Steve Schmidt - On the brink of war with Iran with Malcolm Vance and Ken Harbaugh
The Warning with Steve Schmidt
iHeartPodcasts
4.6 • 1.1K Ratings
🗓️ 22 February 2026
⏱️ 78 minutes
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Summary
Ahead of a likely US strike against Iran, Steve Schmidt sits down with Malcolm Nance, a military and intelligence community veteran and retired Navy senior chief cryptologist, and Ken Harbaugh, a former Navy pilot and veteran advocate, to discuss the escalating situation.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is an I-Heart podcast. |
| 0:02.6 | Guaranteed human. You know, You know, Thank you. You know, You know, Thank you. You know, You know, Thank you. And good morning, everybody from the East Coast in the United States with Malcolm Nance, with Ken Harbaugh. |
| 4:16.5 | Edwin Starr once sang, war, what is it good for? |
| 4:20.8 | Absolutely nothing at all. |
| 4:22.8 | And so that seems like a good place to start regarding what's happening off the coast of Iran |
| 4:29.7 | with an American armada that has been built up with scant media coverage, |
| 4:36.6 | absolutely no congressional debate whatsoever, any discussion that I can find about what happens after the first bomb drops, how do we leave what is now, |
| 4:53.2 | soon to be, I suspect, our third Middle Eastern War in the 21st century? And when it comes to Iran, |
| 5:02.6 | it's a country that is larger than the state of Alaska. If Alaska was |
| 5:07.6 | superimposed over the lower 48, it would take up about a sixth of the country. Iran is two |
| 5:15.7 | and a half times the size of Texas. Both of you are combat veterans. The one thing that I think every American |
| 5:24.4 | should appreciate even the most disinterested and aloof from what's happening all around them |
| 5:32.5 | is that it's a lot easier to start a war than it is to end one. |
| 5:45.0 | I remember watching before the invasion of Ukraine, the Russian buildup on the border, |
| 5:52.2 | and I was shocked that there were serious people, including former generals who were on television, |
| 5:58.0 | saying the Russians would not invade. And it seems self-evident that no nation sends that many assets into preposition at the immense cost that it does, |
| 6:08.1 | that it takes to do so without intending to use the military so here we are there are |
| 6:14.2 | moonless notes over iran for the next couple of days you don't want to uh launch aerial attacks |
| 6:25.3 | under a full moon uh when the sky is bright You want to do it when it's dark. |
| 6:31.2 | So what's happening off the shores of Iran as we speak? And I'll start with Ken, who has flown off of |
| 6:42.6 | aircraft carriers, and then we'll get to Malcolm, who has spent |
| 6:47.1 | his career in military intelligence. What do you think is going on aboard the Abraham Lincoln |
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