Iran Standoff, Celebrity Activism, and the Next Big Winter Storm

Good Morning, everybody. This Is The Morning Rundown. Grab Your coffee. Wevee got A lot packed into This One. Yeah, Thanks For waking up with US. Today's show Is kind of A tour of What power looks Like In 2026. Exactly. Weree starting with Trump sending A second Armada toward Iran. Plus, Big aerial drills. What's Real Deterrence? What's messaging? And How That compares to Russiass very Real Drone War over Ukrainian cities. Yeah, Because One Is flexing to avoid A fight, The other Is Drones slamming into apartment blocks. Welll cut through The spin And The doomsday takes. Then Weree shifting to Culture. Celebs boycotting ICE And Trump, even cancelling A Kennedy Center premiere. Is That doing anything besides preaching to The Same blue Czech crowd? And Welll get into Kanyess Apology tour on Antisemitism. What actual accountability should look Like, Not Just PR cleanup. After That, quick Hit on record-breaking Snow, lingering outages, And, Like, The Three storm prep Things You Can actually do Before The next East Coast system rolls In. Plus an AI tool spotting hundreds of weird cosmic events And Microsoft promising to de-bloat Windows 11, whether Thatss Real help Or Just more tech hype. Alright, Letss get into It, starting with Trump, Iran, And What sending Another Armada really signals. Okay, So Letss jump Right In. Overnight, Trump announced he's sending A second USS. military Armada toward Iran. Yeah, Not Just A couple ships. Weree talking Another carrier strike group Plus support ships, loaded with aircraft And missiles. Exactly. And This Is on top of Those multi-day USS. aerial drills already happening In The region. So, Like, This Is A Big flex. It Is. The message Is Pretty blunt. If Iran Or Its proxies Hit Americans, We Can Hit back hard, fast, And From multiple directions. Thatss Classic Deterrence. Right. And, You know, This fits Trumpss whole peace-through-strength thing. Hedd rather over-signal than look weak. Totally. And to be fair, Iranss regime doesn't Exactly respond to polite letters. They test boundaries. Tankers, bases, Israel. You name It. Yeah, The Ayatollah Is Not scrolling Twitter going, Oh, they're upset, better stand down. Strength Is The language. But Heress The catch. When You put That much steel And firepower In One tight region, The odds of miscalculation go up. Mm-hmm. Like One misread radar blip, One trigger-happy commander, And suddenly you've got A Real clash instead of Just signaling. Exactly. You've got USS. drills flying near Iranian airspace, Iranian boats buzzing around, militias firing rockets. Itss A Crowded, nervous neighborhood. So David, Big picture. What's Washington actually Trying to say with The drills Plus The Armada? Hmm. Idd put It In Three Parts. One, Dontt escalate against Israel. Two, Dontt target American troops Or embassies. Three, If You do, Weree Not stuck In Some endless ground War. We Can punish You From The air And The sea. So basically, Weree Not going back into Baghdad 2003, But We will smash stuff If We have to. Thatss The idea. Limited, high-end force instead of Big occupations. Most Americans are much more comfortable with That. Yeah. People want American Strength without Another trillion-dollar, 20-year project. Totally get That. But Theress still risk. Iran might think they're bluffing. Itss For domestic politics. Or Some proxy group might freelance And drag everyone closer to The edge. And The civilians In The middle—Israelis, Iranians, Gulf states—are The ones Who pay The price If It spirals. You Can be skeptical of Iranss regime And still say, I Dontt want kids In Tehran Or Tel Aviv getting bombed. Exactly. Strong on security, But Not cheering For War. Thatss Where A lot of conservatives I talk to are. Same. They Like That Trump doesn't bow to Tehran, But They Also Dontt want Washington sleepwalking into Some huge regional fight. And That sleepwalking piece Is Why The drills matter, Right? Because they're rehearsals, But they're Also super high-pressure environments. Jets flying close, live weapons, electronic jamming. The margin For error Is Tiny. Everyoness on edge. Okay, Letss jump to The other front, Where This All looks very different. Yeah. While Weree talking armadas And deterrents, Ukraine Is living The day-to-day version of This with Drones. Russian forces Hit A passenger train with A Drone strike, killed civilians Just Trying to travel. And In Herson, People talk about That constant buzzing overhead. Itss brutal. Cheap Drones, sometimes A few thousand dollars, taking out millions of dollars of infrastructure Or hitting soft targets. And they're everywhere. Like, You hear Ukrainians say They check The sky The way We check our Phones. Thatss The scary part. Drones make War feel permanent. You Dontt need A Big invasion column to terrorize A city anymore. So When People In DCC. argue over support For Ukraine, Itss Not Just abstract. Itss, do They have enough air defenses to knock Those Things down? Exactly. More Radars, more interceptor missiles, more electronic jamming. Those are The tools That shrink Russiass ability to casually target civilians. But Then You hear The pushback. How long are We writing checks? When Does Europe step up? Yeah, And Thatss fair. There should be A Real debate on cost, goals, What victory even means. Thatss Not unpatriotic. I'm with You. You Can say Russia Is The aggressor, Ukraine deserves support, And Also say We need Clear limits And accountability. And For conservatives, Theress A consistency question. If We Like Strong borders And sovereignty, Itss awkward to shrug When Russia redraws borders by force. Right. If you're mad about chaos on The USS. border, Itss weird to be chill about tanks rolling over somebody else's. Meanwhile, someone In Herson Is deciding If They put their kid on A train, knowing Drones might Hit It. Thatss The human side of This. Yeah. Thatss Why These Cheap Drones are actually So expensive In moral And Political terms. And they're A preview. What Ukraine's dealing with Today, other countries Could face tomorrow If We Dontt figure out How to counter This attack. So on One side, you've got Trumpss armadas And drills Trying to scare Iran out of doing something stupid. On The other, you've got everyday Ukrainians already living In The nightmare When Deterrence fails. Thatss The contrast. Big picture power politics versus The ground level reality of What modern War looks Like. And honestly, It feeds Right into our next SEGMENT. Because While All This Is happening abroad, Here At home, you've got celebrities weighing In on ICE, Gaza, anti-Semitism. And Trying to shape How Americans feel about power, borders And security. Exactly. After The break, Welll get into Billie Eilish, Olivia Rodrigo, Kanye, even Philip Glass At The Kennedy Center. Stick around. Weree going From carrier groups to Culture wars In Like 30 seconds. OK, So We go From armadas And Drones to Hollywood, Which Is apparently our shadow government now. In their minds, At least. The foreign policy of The red carpet. Right. Quick Rundown. Billie Eilish, Olivia Rodrigo, major names blasting ICE over Minneapolis And Sundance events. The language Is intense. State violence, terrorizing communities. Meanwhile, Lots of People are thinking, I'm actually worried about cartels And crime In my city. That disconnect Is wild. These celebrities frame It Like ICE Is running rogue operations. When they're mostly executing laws Congress passed. You Can debate How humane The system Is. We should. But turning It into good activist... And Heress The thing. We Just talked about Deterrence with Iran, Right? Big military moves to send messages? Theress A version of That At home. If We constantly signal That immigration laws are illegitimate, People get The message That rules Dontt matter. Thatss A great point. And politically, This mostly plays inside A blue bubble. The Folks Who worry about border security aren't suddenly changing their minds Because of an Instagram post. Congress shall consult The Grammy winners. Exactly. But I think A lot of regular Americans feel talked down to. You live behind gates with private security, telling my town Weree immoral For wanting immigration controlled? And Thatss Where The Cultural Fatigue kicks In. People are tired of being called extremists For normal views. Secure The border. Enforce laws. But Dontt be cruel. Most Folks are In That middle lane. And These Protests almost never come with policy details. Just abolish ICE vibes. If You want reform, propose A bill, A framework. Not Just moral theatrics. Right. Who stops fentanyl shipments? Who handles human trafficking? And Sundance amplifying This adds to The sense That elite institutions are All lined up on One side. Which brings US to Philip Glass. Legendary composer cancels A Kennedy Center premiere to protest Trump, says He doesn't want His art associated with The administration. At The Kennedy Center. In DCC. Not Exactly MAGA country. Exactly. This isn't bravely confronting A hostile room. Itss telling an audience That largely agrees with You What They already think. Does This move A single persuadable voter? Or Does It deepen The sense among conservatives That elite Culture spaces are basically campaign arms For The left? Idd bet on The second. And look, He has every Right. But If every major Cultural institution says Weree All In against Trump, against The Right, you're telling half The country This isn't For You. Then We wonder Why People stop watching award shows And build parallel institutions. Itss Like cable news polarization, But In symphony halls of film festivals. People tune In wanting escape, Not Another lecture about How they're The problem. OK, Letss Hit Kanye Before We run out of time. After A long run of anti-Semitic comments, really ugly stuff, He puts out an extended Apology video talking about learning, faith, understanding Jewish history. For me, It doesn't land. Same. Why? When someone repeats A pattern, says something awful, Gets backlash, apologizes, Then Does It again, You stop treating It as A slip up. Real accountability looks Like disappearing For A While, actually changing Your circle In behavior, Then showing over years you're different, Not monetizing The redemption arc on The way back. And Theress A bigger question. Can You separate art From politics? His music Is hugely influential. People grew up on It. Adults Can choose case by case. But If You keep cutting checks to someone Who targets any group, Dontt be surprised When That rhetoric spreads. Your dollars are A signal. And From The conservative side, We shouldn't excuse It Because He said Things We Like about cancel Culture. Anti-Semitism Is A hard line. Totally. You Can be skeptical of The outrage machine And still say Thatss Not Okay. And frankly, A lot of People are Just Trying to pay bills, worried about crime And War, exhausted by All This celebrity moral drama. Culture War exhaustion. Alright, When We come back, practical stuff. Crazy Winter weather, who's digging out, Plus A cool AI tool spotting weird stuff In deep space. Stay with US. Alright, shifting gears From celebrity politics to stuff That actually affects Your driveway. And Your back muscles. Exactly. So, Where are We At with This storm cleanup? Big picture. The last Winter storm was A beast. Parts of upstate New York And northern New England saw over Two feet of Snow. A couple spots In Vermont actually had Snow. So, do I need to panic grocery Or What? No panic grocery. Right now, Forecasters are watching A system That Could slide up The Coast late week. The Models are still kind of fighting. Could be A glancing blow with rain For The Big cities. Could shift colder And dump more Snow inland. So, Classic, It depends. Exactly. But The signal Is, Stay weather aware Thursday through Saturday If you're From DCC. to Boston. Especially If you're In Those interior zones That Just got slammed. Give People The quick checklist, Because We talked last SEGMENT about elites yelling on X instead of doing anything practical. This Is The opposite. This Is Boring, But useful. Yes. Basic stuff. If you're In A place That loses power A lot, charge everything now While skies are blue. Phones, backup batteries, even That old iPad. And maybe, Like, find The flashlights Before The lights go out. Exactly. Not during. Have Some Bottled water, easy food That doesn't need cooking, And If You rely on meds Or medical devices, check backups And talk with family Or neighbors now. Also, please Dontt run A generator In Your garage with The door cracked. Thatss How People die every year. Yeah. Carbon monoxide Is sneaky. Generators go outside several feet From The house. And If local officials say Dontt drive, Dontt treat That Like A suggestion. Your Subaru Is Not invincible, No matter What The commercials tell You. Correct. Alright, From looking At The sky to looking way, way beyond It, Maya, you've got The space story. Yeah, This one's actually kind of cool. So, astronomers used an AI tool to scan old telescope data, stuff We already had, And It flagged more than 800 cosmic Anomalies. Anomalies? Meaning aliens Or...? Okay, slow down, Fox Mulder. No, Itss basically, hey, This looks weird, check It again. Things Like stars That suddenly dimmed In odd ways, Or objects That flared once And disappeared. So, Itss doing The cosmic equivalent of, Like, Ctrl-F on petabytes of space photos. Exactly. And look, You know I'm usually The One saying, Wevee heard Big AI promises Before, Right? Oh, Yeah. You went off on The AI And every toaster thing At CES. Because Itss ridiculous. But This Is A good example of AI as A tool, Not This job-killing overlord. Itss Just pattern matching on A scale humans physically can't do, Then handing The interesting stuff back to Real astronomers. So, nobody's getting fired At The observatory. No. If anything, Theyvee now got 800 New mysteries to dig into. Some of These Could end up being New types of stars, Or rare events Wevee only seen once. Thatss The part I love. We talk about AI Like Itss Just going to auto-fill Your email. And Here, It might help explain How The Universe works. Yeah. And to Your point From The last SEGMENT about Who actually persuades People, This Is How tech wins People over. Not lectures. Just, hey, We helped You find 800 weird space Things. Results, Not vibes. Exactly. And If you're worried This Is One more step toward robots replacing US, Idd flip It. This Is AI doing The grunt work So humans Can do The fun part, arguing over What The heck They Just found. Academia In One sentence. Pretty much. Before We wrap, quick lightning note on Another kind of tech. Microsoft Is promising Big under-the-hood changes to Windows 11 later This year. Yeah, promising it'll be leaner, faster, more efficient. I mean, Wevee heard That song Before. Right. If Your laptop already feels Like Itss wading through molasses every Patch Tuesday, You're probably In The Illl believe It When I see It camp Or The stop changing The buttons And Just make It work Exactly, Welll keep an eye on It, But No need to lose sleep Just maybe Dontt install A major update The night Before A Big presentation Yes golden rule Let other People be The guinea pigs For week One So Big picture as You head into The week If you're on The East Coast keep an eye on That late week Forecast And do The Boring prep now And remember Not All AI Is Trying to replace You Some of Its Just quietly Helping US understand A wild massive Universe. Thatss It For today's Morning Rundown Thanks For starting Your day with US. Stay safe. Stay warm, And Welll talk to You tomorrow So remember That breakdown of Trumpss second Armada near Iran, Thatss The Big One For me Strength matters, But So Does Not sleepwalking into A War Right Deterrence without drift If Theress A takeaway Today, Itss This We need Clear Strength Clear red lines And leaders Who actually mean What They say Exactly, And You know, Welll keep cutting through The noise whether Itss celebrity politics Or AI hype So You Dontt have to deal Is You Hit follow Or subscribe Drop A quick review And share The Morning Rundown with One friend who's tired of The spin. Thanks For starting Your day with US Welll be back tomorrow. Same time Same feed. Stay safe. Stay sharp And Stay tuned