News - Iran Assassinations Escalate, Israel Invades Southern Lebanon, U.S. Pressures Zambia Over Aid for Minerals

American Prestige

Daniel Bessner & Derek Davison

News, History, Politics

4.8 • 1.2K Ratings

🗓️ 20 March 2026

⏱️ 50 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Subscribe now to skip the ads and get all of our episodes. Derek wore his Fitbit to a CIA black site, both exposing the security state and meeting his daily step goal. This week’s news: in the Iran war, Israel assassinates Ali Larijani and other senior Iranian officials (1:15), U.S. allies refuse Trump’s demand that they help reopen the Strait of Hormuz by force (5:41), and the Pentagon seeks roughly $200 billion for the war (8:32) as it considers new deployments to the region (13:27); in southern Lebanon, the IDF begins its ground invasion (14:41); Israel continues killing people in Gaza during the supposed ceasefire while Rafah reopens for medical evacuations after pressure from Hamas (17:31); Afghanistan and Pakistan agree to a five-day Eid ceasefire (21:30) as the two countries dispute the circumstances Pakistani airstrike in Kabul (22:57); Trump postpones his planned trip to China as the Iran war consumes Washington’s attention (25:22); in Sudan, the RSF retakes the strategic town of Bara (27:39); the Trump administration reportedly threatens to cut PEPFAR and other health aid to Zambia unless it gets favorable mineral concessions (29:37); Russia increases its support for Tehran with drone tactics, technology, and possible intelligence sharing (33:45); the United States reopens its embassy in Venezuela as normalization moves ahead (37:11), plus Delcy Rodríguez replaces Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino with intelligence chief Gustavo González López (38:21); and Trump pressures Cuba’s leadership amid a grid collapse and reports of U.S. talks about political change (40:24). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	You're listening to American Prestige. To listen ad-free, you can subscribe at Americanprostagepod.com. Find the link in our show notes.
0:11.0	Now, are all the traitors present? Let's get started, shall we? From rags to riches. I'm so sick of this. Working like a dog and being treated worse.
0:20.3	Yorkshire to New York.
0:21.9	Or climbers, you and me.
0:23.5	A life dedicated to revenge.
0:25.6	Let's make this an occasion to remember.
0:28.1	A Woman of Substance on Channel 4.
0:30.3	Stream now.
0:33.1	That's kind of conversation to your soul.
0:38.3	That's conversation of conversation to your soul. That's conversation
0:40.3	to be sold and the now.
0:42.3	I'm Danny Bessner, here as always with my friend, Hello, Prestige Heads and welcome to American Prestige.
0:56.1	I'm Danny Bessner, here as always with my friend and comrade, Derek Davison,
0:59.9	and we are excited to bring you the news.
1:02.4	But before we do a couple of quick things, thank you everyone to listening.
1:07.5	We really do appreciate it.
1:08.9	Thank you everyone for listening to listening.
1:10.7	If you'd like to subscribe to this show, please go to AmericanPrestigepod.com. You could subscribe
1:16.2	annually, save a few bucks at $50. Just click join now. And if you subscribe at the level of $60,
1:22.5	you also get a digital subscription to the nation magazine. And before we dive in, I also wanted to let
1:30.2	everyone know that we are of course going to be talking about the war in Iran, but it is really
1:35.1	still a fast-moving situation. So we're also going to be releasing a special for subscribers on
	...

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