The following is a lightly edited transcript of the March 20 episode of the Daily Blast podcast. Listen to it here.Greg Sargent: This is The Daily Blast from The New Republic, produced and presented by the DSR Network. I’m your host, Greg Sargent.Everything we’re learning now strongly suggests that Donald Trump’s war is about to get worse. First, word leaked that the Pentagon may demand $200 billion more from Congress. Second, officials let it be known that Trump is considering the deployment of thousands of troops on the ground. Meanwhile, Trump himself just suggested to reporters that he’s envisioning even more military actions that he hasn’t even explained yet.All this makes it absolutely clear that Congress will not just be asked to fund Trump’s war, but also that the pressure on Congress to do something about this madness will intensify. So today we’re talking to Congressman Adam Smith, the ranking Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, about what Democrats will be able to do when that happens. Congressman, thanks so much for coming on.Adam Smith: Well, thanks for having me. It’s always good to see you.Sargent: So let’s start with all the leaks about Trump potentially sending in troops on the ground. People familiar with planning told Reuters that Trump may deploy thousands of them. The options being discussed are deploying troops to the shoreline of the Strait of Hormuz to secure passage for oil tankers and possibly sending ground forces to Kharg Island, which is the hub for oil exports, which one official describes to Reuters as “very risky.” Congressman, you talk to people at the Pentagon a fair amount. Are you getting any indications of anything like this, and what’s your overall take on it?Smith: Yeah, no, it’s very worrisome, because the bottom line is it’s clear that Trump is not going to be able to achieve anything meaningful in Iran—which is a change of the regime and a change of action. I mean, degrading their capability is one thing, but at the cost that we’re currently experiencing—13 service members’ lives already lost, massive economic disruption, 14 countries dragged into this, civilian deaths, the tragic killing of 150 schoolgirls in Iran—massive cost, just to degrade Iran a little bit. He wants regime change. He wants something different. That’s not happening under the current plan.Now, I don’t think it’s going to happen if he sends in a few thousand troops either, but the pressure on him to escalate is growing in his own mind. The pressure is also growing on him to end this madness, stop this war, and recognize he’s not going to accomplish that. But we’ve sent 2,500 Marines—they’re now in the area. Another 2,500 are on their way. And you know, Marines don’t just sit in boats—they’re there for a purpose. And sadly, what we’ve learned in the last year is that when Trump masses forces, he uses them. He did it in Latin America, first with the boat strikes, then with taking out Maduro. He did it in the Middle East when he massed these forces for the war with Iran. So if he sends troops to the region, it is distinctly possible that he’s going to use them. It would be an idiotic decision, because the ability of four or five thousand troops to really fundamentally change this war—I don’t think that’s going to succeed. But Trump doesn’t think in a linear way. He trusts his gut and his bones, apparently.Sargent: Yes, clearly that’s what he trusts more than anything else. Congressman, I want to ask you about something you said there. You seem to suggest that you think Trump does want regime change, and that potentially the troops could be brought in to try to achieve that. Can you tell us a little bit about why regime change would be so hard to achieve, and what do you think he’s envisioning here with regard to using troops for that?Smith: Well, a couple of layers to this. First of all, the idea that there was any sort of imminent threat from Iran is just ridiculous. There’s no evidence whatsoever that Iran was anywhere close to getting a nuclear weapon or ready to attack. So the notion that we had to do this because of an imminent threat is completely wrong. I mean, Iran is as weak as it’s been in over a decade.But what does kind of make sense—even though I disagree with it—is the argument that, okay, we’ve been dealing with this threat from Iran for, gosh, going on 20 years now. They target Americans in a variety of ways. They’ve got ballistic missiles, death to Israel, death to America. They support militias like Hezbollah and Hamas. They destabilize governments in Iraq, Lebanon, in Syria. Enough—we are going to eliminate this threat. All right? The only problem with that is I’ve sat in the room now for 15 years and looked over the military options, and there’s really no good option for, quote, “eliminating the threat.” It’s just not an easy thing to do. So if he’s not going to eliminate the threat, then what is he accomplishing? Again, degrading. Is that enough?