Operation Blooming Daffodils

0:00This is an I Heart Podcast. Guaranteed Human. Broadcasting live from the Abraham Lincoln Radio Studio, the George Washington Broadcast Center. Yeah, Armstrong and Joe Getty. I'm Strong and Getty. And now, he is Armstrong and Getty. To the media outlets and political left screaming endless wars, stop. This is not Iraq. This is not endless. I was there for both. Our generation knows better and so does this president. He called the last 20 years of nation building wars dumb. And he's right. This is the opposite. This operation is a clear, devastating, decisive mission. Destroy the missile threat. Destroy the Navy. No nooks.

1:00Boy, that is something for the Republican administration's Secretary of Defense or Secretary of War. To come out and say those wars were dumb since they were launched under Bush. That's pretty powerful. Right. And there is a question. Well, there's kind of regime change in mind, but how much nobody's sure. But to discuss this in other matters, it's always great to talk to military analysts, Mike Lyons, who joins us now. Hello, Mike, how are you? Hey, guys, great to be back. Yeah, I was pretty interested in your tweet. A ran will attempt to execute something we have really never seen before when a war of attrition in the air. Explain what you meant by that. So we understand regular wars of attrition. They take place on the ground against industrialized nations that just grind each other out. We're seeing it happen in Ukraine right now in Russia. But we haven't seen it in the air before. And it's all about air defense platforms and air defense systems versus attack air capability. Because this war right now is all in the air. It's all, you know, we've launched our missiles and our planes against the Iranians.

2:03And all they have is missiles that come back at us. And so from their perspective, and the economics of theater missile defense are not in our favor. Because of the cost it takes to defend versus the cost to go on the attack. The Iran fires a $100,000 ballistic missile at Israel or at one of our allies. And we spend a million dollars in multiple different ways to intercept that down. And we're running out of those interceptors. And so the math doesn't work. And so what Iran's going to try to do is to make multiple different targets all around the theater. We're noticing, for example, why are they hitting targets of their neighboring countries in the Middle East? Well, it's because it's causing the missile defense theater to spread out. It's defense capabilities. Okay. So now we stocked up with the Gerald Ford on the Mediterranean side. But now the Abraham Lincoln is now in that game. And then using these other countries, Russell saw a mistake. The Qataris shoot down American F-35s there.

3:06Probably by a mistake. They should have recognized that was a friendly fire situation, but they didn't. So they're new in the combat game. So again, overall, as a result of this, the Iranians are going to try to fire multiple different ballistic missiles to atrit down the allies. They'll call it American and Israeli defense systems, enforcing us to deplete all our stocks before they've gotten rid of all of theirs. Clearly, the answer to that conundrum is to take out their capacity to fire all those missiles. How optimistic are you that we can do serious damage? Right. That's the thing that the Secretary had said yesterday is when I was going back and forth on my son about that, this kind of, you know, arrows and archers, you know, going after the arrows and then go after the archers, you won't get the arrows. I'm confident. I think that's why we use the element of surprise to go after a lot of them in the beginning. It reminds me of Scott Hunting back in 91 when we did that during Desert Storm as we had to do the same thing similar,

4:10but like anything else, some will get through. And, you know, we can't go through what we did six months ago. Six months ago, the United States fired about 150 FAD to those high-altitude air defense missiles. And we can only manufacture about 30 of them a year. And so we took five years of inventory out and used it just last June in that mission. And we only, you know, again, because of the complexity of how their manufacturing, rare-worth minerals and specialized folks that do that, you know, we just can't produce them. We're not, you know, we just can't put another assembly line and produce it. So again, the economics don't work. And so again, we've got to protect them and recognize that we're going to have to do other things in order to take out their ballistic missiles and really go hunt them down. Just to back up a little bit. Has there ever, in world history, been anything like the decapitation operation that happened over the weekend? I think sure. I mean, this is Israel. Emma, this is how they operate.

5:11This is part of their deterrence strategy, frankly. They, if you decide to go to war with Israel, they respond 10X with anything that you might come back with you. But the first thing they're going to do is go after their leadership. Now, the United States can't do that. It's an executive order signed by Ronald Reagan going back 40 years now that, that says the United States won't assassinate heads of state. I think it's a slippery slope for us to do that. It, you know, gives, you know, credence for other countries to try to do that to our president. That's not to say they couldn't do it anyway. Obviously, they're not going to necessarily abide by the wars of land warfare. But we won't do that. That was 100% Israel's mission. But we have seen that before. But on this level, probably not, probably not a country with 90 million people, probably not, how, how, how, and what will be the result of that. But it's not just that the leader they took out, it's the 40 others that they have. But the message might be also who hasn't been taken out. We know Mossad is clearly infiltrated. A lot of things going on inside of Iran. We know that that's the case. And so they're searching now for the Delta Rodriguez.

6:12They're searching for the person that created that Venezuela situation. Okay, everyone's dead except you. Do you want to play ball or not? Meanwhile, we know exactly where you are. We can find you anytime. So you could be the next contestant on, you know, you're the next leader. Or you can decide to, you know, not cooperate. You could be, you won't, I mean, in this case, you won't be in the back of a special force. It's helicopter. You're going to see the front side of a Tomahawk cruise missile. So that's how the Israelis operate. And that's how they're going to do. And that's how they view Iran as an existential threat. I was just going to ask you what you thought about the obviously awesome intelligence that we in Israel have. What does that say about our capabilities and or the infiltration of the Iranian regime? Yeah, I saw a report too that said the CIA gave information. You know, we want to get in this game as well. But Israel has been doing this for, you know, 20 years more than that likely. And this is how they operate. It's the same thing they did with the Pager exercise when they blew all the Hamas guys up.

7:13I mean, this is how they operate. And they take great risks doing it. I'm sure there's been many Israeli citizens that have unfortunately given their lives have been burned. But this is all for the survival of that state. That's how they operate. In theory, a country of 90 million should have no problem with a country of about 9 million. But in this case, Israel continues to dominate. It's just not just the military. The hardware side of it. It's just the intel and the intellect side of it. Although, again, Iranians are smart people. They're Persians. They're not Arabs. I think in some ways, that's why they're attacking those Arab states as well. They look down. They're knows that Arabs that they don't think they're the same. They're Persians. So I think that's also part of their calculus. It's interesting you said that. I remember Jonah went out to eat with some at a Persian restaurant with some they'd like to call themselves Persians these dudes. Truly nice guys we are friends with. But I remember them saying, man, those Arabs are crazy. We got into the conversation about them at least. Yeah, they had a certain view of all Arabs that I had never heard before.

8:15Yeah, I mean, Persia has made significant contributions to civilization. Go back to the 700s, 800s and it's part of the Ottoman Empire. It's had contributions. It's a smart civilization, which is why they can create nuclear weapons. I mean, they have that intellectual capital. There's a reason why some of these other countries can't get there from here. So they have that intellectual capability and the manufacturing and the industrial base. And they do all those things and that's why they're in the position they're in. They're just led by ruthless people that want to see the end of Israel and the state sponsor of terrorism. So Trump said a little bit ago, I don't have the exact verbage, but it was something like the big wave or the major wave or whatever is yet to come. Do you think that's true? You know, if I could show the other day with somebody, it's like, we can no longer be shocked about what Donald Trump says, right? In terms of, he's always going to oversell something, too, as well. So we could have, that might be true, but I'll tell you right now, I'm sure the military, we saw this thing this morning where the military came out and basically defined a military objective that can be accomplished.

9:26That can be eventually used to say this was our end game as well. So regime change is not something the military can do. And he says, said that today was interesting. So, yeah, will it likely come short? The next couple of attacks could take place in the next few days in Trump will say, yeah, that said he'll point to it. That's what that was. Now, do I like that my president doing that? No, I'd rather have him, you know, undersell some things than over deliver on the other side. But we've just come to expect this is who Donald Trump is. It does maybe put more pressure on the warfires at some level, but he doesn't know any other way. He's always going to try to oversell it, right? We're talking to military analysts, Mike Lyons. Hey, Mike, if China were to take this moment to move on Taiwan, how bad would that be in terms of our ability to do anything about it? So again, no one's talking about this, but the straight of remotes once it gets blocked, if it is being blocked now as reports this morning, trying to get to 15% of its oil from there. So the president cut off Venezuela as an emergency access of oil for China.

10:27And now 15% of it gets blocked off coming from the Middle East. China will not just gamble when it comes to having reserves in order for it to go to war. China is building underground tanks. They recognize they need billions of oil in the ground to make sure that they can go to war with Taiwan. That's what they want to do. But right now, this is going to put that actually more of it risk because if they can't get the oil, or they try to buy it from Russia, which then doesn't help that cause because Russia now has more money to create more weapons to go after Ukraine. So this is a vicious circle that takes place. Again, no one's talking about when it comes to the economics of the energy trade. I think anyway, no matter what, we'll have a hard time. Two things. First of all, the second that we're no longer a reliant on Taiwan for silicon chips, and we've created the foundries that we're building right now in Texas. I just got back there and talked to some folks doing that. The second we can do that, then Taiwan becomes the Middle East of the 1990s. We're no longer relying on it for oil, so we'll let China have it.

11:28I know we have strategic ambiguity about it, and AOC stumbled upon and didn't know how to answer it because I think deep down this president won't decide to attack China. Potentially lose the West Coast city just over Taiwan. Well, in AOC's defense, she's an idiot. Mike Lyons, military analyst. Mike, I'm sure we'll talk against. Thank you so much for the thoughts and the expert season. We'll talk soon. Hey guys, great. Thanks for having me. And then we mentioned this headline earlier this morning from New York Times. If China invades Taiwan and cuts off its chip exports, the tech industry in the United States economy would be crippled. Yeah. So you got the oil angle, you got the chip angle as Mike pointed out. Interesting times. We have released this is really distasteful. I'd like to apologize in advance. I know where you're going here. We have released the dogs of war. And they need important to keep the dogs of war healthy with rough grains. Yes, the dogs of war need a live nutritional supplement to add to their dogs food.

12:32You don't need to change your dogs food. You just add this with the live vitamins, minerals, probiotics, digestive enzymes, omega oils, all the stuff that comes with rough grains. You should try it. Why not try it? Because they don't cost nothing but the shipping. Just to add rough greens, rough greens is offering a free jumpstart trial bag. You just cover the shipping, use the discount code Armstrong to claim your free jumpstart trial bag at roughgreens.com. Rough greens is spelled are you F F greens dot com. It's all about reducing oxidative stress, supporting immune defense, slowing age-related decline, helping your beloved pup stay active, mobile and alert as they age again. Roughgreens dot com are you F F greens dot com use that promo code Armstrong. So don't change your dogs food. Just add rough greens and watch the health benefits come alive. Another question for Mike, but I'm sure we'll be talking to him more this week almost certainly. But hegg Zeth and the president just a little bit ago told Fox that boots on the ground is an option. So the fact that they're laying the groundwork for that is something anyway.

13:34More on the way, stay here. Armstrong and Getty. After launching a massive military strike against Iran, Trump announced hours ago that they officially killed the Supreme Leader Ayatolli Kamini and replaced him with, oh my god, the guy from Venezuela? That's an interesting joke. Yeah, that's funny. Yeah, the Venezuela situation, which is obviously not in the headlines, kind of interesting. Because the the kleptocrat fake communists are still in charge there. And it's it's not good. I mean, Maduro's gone. He was a bastard. But other than a little access to oil conceivably, I'm not sure what we got. France just announced they're going to increase their number of nuclear warheads from the current level of below 300. First time they've increased the size of their nuclear arsenal since 1992. And throw this in just as kind of a hole. The whole world is just getting a little hotter.

14:35In a little more jumpy, a little more ready to go. Oh boy, don't like it. I have no control over it, but I don't like it. Yipes. Well, coming up a really interesting back and forth about the constitutionality of the attack on Iran. And I don't want to give too much away, but I think everybody's right in this argument. And they disagree with each other. So we'll talk about that. Plus, it just struck me last night as I was taking in all sorts of news that at that point, we'd lost three of our service people. It's now up to four. And how we value life in the West in the United States. And we're very careful about not spending people's lives cheaply. We cherish life in short. Unless you're on the left and it's a fetus anyway. But the next report was that there were protests at the American consulate in one of your big Pakistani cities.

15:43I can't remember which one. Pakistan Heights. And nine people died at the protest. Wow. I mean, there's a contrast for you. Yeah, no kidding. I mean, they just spend lives like crazy in the Muslim world. Because they believe you know you go to all of a side and have your virgins and your martyr in the rest of it. But yeah, they do not value life at all. So there's Operation Roaring Lion and Operation Epic Fury. What's the Roaring Lion part? I'm not clear on that myself. Yeah. Anyway, both are going on. Most of it seems to be Epic Fury. I'm not exactly sure why you have to have names like this for this sort of thing. As I've been saying, this is for us. This is Operation Mediocre Punditry that we've got going on. We can't name it. Mediocre Blooming Daffodil. Or I'm sorry, Operation Blooming Daffodils or anything. I'm going to have a hard ass name. It's just everybody knows that. The fact that Pete Hegseth didn't rule out boots on the ground and Trump is not ruling it out.

16:46And I understand the whole not ruling things out. But I feel like they're laying the groundwork maybe that they maybe actually think we might have to put boots on the ground to accomplish what we want to accomplish. So we got to make sure we get out there on that. Boy, that would be a big political story. I would sure love to see their decision tree right now. If this happens, then we'll do this that and the other. What would happen that which branch of the tree includes that? Yeah, what would have to happen that we would actually put soldiers on the ground? Now, the history of the world is I don't think there's ever been a regime change forced through the air. But we don't have to force regime change. That's not mandatory. We took out the Iatola and everybody underneath them. As we discussed earlier, just decline them for a very long time. Would be win. Yeah, we got the big win, but it's a win. We can pound them for quite a while. Boy, that's stuff my clients was talking about though. But you know, how much of our super expensive high tech gear has been expended already?

17:51And at some point we could run out of it. Now I understand why they attacked all those countries. They're just trying to wipe out the capability of Israel and the United States to defend against all these rockets and missiles. That's right. That's not a bad plan. No, which is why we've got to pound the bejesus out of them. Let's argue about the Constitution next. It'll be fun. Yeah. Lots on the way if you miss this I can make it to podcast. Armstrong and Getty. The celebration is striking. We got here just moments after initial reports, initial rumors of the death of the Iatola company had just started to trickle from Iran to this diaspora community. And people were jumping and excitement, hugging each other, crying, saying that basically they've been waiting 47 years for this very day. There's the reason so many of them have come out here today. Celebrating party and like crazy. Have you seen the video of all the Iranians doing the Trump dance?

18:54After the news broke, they're dancing to YMCA doing the Trump dance. American flags, Iranian flags, Israeli flags, all together. Now I am all for the discussion about whether or not, you know, Constitutionally Congress, all that sort of stuff. I'm troubled by it. But you can't do the long face sad voice like they did all week on an MSNBC while you're having the conversation. And Trump, of course, does not have the right to do this. When you got all these young Iranians who are partying like crazy because the country that they love has been freed, hopefully, from this evil theocracy. And I'm sure they all know people who've been tortured or killed or whatever by their own government. So MSNBC, geez, Rachel Matau and all your democratic guests, you got to stop with the long faces. You're out of touch. You're on the wrong side of history on this. Which is why nobody watches them. They're idiots. Speaking of which in the American left, this is so amazing from Nellie Bulls.

19:57Zaron Mamdani, the new mayor of New York and his team are ousting military contractors from the Brooklyn Navy yard. They quote a council member celebrating the decision. This public asset should not be leasing space to companies producing drones that are being transformed into weapons of war. It's part of the movement to quote demilitarized Brooklyn Navy yard. And of course, Nellie asks, what the hell do they think the word Navy means? A shade of blue. That's the place is authority. That is pretty funny. I missed that demilitarizing the Navy yard. There you go. Yeah. Yeah, but genuinely is the idea that America should not have a military or just that people who build our air force shouldn't be allowed to live in Brooklyn. Unbelievable. And on that topic, well, sort of Patrick said, guys, love the show, et cetera. I haven't heard much addressed. How can Trump go to war with Iran? I thought war was the purview of Congress, which brings us to a Twitter threat.

20:57I came across, which I found very interesting. I will relate to you now. It starts more or less with this. Hello, Iranian here for those fixated on legality to excuse the regime in Iran. F you. No, I will not let you be my voice. You don't get to narrate my story. You don't get to claim moral superiority. You don't get to tell me my feelings are wrong. It's interesting. It's a very lefty style of argument. And it's irrelevant to the legality. On the other hand, Jack, I will say you, if at some point you want to, we can go through it. It describes what it was like essentially to live under the regime. No, I would like to hear that chilling. As Tim Sand, a good friend of the Armstrong, you get points out. He says, this is understandable, but wrong. Of course, the Ayatollahs are evil and should have been destroyed long ago. Of course, the world's better off without these guys in it. But ignoring the constitution, letting one person arbitrarily take the country to war is illegal, stupid, and dangerous. As I said during last segment, talking about this, there are several people who are

22:01disagreeing with each other. And I think they're all right. Tim, which brings us to the interesting moment that we have in terms of war, in Congress, and presidents, and the rest of us. Just in case you're a Tim fan and wondering where he is on this, it's all about the constitutionally of the constitutionality of the decision. He did say in his first tweet over the weekend, if I were in Congress and this came up for a vote, I would be a hard yes on attacking Iran. I just think Congress should make the decision. Yeah, in a system like ours, how you do things matter. So anyway, he says this is understandable, but wrong. What I just said, letting one person arbitrarily take the country to war is illegal, stupid, and dangerous. Somebody with a name that certainly looks around and replies, we're not at war. Military operations against terrorist organizations are not wars. Tim said that's just not true. If against him in an attack, they may be justified without a declaration. But that appears not to be the case here. While entirely justified by any rational measure, the attack on Iran is obviously a war that requires congressional declaration. And then the other person replies, I think we have enough votes to do it, put the entire

23:05full force of our domestic economy behind it and this cancer wants it for all. Like I said, I think everybody's right in this argument. The constitution may be, well, first of all, it's the first and only time in human history that a committee has come up with something brilliant because they did. The constitution is a miraculous success. But there are just a couple of areas like the Declaration of War where I think we need to amend it or clarify it if we had a Congress that did anything because the nature of warfare has changed so much. So are we, I think this is really interesting. So are we assuming that like what John Fetterman was arguing earlier that whatever declaration I had that in front of me under the war provision act allowed Trump to do this. And as I mentioned earlier, Andrew McCarthy of National Review, who I really respect his opinion on this stuff, he says Trump was on the right side of the law to do this.

24:08And he does not always agree with Donald Trump by far. Yeah, I mean, is this a war, quote unquote? Because when the constitution was written to have a war, it always looked more or less the same. It would take enormous amounts of preparation over a very long time. You would send many, many, many soldiers and ships and sailors and everybody knew what you meant by declared war. But now where you can launch just devastating bombing raids from the US, refuel once or twice in the air, then fly home with that ever touching down. Is that a war? Exactly. It's certainly an attack. And I know this isn't a good argument because you can't change the constitution or ignore it just because our current climate doesn't fit with it. But there's no way you could get Congress to approve anything like this because they don't. They all remember early 2000s when people who voted for the Iraq war pretty much were blocked out of getting reelected or ever running for president.

25:17Right. And they learned that lesson over learned it. Here's a response on the Twitter from a guy with an Israeli flag and his ID there. The legislatures not trustworthy. They don't just leak. They oppose an undermine. Look at all the insider trading, trading the grift, the fraud, the deceit, see how they failed to act on a bill that over 80% of Americans want. They're not representing our interests only their own. But yeah, I agree with that. But obviously you can't just decide. So therefore we're just all going to ignore Congress from here on out because they all suck. Clearly. Yeah, 100%. We're in a really difficult moment for the Declaration of War, war powers, whatever you want to call it. And I think if we had the brains and the balls to do it, we in Congress would address that in a significant way. I also don't because some people are arguing this before Maduro also also don't quite understand how you make it work with a surprise attack. Correct.

26:18That's the war powers act kind of addresses that because you've got to, well, although you've got to give Congress 48 hour heads up that you're going to do something and then you have 60 days, 30 days, 30 days. You don't think there are Democrats that would leak this immediately. Are you giving them a 48 hour heads up? Yeah, so see you then that day. The founder sure as hell didn't count on publicity, horror, Instagram, fundraising, you know, pieces of garbage. And by the way, completely unfair to say Democrats based on, for instance, what Marjorie Taylor Green was tweeting out over the weekend. I don't know if you saw any of that, but and she's no longer in Congress, but if she were in Congress, she might have said this. And just like that, we're no longer a nation divided by left and right. We are now a nation divided by those who want fight wars for Israel and those who just want peace and are able to afford their bills and health insurance. She believes this is all just to help Israel.

27:21And she tweeted out, my God, as soon as it started, my God, these poor military members and their poor families, I'm sorry for them and praying for them. This is absolutely unnecessary and is unacceptable. Trump, Vance, Tulsi and all of us campaigned on no more foreign wars and regime change. Now American soldiers are dead. So she's hardcore against this and thinks it's a disaster. I think she would have felt the same way in Congress. So she has a Republican might have leaked it. If you get them messed up and so sure, sure. Well, the opposite party in general does whatever they can to deny the other side. Who called her the dumbest person ever serving the others? Don't remember. I think that was Darryl Issa. So that conversation came up. I was watching Darryl Issa was being interviewed former Republican Congressman and got hit with the Marjorie Taylor green quote that I just read you. And he said, I'd like to remind you that Marjorie Taylor green might be the dumbest person ever serving Congress. He's gone bad built bush body.

28:23Which would hack of a thing to say. Yeah. Yeah. The whole Israel we're dancing to their tune. They're pulling our strings. They're the puppeteers. Why would that be? Because they've got dirt on Trump through Epstein. That's part of it personally. I can't even. So where does that leave the Jews in the fact that you got a lot of the Democratic party? Who doesn't care about supporting Israel and a certain chunk of the Republican party? That thinks Israel is controlling everything and it's horrific. How big a chunk? That's the ever present question. They're very young. They're very low vocal. They're very online enough to make Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens tens of millions of dollars a year. Because they're very young and very online. I don't know how many there are, but I don't either. It's a heck of a thing though. Yeah. I saw a fair amount of that floating around on Twitter launching another war.

29:26Israel is launching another war. They tell us what to do. I don't understand how you can't see this without Israel involved at all that this is in the United States interest. This is not Israel first. It's America first. There's no benefit to the United States to Israel getting a nuclear weapon. They've killed more Americans than any other country. To Iran. Yeah, Iran getting a nuclear weapon. Israel already has a nuclear weapon. No, they just don't admit it. Iran has been in the enemy of the United States forever. This is not new. Israel just didn't like say, hey, could you take out Iran? They're bad to us. No, no, they've been bad to us. Do you know what we need right now, Jack? What? We as a country? Birth. What we need is birth. Clip number 10, please Michael. What are you doing? Just shopping for an Iranian flag on Amazon is I stand with Iran. Yeah, me too. I'm very excited. No, I stand with Iran. Yes, me too. I stand with Iran.

30:26This is a very good. Are we on opposite sides of this? No, I stand with Iran. Hands off Iran. Okay, America needs to leave. But that would be the regime stays in place. Homosexuality is illegal. Women don't have access to education. And you're for this? Well, I'm against Trump. And I'm against the regime in America. Say it. Say you hate Trump. Homosexuality should be criminalized. Women shouldn't get to go to school. And Iran shouldn't be free. Or say thank you Trump. Which one? Which one? Yeah. Fire. Sniff. Sniff. Sniff. Didn't stop a lot of Democrats I saw in the talk shows yesterday from just loudly denouncing this. You got young Iranians dancing in the streets around the world. You got to at least acknowledge that.

31:27I would think you could come up with a clever way to be against Trump. Go with the Constitution angle or whatever. But strongly emphasized. Gladly I told his dead Iran's been an enemy in the United States forever. All these young people might have a future now. You got to show that sort of enthusiasm. You can't do the long face shaking your head while all these young women are dancing around the world. Bing. Bing. Bing. Bing. Bing. I know. It's just everybody retreating to their usual, you know, their scripted lines. It's just so tiring. While we're on the air, President Trump is addressing the United States for the first time on Iran, because they never did really before. The State of the Union address, it got like two sentences. And that was what four days before the I told I told the cease to exist. It got like no talk during the State of the Union address. You'd been calling for a yanking amount by the beard. Are you satisfied? I will love the image of him hanging by his beard swinging underneath a helicopter,

32:29but I suppose this works in terms of what we're trying to cover. Get my fair trial. Get my fair trial. Now he's just in tiny bits all over the place. Blue eyes. One blue, that one blue, that one. Exactly. More on the way. Stay here. Armstrong and Getty. I'll bust this attack after me. And my board of beasts decided that we were bored of beasts. We weren't play there to catch it. As we all know, Iran has been two weeks away from developing a nuclear weapon for like the last 15 years or something. So we had to act now and we're doing war. War. What is it good for distracting from the Epstein files? So that was Saturday night life. Yeah. Cold open with their president, Trump. Ben Rhodes, he was an advisor to Obama and wrote a peace opinion piece in the New York Times

33:31today about how awful this is. And I'm just amazed that the... What do people call themselves who don't ever engage in war? The pacifist leaning crowd always thinks that there's no... Nothing bad can come out of that. It doesn't make any intellectual sense to me whatsoever. The whole Obama don't do stupid S. So let other countries just do whatever the hell they want forever so that we don't... That's not going to work out. As the... What's his name character in the big shell? You can't get through the day without one good rationalization. Jeff Goldblum. I think guys like that don't... They're afraid of action. They prefer inaction. And they intellectualize it and they rationalize why that's really the most enlightened thing to do.

34:34They come up with elaborate defenses of inaction, but it's always inaction. Nobody hates Donald Trump more than George F. Will of the Washington Post conservative colonists. But his opinion piece today at last, the credibility of the United States deterrence is being restored. Perhaps the 30,000 protesters who perished in Iran streets early in January did not die in vain. And he talks about how important it was to reestablish for the safety of the world. U.S. deterrence that you can't mess around with us. A native of post 1945 U.S. power and its preconditioned confidence was the 1975 departure of the last helicopter from the U.S. Embassy roof in Saigon as the end of the Vietnam war. A second low point was reached when Barack Obama drew in 2012 and then ignored a red line about the chemical weapons in Syria. We all know that. The third was in 2021 when Joe Biden produced a chaotic exit from Afghanistan.

35:35Today Vladimir Putin is watching Venezuela Iran and soon perhaps Cuba joined Syria as vanished clients. The swiftness of their downfall illustrates the holiness of Russia's claim to be a formal global actor. Today's world where the velocity of information and the capability of weaponry annihilate distances and compressed time. Leads everybody to understand because I'm running out of time that you can't mess around. Well, he doesn't say this, but you can't blank around and find out with the United States anymore. Right. Right. How long will it last? What lessons will be learned from this? However, it plays out. Who will be next in the White House? It all could change depending on the answers to those questions. Of course. For now, yeah, I would not efforound. Yeah, I would take Trump seriously if he warns you about things. If you miss a segment or an hour, get the podcast Armstrong and Getty on demand. Armstrong and Getty.