Thursday: Trump's Iran 'Peace Deal' Is a 12-Night War

Rush Lindell: Welcome back. And buddy, do we have a lineup tonight. Reagan: We do. Twelve nights of strikes and counting. Rush Lindell: Twelve. CENTCOM just wrapped number 12 against Iran, Washington's still calling this diplomacy. I've got a word for that. Reagan: Save it for the segment. Rush Lindell: Fine. But we're also getting into the price tag on this war. Pentagon numbers that'll make your eyes Reagan: Wow. Rush Lindell: water. Reagan: And the human cost. What's actually happening to the troops living on those- on those Gulf bases right now. Rush Lindell: Plus, Rubio's out there promising Iran will pay a price. We'll see if that's a strategy or just a talking point. Reagan: Stick around for the parody segment too; Rush has a toll booth bit for the Strait of Hormuz. Rush Lindell: Oh, it's coming. Reagan: But first... Rush Lindell: This hour is brought to you by Lear Capital, America's precious metals leader since nineteen ninety seven. Reagan: All right, let's get to the top story. Rush Lindell: CENTCOM confirms strike number twelve last night. 'Last night-twelve straight nights-that's not diplomacy-that's a war we're just not calling by its name. Reagan: Rush, before you run with that, I want to talk about how many separate waves we're actually counting here, because the number's not as clean as twelve nights. Rush Lindell: Here we go. Before we get started, a quick reminder. We love hearing from you. If you have questions or topics you'd like us to cover, head to the link in the description and submit your question. We read every single one. Twelve nights! twelve, Reagan! Reagan: I can count, Rush. Rush Lindell: CENTCOM just wrapped strike number twelve on Iran, hitting boats, missile depots, radar sites, air defenses-every single night since-since when?--since we had a peace deal. Reagan: To be fair, the memorandum of understanding never actually stopped combat operations outright. Rush Lindell: Oh, come on!" Trump stood back and fiddled. In February, an announced major combat operations against Iran per ABC News-massive joint strikes with Israel. Then June arrives; both sides sign an MOU. Reagan: Aimed at ending the war, according to that same ABC News reporting. Rush Lindell: Ending it! And instead we get night after night after night of bombs! This isn't a peace process with hiccups; this is a war wearing a name Speaker 3: tag! Rush Lindell: A name tag! Reagan: Measured: Rubio addressed this directly; he told reporters the price Iran pays keeps climbing every night until Tehran "comes to its senses." Rush Lindell: Comes to its senses, like they're a teenager who missed curfew! Reagan: Sure, but that's Rubio framing this as pressure diplomacy, not abandoning the MOU. Rush Lindell: Pressure diplomacy with drone storage facilities getting flattened for the Speaker 3: twelfth time. Rush Lindell: A twelfth straight night? Reagan: I didn't say I bought it; I said that's the Administration's framing. Rush Lindell: So which is it? Is this diplomacy having a rough week or is it just a war that somebody slapped a press release on? Reagan: Actually, small thing, CENTCOM's own release from Sunday says that wave was the ninth night—not part of this current run. So we're not even talking one continuous streak, we're talking multiple waves stacked. Act back to back. Rush Lindell: Pah, which is somehow worse. Reagan: Which is somehow worse? Multiple restart points and nobody's calling it what it is. Rush Lindell: So who exactly saw this coming? All right; receipts time. Back at the MOU signing I called it the "paper ceasefire," said it wouldn't survive contact with reality. Reagan: You did say that-and it collapsed. Rush Lindell: I don't want right, Reagan; I want a trophy! Dead on arrival months ago! Reagan: You said "dead on arrival." You didn't say "a dead American service member and Twelve straight nights of bombing. Rush Lindell: Details. Reagan: Not details. Predicting a handshake falls apart isn't the same as predicting the shape of the war that replaces it. Rush Lindell: Come on. Reagan: I'm conceding the collapse, not the casualty count. Rush Lindell: Fine. Partial credit. I'll take it. Reagan: But Iran's own supreme leader is out there this week calling Trump's signature on that MOU worthless and devoid of credibility. Rush Lindell: Say that again. I love it. Reagan: Their words. After the strike. Strikes resumed; Khamenei basically told his own people the ink was dead. Rush Lindell: So even Tehran's calling it the paper ceasefire now. Reagan: They agree it broke. Whether it was ever real to begin with, that's a different fight. Rush Lindell: It wasn't real. It was a photo op with a shelf life. Reagan: Or it was real and neither side could hold it. Cause and effect aren't the same claim. Rush Lindell: Either way, we called the funeral before the body dropped. DROPPED. Reagan: You called the funeral; I'm not signing off on you naming the cause of death. Rush Lindell: Noted councillor, now that funeral's racking up a bill nobody in Washington wants to read out loud. Forget the diplomacy talk for a second. Let's talk sticker price. Reagan: Defense Secretary Hegseth put a number on this campaign this week: roughly $37.5 billion, Rush Lindell: Wow! Reagan: according to Gulf News. Rush Lindell: $37.5 billion for a war nobody's calling a war. Reagan: And that's just dollars. Recent tallies put at least 13 American service members dead. Three hundred eighty one wounded over roughly forty days of hostilities. Rush Lindell: Thirteen families got a knock on the door. Reagan: My real problem, Rush, there's been no formal war declaration, no Article One vote. Congress hasn't authorized this spending. It's running night after night on executive say so. Rush Lindell: So what-we pause strikes and take a floor vote while missiles are inbound? Reagan: I'm not saying stop the strikes, I'm saying thirty seven billion in sustained spending? Dink deserves a floor debate. The War Powers Resolution gives the White House a ninety day clock before it needs congressional sign off. We're well past that. Rush Lindell: Congress could have voted any time. They chose not to. That's on them, too. Reagan: It doesn't erase the authorization question. Rush Lindell: Fine, debate it. But don't pretend the alternative is free. Look away for six months and watch what Tehran does with that runway. Reagan: Fair worry. Speaker 4: Look, strength costs money; weakness costs more—it sends the bill later, with interest, in American lives. Reagan: Poetic, still doesn't balance a budget. Speaker 4: Speaking of hedging against what's coming, if you're watching costs climb during wartime, you start looking for Speaker 3: trouble. Rush Lindell: Recover. That's where silver comes in for a lot of people. Reagan: Since 2020, the silver price has risen more than 220%. Why? Because rising demand for solar and electric vehicles alone has put silver supply into a deficit. Rush Lindell: But now there's another industry. AI, data centers, robots and quantum computing could require so much silver that silver supplies could be obliterated. Reagan: Could silver rise another two hundred twenty percent? Find out by texting RUSH to 43343 to request their special report The AI Revolution. Rush Lindell: See why billions are being poured into AI and how silver could be your best investment this year. Also ask how you can get up to twenty thousand dollars in bonus silver. Reagan: Lear Capital, your trusted source, over three billion dollars in transactions and thousands Thousands of five-star reviews. Text RUSH to 43343. Rush Lindell: Thirty-seven billion buys strikes. It doesn't buy back the soldiers stationed at that base in Jordan. Make sure you text RUSH to 43343. Reagan: Which is where the real cost shows up next, not in a spreadsheet, but in rotation, with troops absorbing the retaliation. Rush Lindell: Yeah, let's go there. Beyond the price tag, there's a human toll here. Reagan: There is. NBC News reported Iran hit that Kuwaiti power and desalination plant twice in two days, and our troops on those bases are living through the blackouts too. Rush Lindell: Picture a soldier standing next to a generator that just took a direct hit. That's the reality behind the blackout headlines. Reagan: And it's not always the missile that gets them. CENTCOM confirmed a service member at Erbil Air Base Their base died during a controlled detonation of unexploded ordnance from a downed Iranian drone. Rush Lindell: Clean up duty, and it's still fatal. Reagan: Exactly. The Pentagon says nearly a hundred troops have been hurt since this started. Ninety-six per cent are back on duty by their own count. Rush Lindell: Doesn't exactly settle my stomach. Reagan: Mine either. Readiness isn't just a casualty count. Ask commanders in the Pacific how they feel about pulling destroyers and air Speaker 3: wings off patrol. Reagan: and air wings toward the Gulf, while Beijing watches every move. Rush Lindell: So we're stretched thin everywhere at once. Reagan: That's the quiet debate inside the Pentagon about whether twelve plus nights of streaks borrows readiness from somewhere else. Nobody's answering it on camera. Rush Lindell: Nobody wants to. Reagan: And underneath all of it is rotation fatigue and a VA system about to inherit whatever these units bring home. That's the cost nobody puts on a chart. chart. Rush Lindell: I'll say this straight, Reagan-that gets me more than any dollar figure could. Reagan: It should; you can borrow money, you can't borrow a soldier's third rotation back. Rush Lindell: Which is exactly why Rubio's out there promising Iran will pay a price. Reagan: Words are cheap when somebody else writes the check. Rush Lindell: Building on that, Rubio's got the line of the day, Iran will pay a price. Reagan: According to ABC News, he said, Iran is begging every single day, both directly and indirectly, to make a deal. Rush Lindell: Bold strategy, threaten a country we're already bombing with more bombing. Reagan: CNBC has got the flip side. Rubio flat out says Iran's still not ready to make one it'll... It'll actually keep. Rush Lindell: That's the tell right there. They want the cameras off, the war keeps going. Reagan: The Hill reported his other warning, letting Iran control traffic through Hormuz sets a dangerous global precedent. Rush Lindell: Oh yes, the toll booth of doom. Every tanker pays the Ayatollah tax. Reagan: And CNBC's got Trump vowing to bomb an Iranian bridge or power plant even in Tehran for... For every ship I ran hits. Rush Lindell: I love it! New nickname-the infrastructure reckoning. Reagan: Cute, but nicknames aren't a strategy Rush. Tough talk without an exit plan is just noise. Rush Lindell: So far, name the off ramp. What's the actual end state? Iran blanks. Reagan: That's a hope; hope isn't a plan. Rush Lindell: Fair, but hope's cheaper than what we've already spent. Reagan: Wait till you hear how Iran is actually- actually running that tollbooth. Rush Lindell: Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Strait of Hormuz Turnpike. Please have your exact change ready. Reagan: Oh, we're doing this. Rush Lindell: Cash, oil, or your firstborn son. Reagan: The IRGC as toll collectors. I actually hate how well that tracks. Rush Lindell: That guy spent weeks threatening to shut the whole Strait down, but they never actually close it. They just idle there like a guy blocking the In the fast lane, checking his phone. Reagan: It's extortion dressed as strategy. Fine, bit's over, here's what's actually happening. Rush Lindell: Go ahead, ground me. Reagan: CNBC reported today that Houthi rebels are now claiming strikes on two Saudi oil tankers. That's a second front opening up, separate from the Iran fight entirely. Rush Lindell: Wait, the Houthis are back in this? Reagan: According to CNBC, yes, and Secretary Rubio's... Rubio's own comments in that piece suggest Iran still isn't ready to cut a deal. Rush Lindell: So the toll booth's got a partner franchise now. Reagan: Basically, and gulfnews.com is reporting something quieter, but honestly scarier, an Arab diplomat granted anonymity describing gulf states as increasingly pessimistic there's any off-ramp left at all. Rush Lindell: Ooh, that's not a headline, that's a mood. Reagan: It is, and here's why the joke matters. 20% Fifty per cent of the world's oil moves through that Strait; you don't need a full closure to spike prices, you just need enough uncertainty that shippers reroute or insurance premiums triple. Rush Lindell: So the bit, the toll booth, isn't that far off from the real economics. Reagan: Not remotely. Every day this drags without an exit, that's the actual toll-paid at the pump, not at some checkpoint. Rush Lindell: Yeah, okay, comedy's fun till you remember who's writing Speaker 3: it. Rush Lindell: In the check. Reagan: Which is everyone buying gas this month. Rush Lindell: Building on that, here's my verdict, and I'm not softening it: This is a war, full stop. Reagan: Go on. Rush Lindell: Twelve nights of strikes, a widening front with the Houthis, dead paper where a peace deal used to be-call it whatever the State Department wants-a war is a war. Reagan: Hold on, before you slam that gavel down, Iran's own Interior Ministry put out a statement saying diplomacy isn't dead; they claim messages are still moving back and forth! Rush Lindell: Messages, sure, while the missiles are doing the talking. Reagan: I'm not saying trust it; I'm saying we don't get to declare total certainty when the other Speaker 3: half of the data isn't in. Rush Lindell: The other side is publicly leaving the door cracked. Reagan: A cracked door and a burning building are not the same thing, Reagan. Rush Lindell: Fair, but it's the caveat that keeps him honest. Reagan: Fine-noted; still calling it a war. Rush Lindell: Next episode, I want eyes on the Houthi front, if that widens past tanker strikes. Reagan: Oil markets move fast. Rush Lindell: Exactly; twenty per cent of the world's oil already routes through that stretch of water. Reagan: So same time tomorrow we find out if the toll booth's still open. Rush Lindell: Or if the whole road is on fire. Reagan: All right, Twelve Nights of strikes, Reagan, and my paper ceasefire call held up cracked the second Tehran opened its mouth. Rush Lindell: Sure, the deal cracked, but predicting a handshake failing isn't the same as predicting Reagan: Mm Rush Lindell: body Reagan: -hmm. Rush Lindell: counts. That gap matters. Reagan: Fair enough. Still, a war dressed up as a press release is a war. Rush Lindell: Iran's Interior Ministry says diplomacy is still breathing. We'll see who's right. Reagan: We'll see. Next time we're watching the Houthi front those tanker strikes could move oil fast. Rush Lindell: Fast and loud, worth tracking. Reagan: That's the hour. Rubio's rhetoric, my soap box, and Reagan keepin' me honest. Rush Lindell: Somebody's got to. Reagan: Liked what you heard? Subscribe. Drop a five star review. Tell a friend who needs the truth. Rush Lindell: New episodes every weekday. Thanks for spending the hour with us. Reagan: Stay sharp. See you tomorrow.