Transcript of 2 Week Ceasefire Reached with Iran | EYES ON GEOPOLITICS New

Yo, what up guys? I hope, I hope we are live. Let me just check, make sure we're all right. Ceasefire just announced, 2 weeks. We'll see how long that lasts. Says we're Gucci. It says excellent. Does that mean good? Last time I checked, it does. Here we are. All right, I just sent out the link to the boys, so they should be trickling in at some point. It's going to be a lot more fluid, like we won't just have like a straight up show, like a 1-hour, uh, pod. It'll just be people coming in and out and stuff like that. So we might not even have the full crew, whatever. We're just gonna be— we're gonna have fun. We're gonna be cute and fun. What's up, guys? What's up? How are you guys? Um, trying to see how's it look, how does it sound? Talk to me, talk to me. Shoot this over to— yeah, looks like, uh, the Pakistanis were, um in it. They were doing like a lot of the mediating and stuff. Uh, grace period, sounds clear, sounds good, but good, awesome, good, love to hear it, love to hear it. Nice.

Maybe if he's doing a speech at 8, maybe we'll watch that and goof and gaff on it. I mean, you saw like there was like the last few hours people were all over Twitter saying that, you know, they're working on a late 2-week ceasefire through the Pakistanis and all this. So you kind of like— the writing was kind of on the wall. And once Axios starts reporting it, you know, it's like, all right, yeah, the White House's stenographers are reporting that, reporting what they want to say. Yeah, so we'll see where this goes. Oh yeah, in the last few hours you saw like a real big uptick of like bombing in Tehran and stuff like that. So it was kind of— they were trying to get it in before they called the ceasefire. Let me see, Mark P's coming.

All right.

Enough, enough chatting in the Signal chat. Our Signal chat is a wild one, I'll be honest. Well, I, I think Israel was like— the IDF was really pounding Tehran as well, uh, pretty tough, pretty hard over the last few hours as well, because I think they saw the writing was on the wall. I did also see that like somewhere it was like one tweet, so I don't know if I believe it until like a bunch of people are starting to talk about it, like, uh that Lebanon was also part of this, which I don't believe. I don't believe, because my guess is Israel is probably pushing for these guys to not do the ceasefire. What are we doing here? Oh, so annoying. Can't even sign into X, bro. All right, whatever. What do you guys think? You guys think it's going to last? Also, like, what comes after, right? Like, what does it even look like? Like an actual lasting kind of peace. I feel like it's not going to be— the jizz is out of the tube, as they say in the business, you know, it's out and you can't get it back in.

I wonder what Israel thinks about this. Do they want to stop? I think Israel definitely doesn't want to stop. I think they want to keep going for as long as they could possibly go. Um, oh hell yeah, we got Jason Lyons! Yo, what's up, bro? We're live, just FYI.

Okay.

Yeah, let me turn on your echo. Okay. Oh, I can't while recording. It's okay.

Oh, can I do it?

Yeah, if you can, because I've seen a little bit of an echo. Now it's actually gone. I mean, who knows, it comes and goes.

Oh yeah, it's not even letting me do it.

Yeah, don't sweat. Yeah, I think it's because we're already live.

Gotcha.

Where am I? 54 people watching. Yo, smash that like button, guys. Smash it. They say that in the biz too.

Yeah.

And share this, share this stream to tell your, tell your friends. Yeah, this one's going to be a little bit more like fluid, like, you know, people are going to jump in, jump out.

I feel like, yeah, yeah, I can only stay for maybe an hour or so.

Yeah, you're good.

It's been a minute.

I know, bro. What's up?

No, same old work, family, getting ready for this wedding.

Oh yeah, excited?

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it's not like I haven't done this dance before, but right, this is it. I'm done.

Last one.

Yeah. Oh, how about you, man? How you been?

Chilling, bro. I'm hanging. I'm looking at the chat.

That's why I'm just staring Yeah, yeah, no, it's— of course this hits right now.

Yeah, I mean, it was— they were kind of like, like, whatever, watering the soil a little bit because for the last few hours saying, you know, it looks like there might be a two-week ceasefire through the Pakistanis and stuff like that. I mean, who knows? I think Trump— I mean, Trump fucking lost it this morning. I mean, he's lost it for a while now, but With the whole, like, I'm going to wipe out a civilization stuff.

Yeah. Just, yeah, absolutely nuts. Yeah, my kids were texting me, like, screenshots of that. And, you know, they're like, is he being serious? Are we talking nuclear weapons? I was like, well, let's calm down. But then again, how do we put anything past them?

Yeah, I mean, it's it's just a wild— he's just a frickin wildcard, dude. And I read that— you should read that New York Times article about like the decision-making leading up to it. Like, like, yeah, Netanyahu rolled up at like on like early, early February, like February 11th, with like him, the head of Mossad, and a bunch of other people. And they basically pitched like it was fucking Shark Tank. Yeah. Hitting, hitting Iran, like going hard at Iran. Yeah. And what was it? Decapitation strike, take out all the leadership, missiles and drones. And then it was like stoke some kind of resistance and stuff like that. And then regime change. It's like, bro, yeah, I want to be 6 foot 4 and have like a 9-inch hammer. You know what I mean? It's never going to happen.

Exactly. Yeah, it never happens the way it's pitched.

Yeah.

Ever.

Yeah. It's just incredible. And also the way it read too, like they were in the Situation Room talking about this just without the Israelis, just them, and how no one has the balls to tell this guy like, no, this is a fucking terrible idea and it's going to backfire. Like they think that like the Iranians are just going to turtle. Like, yeah, after they— after we smoke— even if we just smoke the Ayatollah. Yeah, right. Like, forget the 40 or 50 guys that we killed. They should be like, oh, we're sorry. Like, yeah, we love democracy now. Like, we love it. And they played Trump a video. Israelis played Trump a video, like a trailer, or I guess like a hype video.

Yeah.

About who could really lead Iran after. And like, they put the Shah's son in there. They put all like, oh, it's going to be a secular democracy. Like, are we— are we serious here? Just have we not heard this story before?

It's like an episode of The Bachelor, for God's sake.

Yeah.

Yeah.

He's 43 and lives on the Riviera. He'd be a great—

Yeah. Yeah. Be on top of this. Taco Tuesday to you. That's funny. Trump always chickens out Tuesday. I mean, I get that statement about taco, like Trump always chickens out, but it's like the guy fucking has been bombing the shit out of Tehran and, you know, basically throwing dynamite into like the global economy for the last 3 weeks or month.

Yeah, I think in my opinion that he— yes, he does, Taco. But I think it depends on what it is and it depends on who's like whispering in his ear. If it's, you know, you're doing great, this is awesome, which it seems like his entire cabinet does and it makes him look tough. He's going to keep doing it, you know, all the way up to the brink. And I think it would also take reverse psychology to get him to stop, you know, like, you've accomplished what you want, you know, you've done it, you've done a great service for the Iranian people. And that would get him to stop, you know, more, less than This is screwed up. We have no plan here.

You know, it's funny, reverse psychology, like he's a, like he's a toddler.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah. He's got the nuclear codes.

Yeah.

Milburn. Andy, what's up, dude? We're live, just FYI.

Andy.

Oh, cool.

Okay, so no, no berating. No berating the US Navy and the aircraft carriers. Actually, you'll do that on the show.

I was gonna say, does it really matter?

Yeah, yeah. So we're talking about—

we're doing quick summary of what we know.

Yeah, sure. We talked about it a little bit, like, uh, ceasefire for 2 weeks. Um, is there any, like, uh, details in terms of what's in the ceasefire? Does the Strait open up? Like, what?

Yeah, the Strait was a central point. My understanding was that for what whatever that means. I mean, obviously what it means is the Iranians have agreed not to disrupt shipping or not to threaten shipping anymore. And Vance is going to lead negotiations, is what the Axios article says, which is a definite improvement, I think, right, from Whitcoff or the two who got us into this. Into this mess. Netanyahu's not happy. Lindsey Graham's probably not happy. They were— they wanted to hold out. The president's declaring victory based on military objectives already achieved. I've gone from being pessimistic to optimistic, maybe because it's 2 o'clock in the morning here.

Man, you're still up?

Yeah. Well, I was up because the water was cut off, uh, I think in, uh, anticipation of World War III. And I'm hoping now there's a ceasefire, they'll turn it on.

Yeah, take a shower.

It's like I'm thirsty. Goddamn it.

Yeah, of course. Shower 3 or 4 times a day. I can't go to sleep scuzzy. Oh.

What?

So what happened in the— and someone was saying that Tehran was getting— that the United States was striking Tehran.

I think the IDF and us, we were pounding them the last few hours because I think the ceasefire was on the cards.

Yeah. Okay.

Aw, Shucks says if Graham and Bibi are upset, then that's a good— that's a good thing for America and the world. I agree with you.

Who said that?

One of the chatters in the chat. Because we're live.

Right. Okay. That's why. That's good.

Graham and Bibi are upset. It's probably a good thing for America and the world.

Yeah. Yeah, I think so. I think, you know, Lindsey Graham.

John, what's up, bro? We're live. We're live. Just FYI.

Right now. All right.

Yeah.

Thank God. And, you know, everyone thought that the Pakistanis didn't have any leverage with anyone, but they were the mediators of this. Not Erdogan. Not, you know. So, um, kudos to them, huh?

They are a nuclear-armed country, so they do have that over the other options that were in there.

That is true. Yeah. What was the name of that guy who was the father of their nuclear program?

A.Q.

Khan.

Khan.

A.Q. Khan.

A.Q. Yeah. That's quite a story, isn't it?

Yeah.

He's a, uh, he's a national hero there. And you know, I cannot blame the Pakistanis for making him a national hero because it certainly changes the dynamics, doesn't it? Once you're a nuclear power, just ask King Jong.

Yeah, I've got the Samson option right here, which is actually the story about how Israel got the bomb through AQCON. Oh, in contrast to that.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Love to read that.

Yeah, they didn't get it from—

we actually had it. We actually had, um, Jim, uh, Jim Lawler, former CIA guy who was like big into the, you know, played a big hand in taking down that network. I mean, but they still got the bomb, right? So it's not like—

yeah, and actually their centrifuge, the, the the level 1 centrifuge they had, and I think it was 1988 or '89, is the base model that Iran used in their centrifuges. And now Iran's like 7 generations beyond that first generation that they got from Pakistan.

3 Marines, someone said. I know. Well, no. Yeah, 3 Marines. Yeah.

What? 3 Marines? What?

Somebody said that in the chat with an exclamation point, very excited.

Oh.

Yeah, I don't know if Murphy's going to join us. He's big time now after his viral thing.

So I'm getting skepticism from my Israeli friends. And yes, I still have Israeli friends after writing that article. The sirens are going in Tel Aviv now. I mean, like right now. Of course, that doesn't necessarily mean they're being hit. Maybe it was just a ceasefire with the United States. Maybe we did. We do a dirty on yet another Another partner.

Don't worry about them.

Just, yeah, don't, yeah, don't tell the Israelis that. Bibi's not happy anyway. I'm not laughing.

Is it, the ceasefire starts right now? Like right?

That would be just like us. That would be 4D chess.

So the ceasefire is like right, it's happened immediately, right?

Mm-hmm. Yeah, look at the markets already. The futures are shooting up. Oil is, uh, oil is down, down. You know, you know, a lot of people in the know made money on this, right?

Of course. Barack Ravi just tweeted, Unit 8200 News, a senior White House official tells me Israel has agreed to a ceasefire and will also suspend its attacks for 2 weeks. The ceasefire will take effect when Iran opens the Strait of Hormuz.

Oh, so, you know, but that's— it's not like they have a barrier across the Straits of Hormuz. They're closing the straits by disrupting ships through the threat of missiles and drones. So how do you open the straits and thus trigger the ceasefire? It doesn't make sense. Who just like, where did you read that? The, I think that's Barack Ravid.

Yeah, but asking your White House, senior White House official told them that supposedly the US is telling Israel what Israel will do. Listen, I get it. I guess they just say, hey, it's open now.

I don't know.

Put out a press release.

I don't know. Yeah, it's gonna be a ribbon cutting.

Yeah.

There was some talk too that Lebanon was in— was also part of the ceasefire, but I don't believe that. Like, is there also a ceasefire in Lebanon as well? No way. With Israel-Lebanon, there would be good news for Lebanon for sure, because that's kind of the one thing that's getting swept under the rug a little bit, not talked about as well as Gaza. Um, Lebanon's getting pounded by Israel. Damn it. Yeah, I guess it's all— I ran—

Where's Jack? Is he, uh, is he sleeping, uh, sleeping off his, uh, celebrity status?

I don't know where he is. I think he said he was getting a tattoo, and like, he gets these huge tattoos that like take 6 hours. Yeah, so I don't know if he's jumping on. He, he has been snarky in the— on our group chat though, just now.

you know, he's beyond us now.

Yeah, he wrote, guessing it goes as well as the Gaza ceasefire. So Jack is very optimistic on this.

Is that what he said?

Yeah.

No, I mean, there's, see, no one really had an incentive in the Gaza ceasefire. That's the difference. Everyone has an incentive in this one except perhaps for the Israelis, right? But they're not going to unilaterally start shooting missiles at Iran.

It's interesting, the, the president of Iran, Pashinyan, who's got no power currently, obviously, he says that 14 million Iranians will die for the country right now that are willing to sacrifice their lives, which is actually double the number that another regime official said. So that's between 7 to 15% of the country might support them based on their own rhetoric, which is interesting.

I think the problem is that when we start threatening to destroy civilizations, We are uniting a population of a country behind the regime. Yeah, right. And I mean, uh, an entirely foreseeable consequence that was not foreseen.

Yeah.

Didn't someone say in our chat that, uh, some of that, uh, some of the citizens were like lining up on bridges or something like that?

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Same thing happened in Israel, like over the—

I think Israel too, over the last couple days, like blew up like 8 bridges over the last 48 hours or so.

Yeah. I mean, bridges are the most understandable work due to dual-purpose infrastructure, right? I mean, bridges are not a war crime, but when you start going after electrical grids and, uh, and, and energy infrastructure, uh, then you, you're kind of following the Russian model. And that's where we're on thin ice, having, having lambasted the Russians quite rightly for what they're doing in Ukraine. Of course, it's not like -20 fucking degrees here in the Middle East, so, but nevertheless What we were threatening to do was putting us on thin ice.

Yeah, I mean, that tweet today from Trump was insane. Imagine somebody else posts that, like another world leader, you know, Putin talking about Ukraine or whoever.

But then normally, you know, the heads of places like North Korea or Iran Right.

Yeah. My point is, like, how would we react? How would the American, you know, America react?

Well, I mean, how we've been reacting. They've been screaming death to America for 40-something years. And, you know, this is the, this is the reason for it. But now he's saying the exact same thing.

The problem is that the, that in their pronouncements, once the war started, The Iranians actually, listen, I do, you know, I'm a US Marine at heart, but the Iranians were quite circumspect. I mean, they said, hey, we're going to continue with the war, but they had an eye on STRATCOM messaging. And, you know, I'll shut up in a moment because John's far smarter than me. But globally, and I'm outside the United States right now, globally, we didn't win the STRATCOM battle. In this war. It doesn't matter how many targets we destroyed. Yeah, and you're talking about our global audience and, and not just countries we don't give a shit about, but countries that we may well rely on. We, we haven't come out looking very good in, in that, in the strategic communication piece, right?

Yeah, I think we do very bad with even just psyops generally. Like back in 2014 when ISIS and Daesh came up and declared the caliphate and they had these high production value videos of the violence they were doing and their training videos and all that. We, we started to kind of get after it, especially with Gallant Phoenix and other programs we were using to try to exploit media associated with that. But we never really got ahead of that. And it was kind of a catch-up thing. And even now, if you look on Twitter, all these high-production-value Iran regime-produced videos of like Legos and all this stuff with the US and all these AI videos of Trump.

Some cool soundtracks too.

Yeah, I mean, they know how the audience is going to respond to that, and they're doing a really good job of producing things that they know people will reshare, even if they don't like intrinsically support what the message is. It looks cool, it's fun to watch, and they're doing a good job with that.

We appreciate them.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's far outpaced the, uh, Trump dropping shit on a crowd of protesters video, you know, that little AI thing. Far outpaced that. So we have that going for us.

Also, it's kind of interesting watching like CENTCOM like tweet out like fact checks and stuff like that. Yeah. Because I've never— I don't remember that ever being a thing.

And we have battalions that are trained in making these videos and doing this production and actually can do it in the military, not just CIA, which also can do it. But like in CENTCOM, you could have CENTCOM producing counter-narrative at the same production value level. you know, we have combat camera, whatever we call it now, STRAT, strategic communications now, I guess we call it, or COMSTRAT, can still do that. And we're not doing it. It's like, what? This is a domain. The information domain is a domain, you know, and we need to be, our warfighting functions need to be touching that domain just like we're touching the actual physical space.

John, let me ask you, like, is there a, because Iran's, most of Iran's internet's out. Is there— is it difficult for us to reach the Iranian population with that kind of stuff?

It's actually interesting you mention that because I was thinking about that earlier about Trump's threat. I wonder how many Iranians actually were able to see that threat because they don't have the internet. So I wonder if that was more a domestic consumption statement that he made. I know he doesn't think that clearly sometimes, but maybe that was more for the US side or for the Pakistanis or something like that. But in Iran, I mean, this is my thought from the very beginning. You, if you want regime change, best way to do that is to let the people do the regime change. Let the people be in the street. And if you do that, we have low Earth orbit satellites, we have mesh networks, we can get stuff launched up there real quick. Yes, there's already Starlink, but you could create one that's proprietary for Iran that's over there doing direct-to-cell communications from February 28th till now. And not saying it would solve the problem 100%, but it would give the people the space to actually get out there and communicate and coordinate. Find out, hey, is there food and water in this next village over so I can go get some?

Because they can't even do that right now. And so if you set that up, the people can now actually get outside. And guess what? Then you can use all that air power that we're using that is very good to protect those people. So when they actually go out in the street and you see a group of Basijis coming to them, well, through that, that Reaper or that Gray Eagle, you can just destroy the Basijis coming up to them. And pretty quick, they'd stop trying to stop the people or they'd run out of people, you know? And it just kind of baffles me why was that not part of the plan. That would have been a very cheap relatively cheap part of this operation to dramatically increase, like, force multiply across all the domains that are involved in this right now. If you just get those people out there.

Yeah.

Yeah.

The, I, in my opinion, the, the people are the de facto boots on the ground, you know, but they can't get out there on the ground because they're too busy taking shelter. You know, it's like, I'm not saying we completely stop dropping iron, you know, dropping steel, but we've, there's gotta be some kind of coordination between that and like you said, getting the message to the people so that they can do their part.

Yeah. And we had something similar like that in Iraq in 2016, 2017, when we turned the war around against ISIS, you know, we're doing a lot of precision strikes. We did something like 30,000 strikes in 3 or 6 months, something like that. Precision. I mean, we had human trigger strikes all over the place. We had dynamic targeting, we had deliberate targeting, beautifully mapped across and coordinated, not just US side, that was with indigenous people inside, behind enemy lines, inside Mosul, occupied areas, providing information using repeaters and other kind of information that we were able to set up with them to talk back to us so that we could talk to them outside of the denied area. And then we'd have targets hit within minutes of that information. We can do it and we have done it. And, and we can do it on a large scale. And I just could, yeah, again, baffles me that we don't, not doing it now.

Yeah.

The, uh, extending, uh, internet into to denied areas. Mind you, we had some major fuck-ups basically before we figured out how to do that right in Iraq. We spent a lot of money on extend with contractors who screwed us over, bastards.

Yeah, I don't understand why wouldn't they do that for, for this.

You could even put repeaters on drones and do like a source repeater network that would be able to provide direct-to-cell communication to people using outside. So for example, a TESALOT or a COREC, which is the one in Kurdistan, you could do a COREC repeater around the border areas and actually get people communicating, but they're not doing it at all.

None.

Not that I've seen. I know that there's some Starlink that's being, you know, assisted in the area. But the problem with Starlink is it's a giant target on your back. If you have a Starlink terminal, you know, you need to have such widespread diluted access that it's impossible to actually stop it.

Hey, fellas, good news. My water is on.

Congrats, Andy. Go watch that.

It's running brown, but that's all right.

You've had worse.

Water's fine.

Yeah, take a sun shower.

Yeah.

So who knows, I wake up to a world at peace, huh?

Yeah, everything's gonna be great. Everything's gonna be fine once you wake up.

All right, fellas. Hey, uh, D, so this means that we can now do our, uh, a live Eyes On— not the live, but, uh, an episode of Eyes On from Dubai, the city at the center of the war.

Sure.

I think, uh, with the extensive coverage that we have done and the income and the advertising, uh, we can get a first-class ticket out there.

Yeah, absolutely. We'll charter a jet. Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

That's on Jack. Deep pockets. The great, the great Murphy.

He spent the budget on his tattoo. It's all gone.

Yeah. He spent all of his Twitter money on the tattoo today. Mark Polymeropoulos is joining us. Mark, we're live, FYI. Okay, so great to see you live. I mean, you do this every day.

Some wisdom to our British friends across the pond on British radio. So I managed to throw in Taco Tuesday on that, so that was kind of fun.

They're probably like, what the hell?

People in the chat are saying Taco Tuesday too.

Yeah, you just— I mean, you served this up, no pun intended.

They have like Vindaloo Friday in the UK.

By the way, just, you know, it was on LBC. It was, you know, a pretty big British station and just withering criticism of Trump that he caved on this. I think they probably, their analysis is certainly not going to be shared by the people on the right or the FDD, the Freedom and Defense of Democracies crowd, who are going to be insufferable, as Andy knows. But withering criticism on this that he definitely caved.

So did they accept the 10-point plan that, or at least hinted towards accepting it for the ceasefire? The 10-point plan that Iran sent back countering our 15-point.

D, we're going to, I mean, again, we're at a disadvantage here. We're actually talking about diplomacy and really important things on a Truth Social post. And so, you know, so Trump claimed that. He also wasn't sure, we weren't sure if the Iranians actually have accepted to opening, reopening the Strait of Hormuz. So, you know, who knows what the hell this is. I think he was just looking for a way out.

And we're really looking for an exit ramp.

Yeah, I mean, you know, and so, but this is going to be, this is going to test my patience. I probably have to get off of social media because this is going to be really couched from the kind of the pro-Israel right. Again, freedom, defense, and democracy, which drives us all crazy as a massive Trump victory in some fashion. And I already got a note from a former Mossad officer who I work very closely with, not happy. The Israelis are not.

Nope.

I've been on the phone with someone in Tel Aviv. It says sirens are going there now. This is bullshit.

Okay, that's a natural reaction.

I don't know.

Right?

This is a bilateral ceasefire. You didn't let us in on this. I'm like, it's not my fault.

Trump is also going to absolutely kind of bludgeon Netanyahu to accept this. And so, you know, that's going to be fun. Now, Bibi, you know, there's going to be a lot of— so, and, you know, again, who knows what happens. But, you know, look for Barack Review to tell us all the great points of disagreement.

In the Farsi media, it says Trump's humiliating retreat from anti-Iran rhetoric. That's how the Iranian media is painting it, which is accurate.

Well, it would be interesting to see what the Pakistani media is saying because we'd probably get the real truth from what the president of Pakistan is saying. That's— You're welcome.

That's what the headlines are saying.

That's a sad statement, isn't it, what I just said?

See, this is gonna trigger me all over the place. So, 'cause when it comes to the government of Pakistan, a lot of us have memories of Afghanistan and I'm sitting on the border and eating 107mm rockets fired from Pakistani military positions at us. Firefights with the Pakistani military, I've talked about it on TeamHouse with you all. So the idea that somehow Pakistan is back in our good graces is going to be tough for me personally to swallow. But it's a fellow autocrat, so Trump loves these folks.

Might you let bygones be bygones?

I have a hard time.

There's just too many groups of people to hate in the world.

I'm Greek. Dee knows this. I don't forgive anybody.

Yeah, no one ever.

I'm the opposite end of the spectrum. I'm ultra forgiving.

You're a lover. You're a lover, not a hater.

Yeah. I don't forgive Dee for pouring whiskey down my throat on those evenings and insisting that I take off my clothes.

Yep, that was me. You're right.

This sounds like a Reddit.

We had the ladies in the— we had ladies in the room and they were egging on Andy. And once Andy heard the ladies screaming, he started taking— he started disrobing.

Yeah.

And then I found out they're actually screaming for Jack.

All right, Jonathan, question to you in terms of— and this is just that kind of think back and actually all you guys, Jason and Andy too, if you're on the Mew right now, if you're on the float just sitting there and you get this news, like what are the emotions of the— of the Marines who probably thought as we were softening up Karg Island over the last 12 hours that that might have been in preparation for some kind of movement of ground forces. What do you think they're thinking right now?

Well, I think ostensibly, externally, there's a lot of outward disappointment. I think though, for individual Marines, a huge amount of relief.

Yeah, there's also a hurry up and wait feeling where it's like, okay, we already probably got told to go and get back and go and get back multiple times before the MEU even got there. Because I'm sure when they were in California and Japan, they were told like 6 times they're going and not going. I remember a buddy of mine that was on the FAST team that was going into Libya, um, back when the 2011 kicked off, or 2012 September. And, uh, they told me get on and off the airplane like 7 times before they actually flew out of Italy. Over there, you know, and they told them to like change their clothes. They couldn't be in civilian clothes. They got to put on cammies and then back and forth again, same thing. And I'm sure that's been going on. The rumor mill on that ship has probably been out of control. Like you mentioned a few weeks ago, Andy, like the rument on there, like you don't even know what's true until you're actually on the airplane.

Yeah, I'll tell you what, the— I guarantee the one of the main rumors that's running through all the both AWGs right now is we're stopping in Australia. That always happens. Yeah, that's always the rumor. It's like, ah shit, we're not going to war, but we're going to Australia. And someone starts that and it spreads like wildfire because to Marines, Australia is the land of milk and honey.

Yeah, Mark, I think it breaks down in Rota.

I don't know why, you know, I'm a Brit. We, that's, we shipped our convicts there.

I, I think too that it also depends on to answer your question, the rank and age of the— these Marines. Because as you know, the younger ones are probably like, shit, you know, I wanted to go get some. The GWAT vets, probably the staff sergeants and above, are like, you know, we're not doing this shit again, thank God. And the older are probably thinking the same thing but now have to, you know, control the rumor mill. So I think that has a lot to do with it.

And plus, there are guys that are outside the ship that are doing advanced force operations and doing preparation of the environment stuff. They're like out there that are probably kind of pissed because they just built a bunch of structures to put in place to move a lot of people. And either those things aren't being validated or they're falling apart or they're on hold. And that's, that's a pain in the ass.

So there's, there's, there's some interesting stuff coming up. So they said, uh, a senior White House official says Israel has agreed to a ceasefire and will suspend its attacks for 2 weeks. But the ceasefire, takes effect only when Iran opens the strait. Yeah, and there is meaningless— well, and so, so now the Iranians are saying— they just announced for a period of 2 weeks, safe passage through the strait will be possible via coordination with Iran's armed forces.

Interesting, but they're obliterated.

How can they coordinate with due consideration of technical limitations? And so that's a little bit different than, um, what Trump wrote in his Truth Social post— complete, immediate, and safe opening of the strait.

And so, you know, there's a lot that's gonna But here's the issue that we're talking about. There's no such thing as opening the strait, right? It is forbearing from shooting ships that are trying to get through the strait. And the only way to test that out is to drive a ship through the strait, right? With Jared Kushner on board. So, I mean, don't forget, Wyckoff is a test of the validity of the ceasefire, right?

Um, I'm getting from somebody that the New York Times said that, uh, it's not a, it's not a ribbon cutting.

It's, you know, how do you— it's an open question. No one can answer it. But yeah, it's not as though there's a physical barrier across the strait that they are pulling open.

Apparently it was China that made a last-minute intervention that pushed the agreement.

Yeah, and we'll see. And then, you know, you think back and, and, you know at least it wasn't Russia. Right. That's true. But this is the same kind of adage that I got to think about the things to kind of think of to say about this. And this is, we're going to go back to the mowing the lawn theory. The Israelis will accept this because Trump's going to beat them over the head with it, but they're going to go back if they have to. And so it's the old adage in the Middle East. There's no such thing as when wars end. They just kind of, it's R&R until you get ready for the next one. And I think that's probably accurate. And so You know, I think that, you know, this is all super preliminary, but maybe a discussion just for a couple minutes would be is, okay, you know, what, look, in the US perspective, what war objectives have been achieved? I think that maybe that's a good point of discussion. Jason, what do you think?

Well, I mean, obviously we've hit a lot of targets. So I don't know what the target deck looked like. I don't know, you know, what the broad strategic plan look like on paper, but I think militarily they can say we hit the targets we said we were going to hit. And that's— that is kudos to the air crews, the, you know, the crew, um, the ground crews, things like that. And, you know, whoever we have on the ground, um, uh, processing these targets. But I don't know, strategic— if we're talking regime change that's being thrown out there all willy-nilly, I, I I don't see it, you know, from my little 5-foot, um, uh, you know, view. Um, but I guess they're gonna— I think much like the, uh, rescue of the Wizzo, um, they're just going to keep parading out these military, um, achievements. These are tactical military achievements. I don't see a strategic victory, in my opinion.

Jonathan, what about the nuke program?

Well, we don't see any new developments in that that are public, at least. But to me, you know, I'm thinking about deny, degrade, disrupt. Like, these are the kind of things that we can say that have happened in some degree, you know, different ways. But those are not defeat. They're not obliterate. So like, if we're looking at lines of effort on the campaign plan, they're like, if defeat Iran was on there, that is not achieved. Right. So The problem is when the war started, we were not given discrete objectives. Those objectives were kind of assembled along the way and kind of repackaged as things progressed, not according to plan, if there was such a plan. And like you said, Jason, I think there's a lot of tactical and operational successes that are being repackaged as strategic outcomes. And it doesn't work like that. You can't work backwards from what you've done and just explain it as if that was your, your idea the whole time.

Andy, what do you think?

Yeah, I mean, I think we've achieved this best if we kept our objectives sane, which was exactly what Jonathan said, that like DQ, then yes, we've probably been as successful as we could hope for. I mean, but the thing is that chief among our previously, before this even kicked off, right, when the campaign was being designed, you know, and it was on the shelf, what did we say our main objective was, John? Our number one objective?

The nukes.

The nukes, right. So, you know, it's kind of a war of— it wasn't— I mean, listen, I spent just like you guys most of my— a lot of my career planning against the Iranians. The only casualties I took as a battalion commander were caused by Iranians. I've got no reason to love the regime. But this was, you know, it's a war of choice. And the objectives that we achieved were really Israel's objectives. Our main objective had to do with the nuclear program, at least that's always what we have said. And effect on that is unknown, but it's unlikely to have been obliterated. But, you know, I mean, I understand we can take a win if we've set Iran back. But our main goal was always the nuclear weapon. Number 2 was support for proxies, always, right? I mean, because that was what was destabilizing the Middle East, the threat of nuclear, you know, I mean, there was our policy of nonproliferation and then regional stability in the Middle East. And Iran was a threat to both of those. And that is why we selected those objectives. Hey, what effect— unclear what effect we've had on those two.

D, your favorite subject, the New York Times article about the Israeli pressure.

We talked about it a little bit before. No, no, no, continue, please.

I want you to know, I want to hear your rant on this. This is a—

well, I mean, frankly, like, having fucking Jared Kushner or Steve Wolkoff anywhere near the fucking Situation Room is out of control. The guy couldn't get a clearance, you know what I mean? He's in the pocket of Qatar and Saudi. Like, what are we doing? The guy is— and obviously Israel— the guy is obviously a liability. We have a strip mall developer as our special envoy. It's like the whole thing is fucking batshit. Like, if we're being honest here, you guys are all professionals in this world and you know it too. You don't have to say it. I'll say it. I'll be the guy. I'll be the bad guy. It's fine. Yeah, it's— and when they were making that final decision before, you know, before he gave the final go-ahead, they're sitting there with 5 or 6 people and nobody can give any fucking dissent? Not even JD Vance?

Like, nobody must have leaked all this stuff. I mean, that was like a— that was a defense. I mean, I was, you know, I know Jonathan Swan. I mean, I know these reporters. And so they're— and they're doing their job. But to me, it was incredible, you know, covering your ass on this thing. JD Vance is the one who seemingly is the one who reached out. It looks the best in this whole thing.

Yeah.

Yeah, he looks like the only one that actually has like a working, working brain, to be honest. Even though he kind of, he kind of pushed out too, right? He, he's his whole MO for a long time while he was running. And you know, while he was bringing— brought up as like the groomed as the VP was getting out of these wars, right? And America first and that bullshit. So Where is that exactly while we're spending, you know, we've spent probably upwards of $20 billion plus so far. Yeah, it's just the dynamics that go on in there where it's everyone's scared to say anything. It's like, I don't know what the decision should be, but I know your decision would be right. Somebody said that. Like, are you fucking kidding me? You're a professional. You're supposedly a professional. So It's mind-boggling.

I got to raise on this because, so, and then of course Ratcliffe is in there kind of trying to be the one. Again, he came out looking fairly okay on this because he's showing dissent. Although you then contrast that, which is why I question that, you know, this is like the old Bob Woodward books. It's a narrative, it's an account, there's an agenda there. But you take a look at that CIA video that they put out of Ratcliffe. Crazy. That you guys, which was, I mean, the reaction I got from people inside was Freaking hilarious. But, you know, it's just like licking his boots. But yet in the background, he was showing some reservations about this. You can't really have it both ways. I'm sorry. Hey, one quick thing for Jonathan. I'm just reading something here now. And again, this is as we kind of, this is all live with the 10-point plan. One of the pieces of the 10-point plan is full sanctions relief on Iran. Well, holy shit, frankly, if that's something that the US has agreed to, you know, that is pretty extraordinary. And so that's why I think that, I mean, talk about that because the maximum pressure campaign had so much to do with that.

If Trump agreed to that just to get the Strait of Hormuz open, wow.

The thing is with sanctions, you can't just turn them off. So you can stop enforcing them. That's true. But in the corporate world, the market drives everything. And if the market doesn't trust like the collective market does not trust that these will remain unenforced, there will not be interaction. Like, people won't go and do business in Iran. And actually, remember back in the Clinton administration, the 1990s, there was a brief relief on sanctions in Iran, and Clinton allowed carpets, pistachios, saffron, and a couple of other products to be sold inside the United States directly. And companies didn't want to do it because they were afraid that when Clinton's out of office, they're going to have to close their businesses down and leave. And this is kind of a similar issue with the tariffs where there's this idea that, okay, we do these tariff things and suddenly people can bring industry to the United States. And some companies did that. Then the tariffs were enjoined by the courts, which meant that there was no financial incentive and these companies are left to dry. And like, I just invested $100 million here and I'm out and nobody's helping me.

And it's the same inverse in Iran. If you say like suddenly you can do business in Iran and Iran can join the SWIFT banking network again, which they were kicked out of in 2018, people aren't— the market's not going to believe that, right? Like, there's the short-term changes when you look at, like, oil futures. Like, right now it's 19% drop in 2 hours on oil futures, which is insane. That's oil futures. That's just a simple little small thing. That's not people moving manufacturing industry into Iran, which would be fantastic if they did. So it's like the market has to believe this. It's kind of like we were talking about the Straits of Hormuz. You can say they're open, but is Maersk going to get insurance that's as cheap as it was before to move oil through there.

And by the way, Ron just said they're good. I mean, so the whole idea of this was that Ron wants to walk away as the toll booth operator.

In the agreement, it said— Exactly, yeah, $2 million. $2 million and they chop it with Oman, right?

Yep.

So, you know, again, I think, you know, as we kind of decipher this that happened just a couple of minutes ago, there's gonna be some things where you're kind of scratching your head. You know, what has, you know, how much has Trump actually capitulated on this? Because he was looking for a way out. It's gonna be fascinating. Now, we can't have it both ways in one way in that, you know, Jason, we've been hammering this crazy-ass president for all the things, but now there's a ceasefire, he backed down, so now we're gonna hammer him for being a big pussy. I mean, so it's kind of funny. And so there's already some criticism I'm seeing on social media for people like us, like, well, hold on a second, you guys were saying he's a crazy man causing World War III, yet 'Now he's not going to do it. Now you're making fun of him for backing down.' So, yeah, I mean, there's a little bit of some truth in that. Maybe, maybe I certainly have, you know, a little Trump Derangement Syndrome. I know D does.

I'm not really shitting on him because he backed out, because he made the ceasefire. I mean, frankly, I'm shitting on him because a month ago, or a little bit over a month ago, the deal that was on the table diplomatically far exceeded whatever this can ever create, ever get to. And we didn't have to lose 13 guys and 400+ people get injured and, you know, really fuck the world economy too, right? Like, we didn't have to do all that and we still could have got a better deal diplomatically. But Steve Wittkoff— I'm gonna go back to them because they're the fucking worst. Steve Wittkoff and Jared Kushner don't have a technical expert in the room with them while they're doing nuclear negotiations. Like, if they were buying a strip mall or leasing something, I'd have them in the fucking room. But it's a joke. We're a fucking joke. So I mean, I'm happy that the like bombing is going to stop, obviously. Yeah, we did. We get fucking bent over by Iran. Yeah, it looks like it right now, especially deal point-wise. Like, you know, what, what we end up getting, like, are they still going to keep their nuclear weapons or their uranium?

Not their nuclear weapons. Yeah, it's a big question mark right now. And what happens in 2 weeks? Israel doesn't love this. What are they going to do to like kind of cockblock this whole thing.

Especially if they're getting hit right now with ballistic missiles.

Yeah.

It's kind of interesting. I'm reading some, I'm just getting some messages from folks. And this is from someone who has access inside the White House and even who's quoting a White House official saying it's a weird agreement. So, I mean, I think it probably took some creative diplomacy and there's going to be some parts in this that we're all going to be shaking our head. I mean, look, Trump just wanted to stop. And so, you know, that's it. And then the other part of it that I think if you look at the history of just US diplomacy, usually we have really experienced negotiators steeped in Iranian history, culture, language. The Iranians are very experienced negotiators, but on our side, I don't even know who was doing this. Maybe it was Jared and Steve Witkoff and JD Vance, although he's running around Hungary humiliating the United States to no end today. But so I think they were just, they probably, the Iranians knew that we were going to come up with something weird and we're just going to accept anything just to have this thing stop for a bit because Trump was just getting pummeled. I mean, this was such a bad day public relations-wise for the United States.

I mean, if it set the Pentagon almost on fire in terms of holy shit, we're going to be asked to commit war crimes, probably not a bad thing that everyone kind of stood back from the brink.

Guys, what's Ynet? What's the media source Ynet?

It's Russian.

I'm saying what it— because it says ceasefire announced by Trump includes Lebanon's Hezbollah and Israel.

No, you're correct. Actually, that's, that's point number one.

It does.

It says complete cessation of the war in Iraq, Lebanon, and Yemen. And then further down, which is even crazier, full reparations will be paid to Iran. This tells me that this is like not a legit agreement.

This is going to be fun, actually. So this is going to be fun because now it's not going to be were whining that we wanted the war to continue. It's just going to be fun making fun of this agreement just to see how much Trump did.

Oh my God. That's— I mean, guys, guys, even me, why did I want the war?

Like, point number 3, John, ending all conflicts in the region in their entirety. Peace in the Middle East. That's the plan.

Well, number 4, the Boston Red Sox are going to win 100 games in a row and make it just to piss off All right, bro.

Oh my goodness.

And it's a complete and permanent cessation of the war on Iran with no time limit.

Yeah. So again, as you know, that's the beauty of doing stuff live. You know, the initial stuff. And I mean, we should know better that, you know, Trump's bravado when you kind of have to dive into the details. And so I guess I'm going to have some fun with this. Just because, and I watched Andy get into kind of some war with some of the kind of the pro-Israel crazy types in his little spat when he was writing on War on the Rocks. It's going to be fun seeing how people get, try to still, even seeing this terrible, if it's a terrible agreement, how they're going to still try to say somehow this is a win. And then the language they use. I already saw it. I mean, not to pick on names, but I, you know, we're all kind of mildly obsessive about these crazy people.

But for Iran, it's like, as long as they outlast the US, they've won.

Yeah, that's it right there. Yeah, that's what it's always been for them. As long as they can outlast us, because they have how many examples in our history of those who have said all we need to do is outlast them from Vietnam to now.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So we— so I'm guessing that like going into the war, Trump was assuming that we would completely take out their missile program and like keep them like completely defenseless and like they still have half their missiles and half their drones. And it's proven to be very difficult to like, you know, take stuff out because it's mobile and, you know, underground. Outside of smoking the leader and the 40 other ones behind him, I mean, what have we achieved outside of high gas prices and like, you know, squeezing the global economy? And, you know, how can, how can fucking Qatar, how can any of our, those GCC countries trust us ever?

Yeah, I don't say the best thing is some of the, you know, Fox News is going to go into kind of orgasmic glee about the brilliance of of the president.

So, well, like you told— like, we were on the group chat before, Mark, and you mentioned like turning on Fox News. So I turned it on and they're like— they did a whole segment with a panel like of 6 people talking about like Soleimani's daughter that got arrested. And the other one that was the, the one of the hostage takers, the woman.

Yeah. What was the name?

Yeah, what's her like, what's the nickname they gave her? Screaming something like, yeah, there's some nickname she's got. Anyway, her son lives in LA. And like, they're just talking about these like, like, guys, what do we care about like these like dilettante kids living in like, who gives a shit? It's just like this constant just propaganda of like, they're living in our country, you have to take them out. Like what the fuck, you're wasting airtime. On this shit. You're like a major news down. Yeah, so like Mark told me that I did it. I turned it on, I got triggered. I was like, I can't believe this. Like there's a program director or producer saying like, this is a great segment, we should do the segment. This is killer.

Because if they didn't put these filler stories in there, they'd have to actually talk about what's really happening, you know, there. So this is what they do, you know, it's like And I'm sure I'm going to trigger somebody with this. It's like with these ICE stories, you know, a US citizen gets killed, but it's like, oh, you know, but this guy killed this girl and he's an illegal, you know, he's illegal.

Okay, that's true.

But does that mean that all murders are done by illegals? But, you know, they've got to kind of counter, they've got to fill that space. So that's what they're doing here.

Oh, fun. All right, fellas, I got to— I got to roll.

I get out of here. Mark, good to see you. Thanks for coming.

That was fun. And we'll do it again.

Yeah, we'll be back on Sunday. Regular, regular schedule program. I'm sure there's going to be a ton of shit to talk about then too. Like, I like— because this doesn't seem like an actual— like they agreed. We agreed to this shit. Like we didn't agree to this.

Yeah, that 10-point plan was actually sent by Jonathan and I are going to go back on Israeli TV just to annoy D. Yeah, without coordinating.

No, go on it. Just make sure you plug Eyes On. I'm fine with it. I don't give a shit.

Take care, guys.

I don't care. Take care, man. Go on Iranian TV. I don't care. Go on the Fars. Just plug us. What were you saying, John?

That 10-point plan that I was mentioning was the Iranian plan that was shared to the US that the US has said is a good starting point for negotiations, which is crazy because I mean, the thing is like starting point. It's the most extreme. List. And it's also not an agreed-on plan. So like, what is the actual ceasefire?

Who said that was a good starting point?

Trump. He said, I believe it is a workable basis on which to negotiate.

We surprised?

What the fuck, bro? So, bro, he— this is like elder abuse at this point, right? Like, he's just like an old dotty guy and like, Lindsey Graham's got him from behind. Like, like, I don't know what's going on here, dude. It's crazy. I guess he got freaked out by like the MAGA hardcores. Tucker Carlson called him the Antichrist.

Yeah.

You know? Yeah. And Alex Jones too was freaking out about him too.

Yeah.

Alex Jones is talking about the 25th.

Yeah.

Yeah. So you lose those two cuckoo birds, you know, something's not right. We got a, we got a big dono, a donation from Reed, Reed YK. Thank you boys for keeping us informed. Nice to hear from actual experts. Sending support from my beloved shithole in Brooklyn.

Love it. Hey, Brooklyn's nice. I heard, I heard.

I love Brooklyn.

It's quite nice. Yeah, I enjoy it. Yeah, I mean, you can go on. Yeah, I mean, there's parts of Brooklyn that like are shitty, but That's like anywhere.

Yeah.

Brooklyn's good. You can go to brunch.

Do you see someone said, uh, Caravaggio, uh, 8003 said he is a professional seasoned Brooklynite.

Yeah, I get worked up and I just start running my mouth.

I love it.

Do you ever run into AOC when you're walking down the streets of Brooklyn?

Oh, I wish, bro. I wish. I love her. I love her. I wish I run into her.

Just like spill your bag on her by accident.

I think she lives in Queens. I think. Not that I've been following her. I swear.

D, I don't know if you saw, but there was a guy who got busted in Jersey for— basically he had like a shit ton of pipe bombs in his house. And like, he was literally like walking outside and just lighting these things and just throwing them in the street. So just for fun, apparently for years— and because this came through at work before it hit the news, came through my job— so apparently this guy, for years, people have been complaining about explosions and, uh, what they sound like explosions, and the cops come out and not find anything or whatever. So one day, uh, I think it was last week or whatever, apparently this guy set something off And so they call the cops, cops pull up just as the guy walks outside and he's like powder burns, blue stuff all over his face and everything. And it made me think of that guy that, was it a video you sent us of somebody in your neighborhood like lighting something?

Oh yeah, yeah, my neighbor. That was my neighbor. He lives like 4 houses down. He went a little cuckoo. He was off his meds or something. He's a nice guy. He's a curmudgeon. He's an old guy. He's a little bit of a curmudgeon. So He just came out the crib, out of the house. Like, it was snow everywhere too. So this must have been in January, just popping off rounds at like some random car. But it turns out it was a starter pistol, so he's not getting in trouble. Of course. Crazy. He— it was crazy. Yeah, that video was— I got the video like right away too. Like, the neighbors are talking, sending that video around. Yeah, it was wild. It was wild.

Is he back? So he's back home?

I saw him today. Yeah, I was like, yo, what's up, bro? How you doing? Get your hands— seems better, which is good. Yeah, yeah, he seems better though. I think, I think because he was in the— he was in like a, like a psychiatric facility for like a month.

Damn, that sucks.

Yeah, something could happen to anybody, I guess. Yeah, you know. Yeah, just start shooting your starter pistol into the street at a random fucking car.

Pretty sure if I did that, I would not be on the next podcast.

No, you'd be shot. You'd be shot by cops. Yeah.

Oh man.

Um, yeah, uh, so I don't know if you guys saw what Mark P just sent, that tweet, like breaking down a good summary of the problems with the agreement. I mean, yeah, this agreement's gonna get like dissected because it sounds like it's batshit insane. John, what do you think? What should we like look for in the next few days?

What are you looking for, especially from the Israeli side? Because this happens with Israel versus Lebanon a lot of times where they'll come to a ceasefire and then during the ceasefire Israel continues striking because they claim the other side has violated somehow. So I'm curious, since it sounds like Israel was told by the US that there was a ceasefire that Israel must now follow, which I don't think usually happens in that direction. I think it's the other way around usually. So I'm curious to see what level of actual you know, discretion's going to go on there about whether they can actually sustain that or not. And if Iran continues firing missiles that they might claim like, oh, whoops, we already fired that, it was too late, you know, is that going to be a pretext that Israel uses? Plus, the Houthis, again, are kind of on their own. They do sometimes follow the regime, but also sometimes operate independently. So they might not be ready to stop harassing people. So it might be that the regime doesn't have the kind of control that it needs to actually keep the lid on violence and also should be looking for how does the regime treat the Iranian people in these two weeks.

Are they going to start— because they're not firing outboard, are they going to turn their weapons inboard and start looking for people that have been collaborating over the past two months? You know, I'm sure there's been quite a few people working with different intelligence community entities over the past two months, and the regime is going to be looking for them. So now they'll have the space to do that. And the question is, will the U.S. help behind the scenes to not let them do that. You know, this is also a great opportunity for, again, the U.S. to give the internet to the Iranian people in these two weeks, because if they do that and Iran is now pressured to not retaliate as strongly, that could also help those people get out in the street and then start taking the government as well.

From an intelligence perspective to all the talking that's been done you know, all of the quote unquote leaks or whatever about going back to that, the rescue of the, the extraction of the WIZO, you know, sources and methods and things like that. While they weren't necessarily specifically named, like we're talking around things that IRGC and others, you know, they're going to focus on that. They're going to hone on that. So because if we, if this thing doesn't hold and, you know, airstrikes continue, the chances are that another aircraft is going to go down. So is it gonna, you know, things gonna happen the exact same way based on everything that's been put out there, you know? Um, so I'm sure that's something that hopefully somebody is thinking about.

Another good point too is the Kurds. So the Kurds have been making videos about holding M4s, for example, and saying that they want to do stuff because they had the COVID of air support at the time making those statements. Well, if there's a 2-week ceasefire, the regime might head west into Iranian Kurdistan and start being pretty violent against those people that made those videos, which they've done in the past. So they have already demonstrated they're willing to do that.

And when the Kurd stuff started popping up in the media and stuff like that, didn't they start— they shot like a couple missiles and drones over. Yeah, over there too, right?

They fired into Erbil, actually around Erbil and eastern Eastern Kurdistan inside Iraq at a couple of bases and inside of Iran.

Feels like— oh yeah, no, it's come to like a— we're pausing. It does not seem like— it seems like this is going to be pretty bad. I want to know what's going on in Lindsey Graham's brain right now. He's got to be losing it.

Yeah.

Anything else? I mean, I'm trying to— I'm like, have so many screens open right now, I'm like dizzy.

The one screen I'm watching is the oil futures because that's a market like absorbing the news and reacting to it, which is a very interesting thing to look at.

Where's it at now? Did it go under $100?

Yeah, it's $95.07, so it's down 16% roughly.

Wow.

I mean, you got to assume that's like the main reason we did this. It's not like Trump's worried about the Iranian civilians or even our servicemen. It's just like, oh, fuck.

And you notice timing again, it was after hours, after trading closed again. Yeah, every single time it's been after hours trading.

Yeah, yeah.

They were also pushing it yesterday too, last night before— I'm sorry, early this morning or late last night, talking about possible ceasefire and stuff like that, uh, to kind of try and quiet the markets a little. Um, Yeah, man. Again, I don't know what stage capitalism this is, but it's a fucking weird one. I'll be honest.

If you look at like after hours trading in NASDAQ, S&P, and Dow, they're all up over 2% right now. Right now, which is like the biggest movement they've had upward since February 28th.

Yeah. I mean, frankly, like, I know the Iranians are taking this as a win, like the regime right now, or like they're crowing, like they're spinning, spinning like crazy right now. But what— I mean, do they really— they can't trust us, right? After what we've done the last couple times with negotiations. Like, we had a killer deal, or close to it. And in that— back again to that New York Times article— Witkoff and Kushner were saying like, oh, to get an actual deal is gonna take months. Yeah, no shit, guys. It's a nuclear deal, not a fucking lease for a deli at one of your buildings. You dumb fucks. You know, it's of course it's going to take months. How long did the JCPOA take? Almost 6 years. Negotiation. There you go. I mean, like, these are serious issues that like have huge ramifications. It's not going to be like you're buying a new strip mall and you can bang it out with your lawyers in a couple of days. Like, unbelievable to me, like the level of like, fuck this guy Kushner, man. You are a liability. You can't get a clearance and he's sitting in the Situation Room.

Like, how is that allowed in this, in this, in our government?

Well, in that Situation Room talk you're discussing, which is like earlier before the war started, if you read who was in there, the ODNI director was not in there. And there were a couple of other individuals that you would think from the cabinet that should be in there, like Treasury Secretary was not in there. Yeah, Scott Bessant wasn't in there.

So, but was the energy guy too? They mentioned part of energy.

And, but who was Caroline Leavitt?

Wasn't there the PR, like the press secretary?

Yeah. So the actual decision makers weren't in there, but the media people were in there.

Right.

Had to make sure to get that spin right.

Yeah. Yeah. And I, the comms director was in there too, right?

Right.

I think. And I think that the, like, the general counsel, which is like, I don't even know why that position is even filled with this administration, if we're being honest.

Yeah.

Well, they're just writing legal opinions that are exactly what they're told to write.

Right.

Yeah. I mean, and if I'm the Pentagon, I, someone has to be thinking like, what's our pivot point here? How long do we keep these Marines, soldiers, sailors, and airmen on station there? And if something pops off on the other side of the world, how quickly can we pivot? You know, like we've done the whole boys and their toys, look what we got, look what we can do there. And now we've got this pause. So hopefully someone has taken a beat and saying, okay, what is our pivot point? How long are we going to keep these kids on station trying to, you know, um, to hold this down? Yes, we have to keep somebody there just in case, you know, this whole thing breaks. But that doesn't mean that something's not going to pop off on the other side of the world. So hopefully somebody's thinking about that.

Plus you got the carrier strike group that's been deployed, I think 11 months now at sea.

Yeah.

That's crazy.

I think, are they, they're heading back home, right? They had the big fire in the, in the laundry room.

I think they're in Souda Bay in, uh, or Souda Bay in, uh, uh, Crete getting repaired.

Okay.

And they let the guys go on liberty, which is nice that they got to go on liberty, but like they're still deployed. They're not home yet. And they weren't told they could go on an 11-month deployment. They were told they go on a 6-month deployment. So, you know, like they got spouses and kids back home, some of them with their kids being born while they're out at that boat. You know, that's thousands of people deployed without any clue about what's coming next for them in their life.

Now they're in Crete getting Cretan girls knocked up, you know, just waiting around for the laundry room to get fixed, uh, yeah, so they can use it. And then they say Yeah, didn't they say that it's gonna take like almost 2 years to fix the actual— fix the carrier?

Well, I don't know.

Yeah, they had like a range. It was like 12 to 36 months to get it back. It's like, my oh my. I'm trying to get Jack to come on. Andy just sent something, a screenshot from his phone. He's getting— the area is under hostile aerial threat. Please remain calm, stay indoors or a safe place away from the windows and doors. And follow the instructions of civil defense.

And he's in Riyadh.

Me too.

Yeah.

What happened? The first $2 million toll check bounced.

Probably they couldn't get it to the bank account because it's still sanctioned.

Yeah, right. Yeah, exactly.

Well, I'm going to drop off, guys.

Yeah, I got to take off too.

All right, get out of here, guys. I'll wrap it up on my solo. Don't worry about it. I'll keep chatting with the chatters a little bit. All right, folks, and continue to ruin our reputation.

Yes. Burn the whole thing down.

Somebody's going to do it.

Yeah.

Take care, gents.

I'm going to see you guys later.

Take care, John.

See you. That was the boys. I'm trying to get Murphy on, Jack Murphy on, but he's playing coy. I think— I don't think he's home. It's pretty awesome. I get to do the show with these guys, right? Like some jerkoff like me. Sick. Um, trying to catch up on the chats, guys. My bad. Yeah, so there's that ceasefire. Peace in our time, guys. And it's so annoying too because this thing, it's just so many, so many screens. What else we got? Anything? I think we might wrap it up. I got nothing else to say. I'm spent. Cretan? Question mark. A Cretan girl from Crete because the, the aircraft carrier is in Crete on leave while it's getting repaired. So there are people from Crete, we call them Cretans. Yeah, I have friends from Crete. They're, they're a little cuckoo. They're definitely the cuckoo ones. Question for D: if thousands of Marines are there on station, does that mean they will be deployed? Isn't it, isn't it true that the US forces are on station, they get used? Yeah, I mean, I don't know, they're gonna probably stay, you know, sit around wherever they are. My guess is they're probably in the Gulf of Oman, the MEU.

They're not in the Persian Gulf, no way. They're gonna be sitting around for a couple weeks to see this thing, whether it falls apart or not. I mean, but yeah, we, you know, there's a— for the most part, Trump, whenever he builds up like military forces somewhere, he kind of uses them. So Frankly, I hope they don't do it. I hope they don't go after Karg Island or anywhere else. Because think about it, if they're going to go take Karg Island to try and— let's say this ship broke apart. They try to go and, you know, we go back to fighting. They go back to Karg Island. They go take Karg Island. They're sitting there for weeks probably just taking incoming fire. Like, how is that good versus the PMF in Iraq? Do you think there will be— they will have a ground operation versus the PMF in Iraq? If anything, it's going to be special ops and maybe CIA. Like, I don't think it's going to be real deal. I'm going to slowly wrap up. I want you guys to do me a favor, like and subscribe. If you're watching right now, hit that like, share it, tell your friends.

What's the best Greek diner in Brooklyn? I mean, diners are all diners, right? Like, I know the best Greek restaurant, and that's the one that my family owns, and it's called Avli Greek Kitchen. On Smith Street, go check it out. The best Greek food in Brooklyn. As far as diners go, there's a place over here, Bay Ridge Diner, is pretty good. My boy homie used to own it, he just sold it. Um, I mean, most diners fucking suck, to be honest. Um, but Bay Ridge Diner has like a step above, like pretty quality diner food. I would go and check it out. Boys, hit the like, hit the like, boys and girls, if there's like 3% of the girls that listen. That are on right now. Hit that like, tell your boys, tell your homies, you know what I mean? Do what you got to do for the cause. So I got like 5 experts on every week and they're not cheap, guys. They're not cheap, okay? They're divas. Don't tell them I said that. I hope my man Andy's good to go. Yeah, do us a solid. Oh, also Murphy, Jack Murphy, he's got a new book coming out in June.

It's a fiction book. It's really cool. It's about an Army Ranger, RRC guy. Who gets kidnapped and gets, um, gets hunted for sport. Really good book. Read it. I read one of the first early drafts. Really, it's fun. Check that out. The link is in the description. High Side for Jack too, his news outlet with Sean Naylor. They do great work. Worked at like the New York Times and Washington Post. Wish they fucking did. Um, and all that. All the links to in the description. If you guys want to talk to us, hit us up there. Sign up to our Patreon too, patreon.com/teamhouse. Help support the show. You get both Eyes On and Teamhouse episodes ad-free and early. D, you see about the Ursa Major sinking? I don't know what that is. Sorry, I'm stupid. A diner is basically like a— like you get eggs, you can get a burger. I mean, diners in New York, and I'm sure a lot of places like in America, are It's just like a 7-page menu and you can get anything from like 2 eggs breakfast to like you want a filet of sole. They have filet of sole.

So for some reason, that's what a diner is, at least here. It's like a coffee shop. Plus in Brooklyn now, in New York, we don't really have those big-ass diners as much anymore. It's like a small regular store, like in a retail area, that's just like a coffee shop diner. Like we don't have those big ones with the big Uh, parking lots and stuff like that. We have one left in my neighborhood, um, but the ones that we at least have— 3. All diners are just Cisco slop. You're not wrong about that, bro. You're not wrong about that. Don't get me going with the restaurant business. Worst business in the human history. Also, Cisco just bought Restaurant Depot, which is like a place where like a lot of— most— a lot of restaurants in Brooklyn and anywhere go and buy stuff. So it's just like Cisco is just gobbling up everything, and they're like the fucking worst. Guys, don't get me crazy. You guys are bringing up traumatic stuff from my past when I used to own restaurants, okay? It's not cool. Yeah, it's basically like a— yeah, food— let's play— yeah, cafe in Europe.

It's funny too, because some coffee shop diner places call themselves, you know, Jimmy's Cafe and stuff, and it's basically like just diner food. Maybe some of them will do like Some of them do like desserts and stuff like that too. There are a lot of like different places that are like amalgamations. Jack's at a bar. All right, Jack's out. All right guys, thanks for hanging out for the live. Really appreciate it. Maybe we'll try and start doing a little bit, a couple more lives, keep it like nice and loose maybe. Okay, basically, yeah, right, Jason's in here. Jason also, also diners stay open later, sometimes 24 hours. Yeah. What happened here in New York especially, I mean, I'm sure there's still some 24-hour diners, but a lot of the 24-hour diners around me, when COVID hit, they stopped being 24 and they never really came back as 24 hours. My local Greek diner burned their diner down for insurance money to cover the debt on the bar they opened up. Yeah, that sounds like a totally plausible reason to do that. Would I be lying to you if I told you when I own restaurants, I fantasize about burning them down and taking the money?

Uh, yeah, I did. I didn't burn it down or anything. I should have. All right, guys, thanks again. Really appreciate it. I don't know how the fuck to turn the stream off. Give me a moment. Like and subscribe. Don't forget to do that. Please like and subscribe. Please like and subscribe and follow us, you know, on Twitter and shit. Also, how fucking smart is John Hackett, by the way? Can we be honest? Jesus Christ, the guy was enlisted. He was an enlisted Marine. He wasn't even an officer. Guy's a fucking genius. Well, everyone's smart on this except for me. I just run my mouth off. All right, boys and two girls, see you next time. We'll see you Sunday for sure. Actually, no, a new Eyes On is coming out tomorrow. Actually, we recorded something with McMulroy's partner Eric Olerick and Scott Canino, both, you know, SMU guys talking about the future of warfare. So that's coming out. Me and John Hackett did an interview with them last week, so that's coming out. Check out for that. I actually got to edit that right now. Fuck me, just reminded myself. New team house coming out, we're recording it tomorrow, so if you sign up on Patreon, you can watch it live.

As we record it. Really cool one with a guy named Sean Weiswesser. He wrote a book about Russian espionage. Really cool one. Jack just said, I'm at a bar reading the rest of it right now. So Jack's gonna come prepared. So yeah, we're pumping out stuff all the time. So we might— I think I might want to do this live shit a little bit more. Maybe get some reaction videos too. Dave's in— Dave's in the Caribbean working, working a security gig. All right, I'm really done now. I love you guys. Peace and love. Don't forget to like and subscribe. Patreon.com/TheTeamHouse. Thanks, guys. All the best.

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 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, you know, 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 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. The link will be down in the description.