Latest / Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar / 10/15/26: Trump Threatens To Use MOAB On Iran, Israel's New Security Doctrine, Leaked Ken Paxton Audio

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10/15/26: Trump Threatens To Use MOAB On Iran, Israel's New Security Doctrine, Leaked Ken Paxton Audio · Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar

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• 0:22
  Speaker 4: What do we have, Crystal?
• 0:23
  Speaker 5: Indeed we do.
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: There is a mad rush to evacuate planes from Riyadh
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: right now in the midst of Houthi strikes on Saudi Arabia.
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: We're also taking a look at the Iran war, where
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: Trump is considering dropping the mother of all bombs as
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: new plans are made with the war department. Trita Parsi
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: is going to join us to break down Israel's new
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: perpetual war security doctrine. I guess this won't be a surprise,
• 0:46
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  Speaker 3: But as Crystal said, we're going to go ahead and
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  Speaker 3: start with Iran. Some crazy news coming out of the Pentagon,
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  Speaker 3: where Trump is now considering dropping the, quote, mother of
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  Speaker 3: all bombs against Iran, the GBU-43B Massive Ordnance Airblast Bomb,
• 2:34
  Speaker 3: or MOAB, the largest non-nuclear bomb in the U.S. arsenal
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  Speaker 3: for the first time in the conflict with Iran this
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  Speaker 3: would mark a notable escalation, they write. I actually, one
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  Speaker 3: of my first jobs starting out in the business was
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  Speaker 3: when we dropped this bomb about 10 years ago in Afghanistan.
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  Speaker 3: It was a huge deal. It was also done by
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  Speaker 3: Trump in order to salvage a dying war. Does anyone
• 2:58
  Speaker 3: remember how Afghanistan turned out? You can tell me how
• 3:01
  Speaker 3: exactly the military consequences of dropping that were. And so
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  Speaker 3: that's the context of which you should look at, which
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  Speaker 3: they write in here. It's a quote information operation, aka
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  Speaker 3: its propaganda, in order to say we dropped the largest
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  Speaker 3: non-nuclear bomb ever in human history.
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  Speaker 1: And guess what? It did nothing in Afghanistan.
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  Speaker 3: The entire reason why you would drop it here is
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  Speaker 3: this bomb just so people understand, is capable of eviscerating
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  Speaker 3: about nine city blocks. But it is not a bunker
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  Speaker 3: buster bomb. It's designed to eviscerate things on the surface.
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  Speaker 3: So the only reason to drop it would be to
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  Speaker 3: cause mass civilian damage and infrastructure, which I guess would
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  Speaker 3: be a, quote, propaganda victory. It would be not only
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  Speaker 3: an escalation in terms of what we do, but it
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  Speaker 3: should be seen in the same flailing context of why
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  Speaker 3: the United States dropped the Moab bomb in the first
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  Speaker 3: place in Afghanistan, which was to, quote, scare the Taliban,
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  Speaker 3: who eventually do what? Win the entire war a couple
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  Speaker 3: of years later. So the entire thing is a propaganda op.
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  Speaker 3: It would just be designed to take out energy infrastructure.
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  Speaker 3: I mean, the current science, Crystal, I'm not sure about you.
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  Speaker 3: I have a feeling of dread in my stomach where
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  Speaker 3: the United, and we're going to get to this and
• 4:11
  Speaker 3: we're going to show everybody. We are currently in a
• 4:14
  Speaker 3: situation where what Iran is doing in the Strait of
• 4:16
  Speaker 3: Hormuz is so genuinely unprecedented, even in the case of
• 4:20
  Speaker 3: the entire war. the number of ships that have been
• 4:23
  Speaker 3: taken out. We're going to show you images of one
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  Speaker 3: of them literally sinking to the bottom. And you can
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  Speaker 3: actually now see it from the satellite imagery, the tanker,
• 4:31
  Speaker 3: which is obviously now obstructing channel in the Strait of Hormuz.
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  Speaker 3: Not a single response yet from CENTCOM. A tiny little
• 4:37
  Speaker 3: small boat was taken out yesterday. I think November 4th
• 4:41
  Speaker 3: is going to be one of the bloodiest days of
• 4:42
  Speaker 3: this entire war after the midterms.
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: They're just saving and penning it all up.
• 4:46
  Speaker 3: And I think things are about to get so, so,
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  Speaker 3: so much worse after the midterm elections.
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  Speaker 1: It's going to be a disaster.
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  Speaker 2: If it even waits till then, I'm not convinced that
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  Speaker 2: it does because the Iranians are very convinced that Trump
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  Speaker 2: is going to go back to some sort of full-on assault.
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: And so they may also be considering some sort of
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  Speaker 2: preemption for themselves so that they are not waiting for
• 5:06
  Speaker 2: their adversary to dictate the timing. Then you get into
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: that counter logic from Trump, where if he thinks the
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: Iranians are going to preempt his attack, he may go
• 5:14
  Speaker 2: ahead first. You know, your your way of describing this
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  Speaker 2: mother of all bombs plan as a propaganda is, I think,
• 5:20
  Speaker 2: really important. And we're used to having like messaging bills
• 5:23
  Speaker 2: in Congress, you know, that are meant to really do
• 5:25
  Speaker 2: anything or accomplish anything, but it's like. Yeah, now we've
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: got messaging bombs, right? I mean, that's how sick and
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  Speaker 2: depraved and pathetic and absurd this entire situation ultimately is.
• 5:34
  Speaker 2: But he may be looking for some sort of a
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  Speaker 2: propaganda win that he can achieve in advance of the midterms,
• 5:41
  Speaker 2: because we're going to talk to Logan later about how
• 5:44
  Speaker 2: disastrous the polls look really across the board.
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  Speaker 5: There could be a miss. You never know.
• 5:48
  Speaker 2: But the Republicans and the Democrats both think that this
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  Speaker 2: is going to be a massive blue wave. Trump knows
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  Speaker 2: he has a lot of trouble. That's why he's campaigning
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  Speaker 2: in a bunch of red states. He's headed down to
• 5:59
  Speaker 2: campaign in South Carolina. Would anyone a year ago have said, oh,
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: you're going to have to go and shore up the
• 6:06
  Speaker 2: state of South Carolina during these midterms? That's how bad
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  Speaker 2: things have gotten. So perhaps he's thinking, oh, I can
• 6:12
  Speaker 2: drop this bomb. And just like he lied and said
• 6:15
  Speaker 2: he destroyed the nuclear program, just like he's lied and said.
• 6:17
  Speaker 5: Oh, I destroyed the Air Force, I destroyed the Navy.
• 6:20
  Speaker 2: He could also lie and pretend like this accomplished something
• 6:23
  Speaker 2: shortly before the midterm. So I think that's very much
• 6:25
  Speaker 2: on the table as well.
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  Speaker 1: You look, you could be right, of course.
• 6:28
  Speaker 3: I just think that something is bubbling to the point
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  Speaker 3: where you can see how the people in Trump's ear
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  Speaker 3: are going to be talking up.
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  Speaker 1: Like, how can you let this happen? It would tease this.
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  Speaker 3: Let's put a one up here on the screen. I mean,
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  Speaker 3: this is completely insane. Like, take a look at this.
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  Speaker 3: This is a massive tanker which is sinking in the
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  Speaker 3: Strait of Hormuz. This is a Singaporean flagged vessel. which
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  Speaker 3: the Singaporean government confirmed, which sank to the bottom. I mean,
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  Speaker 3: its cargo is drifting all over the place to the
• 6:57
  Speaker 3: extent where all of these smugglers in boats, let's put A2,
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  Speaker 3: you can see this, these are all smugglers which go
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  Speaker 3: back and forth from Iran to Oman like every single day.
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  Speaker 1: I read an entire article about what they do.
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  Speaker 3: They converge on the ship, and apparently they're shouting, hey,
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  Speaker 3: there's iPhones, there's perfume, who wants this? They're basically taking
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  Speaker 3: it and starting to sell it immediately right there and
• 7:22
  Speaker 3: sell it on the black market.
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  Speaker 1: I mean, it's funny, but it's crazy.
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  Speaker 3: I mean, you have, what, billions of dollars worth of
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  Speaker 3: cargo that's transiting straight, you know, now on a semi-daily
• 7:34
  Speaker 3: or semi-weekly basis, and any of it can just sink
• 7:37
  Speaker 3: at any point. Now, there's a lot of confusion over
• 7:40
  Speaker 3: whether this was struck or whether it hit a mine. Obviously,
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  Speaker 3: you know, it's good for the Iranians in either case,
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  Speaker 3: but this is unprecedented, you know, to have a sink
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  Speaker 3: or to have a ship like this that sunk.
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  Speaker 1: To immediately warn all of the.
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  Speaker 3: Others that are coming through. CENTCOM is claiming over on
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  Speaker 3: Monday that some 19 million.
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: Barrels were brought through the Strait of Hormuz.
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  Speaker 3: But remember, they bring it through in a convoy system,
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  Speaker 3: and we had some 20-something million barrels per day that
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  Speaker 3: were transiting without having to go through the cover of
• 8:12
  Speaker 3: darkness and a U.S. naval blockade. So It is very
• 8:15
  Speaker 3: obviously beginning to affect all not only the global oil market,
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  Speaker 3: but also even challenge the notion of U.S.
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: Control.
• 8:22
  Speaker 3: And it just demonstrates how, look, we can throw all
• 8:24
  Speaker 3: this money. We can tick up the numbers of barrels
• 8:27
  Speaker 3: per day over and over. But at the end of
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  Speaker 3: the day, the Iranians, this is existential. And, you know,
• 8:33
  Speaker 3: for them, they are they're crafty like they're going to
• 8:36
  Speaker 3: figure it out. Let's put a five up here just
• 8:38
  Speaker 3: to give you a perfect example. This is from Reuters
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  Speaker 3: about how Iran is shifting tactics to step up their
• 8:44
  Speaker 3: attacks on shipping before the U.S.
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  Speaker 1: Vote. So the U.S.
• 8:48
  Speaker 3: Went and bombed all of these radar systems. Remember in
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  Speaker 3: a couple months ago when all we were doing was
• 8:53
  Speaker 3: just bombing along?
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: The Strait of Hormuz.
• 8:55
  Speaker 3: It was just radar, radar, radar. Well, what does the
• 8:57
  Speaker 3: IRGC do? They go, okay, well, there's like, you know,
• 9:00
  Speaker 3: tons of little small boats out there. Send one of
• 9:02
  Speaker 3: our guys, give him a pair of binoculars.
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: Give him a walkie-talkie. That's all he does. That's all
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: it takes.
• 9:07
  Speaker 3: There's a guy out there in a walkie-talkie in a
• 9:09
  Speaker 3: small boat, just relaying, they're like, yep, we got a
• 9:11
  Speaker 3: ship coming through right now.
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: Here are the coordinates, fire away. And they were able
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: to sink.
• 9:15
  Speaker 3: And then, you know, it doesn't take all that much
• 9:17
  Speaker 3: of sophisticated targeting. It just takes one, just to disrupt shipping,
• 9:21
  Speaker 3: as we have said here over and over again. Again,
• 9:23
  Speaker 3: and actually this bears out then because CENTCOM, one of
• 9:27
  Speaker 3: their first strikes in weeks was one of these small
• 9:30
  Speaker 3: boats with a spotter that was on board of a motorboat.
• 9:32
  Speaker 3: So now they're– and by the way, how do you
• 9:35
  Speaker 3: even know that they really know? It's like the drug
• 9:37
  Speaker 3: trafficking thing. You really know– I mean you've got all
• 9:40
  Speaker 3: those guys, smugglers and all these other people that are
• 9:42
  Speaker 3: out there. I'm not saying they're great people or anything,
• 9:44
  Speaker 3: but you don't know who exactly is out there with
• 9:47
  Speaker 3: walkie-talkie and you just randomly hit some boat under suspicion.
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: Yeah, good luck.
• 9:51
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: You can't hit them all.
• 9:53
  Speaker 2: Well, and we also just got, speaking of those drug strikes,
• 9:57
  Speaker 2: we also just got data in that more cocaine is
• 9:59
  Speaker 2: flowing than ever. I mean, it obviously even it's morally
• 10:03
  Speaker 2: abhorrent and also completely failed as a policy. So you
• 10:06
  Speaker 2: can apply those lessons to what's going on here as well. No,
• 10:09
  Speaker 2: in the Iranians, there's increasingly analysis coming out from Iran
• 10:13
  Speaker 2: saying basically they like the position they're in. They feel
• 10:17
  Speaker 2: like time is to their benefit. that they, you know,
• 10:21
  Speaker 2: if the U.S. does decide to escalate, if Trump does
• 10:25
  Speaker 2: decide to escalate, they feel they have a lot they
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: can do in response. And they also feel that the
• 10:31
  Speaker 2: longer time goes on, the more the news tightens around
• 10:35
  Speaker 2: the U.S.
• 10:36
  Speaker 4: Economy.
• 10:37
  Speaker 2: And so you've seen this increased slow and steady escalation
• 10:42
  Speaker 2: effectively ever since the U.N. General Assembly. where they're striking
• 10:45
  Speaker 2: more and more and more ships as we approach the
• 10:49
  Speaker 2: midterm elections, which has long been seen as this sort
• 10:51
  Speaker 2: of critical moment that the Iranians have been focused on
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: in terms of making Trump pay. So while on the
• 10:59
  Speaker 2: one hand, yes, I'm sure the economic situation within Iran
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: is very difficult, I'm sure that it is very hard
• 11:05
  Speaker 2: for the civilians, for everybody that is living there, there's
• 11:08
  Speaker 2: also increasing indications that part of the reason oil is
• 11:12
  Speaker 2: transiting through the Strait of Hormuz is because countries are
• 11:15
  Speaker 2: paying Iran for the privilege of bringing.
• 11:18
  Speaker 5: Those ships through.
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: There's increasing evidence of that. So the idea they're totally
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: cut off and they're not making any money, that does
• 11:25
  Speaker 2: not seem to be true. And some of these numbers
• 11:27
  Speaker 2: of barrels of oil that are coming through seem to
• 11:30
  Speaker 2: be because Iran is allowing them through for a price.
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: So that's important to keep in mind here in terms
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: of some of these dynamics that are being touted by
• 11:40
  Speaker 2: the Trump administration.
• 11:43
  Speaker 3: What you can see with the Strait of Hormuz, and
• 11:45
  Speaker 3: by the way, A4, let's put it up here on
• 11:47
  Speaker 3: the screen. Everybody paid attention to that Singaporean tanker. There
• 11:50
  Speaker 3: was another tanker, or another ship also, that sunk in
• 11:53
  Speaker 3: the strait after being hit by a projectile. The number
• 11:56
  Speaker 3: of attacks now is more than 20. And now you
• 11:59
  Speaker 3: are beginning to see some of the cataclysmic rhetoric return
• 12:03
  Speaker 3: in the war. Let's put A3 up here on the screen,
• 12:06
  Speaker 3: and I will read a rough translation. This was the
• 12:09
  Speaker 3: Emir of Qatar saying, in a statement to citizens saying, quote,
• 12:14
  Speaker 3: we must be prepared for the worst possibilities and everyone
• 12:17
  Speaker 3: must bear their responsibilities, institutions, and citizens. I mean, what
• 12:22
  Speaker 3: he's talking about here is not only a shutdown of
• 12:25
  Speaker 3: the Strait of Hormuz, but it also ties into this
• 12:28
  Speaker 3: conflict with Saudi Arabia. I mean, we cannot overstate this enough.
• 12:32
  Speaker 3: Aramco was literally on fire. We don't yet the extent
• 12:35
  Speaker 3: of the damage. We will never know because they're liars
• 12:38
  Speaker 3: and they cover up literally everything and arrest anybody who
• 12:41
  Speaker 3: has the temerity to take a picture, their airport is
• 12:44
  Speaker 3: now shut down. Shut down to the extent, let's put
• 12:48
  Speaker 3: A8 up here on the screen. This is shocking. So remember,
• 12:52
  Speaker 3: the airport in Riyadh is actually scheduled to open in
• 12:56
  Speaker 3: two days. Well, doesn't look like that because right now
• 13:00
  Speaker 3: there are, quote, dozens of planes that have now been
• 13:03
  Speaker 3: evacuated for safekeeping elsewhere, not exactly saying that it's going
• 13:07
  Speaker 3: to reopen immediately, anytime soon. Saudi airlines are now rushing
• 13:11
  Speaker 3: to evacuate as much.
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: As $ 4.
• 13:14
  Speaker 3: Billion worth of aircraft, private jets, commercial airliners, helicopters, all
• 13:19
  Speaker 3: which were parked at the kingdom's capital airport, have now
• 13:22
  Speaker 3: been moved. The strike obviously devastated the airport. 300 civilians
• 13:26
  Speaker 3: were injured. At least 14 have been killed. And you
• 13:30
  Speaker 3: can see they have now allegedly they're closed until midnight
• 13:33
  Speaker 3: on Sunday. But airlines, insurers, and plane owners, nobody wants
• 13:37
  Speaker 3: to have with their stuff that is there on the ground.
• 13:39
  Speaker 3: Who's gonna fly through there? Yeah, what kind of an
• 13:41
  Speaker 3: idiot even wants to fly through? I can't even imagine
• 13:44
  Speaker 3: what it would take to get on a plane like this. Quote,
• 13:47
  Speaker 3: the number of aircraft on the ground in Riyadh has
• 13:50
  Speaker 3: now dwindled from 134 to 38 as of.
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: Noon Wednesday.
• 13:54
  Speaker 3: And so of those, one has already been written off
• 13:57
  Speaker 3: with five others suffering some level of damage. So about
• 14:01
  Speaker 3: a fifth of the planes that are on the tarmac
• 14:04
  Speaker 3: are there because they can't.
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: Fly because they've been hit, right? And so this is craziness.
• 14:08
  Speaker 3: I mean, already the insurance, according to insurance claims, you've
• 14:12
  Speaker 3: got $ 400 million in damage that remains on the ground
• 14:15
  Speaker 3: just to the aircraft that are there. I mean, again,
• 14:18
  Speaker 3: it's very hard to explain to people what this means
• 14:21
  Speaker 3: for the kingdom of Saudi Arabia. This is a country
• 14:24
  Speaker 3: which is it's not just their multi-billions. They use their
• 14:28
  Speaker 3: money for cultural influence. They did it after 9-11 to
• 14:31
  Speaker 3: make everybody forget that 1,519 hijackers are Saudi. They did
• 14:35
  Speaker 3: it for the next 20 years to buy influence in Washington.
• 14:38
  Speaker 3: They have bought, I mean, God, who knows, from EA Sports,
• 14:42
  Speaker 3: video game companies, the live golf situation, tennis, UFC.
• 14:47
  Speaker 4: Formula One.
• 14:47
  Speaker 3: Formula One, right, exactly. But UFC was UAE, but you
• 14:50
  Speaker 3: get my point. This is like a golf strategy. And
• 14:53
  Speaker 3: now you can't fly there. I mean, that just, it
• 14:56
  Speaker 3: pierces the entire thing, just like Dubai and many of
• 14:59
  Speaker 3: those hotel strikes that happened early on. For example, put
• 15:02
  Speaker 3: a seven Glenn Greenwald, uh, flagged this, you know, Riyadh
• 15:07
  Speaker 3: has now announced the postponement of their, uh, third edition
• 15:10
  Speaker 3: of their quote international six Kings glance grand slam tournament.
• 15:15
  Speaker 3: which was originally scheduled for in a couple of days
• 15:18
  Speaker 3: where you could see the decision reflects their commitment to
• 15:20
  Speaker 3: quote delivering sporting events to the highest standards, following assessment
• 15:24
  Speaker 3: of organizational, logistical challenges associated with hosting the tournament and
• 15:28
  Speaker 3: their potential impact on the quality.
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: Of the audience experience.
• 15:32
  Speaker 3: AKA we don't want our players and our audience to
• 15:34
  Speaker 3: get die of drones when they are present in our
• 15:38
  Speaker 3: country or to be hit when they're flying in. I mean,
• 15:42
  Speaker 3: You know, there was a Houthi guest on yesterday and
• 15:44
  Speaker 3: you could kind of see the delight in the guy's
• 15:46
  Speaker 3: voice over inflicting. I mean, admittedly, it was funny to
• 15:51
  Speaker 3: see him. But this is the strategy is working. They
• 15:55
  Speaker 3: are piercing what makes Saudi Saudi, the World Economic Forum,
• 15:59
  Speaker 3: the new Davos, the World Petroleum Council. I mean, they
• 16:02
  Speaker 3: want to hold themselves up as a genuine as statesmen,
• 16:06
  Speaker 3: as members of the elite. They tried to buy their
• 16:09
  Speaker 3: way in. And this is just taking that all apart
• 16:12
  Speaker 3: in a matter of weeks.
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: I've never seen anyone say we're going to open the
• 16:16
  Speaker 2: gates of hell with a bigger smile on their face
• 16:18
  Speaker 2: than that guy. But I mean, this is devastating to them.
• 16:22
  Speaker 2: And Ryan keeps pointing out that there's a lot of
• 16:24
  Speaker 2: Saudi money involved in this Ellison paramount deal. So, you know,
• 16:29
  Speaker 2: all of those things are sort of up for grabs. Now,
• 16:32
  Speaker 2: I'm sure they have lots of money that they've banked,
• 16:34
  Speaker 2: but they already had to pull the plug on Live
• 16:36
  Speaker 2: Golf before you had the Houthi Ansar Allah escalation here.
• 16:41
  Speaker 2: So it's quite devastating to them. MBS has got to
• 16:45
  Speaker 2: be on very precarious political footing. Guy is a psychopath,
• 16:48
  Speaker 2: like brutal tactics in order to obtain power. Rest of
• 16:51
  Speaker 2: his family doesn't like him. Now you have a population
• 16:55
  Speaker 2: that has been used to a very luxurious life on
• 17:00
  Speaker 2: the backs, by the way, of millions of guest workers
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: who are there to do, you know, all the jobs
• 17:05
  Speaker 2: that they don't want to do and who are treated
• 17:07
  Speaker 2: at best as like indentured servants. And what happens if
• 17:11
  Speaker 2: those people start to leave? What is that going to
• 17:13
  Speaker 2: do to your economy? What is that going to do
• 17:15
  Speaker 2: to the way that you're used to living? And then
• 17:17
  Speaker 2: all of these glamorous events that have been brought to
• 17:19
  Speaker 2: the kingdom or that have been, you All of that
• 17:23
  Speaker 2: is going away now. And it's a new world that
• 17:26
  Speaker 2: we're living in where a group like the Houthis, which are,
• 17:30
  Speaker 2: you know, this insurgent group that have basically been able
• 17:33
  Speaker 2: to successfully take over control of most of the population
• 17:36
  Speaker 2: centers of Yemen, armed with some significant technology and drones
• 17:41
  Speaker 2: and ballistic missiles, they are able to bring a much larger, much, much, much, much, much,
• 17:46
  Speaker 2: much wealthier country.
• 17:47
  Speaker 5: To its knees.
• 17:49
  Speaker 2: So it's a wild thing to see. And the Saudis,
• 17:54
  Speaker 2: MBS has made just a devastating error here provoking them
• 17:59
  Speaker 2: because they had previously had this, you know, this more
• 18:01
  Speaker 2: or less ceasefire detente for some time. Bab al-Mandab is
• 18:06
  Speaker 2: very important for them with the Strait of Hormuz being
• 18:09
  Speaker 2: in the situation that it's in in order to export
• 18:13
  Speaker 2: their oil. Now that is all in jeopardy. So it
• 18:16
  Speaker 2: really is a disastrous situation for them. Speaking of the
• 18:19
  Speaker 2: oil markets, I thought these were some interesting comments from
• 18:22
  Speaker 2: Biden's former energy envoy, a guy named Amos Hochstein, who
• 18:25
  Speaker 2: was talking about, OK, what's the reality with the Strait
• 18:29
  Speaker 2: of Hormuz? What is actually going on there? And he
• 18:32
  Speaker 2: has some some pretty revealing comments here about the notion
• 18:35
  Speaker 2: that we have, quote unquote, control over the Strait of Hormuz.
• 18:38
  Speaker 2: Let's go and take a listen to that.
• 18:40
  Speaker 6: I look at it as opportunity costs as well. In
• 18:42
  Speaker 6: other words, do I control the Strait now? Oil's getting out,
• 18:45
  Speaker 6: but the shipping costs are at $ 1. 4 million a day
• 18:50
  Speaker 6: when there were 100,000. So I can say I control it,
• 18:52
  Speaker 6: but it's costing me a fortune.
• 18:53
  Speaker 3: Yeah, but what if they say, OK, we'll sign a
• 18:55
  Speaker 3: deal and say that the Strait is open, but you
• 18:56
  Speaker 3: will pay us a million dollars for every one of
• 18:58
  Speaker 3: the ships that go through?
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: That sounds like it's— One, that would be a discount.
• 19:01
  Speaker 4: To where we are right now.
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: Not much of one.
• 19:03
  Speaker 4: Well, tankers right now are under fire.
• 19:07
  Speaker 2: So he says, sure, you can claim it's, you know,
• 19:10
  Speaker 2: that we have control, but it's costing us millions of dollars.
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: Billions.
• 19:16
  Speaker 2: If Iran actually, just to underscore what he says, if
• 19:19
  Speaker 2: they charged us a million dollars per ship, that would
• 19:22
  Speaker 2: be a tremendous discount from where we're at today. That's
• 19:25
  Speaker 2: the reality of the situation.
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: Exactly right.
• 19:27
  Speaker 3: And I mean, how can you say with a straight
• 19:29
  Speaker 3: face you control the Strait of Hormuz? A ship just
• 19:32
  Speaker 3: sunk to the bottom. Like this doesn't happen. Unless there's, unless.
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: We're in the middle of a war.
• 19:38
  Speaker 3: Like, how can you look at that photo and say
• 19:41
  Speaker 3: that this is not, I mean, that's the whole purpose
• 19:43
  Speaker 3: of the U.S.
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: Navy.
• 19:44
  Speaker 3: I mean, I know I'm exaggerating here, but like ships
• 19:47
  Speaker 3: are not supposed to be hit by mines and sink
• 19:49
  Speaker 3: in the year 2040. is stuff i'm supposed to see
• 19:52
  Speaker 3: in black and white footage from world war ii with
• 19:54
  Speaker 3: the u-boat i am not supposed to see it today
• 19:57
  Speaker 3: and yet here i am watching it in real time
• 20:00
  Speaker 3: and you know you joke and all of that about
• 20:03
  Speaker 3: our people joke and all of that about uh oh
• 20:05
  Speaker 3: and you know drone warfare and the U.S.
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: Being brought to its knees, but it really is true.
• 20:10
  Speaker 3: This is the purpose of the United States Navy, to
• 20:12
  Speaker 3: be able to pull off things like this. And if
• 20:14
  Speaker 3: guys in motorboats and shouldered fire missiles can take this down,
• 20:19
  Speaker 3: the military doesn't run the world, the insurance companies do.
• 20:21
  Speaker 3: The state-backed oil companies do. And every single one of
• 20:25
  Speaker 3: those who was potentially willing to run the blockade, looking
• 20:27
  Speaker 3: at some of the Kepler data and all that, they're.
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: Like, I don't know about this. And now you're watching
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: the U.S. flail.
• 20:33
  Speaker 3: So I don't have many of these elements, but breaking
• 20:34
  Speaker 3: as of this morning, I'm sure you guys have seen
• 20:36
  Speaker 3: the situation with Russia, right, where the United States overnight
• 20:41
  Speaker 3: turns off Starlink or whatever, like reduces Starlink's usage to
• 20:45
  Speaker 3: stop Ukrainian drones from disabling Russian refineries. Then Zelensky comes
• 20:50
  Speaker 3: out and says, OK, we won't do it. And now
• 20:52
  Speaker 3: this morning, he's actually out in a new Financial Times interview,
• 20:55
  Speaker 3: you know, going after Trump again, just like he did
• 20:57
  Speaker 3: back in February of 2025.
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: He's attacking him.
• 21:00
  Speaker 3: Personally, but more importantly, saying we don't care what the
• 21:02
  Speaker 3: Americans say. We're going to keep hitting the refineries. The
• 21:06
  Speaker 3: US is apparently flailing, and they're now looking to unsanction
• 21:10
  Speaker 3: all the dark tankers that are non-Iranian in order to
• 21:13
  Speaker 3: free up the ability to hire freight because of that
• 21:17
  Speaker 3: million dollar a day cost that we've talked about so
• 21:20
  Speaker 3: much with Sal. I mean, literally 10 to 15 times
• 21:22
  Speaker 3: more expensive. And all of that is showing up.
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: What is it?
• 21:26
  Speaker 3: It's like $ 35 per barrel, apparently, just the sheer cost
• 21:29
  Speaker 3: of freight, which you can already see in oil. You're
• 21:31
  Speaker 3: seeing the amount of money that is being paid. I mean,
• 21:34
  Speaker 3: you're basically sacrificing. And look, I'm a person who wanted
• 21:37
  Speaker 3: to restrict Ukraine from the beginning, right? So I'm not
• 21:39
  Speaker 3: going to weep tears for the Ukrainian military. But the
• 21:42
  Speaker 3: point remains that you start to see that you have
• 21:44
  Speaker 3: to flail in all other aspects of your personality. Like
• 21:48
  Speaker 3: you had to strip the fads.
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: Out of South Korea. Now the whole Russia thing, you're like, okay,
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: cut it loose.
• 21:55
  Speaker 3: We can't deal with this anymore because it's putting more
• 21:57
  Speaker 3: pressure on We're going to buy Russian diesel, even though
• 22:01
  Speaker 3: we're legally not even allowed to. We're going to free
• 22:03
  Speaker 3: up Venezuelan and Russian tankers. I mean, you have to
• 22:06
  Speaker 3: start sacrificing serious parts of your other remaining foreign policy.
• 22:10
  Speaker 3: And I would be fine doing that intentionally, but being
• 22:13
  Speaker 3: forced to do it. That shows you how desperate.
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: They already are.
• 22:16
  Speaker 5: It means you can't be strategic about it.
• 22:18
  Speaker 2: It's just desperation, it's triage, it's flailing. I mean, this
• 22:21
  Speaker 2: whole Trump policy has been nothing but flailing from the get-go.
• 22:24
  Speaker 2: He's actually now admitting that it was a mistake to
• 22:27
  Speaker 2: assassinate the Supreme Leader and a lot of the government
• 22:30
  Speaker 2: leadership because, you know, it just hardened the regime. It
• 22:33
  Speaker 2: didn't collapse. Then who do you negotiate with? The previous
• 22:36
  Speaker 2: people apparently would have been easier to negotiate with the
• 22:40
  Speaker 2: new president Folks are more aggressive and, frankly, more cleverly
• 22:44
  Speaker 2: strategic than the last set had been. But you ready
• 22:47
  Speaker 2: for this? Sagar, this just dropped, exclusive from Semaphore. Saudi
• 22:50
  Speaker 2: is set to drop plans for five 2034 World Cup stadiums.
• 22:55
  Speaker 2: Saudi Arabia's Sovereign Wealth Fund is preparing to inform organizers
• 22:58
  Speaker 2: of the 2034 Men's Soccer World Cup. plans to drop
• 23:02
  Speaker 2: five new stadiums it proposed to build to host the tournament.
• 23:06
  Speaker 2: Public investment fund will narrow its focus to three new
• 23:09
  Speaker 2: stadiums as it cuts spending on some of its signature
• 23:11
  Speaker 2: domestic investments. Dropping the five venues would leave the kingdom
• 23:14
  Speaker 2: with 10 stadiums, World Cup matches. The changes are part
• 23:17
  Speaker 2: of a revised plan the kingdom is going to submit
• 23:19
  Speaker 2: to FIFA. So, I mean, this is a V marquee
• 23:23
  Speaker 2: event that they're building toward. And the fact they're having
• 23:27
  Speaker 2: to pull back so significantly is, Five new stadiums that
• 23:30
  Speaker 2: they're completely scrapping shows you the dire economic straits that
• 23:35
  Speaker 2: they're facing right now.
• 23:35
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: I mean, these things seem silly, right?
• 23:38
  Speaker 3: But if you know the Gulf, this is what they
• 23:41
  Speaker 3: live by. It's like Qatar in the World Cup. It
• 23:44
  Speaker 3: was ridiculous to hold a World Cup in Qatar.
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: Why did they do it?
• 23:47
  Speaker 3: Because they paid their way in in order to get
• 23:49
  Speaker 3: everybody to even know where Qatar was. They spent oodles
• 23:53
  Speaker 3: and ridiculous sums of money and a bunch of Indians
• 23:55
  Speaker 3: and Pakistani laborers died there. erecting these ridiculous stadiums with
• 23:59
  Speaker 3: roving air conditioner.
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: Why do you do it? For image, right?
• 24:02
  Speaker 3: You have all the money in the world, but everybody
• 24:04
  Speaker 3: looks down on you basically because everyone knows you're only
• 24:07
  Speaker 3: rich because you have a.
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: Bunch of oil under your feet.
• 24:10
  Speaker 3: Well, now same in Saudi Arabia. And for years, they
• 24:14
  Speaker 3: keep trying to build themselves up and it gets pierced
• 24:18
  Speaker 3: in a second like this. And that is genuinely the
• 24:21
  Speaker 3: type of thing which will be felt so deeply and
• 24:25
  Speaker 3: painfully by MBS and the coterie of the people around him.
• 24:29
  Speaker 3: Because that was the strategy from the beginning, to buy
• 24:32
  Speaker 3: the real estate, to buy the parts of culture, to
• 24:34
  Speaker 3: host the World Cup, to be, you know, Cristian Ronaldo,
• 24:37
  Speaker 3: to really be a beating heart of something other than oil,
• 24:40
  Speaker 3: to be a business in sports, humiliating, genuinely, for them.
• 24:46
  Speaker 3: And so, look, all things trending in a bad direction,
• 24:49
  Speaker 3: no matter where you put it. If you're pro-Ukraine... if
• 24:52
  Speaker 3: you're pro, you know, whatever, if you want pro peace,
• 24:54
  Speaker 3: if you're, you know, if you're Iranian, I really would
• 24:57
  Speaker 3: worry because I think this mother of all bombs, whether
• 25:00
  Speaker 3: it's pre midterm, post midterm, I think it's going to happen.
• 25:02
  Speaker 3: I think there's almost no question at this point because
• 25:05
  Speaker 3: he's just been sitting in the white house. He's seething
• 25:07
  Speaker 3: that they're not doing anything. His advisors are like, look,
• 25:10
  Speaker 3: you can't do anything before the midterm. So see, they're
• 25:12
  Speaker 3: gonna be right before or right after. I think the
• 25:14
  Speaker 3: energy infrastructure, I think we are going to hit it.
• 25:16
  Speaker 3: And I think things are going to get really, really dark.
• 25:19
  Speaker 4: I do. All right.
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: With that, peachy segment. Let's get to Dr.
• 25:24
  Speaker 3: Trita Parsi, who's standing by to talk about a new,
• 25:27
  Speaker 3: shocking new security doctrine coming out of the state of Israel.
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: Let's get to it.
• 25:33
  Speaker 3: Very excited now to be joined by our great friend, Dr.
• 25:35
  Speaker 3: Trita Parsi of the Quincy Institute. Thanks for joining us, sir.
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: We appreciate it.
• 25:38
  Speaker 7: Thank you so much for having me.
• 25:40
  Speaker 3: You recently flagged a fascinating new report out of Israel.
• 25:43
  Speaker 3: Let's put this up here on the screen from your
• 25:46
  Speaker 3: sub stack. Israel's new and terrifying security doctrine. you find
• 25:51
  Speaker 3: that they now cite the United States, quote, as a
• 25:54
  Speaker 3: declining power given its ongoing social and political shifts, which
• 25:58
  Speaker 3: will abandon Israel at any event. And this is compelling
• 26:01
  Speaker 3: Israel to move towards greater self-reliance in order to avoid
• 26:04
  Speaker 3: excessive dependence on the United States. Now, that might be
• 26:07
  Speaker 3: potential music to your and my ears, but some of
• 26:10
  Speaker 3: the other consequences of that are kind of terrifying as
• 26:13
  Speaker 3: you write. Why don't you lay out what they found
• 26:16
  Speaker 3: and then what it will look like for the region?
• 26:19
  Speaker 8: So this is a very important report. It has gotten
• 26:22
  Speaker 8: a lot of attention in Israel itself. It's written by
• 26:25
  Speaker 8: a person who is a former major general in the
• 26:29
  Speaker 8: Israeli army, currently the head of one.
• 26:31
  Speaker 7: Of its main think tanks, I-N-N-S.
• 26:36
  Speaker 8: And he's not advocating this.
• 26:39
  Speaker 7: It's very important to understand.
• 26:40
  Speaker 8: He's not going out there and saying this is the
• 26:42
  Speaker 8: doctrine that the Israelis should pursue. Rather, he's arguing that
• 26:46
  Speaker 8: this has become the de facto doctrine doctrine that the
• 26:49
  Speaker 8: Israelis are pursuing. And then he lays down the principles
• 26:53
  Speaker 8: behind this doctrine. And that's where it gets really interesting.
• 26:57
  Speaker 8: Not only, of course, that essentially saying that the Israelis
• 27:00
  Speaker 8: are now treating the United States as not just a
• 27:05
  Speaker 8: declining power, but a country that Israel ultimately needs to
• 27:09
  Speaker 8: sever relations with in order to retain its own independence
• 27:15
  Speaker 8: and Jewish character.
• 27:17
  Speaker 7: And then he goes on.
• 27:18
  Speaker 8: To look at how the Israeli doctrine now looks at
• 27:21
  Speaker 8: the rest of the region. And he says that some
• 27:23
  Speaker 8: of the key things of this new emerging doctrine or
• 27:27
  Speaker 8: already established but unarticulated doctrine is that, for instance, it's
• 27:32
  Speaker 8: a rejection of the independence existence of Arab states. He
• 27:36
  Speaker 8: says that the Israelis at this point do not even
• 27:38
  Speaker 8: recognize that the Arab states are legitimate states, but rather
• 27:42
  Speaker 8: just a hodgepodge of Arab tribes. And as a result,
• 27:46
  Speaker 8: it's a natural process for Israel to destabilize these countries
• 27:52
  Speaker 8: in order to enhance Israel's own security because these countries
• 27:57
  Speaker 8: are not legitimate states in the first place. He goes
• 28:01
  Speaker 8: on to say that another principle of this new doctrine
• 28:05
  Speaker 8: emerging in Israel is that it views war as a
• 28:08
  Speaker 8: foundational state. that peace has no intrinsic value. It's just
• 28:14
  Speaker 8: something transactional aimed at achieving other goals. But that war
• 28:18
  Speaker 8: is a necessity for statecraft. And that preventive war is
• 28:25
  Speaker 8: what is really going to be the most important aspect
• 28:28
  Speaker 8: of war, the most useful aspect of the war. And
• 28:30
  Speaker 8: he goes on to say that it gives absolute priority
• 28:34
  Speaker 8: for initiative and offense over defense. So we're talking about
• 28:39
  Speaker 8: a state that not only acts preemptively, but preventively. It
• 28:43
  Speaker 8: just starts wars long before a country, a potential danger
• 28:49
  Speaker 8: emerges from that country, a potential threat emerges from that country,
• 28:53
  Speaker 8: but rather in a matter in order to prevent it
• 28:56
  Speaker 8: from ever getting to that point.
• 28:58
  Speaker 7: Now, a lot of people would.
• 28:59
  Speaker 8: Say, look, this is frankly what the Israelis have been
• 29:02
  Speaker 8: doing for quite some time.
• 29:04
  Speaker 7: And I think that is absolutely true.
• 29:07
  Speaker 8: But now we're getting to a point in which the
• 29:09
  Speaker 8: facade is falling off, and we're seeing these type of
• 29:12
  Speaker 8: intellectual justifications for it, such as saying that, for instance,
• 29:16
  Speaker 8: these Arab states are not real states anyway, so it's
• 29:19
  Speaker 8: a natural process to destabilize. And I think the critical
• 29:23
  Speaker 8: thing for the United States here is to understand, if
• 29:26
  Speaker 8: this is a country that is going to establish these principles,
• 29:30
  Speaker 8: make it the norms of statecraft, that preventive war, for instance,
• 29:34
  Speaker 8: should happen, destabilizing your neighbors is just a legitimate way
• 29:37
  Speaker 8: of securing your own security and interests. Then for the
• 29:43
  Speaker 8: United States to continue to have a strategic relationship with Israel,
• 29:47
  Speaker 8: the United States itself has to turn to a country
• 29:50
  Speaker 8: that essentially treats war as a desirable state, permanent state
• 29:56
  Speaker 8: of war, as a desirable state, rather than a country
• 29:59
  Speaker 8: that at least on the face of it should be
• 30:01
  Speaker 8: pursuing peace and stability. But peace and stability is no
• 30:05
  Speaker 8: longer principles that according to this person is part of
• 30:09
  Speaker 8: the doctrines and the belief systems of Israel.
• 30:12
  Speaker 2: There's an irony in Israel pointing the finger at the
• 30:15
  Speaker 2: other regional states and saying, oh, these aren't real states.
• 30:17
  Speaker 2: My daughter's in her intro IR class in college. And
• 30:20
  Speaker 2: the very first thing you learn about a state is
• 30:22
  Speaker 2: supposed to have set borders, which is not something that
• 30:25
  Speaker 2: Israel seems to have. So they may want to take
• 30:27
  Speaker 2: a look in the mirror about who is a real
• 30:29
  Speaker 2: state in the region. But in any case, there's so
• 30:32
  Speaker 2: much to get into here. You know, I just look
• 30:34
  Speaker 2: at this and I'm asking myself, how is this going
• 30:36
  Speaker 2: to work out? Because one of the things that we've,
• 30:39
  Speaker 2: you know, that I've long thought is that if the U.S.
• 30:42
  Speaker 2: pulls its support of Israel, Israel is going to have
• 30:44
  Speaker 2: to act more like a normal state, is going to
• 30:46
  Speaker 2: have to actually learn to live with its neighbors and
• 30:49
  Speaker 2: not just reach for the sword all the time, that
• 30:51
  Speaker 2: they're going to have to negotiate. They're going to have
• 30:52
  Speaker 2: to come to some sort of accommodation. But this vision
• 30:56
  Speaker 2: is the polar opposite of that. It says we're going
• 30:59
  Speaker 2: to have to sever ties with the U.S. because they're
• 31:01
  Speaker 2: turning against us anyway. But we're going to continue on
• 31:04
  Speaker 2: this warlike path where war is just, you know, the
• 31:07
  Speaker 2: normal state of being. And we're going to try to
• 31:09
  Speaker 2: continue to destabilize everyone we possibly can in the region.
• 31:13
  Speaker 7: Absolutely. On your first point, definitely. And I still believe that.
• 31:17
  Speaker 8: I think what you're seeing here is a country that
• 31:21
  Speaker 8: is in this phase of transition in which it is
• 31:25
  Speaker 8: recognizing that the support that it is getting from the
• 31:28
  Speaker 8: United States that has enabled it to become this type
• 31:31
  Speaker 8: of a state. is starting to dry up. It's not
• 31:34
  Speaker 8: going to last for many, many more years going forward.
• 31:37
  Speaker 8: And instead of taking that opportunity to do some introspection
• 31:41
  Speaker 8: and figure out, okay, how do you actually achieve peace
• 31:44
  Speaker 8: if you cannot dominate the entire region, if you cannot
• 31:47
  Speaker 8: establish a reality in which you have deterrence against everyone else,
• 31:51
  Speaker 8: but no one else is allowed to have deterrence against you?
• 31:54
  Speaker 8: If you can't have that, what kind of a peace
• 31:57
  Speaker 8: can you pursue? But instead, what they're doing is they're
• 32:00
  Speaker 8: just doubling down on what they're already doing, because I
• 32:04
  Speaker 8: think the mindset within the security establishment in Israel right
• 32:08
  Speaker 8: now simply does not allow for thinking that goes outside
• 32:12
  Speaker 8: of this paradigm.
• 32:14
  Speaker 7: And that's going to be the end of Israel if
• 32:16
  Speaker 7: it continues on this path.
• 32:17
  Speaker 8: We have no examples of states being able to pursue
• 32:21
  Speaker 8: this type of a doctrine, pursue these principles in the
• 32:24
  Speaker 8: long run and surviving and flourishing. and particularly not in
• 32:27
  Speaker 8: the modern world. We may have had some examples in
• 32:30
  Speaker 8: ancient times, but even then we were talking about empires
• 32:33
  Speaker 8: that after a while ultimately decline and fall. So I
• 32:37
  Speaker 8: think we have helped create a reality in Israel in
• 32:41
  Speaker 8: which the type of cost-benefit analysis that is needed in
• 32:45
  Speaker 8: order to be able to have responsible statecraft has simply
• 32:48
  Speaker 8: been taken out. And as a result, as they're now
• 32:50
  Speaker 8: facing the reality that they're not going to have the U.S.
• 32:52
  Speaker 8: to support in the long run, they're still not capable
• 32:55
  Speaker 8: of thinking outside of that paradigm and thinking, as you
• 32:59
  Speaker 8: pointed out, how do we then pursue peace?
• 33:01
  Speaker 7: Instead, they're just rejecting peace. I don't think that's gonna last.
• 33:04
  Speaker 8: I don't see that as a possibility, but I think
• 33:06
  Speaker 8: it tells you how far we have gone in creating
• 33:10
  Speaker 8: circumstances in Israel that does not allow for that type
• 33:12
  Speaker 8: of irrational thinking to take place.
• 33:14
  Speaker 3: Right, of course, by defending them from the consequences of
• 33:17
  Speaker 3: all of their actions, they've never paid any real price.
• 33:20
  Speaker 3: Even in the middle of the Iran war, we're expending
• 33:23
  Speaker 3: our missile inventory to shoot them down, a lot more
• 33:26
  Speaker 3: people would be dead if they were forced to just
• 33:28
  Speaker 3: have to defend themselves. How do you think this plays
• 33:31
  Speaker 3: out within the next couple of years? I don't expect
• 33:33
  Speaker 3: the Iran conflict to die down anytime soon. In the interim,
• 33:38
  Speaker 3: while they're calling the Gulf states illegitimate, they also seek
• 33:41
  Speaker 3: some sort of quasi-allyship with them. I mean, you have
• 33:45
  Speaker 3: Benjamin Netanyahu begging MBS to come in and to bomb Yemen, obviously,
• 33:50
  Speaker 3: there's been all these surreptitious and now out in the
• 33:53
  Speaker 3: open dealings with the UAE. How are they going to
• 33:57
  Speaker 3: navigate this? Like, do they see Iran as the first
• 34:00
  Speaker 3: threat and then the Gulf as the secondary?
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: Like, how's this going to look in the next couple
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: of years?
• 34:05
  Speaker 7: Well, it very much depends on what the United States does.
• 34:07
  Speaker 8: If the United States puts down its foot and says, OK, well,
• 34:10
  Speaker 8: now you're on your own. We're not going to provide
• 34:12
  Speaker 8: you with all of the different bombs and munitions and
• 34:15
  Speaker 8: missiles and interceptors that has allowed you to continue these wars,
• 34:19
  Speaker 8: to intensify these wars, then I think there's going to
• 34:22
  Speaker 8: have to be a real reckoning inside of Israel. I
• 34:24
  Speaker 8: think it's also important to recognize that it appears that
• 34:27
  Speaker 8: part of the reason why Haman wrote this piece is
• 34:31
  Speaker 8: precisely because he wanted to be provocative and force the
• 34:33
  Speaker 8: debate to change Israel's direction. But the mere fact that
• 34:37
  Speaker 8: you have to write a piece like this in order
• 34:40
  Speaker 8: to get that change tells you how disastrous situation has
• 34:47
  Speaker 8: become in terms of strategic thinking in Israel. Now, the Israelis,
• 34:51
  Speaker 8: I think, will try to take advantage of the opportunity
• 34:54
  Speaker 8: that they currently believe they have with a president that
• 34:57
  Speaker 8: is already knee-deep into this crisis and who believes that
• 35:01
  Speaker 8: he has no pathway out of this crisis through diplomacy,
• 35:06
  Speaker 8: through sanctions, or through limited war.
• 35:09
  Speaker 7: And I'm going to explain why I use the term
• 35:11
  Speaker 7: limited war.
• 35:12
  Speaker 8: In a manner that enables history to judge this to
• 35:17
  Speaker 8: have ultimately been a success. I think Trump's mindset right
• 35:21
  Speaker 8: now is that he's desperate because he's trying to find
• 35:24
  Speaker 8: some sort of a fix that turns this story around,
• 35:27
  Speaker 8: a last chapter of the story that makes the entire
• 35:29
  Speaker 8: book look good. And the book so far does not
• 35:32
  Speaker 8: look good in any way, shape, or form. But that
• 35:34
  Speaker 8: means that in his mindset, the only one thing he
• 35:37
  Speaker 8: hasn't tried yet is to do those things he's threatened
• 35:41
  Speaker 8: to do, but not done so far, such as striking
• 35:44
  Speaker 8: at Iran's critical infrastructure, such as striking at desalination plants,
• 35:48
  Speaker 8: energy infrastructure, take a couple of islands, go in with
• 35:51
  Speaker 8: ground troops to take out some of the nuclear sites, etc.
• 35:55
  Speaker 8: And I think that unfortunately, Trump is now seriously considering
• 35:58
  Speaker 8: these options. So from the Israeli standpoint, Trump is looking
• 36:02
  Speaker 8: at this only in a manner in which how can
• 36:05
  Speaker 8: he get out of this by going in deeper into it,
• 36:08
  Speaker 8: And that serves Israel very well because they would like
• 36:11
  Speaker 8: to see the United States to get even further entangled
• 36:14
  Speaker 8: in this war and do as much as possible to
• 36:17
  Speaker 8: shift the balance of power in the region away from
• 36:20
  Speaker 8: Iran and towards Israel by essentially eliminating all of the
• 36:24
  Speaker 8: different strong states that have the capacity of challenging or
• 36:28
  Speaker 8: deterring Israel. Going back to one of these principles in
• 36:33
  Speaker 8: this document, to achieve their security by making sure that
• 36:36
  Speaker 8: everyone else is destabilized.
• 36:38
  Speaker 2: Let's actually put the document up on the screen. This
• 36:40
  Speaker 2: is B2 because I want to talk to you, too,
• 36:42
  Speaker 2: about what they say here about the character of Israel, which, again,
• 36:46
  Speaker 2: is something that I think has been plain to us
• 36:49
  Speaker 2: for some time but I think is an interesting admission.
• 36:51
  Speaker 2: The principle number one here, they say, is the primacy
• 36:54
  Speaker 2: of Jewish identity over democracy. The state's Jewish identity takes
• 36:58
  Speaker 2: precedence over its democratic system of government. This priority is
• 37:02
  Speaker 2: intended to guarantee Israel's continued existence as a Jewish state
• 37:06
  Speaker 2: even at the cost of eroding its democratic values.
• 37:11
  Speaker 5: And, you know, we.
• 37:12
  Speaker 2: Are constantly told that one of the reasons we should
• 37:14
  Speaker 2: support Israel is because it's the only democracy in the
• 37:17
  Speaker 2: Middle East that has always been a very flawed conception. However,
• 37:21
  Speaker 2: here you have them saying explicitly, no, when there's a conflict,
• 37:25
  Speaker 2: we pick Jewish identity and sort of, you over any
• 37:32
  Speaker 2: conception of democracy. And we increasingly, I mean, that has
• 37:35
  Speaker 2: long been the case, but you increasingly see that embraced
• 37:39
  Speaker 2: as an explicit principle.
• 37:41
  Speaker 7: Absolutely.
• 37:41
  Speaker 8: And when you go back 30, 40 years and you
• 37:43
  Speaker 8: go back to the debate that existed in Israel in
• 37:46
  Speaker 8: the early 1990s, when the Labor Party was trying to
• 37:51
  Speaker 8: push for a two-state solution and trying to convince a
• 37:54
  Speaker 8: very skeptical Israeli public that that the Palestinians who have
• 37:59
  Speaker 8: been taught to believe all to be just terrorists, particularly
• 38:02
  Speaker 8: PLO and Arafat, were now partners in peace. The argument
• 38:05
  Speaker 8: that was used back then was we have to have
• 38:07
  Speaker 8: a two-state solution. Otherwise, the continuation of the occupation is
• 38:13
  Speaker 8: a threat to Israel's own democracy and it will turn
• 38:18
  Speaker 8: Israel into an apartheid state. That was the language of
• 38:21
  Speaker 8: the labor leaders back then as a warning of what
• 38:24
  Speaker 8: would come. Instead, the language you see here as if
• 38:28
  Speaker 8: this is something to embrace, that it is more important
• 38:31
  Speaker 8: to keep the idea, whatever it's defined as, of a
• 38:35
  Speaker 8: Jewish character, even if it comes at the expense of democracy,
• 38:40
  Speaker 8: even if that then, of course, leads to or already
• 38:43
  Speaker 8: has established an apartheid state.
• 38:46
  Speaker 7: Again, I think it tells you how far.
• 38:50
  Speaker 8: The Israeli paradigm and thinking has gone compared to just
• 38:54
  Speaker 8: a few decades ago. in terms of what direction Israel
• 38:58
  Speaker 8: wants to go, what it sees as a threat and
• 39:01
  Speaker 8: what it sees as something that is worthy of embracing.
• 39:04
  Speaker 8: And here we're seeing the idea of rejecting democracy as
• 39:08
  Speaker 8: something worthy of embracing. Again, if that's the direction Israel
• 39:11
  Speaker 8: wants to go, that's up to them to decide. But
• 39:14
  Speaker 8: please don't come and say that the basis of this
• 39:17
  Speaker 8: alliance is on common values and democracy with the United States.
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: Let's put this last element up here on the screen, guys.
• 39:25
  Speaker 3: I mean, something that's interesting about the paper and as
• 39:28
  Speaker 3: you kind of write in the story, there's a current
• 39:31
  Speaker 3: line that this is all Benjamin Netanyahu's fault.
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: It appears he may lose the election. This is the
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: latest poll that came out.
• 39:38
  Speaker 3: Who knows what wars and other things he might gin
• 39:40
  Speaker 3: up in the meantime, and potentially he might even have
• 39:43
  Speaker 3: some sort of an upset But do you expect anything
• 39:46
  Speaker 3: to realistically change.
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: Regardless of the political leadership of the state?
• 39:51
  Speaker 4: I do not.
• 39:52
  Speaker 8: And I think this is part of a fantasy that
• 39:54
  Speaker 8: exists in the elements in Washington, D.C., within the establishment
• 39:59
  Speaker 8: who just want to go back to October 6th.
• 40:02
  Speaker 9: Right.
• 40:02
  Speaker 8: Who have this belief that everything was just fine before then,
• 40:06
  Speaker 8: who do not recognize or reject that October 7th came
• 40:11
  Speaker 8: out of October 6th. And as a result, if they
• 40:14
  Speaker 8: just can go back to having Israel that they can
• 40:16
  Speaker 8: continue to support, whose supporters in the United States can
• 40:20
  Speaker 8: continue to give them campaign donations, and it won't be
• 40:23
  Speaker 8: a problem, no one will heckle them at a town
• 40:25
  Speaker 8: hall meeting, and they can just blame Netanyahu for everything,
• 40:30
  Speaker 8: as if everything is at his hands, rather than a
• 40:32
  Speaker 8: deep structure in Israel that has caused this, and a
• 40:37
  Speaker 8: deep structure that we have had A tremendous responsibility in
• 40:40
  Speaker 8: terms of allowing for it to be built up. Netanyahu
• 40:45
  Speaker 8: will be the fall guy. You can already see the
• 40:47
  Speaker 8: campaign being designed within the establishment to try to save
• 40:52
  Speaker 8: themselves and save their relationship with Israel by putting all
• 40:55
  Speaker 8: the blame on Netanyahu. It's not going to work because
• 40:59
  Speaker 8: at the end of the day, there's a deep structural
• 41:01
  Speaker 8: problem in Israel. And as long as you don't address it,
• 41:05
  Speaker 8: this problem will just come back. You may just have
• 41:07
  Speaker 8: a year or two in which you can pretend that
• 41:09
  Speaker 8: things have been fixed, but they won't be. And it
• 41:11
  Speaker 8: will come back and probably in a worse form than
• 41:13
  Speaker 8: we have seen so far. And if anything, this document
• 41:17
  Speaker 8: itself should give that warning. There's no mention of Netanyahu
• 41:20
  Speaker 8: in it.
• 41:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah, such a great point. I hope a lot of well-meaning,
• 41:24
  Speaker 2: open-minded liberal Zionists would read this. and see explicitly that
• 41:29
  Speaker 2: this idea you're going to go back to the 70s
• 41:31
  Speaker 2: conception of Israel or even the early 90s conception of Israel,
• 41:35
  Speaker 2: it's dead and gone. The reality is here. They are
• 41:38
  Speaker 2: choosing the apartheid state. They're choosing the ethnic cleansing. They're
• 41:41
  Speaker 2: choosing the genocide over any hope of a future democracy.
• 41:45
  Speaker 7: And perpetual destabilization of the rest of the Middle East.
• 41:48
  Speaker 5: That's exactly right.
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: Thank you very much, sir. Appreciate your time.
• 41:50
  Speaker 7: Thank you so much.
• 41:54
  Speaker 2: So as we approach the midterms, Trump was out on
• 41:56
  Speaker 2: the campaign trail making an interesting pitch.
• 41:58
  Speaker 5: Let's take a listen.
• 41:59
  Speaker 9: And watch, they'll cut all of this stuff out and
• 42:01
  Speaker 9: they'll leave the little sentence. Our country is making more
• 42:06
  Speaker 9: money than it's ever made because of the fact that
• 42:10
  Speaker 9: oil is so high.
• 42:10
  Speaker 4: Now they're going to say, isn't it terrible?
• 42:13
  Speaker 9: He talked about the fact that he doesn't care about
• 42:17
  Speaker 9: the little person, they call them. I care more about
• 42:21
  Speaker 9: the little person than I care about the big person.
• 42:23
  Speaker 9: I care about the little person like crazy. But the
• 42:26
  Speaker 9: fact is, because of the price of oil, Texas and
• 42:29
  Speaker 9: Oklahoma and North Dakota and all these places were making
• 42:34
  Speaker 9: a fortune. But I never talk about it because I'm
• 42:38
  Speaker 9: not happy until we get the actual price of the
• 42:41
  Speaker 9: oil down to where it was prior.
• 42:43
  Speaker 2: So Trump there trying to frame the high price of
• 42:45
  Speaker 2: oil as actually it's a good thing if you really
• 42:47
  Speaker 2: think about it for the United States. Does not seem
• 42:49
  Speaker 2: like voters are buying it for more on these dynamics
• 42:52
  Speaker 2: and more. We are joined, of course, by Logan Phillips
• 42:55
  Speaker 2: of Race the White House.
• 42:56
  Speaker 5: Great to see you, sir.
• 42:56
  Speaker 4: Great to see you guys, too. You know what that
• 42:58
  Speaker 4: reminds me of?
• 42:59
  Speaker 7: What?
• 43:00
  Speaker 4: The framing of the 2012 presidential election. Which is that
• 43:03
  Speaker 4: Barack Obama basically lost on who would be better for
• 43:06
  Speaker 4: the economy, but people thought that he was fighting for them.
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: Yes, that's right. I remember that.
• 43:10
  Speaker 2: Well, there is some polling we could get to later
• 43:12
  Speaker 2: about how that is not panning out for Trump. Quite
• 43:15
  Speaker 2: the opposite in terms of how people think. I'm sure
• 43:17
  Speaker 2: all of us talk about the ballroom and obsession over
• 43:19
  Speaker 2: those sorts of things. It's not helping him there. But
• 43:21
  Speaker 2: let's go and put C1 up on the screen. This
• 43:25
  Speaker 2: is a focus on the House of Representatives, which I
• 43:28
  Speaker 2: think for a while people felt like, oh, it's probably
• 43:30
  Speaker 2: going Democratic. But you've got a lot of Republicans who
• 43:33
  Speaker 2: are now conceding the fact like, OK, we are not
• 43:36
  Speaker 2: going to be able to hold on to the House.
• 43:38
  Speaker 2: We also have, if we could put this last element
• 43:41
  Speaker 2: we added this morning up on the screen, guys, from
• 43:43
  Speaker 2: Jake Sherman saying, Republicans are pulling money from any number
• 43:48
  Speaker 2: of their candidates.
• 43:49
  Speaker 5: They are in triage mode.
• 43:51
  Speaker 2: Meanwhile, Democrats, who have a lot less resources, are recognizing
• 43:55
  Speaker 2: they've got a broadening map. There are some targets on
• 43:57
  Speaker 2: there that no one would ever have thought was possible.
• 44:00
  Speaker 2: They're looking at Kentucky's 6th congressional district, which could be
• 44:02
  Speaker 2: interesting because that's one that comes in at the early
• 44:05
  Speaker 2: end of the night. So in any case, It seems
• 44:08
  Speaker 2: like the public polling is matching up with both parties'
• 44:12
  Speaker 2: private polling, at least with regard to the.
• 44:14
  Speaker 1: House of Representatives.
• 44:15
  Speaker 4: Yeah, and this is definitely a great sign for Democrats.
• 44:19
  Speaker 4: They obviously have better data, and they're spending all their
• 44:22
  Speaker 4: time on this, and so it is hardening for them.
• 44:25
  Speaker 4: But at the same time, sometimes parties do make mistakes.
• 44:28
  Speaker 4: In 2022, I actually think Democrats lost the House because—
• 44:32
  Speaker 4: They overlearned the lessons from 2020 when they polls wildly
• 44:35
  Speaker 4: overestimated Democrats and they didn't take all the polls and
• 44:39
  Speaker 4: the special elections showing they had a real chance to
• 44:41
  Speaker 4: win the House seriously enough. They started playing way too
• 44:43
  Speaker 4: much defense further down the line in terms of their
• 44:47
  Speaker 4: GOP's target list and basically conceded some of these races,
• 44:51
  Speaker 4: or at least didn't spend nearly enough in them, that
• 44:52
  Speaker 4: they could have won because they came just three seats short.
• 44:55
  Speaker 4: And a lot of those races were decided by like
• 44:58
  Speaker 4: one or two percent.
• 44:59
  Speaker 7: Wow.
• 44:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I actually remember that.
• 45:00
  Speaker 3: I know Pelosi didn't end up getting much blame at
• 45:04
  Speaker 3: the time, but there were at least some circles that
• 45:06
  Speaker 3: were like, hey, we kind of blew this whenever you actually.
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: Look at it.
• 45:09
  Speaker 3: Let's talk then a little bit about Texas, which obviously
• 45:14
  Speaker 3: the big eye is on Tallarico. But there are growing
• 45:18
  Speaker 3: signs that Abbott himself could be in genuine trouble. It
• 45:22
  Speaker 3: does appear also like Ken Paxton- His entire staff and
• 45:25
  Speaker 3: fundraising people just hate him because they leak everything he says.
• 45:29
  Speaker 3: So here for the ninth time in Breaking Point's modern
• 45:32
  Speaker 3: history is new leaked audio of Ken Paxton saying Greg
• 45:36
  Speaker 3: Abbott is struggling in his bid.
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: Let's take a listen.
• 45:39
  Speaker 7: It's the rest of the ticket. Like, you know, we
• 45:41
  Speaker 7: hear Abbott struggling, but it's that. So, yes, Abbott is struggling,
• 45:48
  Speaker 7: but he has a lot of money. She has none.
• 45:55
  Speaker 7: And if I asked 99 people in a.
• 45:57
  Speaker 3: Room, or 100 people in a room, maybe one would
• 45:59
  Speaker 3: know who he was.
• 46:02
  Speaker 7: No name ID. He's still close.
• 46:06
  Speaker 3: And he didn't have any primary that I did that
• 46:08
  Speaker 3: was brutal with all the negative ads.
• 46:10
  Speaker 7: So those are my two disadvantages.
• 46:12
  Speaker 3: One was, three, actually not having time to raise more money,
• 46:16
  Speaker 3: having the negative ads, and my opponent is well-funded and well-known.
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: That fits, Logan, with some of the latest polls.
• 46:23
  Speaker 3: Let's put, what is it, the next one up there
• 46:26
  Speaker 3: on the screen, C3, because this is from the University
• 46:28
  Speaker 3: of Texas.
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: Crystal, you said that this was the most accurate pollster,
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: I believe. In 2024 of Texas. Of 2024 of Texas.
• 46:35
  Speaker 8: U.S.
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: Senate, Tallarico, plus three. This is the big news.
• 46:39
  Speaker 3: In Yosa, plus one. Railroad Commissioner Rosenthal, plus one. Lieutenant Governor,
• 46:44
  Speaker 3: also plus three. These are all Democrats, for the record.
• 46:46
  Speaker 3: Attorney General, only the comptroller is running at the slight
• 46:51
  Speaker 3: margin of plus one. This is a great pollster, obviously
• 46:54
  Speaker 3: highly accurate in 2024. The fact that it, what it
• 46:58
  Speaker 3: appears to me is that this is a two-pronged thing.
• 47:01
  Speaker 3: Trump himself is a massive drag, and then you add
• 47:05
  Speaker 3: candidate equality on top of that, and all the stars
• 47:08
  Speaker 3: just seem to be aligning. for the Democrats in Texas. Now, obviously,
• 47:12
  Speaker 3: that is a rare poll, really, to see Hinojosa actually
• 47:15
  Speaker 3: beating Greg Abbott. But you do have Ken Max in there, who,
• 47:18
  Speaker 3: as you just said, these people have tons of money
• 47:19
  Speaker 3: and they have private data that you and I don't,
• 47:21
  Speaker 3: who are like, yeah, he's in real trouble.
• 47:23
  Speaker 4: He's got problems. There's no scattering of polls that we've
• 47:26
  Speaker 4: seen showing her actually taking the lead. So, yeah, Abbott
• 47:29
  Speaker 4: is up on average, but this is not one of
• 47:31
  Speaker 4: those races that you're going to go into Election Day
• 47:33
  Speaker 4: if it looks like it does today, with there being
• 47:36
  Speaker 4: like a one in three race one in four, maybe
• 47:38
  Speaker 4: even a 40% chance of it flipping if the turnout
• 47:41
  Speaker 4: is particularly strong for Democrats, which has never been something
• 47:44
  Speaker 4: in Abbott's career before. This guy has won every single
• 47:47
  Speaker 4: election he's ever run for by at least 10%, most
• 47:51
  Speaker 4: of them by 20%, going back, I think, to 1998. Starr,
• 47:54
  Speaker 4: are you.
• 47:54
  Speaker 2: Going to also break down that poll?
• 47:57
  Speaker 3: Sure, yeah.
• 47:57
  Speaker 2: You were showing us because it's relevant to Texas as well.
• 48:00
  Speaker 3: One of my sources in Texas, let's go ahead and
• 48:02
  Speaker 3: put this up here on the screen, guys. So this
• 48:04
  Speaker 3: is from the Barbara Jordan Research Center, one of the
• 48:07
  Speaker 3: best and most high-quality pollsters in the state. And what
• 48:10
  Speaker 3: makes this even more credible is what they did is
• 48:13
  Speaker 3: they just polled a single county. And the reason why
• 48:15
  Speaker 3: they poll this county is Fort Bend is the single
• 48:19
  Speaker 3: best county indicator of suburban and statewide trends, suburban, ex-urban,
• 48:24
  Speaker 3: extremely diverse, high levels of educational attainment, Trump and Harris
• 48:27
  Speaker 3: were tied here in 2024. The current poll that they
• 48:31
  Speaker 3: find is Tallarico plus 18, Kenyosa plus 11. If you
• 48:36
  Speaker 3: project these numbers statewide, it puts Tallarico and Abbott slightly
• 48:40
  Speaker 3: ahead within approximately two points of each other. And the
• 48:44
  Speaker 3: reason why you should take that seriously is if you
• 48:46
  Speaker 3: look at the RCP average of James Tallarico, you have
• 48:50
  Speaker 3: him at about two points. And so that's what Fort
• 48:52
  Speaker 3: Bend is currently projecting. Now, a lot of this is
• 48:55
  Speaker 3: like demographic extrapolation and more, Logan. But the thing is
• 49:00
  Speaker 3: for Greg Abbott, as you just pointed out, is if
• 49:02
  Speaker 3: things just tilt slightly in the wrong direction, that's where
• 49:06
  Speaker 3: you can.
• 49:06
  Speaker 1: See a hinyosa victory that would also happen.
• 49:09
  Speaker 3: So a complete statewide sweep of the top offices for
• 49:11
  Speaker 3: the Democrats. Yeah.
• 49:13
  Speaker 4: And a lot of people are saying it's one of
• 49:14
  Speaker 4: the most impressive races being run by any candidate. And
• 49:16
  Speaker 4: I think they have a point because it's not just
• 49:17
  Speaker 4: that she's running so close against someone who normally wouldn't.
• 49:20
  Speaker 4: wins overwhelmingly. It's that she's doing this at such a
• 49:23
  Speaker 4: massive financial disadvantage. So she's really made use of the
• 49:27
  Speaker 4: time that she has. to message as well as possible
• 49:30
  Speaker 4: to voters' concerns.
• 49:31
  Speaker 5: I've seen a.
• 49:32
  Speaker 2: Bunch of these polls of congressional districts where you're then
• 49:36
  Speaker 2: extrapolating out to, okay, they also will poll the statewide candidate.
• 49:40
  Speaker 2: And it seems oftentimes that those congressional districts or countywide
• 49:45
  Speaker 2: polls show an even larger swing towards Democrats. You know,
• 49:49
  Speaker 2: what is the history of which is typically more accurate?
• 49:52
  Speaker 2: What do you make of that fact? Have you noted
• 49:54
  Speaker 2: that dynamic as well? Because I'm seeing that fairly consistently.
• 49:57
  Speaker 4: I think it's partly the things that people decide to
• 50:00
  Speaker 4: reveal to the public because this is a huge wow
• 50:02
  Speaker 4: moment and showing this district is moving slightly less than
• 50:05
  Speaker 4: you expected or the same rate that would be statewide.
• 50:07
  Speaker 4: It's not very exciting. So I think it's probably what
• 50:09
  Speaker 4: we're hearing are the big wow factors.
• 50:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that makes sense. All right.
• 50:13
  Speaker 3: Let's keep going with Texas then and some of the
• 50:16
  Speaker 3: data center stuff. Let's put C4 up here on the screen.
• 50:19
  Speaker 3: This is fascinating just because this is a statewide thing,
• 50:22
  Speaker 3: but you can or sorry, nationwide. Here they say that
• 50:25
  Speaker 3: voters who live near data centers are now swinging hard
• 50:28
  Speaker 3: towards the Democrats.
• 50:29
  Speaker 1: So it's actual proximity of if.
• 50:32
  Speaker 3: You're under two, I don't know, some British person must
• 50:34
  Speaker 3: have made this, under two kilometers of a data center,
• 50:38
  Speaker 3: you're more likely to vote for a Democrat.
• 50:41
  Speaker 1: Oh, it's economists. Okay, all right.
• 50:43
  Speaker 8: There you go.
• 50:43
  Speaker 5: It was some British person.
• 50:45
  Speaker 3: Can I just plead to the economists, you know, look,
• 50:47
  Speaker 3: if you're going to poll us, you use our damn metrics,
• 50:49
  Speaker 3: all right?
• 50:50
  Speaker 1: Under two kilometers, what is that? I forget how many miles.
• 50:53
  Speaker 3: That is, then you're vastly more likely to vote for
• 50:56
  Speaker 3: a Democrat as opposed to over two kilometers away from
• 51:00
  Speaker 3: the data center. I know this has been a very
• 51:02
  Speaker 3: hot topic in many of these races, and it's going
• 51:04
  Speaker 3: to show. I think Michigan, obviously we're seeing that. Both
• 51:07
  Speaker 3: of the candidates coming out about data centers. You've seen
• 51:10
  Speaker 3: data centers be picked up. Dramatically, it was South Carolina,
• 51:13
  Speaker 3: I believe, that they're running some ads. Texas has been
• 51:15
  Speaker 3: a huge part of the Hinojosa campaign. Have you seen
• 51:18
  Speaker 3: anything else?
• 51:19
  Speaker 4: Yeah, Sherrod Brown is making it such a massive part
• 51:21
  Speaker 4: of his campaign. And he's been doing this for months.
• 51:24
  Speaker 4: And so there's all these voters that aren't the biggest
• 51:26
  Speaker 4: Sherrod Brown fans or Democrat fans that are like, I'd
• 51:30
  Speaker 4: rather vote for the Republican, but John Husted is all
• 51:32
  Speaker 4: in on this. Because Husted made the unfortunate mistake six
• 51:36
  Speaker 4: years ago when he was lieutenant governor. to be all
• 51:39
  Speaker 4: in on cutting red ribbons across the state on data centers.
• 51:42
  Speaker 4: It was John Kasich who actually gave them this big,
• 51:44
  Speaker 4: sweet deal that ended up being a tax break worth
• 51:48
  Speaker 4: dramatically more than the state legislator ever thought it would be.
• 51:51
  Speaker 4: So voters were upset about that. But they're also just
• 51:54
  Speaker 4: Ohio is literally like the land of data centers. And
• 51:57
  Speaker 4: so now Sherrod Brown is taking advantage of all these photos,
• 52:00
  Speaker 4: all this video he has. And he was kind of
• 52:02
  Speaker 4: like one of the first Democrats to really figure this out.
• 52:05
  Speaker 4: I know they were doing it in Virginia as well.
• 52:07
  Speaker 3: Oh, yeah.
• 52:08
  Speaker 4: But the rest of the country had Democrats had gone
• 52:10
  Speaker 4: on board. Sherrod Brown kind of led the charge on this.
• 52:12
  Speaker 4: And it's been he's had a lead for a very
• 52:14
  Speaker 4: long time in this race. And that's part of the
• 52:16
  Speaker 4: reason why.
• 52:17
  Speaker 5: Interesting.
• 52:18
  Speaker 2: Let's put C7 up on the screen, because I think
• 52:21
  Speaker 2: this is probably the single most important dynamic in this
• 52:24
  Speaker 2: entire campaign.
• 52:26
  Speaker 5: You can see here.
• 52:27
  Speaker 2: I mean, the relationship is pretty darn near one to one.
• 52:30
  Speaker 2: As gas prices rise, Trump's approval falls. You can see
• 52:35
  Speaker 2: at that moment when gas prices dip down a little bit, oh,
• 52:38
  Speaker 2: Trump's approval rating recovered a bit. And then once they
• 52:41
  Speaker 2: started climbing once again, then his approval fell once again. Obviously,
• 52:45
  Speaker 2: his approval is going to be very tightly connected to
• 52:48
  Speaker 2: Republican performance in the midterms. Gas prices have come down
• 52:51
  Speaker 2: again a little bit. And Republicans also seem to have
• 52:53
  Speaker 2: recovered a tiny bit in like the generic ballot. Trump's
• 52:56
  Speaker 2: approval as well. So, I mean, this may be ultimately
• 53:01
  Speaker 2: the metric we look back on after Election Day and
• 53:04
  Speaker 2: say this really explained the whole thing.
• 53:05
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I think it's the biggest part. And it's also
• 53:07
  Speaker 4: like he's responsible for it. And our voters shoot harsh
• 53:12
  Speaker 4: on presidents about gas prices. One thousand percent. Like, if
• 53:16
  Speaker 4: Russia invades Ukraine or it's a war we have nothing
• 53:18
  Speaker 4: to do with, it's not necessarily fair to blame the president.
• 53:20
  Speaker 4: But in this case, everyone knows it's singularly Donald Trump
• 53:25
  Speaker 4: that is causing this, and they blame him for it.
• 53:28
  Speaker 4: And you can't blame him for that.
• 53:29
  Speaker 9: Yeah.
• 53:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's so true.
• 53:30
  Speaker 3: Let's put, what is it, C8 up here on the screen.
• 53:32
  Speaker 3: You were talking a little bit about 2012.
• 53:34
  Speaker 7: Yeah.
• 53:36
  Speaker 1: Here we have some of this polling. This is by
• 53:37
  Speaker 1: the AP. They say few think that Trump prioritizes, quote,
• 53:41
  Speaker 1: a lot for the country.
• 53:42
  Speaker 3: Or people like themselves. Only 11 percent say he prioritizes
• 53:46
  Speaker 3: people like me.
• 53:46
  Speaker 1: I'd like to meet those people.
• 53:48
  Speaker 3: The majority feel he prioritizes, quote, a lot of his
• 53:51
  Speaker 3: business interests and.
• 53:52
  Speaker 5: His business interests of his people like me.
• 53:56
  Speaker 1: But it's 11%.
• 53:57
  Speaker 5: Tech oligarchs.
• 53:58
  Speaker 1: That's like 0.01% of the country. I'm like, who are
• 54:01
  Speaker 1: these other people? They're 10.9. We are the 10.9%. It's
• 54:05
  Speaker 1: business interest.
• 54:05
  Speaker 3: The business and services friends, only 56% of, 56% of
• 54:09
  Speaker 3: independents say Trump does not prioritize them at all.
• 54:11
  Speaker 1: Talk to us about that number.
• 54:13
  Speaker 3: Prioritizes people like me, feeling like, you know, cares about
• 54:16
  Speaker 3: people like me. It's always a very important number. kind
• 54:18
  Speaker 3: of squishy number, but seems to have a lot of.
• 54:21
  Speaker 1: Success in our politics.
• 54:22
  Speaker 4: Yeah, and that's been the thing that has saved Donald
• 54:23
  Speaker 4: Trump compared to other Republicans and is why he was
• 54:25
  Speaker 4: able to win in 2016. and was able to win
• 54:28
  Speaker 4: in 2024 is a lot of people, not necessarily, it
• 54:32
  Speaker 4: was like 48% or so of people really thought he
• 54:35
  Speaker 4: was fighting for them. And his actions didn't necessarily say it.
• 54:39
  Speaker 4: I think if you watched him on the stage, you
• 54:41
  Speaker 4: replaced the word I when he was talking about all
• 54:43
  Speaker 4: of his grievances. It kind of became more accurate about
• 54:46
  Speaker 4: why he was angry on the stage, but he was
• 54:47
  Speaker 4: pretty good at selling that he did care. And in reality,
• 54:51
  Speaker 4: all of his policies have been focused on helping people
• 54:53
  Speaker 4: that are wealthy. And I think the other side of
• 54:55
  Speaker 4: this too is You have to be really careful when
• 54:57
  Speaker 4: you're president of the United States about who you meet
• 54:59
  Speaker 4: with and who you feel connected to. Barack Obama had
• 55:03
  Speaker 4: his 10 letters a day, right? Every president normally has
• 55:05
  Speaker 4: their own thing. But Trump is just meeting with people
• 55:08
  Speaker 4: that either love him or that are really successful. And
• 55:12
  Speaker 4: that has completely, I think, warped his view of his
• 55:15
  Speaker 4: presidency and the American people. And so when he's talking
• 55:18
  Speaker 4: about the oil prices being high, I think it's a
• 55:20
  Speaker 4: signal about the things that he cares about.
• 55:23
  Speaker 1: That's a good point.
• 55:23
  Speaker 9: Yeah.
• 55:24
  Speaker 1: I mean, he did a lot of rallies.
• 55:25
  Speaker 3: He's done way less rallies in this president as the
• 55:28
  Speaker 3: last time. Obviously, he still had to run for reelection. He,
• 55:32
  Speaker 3: as I understand it, and I went, I had to
• 55:33
  Speaker 3: go to so many of these for my previous job.
• 55:35
  Speaker 3: He would use it as a testing ground. He would,
• 55:37
  Speaker 3: you know, like he would come up with slogans and
• 55:40
  Speaker 3: all these other things. The problem with that, though, obviously,
• 55:42
  Speaker 3: is that the dwindling amount of faithful is not representative
• 55:46
  Speaker 3: now of the rest of the country. And so you're
• 55:48
  Speaker 3: just not coming into contact with the same swath of
• 55:52
  Speaker 3: the types of people that you used to. I mean,
• 55:54
  Speaker 3: he just spends most of his time in Washington or
• 55:57
  Speaker 3: at Mar-a-Lago, as you said, surrounded by a bunch of billionaires.
• 55:59
  Speaker 5: And he's on True Social.
• 56:00
  Speaker 1: Right, which is even worse than Twitter.
• 56:01
  Speaker 2: And Twitter itself is now a right-wing echo chamber by
• 56:04
  Speaker 2: Elon Musk. So any sort of exposure he would have
• 56:07
  Speaker 2: had in the past to other opinions has been completely
• 56:09
  Speaker 2: excised from his worldview.
• 56:11
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it's the Natalie Harpification of the White House.
• 56:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's true. No, I mean, he's on Iran.
• 56:15
  Speaker 2: Absolutely true. Last piece here, let's put C9 up on
• 56:19
  Speaker 2: the screen.
• 56:20
  Speaker 5: What if the polls are all wrong?
• 56:21
  Speaker 2: So I think it's pretty clear at this point, as
• 56:23
  Speaker 2: I said, to begin this block. The Republicans and the Democrats,
• 56:28
  Speaker 2: the public polling, the private polling, it all seems to
• 56:31
  Speaker 2: agree that something relatively big is happening in favor of
• 56:34
  Speaker 2: Democrats here. However, all those polls could be wrong. We
• 56:37
  Speaker 2: have seen that in the past. That is certainly a possibility. Again,
• 56:40
  Speaker 2: they go through in this relatively tortured hand-wringing piece from
• 56:43
  Speaker 2: the Atlantic, classic stuff here, the ways that the pollsters
• 56:46
  Speaker 2: have adjusted. So after 2016 and the miss there, they said, OK, well,
• 56:50
  Speaker 2: we didn't get the non-college vote, so let's adjust for education. OK,
• 56:54
  Speaker 2: then that doesn't work either. in 2020. So then they
• 56:56
  Speaker 2: adjust again and say, okay, well, we're going to ask
• 56:58
  Speaker 2: for recalled vote. Did you vote for Trump or did
• 57:00
  Speaker 2: you vote for Biden? That again missed in 2024. And
• 57:04
  Speaker 2: so now they're going through ever more elaborate procedures to
• 57:09
  Speaker 2: try to make sure that they're capturing whatever the Republican
• 57:12
  Speaker 2: or pro-Trump sentiment would be You know, how confident should
• 57:16
  Speaker 2: we be that they've figured these things out at this point?
• 57:19
  Speaker 2: Certainly the pollsters seem very concerned, like they're certainly focused
• 57:22
  Speaker 2: on it.
• 57:22
  Speaker 5: They don't want another big miss.
• 57:24
  Speaker 2: But what is the chance that we do see another
• 57:27
  Speaker 2: significant miss where they are dramatically underestimating Republican sentiment?
• 57:31
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it's definitely real. I think if we get a
• 57:34
  Speaker 4: 2024 miss, Democrats probably still in the Senate.
• 57:36
  Speaker 9: Right.
• 57:37
  Speaker 4: If it's 2020, well, that's the worst polling miss in
• 57:39
  Speaker 4: history now. Unless you want to go back to the
• 57:42
  Speaker 4: 40s when pole stealing was kind of a new thing.
• 57:43
  Speaker 4: So I think that it's definitely real, but it appears
• 57:48
  Speaker 4: that in midterms they do a better job. And we
• 57:50
  Speaker 4: should all look at poles, even the polling averages like mine,
• 57:54
  Speaker 4: as like not quite a funhouse mirror, but an imperfect
• 57:57
  Speaker 4: mirror that is like cloudy and a little hard to see.
• 57:59
  Speaker 4: And it's going to show you roughly what's happening. It's
• 58:01
  Speaker 4: going to show you directionally what's happening, what places are competitive,
• 58:04
  Speaker 4: which party is gaining. But it's never going to be perfect,
• 58:07
  Speaker 4: and it could be off a few points either way
• 58:08
  Speaker 4: and occasionally more than that.
• 58:10
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 58:10
  Speaker 4: And so treat it as something that's useful, but don't
• 58:13
  Speaker 4: treat it as an oracle.
• 58:14
  Speaker 3: Can you speak through the scenarios? So, like, let's say
• 58:17
  Speaker 3: off a little bit, off a lot. Just speak through, like,
• 58:20
  Speaker 3: what that looks like.
• 58:21
  Speaker 4: Okay, and this is in favor of Republicans?
• 58:23
  Speaker 1: Either both, both directions.
• 58:24
  Speaker 4: Okay, if it's off a lot in favor of Democrats,
• 58:26
  Speaker 4: then they could clean up and get to, like, 58, 57,
• 58:28
  Speaker 4: 56 Senate seats.
• 58:29
  Speaker 7: That's crazy.
• 58:29
  Speaker 1: I know.
• 58:35
  Speaker 4: That's like 2008. It comes up in simulations in my model.
• 58:37
  Speaker 1: And that's literally like 2008.
• 58:38
  Speaker 4: Or like the 1980.
• 58:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah, 1980.
• 58:40
  Speaker 2: Or like 2010 for Republicans.
• 58:42
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 58:42
  Speaker 1: No, I mean, that's completely nuts. Okay, keep going.
• 58:44
  Speaker 4: Yeah. In the other direction, you know, probably the best
• 58:49
  Speaker 4: case scenario for the GOP, this is like really unlikely.
• 58:51
  Speaker 4: It's actually more unlikely than literally what I just said.
• 58:53
  Speaker 4: But Republicans don't lose anything and gain a seat in
• 58:56
  Speaker 4: Michigan or Minnesota. But like the problem for Democrats here,
• 59:01
  Speaker 4: and it's also their strength in the other direction, is
• 59:03
  Speaker 4: all these races are so close because they're overperforming so
• 59:06
  Speaker 4: much in traditionally Republican areas, which means there's a chance
• 59:09
  Speaker 4: for something tremendous historic and massive. They also could be
• 59:13
  Speaker 4: in a scenario where they do so much better nationally,
• 59:15
  Speaker 4: but it doesn't get them as much.
• 59:16
  Speaker 1: Got it. Okay. So what would that look like in
• 59:18
  Speaker 1: the Senate? It would retain Republican control?
• 59:20
  Speaker 4: It means that they would run up really close in Kansas, Iowa. Nebraska,
• 59:25
  Speaker 4: et cetera, but lose like all of them.
• 59:27
  Speaker 1: Got it.
• 59:27
  Speaker 9: Right.
• 59:27
  Speaker 1: So if you lose Kansas by two, that's shocking, but
• 59:29
  Speaker 1: you still lose.
• 59:30
  Speaker 4: It doesn't matter. And if you do that everywhere.
• 59:31
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 59:32
  Speaker 4: Because like Michigan and Minnesota are like surprisingly close given
• 59:35
  Speaker 4: what's happening in other parts of the country.
• 59:37
  Speaker 5: What do you make of that? Maine too.
• 59:39
  Speaker 7: Yeah.
• 59:39
  Speaker 5: Maine, you could attribute it.
• 59:41
  Speaker 7: Okay.
• 59:41
  Speaker 2: Susan Collins seems to be the survivor. You had the Platner,
• 59:44
  Speaker 2: Troy Jackson switch on. So it is kind of a
• 59:46
  Speaker 2: unique situation. But it is odd that Michigan and Minnesota
• 59:51
  Speaker 2: in particular, New Hampshire to a lesser extent, because, again,
• 59:54
  Speaker 2: you have Sununu, and apparently they love Sununus in the
• 59:56
  Speaker 2: state of New Hampshire. But it does seem strange that
• 59:59
  Speaker 2: you could have a situation where you're just telling me
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 2: there's a poll that has Mississippi close. Trump is going
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 2: to rally in South Carolina because they think this isn't
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 2: in the bag. And yet Michigan and Minnesota are still, like,
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 2: up for grabs.
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 4: Maybe there's not enough data centers there. I don't know.
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 4: It could be. I think, so this is my ultimate
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 4: hot take and a lot of people disagree with me. Okay.
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 4: I think after a decade plus of the country getting
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 4: more polarized every year, we might be heading in the
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 4: other direction because people hate both parties. And so they're
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 4: more open to candidate quality and unique issues. Now, Susan
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 4: Collins does this a lot. She's like Joe Manchin for Democrats,
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 4: overperforms like crazy. But in a lot of these places,
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 4: like Michigan, Democrats have a trifecta. They had a historic
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 4: year in 2022. This might be partially a pushback. In Minnesota,
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 4: you have the fraud issue. You have Michelle Tafoya, who
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 4: is almost able to run like Susan Collins because she
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 4: came out of nowhere into politics. She's a really good communicator.
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 4: She's a broadcaster. What's her deal again?
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 1: She's a sports broadcaster?
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 2: Because she wasn't a politician, then you don't have to
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 2: be weighed down by any pass votes or any of
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 2: that sort of stuff. I've been thinking the same thing, too.
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 2: A place like Kansas has been... consolidated supermajority Republican control
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 2: for so long that if people feel dissatisfied, then they're
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 2: pointing the finger in one direction.
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 5: Texas, same thing.
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 4: Exactly. In Texas, that's why all these other races are
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 4: so close, even though people don't really know the candidates.
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 2: In other states, if you've had divided government, then it's
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 2: a little more mixed. You're like, yeah, the Democrats are
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 2: in charge here and I'm not in love with what's
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 2: going on here.
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 3: Well, Minnesota, for example, Amy Klobuchar is not running a
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 3: gubernatorial race that's normal for taking over from the your
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 3: same party.
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 1: She goes, I'm inheriting a mess. You're like, what? Like
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 1: you're running, you're taking over from Tim Walz, who.
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 4: You backed as the vice president.
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 1: She's only winning by nine points.
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 4: I know nine doesn't sound like a lot, but she
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 4: wins by 20. In a Senate race, which is way
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 4: harder to do than a governor race.
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 1: And that's why, you know, I read that and I
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 1: was like, huh?
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 3: I was like, you know, people don't usually talk that
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 3: way when they're taking over from their own party, but
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 3: saying I'm inheriting a mess.
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 1: So clearly there's some dissatisfaction.
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 3: Obviously Walz decides not to run for reelection over the
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 3: fraud issue.
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 1: So I don't know.
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 3: I mean, Tafoya, like you were saying, I haven't paid
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 3: that much attention. A lot of my Republican friends are
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 3: actually pretty excited about this because it shows Flanagan only
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 3: up by 2.6. I mean, that's a very slight miss
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 3: away from a genuine flip.
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I had it a little higher, but it's still
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 4: really close. I think it's actually more competitive than Michigan,
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 4: where El-Sayed keeps gaining, despite all the outside money. And
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 4: I think that... You know, she's attacking her about the
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 4: fraud issues because she was lieutenant governor and saying it's
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 4: her fault. And also, like, if she were more tied
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 4: to ICE, and honestly, if they had Mike Lindell as
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 4: the governor nominee, this would be a lot tougher because
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 4: the ICE thing Minnesotans hated. It was just an attack
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 4: on their state. But the Republicans have avoided it because
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 4: to FOIA one, Trump's endorsement, the easy way, because she's
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 4: in broadcasting and she's attractive and she's a good talker.
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 4: So she didn't have to do the feats of loyalty
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 4: or talk about the red meat issues.
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 9: Right.
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 4: Which enabled Minnesota to have a nominee that, it's not
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 4: just that she could potentially run well, which I think
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 4: she is, it's that she didn't have to do things
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 4: that would cost her the general election.
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 1: She has no baggage. She's never taken any votes. You
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 1: don't know anything about her.
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 4: Interesting.
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 2: What an L for Mike Lindell. All he did for Trump.
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I know.
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 5: No loyalty.
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 1: Trump did come out for him, didn't he? He said
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 1: he endorsed him or something.
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 4: Yeah, that would have been a disaster. He would have
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 4: lost by like 25, I think.
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 5: But what a campaign it would have been.
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 5: It would have been like that guy.
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 2: What's his name?
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 5: Victor Marx.
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 4: I was just thinking.
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah. No, Mastriano. Mastriano is the one I'll never forget.
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 4: He was my state senator, by the way, when I
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 4: went to Gettysburg for undergrad.
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 1: Oh, really?
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 1: All right, Logan, we always appreciate your time, man. Thank you.
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 2: Thanks, guys.
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 4: Thanks, guys.