To stay up to date on all the news that you need to know, there's no better place than right here on the DSR network. And there's no better way to enjoy the DSR network than by becoming a member. Members enjoy an ad-free listening experience, access to our Discord community, exclusive content, early episode access, and more. Use code DSR26 for a 25% off discount on signup at thedsrnetwork.com. That's code DSR26 at thedsrnetwork.com slash bye. Thank you and enjoy the show. Hello and welcome to the DSR Daily. I'm David Rothkoff. It's Friday. Riley Fessler and Minnestine are with me in order to help go over this past week and to think a little bit about next week and to do so in our usual calm, moderated style because you're going into the weekend. You want to stay calm so you can enjoy it. So I'll use NPR tones. So where will we start today? I will start us with Talks in Oman as Iran and the United States engage in high stakes negotiations in Oman today, attempting to bridge deep divides over Tehran's nuclear program while under the shadow of a massive US-enabled buildup. Wait, I thought the nuclear program was over. We went in, we bombed it, and then there's no nuclear program. What happened? You know, forget about me. Psych. That never happened. I don't know what you're talking about. That's a political turn that you might not be familiar with. Psych? Yeah, no, no. Believe me. In the Trump era, I'm familiar. Walter Rahm has signaled some flexibility regarding uranium enrichment and the potential handover of nuclear material. They have flatly rejected Washington's demands to include their ballistic missile program and regional influence in the talks. The Trump administration, represented by officials like Steve Wittkopf and Jared Kushner, is maintaining a maximum pressure stance. Warning of military options if a broader deal, one that includes human rights and missile limits, isn't reached. I mean, look, Trump said, oh, you got to do this thing about human rights or well-attacked. They killed 30,000 people. So they tested that theory, right? He's not going to do that. What is this about? This is about trying to provide regional stability for the countries that they feel closest to. Okay, fine. I think that's in everybody's interest. Is Iran going to effectively disarm and leave themselves at the mercy of the United States or Israel? Of course they're not. Might there be some kind of interim agreement where they say they're talking about nuclear weapons and reducing those programs and outputting enrichment stuff as they have done in the past? Yeah, that's possible. I'm skeptical that they're going to get anywhere that hasn't been gotten in all the talks that existed. And one more thing, you remember that we actually had a negotiated agreement with the Iranians on this under Obama? I just was wondering, because then Trump pulled us out of it. I was just wondering if you remember, he cares a lot about nukes, right? Because he's got this discussion. But you know that there was one big nuclear arms agreement in the world, right? Guys, did you know that? That there was one remaining big nuclear arms limitation agreement called the New START agreement, which had been signed by the Russians. Do you remember that? Yeah, you're nodding. Of course you remember. You know when that expired? Just as we're looking back at the big highlights of the week, you're shaking your head yesterday. So there's no agreements to limit nuclear arms in the world right now. And Trump has said that they're going to increase immediately the number of nuclear weapons we deploy and they're spending billions and billions on modernizing our arsenal. And China is trying to go from a couple hundred nuclear warheads to maybe 800,000 within the next couple of years. Russia and the US each have around 6000. So Iran and other countries are thinking maybe we ought to get in on this game. The Poles are thinking it. The Japanese are thinking it. There are a lot of people thinking it. The Scandinavian countries have even talked about it. So we're in something right now that none of you expected and you Zoomers there, you didn't get to live through this. So I'm just saying good luck because this kept me awake as a little boy and it's now going to keep you awake and probably keep your kids away. And that is we're in a nuclear arms race, folks. A nuclear arms race. We had this licked. Okay. And we're now back in it to a greater degree than ever before, but we have new twists that we could add to the nuclear arms race. Like, what do you think? Tell me if you like this idea. What if you had AI targeting nuclear weapons and making the decisions? I don't love it. That's the reality, I guess. I don't love it. I don't love it. Yeah. No, I don't love it. I don't love it. AI is, you know, right? But that could happen. I mean, you could get all sorts of strange things, you know, little tiny nukes on drones, 10,000. Yeah, who knows what you end up with. But here's what I know. That almost every near nuclear war that we've had over the course of the past, I don't know, 80 years, whatever, since these weapons first came into existence, was caused by an accident, not by a miscalculation of the government, by a mistake, a technical mistake or a misunderstanding. And we've come real close to, you know, just sort of turning the planet into a parking lot. And we're back there, folks. So that, you know, that's the big story of this week that hasn't been covered. Next week, Steep State Radio, we will have a couple of nuclear weapons experts who are newly relevant. They were forgotten about, left in a dusty room. Nobody cared about it before. But we're going to have them on the show so that we can ask them a few questions about what all this means and how deep their basement needs to be. And where you shouldn't live. And I've got bad news for you, Minnan Riley. Where you live, you shouldn't live. You know, get out of the middle of Washington, D.C. because it's on everybody's target list. Feel better? Good Friday morning. Good Friday morning. Yeah, okay, go on. Try something else. See if I can top this. Well, you're definitely not going to top it with this story. The Trump administration reportedly proposed renaming the Dulles International Airport and New York's Penn Station after President Trump in exchange for releasing federal funds for the $16 billion gateway rail tunnel between New York and New Jersey. Despite Congress approving the money, the administration has continued to withhold it, prompting lawsuits for both states and warning that construction could halt and thousands of workers could be laid off as funding runs out. Democrats rejected the proposal as inappropriate, accusing Trump of leveraging critical infrastructure funding for personal branding. What an ass. Seriously. Seriously. I mean, first of all, New York needs this infrastructure. Anybody who's been to New York needs, knows it needs every dollar that can be spent on improving its infrastructure. But how many things does Trump need to have named after him? Dulles Airport, Penn Station, in addition to the Kennedy Center, in addition to the ballroom, in addition to, I mean, what the fuck? I wrote a thing, a need to know last night after this story broke, triggered by this story, and when I say triggered, I mean triggered, on my sub-stack, Need to Know, which is our sub-stack here. And I made one point, and it was kind of a fantasy. So if you're feeling bad, like if you just listened to the last story, you're feeling bad, definitely go read the sub-stack. Share it with your friends, because it's kind of a fantasy, but it's also, I think, what's going to happen. As I pointed out in a post that I used to promote the thing, Johnny Carson once said, oh, boomer, reference to Johnny Carson, we don't even know who that is. Is that like Conan O'Brien? Do you know who Johnny Carson is? I know who Johnny Carson is, and I know who Conan O'Brien are. I'm not that out of the loop. Yeah, Riley, do you know who Johnny Carson is? Yeah. Okay, have you ever seen the Johnny Carson show? No. Yes. Oh, fuck. Oh, fuck. Okay. Okay, yeah. He was like, you know, before Jimmy Fallon had the job, there was Jay Leno, and before Jay Leno had the job, it was Johnny Carson. Anyway, and Johnny Carson was the only one who was good at it, because those two guys sucked. Anyway, Johnny Carson once said that the shortest measurable increment of time was the amount of time between when a light in New York City turns green and when somebody honks their horn. Well, I'm telling you, this is going to be challenged, because I think the shortest measurable increment of time will be the time between when Donald Trump vacates his office if he is not replaced by his son or somebody, and when the next occupant gets rid of all the gold chachkies in the Oval Office, tears down the gold chachkies, tears the name Trump off the Kennedy Center, tears down whatever says Trump in the ballroom, repurposes the ballroom for some public purpose that is not as disgusting as creating a gilded cage for billionaires. Changes the name of everything that says Trump on it, and starts undoing some of these crazy programs like TrumpRx or Trump Gold Cards, or Trump Payments to People, or anything branded with Trump. It's all going in the dustbin of history, and it's going to happen so fast that I really, really, really hope Donald Trump is around to see it. I hope he's around to see it, because then what will happen next is cities and states and the federal government, once he is out of office, suing him for his ill-gotten gains and freezing his assets. Oh, what a day. Come on, guys, smile. Smile, that's something to look forward to. Can you imagine? I know you guys, you are joiners of the First Order. When they go and they say, at 10 o'clock tomorrow morning, we will be tearing the name Trump off the Kennedy Center. How many people do you think will gather with fireworks? At least one, because I'll be there. At least two. We'll all be there. There will be dancing in the street. It'll only be topped by another blessed event, which I'm not going to get into. Anyway, let's go on. So you want to start a business? You might think you need a team of people and fancy text kills, but you don't. You just need GoDaddy Arrow. I'm Walton Goggins, and as an actor, I'm an expert in looking like I know what I'm doing. GoDaddy Arrow uses AI to create everything you need to grow a business. It'll make you a unique logo. It'll create a custom website. It'll write social posts for you and even set you up with a social media calendar. Get started at godaddy.com slash arrow. That's godaddy.com slash A-I-R-O. Bipartisan Senate negotiations to fund the Department of Homeland Security have stalled ahead of a February 13th deadline of placing agencies like the TSA and Secret Service at risk of a partial shutdown. Democrats are leveraging their votes to demand strict new guardrails on immigration enforcement, including prohibitions on racial profiling and requirements for federal agents to obtain a warrants before entering private property. You mean like they're required by the law to do now? Never mind. Pesky details. Pesky details. Yeah, it's like we're going to take a strong stand and you're going to have to do the thing you had to do before. So brave. Republican leadership has largely rejected these demands as a ridiculous overreach, though majority leader John Thune is prepared to introduce a stopgap spending bill to avert an immediate crisis. Despite the threat of a shutdown immigration and customs enforcement remains insulated by $75 billion in previously allocated funding, ensuring that deportation operations can continue even if other DHS functions cease. Oh, joy. Joy. I mean, they're going to continue this no matter what happens. I got to tell you. Once again, this has all been misplaced by the Democrats. The leverage was all the other bills that they just okayed. And now they're saying, well, the leverage is the whole DHS bill. You can't just defund ICE. Guess what? They have all this money. You can't stop them. You had to put other kinds of pressure on them. We're not doing it. They're going to agree to a couple of things. These were all things that they were required to do either by law or by statute, you know, in terms of their own mandates before. And we're going to be right back where we were. And the wet noodles leading the Democratic Party in the Congress will have achieved the ZIPPA. Two Democratic lawmakers, Senator Alyssa Slokin, a representative, Chrissy Hulahan, say they will not cooperate with the Justice Department inquiry into a video urging military and intelligence members to refuse illegal orders, calling the probe politically motivated intimidation by the Trump administration. They argue the investigation is meant to silence critics, citing threats that escalated after President Trump accused the lawmakers of quote, seditious behavior and suggested severe punishment. Other Democrats involved in the video report similar DOJ outrage and say the administration is misusing federal law enforcement to harass members of Congress. Absolutely right. Absolutely the right thing to do. Just like it's the right thing for Senator Mark Kelly, former astronaut, former Navy pilot, real American hero, to stand up and say, get stuffed. This is misallocation of funds and resources by the Department of Justice to try to silence speech. But I got news for them and for the Department of Justice. And frankly, for everybody who's not following this every day, you know, there are other protection. They don't just have the right of free speech. They don't just have a moral obligation because they took an oath to the Constitution to say honor the Constitution and the law and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. But members of Congress have protected speech of a different nature than even the rest of us do. So this is absurd, obscene, authoritarian, and I look forward to it being resolved or behind us. Well, looking ahead, the House of Representatives is scheduled to vote next week on the Save America Act, a GOP-led election security bill that would mandate proof of citizenship for voter registration and eliminate mail-only voting nationwide. Although the bill faces a certain filibuster from Senate Democrats, Republican leaders have placed it at the center of their agenda following intense personal pressure from President Trump and high-profile supporters like Elon Musk. Democrats argue the legislation could disenfranchise tens of millions of citizens, noting that approximately 50% of Americans do not possess a passport and many lack immediate access to birth certificates. To bypass the gridlock, some GOP hardliners are urging Senate Majority Leader John Thune to implement a talking filibuster, a procedural shift that would require Democrats to physically hold the floor to block the measure. Yeah, this is voter suppression, period. It's not voter security, it's voter suppression. It is part of the same effort that is being orchestrated by Republicans who know that if we have free and fair elections in November, they're going to get their clocks cleaned in the House. And now it looks like also in the Senate, which would be a nightmare for Trump at the end of their agenda and the beginning of investigations and the beginning of impeachment and as something this country desperately, desperately needs as we are struggling at home as these policies are hurting people by the tens, hundreds of millions, and as we are losing our influence standing and security around the world. So we need free and fair elections. They're going to try to impede it. They will do it by deploying troops in the streets. They will do it by trying to get voter rolls as they're trying to do in Fulton County. They will do it by questioning results. They will do it with lawyers. They will do it with this act. If they can get this act through, they will do it with the Supreme Court, which is a bunch of the right-wingers on the court or just an operatives of the Republican Party, passing more laws that make it easier for states to make it harder for people to vote. This is the struggle of the year in the United States. And frankly, if you care about democracy, you care about the role the U.S. plays in the world, if you care about the power the U.S. has and how that power can be applied, if you care about your neighbors and your friends and your family and your future. This is the big story of the year for American politics. And we are all going to have to fight it one way or another. They will put up some roadblocks. We will have to find workarounds. We will have to fight the other roadblocks that they're putting up that we can win on. But this is going to be our work ahead, which is why I would suggest, you know, try to take it easy this weekend. Is there anything going on this weekend that anybody cares about? It is the weekend of the biggest national holiday in America, isn't it, guys? That's right. Super Bowl. Men is like what? I will be honest. I did not know what you were talking about. I loved that. I really, I loved that. You know, if you watch Fox News. I was like, President's Day? That's not now, is it? President's Day. That's been his big holiday. She dresses up like Abraham Lincoln, stoned by Pat. I was trying to think of other holidays that were big. This is going to be big American holiday. Fox News is upset because the logo for this, which is Super Bowl 60, has got like pink and yellow in it. And so a guy in Fox News just said, this looks gay to him. It looks like an LGBT thing. And of course, half of the people in the NFL polled said that they thought it was bad, that Bad Bunny was going to be the halftime show because we should have Americans do the halftime show. Do you have any advice for those people? You want to help them out there? I would remind them that he is American, yes. Yeah, yeah. Puerto Rico has been part of the United States for a long time. In fact, Bad Bunny's family has been Americans longer than Donald Trump's family. But don't tell them that. It'll blow their minds. Anyway, watch the Super Bowl for Bad Bunny. Watch the Super Bowl for Bad Bunny's reaction. The reaction of Bad Bunny. Watch the Super Bowl for the game if you want. Although, kind of over the NFL. And right around the corner, we have, for those of you who are over the NFL, the Olympics. I think some of the curling competition already started. I know that Riley is a big curling fan. And I could see in the background in his video a couple of brooms that he uses for his role as a sweeper in the curling. Isn't that right, Riley? That's absolutely right. Have you ever had to go to our YouTube to see that? Have you ever curled? No. No? It seems fun, though. It does seem fun. But I could also just sweep my house and probably be more productive. Well, there's a little rock in your slide. Some of these sports are done. Anyway, that's what we have to look forward to. And then we'll be back with our heads exploding from everything else that happens this week. If you want to go back, look at what we've done this week. I encourage you to do it. Or you can read a couple of new Need to Know posts at our sub-stack. Or you can go and look at what I've posted at the Daily Beast. You know, there's a lot. So enjoy it this weekend. Stay warm and we'll see you on Monday. For now, thanks, Riley. Thanks, Minna. Thanks, everybody. Bye-bye.
