Hey everyone, it's Reid. Before we get started, think about this. As you're listening to this,

we are 53 weeks away from the 2024 general election. I can't believe it and you probably can

either. But all I want to say is thank you so much for listening. Thank you so much for participating

in the Pro Democracy Coalition. And please go to join the union.us and linkinproject.us and sign up

for our updates how you can get involved. Be big everybody. Be your own bullhorn. And now on with the show.

Welcome back to the Lincoln Project. I'm your host, Reid Yale. Today, I'm once again joined by Dan

Barkoff, a former Navy SEAL and founder of Veterans for Responsible Leadership, a veteran runs

Super PAC that supports local, state and federal candidates committed to principled leadership.

He is a graduate of the United States Naval Academy and Harvard Medical School and is now an

associate professor and emergency medicine doctor at the University of Vermont. So I already

don't feel very good about myself. Dan, welcome back. Reid, so happy to be here man. We'll have some

fun today. You know, we got a lot of places we can start. So as we see the things that have unfolded

in the last three plus weeks or so in Israel and in Gaza, explain what it means to have the President

and the National Command Authority send not one aircraft carrier battle group or strike group

to the Eastern Mediterranean, but two. What does that mean? When an opponent sees that

match metal coming across the ocean at them, what does that mean to an opponent? Yeah, it's a good

point. I mean, the deterrence value is pretty critical in a situation like this. I mean,

you've got a whole bunch of regional actors that would threaten to get involved one way or another,

whether that's Iran through proxy groups like Hezbollah or Hamas obviously is already in the thick of it,

but you know, you've also got other potential regional actors like even something like Syria or

the Lebanese government which would allow malicious to kind of step up their attacks against Israel

northern Israel. And I think similar to commanders throughout history for the Israelis in such a small

...