That's the test Larry Johnson applies to Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene's claim that nuclear weapons are being discussed in White House strategy meetings on Iran. And his answer cuts against the panic.
Johnson says leaks would actually be the reassuring outcome. If people inside the administration are horrified enough to talk about it, that means it's being opposed. Silence is the worse signal. He's careful to separate skepticism of the scenario from skepticism of Greene herself.
He's messaged her directly for the source, and he's not dismissing the claim, just stress-testing it.
But he doesn't think Trump is the rational actor a decision like this would require.
Larry points to the structural rot underneath the rhetoric: the Navy retired two of its four fast combat-support ships a decade ago to save budget, then lost the resupply warehouses in Bahrain and Oman, leaving carrier strike groups with no fast way to resupply at range.
That's not a Trump decision, he argues, it's bipartisan defense mismanagement finally colliding with a war that wasn't supposed to run this long. Sailors are 250 days at sea, writing "be a good goy" and "Bibi's cooks" on aircraft hulls, and the response from the top has been to call it fake news.
Then there's the contradiction Larry can't square: the same week nukes are allegedly on the table, Trump posts about canceling military exercises with South Korea to preserve his relationship with Kim Jong Un.
Johnson doesn't read that as de-escalation exactly. He reads it as a White House with no coherent through-line, where the next move depends entirely on which impulse wins that day.
His bottom line lands hardest: even a low-yield strike buys the U.S. nothing tactically, and Iran doesn't even need to retaliate for the outcome to be catastrophic. The world turning on Washington the next morning is the damage, retaliation or not.
What's actually left holding the line?
@NewSonof
