# FIVESTACK: Trump Pulls Asia’s Last Carrier, Iran Goes Offensive, The Ballroom Is A Bunker, And A General Says America Can’t Stop A Swarm

Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/fivestack-with-dean-blundell-zev-shalev-7267639/fivestack-trump-pulls-asia-s-last-carrier-iran-goes-offensive-the-ballroom-is-a-bunker-and-a-general-says-america-can-t-stop-a-swarm
Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/fivestack-with-dean-blundell-zev-shalev-7267639/fivestack-trump-pulls-asia-s-last-carrier-iran-goes-offensive-the-ballroom-is-a-bunker-and-a-general-says-america-can-t-stop-a-swarm.md
Podcast: [FiveStack with Dean Blundell & Zev Shalev](https://stenobird.com/podcast/fivestack-with-dean-blundell-zev-shalev-7267639)
Published: 2026-08-17T20:36:22+00:00
Episode link: https://www.narativ.org/p/fivestack-trump-pulls-asias-last
Audio file: https://api.substack.com/feed/podcast/211599822/f8e930f35237fac359634a9b1a010d99.mp3
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JSON: https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/fivestack-with-dean-blundell-zev-shalev-7267639/episodes/fivestack-trump-pulls-asia-s-last-carrier-iran-goes-offensive-the-ballroom-is-a-bunker-and-a-general-says-america-can-t-stop-a-swarm
Duration seconds: 3801

## Resource

5️⃣ Trump Says Kim Answered Him, Then Can’t Say If They Spoke Trump told reporters in the Oval Office that Kim Jong Un has responded to his request for a conversation. “Yeah, he has.” Asked whether the two had actually spoken, he said, “I don’t know.” On Sunday he ordered Pete Hegseth to substantially reduce the joint exercises with South Korea, citing “my very good relationship with Kim Jong Un.” The grievance underneath came out in the same session: he called Seoul’s president for help against Iran and got “no thanks,” after asking $10 billion a year for the 39,000 American troops posted there. Seoul is running Ulchi Freedom Shield anyway. The Navy has already sailed the USS George Washington out of Yokosuka for the Middle East, leaving the western Pacific without a carrier. 4️⃣ Iran’s Guard Goes Offensive as the Deadline Dies The sixty-day memorandum expired at 2:55 Tehran time. The Revolutionary Guard announced it is finished playing defense, promising “powerful offensive operations,” and its new commander vowed to bring “the most heavily-armed army in world history” to its knees. Trump spent the morning threatening to bomb Oman — the country mediating his deal — and the afternoon on the Strait of Hormuz: “We control it with the blockade... I like the idea of declaring it a territory.” Take Tehran at its word, Zev said on air. American economic interests worldwide are what they have named as targets. 3️⃣ The Ballroom Is a Five-Story Bunker With a Drone Port Trump explained what sits under his 90,000-square-foot ballroom, and nobody in the room followed up. The military, he said, asked to “go down deep into the ground and build a military facility to go with the White House” — then “came up with a drone port on top.” Five stories down. Bulletproof windows, bulletpro…

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