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Co-hosts Jared Yates Sexton and Nick Hauselman open this Weekender by asking the ugliest question out loud: Are we drifting toward a strike on Iran with no clear end game? They dig into why the silence feels like the point, how Russia and China fit onto the board, and why a wider conflict always seems to make a few very specific people rich. Then they pivot to the Epstein fallout and what it looks like when Europe actually treats the network like a crime, while the U.S. political class keeps trying to pretend it is somebody else’s problem. From there it gets bleakly funny as they talk about the AI chip rush, the coming squeeze on everyday electronics, and how tech oligarchs keep turning basic life into a scarcity game. Somehow, a treatise on Doritos emerges before ending with what they’re watching and reading, including a new crime caper that mostly works, Gravity’s Rainbow as a full-time job, and Nick trying to finish a Mick Cronin video before the weekend is over.