Latest / Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar / 7/2/26: Trump's Crypto Corruption Worth Billions, Vance Says US Reloading For War With Iran

Transcript

7/2/26: Trump's Crypto Corruption Worth Billions, Vance Says US Reloading For War With Iran · Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Hey guys, Saga and Crystal here.
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  Speaker 3: Good morning, Welcome to Breaking Points. I am back once
• 0:36
  Speaker 3: again in the Saga seat. You're gonna have to put
• 0:38
  Speaker 3: up with it for another day.
• 0:39
  Speaker 4: I'm so sorry, Crystal, but we'll make it worse. It's
• 0:41
  Speaker 4: a gift, really lots to get to you.
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: In the show this morning, we just got some Trump
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: financial disclosures and truly truly, truly world historic levels of
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: corruption billions of dollars that he and his family have
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: profited off of the presidency this time around. Break down
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: those numbers. Also, we got some a little bit of
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: insider trading, a little bit of catar force one, A lot,
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: lot lot going on there. And it's such a hard
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: story to cover because I feel like nearly every day
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: there is an incredibly consequential corruption story that we could
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: be covering. It's just so overwhelming that it's hard to
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: hard to adequately get into the.
• 1:19
  Speaker 4: Show with the frequency with which it truly deserves.
• 1:22
  Speaker 3: And there's a Trump quote we're going to talk about
• 1:23
  Speaker 3: in that block that explains why that is.
• 1:25
  Speaker 4: I think, yes, very good point.
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: We're also going to have a tree to PARSI join
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: us to break down these new comments from Vice President
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: jad Vance where he seems to maybe kind of give
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: up the game of what the Trump administration is really
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: up to with regard to this memo of understanding.
• 1:39
  Speaker 4: We also are taking a.
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: Look at the DSA coalition who are voting for these candidates.
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: What does it say about the future of the country,
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: the future of the party, What are the attacks. We've
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: got the numbers from Michael Lang to break down truth
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: from fiction. On that front, MTG and Tucker are thinking
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: about launching a third party effort.
• 1:58
  Speaker 4: Could that succeed? What would that look like?
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: We also have an update for you on several significant
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: members of Congress and their health status. Mitch McConnell continues
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: to be hospitalized after having been found unconscious, very scary situation.
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: Their representative Tom Keane is back after four months out.
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: He says, because of depression. So pretty interesting from a
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: guy who votes against paid time off. So we'll get
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: into all of those sorts of things.
• 2:24
  Speaker 3: Yes, and I just have to say Crystal before we
• 2:26
  Speaker 3: jump into the show. Today's bottom Bar for the listening audience,
• 2:30
  Speaker 3: it is much, I think cleaner than yesterday's bottom Bar,
• 2:33
  Speaker 3: which I believe involved mk ultra brarains.
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: Yesterday's bottom Bar was a little chaotic, but in a
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: good way. It was.
• 2:41
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it was our own sort of Operation Chaos, the
• 2:44
  Speaker 3: Operation Bottom Bar Chaos.
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: I always watched the show even when I'm not on
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: it because I learn a lot from my fellow co hosts.
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: And yeah, I was like, okay, we've got an eclectic
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: mix of topics today.
• 2:56
  Speaker 3: When one Rojas came on, he looked at the bottom
• 2:58
  Speaker 3: Bar and he's like, what the hell is going on?
• 2:59
  Speaker 5: Really?
• 3:00
  Speaker 3: You?
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: Kyle and I watched the brain segment together, which was
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: really fascinating, Which were which people? Yes, and that's sweet,
• 3:09
  Speaker 2: and that's the sort of thing we do, which anyway,
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: people seem to really respond to a lot of people
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: watched it.
• 3:13
  Speaker 4: Ye you guys hooked them in with the like.
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: Medical establishment stunned or whatever. The headline was true, but
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: it was a truly fascinating segment. So I love I
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: love you, and Ryan tend to look like a little
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: bit further afield and I like that.
• 3:24
  Speaker 6: Right man, he brings the craziest sign in particular. Yes,
• 3:27
  Speaker 6: that knew Andrew Huberman, you heard it here. First.
• 3:30
  Speaker 3: We should also mention, by the way, if you want
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• 3:38
  Speaker 2: Which you guys know you, I mean, you can't watch
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: that brain segment and then just leave it there. You
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: got to dig into the newsletter. You gotta find the Okay,
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: what's the study? What is he talking about? Let me
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: let me see a little bit more so, there's a
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  Speaker 2: free version. There's a version premium subscribers you should already
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  Speaker 2: Dot com if you're having any trouble at this point.
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  Speaker 2: But so for the response has been really great and
• 4:02
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  Speaker 4: Excited to bring that to you.
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: So all right, let's go and jump into the details
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: here that we are learning with regard to the truly
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: truly extraordinary corruption to the tune of billions of dollars
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: in a single year to Trump and then even more
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: to his viille or.
• 4:18
  Speaker 4: And I'm going to fully get into that today.
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: In any case, Trump got asked about some of these
• 4:22
  Speaker 2: new disclosures. Let's go ahead and take a listen to
• 4:25
  Speaker 2: how he is responding to some of these new revelations.
• 4:28
  Speaker 5: I don't get involved in my personal We have funds
• 4:31
  Speaker 5: that run my money. Well, I've made a lot of
• 4:35
  Speaker 5: money before I became president, and they invest my money
• 4:39
  Speaker 5: and I don't talk to them. I don't even speak
• 4:41
  Speaker 5: to him. So I have many people I don't know
• 4:43
  Speaker 5: what they call it closed accounts or something you put
• 4:45
  Speaker 5: your money in. And that said, I don't talk to them.
• 4:48
  Speaker 5: They're big institutions and they run it. But yeah, I've
• 4:52
  Speaker 5: had a great career in business. I've had a great career.
• 4:56
  Speaker 5: I don't know if I've had a better career in
• 4:58
  Speaker 5: politics or business, but I had a great career in business.
• 5:01
  Speaker 5: And you know, you saw the cash, and you report
• 5:05
  Speaker 5: the different things. And what they do is we gave it.
• 5:08
  Speaker 5: I think it's called the blind account, but they basically
• 5:11
  Speaker 5: they take it. And I purposely I never speak to
• 5:13
  Speaker 5: any of the people that run the money, but there
• 5:15
  Speaker 5: are big institutions and they invest in whatever they invest.
• 5:21
  Speaker 7: You're profiting all the predator.
• 5:23
  Speaker 5: Well you know why I'm profiting because the stock market's
• 5:25
  Speaker 5: going up. Everybody's profiting. If you have a four oh
• 5:28
  Speaker 5: one K, how's your four oh one K done? It's
• 5:32
  Speaker 5: met up eighty five percent? Thank you, President Trump.
• 5:36
  Speaker 2: There's actually so much to get into just with that
• 5:38
  Speaker 2: one club Emily. First of all, for those of you
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: who are just listening standing in the background, or his
• 5:42
  Speaker 2: two sons who are deeply involved in all of the
• 5:46
  Speaker 2: business ventures, maybe not specifically the stock trading although who knows,
• 5:50
  Speaker 2: but the crypto ventures, which are where the vast bulk
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: of the wealth has been accumulated in Trump two point
• 5:57
  Speaker 2: zero that is run by his sons. He's I don't
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: talk to the money people. They're standing right there and
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: they're your own children. Okay, so that's number one. Number two,
• 6:05
  Speaker 2: he says, oh, well, my money went up because the
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: stock market went up because I'm such a great president.
• 6:09
  Speaker 4: Everybody's benefiting.
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: Well, again, the vast bulk of the wealth that has
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: been accumulated is billions of dollars from these crypto scams,
• 6:17
  Speaker 2: which anybody out there who has crypto holdings, you tell
• 6:21
  Speaker 2: me how the crypto market has been doing, in specifically,
• 6:23
  Speaker 2: how your investments if you dare to invest in like
• 6:26
  Speaker 2: the Trump coin, how they did. You know, there's a breakdown.
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: We're going to show you in a moment. They made
• 6:30
  Speaker 2: two point three billion dollars and that all came on
• 6:34
  Speaker 2: the other side with two point three billion dollars of
• 6:36
  Speaker 2: losses many of times. You know, many of the people
• 6:38
  Speaker 2: who are suffering the most are his fans who were
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: tricked into investing in this thing and have lost basically everything.
• 6:47
  Speaker 2: So you know, this is not about how the stock
• 6:49
  Speaker 2: market went up, so I just happened to benefit. And
• 6:52
  Speaker 2: then even on the stock market piece, we're going to
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: show you thousands, thousands of trades that were made and
• 6:59
  Speaker 2: some of them timed in a very specific way, seemingly
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: seemingly coordinated with actions that were taken directly either by
• 7:07
  Speaker 2: him or by his administration.
• 7:09
  Speaker 7: Well.
• 7:09
  Speaker 3: Also, Trump famously reads several papers front to back every
• 7:12
  Speaker 3: single morning, like physical papers. He gets them printed out
• 7:15
  Speaker 3: New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, and New
• 7:17
  Speaker 3: York Post, of course, And so for him to say
• 7:20
  Speaker 3: that he's not aware of how these decisions are being made,
• 7:23
  Speaker 3: let's just hypothetically, we'll give him the benefit of the
• 7:25
  Speaker 3: doubt and say he's not talking to Don and Eric
• 7:27
  Speaker 3: about World Liberty Financial. We remember, by the way that
• 7:30
  Speaker 3: was pasted on the octagon during the UFC fight, the
• 7:32
  Speaker 3: World Liberty Financial branding was on it.
• 7:34
  Speaker 6: But let's just you give him the benefit of the
• 7:36
  Speaker 6: doubt on that one.
• 7:37
  Speaker 3: He is damn well aware of what's happening with World
• 7:40
  Speaker 3: Liberty Financial, with the investments that his son in law
• 7:43
  Speaker 3: Jared Kushner has even just a fits through the media,
• 7:46
  Speaker 3: because once again, we know he watches Fox News, and
• 7:48
  Speaker 3: we know Fox News doesn't do much coverage of this,
• 7:50
  Speaker 3: but he actually does read these papers front to back
• 7:53
  Speaker 3: every single morning. This is like a well known fact
• 7:56
  Speaker 3: reported about how he spends the early hours of his day.
• 7:59
  Speaker 3: And so for him to say that he just knows nothing,
• 8:02
  Speaker 3: that none of this would be in his head while
• 8:04
  Speaker 3: he is making governing decisions is flatly ridiculous.
• 8:07
  Speaker 2: Oh, of course, and so A two we can put
• 8:10
  Speaker 2: this up. I think he gave a much more honest
• 8:12
  Speaker 2: answer back in January to the New York Times when
• 8:14
  Speaker 2: they asked him why, having told his family not to
• 8:17
  Speaker 2: make new business deals in foreign countries during his first
• 8:19
  Speaker 2: term as president, he was permitting them to do so now,
• 8:22
  Speaker 2: He said, I found out nobody cared, I'm allowed to.
• 8:25
  Speaker 2: So I think this is you know, specifically about Kushner
• 8:29
  Speaker 2: at all making all of these foreign business deals. But
• 8:32
  Speaker 2: I think this is the true sentiment, is that he
• 8:36
  Speaker 2: has embraced with regard to his own profiteering off of
• 8:39
  Speaker 2: the presidency and you know, just incredibly corrupt dealings. The
• 8:43
  Speaker 2: crypto piece is really the locus of the bulk of
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: the wealth.
• 8:47
  Speaker 4: That has come in.
• 8:49
  Speaker 2: And I mean this is the top use case at
• 8:51
  Speaker 2: this point for cryptocurrencies at large.
• 8:54
  Speaker 4: Is like being able to.
• 8:56
  Speaker 2: Funnel corrupt to facilitate corruption, specifically for the president of
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: the United States and his family. Also further to the
• 9:05
  Speaker 2: point of whether or not, oh, he's involved in any
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: of these deals, and the New York Times had reporting
• 9:10
  Speaker 2: A eight actually put this up on the screen about
• 9:13
  Speaker 2: how he pushed specifically to grant access to this tungsten
• 9:20
  Speaker 2: mine in Kazakhstan, that his sons are a part of
• 9:25
  Speaker 2: the company that's going to be able to exploit the
• 9:27
  Speaker 2: mining in this region.
• 9:29
  Speaker 4: So he directly pushed for that.
• 9:30
  Speaker 2: So just so there's no doubt whatsoever that he is
• 9:34
  Speaker 2: directly involved in these deals that he is talking to,
• 9:38
  Speaker 2: the deals, that he is pushing things on foreign countries
• 9:41
  Speaker 2: to benefit him and his sons directly. Let's go ahead
• 9:44
  Speaker 2: and put a three up on the screen here. These
• 9:46
  Speaker 2: are some of the details that came out in this
• 9:49
  Speaker 2: financial disclosure. Trump pulled in at least two billion dollars
• 9:55
  Speaker 2: after returning to the White House. The release of a
• 9:57
  Speaker 2: mandatory financial disclosure for twenty twenty five shows the Trump
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: families holdings, particularly the president's crypto businesses, were stunningly lucrative.
• 10:05
  Speaker 2: All told, they say the president pulled in at least
• 10:07
  Speaker 2: two point two billion dollars, a figure that includes other
• 10:10
  Speaker 2: parts of his vast holdings such as real estate assets.
• 10:13
  Speaker 4: That compares to.
• 10:13
  Speaker 2: A minimum of six hundred twenty two million dollars his
• 10:16
  Speaker 2: enterprises pulled in for all of twenty twenty four before
• 10:19
  Speaker 2: he returned to the presidency. So we went from to
• 10:22
  Speaker 2: six hundred twenty two million in twenty twenty four, still
• 10:24
  Speaker 2: a lot of money to at least two point two
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: billion dollars since he returned to the presidency.
• 10:31
  Speaker 4: They say.
• 10:31
  Speaker 2: One of his biggest hauls in twenty twenty five came
• 10:35
  Speaker 2: when an investment firm tied to the United Arab Emirates
• 10:38
  Speaker 2: bought nearly half of the Trump family's main crypto company,
• 10:42
  Speaker 2: World Liberty Financial, transaction that blurred the line between foreign
• 10:45
  Speaker 2: policy and private enterprise.
• 10:47
  Speaker 4: He had to put it mildly.
• 10:48
  Speaker 2: He also collected hundreds of millions of dollars from sale
• 10:51
  Speaker 2: of his Trump meme coin and World Liberty sale of
• 10:54
  Speaker 2: its own digital tokens. The results detailed mister Trump's mandatory disclosures,
• 10:58
  Speaker 2: we at least Tuesday pulled back the kurt on his
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: business operations. His crypto ventures, the show report shows, are
• 11:04
  Speaker 2: now some of his most lucrative enterprises. Remarkable turnabout for
• 11:08
  Speaker 2: a man who wants lammed crypto as a haven for
• 11:10
  Speaker 2: drug dealers and scammers.
• 11:12
  Speaker 4: He realized, oh, I could be one.
• 11:14
  Speaker 6: Of those scammers.
• 11:15
  Speaker 4: Why shouldn't I.
• 11:15
  Speaker 2: Be involved in the scamming that's going on in crypto
• 11:18
  Speaker 2: and the World Liberty Financial transaction that happened here with
• 11:23
  Speaker 2: the UAE we cover at the time. Emily, right after that,
• 11:26
  Speaker 2: guess what, he's Oh, you know what, we can export
• 11:28
  Speaker 2: some of these highly.
• 11:29
  Speaker 4: Advanced ships that you're looking for.
• 11:31
  Speaker 2: He did something that they wanted, the UAE wanted. Shortly after,
• 11:36
  Speaker 2: this massive cash windfall comes to him through his cryptocurrency.
• 11:39
  Speaker 3: Well, they're also this is another one that gets lost
• 11:41
  Speaker 3: and I'm trying to look it up exactly what it is.
• 11:43
  Speaker 3: But the Trump organization is currently working on a big
• 11:46
  Speaker 3: development project in Doha, so it's not even just that
• 11:50
  Speaker 3: it's all tied together. And don't tell me that Donald
• 11:53
  Speaker 3: Trump doesn't know his sons are working on a development
• 11:56
  Speaker 3: project in Doha.
• 11:57
  Speaker 6: It's obviously ridiculous to say that that's not the case.
• 12:00
  Speaker 6: He has no knowledge of it.
• 12:01
  Speaker 3: And this is not I forget who said this the
• 12:03
  Speaker 3: other day, but this is I wish I could give
• 12:06
  Speaker 3: them credit for this exact quote.
• 12:07
  Speaker 6: But this is like real money.
• 12:09
  Speaker 3: People were saying, like, oh, with Hunter Biden, which we
• 12:11
  Speaker 3: covered here by the way, and I cared about a lot,
• 12:13
  Speaker 3: and yeah, we had Ken vogelon we talked about all
• 12:15
  Speaker 3: of this stuff. At the time, it was ridiculous. This
• 12:18
  Speaker 3: is billions. This is billions of dollars, and it is
• 12:21
  Speaker 3: really directly tied back into Yes, there are still I
• 12:24
  Speaker 3: think there are still very serious questions about Barisma and
• 12:26
  Speaker 3: Carlos Slim and all these deals that were happening with
• 12:29
  Speaker 3: the Bidens. This is like literally peace deals that are
• 12:32
  Speaker 3: being made in the Middle East by people who are
• 12:35
  Speaker 3: invested with the countries, their companies are invested with the
• 12:39
  Speaker 3: countries that are at the center of the negotiations.
• 12:42
  Speaker 6: There's never really been anything quite like this.
• 12:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a complete smash and grab and a sale
• 12:46
  Speaker 2: of US foreign policy. I mean that's genuinely. You can't
• 12:49
  Speaker 2: look at the picture and think of it otherwise. Glad
• 12:51
  Speaker 2: you brought up Hunter Biden. I had Claude make a
• 12:54
  Speaker 2: little chart to help us visualize just the dollar.
• 12:58
  Speaker 4: Amount differences that we're talking about.
• 13:00
  Speaker 6: Here.
• 13:00
  Speaker 4: Put a ten up on the screen.
• 13:02
  Speaker 2: So on the one side, here, that little tiny sliver
• 13:07
  Speaker 2: that you can't even see, Okay, those are the reported
• 13:11
  Speaker 2: Hunter Biden earnings from Barisma over five years. Okay, you
• 13:15
  Speaker 2: can almost see it. It's about five million dollars. You
• 13:18
  Speaker 2: can almost see it there. That was his board salary
• 13:20
  Speaker 2: from twenty fourteen to twenty nineteen, over five years time. Okay,
• 13:23
  Speaker 2: Trump on the right, this is just from one part
• 13:27
  Speaker 2: of his crypto earnings from one year one point four
• 13:31
  Speaker 2: billion dollars roughly. That was just in twenty twenty five,
• 13:36
  Speaker 2: and Claude gave us this little helpful disclosure here. Note
• 13:39
  Speaker 2: these are not the same Apple to Apple comparison. Hunter's
• 13:42
  Speaker 2: figure is personal board salary over five years per the
• 13:45
  Speaker 2: DOJ tax and diamond Trump is one year of business
• 13:47
  Speaker 2: venture income twenty twenty five Federal Financial Disclosure Writer's calculation.
• 13:51
  Speaker 2: Trump is about two hundred and eighty times larger. Both
• 13:55
  Speaker 2: figures exclude value that flowed through intermediary entity. So just
• 13:58
  Speaker 2: to give people a sense of proportion here of what
• 14:02
  Speaker 2: we are talking about. Okay, you can barely see the
• 14:05
  Speaker 2: Hunter Biden piece, and we covered it only to your point, extensively, extensively.
• 14:10
  Speaker 2: And Ryan had like an encyclopedic knowledge of all of
• 14:13
  Speaker 2: the Biden like corrupt using the name, you know, his brother,
• 14:16
  Speaker 2: all that stuff extensively. We covered it here. There was
• 14:19
  Speaker 2: a lot of right wing concern about the Biden family profiteering.
• 14:23
  Speaker 2: I think that's fine, I think that's fair. That's why
• 14:25
  Speaker 2: we covered it. You cannot even wrap your head around
• 14:29
  Speaker 2: how much more profound, how much larger, and how much
• 14:32
  Speaker 2: more impactful in terms of the way that our government
• 14:36
  Speaker 2: and our country is behaving.
• 14:38
  Speaker 4: In the world.
• 14:39
  Speaker 2: It is all tied into is Trump profiting or his
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: son's profiting? Is Kushner profiting? Is wit Cough profiting? Are
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: his kids profiting? I mean again, we are narrowly focused
• 14:50
  Speaker 2: here directly on Trump today, but the circle of graft
• 14:54
  Speaker 2: and corruption in this government, it appears to be that
• 14:57
  Speaker 2: their primary focus and the lens through which they filter
• 15:01
  Speaker 2: their decision making is how can I get a cut,
• 15:03
  Speaker 2: how can I personally enrich myself or my family off
• 15:07
  Speaker 2: of the operations of the United States federal government.
• 15:09
  Speaker 4: And there's always been corruption.
• 15:11
  Speaker 2: We have never seen anything in our history, and I
• 15:14
  Speaker 2: would dare to say, you know, in world in terms
• 15:18
  Speaker 2: of the dollar amounts in world history, you would be
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: hard pressed to find larger dollar sums flowing.
• 15:25
  Speaker 4: To the head of state and his family directly.
• 15:28
  Speaker 3: Well, if we put the chart pack up on the screen,
• 15:30
  Speaker 3: just briefly, I want to say, if you put together
• 15:32
  Speaker 3: all of the different Hunter Biden deals that we learned
• 15:34
  Speaker 3: about from the laptop and leaks and the like, it
• 15:37
  Speaker 3: would probably not even get to that two hundred million
• 15:39
  Speaker 3: dollar mark, which is the first part of the chart
• 15:42
  Speaker 3: for the listening audience. So we're looking at one point
• 15:45
  Speaker 3: four billion. But if this is just this is barisma.
• 15:47
  Speaker 3: But if you put together like Romania, Mexico, all of
• 15:50
  Speaker 3: these other countries that Hunter Biden was trying to cut
• 15:52
  Speaker 3: deals with, which by the way, we're involving influence pedaling,
• 15:56
  Speaker 3: where he was basically offering access and so was his
• 16:00
  Speaker 3: hire family and Frank Biden, James Biden, Valerie Biden Owen,
• 16:04
  Speaker 3: that was happening, but the scale would still be and
• 16:06
  Speaker 3: you could put it all together. It would be tough
• 16:08
  Speaker 3: because they were doing so many random deals, but the
• 16:10
  Speaker 3: scale would still be wildly disproportionate between the Trump crypto
• 16:15
  Speaker 3: grift and the Biden grift overall. And in fact, the
• 16:19
  Speaker 3: crypto grift isn't it's just the tip of the iceberg,
• 16:21
  Speaker 3: because they're also doing all these investment deals and they
• 16:24
  Speaker 3: also involved Steve Whitcough, Howard Lutnick, and others. So the
• 16:28
  Speaker 3: influence peddling does I think a real moral injury to
• 16:31
  Speaker 3: the country. There's a some kernel of truth in what
• 16:34
  Speaker 3: Trump says when he claims nobody cares, he learned that
• 16:37
  Speaker 3: nobody cared. I do think some of that comes from
• 16:40
  Speaker 3: much of the like mainstream quote unquote mainstream media downplaying
• 16:44
  Speaker 3: some of the Biden stuff.
• 16:45
  Speaker 6: We're just not covering it as a.
• 16:47
  Speaker 4: Now I don't buy that.
• 16:48
  Speaker 6: Let's do it. Let's do it.
• 16:49
  Speaker 2: I mean, look, at a certain point, you just have
• 16:51
  Speaker 2: to say that his graft is so overwhelming that, first
• 16:56
  Speaker 2: of all, it makes it very difficult to focus on it.
• 16:59
  Speaker 2: And that is part of their strategy with this administration overall,
• 17:02
  Speaker 2: was you know, at the beginning, we're going to have
• 17:04
  Speaker 2: all of these executive orders and do all of these
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: outrageous things, but they're going to be so much and
• 17:08
  Speaker 2: so insane that you can't keep track of it.
• 17:10
  Speaker 4: It's the same thing with the graft. So look, you know,
• 17:13
  Speaker 4: we can talk about.
• 17:13
  Speaker 2: Mainstream media failures all day long, but the bottom line
• 17:16
  Speaker 2: is they have really given Trump a lot kind of
• 17:20
  Speaker 2: a pass. They grade him on a curve in a
• 17:22
  Speaker 2: lot of regards. There was way more focus on hunters
• 17:26
  Speaker 2: paintings and Hunters this and Hunters that than there are
• 17:28
  Speaker 2: on these corrupt dealings. It's just sort of accepted as
• 17:31
  Speaker 2: this is like, this is just how he operates and
• 17:34
  Speaker 2: what he does. So, you know, I don't I think
• 17:37
  Speaker 2: they're I don't think that they are primarily the I
• 17:41
  Speaker 2: don't think the fact that they let the Bidens off
• 17:43
  Speaker 2: the hook has anything to do with, you know, what
• 17:46
  Speaker 2: we see in the coverage today. I think that the
• 17:49
  Speaker 2: Trump Trump realized he can get away with it because
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: he can just do so much and you know, and
• 17:55
  Speaker 2: not just here, create so much controversy throughout the entire
• 17:59
  Speaker 2: country and the entire globe, and start wars and kidnap
• 18:02
  Speaker 2: foreign leaders that people aren't going to be able to
• 18:04
  Speaker 2: focus on this. And if you wanted to point anywhere
• 18:07
  Speaker 2: to blame, you have the Supreme Court saying and you
• 18:09
  Speaker 2: can do what you want. There's going to be no
• 18:11
  Speaker 2: there's gonna be no consequences.
• 18:12
  Speaker 4: So it's off to the races.
• 18:14
  Speaker 3: Well, and I think the Biden stuff, I mean these
• 18:15
  Speaker 3: are to be clear, I think they're completely on different levels.
• 18:18
  Speaker 3: I think the Biden stuff was also so spread out
• 18:20
  Speaker 3: and scattered that it was hard for anybody to focus.
• 18:22
  Speaker 6: On in LATO.
• 18:23
  Speaker 2: It's also be let's also be clear, like we're talking
• 18:25
  Speaker 2: about Hunter Biden, okay.
• 18:27
  Speaker 6: And bid Joe Biden.
• 18:29
  Speaker 4: The only thing we have on him is like ten
• 18:30
  Speaker 4: percent of the big guy.
• 18:32
  Speaker 2: That's the most that we ever got on any direct
• 18:34
  Speaker 2: Joe Biden corruption. He didn't even he didn't even own
• 18:37
  Speaker 2: stocks as president of the United States. So you know,
• 18:41
  Speaker 2: it's also very different when you're talking about Trump himself
• 18:45
  Speaker 2: versus you know, Hunter and Bearisma and these sort of
• 18:48
  Speaker 2: like things that are tangential. They're related, and obviously I
• 18:52
  Speaker 2: covered it now at this point, I honestly regret covering
• 18:55
  Speaker 2: it as much as I did because it is of
• 18:56
  Speaker 2: such a.
• 18:56
  Speaker 4: Different scale and proportion.
• 18:58
  Speaker 2: Nancy Pelosi's stock training got nothing on what Trump has
• 19:01
  Speaker 2: been up to.
• 19:01
  Speaker 3: Well, there was melding of the Biden finances in like
• 19:03
  Speaker 3: vague ways, but you're completely correct.
• 19:05
  Speaker 6: I think that's absolutely true.
• 19:06
  Speaker 3: What I was saying about Trump's point on this kernel
• 19:08
  Speaker 3: of truth being that he learns nobody cares. I think
• 19:10
  Speaker 3: what happened is that institutional trust in the country just
• 19:12
  Speaker 3: completely cratered, and so people put all of this beside
• 19:16
  Speaker 3: them now and they're like, yeah, you guys are all garbage.
• 19:18
  Speaker 3: And Trump has this unique insight into the American public
• 19:21
  Speaker 3: realizing that politicians are no longer seen in it. There's
• 19:25
  Speaker 3: no veneer of moral benefit of the doubt that people
• 19:29
  Speaker 3: assigned to their politicians and ascribed to politicians anymore. And
• 19:32
  Speaker 3: so he's picked up on that and he realizes that, Nope,
• 19:36
  Speaker 3: it doesn't matter.
• 19:37
  Speaker 6: There is no.
• 19:37
  Speaker 3: Longer this pretense that our politicians are great human beings,
• 19:41
  Speaker 3: and so many politicians still cling to that, this idea
• 19:43
  Speaker 3: that like, well, I'm at an elected office, like I
• 19:46
  Speaker 3: have the dignity of the office attached to me, How
• 19:48
  Speaker 3: dare you question me on X, Y or Z. And
• 19:50
  Speaker 3: Trump's like, nobody cares about that. So I'm going to
• 19:53
  Speaker 3: do whatever the hell I want to do because it's
• 19:54
  Speaker 3: twenty twenty six and people's expectations are in the basement.
• 19:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah, certainly, although I will say I think that there
• 20:03
  Speaker 2: is a rising stench around this IIH rising sense that
• 20:07
  Speaker 2: this is this is of a different nature and kind,
• 20:10
  Speaker 2: and the size and scope of it is so different
• 20:13
  Speaker 2: from what we've seen in the past. And I've even
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: seen some sort of more like right wing people being like, oh,
• 20:18
  Speaker 2: if you want to have socialists sweep the entire country, yep,
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: this financial disclosure is how you're going to help to
• 20:24
  Speaker 2: make that happen.
• 20:25
  Speaker 6: Ye, the last Night thing.
• 20:27
  Speaker 3: It's exactly how that happens. I mean, And you could
• 20:29
  Speaker 3: go back to the first Gilded Age because we're obviously
• 20:31
  Speaker 3: in the second Gilded Age now and see certain like
• 20:34
  Speaker 3: capitalists panicking about exactly that. What did Lenin say, the
• 20:37
  Speaker 3: capitalists would give us the rope to hang them with,
• 20:40
  Speaker 3: Like that's happening right now. How could you possibly create
• 20:43
  Speaker 3: less trust in the financial system? Milton Friedman actually talked
• 20:47
  Speaker 3: about this too, than doing conducting yourself like this, Yes,
• 20:50
  Speaker 3: you could not possibly do it. By the way, World
• 20:52
  Speaker 3: Liberty Financial has a stable coin. Donald Trump is the
• 20:55
  Speaker 3: President of the United States, Howard Lutnik is the Commerce Secretary.
• 20:59
  Speaker 6: Scott Best is a tresurey secretary.
• 21:01
  Speaker 3: It's in and of itself, like it's an inherent level
• 21:03
  Speaker 3: of corruption that is egregious.
• 21:05
  Speaker 6: There's nothing like it.
• 21:09
  Speaker 2: Put a four up on the screen. Reuter's track down
• 21:11
  Speaker 2: some of the specifics regarding the two point three billion
• 21:15
  Speaker 2: dollars that Trump threw out all of his crypto ventures
• 21:19
  Speaker 2: appears to have earned. This was before the financial disclosions
• 21:22
  Speaker 2: came out. But this really gave a honestly heartbreaking look
• 21:26
  Speaker 2: at some of the people who were huge Trump fans
• 21:29
  Speaker 2: who invested like way.
• 21:31
  Speaker 4: More of their money.
• 21:31
  Speaker 2: Well, you should have given him a single dollar, but
• 21:34
  Speaker 2: really over extended themselves because they believed in him. Oh well,
• 21:38
  Speaker 2: Trump has his name on this shit coin, it can't
• 21:40
  Speaker 2: possibly be a scam.
• 21:42
  Speaker 4: And it was.
• 21:42
  Speaker 2: It was a rug pull, it was a pump and dump,
• 21:44
  Speaker 2: and now they're left with holdings that are basically completely
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: you know, I've gone virtually to zero.
• 21:52
  Speaker 4: And one of the ways that you can.
• 21:54
  Speaker 2: Know something as a scam is basically like, okay, is
• 21:56
  Speaker 2: there someone who's going to profit off of this regardless
• 21:59
  Speaker 2: of weather as.
• 22:00
  Speaker 4: Well or not, and that someone is Trump.
• 22:03
  Speaker 2: We can put the We've got a chart from a
• 22:07
  Speaker 2: five that we can put up on the screen that
• 22:09
  Speaker 2: shows you that as Trump and his family were gaining
• 22:13
  Speaker 2: here from these various crypto ventures. And this was put
• 22:16
  Speaker 2: out by Steve ratten compiled and put out by Steve Rattner,
• 22:18
  Speaker 2: by the way, based on the Reuter's numbers from that
• 22:20
  Speaker 2: report where it's just showing you so with World Liberty
• 22:23
  Speaker 2: Financial he has profited one point one billion dollars he
• 22:27
  Speaker 2: and his family, the investors have lost six hundred and
• 22:30
  Speaker 2: seventy four million on the meme coin, he has profited
• 22:34
  Speaker 2: six hundred and sixteen million. The investors, many of them
• 22:38
  Speaker 2: again were sort of rank and file Trump supporters, have
• 22:42
  Speaker 2: lost seven hundred and eleven million on this al five
• 22:46
  Speaker 2: sigma thing, which I didn't even know about. This one,
• 22:49
  Speaker 2: they profited five hundred and thirty eight million dollars. Investors
• 22:53
  Speaker 2: lost six hundred and seventy five million. And then on
• 22:56
  Speaker 2: American Bitcoin they haven't haven't gotten too much down of
• 22:59
  Speaker 2: this one, only a mirror Emily nineteen million investor losses
• 23:03
  Speaker 2: two hundred and sixteen million dollars. So these were all
• 23:08
  Speaker 2: set up so that no matter what happens, no matter
• 23:11
  Speaker 2: how much of the American people's money got scammed and
• 23:17
  Speaker 2: flittered away, that it would all flow into his pockets.
• 23:22
  Speaker 2: Is truly truly astonishing to see this. And the other
• 23:26
  Speaker 2: thing that was really sad in this article is there
• 23:29
  Speaker 2: were some of these people who were like, I am
• 23:31
  Speaker 2: an idiot, I got scammed. I can't believe, like it's
• 23:33
  Speaker 2: so different than I thought. And there were some people
• 23:36
  Speaker 2: who were like, I don't blame him that I lost
• 23:38
  Speaker 2: my entire life savings investing in his shit coin, and
• 23:41
  Speaker 2: somehow managed to still be like I think it's because
• 23:44
  Speaker 2: the Democrats are like shorting it, and so they have
• 23:48
  Speaker 2: they're the reason that it collapsed.
• 23:50
  Speaker 3: The reflecting pool, the metaphor of the reflecting pool, it's
• 23:52
  Speaker 3: it's not working because Democrats are slashing it with knives.
• 23:55
  Speaker 2: Yes, exactly, that was the you know in their head,
• 23:57
  Speaker 2: Oh it can be his fault. It has the Democrats
• 23:59
  Speaker 2: have to have on this somehow, and so they invented
• 24:01
  Speaker 2: these wild theories of what was going on and why
• 24:04
  Speaker 2: this thing went to zero.
• 24:05
  Speaker 3: And that also is like you can you can follow
• 24:08
  Speaker 3: the logic of a person who doesn't trust anyone anymore
• 24:12
  Speaker 3: coming to a conclusion like that, Like, obviously I think
• 24:14
  Speaker 3: it's completely wrong, but I understand with this is that
• 24:16
  Speaker 3: it gets back to institutional trust. And to your point
• 24:18
  Speaker 3: about the politics of Trump's corruption, I don't think Republicans
• 24:21
  Speaker 3: have any idea what's waiting for them on the other
• 24:23
  Speaker 3: side of these midterms. I think they're starting to see
• 24:26
  Speaker 3: it creep into the campaigns as general elections get closer
• 24:29
  Speaker 3: and closer and the primaries are are settled.
• 24:32
  Speaker 6: Because in the.
• 24:32
  Speaker 3: First Trump administration, yes there was grift. There was there
• 24:36
  Speaker 3: was Kushner grift, no question about it. There was Trump
• 24:38
  Speaker 3: organization grift, no question about it. The hotel was here
• 24:41
  Speaker 3: in the middle of the city, like two blocks away
• 24:43
  Speaker 3: from the White House. I saw it, but it was
• 24:45
  Speaker 3: not like what's happening now, obviously, And also before the pandemic,
• 24:50
  Speaker 3: the Trump economy was better and we were not in
• 24:53
  Speaker 3: a hot war like well, I guess they would say
• 24:55
  Speaker 3: we're technically not in a hot war, but I think
• 24:56
  Speaker 3: we all know the answers to that question. We were
• 24:58
  Speaker 3: in clearly a hot conflot bombing around for weeks and
• 25:01
  Speaker 3: gas prices were going through the roof, and so I
• 25:03
  Speaker 3: don't think they're prepared for this scale of Trump corruption
• 25:07
  Speaker 3: in a bad economy, because I think when you're in
• 25:10
  Speaker 3: a bad economy, Trump's point about whether or not people
• 25:12
  Speaker 3: care changes, people do care when the economy is really bad,
• 25:16
  Speaker 3: and you claim to be a populist champion.
• 25:19
  Speaker 4: And so it's just so blatant, you know, it's very shameless. Yeah.
• 25:24
  Speaker 2: Well, and the other thing I would say is I'm
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: not going to play this club because the audio is
• 25:28
  Speaker 2: kind of shitty and it looks like it's from nineteen
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: ninety six. But you know, to your point about, okay,
• 25:32
  Speaker 2: what are the meta reasons that this.
• 25:34
  Speaker 4: Is allowed to persist, et cetera.
• 25:36
  Speaker 2: Is Republicans they never you know, Republicans in Congress never cared.
• 25:43
  Speaker 2: They never. They're they're happy to you know how many
• 25:45
  Speaker 2: hearings we have about Biden and pull up whatever. But
• 25:48
  Speaker 2: when it comes to Trump, when they get asked about it, go, oh,
• 25:51
  Speaker 2: I didn't see that report. I didn't read about that. Well,
• 25:54
  Speaker 2: I don't do those sorts of things, but I don't know.
• 25:55
  Speaker 2: I'll have to get back to you with regard to Trump, like,
• 25:58
  Speaker 2: there's just zero, zero moral accountability when it comes to
• 26:02
  Speaker 2: Trump for the Republican Party, and that's the place where
• 26:05
  Speaker 2: it really matters, because Trump doesn't care if some you know,
• 26:08
  Speaker 2: some lib like me is mad about his corruption, it
• 26:11
  Speaker 2: doesn't matter to him. What would matter is if you
• 26:14
  Speaker 2: had some you know, some pushback from within his own
• 26:18
  Speaker 2: side that would be consequential, that would make him much
• 26:21
  Speaker 2: more upset, that would act as much more of an
• 26:24
  Speaker 2: effective check potentially on what he's doing here. But because
• 26:29
  Speaker 2: so much has been you know, they didn't say a
• 26:32
  Speaker 2: word about it in the first administration, where there was
• 26:34
  Speaker 2: truly at that time, eye popping levels of corruption and
• 26:38
  Speaker 2: you know, which was astonishing. This dwarfs that by orders
• 26:43
  Speaker 2: of magnitude, and not on one of them has a
• 26:46
  Speaker 2: thing to say about it. So I think that's an
• 26:48
  Speaker 2: important dynamic here too, is just the total lack of
• 26:52
  Speaker 2: any sort of moral standards or standards with regard to
• 26:55
  Speaker 2: corruption or consistency on the issue coming from his own side.
• 26:58
  Speaker 3: Well, I wonder actually if it matters at all to
• 27:02
  Speaker 3: him whether Republicans turn on this particular issue, which, to
• 27:05
  Speaker 3: be clear, I don't think they will. But you know,
• 27:07
  Speaker 3: Democrats can subpoena and there will be damaging things that
• 27:10
  Speaker 3: come out of subpoenas if they take back the House
• 27:12
  Speaker 3: and the Senate, and there will probably be impeachment proceedings
• 27:14
  Speaker 3: and the like, and subpoenas can do. Yeah, that can
• 27:17
  Speaker 3: do real damage. It can expose more of the problem.
• 27:20
  Speaker 3: It can expose them potentially to liability. He'll do whatever,
• 27:23
  Speaker 3: pardon preemptive pardons at the end of his term probably
• 27:26
  Speaker 3: as well. But all that is to say, I don't
• 27:29
  Speaker 3: To me, it almost looks like a race to the
• 27:31
  Speaker 3: end of the administration because he's not going to be
• 27:34
  Speaker 3: on the ballot again, So make as much money as
• 27:36
  Speaker 3: you can in the next few years. Doesn't really matter
• 27:39
  Speaker 3: for Republicans start to turn on him at this point. Yeah,
• 27:42
  Speaker 3: just rake it all in as quickly as possible.
• 27:45
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 27:45
  Speaker 2: I mean there's a tie in here psychologically with like
• 27:49
  Speaker 2: the way that the tech oligarchs behave too. And I
• 27:52
  Speaker 2: don't think anyone has done a better job of describing
• 27:55
  Speaker 2: this dynamic than Naomi Klein, who coined it and times fascism,
• 27:59
  Speaker 2: where it's basically like they have these apocalyptic views of
• 28:04
  Speaker 2: where human civilization is going. Partly they have those apocalyptic
• 28:08
  Speaker 2: views because they are the ones that, between the climate
• 28:11
  Speaker 2: crisis but specifically through AI development, are trying to push
• 28:15
  Speaker 2: us over some sort of a cliff here, and so
• 28:18
  Speaker 2: it is just like a smash and grab. It's like
• 28:21
  Speaker 2: we what resources can we suck up immediately? What sort
• 28:25
  Speaker 2: of cash can we you know, accumulate, What kind of
• 28:27
  Speaker 2: wealth can we hoard so that when things go really
• 28:32
  Speaker 2: bad that we have enough money and power to be
• 28:36
  Speaker 2: able to protect ourselves from the fallout from In many times,
• 28:40
  Speaker 2: they're in many ways their own actions, and so I
• 28:42
  Speaker 2: think that is part of the mentality here too, is
• 28:45
  Speaker 2: like and you know Trump comes in also with all
• 28:47
  Speaker 2: of this, like, oh, they tried to throw me in prison,
• 28:49
  Speaker 2: and they failed. And you know, now I'm just going
• 28:51
  Speaker 2: to do whatever the hell I want to do, and
• 28:53
  Speaker 2: there's going to be no check and no limit on me,
• 28:56
  Speaker 2: and you know and what I'm up to.
• 28:58
  Speaker 4: And so I think that comes.
• 28:59
  Speaker 3: Through because you can report it as much you want.
• 29:02
  Speaker 3: You could supeena me as much as you want. A.
• 29:03
  Speaker 3: I can pardon, but B this is the Trump mentality. B.
• 29:06
  Speaker 3: The media could cover this every day. It could be
• 29:08
  Speaker 3: the headline every single day. And because people don't have
• 29:11
  Speaker 3: trust in the media anymore, like it doesn't matter. It's
• 29:14
  Speaker 3: not like a big headline story in New York Times
• 29:17
  Speaker 3: every day would have taken down the Clintons, or would
• 29:19
  Speaker 3: have taken down maybe like George W.
• 29:21
  Speaker 6: Bush of his financial intaglements.
• 29:23
  Speaker 3: It was a different time in the country, that was
• 29:24
  Speaker 3: a different level of institutional trust. But now that's all
• 29:26
  Speaker 3: burned up. So here I am. I'm doing whatever I
• 29:29
  Speaker 3: want to do.
• 29:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah, no, he absolutely is. So let's do a couple
• 29:34
  Speaker 2: more year. We've got a nine the Qatar Force one,
• 29:39
  Speaker 2: the plane that was gifted to him to him, by
• 29:42
  Speaker 2: the way, not to the government, to Trump himself, that
• 29:46
  Speaker 2: has been rehapped into the new Air Force one.
• 29:49
  Speaker 6: To his library. Right, it's a donation to the library.
• 29:51
  Speaker 2: Yes, that's right exactly, So he gets to maintain control
• 29:54
  Speaker 2: over it in perpetuity. I'm sure that you know, has
• 29:58
  Speaker 2: no impact on his decision making whatsoever. Anyway, that has
• 30:01
  Speaker 2: been retro fitted using taxpayer dollars. By the way, and
• 30:05
  Speaker 2: that is now is now I guess, taking its maiden voyage,
• 30:10
  Speaker 2: we can put a eleven up on the screen. With
• 30:13
  Speaker 2: regard to the stock trading, twenty two thousand stock transactions
• 30:19
  Speaker 2: made in twenty twenty five, according to a Financial Times analysis,
• 30:22
  Speaker 2: is immediate predecessor. Joe Biden made thirteen transactions over four years.
• 30:27
  Speaker 2: In Trump's first term. The whole first term he made
• 30:30
  Speaker 2: five hundred and seventeen, which was I guess a significant amount,
• 30:33
  Speaker 2: but nowhere near twenty two thousand in a single year.
• 30:36
  Speaker 2: And this year already we've seen six thousand, one hundred.
• 30:41
  Speaker 2: In addition, put a six up on the screen. So
• 30:44
  Speaker 2: what is what's he doing in those in those stock trades?
• 30:47
  Speaker 2: You know, what's what? To what purpose? What sort of
• 30:49
  Speaker 2: companies is he investing in?
• 30:51
  Speaker 6: Here?
• 30:51
  Speaker 2: Well, his latest financial disclosures revealing invested about five hundred
• 30:55
  Speaker 2: thousand dollars in Abbot Laboratories. Abbot Laboratories is one of
• 31:00
  Speaker 2: the primary baby formula manufacturers in the country, responsible for
• 31:05
  Speaker 2: a large portion of the market. You guys will probably
• 31:07
  Speaker 2: remember when there was you know, a lot of problems
• 31:11
  Speaker 2: with the formula coming from Habit Laboratories. They had to
• 31:13
  Speaker 2: shut some of their manufacturing down. It created a baby
• 31:16
  Speaker 2: formula shortage that was a major major issue. The Justice
• 31:20
  Speaker 2: Department had spent years investigating them over how this is
• 31:23
  Speaker 2: for more perfect union. They managed a baby formula facility
• 31:26
  Speaker 2: where potentially deadly bacteria was discovered and suspected of causing
• 31:30
  Speaker 2: infant deaths. Well, guess what just after Trump invested in
• 31:36
  Speaker 2: Abbott Laboratories. Two months later, the Trump DOJ dropped that investigation.
• 31:41
  Speaker 2: And you know, and you would think Trump would be
• 31:44
  Speaker 2: in a position to profit off of that sin, see
• 31:46
  Speaker 2: how it had significant holdings in their stock. This is
• 31:50
  Speaker 2: one of many examples that have been tracked of the
• 31:54
  Speaker 2: type of corrupt dealings, potentially potential insider trading potentially that
• 32:00
  Speaker 2: was going on here with these twenty two thousand stock
• 32:03
  Speaker 2: Transactionally put a twelve up on the screen that he
• 32:05
  Speaker 2: also invested in Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, Nvidia, Broadcom, Meta as
• 32:14
  Speaker 2: much as five million dollars each in those in July
• 32:17
  Speaker 2: of twenty twenty five, and on that same day that
• 32:20
  Speaker 2: he invested in each of these, he unveiled his AI
• 32:24
  Speaker 2: action Plan which could help each of those companies. Prices
• 32:28
  Speaker 2: for most of those stocks have since increased, so just
• 32:31
  Speaker 2: on every level, in every way. And these are just
• 32:34
  Speaker 2: the ones Emily two that people can kind of like
• 32:36
  Speaker 2: trackwah and follow. So much of this is completely opaque
• 32:40
  Speaker 2: that we have no idea, but we see all of
• 32:42
  Speaker 2: this very likely insider trading that's happening, and it could
• 32:45
  Speaker 2: easily be the president himself, his sons, his family, et cetera.
• 32:49
  Speaker 2: We just we don't know. But as we covered, as
• 32:53
  Speaker 2: we covered last time on Tuesday, if the government was
• 32:56
  Speaker 2: interested in some of these blatant insider trading issues, they
• 32:59
  Speaker 2: could investigate, but they don't, which does raise some questions
• 33:02
  Speaker 2: over why are they uninterested in investigating those sorts of things.
• 33:05
  Speaker 3: Well, I hope people also took a look yesterday and
• 33:08
  Speaker 3: you can read about this on Matt Stoller's newsletter Big
• 33:12
  Speaker 3: about the Justice Apartment's settlement with these big egg companies
• 33:15
  Speaker 3: where they're getting like three million dollar fines for naked
• 33:19
  Speaker 3: naked corruption. They have them dead to rights in these
• 33:22
  Speaker 3: transcripts of like phone calls and emails where you see
• 33:24
  Speaker 3: them colluding to drive up bag prices which caused so
• 33:29
  Speaker 3: much financial stress for average American families for a really
• 33:32
  Speaker 3: long time. You can see on a chart that Stolar
• 33:34
  Speaker 3: posted exactly when the Justice Department investigation is announced, the
• 33:38
  Speaker 3: prices start to go down. That's not even the biggest
• 33:40
  Speaker 3: piece of evidence, so people should check that out as well.
• 33:42
  Speaker 3: The Trump Justice Department settled with them. They didn't have
• 33:44
  Speaker 3: to admit they did anything wrong, which obviously prevents certain
• 33:48
  Speaker 3: future legal actions. And it's a great deal for them
• 33:51
  Speaker 3: because they have to donate eggs and pay like three
• 33:54
  Speaker 3: million dollar fines after they raked in tons and tons
• 33:56
  Speaker 3: of money. This isn't directly tied back to like Trump's investments.
• 33:59
  Speaker 8: It may be.
• 33:59
  Speaker 3: We don't know yet because we can't necessarily trace all
• 34:02
  Speaker 3: of it. But this is just I'm a pessimist. If
• 34:05
  Speaker 3: there is an optimistic take, it's that he's pushing it
• 34:08
  Speaker 3: to such an extreme that at some point it's not
• 34:11
  Speaker 3: like Pelosi's right, It's not just like who else was
• 34:15
  Speaker 3: trading like Marjorie Taylor Green was trading while she was
• 34:17
  Speaker 3: in office, Like, it's not like that. It's something on
• 34:19
  Speaker 3: such a different scale that maybe what comes after Trump
• 34:23
  Speaker 3: is finally you get a ban on congressional stock trading,
• 34:25
  Speaker 3: Finally you get some prohibitions on politicians doing this because
• 34:32
  Speaker 3: you can't possibly extricate their professional knowledge from what they're
• 34:37
  Speaker 3: doing with these track or with these investments.
• 34:40
  Speaker 6: You can't do it.
• 34:41
  Speaker 3: So if there is an optimistic case to be made,
• 34:43
  Speaker 3: I'm not optimistic about the optimistic case, but if there
• 34:45
  Speaker 3: is one, this has been pushed to such a logical extreme.
• 34:48
  Speaker 3: The economy is bad, there's a crypto bubble. Very clearly,
• 34:51
  Speaker 3: there's a crypto bubble that could pop, and what can
• 34:54
  Speaker 3: come after that is really dangerous. It could be potentially violent.
• 34:57
  Speaker 3: Not to be a fear mongerer, but I think we
• 35:00
  Speaker 3: all understand how these cycles work and how they worked
• 35:03
  Speaker 3: in the twentieth century.
• 35:04
  Speaker 6: So we'll see.
• 35:05
  Speaker 3: But if you want to feel hopeful, maybe that's the
• 35:08
  Speaker 3: dose of optimism.
• 35:10
  Speaker 2: Last two things that I wanted to highlight here, one
• 35:14
  Speaker 2: in particular, so in the financial disclosure, it also shows
• 35:17
  Speaker 2: him receiving eighty six point five million dollars from settlements
• 35:20
  Speaker 2: in five separate lawsuits against ABC, CBS, YouTube, Meta, and X.
• 35:26
  Speaker 2: You know, eighty six point five million is I guess,
• 35:28
  Speaker 2: pennies when you compare it to the billions he's.
• 35:30
  Speaker 4: Getting from Crypto.
• 35:32
  Speaker 2: But I think it shows you the way that he
• 35:34
  Speaker 2: is systematically profiting off of every aspect of his presidency
• 35:38
  Speaker 2: that he possibly can, including his ability to weaponize the
• 35:42
  Speaker 2: federal government in order to bully companies into submission. All
• 35:47
  Speaker 2: or most of these cases would have been, I mean
• 35:51
  Speaker 2: laughable on their face. Many Oh, you edited an interview
• 35:54
  Speaker 2: in a way that I didn't like. But all of
• 35:57
  Speaker 2: these companies decided to settle because they were few full
• 36:00
  Speaker 2: of the consequences of continuing to push forward in these lawsuits.
• 36:04
  Speaker 2: So they just decided easier and better to effectively pay
• 36:08
  Speaker 2: off the president and not have to worry about it.
• 36:11
  Speaker 2: So you can see that as well in terms of
• 36:14
  Speaker 2: the way that he's operated and you know, his personalized
• 36:17
  Speaker 2: view of the presidency, the way that he uses the
• 36:19
  Speaker 2: whole of government to advance not the interest of the
• 36:22
  Speaker 2: country but the interest of himself, the interest of his
• 36:26
  Speaker 2: ability to accumulate power, and certainly his ability to accumulate wealth.
• 36:31
  Speaker 2: And then the last one that I'll mention too, that
• 36:33
  Speaker 2: I didn't even pull the element for because there's just
• 36:35
  Speaker 2: so much here again that it's kind of overwhelming. There's
• 36:38
  Speaker 2: also like the pardon granting operation is deeply corrupt, and
• 36:42
  Speaker 2: one insider said, yeah, it's well known in my industry
• 36:44
  Speaker 2: that for two million dollars you can have a pardon.
• 36:46
  Speaker 2: We talked to Jonathan Swan and Maggie Haberman and they
• 36:49
  Speaker 2: said that he's He's basically said, look, anyone who gets
• 36:51
  Speaker 2: within you know, however many feed of the Oval Office,
• 36:53
  Speaker 2: I'm going to give him a pardon. There was a
• 36:55
  Speaker 2: conversation about for the celebration of America's two undred and
• 36:59
  Speaker 2: fiftieth anniversary that they were going to maybe release like
• 37:01
  Speaker 2: a whole boatload of pardons.
• 37:04
  Speaker 4: Move forward with a bunch of pardons.
• 37:05
  Speaker 2: And if you look again at the track record here,
• 37:07
  Speaker 2: it's like who donated to him, who has business dealings
• 37:10
  Speaker 2: with his family, who gave the right person millions of dollars, etc.
• 37:16
  Speaker 2: And so it speaks both to the corruption and also
• 37:18
  Speaker 2: to the level of impunity that.
• 37:19
  Speaker 4: They act with because he abuses the.
• 37:22
  Speaker 2: Pardon power to just an extraordinary extent that we again
• 37:25
  Speaker 2: have never seen before. Not that the pardon power has
• 37:27
  Speaker 2: never been abused before, it certainly has been by most
• 37:29
  Speaker 2: of not all presidents, but the level that he's taken
• 37:33
  Speaker 2: to means that it's not just him, it's everybody around
• 37:36
  Speaker 2: him who feels they can act with impunity because they know,
• 37:38
  Speaker 2: at the end of the day, Trump's going to pardon me.
• 37:40
  Speaker 2: So there's not going to be any real accountability for
• 37:42
  Speaker 2: anything that I do that is criminal here.
• 37:44
  Speaker 3: Yeah, And I think that's just a great point to
• 37:46
  Speaker 3: emphasize as we wrap up the segments, that there are real,
• 37:49
  Speaker 3: substantial consequences to policy and to governance that stem from
• 37:55
  Speaker 3: all of this. It's not just Trump getting rich on
• 37:57
  Speaker 3: this kind of icky scheme to leverage his influence and
• 38:03
  Speaker 3: you know, like get a prosecutor fire to go back
• 38:05
  Speaker 3: to the Barisma comparison, it's not like that. I mean,
• 38:08
  Speaker 3: these arely, hugely consequential psychological effects on people who are
• 38:13
  Speaker 3: in public office right now. But then also on I mean,
• 38:17
  Speaker 3: we're about to talk about Iran Cutter is in the
• 38:20
  Speaker 3: center of those UAE the Saudi, We're about to talk
• 38:22
  Speaker 3: about this big New York Times story on MBS and
• 38:25
  Speaker 3: the Saudis, who are heavily invested in Kushner's affinity in
• 38:29
  Speaker 3: his fund is just completely insane. There's no way to
• 38:33
  Speaker 3: capture it. But that's where we are right now. And
• 38:37
  Speaker 3: just so we're clear, as the economy goes into a
• 38:41
  Speaker 3: shakier and shake your place, this could get so so
• 38:44
  Speaker 3: ugly and Trump is to blame.
• 38:47
  Speaker 2: Yep, well said, and that's a good transition to the
• 38:50
  Speaker 2: very latest with regard to Iran. Checking in on the
• 38:55
  Speaker 2: latest with regards to the Iran war. The negotiations are
• 38:59
  Speaker 2: they on? Are they not on? What is the Vice
• 39:00
  Speaker 2: President of the United States saying, we are joined this
• 39:03
  Speaker 2: morning by our front try to Parsy of the Quincy
• 39:05
  Speaker 2: Institute ord to Caesar.
• 39:07
  Speaker 9: Good to be with you guys.
• 39:08
  Speaker 2: So let me first get your reaction to these comments
• 39:11
  Speaker 2: from Jdvans that caught a lot of attention, where he
• 39:14
  Speaker 2: seems to indicate that they are using this moment of
• 39:17
  Speaker 2: a pause in hostilities to quote unquote refill the oil market.
• 39:21
  Speaker 4: Let's take a lesson.
• 39:22
  Speaker 8: There are a few things that we want. We want
• 39:24
  Speaker 8: durable commitments that are verifiable and backed up by inspections
• 39:27
  Speaker 8: that Iran will denuclearize their entire country. Okay, we're to
• 39:31
  Speaker 8: see how we get there. Number two, we want to
• 39:34
  Speaker 8: see what kind of an arrangement actually exists in the
• 39:39
  Speaker 8: Middle East between not just Iran in the United States,
• 39:42
  Speaker 8: but the GCC Israel Lebanon. We're going to play that
• 39:45
  Speaker 8: situation out. And then on the Straight of horn Moves,
• 39:47
  Speaker 8: I mean, I think you actually said it well, which
• 39:48
  Speaker 8: is that the Strait is open in the sense that
• 39:51
  Speaker 8: to oil traffic.
• 39:52
  Speaker 9: We're seeing more oil come out.
• 39:54
  Speaker 8: Of the Straight of Horn Moves and some days actually
• 39:55
  Speaker 8: more oil coming out of the Strait than came out
• 39:57
  Speaker 8: before the war even started.
• 39:59
  Speaker 9: So there's this element.
• 40:00
  Speaker 8: Of the you know where where the world oil economy
• 40:04
  Speaker 8: is kind of getting back into gear. That's going to
• 40:06
  Speaker 8: take a little bit of time, but you've already seen
• 40:07
  Speaker 8: the prices come way down. Now what the cynics will
• 40:09
  Speaker 8: say as well, if you look at the number of
• 40:11
  Speaker 8: ships that are trafficking, that's actually down from the pre
• 40:13
  Speaker 8: war start. But they're mostly talking about cargo ships and
• 40:16
  Speaker 8: other vessels. At least so far, what we've seen is
• 40:18
  Speaker 8: the oil traffic has reached its pre war its pre
• 40:21
  Speaker 8: war height. So I think what the President has told
• 40:24
  Speaker 8: us to do is use this MoU to sort of
• 40:26
  Speaker 8: refill the world's oil economy, to refill some stocks, and
• 40:30
  Speaker 8: then to see where the hand is. And you know,
• 40:34
  Speaker 8: if the as I've said this repeatedly, if the Iranians
• 40:37
  Speaker 8: are willing to make the commitments that we would like
• 40:39
  Speaker 8: them to make and are willing to back those up
• 40:40
  Speaker 8: with verifiable milestones, then we are going to change our
• 40:43
  Speaker 8: relationship with Ran. And if they don't do that, then
• 40:46
  Speaker 8: nothing has really changed except for what we've alread accomplished
• 40:49
  Speaker 8: from the military campaign.
• 40:50
  Speaker 2: So he says that the president wants to use the
• 40:53
  Speaker 2: MoU to refill the oil market and then see where
• 40:56
  Speaker 2: the hand is.
• 40:57
  Speaker 4: What did you make of that?
• 40:59
  Speaker 9: I'm frankling out to be surprised.
• 41:00
  Speaker 7: What I see this being is essentially that the administration
• 41:05
  Speaker 7: has a Plan B that they're trying diplomacy. I think
• 41:08
  Speaker 7: there's some people in the administration that are probably not
• 41:10
  Speaker 7: that excited about this diplomacy, and they have a plan
• 41:13
  Speaker 7: being in case it doesn't work out, and they want
• 41:15
  Speaker 7: to pursue their Plan A in a manner that ensures
• 41:17
  Speaker 7: that their Plan B is stronger. I think the Ionians
• 41:20
  Speaker 7: are doing exactly the same thing. This is part of
• 41:23
  Speaker 7: the reason why they're insisting on their position on the
• 41:26
  Speaker 7: Strait u ormost part of the reason why they're insisting
• 41:28
  Speaker 7: on their position in Lebanon. It's very much in case
• 41:32
  Speaker 7: there is no Plan A, there is no deal, that
• 41:35
  Speaker 7: they will be in a position to be able to
• 41:38
  Speaker 7: face the United States in another war. If that is
• 41:41
  Speaker 7: what it comes to. So in and of itself, I'm
• 41:44
  Speaker 7: not particularly surprised. Perhaps it was formulated in a way
• 41:47
  Speaker 7: that gives the impression that the Plan B actually is
• 41:52
  Speaker 7: the Plan A, that this whole thing is all about
• 41:55
  Speaker 7: making sure that you restock the storage of oil in
• 42:00
  Speaker 7: order to make sure that you can go to war again.
• 42:02
  Speaker 7: I'm not under that impression that that is actually what
• 42:04
  Speaker 7: the administration is doing. I do think, however, there's a
• 42:08
  Speaker 7: significant risk that that is where we will end up,
• 42:12
  Speaker 7: not because the intent is to go there, but because
• 42:14
  Speaker 7: either diplomacy doesn't work or because diplomacy is sabotaged. Also
• 42:19
  Speaker 7: want to point out one thing. Part of the reason
• 42:21
  Speaker 7: why oil prices never went up as high as they
• 42:24
  Speaker 7: could have during this war was because, by pure happenstance,
• 42:29
  Speaker 7: the inventory of oil globally was extremely high. So if
• 42:34
  Speaker 7: the idea is to go back in some ways improve
• 42:37
  Speaker 7: on that situation. I think it might be actually difficult
• 42:40
  Speaker 7: because it was extremely high in the first place, and
• 42:43
  Speaker 7: we still had a major, major oil shock and increase
• 42:46
  Speaker 7: of prices. And again, Vania has never went after the
• 42:50
  Speaker 7: infrastructure of oil in the Persian Gulf States in a
• 42:53
  Speaker 7: manner that they could have, which was one of the
• 42:55
  Speaker 7: cars that they kept to their close to their chest
• 43:00
  Speaker 7: if it was further escalation. So if the idea is
• 43:03
  Speaker 7: that some way, somehow, because of the MoU, the United
• 43:06
  Speaker 7: States is going to be in a much better position
• 43:08
  Speaker 7: to launch a war that militarily will be more successful
• 43:12
  Speaker 7: than the previous one. Color me skeptic. I don't think
• 43:15
  Speaker 7: the US has that option, even if the inventory of
• 43:17
  Speaker 7: oil is restocked.
• 43:19
  Speaker 6: And this is exactly what we wanted to ask you about.
• 43:21
  Speaker 6: Next we can put B two up on the screen.
• 43:23
  Speaker 3: Trita, professor of the University at the University of torontse
• 43:26
  Speaker 3: Ed Morandi responded to the Michael Noles interview that jadae
• 43:30
  Speaker 3: Vance did you just watched that by saying Iran is
• 43:33
  Speaker 3: rapidly rebuilding its civilian infrastructure, stockpiling critical supplies, advancing new
• 43:37
  Speaker 3: weapons systems, replacing thousands of destroyed decoys, fielding emerging technologies,
• 43:41
  Speaker 3: and expanding its network of underground bases and command and
• 43:44
  Speaker 3: control centers. From your understanding, is that an accurate description
• 43:49
  Speaker 3: of what's happening right now?
• 43:51
  Speaker 9: I suspect.
• 43:52
  Speaker 7: So this is also exactly what the Iranians did after
• 43:56
  Speaker 7: the Junie War, and they did it much more successfully
• 43:59
  Speaker 7: than I think US intelligence and is very intelligence expected
• 44:04
  Speaker 7: because they were quite ready for that word came later on.
• 44:08
  Speaker 7: So again, I think it's very important to understand both
• 44:11
  Speaker 7: sides are taking a bet on a Plan A that
• 44:13
  Speaker 7: diplomacy could work, but neither one of them are walking
• 44:16
  Speaker 7: into the situation thinking Plan A is so solid, so
• 44:20
  Speaker 7: likely to succeed, that there is no need for a
• 44:23
  Speaker 7: Plan B, and for a plan see. Both of them
• 44:25
  Speaker 7: are investing heavily in those as well. The question is
• 44:29
  Speaker 7: does it mean that the Plan A is fake, that
• 44:32
  Speaker 7: there actually is an real intent to make it work,
• 44:35
  Speaker 7: at least when it comes to what I've seen so far,
• 44:38
  Speaker 7: given how far the administration has gone in for instance,
• 44:40
  Speaker 7: pushing back these Raelis, the progress that is made at
• 44:44
  Speaker 7: the negotiating table, the signals they are sending about a
• 44:48
  Speaker 7: new relationship, and how the Yranians are responding and receiving those.
• 44:52
  Speaker 7: I do think that there is a serious plan A
• 44:54
  Speaker 7: from both summites. I'm more worried about that there may
• 44:57
  Speaker 7: be elements who are trying to sabotage this, whether it
• 45:00
  Speaker 7: is these Raelis or whether it is some of these
• 45:02
  Speaker 7: recent things that have happened. So, for instance, the MLU
• 45:05
  Speaker 7: that the US signed mediated between Israel and Lebanon, to me,
• 45:11
  Speaker 7: looks very much like an effort to salvotage to mL
• 45:14
  Speaker 7: you all together, and that was done by a different
• 45:16
  Speaker 7: part of the administration.
• 45:18
  Speaker 2: Let's talk a little bit more about that. Put B
• 45:20
  Speaker 2: three up on the screen. This was your analysis over
• 45:22
  Speaker 2: at your substack, which, guys, if you aren't subscribed to
• 45:24
  Speaker 2: treat a substack yet, I don't know what you're doing.
• 45:27
  Speaker 2: The headline year is why Iron believes Israel will attack
• 45:30
  Speaker 2: again before October. The recent israelly Lebanese agreement and Heswel's
• 45:34
  Speaker 2: unreported role in the previous war is leading Tehran to
• 45:37
  Speaker 2: this conclusion. So break down your analysis here and why
• 45:41
  Speaker 2: you think that deal with Lebanon is such a problem.
• 45:45
  Speaker 7: So the deal with Lebanon puts forward a completely different
• 45:48
  Speaker 7: approach on how to deal with Israel's presence in Lebanon.
• 45:52
  Speaker 7: It makes a condition for these Raelis to leave Lebanon,
• 45:57
  Speaker 7: and that condition is the disarmament of Hezbola. The disarmament
• 46:01
  Speaker 7: of Hezbola will not happen unless there is some sort
• 46:05
  Speaker 7: of a civil war that breaks out in Lebanon in
• 46:08
  Speaker 7: which against all odds, Hezbola loses. So it essentially ensures
• 46:13
  Speaker 7: that Israel will stay in Lebanon for a very long time.
• 46:15
  Speaker 7: The entire document is read as if the Lebanese government
• 46:20
  Speaker 7: is partnering with Israel, who is occupying Lebanese territory, against Hebola,
• 46:25
  Speaker 7: as if Hezbola is a common threat to both of them,
• 46:28
  Speaker 7: rather than Israel being a threat to Lebanon's sovereignty and
• 46:32
  Speaker 7: territorial integrity. This is completely different from the MoU. The
• 46:37
  Speaker 7: MoU essentially suggests that Israelis have to leave all of
• 46:41
  Speaker 7: Lebanese territory by the end of the MoU. It does
• 46:45
  Speaker 7: not make a condition for that, being that Hezebola has
• 46:49
  Speaker 7: to be disarmed. But although there's going to be part
• 46:51
  Speaker 7: of the negotiations on whether Hisbola will move further up
• 46:54
  Speaker 7: north in Lebanon, north of the Litani River, or other things.
• 46:58
  Speaker 7: But nevertheless, there is no suggestion that Israel will stay
• 47:02
  Speaker 7: in Lebanon for as long as Hezbola is not disarmed,
• 47:07
  Speaker 7: So this completely flips the entire equation. And part of
• 47:11
  Speaker 7: the reason why this is now really worried the Iranians
• 47:16
  Speaker 7: is because they believe that the Israelis have managed to
• 47:19
  Speaker 7: do this because they're currently holding certain positions in Lebanon
• 47:24
  Speaker 7: that were held by Hezbola during the war and were
• 47:27
  Speaker 7: critical for Hezbola's participation in that war, which has been
• 47:32
  Speaker 7: highly underreported. The Iranians tell me that they've only used
• 47:36
  Speaker 7: about forty percent of their offensive capability against Israel during
• 47:42
  Speaker 7: the war because they didn't need to because Hezbola was
• 47:45
  Speaker 7: so active, and this diverted Israeli horses and defense capabilities
• 47:52
  Speaker 7: because they had to face that front from Hebola as well.
• 47:55
  Speaker 7: By now having taken those positions, his Bola's ability to
• 47:59
  Speaker 7: participate in the next war is compromised, and this gives
• 48:03
  Speaker 7: these Raelis a very significant advantage, not a decisive one
• 48:06
  Speaker 7: according to the Varni's, but a significant advantage in which
• 48:10
  Speaker 7: they can launch a war again without having to worry
• 48:12
  Speaker 7: about Hezbwela having the same potency that it did during
• 48:15
  Speaker 7: the war, and incidentally, we never heard about any of
• 48:18
  Speaker 7: aswell as activities, or at least the extent to which
• 48:21
  Speaker 7: they were affected, because of this near complete Israeli censorship
• 48:27
  Speaker 7: of what was going on during the war inside of Israel.
• 48:30
  Speaker 3: You mentioned that the Hasbal, a part of the agreement,
• 48:33
  Speaker 3: was being negotiated by a different part of the administration.
• 48:35
  Speaker 3: I'm assuming that you're referring to Rubio State Department world
• 48:40
  Speaker 3: versus Vance Witcough world. Is that what you're understanding is
• 48:45
  Speaker 3: of the dynamic here between what's being negotiated with the
• 48:48
  Speaker 3: Iranians on the strade of Horn moves and other territorial
• 48:53
  Speaker 3: Iranian questions versus what's happening with the Lebanese negotiations.
• 48:58
  Speaker 9: I think there's a very common process that.
• 49:02
  Speaker 7: Rubio is not particularly excited about the nuclear deal, about
• 49:06
  Speaker 7: the MoU and now suddenly he got very active in
• 49:10
  Speaker 7: the region, which he had not been before that spent
• 49:13
  Speaker 7: most of his time focusing on Cuba and Venezuela, and
• 49:17
  Speaker 7: then you had this agreement as well as a joint
• 49:19
  Speaker 7: statement by the GCC states that took a very pro
• 49:23
  Speaker 7: American position when it comes to the Strait of Ormuz,
• 49:27
  Speaker 7: so there was a flurry of activities by Rubio suddenly
• 49:30
  Speaker 7: in the region. The perception region why not just on
• 49:33
  Speaker 7: the Iranian side, is that this is done in a
• 49:37
  Speaker 7: way that undermines the MoU because there is a struggle
• 49:41
  Speaker 7: within the administration. I can't claim that I can confirm
• 49:44
  Speaker 7: that that is true or not, but if you're standing
• 49:46
  Speaker 7: on the outside, it certainly does look this way, and
• 49:48
  Speaker 7: I find it very difficult to lead the MoU and
• 49:52
  Speaker 7: the Libanese agreement in a manner that makes them compatible
• 49:56
  Speaker 7: with each other. They actually seem to be almost designed
• 49:59
  Speaker 7: to be income patible. The time frame, the conditions, everything
• 50:03
  Speaker 7: is different. And this also tells you why it was
• 50:06
  Speaker 7: so important for the Iranians to make sure that Lebanon
• 50:09
  Speaker 7: was a red line for them, because it meant that
• 50:12
  Speaker 7: if it wasn't, if Israel could remain in Lebanese territory,
• 50:17
  Speaker 7: if they were not pushed out as part of the MoU,
• 50:20
  Speaker 7: the Israelis and the US would be in a much
• 50:22
  Speaker 7: stronger position to attack Yvon again, which goes back to
• 50:26
  Speaker 7: what I said earlier on. Obviously, Levanians have been working
• 50:29
  Speaker 7: on their Plan B and their Plan SEED just as
• 50:32
  Speaker 7: much as the US administration has, and this contradicts their
• 50:36
  Speaker 7: plan B. If the Israelis remain in Lebanon, it means
• 50:40
  Speaker 7: that Yvon's ability to defend itself if Israel attacks again,
• 50:44
  Speaker 7: in which the incidentally Levanians believe, is now inevitable. Because
• 50:47
  Speaker 7: there's another aspect that comes into play here, which is
• 50:50
  Speaker 7: by October, these Radis are going to have their elections
• 50:54
  Speaker 7: and Prime Minister Netaniagu is already in a bad shape
• 50:57
  Speaker 7: as a result of the MLU as a result of
• 51:00
  Speaker 7: him not being able to deliver the United States. He's
• 51:03
  Speaker 7: being attacked by all sides for this failure from their perspective,
• 51:08
  Speaker 7: and if he loses that election, he just doesn't lose
• 51:10
  Speaker 7: his political career, he will then also lose his immunity
• 51:13
  Speaker 7: when it comes to the corruption charges that he faces,
• 51:16
  Speaker 7: and as a result, may end up in jail. So
• 51:18
  Speaker 7: he has all the incentives in the world right now,
• 51:21
  Speaker 7: both political, personal, and strategic, to launch a war, and
• 51:25
  Speaker 7: keeping those positions in Lebanon makes it much easier for
• 51:29
  Speaker 7: his world to do.
• 51:29
  Speaker 2: So, let's talk a little bit more about the economic realities.
• 51:36
  Speaker 2: If we go back to the first clip we played there,
• 51:38
  Speaker 2: Vice President Jady Vance saying basically like, yeah, we're getting
• 51:42
  Speaker 2: the oil market back to normal, We're refilling it. Certainly
• 51:45
  Speaker 2: the administration wants to project a lot of economic confidence
• 51:49
  Speaker 2: at the same time, can put before up on the screen.
• 51:52
  Speaker 2: There was a declaration of emergency and authorization for temporary
• 51:56
  Speaker 2: duty free importation of phosphate fertilizer from Morocco. It is
• 52:01
  Speaker 2: not just the oil markets that are impacted by disruptions
• 52:04
  Speaker 2: in the straight upfor moves fertilizer, we've all learned, it's
• 52:07
  Speaker 2: also a very important commodity that flows through that area
• 52:12
  Speaker 2: and comes from that area. So what did you make
• 52:14
  Speaker 2: of this announcement? Does it indicate that there is perhaps
• 52:18
  Speaker 2: more economic pressure and strain continuing on the US and
• 52:21
  Speaker 2: the global economy than what the administration was to project.
• 52:24
  Speaker 7: Well, there certainly is much more, because there is the
• 52:27
  Speaker 7: oil impact, it's the fuel impact, and then it's all
• 52:30
  Speaker 7: of the different secondary impacts. And one of the most
• 52:33
  Speaker 7: important secondary impacts is fertilizer, for which a lot of
• 52:38
  Speaker 7: oil products, of course are needed for and the fertilizer,
• 52:42
  Speaker 7: of course are tremendously important because it feeds all of
• 52:45
  Speaker 7: our agriculture, which means that it feeds our food, and
• 52:48
  Speaker 7: if we don't have food, we have a completely different
• 52:50
  Speaker 7: crisis rather than just people having to pay a little
• 52:52
  Speaker 7: bit too much at the gas pumps. So we always
• 52:56
  Speaker 7: knew that there was going to be these repercussions. Now,
• 52:59
  Speaker 7: if this since coincided with the continued closure of the
• 53:03
  Speaker 7: straight up foremost, obviously it would have been much worse.
• 53:06
  Speaker 7: But this is at a minimum reducing it. But it
• 53:08
  Speaker 7: doesn't mean that we're completely out of the woods, or
• 53:10
  Speaker 7: that these secondary impacts are not going to occur. They're
• 53:13
  Speaker 7: going to occur, but they're likely going to be less
• 53:16
  Speaker 7: impactful or detrimental than they would have been, of course
• 53:20
  Speaker 7: had the straight continue to be closed. But this is
• 53:23
  Speaker 7: part of the reason why I'm very skeptical about the
• 53:25
  Speaker 7: idea that just restocking these the oil inventory is going
• 53:30
  Speaker 7: to make sure that everything is going to be fine
• 53:32
  Speaker 7: and the next war is going to be fantastic. I
• 53:34
  Speaker 7: think that's a highly optimistic view from the perspective anyone
• 53:39
  Speaker 7: in the administration who would think that, and I'm not
• 53:41
  Speaker 7: really sure that that is what they're thinking.
• 53:43
  Speaker 2: Do you think the Iranians and the US have a
• 53:45
  Speaker 2: slightly different conception of the pressures on the oil market?
• 53:49
  Speaker 2: I was reading one analysis that said, effectively, what the
• 53:51
  Speaker 2: Iranians are really watching is the strategic patrol room reserves,
• 53:55
  Speaker 2: which continue to go down, so even as there is
• 53:58
  Speaker 2: more flow into the oil market, that there continues to
• 54:02
  Speaker 2: be a pressure that is mounting over this time period.
• 54:06
  Speaker 2: Because I know one of the internal arguments in Iran
• 54:08
  Speaker 2: is whether or not they should have even moved forward
• 54:10
  Speaker 2: with this MoU, whether they are losing some leverage in
• 54:13
  Speaker 2: the meantime. What's your understanding of those arguments.
• 54:16
  Speaker 7: No, I think the strategic reserves are tremendously important, and
• 54:19
  Speaker 7: first you're going to see the rest of the global
• 54:22
  Speaker 7: economy being able to absorb this oil before you will
• 54:26
  Speaker 7: see the strategic reserves being restocked, and that again is
• 54:30
  Speaker 7: going to make it's going to take some time before
• 54:32
  Speaker 7: you have that type of a full restocking that would
• 54:35
  Speaker 7: bring us back to the previous situation. There is obviously
• 54:39
  Speaker 7: an argument on the Iranian side that says that they
• 54:41
  Speaker 7: should have gone further, They should have attacked the GCC
• 54:44
  Speaker 7: states more aggressively, particularly the UAE. They should have kept
• 54:48
  Speaker 7: this going longer than they did in order to get
• 54:51
  Speaker 7: the strategic reserves to go down even further and the
• 54:55
  Speaker 7: question is. At the same time, there is a flip
• 54:58
  Speaker 7: side of that argument, which is, if you wait too long,
• 55:02
  Speaker 7: you will also then make it more difficult for the
• 55:04
  Speaker 7: administration to have the time needed to be able to
• 55:08
  Speaker 7: provide the sanctions relief that would come through a deal
• 55:12
  Speaker 7: that you're trying to achieve. After the midterms, most likely
• 55:17
  Speaker 7: the Republicans are not going to do that well, at
• 55:19
  Speaker 7: least in the House. Trump is going to have less
• 55:22
  Speaker 7: leverage than he did before. He's going to walk into
• 55:24
  Speaker 7: becoming more of a lame duck. His ability to provide
• 55:28
  Speaker 7: and deliver on the sanctions relief that would be agreed
• 55:31
  Speaker 7: upon in a potential MU starts to get compromised, and
• 55:35
  Speaker 7: as a result, that actually weakens Iron's ability to be
• 55:38
  Speaker 7: able to get a good deal. This is part of
• 55:40
  Speaker 7: the problem that was happening during the JCPO. The JCPI
• 55:43
  Speaker 7: in many ways was over negotiated. It took them way
• 55:47
  Speaker 7: too long to get to that deal, and as a result,
• 55:50
  Speaker 7: by the time they got the deal, the administration had
• 55:53
  Speaker 7: very little time left to make sure that the implementation
• 55:58
  Speaker 7: was solid enough to protect it from any future presidents
• 56:02
  Speaker 7: trying to walk out of it, and as a result,
• 56:05
  Speaker 7: it became weak and any what it otherwise could have been.
• 56:08
  Speaker 7: You don't want to repeat that mistake now by allowing
• 56:11
  Speaker 7: the negotiations to take way too long time, and then
• 56:14
  Speaker 7: by the time the deliverance of the different agreements is
• 56:18
  Speaker 7: supposed to take place, the US side is going to
• 56:21
  Speaker 7: be too weak to be able to fulfill that those promises.
• 56:24
  Speaker 3: We wanted to get your take on this big New
• 56:25
  Speaker 3: York Times piece as well. We can put the next
• 56:28
  Speaker 3: element up on the screen about US Saudi relations. Kind
• 56:31
  Speaker 3: of going under the radar this week, is that the
• 56:33
  Speaker 3: Saudi Foreign Minister is in China. The Times this headline
• 56:36
  Speaker 3: is how the Iran were ignited a clash between Trump
• 56:39
  Speaker 3: and the Saudi Crown Prince, which sort of a remarkable headline,
• 56:43
  Speaker 3: of course, given the close ties between Trump, certainly between
• 56:46
  Speaker 3: Jared Kushner, his son in law, and the Saudi Crown Prince.
• 56:49
  Speaker 3: Reading a bit from the piece here, it reports since
• 56:52
  Speaker 3: the US and Israel attacked Iran on February twenty eighth,
• 56:54
  Speaker 3: Saudi Arabia has tried to chart a middle course to
• 56:57
  Speaker 3: protect its interest. It gave military and diplomatic support to
• 56:59
  Speaker 3: them and was attacked by Iran, but the Kingdom has
• 57:02
  Speaker 3: also opposed mister Trump at critical moments, flexing its muscles
• 57:05
  Speaker 3: when it sensed greater dangers resulting from American and Israeli aggression.
• 57:10
  Speaker 3: The piece also asserts that the Saudis are seeing the
• 57:12
  Speaker 3: US increasingly.
• 57:13
  Speaker 6: As a less reliable partner.
• 57:16
  Speaker 3: Does this story resonate with you treated Does this sound
• 57:19
  Speaker 3: like an accurate rendering of what's happening behind the scenes,
• 57:22
  Speaker 3: and what could the consequences be of that?
• 57:24
  Speaker 9: If so, I think.
• 57:26
  Speaker 7: The overall picture absolutely resonates that you're seeing. First of all,
• 57:29
  Speaker 7: that the Saudis at first were actually in favor of
• 57:32
  Speaker 7: this war. They did provide military support, but I think
• 57:35
  Speaker 7: they were deeply disappointed. They thought the US was going
• 57:39
  Speaker 7: to be much more effected in this war. They too
• 57:42
  Speaker 7: had underestimated the strength of the Vannians, that had overestimated
• 57:46
  Speaker 7: the impact of the protests when it came to the
• 57:48
  Speaker 7: fragility of the Yvanian theocracy. So they were disappointed in
• 57:53
  Speaker 7: seeing how this whole thing went down. And then we're
• 57:56
  Speaker 7: questioning many of the different decisions that the US made
• 58:00
  Speaker 7: going forward, and did not want to see meaningless escalation
• 58:04
  Speaker 7: that only would lead to the Saudis and the other
• 58:07
  Speaker 7: GCZ states suffering more without really changing the strategic picture,
• 58:12
  Speaker 7: and that's part of the reason why they stood up
• 58:13
  Speaker 7: in a few couple of occasions against this. But they
• 58:16
  Speaker 7: had also struck their own deal, most likely with the Iranians,
• 58:19
  Speaker 7: part of the reason why the Saudis or did not
• 58:22
  Speaker 7: get the brunt of the attacks.
• 58:23
  Speaker 9: In fact, a very little.
• 58:25
  Speaker 7: Amount of attacks from the Iranians in comparison to other
• 58:29
  Speaker 7: states such as Kuwait, Bahrain and the UAE, so I
• 58:33
  Speaker 7: think at least relatively early on in the war, the
• 58:36
  Speaker 7: Saudis realized this is not going the way they thought.
• 58:38
  Speaker 7: This is not going the way the US stopped, and
• 58:41
  Speaker 7: they started to look at their options instead of blindly
• 58:44
  Speaker 7: following the United States, realizing that the US didn't know
• 58:47
  Speaker 7: where it was going, and the fact that they are
• 58:49
  Speaker 7: now coordinating with the Chinese that they're looking for further
• 58:53
  Speaker 7: diversification is going to be a pattern that we are
• 58:56
  Speaker 7: very likely to see not just with them, but with
• 58:59
  Speaker 7: many of the other ECC states as well, including the UAE.
• 59:03
  Speaker 7: The UI may very well double down on its relations
• 59:06
  Speaker 7: with Israel and Saudi Arabia, but it is simultaneously striking
• 59:11
  Speaker 7: deals with Ivanians. They struck a deal with Ivanians just
• 59:14
  Speaker 7: in the last couple of weeks, which is part of
• 59:16
  Speaker 7: the reason why when it came to the last round
• 59:19
  Speaker 7: of exchange of fire between the US and Yvan, the
• 59:21
  Speaker 7: Ivanians retaliated against Kuwait and Bahrain and did not strike
• 59:25
  Speaker 7: the Mradis because they had already struck a deal. So
• 59:28
  Speaker 7: you're going to see a lot of double play, a
• 59:30
  Speaker 7: lot of countries making deals with many of the different
• 59:33
  Speaker 7: actors instead of just simply putting all of their eggs
• 59:37
  Speaker 7: back into one baskets. That's what they did before it
• 59:40
  Speaker 7: didn't work. They're going for diversification now.
• 59:43
  Speaker 2: And lastly, what is you're understanding our talks happening this week?
• 59:46
  Speaker 2: Are they not happening this week? Do we expect another
• 59:49
  Speaker 2: market timed resume of bombing campaigns here over the weekend?
• 59:53
  Speaker 4: What do you think?
• 59:54
  Speaker 7: I mean, talks did occur in Doha, whether they get
• 59:57
  Speaker 7: renewed or not remains to be seen. You know, I
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 7: think we should also remember we've seen a tremendous amount
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 7: of drama and tremendous high dicibel of all kinds of statements,
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 7: even threats, etc. Nevertheless, with some delay, talks have gone
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 7: forward and I think it is a reminder of the fact,
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 7: and in fact, on top of just you know, high disciple,
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 7: we also saw attacks from both sides. I think it
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 7: is a reminder at the end of the day, neither
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 7: side really wants to go back to a full scale war.
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 7: It is not to their benefit. They need to get
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 7: to some sort of diplomatic arrangement. It is to the
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 7: benefit of both of them, as well as for many
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 7: others as well. So there will and unfortunately a lot
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 7: of snaffoos and a lot of elements of escalation. But
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 7: so far we have not seen the talks collapse altogether.
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 7: Could they absolutely, you have a couple of more of
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 7: these type of exchanges of fire between the US and
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 7: the environment. It's very difficult to see that this mu
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 7: will collapse, but it will not collapse easily. I think
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 7: that's the lesson we should learn from the last two
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 7: or three weeks.
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 2: All right, Well, that's a hopeful note to end on
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 2: doctor True to Parsi of the Quincy Institute and also
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 2: of the Tree to Parsi Substackrae to have you secret
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 2: to see again.
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 9: Thanks so much for having me appreciate you. Pleasure