U.S. Embassy Staff Leave Israel & Iraq, Attack on Iran Imminent?
3 Martini Lunch – Political Humor & Commentary
Radio America
4.6 • 1.5K Ratings
🗓️ 27 February 2026
⏱️ 31 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
First, they react to the U.S. ordering embassy personnel out of Israel and Iraq, a move that has fueled speculation that military action against Iran could be just hours or days away. They discuss what such a strike might look like and what the potential endgame would be.
Next, they sigh as Democrats in the Virginia legislature vote to nearly triple their pay in the next session. Jim says politicians raising their own pay is always a bad idea and he says the last thing we want are full-time state lawmakers.
Finally, they break down the growing clash between the Pentagon and AI firm Anthropic over the future of artificial intelligence in warfare. Anthropic’s CEO claims the company cannot partner with the Defense Department due to concerns about autonomous weapons systems and mass domestic surveillance. Pentagon officials dispute that characterization, and Jim emphasizes the need for clear legal and constitutional guardrails as the U.S. races to develop advanced AI capabilities in competition with Communist China.
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to the three martini lunch. |
| 0:04.9 | Grab a stool next to Greg Carumbus of Radio America and Jim Garrity of National Review. |
| 0:10.6 | Three martini's coming up. |
| 0:12.9 | Hey, so glad you're with us for the Friday edition of the three martini lunch, Jim Garrity, back today. |
| 0:18.6 | And Jim, we kick it right off with something that we've kind of |
| 0:21.9 | joked about heading into some previous weekends, including, I think, Super Bowl weekend. Uh, there might |
| 0:26.6 | be military action against Iran this weekend. It's felt a little bit like Groundhog Day, which I guess |
| 0:31.3 | is appropriate in February, because we keep hearing, oh, could be any day. Could be any day. |
| 0:36.0 | We've got all this firepower in the Persian Gulf and so forth. |
| 0:39.1 | But no, we've got these talks going on. |
| 0:41.6 | Well, now we've got orders that U.S. personnel in Iraq and Israel are supposed to leave. |
| 0:46.7 | China has asked its citizens to leave Iran. |
| 0:50.5 | So it looks like things are getting more and more serious, which means we're not falling for |
| 0:55.4 | the Iranian lies at the talks, which I think is a good thing. The open question, of course, |
| 0:59.8 | is what would military action look like if there is military action? What's the goal? And how do we |
| 1:04.9 | know that it's been accomplished? So what do you make of what we know so far? So this morning, Greg, |
| 1:09.8 | in the National Review Slack, one of my colleagues |
| 1:12.3 | points a picture from Ben Gurian Airport in Israel. And there is a list, there is a row of, I've counted |
| 1:19.5 | eight or nine U.S. tankers at Israel. But keep in mind, Ben Gurian Airport, like, it is a military |
| 1:26.0 | airport, but it's also a civilian airport. |
| 1:28.7 | And they're just kind of observing that, like, look, is it possible this is all a bluff or that the president wants to find a way to avoid a military confrontation and is willing to find some sort of deal with the Iranian regime? |
| 1:41.4 | Yeah. |
... |
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