giving teens the answer, study mode helps teens work through problems, and interactive quizzes test their knowledge and provide immediate feedback. Safety protections are on by default, and parental controls offer families additional options, like setting study hours and quiet hours. Visit chatgpt.comPARENTS to learn more.

• 1:31:11Speaker 01

  Cash Flow Crunch? OnDeck's small business line of credit gives your business immediate access to funds, up to $200,000, right when you need it. Cover seasonal dips, manage payroll, restock inventory, or tackle unexpected expenses without missing a beat. With flexible draws, transparent pricing, and control over repayment, get funded quickly and confidently. Apply today at ondeck.com. Funds could be available as soon as tomorrow. Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by OnDeck or Celtic Bank. OnDeck does not lend in North Dakota. All loans and amount subject to lender approval.

• 1:31:47Speaker 05

  Hi, I'm Jenna Oshkowitz. You might know me from Glee. This is At the Table, the food allergy podcast, a show about food, connection, and what it really looks like to live with food allergies. Each episode, we hear stories from real people like Daniel.

• 1:32:02Speaker 06

  People would always think I was lactose intolerant, so I just kind of shortened my explanation to "I'm deathly allergic," in a big way that defined a lot of my childhood.

• 1:32:13Speaker 05

  And while there are challenges, there are moments that remind you you're not alone.

• 1:32:18Speaker 07

  One of the best guys that I dated, he made a point to memorize all my food allergies.

• 1:32:24Speaker 05

  So join us and hear their stories and more, because living with food allergies isn't just about what you can't eat, it's about still having your seat at the table. Brought to you by Genentech and Novartis. Listen to At the Table, the food allergy podcast, on America's number one podcast network, iHeart. Follow At the Table and start listening on the free iHeart Radio app today.

• 1:32:44Speaker 00

  ChatGPT for Teens is designed to help teens learn, think critically, and grow their skills. ChatGPT for Teens supports active learning by breaking concepts down. Rather than giving teens the answer, Study Mode helps teens work through problems, and interactive quizzes test their knowledge and provide immediate feedback. Safety protections are on by default, and parental controls offer families additional options, like setting study hours and quiet hours. Visit chatgpt.comPARENTS to learn more.

• 1:33:12Speaker 01

  OnDeck is built to back small businesses like yours. Whether you're buying equipment, expanding your team, or bridging cash flow gaps, OnDeck's loans up to $400,000 help make it happen fast. Rated A+ by the Better Business Bureau and earning thousands of five-star TrustPilot reviews, OnDeck delivers funding you can count on. Apply in minutes at ondeck.com. Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by OnDeck or Celtic Bank. OnDeck does not lend in North Dakota. All loans and amounts subject to lender approval.

• 1:33:49Speaker 05

  Hi, I'm Jenna Oshkowitz. You might know me from Glee. This is At the Table, the food allergy podcast, a show about food, connection, and what it really looks like to live with food allergies. Each episode, we hear stories from real people like Daniel.

• 1:34:04Speaker 06

  People would always think I was lactose intolerant, so I just kind of shortened my explanation to I'm deathly allergic in a big way that defined a lot of my childhood.

• 1:34:15Speaker 05

  And while there are challenges, there are moments that remind you you're not alone.

• 1:34:20Speaker 07

  One of the best guys that I dated, he made a point to memorize all my food allergies.

• 1:34:26Speaker 05

  So join us and hear their stories and more, because living with food allergies isn't just about what you can't eat. It's about still having your seat at the table. Brought to you by Genentech and Novartis. Listen to At the Table, the food allergy podcast on America's number one podcast network, iHeart. Follow At the Table and start listening on the free iHeartRadio app today.

• 1:34:46Speaker 00

  ChatGPT for Teens is designed to help teens learn, think critically, and grow their skills. ChatGPT for Teens supports active learning by breaking concepts down. Rather than giving teens the answer, study mode helps teens work through problems, and interactive quizzes test their knowledge and provide immediate feedback. Safety protections are on by default, and parental controls offer families additional options, like setting study hours and quiet hours. Visit chatgpt.com/parents to learn more.

• 1:35:13Speaker 06

  OnDeck is built to back small businesses like yours. Whether you're buying equipment, expanding your team, or bridging cash flow gaps, OnDeck's loans up to $400,000 make it happen fast. Rated A+ by the Better Business Bureau and earning thousands of five-star TrustPilot reviews, OnDeck delivers funding you can count on. Apply in minutes at ondeck.com. Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by OnDeck or Celtic Bank. OnDeck does not lend in North Dakota. All loans and amounts subject to lender approval.

• 1:35:48Speaker 05

  Hi, I'm Jenna Oshkowitz. You might know me from Glee. This is At the Table, the food allergy podcast, a show about food, connection, and what it really looks like to live with food allergies. Each episode, we hear stories from real people like Daniel.

• 1:36:03Speaker 06

  People would always think I was lactose intolerant, so I just kind of shortened my explanation to I'm deathly allergic in a big way that defined a lot of my childhood.

• 1:36:14Speaker 05

  And while there are challenges, there are moments that remind you you're not alone.

• 1:36:19Speaker 07

  One of the best guys that I dated, he made a point to memorize all my food allergies.

• 1:36:25Speaker 05

  So join us and hear their stories and more. Because living with food allergies isn't just about what you can't eat, it's about still having your seat at the table. Brought to you by Genentech and Novartis. Listen to At the Table, the food allergy podcast, on America's number one podcast network, iHeart. Follow At the Table and start listening on the free iHeartRadio app today.

• 1:36:45Speaker 00

  ChatGPT for Teens is designed to help teens learn, think critically, and grow their skills. ChatGPT for Teens supports active learning by breaking concepts down. Rather than giving teens the answer, study mode helps teens work through problems, and interactive quizzes test their knowledge and provide immediate feedback. Safety protections are on by default, and parental controls offer families additional options, like setting study hours and quiet hours. Visit chatgpt.comPARENTS to learn more.

• 1:37:12Speaker 01

  Cash Flow Crunch on Deck's small business line of credit gives your business immediate access to funds, up to $200,000, right when you need it. Cover seasonal dips, manage payroll, restock inventory, or tackle unexpected expenses without missing a beat. With flexible draws, transparent pricing, and control over repayment, get funded quickly and confidently. Apply today at ondeck.com. Funds could be available as soon as tomorrow. Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by OnDeck or Celtic Bank. OnDeck does not lend in North Dakota. All loans and amount subject to lender approval.

• 1:37:50Speaker 05

  Hi, I'm Jenna Oshkowitz. You might know me from Glee. This is At the Table, the food allergy podcast, a show about food, connection, and what it really looks like to live with food allergies. Each episode, we hear stories from real people like Daniel.

• 1:38:05Speaker 06

  People would always think I was lactose intolerant, so I just kind of shortened my explanation to I'm deathly allergic, in a big way that defined a lot of my childhood.

• 1:38:16Speaker 05

  And while there are challenges, there are moments that remind you you're not alone.

• 1:38:21Speaker 07

  One of the best guys that I dated, he made a point to memorize all my food allergies.

• 1:38:27Speaker 05

  So join us and hear their stories and more, because living with food allergies isn't just about what you can't eat, it's about still having your seat at the table. Brought to you by Genentech and Novartis. Listen to At the Table, the food allergy podcast, on America's number one podcast network, iHeart. Follow At the Table and start listening on the free iHeartRadio app today.

• 1:38:47Speaker 00

  ChatGPT for Teens is designed to help teens learn, think critically, and grow their skills. ChatGPT for Teens supports active learning by breaking concepts down. Rather than giving teens the answer, Study Mode helps teens work through problems, and interactive quizzes test their knowledge and provide immediate feedback. Safety protections are on by default, and parental controls offer families additional options, like setting study hours and quiet hours. Visit chatgpt.comPARENTS to learn more.

• 1:39:14Speaker 01

  Cash Flow Crunch on Deck's small business line of credit gives your business immediate access to funds, up to $200,000, right when you need it. Cover seasonal dips, manage payroll, restock inventory, or tackle unexpected expenses without missing a beat. With flexible draws, transparent pricing, and control over repayment, get funded quickly and confidently. Apply today at ondeck.com. Funds could be available as soon as tomorrow. Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by OnDeck or Celtic Bank. OnDeck does not lend in North Dakota. All loans and amount subject to lender approval.

• 1:39:51Speaker 05

  Hi, I'm Jenna Oshkowitz. You might know me from Glee. This is At the Table, the food allergy podcast, a show about food, connection, and what it really looks like to live with food allergies. Each episode, we hear stories from real people like Daniel.

• 1:40:05Speaker 06

  People would always think I was lactose intolerant, so I just kind of shortened my explanation to I'm deathly allergic, in a big way that defined a lot of my childhood.

• 1:40:16Speaker 05

  And while there are challenges, there are moments that remind you you're not alone.

• 1:40:21Speaker 07

  One of the best guys that I dated, he made a point to memorize all my food allergies.

• 1:40:27Speaker 05

  So join us and hear their stories and more, because living with food allergies isn't just about what you can't eat, it's about still having your seat at the table. Brought to you by Genentech and Novartis. Listen to At the Table, the food allergy podcast, on America's number one podcast network, iHeart. Follow At the Table and start listening on the free iHeartRadio app today.

• 1:40:47Speaker 00

  ChatGPT for Teens is designed to help teens learn, think critically, and grow their skills. ChatGPT for Teens supports active learning by breaking concepts down rather than giving teens the answer. Study mode helps teens work through problems, and interactive quizzes test their knowledge and provide immediate feedback. Safety protections are on by default, and parental controls offer families additional options like setting study hours and quiet hours. Visit chatgpt.com/parents to learn more.

• 1:41:14Speaker 01

  Cash flow crunch? OnDeck's small business line of credit gives your business immediate access to funds up to $200,000 right when you need it. Cover seasonal dips, manage payroll, restock inventory, or tackle unexpected expenses without missing a beat. With flexible draws, transparent pricing, and control over repayment, get funded quickly and confidently. Apply today at ondeck.com. Funds could be available as soon as tomorrow. Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by OnDeck or Celtic Bank. OnDeck does not lend in North Dakota. All loans and amounts subject to lender approval.

• 1:41:45Speaker 00

  ChatGPT for Teens is designed to help teens learn, think critically, and grow their skills. ChatGPT for Teens supports active learning by breaking concepts down rather than giving teens the answer. Study mode helps teens work through problems, and interactive quizzes test their knowledge and provide immediate feedback. Safety protections are on by default, and parental controls offer families additional options like setting study hours and quiet hours. Visit chatgpt.com/parents to learn more.

• 1:42:12Speaker 06

  This is Matt Rogers from Los Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang. This is Bowen Yang from Los Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang. Every friend group has that one person who puts their card down for brunch and sends the Venmo request. If that's you and your Venmo balance is poppin'. You need a Venmo debit MasterCard so that you can spend your balance instantly. No transferring anything, no waiting around. So as soon as you get paid back for brunch, you can pay for those concert tickets you've been eyeing or put it toward your next night out. Plus, there's no monthly fee or minimum balance. Learn more about the Venmo debit card at venmo.com/card. Venmo balance account required to get the card. And use a balance effective November 1st, 2026. The Venmo MasterCard is issued by the Bancorp Bank, N.A.

• 1:42:55Speaker 01

  OnDeck is built to back small businesses like yours. Whether you're buying equipment, expanding your team, or bridging cash flow gaps, OnDeck's loans up to $400,000 help make it happen fast. Rated A+ by the Better Business Bureau and earning thousands of 5-star TrustPilot reviews, OnDeck delivers funding you can count on. Apply in minutes at ondeck.com. Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by OnDeck or Celtic Bank. OnDeck does not lend in North Dakota. All loans and amounts subject to lender approval.