It's a wake-up call in more ways than one.
Time for some sh** you need to know.
Yep.
Well, Iranian officials in the Trump administration yesterday offered contradictory and rapidly changing assessments of the state of the war and peace talks all while providing very few details about those negotiations.
Sound familiar?
Hours after threatening more attacks, the president insisted during remarks in the Oval Office yesterday afternoon that the U.S.
had quote, won the war in Iran.
He also said that Washington had quote unquote very good talks with Iran in the last 24 hours adding, we're in good shape, now we're doing well and we have to get what we have to get.
Okay, well Iran for its part gave different appraisals of how negotiations were proceeding.
The country's foreign ministry spokesperson Spokesman said yesterday that his government was reviewing an American plan to end the war and would convey its views to the Pakistani side.
Earlier in the day, another Iranian official had dismissed a reported proposal to end the war as, quote, a list of American wishes.
The mixed messages came a day after the president abruptly paused a U.S.
military operation to escort ships through the Strait of Hormuz, citing that he had made great progress in talks.
Now in public, there have been little signs that the week of diplomacy aimed at reaching a deal.
and the end of the war were bearing any fruit.
In a true social post yesterday, Trump said he would end the war and offer safe passage for vessels through the strait if Iran, quote, agrees to give what has been agreed.
He's to give what we'll sort that out in a minute.
He did not elaborate.
If they don't agree, the bombing starts, he threatened, warning that further U.S.
attacks would be at a much higher level in intensity.
The suggestion appeared to contradict the assertion made by Secretary of State Marco Rubio Tuesday that the war was over.
Okay, every day it's more of the same.
It's, we're doing great, the war's over.
Oh no, we're gonna start bombing.
Jamie, I saw your face.
I want to know if you can explain that quote from the president, again, on true social.
If Iran agrees to give what has been agreed.
Can you parse that at all for
me?
I cannot, which is why I probably made a face.
I don't understand what any of that means, of course.
I don't understand a lot of things that have been happening recently.
So there's that.
I think the bottom line for me and all of this is that this type of uncertainty is where we start risking even more lives.
And we've seen thousands of people killed in the Middle East because of this conflict.
We have seen US soldiers killed because of this conflict.
And when a world leader is sending these type of messages, it makes it harder to know what is happening.
And we don't know if things are improving.
actually know if anything's improved.
We don't know if anything is actually worse.
We don't
know if there
is a chance of more escalation because of the uncertainty in these contradictory statements.
And there's also, we've got a story later, that we're not even getting the full report on how bad things actually are for the US military.
And imagine if you're in the military, you're hearing on the same day,
The war's over.
The war's not over.
We're going to start bombing again.
No, we've done very well.
If you're in the military, how do you even process this?
It's like, hey, how about you guys get on the same page and tell us what we need to be ready for?
Because we're the people who are in harm's way.
We're the people who have to carry out this stupid war that nobody wanted, that we didn't need.
And we also have to carry out contradicting plans all the time.
We have to be ready.
Are we done?
Are we ramping up?
Are we going home?
What's going on?
It's irresponsible, it's ridiculous, and it is not how, and this is the cop outline, it's not how things are supposed to be.
There's also credibility issues too, right?
I mean, even when Marco Rubio says something and the president says something, that is confusion for the American people.
It's
also
confusing for our allies, for the markets, which this administration likes to hang all of their success on.
It's also...
confusing for other countries who are also trying to respond because they're also seeing the ramifications for war that they don't want to be a part of and didn't start.
And I think most importantly, it also risks, there's a risk of miscalculation in these comments because when communication is this unclear, there is a chance for misunderstanding over reaction.
And in a situation, again, where we're involving military operation,
That's not a position I want our military in when there's this much confusion.
You can't you can't have a credibility problem if you never had credibility.
So we'll throw that one out.
But the communication is you're absolutely right.
We have to somebody and it's never going to happen with this group.
You're never going to get a straight unilateral hears.
Because in the past when this country has gotten into war and you could agree with them or disagree with them That's not the issue.
The issue was when we entered into a conflict the president would come on he would address the American people after he had spoken to Congress and Everybody in that administration had the same message because the message came in a consistent manner from the head of the Well, the commander-in-chief came from the president and he laid out a clear path
We have not heard anything.
We have heard a made-up excuse about Iran having a nuclear weapon or the capability of nuclear weapon, which contradicted, again, the president saying that it had been obliterated.
So from the very first bomb that dropped, there has not been justification.
There has not been reasoning.
There has not been a clear path forward.
What does victory look like?
What are we going to do down the road?
And how do we get out?
every, in sometimes hours, that changes, our objective changes, our everything is out the window.
So there is no consistency.
There is no clarity.
And when we, I can't wait to talk about this story, the other story down the road, because it is unfathomable that we are allowing this to happen.
And this administration still has no off-ramp to this thing.
And they've wildly miscalculated the Iranian response, which we've seen from March 1st.
Yeah.
You know?
Yeah.
Because they figured they were gonna drop the first bombs and that was it.
Yep.
It gets worse and worse.
And before we move on, the one thing I would remind everybody is that in the past, when presidents have been able to come on and make those addresses and tell the American people what's happening, it's because they've aligned themselves with career-long diplomats, negotiators, and
and people who are experienced and have some sort of higher knowledge of these countries and their inner workings and are able to actually go in and figure out what is happening or a career military who understand how these operations should play out.
That's why
they're able to be strategic.
But if you're the smartest guy on the planet, Jimmy, you don't need any of those, you know, nerds jumping in with their...
Fiddle faddle.
I miss those nerds.
Let me
tell you.
I miss those nerds a whole lot right
now.
I want somebody who's devoted their whole life to the Middle East strategies and war and Conflicts I want I want people who've negotiated more than just a bad real estate deal right going over to talk to these leaders of foreign countries and you know knowing that it's not a it's Not a win or die game.
It's
Negotiating
and this is why it's so dangerous when you start taking those career individuals out of an administration
because this is what they have done their entire lives.
This is why you have them in those roles.
And that's why, and I get it, I get it.
We overspend in this government.
I think there does need to be a cleansing of how money is spent and I get that.
I understand that portion of it because I also agree that we use money weirdly in this country and we can't always explain it.
But with that being said,
There are people who are in those offices for a reason, and I trust those people.
That's who I trust.
This has not been good
over the last few
months.
But there is more as we need to know, Jamie.
There is.
Absolutely.
Looks like the FBI has been busy.
In fact, yesterday they searched the Virginia State Senate Leader's hometown office as part
of a
corruption investigation, according to a person familiar with the matter.
Federal agents were also seen at the senator's nearby cannabis business.
Now, the search at Virginia Senator L. Louise Lucas' office in Port's mouth comes after the Democrat helped lead the state's recent
redistricting effort.
The FBI said only that it was conducting a court authorized search in Portsmouth.
The person who confirmed the FBI search was not authorized to discuss any ongoing investigation by name and spoke to the media, specifically the Associated Press on conditions of anonymity.
Now, besides the search at Lucas's office, which houses her disability services business and is her political base in Portsmouth, agents at FBI
shirts were also went into the nearby cannabis store that she opened in 2021.
Several entrances at the cannabis outlets parking lot were blocked by unmarked vehicles with flashing blue lights as was an entrance to the politicians office.
Now, Lucas is a prominent backer of legalizing marijuana.
She has said that the store sells legal hemp and CBD products.
It is drawn scrutiny from local media because there's allegations that some products were mislabeled.
Virginia has legalized
possession but retail sales of recreational marijuana remain illegal in the state.
Now one House Speaker, Don Scott, said that he was deeply concerned by this FBI search.
He said, quote, right now there is far more theatrics and speculation than actual information available to the public.
Other Virginia Democrats were also quick to note that the search comes as the FBI and Justice Department have opened a
There's a tiff that's politically charged with investigations into perceived adversaries of President Donald Trump.
I mean, this is the same story we've seen, right?
I mean, over and over again.
And let me also be clear, Senator Lucas is also an ally of Abigail Spanberger.
who is now
the
governor.
She was
instrumental in helping her get elected to that seat.
She was instrumental in her congressional run as well, and then led the redistricting charge in the state of Virginia.
Which I don't think it's connected, but the republic is very unhappy with the fact that Virginia was able to redistrict based on a vote
you know, based on the will of the people, they didn't like that.
But again, I'm sure it's not connected that now you're going to investigate.
Let's say it's not.
Let's
just
hypothetically say it's not.
It's very convenient that this would come up right this moment.
Coincidental.
Just like the fact that now the FBI is investigating the reporter who published the story in The Atlantic about Cash Patel's alleged drinking issues and trying to find
the leak and they will prosecute the leak as well.
So again, coincidence.
I don't believe in coincidences.
You know that I'm not a big, I'm not a big Oh, wow, that just all happened together.
So it is it is again, the well and the Justice Department just this morning, also jumping in to do Trump's bidding, trying to get the the judgment against Eugene Carroll thrown out, you know, the one where
Trump has to pay millions and millions of dollars for assault.
Sexual assault.
I didn't want to, you know, I'm trying to parse my words, but you can't parse sexual assault.
It is what it
is.
And he was found guilty.
He was found guilty.
Yes, that's true.
There's no more allegedly.
He was found guilty.
It's a wake-up call in more ways than one.
Time for some s*** you need to know.
I was eager to share this with you because the Washington Post had some exclusive reporting yesterday.
Iranian airstrikes have damaged or destroyed at least 228 structures or pieces of equipment at U.S.
military strikes across the Middle East since the war began.
That includes hangers, barracks, fuel depots, aircraft, radar communications, and defense equipment.
That, according
to a Washington Post analysis of satellite imagery.
Now that is more than we're being told, and it is a number that is much higher than you're hearing from Pete Hegseth.
The amount of destruction is far larger.
The threat of air attacks rendered some of the US bases in the region too dangerous to staff at normal levels.
Commanders moved most of the personnel from these sites out of range of Iranian fire at the start of the war.
Since the start, on February 28, seven service members have died and strikes on U.S.
facilities in the region, and more than 400 troops have suffered injuries as of late April.
Most of the wounded have returned to duty within days.
At least 12 suffered injuries that medical officials classified as serious, that according to U.S.
officials, who among others in this reporting had to speak on condition of anonymity.
So it's been difficult to get satellite imagery out of the Middle East for us, because that that's according to all the experts, the Iranian state news agencies.
So from the start of the war, though, regularly published high resolution satellite imagery has been published by the Iranians.
And it shows things that are not great.
So the post reviewed these, Jamie, and what did they find?
Well, they said that the damage at the site suggested that the US military had underestimated Iran's targeting abilities, not adapted sufficiently to modern drone warfare and left some bases under-protected.
Which, if you're watching this from afar, or you're keeping track of what's been happening there, this seems even worse than we've even been told, or we understand.
might be.
I mean, here's the thing too, information that damage might be greater.
This is just another step in the erosion of public trust in what we're actually being told, right?
And when we are talking about real troops and real people, real injuries, real consequences,
I mean, this president is already underwater as far as what the American people think about this war, on all sides.
Democrats, Republicans, and independents.
And so then when we start hearing this...
How does this make people feel?
I mean, if you voted for this administration and you
start
hearing this and you start hearing that the casualties of infrastructure, potentially people, could be worse and you didn't want a war and you voted for this president because he kept telling us that Kamala Harris was going to get you into this war and now it's his administration who has
How does that make you feel at the end of the day?
I mean, that's a legitimate question.
I do have
for
voters.
8-5-5-7-5-CIVIC, 8-5-5-7-5-2-4-8-4-2.
How does this make you feel?
Because now this is why the...
Washington Post just won a Pulitzer for their coverage of the war because they're doing things like this and this is what journalism is supposed to do.
So the reporters are going through these images.
They found 10 damage or destroyed structures that were not documented in the imagery released by Iran.
So the Post found 217 structures and 11 pieces of equipment that were damaged or destroyed at 15 U.S.
military sites in the region that they did not tell us about.
You know, we don't hear, we haven't heard, right?
All we're hearing is how great things are going.
All we're hearing is that we're winning.
It's over.
We're bombing them back to the Stone Age.
We're doing all this and minimizing, even when those service members were killed, those US service members, they downplayed it.
They gave the normal hand-ringing and thoughts and prayers to their families, but basically said,
This is what they sign up for and they know the risks.
And while that is true, you owe it to their memories and you owe it to their families and you owe it to us to give us accurate information.
We can take it.
The problem is we can take it, but the president cannot.
He does not want any information coming out that says we are not doing anything other than stellar, that we are an unstoppable force, that our enemies cannot hurt us at all.
Well, guess what?
We've all watched, since Vietnam, we've all watched wars on TV.
We watched the first, the first invasion of Iraq on TV.
We can, we understand the cost of war, but what we don't understand is why you lie to us about it.
Because if you think in this day and age, there's always receipts and those receipts are going to come out.
And if you think you can hide from them, the only word I have for you is stupid.
Because you are you are stupid if you think we're not gonna find out somebody's always looking and you can call it a witch hunt you can call I call it monitoring the government and Keeping tabs on the people who are supposed to be leading this country
And I think if you're this administration who is obviously very concerned about what's to come in November, right?
We've talked
about their
image
public opinion, it doesn't just follow these stories to your point, Brian.
It essentially shapes it.
It's going to influence their decisions.
coming over the next few months.
It is going to affect funding, not only for things, for all things, right?
I mean, this administration wants a trillion dollars to fund the military in this country.
And it also, I think this is the big one, which is why people were so concerned about any conflict in the Middle East.
How long is the United States going to be involved in this?
So when all of this information and all of these new pieces start coming at people,
It really is an understanding here at home of what's happening.
And it doesn't become just another headline.
It becomes, I think, more personal for people, especially as we're talking about the infrastructure and we're talking about service members.
And that is going to reflect what happens over the next few months.
For me, I guess watching this, I guess this is also what makes this GOP a little bit more dangerous going forward.
If they understand this perception and this is how things are going to shift because of what we're hearing about Iran and the economy, what lengths do they go to to make sure that the election process is harder for everybody?
The entire thing is wrapped up around power and money.
and also Donald Trump's fragile ego.
This is not the first time we've had a president during wartime who has not served.
This is the first time we have someone who actively sought deferments to get out of a war.
There's a crucial difference because when you have a president who may not have served in the military, back to something you said earlier and we've said it many times, they have the smarts to surround themselves with not only a secretary of defense who knows what they're doing, which we do not have,
They also don't fire top generals, top military officials.
They listen.
This is what makes the smartest guy in the room isn't the guy who knows everything.
The smartest guy in the room is smart enough to know what he doesn't know.
And when you don't know something, the true sign of ignorance is to act like you do and go ahead with things.
The true sign of intelligence is saying, I know a lot.
But what I don't know this guy specializes in or this woman specializes in and I'm gonna listen to them because one Then I'm gonna look smarter because now I have the answers and I've surrounded myself with people and now It's a team that is making this decision and you know, we've consulted on it.
We don't have that we have a guy who operates from his gut feelings and cannot keep
Any decision, he backs out of everything.
It's waiver, it's capitulate, and we have a secretary of defense who is, in my opinion, useless, a cosplayer.
He loves to talk the talk.
He would not send his children into this conflict.
He would not send himself into this conflict, but he's more than willing to send your kids into this conflict.
with no guarantee.
There's never a guarantee when you go to war, but at least you have a reason.
At least you have some sort of blueprint.
It's not there.
It's just not.
And this is, it's getting worse and worse.
And this kind of evidence that now they're outright lying to us about how much damage.
It's par for the course, but that doesn't mean we have to accept it.
The sad part is is I'm not surprised.
And you're right, we shouldn't
accept it.
I'm not surprised either.
But
I'm not surprised.
Just based on what we've seen over the last couple of months.
in other headlines for stuff you need to know this morning, because it just gets better and better.
A suicide note purportedly left behind in his jail cell by the late sex offender, Jeffrey Epstein, before his first attempt to kill himself said, quote, it is a treat to be able to choose one time, one's time to say goodbye.
Now, Epstein's former cellmate, who is a convicted quadruple murderer,
claimed that he found this note tucked into a book just a few days after Epstein's first suicide attempt, which was back in July of 2019.
At the time Epstein denied being suicidal and told the psychologist, I have no interest in killing myself.
Well, a federal judge ordered that note unsealed yesterday, giving the public and investigators their first look at this purported suicide note.
It's a cryptic one page handwritten note, and it offered a few new details about Epstein's motivations, or at least what we assume are motivations, and there is no confirmation that Epstein himself actually authored this.
Now the
note says, quote, they investigated me for a month, found nothing.
What you want me to do?
Burst out crying?
The note continued all in caps, no fun, not worth it.
One line in the seven line note is unclear because one word is indecipherable now Epstein is a lot of us know died in jail while awaiting trial on August 10th of 2019 his death was ruled a suicide by hanging by the New York Medical Examiner's office and the Justice Department concurred with that finding and again will remind everybody though that Justice Department at the time was under under Donald Trump's jurisdiction led by Bill Barr at the time of
Jeffrey Epstein's alleged suicide.
What we're suing is alleged, what we've been told is alleged, or it was a suicide, so we're gonna say it was a suicide, but I know there's been a lot of mystery and a lot of people questioning this particular death.
And a lot of, let's say it together, kids, coincidences.
Coincidences the camera went out the guards were both looking at a motorcycle magazine shopping for motorcycles now an alleged note by a four-time murderer that was found in a book it's Boy, oh boy.
That's a lot of coincidences again.
Yeah a lot of and if you If you to if you to if you keep following the chain you go wow
That's a lot of coincidences.
He killed himself, he's an alleged sex trafficker, pedophile.
Okay, well, are we any worse off?
No, but the company he kept to put it past all these alleged powerful people who are named in this list, like the president, to maybe not want the guy who ran the whole thing to have leverage over them?
or to actually speak under trial, under oath?
I mean, you know.
Well, sure, that's again.
But
it goes back to the same conversation.
No clarity, no consistency, no confidence in the process.
