Latest / Cultural Wars | America Out Loud News / The Iran Flashpoint: War, energy, and economic policy collide

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The Iran Flashpoint: War, energy, and economic policy collide · Cultural Wars | America Out Loud News

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  Broadcasting around the world.
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  This is on the record with Christian Briggs.
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  Serious talk about what's happening around the world and how it affects you.
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  Unfiltered Truth for a world on edge.
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  Follow us on X at BMC underscore H AM live in three, two, one.
• 0:22
  Welcome back.
• 0:23
  Welcome back.
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  We are on the record today.
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  It is Wednesday, the 8th of April.
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  And boy, is there a lot going on?
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  We are going to do several different things today as far as going deep into this Iranian conflict and what was really behind this.
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  I mean, there's there's more people out there.
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  Alex Jones has gone crazy against the president, talking about the 25th amendment, which is out of control, which is wrong, not right.
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  It's not like that.
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  But what is really going on?
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  What's happening?
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  What's making the administration do World War III just short of nukes?
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  Well, actually, he did he actually did uh threaten to use nukes uh in the last 24 hours.
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  So what what's going on and what is exactly happening to where we can get a handle on, or at least uh a viable understanding, an understanding that makes the most amount of sense that comes from some kind of pillar of truth and not just conjecture, not just hypothetical conspiracy and all of the different variables that, or at least the adjectives that just try to describe the situation because we're we're gonna be on the record today.
• 1:32
  This is Christian Briggs, we're gonna be going deep on this one.
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  My my guest today is Mr.
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  Chris Walker.
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  Uh he's got a big S on his chest and his red cape.
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  I always tell him he's got to keep that at the door though, because otherwise he uh outdoes me here on these shows.
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  So we're gonna be we're gonna be going right into it.
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  So let's start right now, Chris.
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  Say hi.
• 1:50
  Hello.
• 1:51
  Thank you for having me.
• 1:52
  I'm glad you came.
• 1:54
  So Trump administration, you were the chief of staff for Senator Thompson of Tennessee back in the day.
• 1:59
  Did you ever see chaos like this before?
• 2:01
  Uh no.
• 2:02
  Um, you know, when I was working with Richard Burroughs, his comms director, and one of the things that we found so interesting was we were talking about the OA financial crisis, the Iraq war, so many things in the news that were just constantly changing.
• 2:18
  Um I think this is a hyper uh uh level of of even more of that.
• 2:23
  We've got, you know, market fluctuations, you've got AI, you've got China, you've got Russia, you've got Ukraine, you've got Iran.
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  Um, you know, the Middle East is changing rapidly, South America's changing rapidly.
• 2:35
  This feels like rocket fuel compared to what we thought was very, very, very odds from you know, oh three to 08 and 09.
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  And so this is a new experience in a lot of ways, but it's you know, what what's old is new again.
• 2:50
  Uh the Bible says we repeat ourselves and history history's repeating itself again here in a way.
• 2:55
  Um, just the information uh flow and the uh speed with which we're getting information is uh overwhelmingly quick.
• 3:03
  It feels you know, in some regards, I it's kind of like uh probably how the president felt in 2000 with with Intel coming in.
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  Now we all have Intel coming in quickly through social media, and that's uh that's a buffer of that is is getting uh more and more eroded.
• 3:19
  So who was the Fred's are two terms or one?
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  Two from so half of he ended up serving the final two years at Al Gore's term and Al Gore won in '92.
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  So Fred was elected in '94.
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  Wow, he got re-elected again in 26.
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  Bush.
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  No, with Clinton.
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  So cool.
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  Well, it's what was the EP in 92.
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  And so uh Fred ran for uh O'Gore's seat uh in 94.
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  He didn't served out the rest of his term until 96, got re-elected in 96 in a walk, and decided not to run for re-election in 02.
• 3:52
  So well, let me ask you this.
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  Do you think you regretted red regretted uh running?
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  Because I know a lot of guys are like, once they realize what that swamp is like up there, they sometimes wish they could put that genie back in the bottle.
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  It was a different time.
• 4:07
  Um, I don't think he regrets running at all.
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  I think he uh or regretted, obviously we lost him several years ten years ago or so.
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  But um he was he loved being in the arena and loved being part of the major discussions that were happening in foreign policy and campaign finance reform and all the things that he was really working on um as a Tennessee senator.
• 4:27
  Um he loved it.
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  He loved he was uh his his thirst for policy and ideas was infectious and really kind of took a very young Chris Walker who was straight out of college and taught him a lot about how to kind of look into issues and and uh see your bigger picture.
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  And I'm eternally grateful for my time with him for sure.
• 4:48
  Would where do you think he would be today?
• 4:53
  Let me define that though.
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  What would he be in support of all this?
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  Or would he be he would okay, he'd be in support of it, but then what?
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  What what do you do as far as advice?
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  What would he tell President Trump if he's sitting there right now?
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  What would he say to him?
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  Farbe for I would hate to speak for him since he's since he's not here anymore, but knowing him in the 2000s, finish the job.
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  Um, you know, if you're gonna if you're gonna do it and you're going to take on the threat of radical Islamic extremism, um, you need to see it through.
• 5:23
  And so I I think he obviously saw a consistent threat from Iran relative to um them funding terror organizations across the globe and continuing to um be an unsettling force within the Middle East, where we've seen as a result of uh President Trump's decision to go in, um, a lack of stability in the market in part because you're just in the middle of so much energy production in that area.
• 5:47
  So um, Fred, I I think, and again, I feel loathed to you to speak for him, but I I think he would be um supportive of what's happening, but certainly uh seeing him through the process of of finishing the job and making sure that there's a um a stable and um and willing ally, which the Persian people in Iran are um that they've just been uh you know under um you know incredibly uh hostile regime or since 1979.
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  If that changes and we see a real flourishing kind of ally in the region, and it changes the whole dynamic for the globe and for the world.
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  And so I think in a way, you gotta see it through um and make sure that we're getting the outcomes we want out of that.
• 6:33
  So this is uh this is a big big shock to the economy, domestic and globally international numbers are for inflation, and I I didn't realize Japan had zero domestic oil.
• 6:45
  Yeah.
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  Zero.
• 6:46
  Yeah.
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  Like, how do you have zero?
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  Like 91%.
• 6:49
  Well, not investing.
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  I think a lot of these countries were um, and you know, I don't know the geo geological uh uh abilities of Japan, but um, you know, I would suggest part of that is based on the fact that people have been reliant on the trade side of the equation um for for decades.
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  Um, you know, President Trump, uh, like him or uh like him or not, um, you know, has really talked about the need for countries to really start to reinvest in the military, reinvest in energy production.
• 7:19
  Um, in part because uh in a lot of ways, the United States has been putting the bill alone for a long time.
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  You know, there's trade and there's uh an ally ship that I think is is valuable, but there's also a point where um, you know, this is this is something that's really needed and uh and for global stability.
• 7:36
  Ari Flesher talked about this um this week.
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  It got some heat, but also has some good points in the fact that NATO probably is not going to be the same after this.
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  Um, you know, the idea of uh the United States putting the bill for all of all people's national defense.
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  I think those days are starting to end.
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  But um, at the same token, it's it we're we're seeing this instability as as that stuff has changed.
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  We've seen with President Clinton, we've seen with President Bush, seen with President Obama, the idea of telling NATO to be to diplomatically talk about how they can increase their dues and increase their work.
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  It didn't work for 30 plus years, and now we're seeing that President Trump's kind of hammer mentality is more direct than it was the diplomatic side.
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  This is you know, Trump's in a lot of ways the modern day Teddy Roosevelt.
• 8:23
  And we're seeing that with the big stake policy that he's taking the foreign policy right now.
• 8:28
  Well, this is foreign policy.
• 8:29
  Let me let me just kind of read you a little bit here, kind of like what we're seeing today and and how Trump's threat appeared to be an extension of course the last 24 hours of the 10-day deadline that expired this last Monday.
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  You know, China has been preparing for this for decades.
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  Like they literally for decades have been knowing that at some point, and they didn't know the day or the or the week, but they've been preparing both from an energy military, financial, that one day the U.S.
• 8:56
  would catch on to what they were doing.
• 8:58
  They would understand that the complexity of China's whole whole system, uh, all of this investment around the world, all these developing countries, all these resources that they were grabbing, was nothing more than to undermine the U.S.'s ability to maintain the consistency of the strength of the control, the the superpower, which they hate that and they're jealous of it's it goes back to jealousy, but that's what I think it is.
• 9:22
  If you're gonna break it down, it's always jealousy, seems like until when they when they got slapped, you know, in 2018, when they got hit hard with those first set of terrorists with Trump.
• 9:32
  Okay, what happened with Ben was which is an interesting perspective was they knew.
• 9:36
  So they they had Biden in the pocket.
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  He was blackmailing.
• 9:40
  Um, he was being extorted.
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  I mean, he's he was just a total traitor, him and his son hunter, about two biggest traders outside Obama.
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  But short of all that, they were exploiting his uh corruption for all the money that Hunter take uh from the China government.
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  He took a ton of it.
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  And they were using that to expand as fast as they could, strengthen ties with.
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  Countries strengthen their energy policy capabilities to withstand any new tariffs, any energy disruptions because they were going solar.
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  Have you seen their solar stuff?
• 10:09
  No.
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  Dude, if for anybody listening, go look up China's solar farms.
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  Wow.
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  There's probably more solar panels in China than there are people.
• 10:17
  Wow.
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  Yeah, that's a lot.
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  Yeah.
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  So they knew.
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  And so they were, they were getting less and less dependent upon third party or Middle East, Venezuelan or right, but not all the way.
• 10:27
  That's one of the interesting factors that I have discovered is that what we're looking at right now, what we're looking at right now is a complete and uh uh a complete takeover of the energy of Middle East.
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  Not not in every drop, but a takeover from a leadership role.
• 10:48
  Iran was definitely in the driver's seat in a lot of ways.
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  They had the wealth, uh maybe not as much wealth as Saudi Arabia, but they had the fear factor.
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  Okay, they had money enough to create the fear, so they had the wealth to create the the state's sponsoring terrorism, even Saudi was nervous.
• 11:03
  Yeah.
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  You know, they were like, these people are crazy when die for the lie.
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  So Trump had to annihilate them, but in doing so, he got rid of three things.
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  One.
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  First of all, he got rid of a regime that was just destroying the people.
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  Absolutely.
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  Good one who would get wake up every morning and put a black sheep sheet over their heads and these poor women, or the men that had to go work in labor camps, but they're even right to work, or they just kill them.
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  And then number two, which I thought was interesting would have been the fact that Iran was sponsoring some of the most most gruesome and militious state sponsoring of terrorism, destroying, killing, maiming, whatever.
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  And the third thing was they were supplying low-cost oil to China and in return, China gave them some protectionism, some technology access, weapons, uh, intelligence, spy stuff, how to hack, you know, all that kind of like nefarious stuff.
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  So at the end of the day, Trump was like, look, we're gonna liberate the people, we're gonna put an end to their sponsoring of terrorism.
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  We're gonna cut China's energy supply so they slow down this aggressive approach to annihilation of the U.S.
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  and taking over the world.
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  And what was the fourth thing?
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  Weaponizing of nuclear uh grade uranium.
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  Yep.
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  Yep.
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  Okay.
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  That I'm wondering if that was the least of the four things.
• 12:30
  Um I one thing about the president, uh, he's very much a he's consistent in his in his position.
• 12:41
  Um, he's taking several sides of a position sometimes, but I think in a lot of ways, he's been telegraphing for a long time, and this is not should be a surprise for anyone that he's said consistently that Iran should not have a nuclear weapon.
• 12:52
  That is not ever going to change.
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  It hasn't changed, and his work, because I mean, again, this is a man who he's a New Yorker first, and I think was dramatically impacted by you know, seeing the Twin Towers come down more than a lot of people, particularly in our in our leadership class, because I think it for him it was personal.
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  I think we saw in the 2016 election, uh Ted Cruz attacked him for New York values.
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  And uh, you know, his retort, which was brilliant, said, you know, I I remember the city coming together like nobody ever had before after 9-11, in part because of of the grid of the city, and that's New York values.
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  He's a New York values kind of guy in a lot of ways.
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  And so he saw firsthand um the the reach that radical Islamic terrorism can take.
• 13:40
  And I think it's seeing that to the to the degree of will that they would attack anywhere and anyone is with the with the most weapons that they could have.
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  He was very crystal clear that Ranch and I have a nuclear weapon.
• 13:51
  So I think it's not the the lowest.
• 13:53
  I think it's certainly high up there.
• 13:55
  But look, he was handled a raw deal.
• 13:58
  Um you know, China has been aggressively growing basically since per permanent trade status in 99.
• 14:06
  And um we've seen the rapid acceleration of of the of the city-state of China um ever since.
• 14:12
  And as a result, Trump, I think, kind of had a position to say, okay, we have to start changing this this equation because frankly, another 10 years of this, and we'll be on the wrong side of a lot of different pieces of it.
• 14:25
  We've talked about quantum competing for before.
• 14:27
  We've talked about a lot of different things, but ultimately you can't have an ascendant China surpassing the West from a technological or leadership perspective.
• 14:36
  So Trump taking this, and I know we're talking about Iran, but but they're connected, like you said, because of oil and everything.
• 14:43
  Trump um has smartly is is moving the oil um distribution network away from China towards the West with Venezuela and with Iran and you know, you and I both have heard that Cuba is in the mix.
• 14:58
  We talked about Greenland before.
• 15:00
  Um, this is a president who is is going to leave office with a strategic rethinking of the global order in favor of America.
• 15:09
  And that's a positive thing, but we are we're seeing a lot of ripple effect support right now because we're right in the middle of it.
• 15:16
  Okay.
• 15:17
  So let's let's look at the consequences of this global reshaping.
• 15:21
  Yeah.
• 15:22
  So I'm gonna read from this is from yesterday.
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  Chicago Federal Reserve Bank president, um, Aston Goolsby.
• 15:29
  I've seen this kind of TV.
• 15:30
  I know Austin, yeah.
• 15:31
  Yeah, okay.
• 15:32
  Said Tuesday, he's concerned that the oil shock from the Iran war could potentially drop up prices in a stagflationary way.
• 15:40
  Goulds these stressed that the oil price shock comes as terrorists were working their way through the economy and had already led to higher inflation that was expected to fade later this year.
• 15:50
  Okay, I buy that.
• 15:51
  Yeah, uh, but here's an interesting comment that he makes and continues here in this one part.
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  But my concern at the immediate time is what we got to do to get our heads around an oil shock because he's right.
• 16:01
  We went from $63 to $118 a barrel.
• 16:06
  It's a 50% increase.
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  50, you know, it's almost double.
• 16:11
  Well, that's I'm sorry.
• 16:12
  I don't at the double.
• 16:14
  Sorry.
• 16:14
  I'm yeah, it was the other way.
• 16:16
  I would yes.
• 16:16
  Yes.
• 16:17
  In and think about that.
• 16:19
  If you go to the grocery store and things double in price in 60 days, you can't afford it.
• 16:25
  Most households can't think about how much money we spend on energy.
• 16:29
  You don't just have gas and diesel in your cars and trucks.
• 16:33
  You got utility costs.
• 16:36
  Everything's gonna go up, but oil goes up.
• 16:38
  Just because the price of celery goes up or carrots, that's all it affects.
• 16:42
  Well, we're seeing that in decision making.
• 16:44
  We're seeing CEOs already seeing uh uh purchases going down, people making tough decisions.
• 16:52
  Um buying cheap food, buying cheaper food and traveling less.
• 16:56
  We'll get Vegas, Vegas is a downtown right now.
• 16:59
  Um you're doing a movie called uh Zombie Three by liked in Vegas recently.
• 17:03
  Yeah, it's it's I mean, it's it's bad.
• 17:06
  So um that there's uh there's a lot of folks living on credit right now in a way that that's pretty harmful that when those bills come due, there's gonna be a real uh a bigger credit crisis that we're gonna have to deal with.
• 17:17
  Jamie Dimon, we talked about this yesterday came out and talking about we're kind of on the precipice of another 2008 in a lot of ways.
• 17:25
  So um, this is this is real.
• 17:28
  This is people's pocketbooks, and this is um is is a is a really strong challenge.
• 17:33
  Two positive things to think about.
• 17:35
  One, the market um has been relatively resilient.
• 17:39
  Um, you know, there's a lot of up and downs, and it's frankly unsettling.
• 17:42
  Again, the market's down, I think 30%.
• 17:45
  Um, or so uh my math may be off again, but you know, uh we've seen a big downward trend in the market of the last 30 days.
• 17:52
  Now if we see a swift revolution resolution and we see um the straight reopened and we see a a pro-Western uh leadership class come in and the and the and the Iranians really taking retaking over the country, that is potential as a 3x the market up in the right direction because you're gonna have a massive uh change in how that's played out.
• 18:14
  Um I would like to see that.
• 18:15
  We'll see how it all sticks out.
• 18:17
  Um it seems to me that the status quo of the of the Middle East has changed irrespective of of what President Trump wants to see.
• 18:25
  We've seen now Iran kind of becoming like a toll keeper for the straight up for moose for ships coming and out.
• 18:30
  That's a revenue generator for the country that has never not been there before, and something that, if is allowed to continue, would drastically change how the how the oil market is done.
• 18:41
  So again, we're we're at the early phases of this.
• 18:43
  I think it's it's hard to look into crystal ball and say, okay, this is how it's all gonna shake out.
• 18:48
  But um, we do know that the president uh reacts to the market more than anything.
• 18:54
  We saw him kind of back down a little bit for tariffs after the bond markets were about to crash uh last year.
• 19:00
  Same type of situation here.
• 19:01
  The president is not going to uh accept as a long-term um outcome of a market crash of epic proportion.
• 19:08
  So I think we'll see um some level of of level headedness come through on this, but you gotta finish the deal.
• 19:13
  What Fred Thompson would probably would have told him if he were still alive.
• 19:16
  I think applies to the president now.
• 19:18
  You have to finish the job.
• 19:20
  You can't rely on domestic politics to take the citizen.
• 19:24
  What are your generals and what are your strategic um you know, advisors saying?
• 19:27
  Because that's really what matters right now more than anything.
• 19:29
  Because it'll the short-term pain that we're dealing with is for a much longer term game.
• 19:33
  It's what we were hoping for is a strategy out of the White House.
• 19:36
  Yeah.
• 19:36
  Well, let's see what the strategy is going to be on the White House because right now we get this little pause here.
• 19:40
  And the real question comes right down to the significance of how much more military is left.
• 19:50
  How much more fighting is that than the Iranians?
• 19:52
  This they're they're giving a hell of a fight here.
• 19:55
  One of the one of the you know, let's let's think about this for a second.
• 19:58
  You know, when Beijing
• 20:00
  On Tuesday basically said yesterday, um, you know, we're we're allied with Iran and you need to stand down.
• 20:06
  This is wrong, what you're doing.
• 20:07
  And they they they said there's a wide-ranging consequences of the American Israeli war against Iran for President Trump, obviously did the deadline, things like that.
• 20:16
  And what's interesting is they even said that Islamic republic will strike a deal or they will live in hell, according to Pritt.
• 20:23
  President Trump, right?
• 20:24
  As we said.
• 20:25
  But now the Chinese have basically said they're gonna support Iran in this both during and and after.
• 20:33
  I wonder how deep China goes down with China Iran, like how they're deep their roots are, how to connect it.
• 20:39
  Because it sounds like they're that they're wanting to support each other, that they think they can take on the U.S.
• 20:45
  Um, they they are they've been building.
• 20:49
  They've been building military, they've been building technical capability, and and particularly scary is they've been building an energy infrastructure.
• 20:55
  We haven't been doing that.
• 20:57
  Um, and so in a way, I think China's threats have some merits.
• 21:02
  But um, I think what we've seen too is Iran attacking UAE and Iran attacking Saudi Arabia and the resolve of those two countries who were kind of starting to align with China have come quickly towards our side on that as well.
• 21:17
  So I'm not sure China has the friendship network that they are projecting that they have.
• 21:24
  Um, but uh, you know, I I have not seen any intel to that uh to go one way or another.
• 21:30
  What we're seeing is and I hate to use the term access because I feel if it just responds to World War II and kind of an enemy situation that I'm not sure is useful here, but Iran Russia-China Axis would be a very um uh troubling development coming out of this that I think um we need to be very, very uh cognizant of.
• 21:53
  Again, we're not seeing a Europe that's reliable right now.
• 21:56
  They're under a lot of uh um institutional and structural change over there, cultural change happening over there, and so the reliability of a Britain in a France is not as as solid as it was 20 years ago.
• 22:11
  There's uh there's a population shift happening over there, and they're not necessarily going to choose the West in terms of their their values and ideals.
• 22:18
  So, how do you address that as well?
• 22:21
  I think it's very important, and again, that's something that I think we saw from Signalgate last year, where I think some of the vice president's derision towards our European allies may have been accurate, but needs to be re revised because we do need a strong England and a strong um France look toward looking towards the West as allies as we deal with this new kind of developing accidents coming up.
• 22:43
  Okay, so if you were President Trump, what now?
• 22:46
  I mean, think about this for a second.
• 22:48
  You got this country that's just sitting there.
• 22:51
  99.9% of the people they're not in the management of the country, 99.9.
• 22:56
  You got a handful of guys who run it.
• 22:58
  And if you're not in the management and you're not managing this thing, you're kind of like just a follower.
• 23:03
  You're sitting there looking at this thing, get destroyed, you're looking now, they're starving, or they're hiding lack of food, lack of water, lack of empathy.
• 23:11
  Just the empathy.
• 23:12
  Well, I think President Trump showed that he did.
• 23:15
  Um, when we saw from the Iranian regime uh earlier this year when they were cracking down on the on the uprising, they there was reports that they killed upwards of 30,000 of their people.
• 23:26
  I saw that.
• 23:27
  Um, the president said, you know, helps on the way.
• 23:30
  It's I think it, and I actually think that might have been the turning for point for the president, because there were no aircraft carriers outside of the Middle East at that point.
• 23:36
  I think that was probably a if I were to guess, and I've not, this is just uh an observation from me, but I think when they killed 30,000 of their people I think the president's resolve really changed the point.
• 23:48
  We're just going to make a change over in Iran because that's just uh it it's anathema to him to see that happen.
• 23:54
  Um, you know, you can have a lot of people on the left hate him, you can have a lot of people you know in the media hate him.
• 24:00
  But this is a man who um generally disfavors um that level of of uh of uh genocidal um nature.
• 24:11
  And so seeing an enemy like that taking that resolve, I think he he is resolved.
• 24:17
  We're going to change this.
• 24:18
  I'm not going to I'm not going to allow this to go to continue to whoever succeeds me.
• 24:23
  And so I think it was it took a lot of fortitude, but you know, ultimately, um, you know, we're gonna we're gonna see move now to answer your question.
• 24:30
  You gotta see it through.
• 24:31
  If you're the president, you gotta see it through.
• 24:33
  Um, you know, you have to ensure that Iran um doesn't stabilize.
• 24:38
  We've I think we've lived the Iraq situation enough to know that uh stabilization might be a myth, but um creating an environment where the Iranian people can take it back over away from the mullahs and turn it into more of a um a society for Iran and not for the radical Islamic element of it.
• 24:58
  You know, it's funny when you talk about things like Iran and China and the connection.
• 25:08
  We're gonna take a uh break here in a second.
• 25:10
  We're gonna come back.
• 25:10
  Here's my topic.
• 25:12
  What is the Iran Iran-China oil connection?
• 25:15
  What exactly is it?
• 25:16
  When we get back, we're gonna go through that.
• 25:18
  China is Iran's largest trading partner and the destination for roughly 90% of its oil exports, acting as a crucial economic lifeline that enables Iran to bypass the U.S.
• 25:32
  sanctions.
• 25:32
  Think about that for a second.
• 25:34
  You want to know how Iran has been able to maintain and grow their economy and their cash flow for weapons.
• 25:40
  I mean, these doggone things, these drones by the tens of thousands.
• 25:44
  We're gonna break it down the key aspects of the Iran China oil connection.
• 25:48
  When we get back, we'll be back in a few minutes.
• 25:51
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• 31:36
  Okay, welcome back.
• 31:37
  So let's talk about this.
• 31:39
  China and Iran and what is their connection?
• 31:42
  What is going on that puts the pace of Iranian military pushback?
• 31:48
  I mean, they they put up a hell of a front.
• 31:50
  Would you agree?
• 31:51
  Yeah.
• 31:51
  I mean, yeah.
• 31:52
  They the last what, four weeks now?
• 31:54
  Well, they've been preparing for this for a while.
• 31:57
  Um, China, you mentioned China preparing as well.
• 32:00
  I think they have people in rooms figuring out what would happen if if uh if somebody were to attack, like we do the same.
• 32:07
  Um, and so um, you know, not surprising that there would be resistance.
• 32:13
  Um they're gonna take advantage of their position to try to try to win.
• 32:19
  Although I think it is important to note that from uh military material to resist position, um, there's very few targets left for us to actually hit.
• 32:30
  Um, in fact, we're sending palms to already destroyed targets, so they're basically just rearranging the rumble of places that have already hit.
• 32:37
  Um strategically, we'll see how that shakes out.
• 32:40
  But I mean, there's no plane, you know, there's no ships to attack, the planes and the infrastructure and military are pretty much wiped out.
• 32:47
  So in a way the president is somewhat out of out of military options, but um, you know, we're seeing Iran resort to what these guys do, which is bringing kids into the mix and and other types of uh humanitarian um disaster potential because this is just kind of how they operate.
• 33:09
  Um it's terrible, it's unfortunate, and hopefully we can figure out a way to kind of save the lives of innocent while also prosecuting a position to get Iran to a position where uh the Iranians are where we want, where we hope that it can be as a as a as an ally and not as a hostile regime.
• 33:26
  They didn't want to give up control.
• 33:28
  Of course not.
• 33:28
  Who would have a good deal going?
• 33:31
  So let's talk about this through it through the uh literally a 25-year strategic partnership.
• 33:36
  China and Iran or Beijing purchases discounted Iranian oil.
• 33:40
  We know this, right?
• 33:42
  But but what's interesting is they're using small private refineries and a shadow fleet of tankers to provide the means of which to get the oil.
• 33:53
  And Tehran or Iran is getting billions of dollars a year in sales, which is cash, so they need that desperately, and it circumvents all the sanctions.
• 34:02
  A question to you is if this has been going on for as long as it has 25 years, Iran's had sanctions on them for years.
• 34:10
  Why don't we stop it?
• 34:11
  I mean, think about this.
• 34:12
  Here, let me and before you answer that.
• 34:14
  And then to avoid U.S.
• 34:15
  sanctions, much of the trade involved at smaller Chinese banks, right?
• 34:18
  You know, media firms, and a shadow fleet of tankers that often turn off transpires.
• 34:25
  I mean, dude, listen, I'm not really here.
• 34:28
  Yes, I'm here, but you can't look at any of you because my transponders off.
• 34:32
  You're not allowed.
• 34:34
  And these banks over here, yes, they're laundering money, but you're not allowed to talk about that or do anything about it.
• 34:40
  And so the transactions were frequently settled in Reminbi, which is the Chinese currency, uh, using China's cross-border interbank payment system called the CIPS, which is obviously could become the central bank digital currency payment system, with which is hit hit with the BIS and it's all hooked up with a bunch of others, but they're bypassing the US dollar dominated SWIFT system.
• 35:02
  They literally learn through oil and circumventing sanctions with Iran and other countries for various business dealings to circumvent the US, which is hurting the dollar.
• 35:12
  That was one of the things that Trump made points with.
• 35:15
  And then they in 21, they signed this agreement, which secured it's a 25-year deal of Titan 21, which secures a steady discounted supply of oil for China in exchange for investment in Iran's infrastructure and energy sectors.
• 35:30
  There we go.
• 35:30
  If you really want to get to it, we give you tons of money, you'll give us tons of oil at a discounted rate, we'll circumvent the dollar, we'll kill the U.S.'s dollar, or at least the reserve currency status, the daily transactional status, and we'll be able to win.
• 35:46
  And here comes Trump when not today.
• 35:49
  Okay.
• 35:49
  The relationship remains somewhat intact.
• 35:55
  Even though China, and they did come to the aid of Iran with various things like weapons and intelligence.
• 36:02
  I mean, I know there's some drones that Russia did the same thing.
• 36:05
  The real question is don't you think if if if China was deeper with them, or at least had this in the the sincere understanding of the cooperation agreement which they signed in 21, I would have thought they would come, and maybe they did secretly.
• 36:21
  Maybe they'd offered more.
• 36:22
  I don't know.
• 36:22
  I just don't understand I don't I thought they would do more.
• 36:25
  Yeah.
• 36:25
  What do you think?
• 36:26
  It's a great question.
• 36:28
  And uh, you know, almost it requires a whole other episode to answer.
• 36:32
  I would I would say this.
• 36:33
  I think China, well, adversarial still needs the United States.
• 36:39
  Um, from an economic engine standpoint, from uh a good purchasing standpoint, from even from a tariff generated um international trade perspective, the United States uh um economic might still is the number one kind of source of driver of decisions for China just as well because ultimately Iran cannot replace the United States leadership on the global scale for the economy.
• 37:07
  So I think while there is some you know, president President Trump, and again, you know, it's disappointing that the uh China um summit has been delayed by six weeks.
• 37:16
  I think hopefully that gets rescheduled soon.
• 37:20
  There is a even if there's an underhanded work against the United States, there still needs to be a public-facing um productive conversation and work towards China, United States relationship because it's it's important to keep that somewhat afloat and alive because it really does impact both economies so drastically.
• 37:38
  You you want to see a global breakdown.
• 37:41
  It's not Iran in the straight up for moves.
• 37:43
  It would be a complete shutting down of the US China um, you know, a problem relationship.
• 37:48
  That would be global disaster.
• 37:51
  Catastrophe.
• 37:52
  And so we kind of saw it a little bit through COVID and just the destruction of of so much of the economic growth of the world by just shutting down.
• 38:00
  This would actually be even worse because it would actually be even more direct hostility rather than trying to work together to kind of keep the economy going.
• 38:07
  Um 2020 would be just a uh uh a drop in the bucket in terms of what would happen if the United States and China really just withdrew all economic ties.
• 38:18
  And so I think we're we don't like seeing the increase of growth and the increase of of competitive nature, but I think we also have built a long-standing 20 third almost 30 year now relationship on the economic side that I think we need each other in a way that that's not easy to untangle.
• 38:37
  Well, I would agree with that, but at some point China's gonna be able to detach from us.
• 38:41
  I think they're working toward that.
• 38:42
  It's just not today.
• 38:44
  Well, you know, so that's why I I think they're the president's trying very hard to you know limit that growth and also to I think it's why China isn't fully involved with Iran, because I think at the end of the day it would be catastrophic now for them to do so.
• 38:57
  I think, yeah, I think the nuclear weapons were was BS.
• 39:00
  I think that was just one of the the cover.
• 39:03
  Oh, I don't think they were quite there yet.
• 39:06
  Last year or this year.
• 39:07
  No, I think we took it out last year.
• 39:08
  I think the uranium enrichment systems that they had in place last year were taken out.
• 39:12
  I'm not so sure that it needed to be to this level.
• 39:14
  I think it was more about cutting off the oil to China and breaking up the uh the suppression of the people and possibly with the third thing, and then we might have been part of the the the weaponization of the uh rich uranium, but I also believe it was China cutting the oil, helping these poor people 47 years live under I mean, this thing was like tyranny.
• 39:37
  Yeah, this was as bad as this might have been giggles con running that country.
• 39:40
  And the third thing, of course, was also trying to uh put Iran back out of the sponsoring of all the terrorism around the world, put them back into where they were back 50, 60 years ago.
• 39:54
  I mean, when the Shah ran, they may not have liked them, but they live well.
• 39:57
  Have you seen pictures of Iran?
• 39:59
  Oh, the
• 40:00
  Yeah, I mean it was a tremendous it was like Yellow Levi.
• 40:04
  It's a very great question again.
• 40:07
  I was man, you should have some radio show or something.
• 40:10
  Maybe I'll do it.
• 40:11
  Get another short out here, but we'll talk about it.
• 40:13
  But seriously, think about this for a second.
• 40:16
  All about it.
• 40:16
  Yeah, I thought what's the deal?
• 40:18
  I I think what you're saying is right.
• 40:20
  I would say that the president's calculus on the nuclear weapons wasn't there was BS, but that there is a constant effort on Iran's part to reconstitute it, irrespective of what we do.
• 40:32
  Yeah.
• 40:32
  So instead of blowing it up one more time and then them going back to try to rebuild it over again without any UN inspection, without any IEA um, you know, efforts to try to try to monitor and control it.
• 40:46
  Um they try to do a rogue.
• 40:48
  And I think the president's patience on that was somewhat laid out.
• 40:51
  So I don't think the nuclear part of it was BS, but I think it was certainly uh why are we going to go do this again in 10 more in like five more years when they built it again?
• 41:00
  And it's just like, let's get this, let's remove this from the board.
• 41:03
  I think that's part of it.
• 41:05
  Um but I think you're exactly right on the China strategic piece.
• 41:09
  That again, look at what's being done.
• 41:13
  Venezuela, Iran, Cuba, Greenland, these are all places strategically located, rich with natural resources and minerals that are necessary for growth and computing and other types of things as well, that are all being um systematically uh moving in the direction of China that I think is a little too uncomfortable for anyone in the United States leadership position.
• 41:37
  Um, and if the president's taking a shop seriously, which he does, um those decisions are being made at a rapid pace because he knows is he's you know, frankly, one part running off time, and two um is not going to leave a mess to the degree that I think he was handed from the Obama administration and the Biden administration and others.
• 41:56
  Yeah, so okay, so all of this 12 oil, well, not quite, but well, actually, kind of is Europe.
• 42:03
  Yeah, I mean like what 200 bucks plus on a diesel barrel.
• 42:06
  Well, what is it?
• 42:07
  I know I saw some statistics that we we get what less than eight percent of our our uh oil from the Middle East.
• 42:14
  I was I was shocked by that number because it was a very low number.
• 42:18
  No, we actually built money when we do that.
• 42:19
  Do you know about that?
• 42:20
  Right.
• 42:20
  Oh, but yeah, okay, there's something but um you know we are able to be self-sustaining in a way that Europe and in Asia is not, which I was just surprised.
• 42:29
  When you read the news, you think when you kind of see the national narrative, you would think that all of our oil came from the release.
• 42:34
  It does not.
• 42:35
  So, in a way, we get from other parts of the world, too.
• 42:38
  Right.
• 42:38
  We do import a lot.
• 42:39
  Well, in everything is ripple, right?
• 42:41
  The the global market is still the global market.
• 42:44
  One one thing that happens in one area is going to affect the rest of the markets.
• 42:47
  You can't assume that it's not going to have a direct impact because it does.
• 42:50
  But um, I I just I think we're going to see 120 barrel oil as a temporary part of it because ultimately the goal is to shift more resources back to the West rather than to China.
• 43:02
  And so it's bad right now, it really is.
• 43:05
  I think it's going to be very harmful to us in the midterms of 2026, us being Republicans or conservatives.
• 43:10
  But um, on the whole, the idea of I I think this is short-term pain for long-term gain.
• 43:16
  I yeah, I agree.
• 43:17
  And then hopefully no, I agree with you.
• 43:19
  Yeah, I got a good feeling that that this will be good.
• 43:21
  The question is, how does this stack up as an impact today?
• 43:27
  Okay, so you look at like the two Fed guys today were talking about, oh, yesterday and say it was like six three or four between the two days.
• 43:35
  Oh this will this will spike inflation.
• 43:37
  The question is, will oil ever get back below 85?
• 43:40
  Or I've got people telling me no, it's not gonna happen.
• 43:43
  I mean, there are people in the oil industry saying that there's gonna be a fear factor left in oil for at least six months.
• 43:51
  I think that's entirely possible.
• 43:53
  I think that is also again to go back to COVID and the inflation that came from literally putting billions and hundreds of billions of dollars in the economy in a way that wasn't there before prices never have gone back down post-COVID.
• 44:09
  Yeah, I think a scenario is developing here where prices may not go back down to the degree that we want them to.
• 44:14
  Um, is there a reset to $85 barrels?
• 44:18
  Maybe is there a reset to $95 barrels?
• 44:21
  I I hope it gets lower.
• 44:23
  Um, but all that's gonna start getting baked into uh cost.
• 44:28
  And again, that that is a ton of inflation over a 10-year period from talking all the way back to 2018 to to 2016 to now.
• 44:39
  We've just sp that the economy has beared borne the brunt of so much inflation that costs are epically high.
• 44:46
  Um, and really harmful to people who are making ends meet in a way then that aren't aren't having major salaries.
• 44:53
  And again, you've got a tech situation coming in where people's economies and livelihoods are in threat.
• 44:58
  So this is a very um a very dangerous uh 3D chess happening here from a global market standpoint where you're having tech, energy, and uh geopolitical tensions all kind of coming into a same uh basket of really hard decisions.
• 45:14
  Yeah.
• 45:15
  So okay, so five percent inflation, five percent inflation by your end.
• 45:23
  Just think about every single thing that will impacts, yeah.
• 45:26
  Everything is nothing it doesn't impact literally everything, everything.
• 45:31
  It was like I said earlier in the program where I said salary and carrots go up 50%.
• 45:36
  Who cares?
• 45:37
  Okay, there'd be some pissed-off rabbits out there without their main mainstay.
• 45:43
  And so, but for us, it's everything.
• 45:46
  It's everything you buy at the grocery was transported there by a truck.
• 45:51
  Mayo eat on that every day.
• 45:54
  Yeah, your your grocery bill is gonna go up 30%.
• 45:58
  Um that is a huge, huge impact on people in the long haul.
• 46:03
  Fewer steaks, more rice and beans, and uh yeah, you know, that's when you are a restaurant owner, fewer people are coming to your restaurants to eat when you're uh um you know, people take an extra three weeks to get a haircut rather than going regularly, just every single piece of your involvement in the economy becomes slower and tougher with higher gas prices um and higher oil prices.
• 46:28
  And so uh yeah, it has huge ripple effects that I think we're only beginning to see the the the effects of that are going to impact a lot of places, sadly.
• 46:38
  Yeah, yeah.
• 46:39
  Okay, so let's talk about about farmers for a second.
• 46:43
  Just think about this for a second.
• 46:45
  This is what I was trying to say earlier.
• 46:47
  But everything.
• 46:49
  Yep.
• 46:50
  Okay, you ready?
• 46:51
  Here we go.
• 46:52
  So it's okay.
• 46:53
  Fertilizer prices.
• 46:54
  When you mentioned farmers or you mentioned the carrots and the sellers, I guess brought up like the rub of food.
• 47:01
  Everything.
• 47:02
  So driven by I'm gonna say fertilizer prices have this is a quote.
• 47:08
  Skyrocketed in early 26.
• 47:11
  Yeah.
• 47:12
  Driven by surging of oil and natural gas prices following the US Israeli conflict with Iran, which began on the 28th of February of 26.
• 47:20
  The crisis has disrupted shipping through the Strait of Hormose, a key artery for 20% of the global oil, and a significant portion of the fertilizer export is like, whoa.
• 47:33
  Think about that for farmers.
• 47:34
  There's your food supply.
• 47:36
  Well, we're getting into growing season, so we're not even to a place where we've even seen those costs go up yet.
• 47:42
  Again, every farmer is going to have to raise the prices for their crop because the prices of fertilizer have gone up, and that is gonna then impact groceries.
• 47:50
  And so and restaurants and McDonald's and all of the places that are are getting food for us to consume.
• 47:58
  Everything's going up.
• 47:59
  And so that means that food is is how we fuel ourselves, but that also means that everything else goes up.
• 48:07
  Dolls, uh toys, um, you know, just utility.
• 48:12
  Yes, cable prices for people that watch low is VAR, is it higher?
• 48:18
  So um very, very difficult rest of the year coming up with these prices increasing so rapidly that we seem to seem to be happy.
• 48:27
  We're only at the beginning size.
• 48:28
  We're only five weeks into the Iranian conflict.
• 48:30
  I mean, it's a war.
• 48:31
  It was caused the Iranian war.
• 48:33
  We're only five weeks into it.
• 48:34
  That is a drop in the bucket in terms of um the economic impact that we're about to see.
• 48:40
  And so Drewby, yeah, well, we're at the very beginning of it, and that's and that's the challenge, which is also a reason why a sweft swift resolution has to come, not from uh external position of um uh of a political reasoning, but also just from the just stabilizing the market and getting to the results we need in the in Iran.
• 49:02
  It's very, very important that we end this quickly, but also accurately completely.
• 49:07
  Okay, you know some stats.
• 49:09
  Yeah.
• 49:10
  Okay.
• 49:10
  Here's some stats.
• 49:11
  Here's some statistics that aren't gonna go well.
• 49:15
  Supply chain disruptions.
• 49:17
  Over one million tons of fertilizer have been reported stuck in the Gulf region as of just a week ago in earlier due to shipping disruptions.
• 49:26
  Okay, we get that one million tons.
• 49:28
  That sounds like a lot, doesn't it?
• 49:30
  It no, but yeah.
• 49:32
  Okay.
• 49:34
  Nitrogen fertilizer prices significantly have spiked by as much as 50%.
• 49:41
  Ooh.
• 49:42
  50%.
• 49:43
  And we'll tell you what that means to the bottom line here.
• 49:46
  It's terrible.
• 49:47
  The immediate aftermath of the conflict and hydrous ammonia prices are expected to exceed a thousand dollars per ton.
• 49:55
  That's a record world record price.
• 49:57
  Okay.
• 49:57
  Uh the Middle East accounts for a significant.
• 50:00
  Significant portion of global fertilizer trade.
• 50:02
  Okay.
• 50:02
  It came there was a a place in Saudi Arabia, I believe, that got bombed.
• 50:06
  Yeah.
• 50:07
  Which made all this fertilizer and okay, other petrochemical behind you.
• 50:12
  And they were talking about how when the farmers are facing substantially higher input costs, with estimating estimates indicating a potential 10% rise in fertilizer expenses.
• 50:26
  For some, this has meant an extra hundred thousand or more in cost.
• 50:29
  There's that's all they make.
• 50:31
  Yeah.
• 50:31
  That's all they make.
• 50:32
  And they're lucky if you make a hundred grand a year doing corn or wheat.
• 50:37
  And of course, the with corn and soybean prices falling, rising fertilizer costs that create a ambitious circle for the farmers.
• 50:45
  They're seeing lower returns and higher uh financial risk.
• 50:49
  I mean, it's just staggering how much this stuff has gone up.
• 50:54
  I mean, that's almost 60% at the pub.
• 50:57
  Yeah.
• 50:58
  60%.
• 50:59
  That's honey cow.
• 51:01
  Untenable.
• 51:02
  Well, yeah, because it's a shock.
• 51:04
  It's sticker shock.
• 51:05
  Yeah.
• 51:05
  You know, you've been buying a car.
• 51:09
  Yeah.
• 51:10
  Okay.
• 51:10
  It's it's like buying a car, new or used car is supposed to be back.
• 51:16
  It was the experience like flying.
• 51:18
  Oh, it's great to fly.
• 51:20
  You had this wonderful attentive person that would wait on you and tell you, oh, I'm a flight attendant is whatever.
• 51:27
  And what do you mean?
• 51:28
  Oh, do you want the steak or the chicken?
• 51:30
  Buying China, tablecloth or the app can, right?
• 51:34
  Flying was an experience.
• 51:36
  It was a luxury, I guess.
• 51:37
  It was, yeah.
• 51:38
  Okay.
• 51:38
  Could culturally status seek that.
• 51:41
  It was.
• 51:42
  It was an experience.
• 51:43
  Fast forward.
• 51:46
  When you now look at what we're going through in life, very few things are that had a level of experience.
• 51:52
  It's really about just get to work, get it done, go along.
• 51:58
  We we grind it out.
• 51:59
  It's life is not that experience anymore.
• 52:02
  And but here's an experience I'll give you today.
• 52:05
  Ready for the experience.
• 52:06
  Yeah.
• 52:08
  Fill up your car.
• 52:09
  It's not seven dollars a gallon.
• 52:11
  Used to be four.
• 52:12
  Used to be three.
• 52:12
  Used to be two.
• 52:14
  That's that's an experience.
• 52:16
  You don't want that's not an experience I'm looking for.
• 52:18
  No.
• 52:19
  Um yeah.
• 52:19
  And flying now is not an experience.
• 52:21
  Now you got these ticket prices.
• 52:22
  Ticket prices up 50%.
• 52:24
  Yep.
• 52:25
  50% in a month.
• 52:27
  I know.
• 52:28
  I mean, food prices, everything.
• 52:31
  Toothpaste.
• 52:32
  Well, and it just makes people make tougher decisions.
• 52:34
  So they gotta take that work trail or they go in to do that extra extra thing to work all.
• 52:39
  That's right.
• 52:40
  Buy more groceries or buy less groceries.
• 52:42
  Yeah.
• 52:43
  Just every single economic decision that a family makes is going to be a lot tougher over the next few months.
• 52:49
  And again, from a political standpoint, as the congressional masks are coming, you know, or uh uh the congressional races for the midterms are coming in November.
• 52:57
  Um real challenge, real headways for the GOP right now as a result.
• 53:02
  Yeah, I think the headwinds who's cruise uh look at the biggest headwood.
• 53:08
  Oh, so it's the house.
• 53:09
  House houses are really really difficult to keep.
• 53:12
  I'm gonna I'm gonna go on the record, say we'll lose 10 seats.
• 53:16
  Oh, I think it's gonna be a lot more than that.
• 53:18
  I do too, but uh I would have win the better.
• 53:21
  You take the under, I'll take the over, and uh, you know, we'll uh we'll see.
• 53:26
  Well what are we betting?
• 53:28
  Some pizza, some uh 80 80% uh inflated pizza.
• 53:32
  80% oh my gosh.
• 53:34
  Yeah, the cost of everything.
• 53:36
  Where did I where did I just see something that made me mad?
• 53:41
  Okay, so now as we kind of look at the the race or the economic impact.
• 53:48
  If this thing was to if if oil stays elevated, let's say above a hundred, above a let's just say a hundred.
• 53:53
  Yeah, because we're clearly there now.
• 53:55
  Yeah.
• 53:56
  For let's say a month.
• 53:58
  The the inflation will be like five percent.
• 54:02
  That just keeps building.
• 54:03
  Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 54:04
  It keeps building here's here's my question.
• 54:06
  I'm trying to be very delicate.
• 54:08
  How bad could it get?
• 54:10
  I'm just gonna say it.
• 54:11
  I mean, could we lose the Senate in this cycle?
• 54:14
  Yes, we could.
• 54:15
  We could Texas has a choice here in a couple months.
• 54:19
  Um, all right.
• 54:20
  Will they pick for their their nominee?
• 54:22
  One nominee uh Ken Paxson will be a tougher general election campaign than uh than John Cornen, probably to the tune of 80 million dollars spending the state versus 20.
• 54:33
  Um that's a reality.
• 54:35
  We'll see how Republicans pick, and you know, they have the right to make what they want, but one candidate's gonna be a much tougher general election candidate.
• 54:41
  It's just it's just the facts.
• 54:43
  Yeah.
• 54:43
  Um, Iowa with the tariffs that we're seeing, it's gonna be difficult for the GOP.
• 54:48
  There's other states out there, Michigan, Maine.
• 54:50
  I think Susan Collins is uh is this is a force in Maine that people kind of underestimate, but still a blue state and a red, you know, center.
• 54:59
  That's all the way up to red off.
• 55:01
  That red.
• 55:02
  No, um, you know, she's she's a moderate.
• 55:05
  She's purple.
• 55:06
  She's very purple.
• 55:07
  Um, and she represents uh but a blue state.
• 55:10
  So um, you know, she's navigated that well for a long time.
• 55:13
  I mean, again, I I just I find it hard to believe that the Democrats, whoever they put up study Susan Collins, because I just think Susan Collins has done such a tremendous job representing Maine as long as she has and has done enough to show that she's independent-minded enough where she's not just gonna throw the party line of a mag of GOP.
• 55:28
  That's good, that agree with that one.
• 55:30
  Because there's been times when she has looked as if she was gonna go left on some things, and she did she did get a few of the first term appointees through through confirmation for Trump, uh, both on the Supreme Court, obviously, and and the administration.
• 55:47
  So good.
• 55:48
  Uh, you know, we could talk about this another time, but I I think the idea of the Senate weighing in so partisanly on uh nominations needs to kind of be revisited.
• 55:57
  I mean, prices you get to pick who he wants.
• 56:00
  Um, and the Senate being a guardrail against that is one thing, but a Senate that obstructs people who are just part of the president's team, um, really kind of limits the effectiveness of what American people elected a president to do.
• 56:14
  Um so in some regards it's become such a partisan thing.
• 56:17
  We're usually these things for usually 90 to 10.
• 56:20
  Now they're 50-50, and I just that's not a good outcome for the country over.
• 56:24
  Lucky you get 5050.
• 56:26
  Yeah.
• 56:26
  And then JD kind of throws in his well breaker sometimes.
• 56:29
  You know, you also need to spine call to Canada.
• 56:31
  Some of these candidates don't deserve to be confirmed, but a lot of people have the accent watch.
• 56:35
  We're just at Chris River.
• 56:36
  Matt Gates for AG, but uh um, you know, on the whole, there is uh it's it's two partisan up there, and we could again get off a rabbit hole on that, but um the the parsonship of of Senate confirmations is a little too aggressive these days.
• 56:52
  Yeah, I agree with that one.
• 56:53
  Okay, well, thanks for joining me.
• 56:55
  Thank you for having me.
• 56:56
  All right, we're done.
• 56:57
  We'll be back next Wednesday.
• 56:58
  Stay tuned on the record with Christian Briggs.