Linda Bilmes

So we had this number of high-altitude interceptors.

We've reduced by half our inventory, so we need to replace it.

And the new ones are going to be even better.

Iran and the U.S.

agreed to a two-week ceasefire, less than two hours before President Trump's deadline to strike the country's bridges and power plants.

Historically, wars ended when countries ran out of blood or treasure.

And if we pay for every war on credit card and never think about the treasure side, one of the most basic deterrents to perpetual war is missing.

It's Kant's fourth principle for staying at peace.

Do not borrow.

You know, if you borrow, that leads to war and that leads to prolonging war because it makes the costs invisible.

So it's a longstanding concept.

But in terms of what's happening today, if the costs are not felt...

particularly in a situation where there is no draft and where only a very tiny percentage of the population is directly fighting, then we have a situation where we don't fight and we don't pay.

So there's sort of no pain.

Now, people feel the pain of this war in terms of gas prices, not as much as they do in most of the rest of the world.

But even that...

is a cost that the government has tried to suppress by lifting sanctions on Iranian oil and Russian oil.

So, you know, that's the craziness of this situation.

Right.

And I think that this is important and it's a bipartisan shift, which is bad.