Latest / Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar / 10/5/26: Iran Disrupts Hormuz Traffic, Yemen War Explodes, Trump Desperate Midterm Pitch
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: Hey guys, Ready or Not 2024 is here, and we
- 0:04Speaker 1: here at Breaking Points are already thinking of ways we
- 0:06Speaker 1: can up our game for this critical election. We rely
- 0:09Speaker 1: on our premium subs to expand coverage, upgrade the studio,
- 0:12Speaker 1: add staff, give you guys the best independent coverage that
- 0:15Speaker 1: is possible. If you like what we're all about, it
- 0:17Speaker 1: just means the absolute world to have your support. But
- 0:20Speaker 1: enough with that, let's get to the show. Good morning, everybody.
- 0:26Speaker 1: Happy Monday. Have an amazing show for everybody today. Bro show.
- 0:29Speaker 1: People live for the pounds. Good to see you, Ryan.
- 0:32Speaker 2: Nice to see you, Sagar.
- 0:34Speaker 1: So we have Iran. We're going to start off a
- 0:36Speaker 1: little finance bro knowledge from our friend Ryan Grimm, who's
- 0:39Speaker 1: going to break down. Scott Besant, who has decided to
- 0:42Speaker 1: rue his braggadocious comment. where he said, I am the
- 0:47Speaker 1: house now. And he's like, well, what I meant was.
- 0:49Speaker 2: The house doesn't always win.
- 0:50Speaker 1: He's like, well, the house doesn't always win, but eventually
- 0:53Speaker 1: they win, right? It's kind of similar on top of
- 0:56Speaker 1: some developments out of Iran, specifically on the economic front,
- 1:00Speaker 1: their oil minister resigning. We're also going to talk about Yemen.
- 1:04Speaker 1: Some crazy events actually happening right now as we speak.
- 1:07Speaker 1: A Saudi-backed counteroffensive on the Houthis, while the Houthis are
- 1:12Speaker 1: also encircling a strategic town The United States apparently held
- 1:16Speaker 1: a very high-level meeting over the weekend at Camp David,
- 1:19Speaker 1: where Trump is mulling both escalation in Iran and direct
- 1:23Speaker 1: military intervention in Yemen. Remember, he had originally greenlit the
- 1:27Speaker 1: attack and then called it off, actually, while the aircraft
- 1:29Speaker 1: were being fueled up. Then, talk about midterms, absolutely shocking
- 1:34Speaker 1: polling numbers coming out of The New York Times, Siena,
- 1:37Speaker 1: high-quality polls in multiple different battleground races. that find a
- 1:42Speaker 1: huge problem for the GOP in Alaska, in Texas, potentially
- 1:46Speaker 1: even Kansas. So we're going to look at all of
- 1:48Speaker 1: that evidence and we're going to, you know, steel man
- 1:50Speaker 1: some of it a little bit. Ken Paxton, by the way,
- 1:52Speaker 1: also another leaked audio clip where he just keeps, you know,
- 1:55Speaker 1: dropping L's out here as he appears to face the
- 1:58Speaker 1: toughest reelection campaign of any Republican actually in a battleground state,
- 2:03Speaker 1: which is shocking, obviously, to be from Texas. So we'll
- 2:06Speaker 1: break a lot of that down. We're also going to
- 2:08Speaker 1: talk about this AI video. case. Man, Ryan, this is
- 2:12Speaker 1: the one which has shocked me more than anything, where
- 2:16Speaker 1: a person's, what is it, his conviction was thrown, his
- 2:20Speaker 1: sentence was tossed out after they used an AI video
- 2:25Speaker 1: in court where the deceased victim is depicted speaking in
- 2:29Speaker 1: an AI-generated video to the defendant being like, I forgive you.
- 2:34Speaker 1: I don't know how any of this even happened. They
- 2:37Speaker 1: got a sentence, eventually went to court. I mean, it's crazy.
- 2:39Speaker 1: Apparently it was even used by the judge in their consideration. So,
- 2:43Speaker 1: you know, that's right. You get AI videos and boomer judges,
- 2:47Speaker 1: and apparently this is what happens. This is on top
- 2:49Speaker 1: of a new company, which appears to have claims to pass, quote,
- 2:53Speaker 1: the Turing test for video. We will play you some samples.
- 2:57Speaker 1: You can make up your minds for yourself. Finally, I'm
- 3:00Speaker 1: really excited to say this. Annie Jacobson, the author of
- 3:04Speaker 1: Biological War, previously Nuclear War Scenario, she's going to join us.
- 3:08Speaker 1: She has been on top of this apparent lab leak
- 3:11Speaker 1: of a form of, what is it, pneumonic plague, which
- 3:16Speaker 1: appears to have leaked from BSL-3 lab. already caused the
- 3:20Speaker 1: death of one of the researchers in the city of Irkutsk,
- 3:23Speaker 1: which is in Siberia. We know that from Risk. Yes,
- 3:26Speaker 1: we know that from Risk. I actually read a book
- 3:30Speaker 1: once which heavily took place in Irkutsk. What is it?
- 3:32Speaker 1: It's one of the coldest cities in the world, in
- 3:34Speaker 1: the middle of Siberia. Totally crazy, actually, place. The fact
- 3:37Speaker 1: that such a place even exists on a permanent basis. Anyway,
- 3:40Speaker 1: that's where they have this BSL lab, where it's like
- 3:42Speaker 1: anti-plague research, and now somebody just died of plague. Russians
- 3:46Speaker 1: locking down the place, already lying about what's going on.
- 3:49Speaker 1: Many of us have seen this story before. And Annie
- 3:50Speaker 1: actually specifically wrote about this plague scenario in her book.
- 3:54Speaker 1: So we're really excited to be joined by her. And
- 3:56Speaker 1: then finally, since it's just me today, and just, you know,
- 4:00Speaker 1: no crystal to be like, are we sure we need
- 4:03Speaker 1: to cover this Daylight Savings thing? No, I'm joking. She
- 4:06Speaker 1: probably would love it. Anyway.
- 4:08Speaker 2: Because of the fighting with Tom Cotton, she'd have been
- 4:11Speaker 2: for it.
- 4:11Speaker 1: Yeah, right, right. Exactly. Every time I'm like, let's get
- 4:14Speaker 1: Daylight Savings into the show. Let's get gambling in the show. Well,
- 4:17Speaker 1: this time around, Daylight Savings, I actually think rates, you
- 4:21Speaker 1: guys can judge for yourself. Trump gave out Tom Cotton's
- 4:23Speaker 1: cell phone number because he's so upset with him for blocking.
- 4:28Speaker 1: permanent daylight savings. And I know everybody gets confused. We
- 4:32Speaker 1: are currently in daylight savings in November. When we shift,
- 4:36Speaker 1: we will go to standard time. That means the TLDR
- 4:39Speaker 1: of it is more light in the morning, less light
- 4:42Speaker 1: in the evening. Ryan and I will discuss people know
- 4:44Speaker 1: where I fall. I said, uh, this one and Tom
- 4:47Speaker 1: Cotton is all hardcore warrior has been, I've been in
- 4:50Speaker 1: touch with his office many times over the years. to
- 4:53Speaker 1: provide research and just, you know, just general advocacy on
- 4:57Speaker 1: behalf of this crusade. And he does not appear to
- 5:00Speaker 1: be buckling as of right now. But Trump, you know,
- 5:02Speaker 1: using all of his political capital, I said this morning, Ryan,
- 5:05Speaker 1: between Trump's embrace of weed, porn, gambling, daylight savings, and
- 5:10Speaker 1: war with Iran, I think he was sent by God
- 5:13Speaker 1: to punish me personally, like me personally to be punished,
- 5:17Speaker 1: which is karmic, I guess, you know, that's karma. So anyway,
- 5:20Speaker 1: and then finally, Ryan and I are going to do
- 5:22Speaker 1: our AMA. So Ryan, take it away with our pitch.
- 5:24Speaker 1: We actually have a very specific pitch for today.
- 5:27Speaker 2: And speaking of punishing soccer, if we can actually go
- 5:30Speaker 2: back to camera two.
- 5:31Speaker 1: Yeah.
- 5:32Speaker 2: If you noticed.
- 5:33Speaker 1: Come up on me while.
- 5:33Speaker 2: Ryan is talking. A little bit of light behind me
- 5:35Speaker 2: right here. You see this?
- 5:36Speaker 1: No light. Sorry.
- 5:37Speaker 2: No light.
- 5:38Speaker 1: There's no light over here.
- 5:39Speaker 2: So we desperately need your support at this time. Sponsor
- 5:43Speaker 2: a light.
- 5:44Speaker 1: Yes.
- 5:44Speaker 2: For the low, low cost. No. So yes.
- 5:47Speaker 3: Yes.
- 5:48Speaker 1: We have electrical short, and we need you to fix it.
- 5:51Speaker 2: Go to breakingpoints.com, do the month free, and help us
- 5:54Speaker 2: out here.
- 5:54Speaker 1: That's right.
- 5:55Speaker 2: And secondly, a month from now, you might be lying
- 5:59Speaker 2: in your bed dying of pneumonic plague.
- 6:01Speaker 1: That's exactly right.
- 6:02Speaker 2: Would you want to spend every day from now until
- 6:05Speaker 2: that day watching YouTube ads?
- 6:08Speaker 4: Right.
- 6:08Speaker 2: Why would you want to do that? Yeah, why would
- 6:09Speaker 2: you want to do that? You might be dying, drowning
- 6:12Speaker 2: in your own blood-soaked vomit.
- 6:14Speaker 5: Uh-huh.
- 6:15Speaker 2: In about 30 days.
- 6:16Speaker 1: That's right. So you might as well. Money means nothing
- 6:18Speaker 1: in that scenario. Right. So you might. And by the way,
- 6:20Speaker 1: you're not even spending anything because it's free. All right.
- 6:22Speaker 2: Your estate will then have to.
- 6:24Speaker 1: Your estate. That's right. We can reconcile all of this
- 6:27Speaker 1: with your lawyers should the time come if we ourselves
- 6:30Speaker 1: are not drowning. In their own blood. All right. So
- 6:32Speaker 1: with all that, let's get to Iran. Turning now to Iran,
- 6:36Speaker 1: we got Scott Besson here, who is now walking back
- 6:39Speaker 1: his whole I am the house now bragging when he
- 6:43Speaker 1: said that the bond deals were going to go down.
- 6:44Speaker 1: They ended up going up to the highest level in
- 6:46Speaker 1: 24 years. Here's what he had to say.
- 6:48Speaker 4: Last month, you told the markets, I am the house now.
- 6:52Speaker 4: They bet against you at their peril. Do you regret
- 6:55Speaker 4: saying I am the house now?
- 6:57Speaker 5: No, because, look, the house doesn't win every hand. The
- 6:59Speaker 5: house plays the percentages. And, you know, like, look, maybe
- 7:05Speaker 5: they hurt some fragile egos on Wall Street that I
- 7:09Speaker 5: always had respect for the market. And, you know, I
- 7:12Speaker 5: always tried to look and think, like, what's the move
- 7:15Speaker 5: after the move that, you know, if you have an ego,
- 7:18Speaker 5: you lose a lot of money. But the market slapped back. No,
- 7:22Speaker 5: it didn't. How did it slap back? The rates went up,
- 7:26Speaker 5: but oil went up. I could say, okay, yesterday we
- 7:31Speaker 5: had the first full allocation since we have expanded our
- 7:36Speaker 5: treasury buybacks and rates collapsed. There's nothing causal there. It
- 7:41Speaker 5: was coincident.
- 7:42Speaker 4: The Financial Times, probably your favorite paper, said Besant fails
- 7:45Speaker 4: to break fever in U.S.
- 7:47Speaker 2: Bond market.
- 7:48Speaker 4: What did you learn from that?
- 7:50Speaker 5: Well, I learned that the Financial Times is anti-American, anti-business.
- 7:55Speaker 5: And they have a fever. They're constantly trying to create
- 8:00Speaker 5: a problem for the U.S. But let's leave that disgraced
- 8:05Speaker 5: publication in London aside.
- 8:07Speaker 1: That disgraced publication in London aside.
- 8:09Speaker 2: When he launched his economic D-Day against Iran, he did
- 8:13Speaker 2: it in a op-ed.
- 8:15Speaker 1: In the Financial Times. That's right.
- 8:17Speaker 2: I forgot about that.
- 8:17Speaker 1: I forgot. That's right. He did.
- 8:19Speaker 2: Come on, buddy.
- 8:20Speaker 5: He totally did.
- 8:21Speaker 2: All right.
- 8:21Speaker 1: Break it down for us, Ryan. What is he actually saying?
- 8:24Speaker 2: I mean, he's saying it's not my fault because oil
- 8:26Speaker 2: prices went up and when oil prices go up, then
- 8:29Speaker 2: it pushes inflation through the economy, which creates expectations of
- 8:33Speaker 2: a federal interest rate hike, which then drives up interest rates.
- 8:36Speaker 2: So what do you want me to do about any
- 8:38Speaker 2: of this? Yeah, that's that's basically his argument there.
- 8:40Speaker 1: It's so funny. I mean, it's so it's it's hilarious, too,
- 8:43Speaker 1: because I am the house now was one of the
- 8:46Speaker 1: most declarative statements ever. issued by a U.S. wartime Treasury
- 8:50Speaker 1: Secretary in, what, decades? I mean, it's just like, I
- 8:52Speaker 1: am the House. I will fix this. This is my thing.
- 8:56Speaker 1: And then it immediately fell apart and failed. Guess that
- 8:58Speaker 1: makes me anti-American and, what is it, anti-business for saying that.
- 9:03Speaker 1: You know, and the funny part is, too, is like
- 9:05Speaker 1: presuming that he is part of the House. He's like, well,
- 9:07Speaker 1: oil prices went up. I'm like, well, that's the House's fault, too, bro.
- 9:11Speaker 1: That's the U.S.
- 9:11Speaker 2: Government's fault.
- 9:12Speaker 5: Right.
- 9:12Speaker 2: You've been manipulating oil prices for months now and you
- 9:15Speaker 2: finally lost your grip on it. But yes, to say
- 9:18Speaker 2: I am the House now and then to have the
- 9:20Speaker 2: biggest run up in interest rates in a quarter century,
- 9:24Speaker 2: a kind of reshaping of the global financial system immediately
- 9:28Speaker 2: after your claim is incredible.
- 9:30Speaker 1: Right.
- 9:31Speaker 2: He goes on here. We can roll A2 here.
- 9:35Speaker 5: Again, what I've learned that everyone in the market knows
- 9:39Speaker 5: you don't win every hand, but you win over time.
- 9:44Speaker 5: Everyone knows I'm a big basketball fan, big fan of
- 9:46Speaker 5: John Wooten, big fan of Dean Smith. And how do
- 9:49Speaker 5: they win? You trust the process and you put a
- 9:51Speaker 5: good process in place. And like what we can see
- 9:54Speaker 5: with bond yields that I would be concerned if we
- 9:59Speaker 5: were having some kind of idiosyncratic rise. It's been a
- 10:03Speaker 5: global rise. The U.S. bond performance since the president came
- 10:09Speaker 5: in has been the best in the world. So we
- 10:11Speaker 5: are not seeing people sell treasuries to buy German bonds
- 10:14Speaker 5: or Japanese bonds. And like I said, that I can't
- 10:18Speaker 5: control the bond market. What I can do is try
- 10:21Speaker 5: to get people to slow down and think.
- 10:23Speaker 2: So there he's basically saying the entire global financial system
- 10:27Speaker 2: is broken.
- 10:27Speaker 1: Yeah.
- 10:28Speaker 2: It's not just ours. So that should make you feel better. Also,
- 10:31Speaker 2: trust the process means if you're the 76, you just
- 10:34Speaker 2: stumble along for a decade and a half, and then
- 10:36Speaker 2: you get LeBron James.
- 10:37Speaker 1: Yeah, right. Exactly.
- 10:39Speaker 2: Besson is going to hire LeBron James to fix the
- 10:41Speaker 2: bond market.
- 10:41Speaker 1: It's so ridiculous. It's like when you said I am
- 10:45Speaker 1: the house, what you're saying– by the way, the house
- 10:46Speaker 1: is supposed to win. You know that, right? And yes,
- 10:49Speaker 1: not just in the long run, but on a general
- 10:51Speaker 1: day-to-day basis. So let's put A3 up here on the screen,
- 10:55Speaker 1: which shows another problem for, quote, the house. We spent
- 11:00Speaker 1: the last couple of weeks actually talking about the legitimate,
- 11:02Speaker 1: it appears, fact that there was a lot more oil
- 11:05Speaker 1: that was coming out of the Strait of Hormuz. We're
- 11:07Speaker 1: not believing the United States government. We were looking to
- 11:09Speaker 1: independent analyst Rory Johnston, to Kepler data, to all of
- 11:12Speaker 1: these others. People, Steele Manning said, I especially trust Rory
- 11:16Speaker 1: on this question because he really interrogates kind of the
- 11:18Speaker 1: deep assumptions. And so we've had him here many times
- 11:20Speaker 1: on the show. And he was validating much of this.
- 11:23Speaker 1: Tanker trackers as well. Sal, obviously, from what's going on
- 11:27Speaker 1: with shipping. All of them, though, in the last 48
- 11:29Speaker 1: hours have now been pointing out attacks on ships have
- 11:32Speaker 1: been resurging in the Strait of Hormuz. And, you know,
- 11:36Speaker 1: we covered many of these attacks, but there were additional
- 11:39Speaker 1: ones that actually happened over the weekend. And after several
- 11:42Speaker 1: days without reported attacks, UK Maritime on September 28th began
- 11:46Speaker 1: to report multiple different strikes. What was also interesting about
- 11:50Speaker 1: all of these strikes, quote, are all seven were attacked
- 11:54Speaker 1: near the narrowest part of the Hormuz Strait. And what
- 11:57Speaker 1: we appear to see is that they were shooting to
- 11:59Speaker 1: kill this time around, to fully disable and to sink
- 12:03Speaker 1: the ship. In addition, there was a tanker this morning.
- 12:06Speaker 1: I don't know about sink, but at least disabled. Or
- 12:07Speaker 1: at least, you know, whatever. They don't care what happens.
- 12:09Speaker 1: Really what they're saying is we're not.
- 12:10Speaker 2: Well, if there's 2 million barrels of oil, they don't
- 12:12Speaker 2: necessarily want it going under.
- 12:13Speaker 1: 100%. But I guess from what I had seen, and
- 12:16Speaker 1: I'm not a military expert, but trusting some of the
- 12:18Speaker 1: people that I had seen previously, when they would shoot,
- 12:21Speaker 1: it would be disabling or warning shot, like, you know,
- 12:24Speaker 1: not something that was designed.
- 12:25Speaker 2: Now they're going for the engine room.
- 12:26Speaker 1: Now they're going for the engine room. They're specifically trying
- 12:28Speaker 1: to take the entire ship. I'm just quibbling with sink.
- 12:31Speaker 1: I don't think they want to sink it. You're right.
- 12:33Speaker 1: I mean, it'd be a problem for them, right? Kill
- 12:34Speaker 1: dozens of sailors and you sink a bunch of oil here.
- 12:36Speaker 1: You're absolutely right. So this is a kind of a
- 12:38Speaker 1: controlled game all around.
- 12:40Speaker 2: Dangerous game.
- 12:41Speaker 1: What I've seen, and don't forget, people have died, like
- 12:44Speaker 1: Indian sailors, other people have died already in this conflict.
- 12:46Speaker 1: From what I understand, though, here is that there was
- 12:49Speaker 1: another ship this morning, a Greek ship, where the IRGC
- 12:53Speaker 1: came on the radio. and said, listen, turn around or
- 12:56Speaker 1: you're getting sunk. And they did. They actually did turn around.
- 12:59Speaker 1: So big, pretty significant in terms of what has come out.
- 13:03Speaker 1: What I also saw was this fascinating, actually, part of
- 13:10Speaker 1: this analysis is there is a possibility that some of
- 13:14Speaker 1: these tankers are secretly paying the Iranian toll. So there's
- 13:18Speaker 1: a corollary to this where it Previously, it looked like, wow,
- 13:24Speaker 1: this is all because of the Iranian blockade. But apparently,
- 13:28Speaker 1: there are some indications that at least some portion of
- 13:31Speaker 1: these ships may just be paying Iran under the table.
- 13:34Speaker 2: In fact, I can prove it, and we can add
- 13:35Speaker 2: this in post. Brett Erickson, oil analyst, flagged this. On
- 13:39Speaker 2: September 17th, the Treasury Department announced some new sanctions, and
- 13:43Speaker 2: this kind of slipped under the radar, no pun intended.
- 13:47Speaker 2: But in it, it says, quote, this is from the
- 13:49Speaker 2: Treasury Department. Since June of this year, OFAC designated, that
- 13:53Speaker 2: means sanctioned, sanctioned Hormuz Safe Marine Services Authority has used
- 14:00Speaker 2: BitBank to transfer payments it received to the Iranian regime.
- 14:05Speaker 6: Wow.
- 14:05Speaker 2: So according to the Treasury Department, this sanctioned organization set
- 14:10Speaker 2: up to receive money for letting tankers go through the
- 14:15Speaker 2: strait has been sending money to the Iranian regime.
- 14:17Speaker 1: Another thing.
- 14:18Speaker 2: So people are... according to the Treasury Department, paying Iran
- 14:21Speaker 2: to get their ships through. And over the two weeks
- 14:24Speaker 2: since then, you did see a lot more.
- 14:26Speaker 1: Great point. And you know, this is part of the
- 14:28Speaker 1: other problem where people celebrate just the oil getting through.
- 14:31Speaker 1: Rory flagged this. He was directly quoted in the Wall
- 14:33Speaker 1: Street Journal. He says, part of the surge may reflect
- 14:35Speaker 1: exporters rushing barrels out before new escalation. Gulf oil producers
- 14:39Speaker 1: are currently shelling 30 to 40 million for a round-trip
- 14:43Speaker 1: shuttle run in and out of Hormuz, which is $ 15
- 14:46Speaker 1: to $ 20 premium per barrel before the cost of insurance.
- 14:50Speaker 1: I mean, so you've got a $ 15 to $ 20 barrel
- 14:53Speaker 1: premium just to get this stuff out of Hormuz on
- 14:56Speaker 1: a highly inefficient, highly expensive, just for the tankers themselves,
- 15:00Speaker 1: not to mention the what, hundreds of millions of dollars
- 15:02Speaker 1: of U.S. naval assets, U.S. Marines and sailors and Black
- 15:05Speaker 1: Hawk helicopters that are all trying to move these things through.
- 15:09Speaker 1: And you've still got oil at where it is right now.
- 15:11Speaker 1: Let me take a look at the current market price
- 15:13Speaker 1: is somewhere around, yeah, about $ 102 a barrel, which reflects
- 15:18Speaker 1: probably the situation happening in Yemen. But if you have
- 15:22Speaker 1: it all here together, this is just not sustainable. And look,
- 15:26Speaker 1: I always want to try and present some of the
- 15:28Speaker 1: other parts of this. So like, This is to the
- 15:31Speaker 1: Iranian strategy. Let's put A4 up here on the screen.
- 15:34Speaker 1: And Scott Stevenson actually put this quite well. One of
- 15:37Speaker 1: the reasons why today feels so crazy is that currently,
- 15:42Speaker 1: as we see from this graphic, if you're younger than 45,
- 15:45Speaker 1: this is literally the first time in your entire life
- 15:49Speaker 1: that you are experiencing real-time, real rising interest rate. The
- 15:54Speaker 1: last time it happened was 1960 to 1980. which fundamentally
- 15:58Speaker 1: changes the physics of the game, as he says, in
- 16:01Speaker 1: a way that many won't be prepared for. I mean,
- 16:03Speaker 1: I guess the most easy way to understand it is
- 16:05Speaker 1: that money's expensive, right? It's not cheap. And you could
- 16:08Speaker 1: make an argument that the entire reason that we had
- 16:12Speaker 1: the VC and technological rise of the 2000s to today
- 16:18Speaker 1: is because of cheap money. And there was an entire period,
- 16:21Speaker 1: which is known colloquially as ZERP, like the zero interest
- 16:24Speaker 1: rate phenomenon where zero interest rate alone was responsible easily
- 16:30Speaker 1: for multiple giant busts, like WeWork, for example, and all
- 16:35Speaker 1: of these other crazy investments. But now when we have
- 16:39Speaker 1: money being so expensive, obviously it's a disaster for normal
- 16:42Speaker 1: people like us. And what is it, mortgage rates are 7.2%,
- 16:46Speaker 1: something insane right now. But I do think what he
- 16:51Speaker 1: is pointing to is that when things feel insane in
- 16:54Speaker 1: our economy beyond just gas prices, but also including home
- 16:58Speaker 1: and rising rent and all these other things, it's because
- 17:00Speaker 1: you actually are living through a period of genuine economic history.
- 17:04Speaker 1: And that gets to Iran's strategy. They look at this
- 17:06Speaker 1: and they're like, that's it. I need that number. Just
- 17:08Speaker 1: keep going up. As farther it goes up, the more
- 17:11Speaker 1: this economy will get strangled in the long run. Yeah.
- 17:12Speaker 2: And with zero interest rates, it encourages taking risks. So
- 17:16Speaker 2: that also encourages the kind of VC boom because you
- 17:19Speaker 2: can't park your money anywhere and get anything more than
- 17:23Speaker 2: like half a percent. Now you can park your money
- 17:26Speaker 2: and maybe get five percent.
- 17:28Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, it's a decent return.
- 17:29Speaker 2: So when you're thinking about investing in this WeWork company,
- 17:33Speaker 2: you're like, well, we could also just put it away
- 17:36Speaker 2: here and get five percent a year, which that compounds
- 17:38Speaker 2: pretty quickly into very real money. So you're like, yeah,
- 17:42Speaker 2: you know what? I'm not so sure about this WeWork
- 17:44Speaker 2: thing after all. I'm just going to take a pass
- 17:47Speaker 2: on that. And then you don't get the what we've
- 17:50Speaker 2: had over the last 20 years.
- 17:51Speaker 1: Definitely. The other interesting part of it is AI, where
- 17:54Speaker 1: the Trump administration needs AI to fuel the economy, but
- 17:57Speaker 1: the AI capital expenditure is keeping interest rates even higher.
- 18:01Speaker 1: So you have these two forces where simultaneously you need them,
- 18:05Speaker 1: but you can't screw them. And it's screwing everybody else
- 18:08Speaker 1: over in the entire economy. Let's put A5 up here
- 18:11Speaker 1: on the screen. Wanted to mention this. Very strange. I
- 18:14Speaker 1: think you could just put it this way. The U.S.
- 18:16Speaker 1: clearly believes that whatever happened in that base in the U.K.,
- 18:20Speaker 1: RAF Fairford, with the supposed terrorists and or what is it?
- 18:25Speaker 1: And or drunken diesel thieves. Pick your poison. The only
- 18:30Speaker 1: point is it seems that the Pentagon believes it because
- 18:33Speaker 1: apparently yesterday. the Pentagon confirmed all B-1 bombers have now
- 18:39Speaker 1: left the UK. Quote, while operational security precluded us from
- 18:43Speaker 1: confirming the movement in real time, we can now acknowledge
- 18:45Speaker 1: that all U.S. bombers that were deployed to Fairford have
- 18:48Speaker 1: been redeployed to their home stations in the U.S. And
- 18:52Speaker 1: just to add to this, apparently, as I understand it,
- 18:55Speaker 1: what happened is that the B-1s were taken out in
- 18:58Speaker 1: such a harried manner that their aerial refueling had not
- 19:02Speaker 1: even taken off in the United States and that they
- 19:06Speaker 1: were scrambled effectively out of the country. Perhaps they believed
- 19:10Speaker 1: it was an imminent threat.
- 19:11Speaker 2: From five guys with a bunch of gas tanks, gas cans.
- 19:14Speaker 1: I look, I don't know, Ryan. I mean, I'm just
- 19:16Speaker 1: saying whatever happened, they're terrified. So look, it's not a
- 19:21Speaker 1: good look, right? To be running scared from the UK.
- 19:24Speaker 1: I mean, it's one thing to go run scared from Kuwait.
- 19:25Speaker 1: That's gone, right? But this already happened. All of our
- 19:27Speaker 1: bases in the region have been destroyed, Bahrain, uh, any
- 19:30Speaker 1: of these places, but the UK, I mean, we're talking about,
- 19:33Speaker 1: it's like, we're talking about, uh, the Northern Island and
- 19:36Speaker 1: we have a base there and it was unthinkable that
- 19:39Speaker 1: anything was going to happen. And you have to, you know,
- 19:41Speaker 1: dramatically withdraw your, what, one of your most sophisticated bombers, uh,
- 19:46Speaker 1: from there out of fear of attack, just, just goes
- 19:50Speaker 1: to show some of the strategy there with real issues.
- 19:56Speaker 1: At the same time, like I said, so I just
- 19:58Speaker 1: showed you in all the ways the U.S. is screwed.
- 20:00Speaker 1: You're running scared. You're removing the B-1s. The Treasury Secretary
- 20:03Speaker 1: is doing a mea culpa over looking like an idiot saying,
- 20:07Speaker 1: I am the house now. You've got the horrible rising
- 20:09Speaker 1: interest rates, high oil shutting down the Strait of Hormuz.
- 20:14Speaker 1: Let's give the other side of the coin. Let's put A6.
- 20:16Speaker 1: I'm actually curious for what you think. Iran's top security
- 20:19Speaker 1: official now warns, quote, of a dire economic crisis. So
- 20:22Speaker 1: this is the security chief and apparently came after the U.S.
- 20:26Speaker 1: sanctions in a naval blockade. They say he made the
- 20:30Speaker 1: rare admission on Saturday at a high-level government meeting about
- 20:34Speaker 1: how to stabilize the economy after the rial plummeted from
- 20:38Speaker 1: the launch of the war in February. Quote, the decline
- 20:41Speaker 1: has accelerated in recent weeks. That has made imports more
- 20:44Speaker 1: expensive and deepened longstanding costs of living crisis, which remember
- 20:48Speaker 1: had sparked nationwide protests in December that security forces crushed.
- 20:52Speaker 1: Analysts now say that the US blockade has largely prevented
- 20:55Speaker 1: Iran from exporting oil, depriving the country of its main
- 20:59Speaker 1: source of revenue and making a fuel crisis. The oil
- 21:02Speaker 1: minister apparently just resigned yesterday for quote, personal reasons. Nobody
- 21:07Speaker 1: really knows why. And in recent days, multiple private sector
- 21:10Speaker 1: employees have taken to social media, say they're quitting their
- 21:12Speaker 1: jobs because their salaries can no longer be, can no
- 21:16Speaker 1: longer support them. I'll obviously give the caveat. We have
- 21:20Speaker 1: no idea what's happening in Iran. Stuff that you see
- 21:23Speaker 1: highlighted on social media, I could guarantee you there's a
- 21:25Speaker 1: bunch of social media posts, could be organic, could be not,
- 21:28Speaker 1: of people saying, screw it, let's take it, the hit,
- 21:31Speaker 1: because we're at war. So I'm not going to present
- 21:33Speaker 1: that this is the only picture, but it is one
- 21:35Speaker 1: picture inside of Iran that there are problems and their
- 21:38Speaker 1: security chief is acknowledging that.
- 21:40Speaker 2: The flights in and out of the country were one
- 21:43Speaker 2: of the significant ways that with the straight closed, Iran
- 21:47Speaker 2: is continuing its export and import operations. Obviously, it has
- 21:49Speaker 2: huge land borders, so it can do that as well.
- 21:52Speaker 2: But Trump's sanctioning of the airlines did have a significant impact.
- 21:57Speaker 2: And yes, he is effectively choking the economy. The question, though,
- 22:03Speaker 2: is How does that tactic strategically wind up with them
- 22:08Speaker 2: surrendering to you? Because what the U.S. has also done
- 22:13Speaker 2: is taken the blame for the problems that are going
- 22:17Speaker 2: on in Iran from the Iranian government over to the U.S.
- 22:21Speaker 2: government and Israel. So the Iranians can say, look, we're
- 22:25Speaker 2: at war. The U.S. and Israel are doing this to us.
- 22:29Speaker 2: And they wouldn't be lying about that.
- 22:31Speaker 1: Yeah, that's right.
- 22:32Speaker 2: It's true. I think we're all reading this new book
- 22:34Speaker 2: on the Weimar Republic. And it just reminded me that,
- 22:39Speaker 2: and I've said this a bunch before here, that I
- 22:42Speaker 2: can't think of a single example of a country that
- 22:45Speaker 2: saw itself in an existential war that surrendered because its
- 22:48Speaker 2: economy was suffering.
- 22:49Speaker 1: That's right.
- 22:50Speaker 2: There were thousands of Germans dying of starvation every winter.
- 22:54Speaker 2: And the only reason they ever reached an armistice with
- 22:59Speaker 2: the Allies... was because the generals concluded that it was
- 23:02Speaker 2: militarily unwinnable. It was not that, you know what, it's
- 23:06Speaker 2: really bad on the home front. Now they try to
- 23:08Speaker 2: blame it on them later with the whole stab in
- 23:10Speaker 2: the back thing, but it was not the starvation. And
- 23:14Speaker 2: the German economy in the 19-teens during World War I
- 23:19Speaker 2: was way worse than the Iranian economy is right now.
- 23:22Speaker 2: I've heard no reports of people starving to death in Iran.
- 23:25Speaker 2: People are suffering and are deeply unhappy about the situation
- 23:31Speaker 2: but i just don't see how this goes from a
- 23:33Speaker 2: to b would be being okay we surrender.
- 23:36Speaker 1: Yeah there's this theory and it's been around now for
- 23:39Speaker 1: literally over 100 years before the first world war i
- 23:42Speaker 1: just i i remembered the book but i couldn't remember
- 23:45Speaker 1: the name it was called the great illusion and he
- 23:47Speaker 1: said the economies of the major this is 1910 this
- 23:51Speaker 1: book is published have become so financially and commercially intertwined
- 23:55Speaker 1: a war between them would be economically ruinous And so
- 23:57Speaker 1: the winner, for the winner as well as the loser,
- 24:00Speaker 1: and thus it would likely not be, it would be
- 24:02Speaker 1: impossible to be fought. And then- All of that was true,
- 24:05Speaker 1: except for the last part. And yet they did it anyways.
- 24:09Speaker 1: And then there were even people, I think, so I
- 24:11Speaker 1: remember reading this in, what's the guy's name? He used
- 24:14Speaker 1: to work for you, HuffPost, Kane's biography.
- 24:17Speaker 2: Oh, Zach Carter.
- 24:17Speaker 1: Zach Carter. So Zach Carter, his biography of John Maynard Kane's,
- 24:21Speaker 1: I remember- Phenomenal book, highly recommend it. Well, I remember
- 24:24Speaker 1: in the opening, in parts of it, where Keynes was working,
- 24:27Speaker 1: I think he was working, whatever, the exchequer, whatever they
- 24:29Speaker 1: call it, over there, where there was a genuine theory.
- 24:32Speaker 1: They're like, guys, the war is going to end because
- 24:34Speaker 1: we're all going to go broke. And then they were like, well,
- 24:37Speaker 1: you can just print money. You know, we can just
- 24:39Speaker 1: go off the gold standard. And when it's an existential crisis,
- 24:42Speaker 1: money doesn't matter anymore, man. Like, we're in the fight
- 24:44Speaker 1: for our lives. I just think that that's- Look at
- 24:53Speaker 1: another book drop I recently read. It was called The
- 24:56Speaker 1: Battle of Berlin, I think. Something about Berlin, the downfall
- 24:59Speaker 1: by Sir Anthony Beaver. It's April 1945. Everyone's like, Germany's cooked.
- 25:05Speaker 1: Guess what? They fought to the death, man. Because for them,
- 25:07Speaker 1: it was literally existential. You had people that didn't even
- 25:10Speaker 1: support Hitler. They hated the Nazis. Basically, they had supported
- 25:13Speaker 1: them previously, but by that time, they're like, okay, clearly,
- 25:16Speaker 1: this is all lies. It's like, well, at this point,
- 25:18Speaker 1: we're fighting for one reason, to protect your wife and
- 25:20Speaker 1: your daughter from being raped. Because of that, we're all
- 25:23Speaker 1: willing to put it out all on the line. People
- 25:25Speaker 1: will literally fight and scratch and claw to the absolute
- 25:28Speaker 1: death whenever it's that existential. Obviously, I'm not saying that
- 25:31Speaker 1: that's where we are right now, but I think your
- 25:33Speaker 1: point is so important that over the last 100 years
- 25:35Speaker 1: or so, What compels surrender is absolute and total domination
- 25:42Speaker 1: and cost, either occupation or an atomic bomb. That's it.
- 25:47Speaker 1: And so at this point right now, I mean, these people,
- 25:49Speaker 1: I feel horrible for them, but like they've got a
- 25:51Speaker 1: long way to go before we start seeing rebellions in
- 25:54Speaker 1: the streets and like the German, you know, for example, there's.
- 25:58Speaker 1: What member of the IRGC is going to come to
- 25:59Speaker 1: the Ayatollah and be like, sir, we can no longer fight?
- 26:02Speaker 1: Like they would kill him at this point. Yeah.
- 26:04Speaker 2: And also the Israelis and the Americans have made very
- 26:07Speaker 2: clear that they have no interest in like bringing the
- 26:09Speaker 2: Shah back and creating some like utopian Iranian society. They're like, no,
- 26:14Speaker 2: we want to carve this up, create a civil war
- 26:16Speaker 2: and destroy your civilization. So people are like, oh, OK, well,
- 26:20Speaker 2: that doesn't sound good either.
- 26:21Speaker 1: Good point. All right. Last thing I think here that
- 26:25Speaker 1: I mentioned, A7, just to highlight, the Iranian oil minister, quote,
- 26:28Speaker 1: resigned for personal reasons. Don't really know anything about it.
- 26:32Speaker 2: Supposedly, the reporting was that he had tried to resign
- 26:35Speaker 2: before and they wouldn't let him. Who knows?
- 26:38Speaker 1: I mean, he was in an impossible position.
- 26:40Speaker 2: The head of the national oil company is now the
- 26:42Speaker 2: oil minister.
- 26:43Speaker 1: Is it really?
- 26:43Speaker 2: All right.
- 26:45Speaker 1: We'll see. I mean, very, very likely. But what they
- 26:48Speaker 1: need is somebody who is innovative and they're like, OK,
- 26:51Speaker 1: how much oil can you move by rail? How much
- 26:52Speaker 1: oil can we get out through illegal means? How much
- 26:55Speaker 1: oil can we put on a truck? What can we
- 26:57Speaker 1: do to get things through? So it's I mean, frankly,
- 27:00Speaker 1: like victory barrels.
- 27:02Speaker 2: Come bring your barrels.
- 27:04Speaker 1: I mean, in times of war, this is very common.
- 27:07Speaker 1: In fact, I think we should have more of it
- 27:08Speaker 1: like here where if you have a bunch of generals
- 27:10Speaker 1: who literally fail within the first several months, you're like, OK,
- 27:13Speaker 1: you're fired. We need somebody.
- 27:15Speaker 2: Why is our secretary?
- 27:16Speaker 1: We are in a war. We're in a war of
- 27:18Speaker 1: complete crisis. It's like, OK, well, then we have to
- 27:20Speaker 1: cycle through as many people until we find somebody who
- 27:23Speaker 1: is actually competent at their job. We'll see what happens
- 27:26Speaker 1: over there. But all right, let's get to Yemen. Turning
- 27:31Speaker 1: now to Yemen, we were talking about the spiraling situation,
- 27:33Speaker 1: obviously with oil, but this is actually one of the
- 27:36Speaker 1: precipitating reasons why. Let's put this up here on the screen.
- 27:39Speaker 1: So big news out of the weekend is that the
- 27:42Speaker 1: top cabinet members huddled for hours at Camp David on
- 27:46Speaker 1: Friday to discuss the next steps in the Iran war
- 27:49Speaker 1: and the Saudi-Houthi conflict in Yemen. The highly unusual meeting
- 27:53Speaker 1: was not announced by the Trump administration. And here's why
- 27:56Speaker 1: I should scare you. The last time a similar meeting
- 27:58Speaker 1: took place was June of 2025, days before Israel went
- 28:03Speaker 1: to war with Iran. The participants included the vice president,
- 28:07Speaker 1: the secretary of state, the secretary of defense, the White
- 28:09Speaker 1: House envoy Steve Witkoff, CIA director, chairman of the Joint Chiefs,
- 28:12Speaker 1: and the treasury secretary. quote, things were decided or at
- 28:16Speaker 1: least deeply discussed, whatever that means. Trump is reconsidering resuming
- 28:22Speaker 1: major combat operations in Iran. Quote, now I have to
- 28:24Speaker 1: make a decision. Either Iran signs a deal or won't
- 28:27Speaker 1: exist any longer. Obviously, he said that many times. But
- 28:29Speaker 1: the more important thing that was discussed was direct intervention
- 28:34Speaker 1: in Yemen. When he was asked about what his next
- 28:37Speaker 1: move would be, he said, if I told you, you
- 28:38Speaker 1: would have a major story. But you'll see it's working
- 28:41Speaker 1: out very well. Iran is not doing anything. Well, and
- 28:44Speaker 1: then as of this morning, let's go ahead and start
- 28:47Speaker 1: with some video actually that is breaking just this morning
- 28:51Speaker 1: out of Yemen. We're going to start, guys, with the
- 28:53Speaker 1: first I showed you where immediately yesterday, the Yemeni government
- 28:59Speaker 1: backed by the Saudi government has actually. began advancing near
- 29:04Speaker 1: the Bab al-Mandeb Strait as of this morning. This is
- 29:07Speaker 1: literally coming out of them. Remember, propaganda video, and that's
- 29:11Speaker 1: a caveat, too, for the Houthis. They're like, look, we
- 29:13Speaker 1: control Bab al-Mandeb. There's no exact evidence of that, but
- 29:16Speaker 1: it's a town, I believe, which is near the direct
- 29:20Speaker 1: Bab al-Mandeb Strait. What's additionally important, really, is the dedication
- 29:25Speaker 1: of so many Saudi resources. So it appears, Ryan, over
- 29:30Speaker 1: 100 targets were bombed by the Saudis as of this morning.
- 29:34Speaker 1: Put B2 up here on the screen. This is from
- 29:36Speaker 1: the BBC. They announced, quote, all-out war. to reclaim this land.
- 29:42Speaker 1: I mean, one reason why is that you should be
- 29:45Speaker 1: relatively skeptical. As you know, we've I've been watching this
- 29:48Speaker 1: conflict for decades. The Saudis have been bombing and have
- 29:51Speaker 1: been renouncing all-out wars for like 12 years. It never
- 29:55Speaker 1: actually works. And in fact, in the long run, the
- 29:58Speaker 1: Houthis have gotten much stronger. They shocked the world, obviously,
- 30:01Speaker 1: when they took over the entire Bab al-Mandeb and apparently
- 30:04Speaker 1: appeared to be encircling one of their strategic towns. apparently
- 30:08Speaker 1: in Yemen, even right now, why all of this is happening.
- 30:11Speaker 1: So yeah, what's your read on the situation?
- 30:13Speaker 2: So what I'm hearing from the drop site newsroom here
- 30:16Speaker 2: is that it does appear to be the case that
- 30:20Speaker 2: they recaptured Dubab, which is a key area along the coast.
- 30:25Speaker 2: They have not seized any of the islands, so they
- 30:29Speaker 2: don't have control of the strait. This is the Saudi-
- 30:32Speaker 2: backed forces there. They did take the airport nearby there.
- 30:37Speaker 2: And apparently they charged kind of down the coast with
- 30:40Speaker 2: these and across the coastal plains with heavily armored vehicles, which,
- 30:44Speaker 2: you know, they which, you know, these are Saudi and UAE.
- 30:49Speaker 2: But most at this point, mostly Saudi Saudi purchased weapons.
- 30:53Speaker 2: And they're also bombing the capital, Sana'a, at this point.
- 30:58Speaker 2: So it does show that this is this group called
- 31:02Speaker 2: the Giants Brigade, which is founded by the UAE, but
- 31:05Speaker 2: they kind of switched over to the Saudi side. It
- 31:08Speaker 2: does show that they have the capacity to hit back. Now,
- 31:12Speaker 2: what this group of deep thinkers at Camp David came
- 31:15Speaker 2: up with, remains to be seen. But I would be
- 31:18Speaker 2: very surprised if there was anything that they could put
- 31:20Speaker 2: up on the whiteboard that they haven't already tried, as
- 31:23Speaker 2: you said, multiple times over the past decade. Apparently, the U.S. now,
- 31:27Speaker 2: according to reporting, we're back to doing refueling flights.
- 31:32Speaker 1: Right.
- 31:32Speaker 2: Which Trump quit.
- 31:33Speaker 1: It's a very controversial policy.
- 31:35Speaker 2: He quit in 2019 when there was a war powers
- 31:37Speaker 2: resolution that actually Ro Khanna and was it Massey maybe
- 31:40Speaker 2: even pushed and under pressure.
- 31:42Speaker 1: I think Matt Gaetz as well. Yeah.
- 31:43Speaker 3: Oh, yeah.
- 31:43Speaker 2: I think that was. Yeah, that's right.
- 31:45Speaker 1: Yeah.
- 31:46Speaker 2: And so they ended the refueling, which was our most
- 31:49Speaker 2: significant participation in the bombing campaign, along with providing the
- 31:53Speaker 2: jets and the weapons and the training and the maintenance
- 31:56Speaker 2: and the targeting and basically doing everything. And so in
- 32:02Speaker 2: May of 2025, Trump reached a bilateral ceasefire with the Houthis.
- 32:10Speaker 2: And the Houthis have abided by it throughout the entire campaign.
- 32:15Speaker 2: Iran conflict by not attacking the United States, and the U.S.
- 32:20Speaker 2: has also abided by it by not attacking the Houthis.
- 32:23Speaker 2: MBS has begged Trump to come back in. Trump doesn't
- 32:26Speaker 2: want that smoke because enormous amounts of shipping go through
- 32:32Speaker 2: the Red Sea.
- 32:34Speaker 1: Well, also our Navy is tied up in the Strait
- 32:36Speaker 1: of Hormuz. I actually didn't even make the show. It's
- 32:39Speaker 1: a huge piece of news. Third carrier is literally on
- 32:41Speaker 1: its way right now. to the Strait of Hormuz. So
- 32:44Speaker 1: even more. And I believe a few thousand more troops
- 32:47Speaker 1: have been deployed there as well. So keep that in mind.
- 32:49Speaker 1: I mean, that's one thing we should flag here with
- 32:51Speaker 1: this Camp David meeting. Every single time there's been a U.S.
- 32:54Speaker 1: military buildup under Trump, they've used it. It's never been
- 32:56Speaker 1: for defensive purposes. Ahead of Venezuela, if you would just
- 33:00Speaker 1: follow the naval movements, you're like, something's going to happen.
- 33:02Speaker 1: And then lo and behold, something happens. Before, what was it,
- 33:06Speaker 1: Midnight Hammer in June 2025, three carriers in the region,
- 33:10Speaker 1: Midnight Hammer. Then before the operation in February, you got
- 33:14Speaker 1: three carriers in the region. There you go. You had
- 33:16Speaker 1: all-out war bombing that happened on Iran. So you could put,
- 33:19Speaker 1: you know, they've given us no reason to say, oh,
- 33:22Speaker 1: it's just for, you know, whatever, for stasis operations. If
- 33:25Speaker 1: that were the case, then you wouldn't be cycling more
- 33:28Speaker 1: material in the region.
- 33:29Speaker 2: Yeah. And when Trump reached the ceasefire deal in May 2025,
- 33:34Speaker 2: he said, He was shocked at the amount of kind
- 33:39Speaker 2: of pummeling that they were able to take. He's like,
- 33:42Speaker 2: these guys are tough. It's one of Trump's funnier press conferences.
- 33:46Speaker 2: He's like, I was planning this. He was planning this
- 33:49Speaker 2: like 90 day war against him. And then like after
- 33:51Speaker 2: 40 days, he's like, they're too good. Like their ability
- 33:57Speaker 2: to take our MQ-9s out of the sky. Remember a
- 34:01Speaker 2: couple fighter jets fell off of aircraft carriers because the
- 34:04Speaker 2: aircraft carriers were having to move so fast to dodge aircraft.
- 34:07Speaker 2: the ballistic missiles that were coming their way. And so
- 34:10Speaker 2: he's like, all right, enough of this.
- 34:12Speaker 1: Which was smart.
- 34:13Speaker 2: Yeah. And reached a deal, okay, we won't shoot at you,
- 34:15Speaker 2: you don't shoot at us. Imagine that.
- 34:18Speaker 1: But that's the problem is that for the Houthis, if
- 34:20Speaker 1: we're back to refueling flights, if we are back to
- 34:23Speaker 1: full support, and obviously an all-out war in addition to
- 34:27Speaker 1: what's happening with Saudi Arabia, which is all paid for
- 34:29Speaker 1: entirely by the United States, it's a question for them
- 34:32Speaker 1: of how long they're going to sit there. and going
- 34:34Speaker 1: to take it. Let's put B3 up here on the screen.
- 34:37Speaker 1: Houthis have still been claiming some major attacks. So the
- 34:41Speaker 1: New York Times actually shows to the extent of how
- 34:44Speaker 1: much the United States is helping them. They say more
- 34:47Speaker 1: than 200 U.S. intelligence and military analysts are currently in
- 34:51Speaker 1: Saudi Arabia helping provide assistance to the Yemeni allies. In addition,
- 34:57Speaker 1: what they point out is these claimed Houthi attacks on
- 35:01Speaker 1: obviously strategic assets in Saudi. The most significant one is
- 35:06Speaker 1: this morning, and I'll contextualize it. It is very disputed.
- 35:09Speaker 1: So this morning at 4.44 a.m. Eastern time, AFP, Agence
- 35:14Speaker 1: Front Presse, reported East-West oil pipeline pumping halted after new attack.
- 35:20Speaker 1: It was followed two hours later by a Bloomberg News
- 35:23Speaker 1: report that says Saudi East-West oil pipeline is said to
- 35:26Speaker 1: be flowing as normal. Who knows? Aramco has nothing to say.
- 35:31Speaker 1: They won't tell us exactly what's going on. I think
- 35:35Speaker 1: you could say for certain that the Houthis did probably
- 35:37Speaker 1: launch a drone at the East-West Pipeline, which previously they
- 35:39Speaker 1: shut down for a week. They apparently attacked something called
- 35:43Speaker 1: a pumping station, which is less critical than destroying the
- 35:46Speaker 1: pipeline itself. Perhaps that's what it was. It was down.
- 35:48Speaker 1: It was off for a few hours, something like that.
- 35:51Speaker 1: But nonetheless, it shows the fragility of the oil system.
- 35:54Speaker 2: And it's another one of these situations where I'm like,
- 35:57Speaker 2: Am I missing something here? Because this seems like a
- 36:00Speaker 2: very obvious strategic problem that you have a country that
- 36:05Speaker 2: is very rich and dependent on keeping its oil flowing
- 36:09Speaker 2: in order to keep its cash flow going. And you
- 36:13Speaker 2: have another country that is insanely poor, one of the
- 36:16Speaker 2: poorest in the world and has very little to lose,
- 36:20Speaker 2: but has a very impressive drone and ballistic missile program
- 36:24Speaker 2: that can target the rich country's oil infrastructure. That does
- 36:27Speaker 2: not seem to me to be the kind of scenario
- 36:30Speaker 2: where if you're the rich oil country, you want to
- 36:33Speaker 2: get into a forever war with the poor country that
- 36:36Speaker 2: has nothing to lose and a ton of ballistic missiles
- 36:39Speaker 2: and drones. So I genuinely don't understand what I'm missing
- 36:42Speaker 2: and why they continue with this. I think the only
- 36:47Speaker 2: thing I can come up with is that MBS rose
- 36:50Speaker 2: to power on the back of being kind of the
- 36:52Speaker 2: defense minister and launching this war. And it would be
- 36:55Speaker 2: such a blow to his prestige.
- 36:58Speaker 1: Oh, they can never surrender.
- 36:59Speaker 2: That he personally would get overthrown if he admits that
- 37:04Speaker 2: he has lost this. And so he will take the
- 37:07Speaker 2: entire country down with him before he does that. So, okay,
- 37:10Speaker 2: maybe I get that.
- 37:11Speaker 1: Problem with absolute monarchies. It turns out they're bad.
- 37:15Speaker 2: Midterms, he's not so worried about the midterms.
- 37:17Speaker 1: But before up here on the screen, just to show
- 37:21Speaker 1: you some of the other things that are happening, that
- 37:23Speaker 1: you may see somewhat of a decline or at the
- 37:27Speaker 1: very least a stoppage of the rate and the rise
- 37:31Speaker 1: of diesel prices over the next month or so. And
- 37:35Speaker 1: that is because the G7 agreed under duress to release
- 37:40Speaker 1: up to 100 million barrels of emergency oil and diesel reserves.
- 37:44Speaker 1: Note I said here under duress, and that is because
- 37:47Speaker 1: apparently this came as a direct result of Trump ahead
- 37:51Speaker 1: of the midterms telling the G7 and specifically the European nations,
- 37:55Speaker 1: who are heavily reliant on the United States, and obviously
- 37:58Speaker 1: Japan in there as well, they're like, look, you can
- 38:02Speaker 1: use your SPR right now, or we're just going to
- 38:05Speaker 1: do a diesel export ban. I don't think he ever
- 38:07Speaker 1: actually would have done a diesel export ban, but they
- 38:10Speaker 1: decided to just basically bend the knee to the Trump administration.
- 38:13Speaker 2: Why do you think they didn't want to do it?
- 38:14Speaker 1: Oh, so according to one of the oil analysts, Javier Blas,
- 38:18Speaker 1: who I read, they wanted to save it for winter,
- 38:21Speaker 1: which makes sense because they're heading into potentially a bad
- 38:24Speaker 1: winter with diminishing diesel reserves. Remember, too, their heating system
- 38:29Speaker 1: is a lot older, apparently, than ours. It's not as efficient.
- 38:33Speaker 1: When I say less efficient, I'm saying what it is
- 38:35Speaker 1: is very reliant on all these imports, specifically from the
- 38:39Speaker 1: United States or previously from Russia or from the Middle East.
- 38:43Speaker 2: So Europe's like, we don't want to burn through all
- 38:45Speaker 2: of our winter reserves to save you one seat in Iowa.
- 38:48Speaker 1: Exactly right.
- 38:49Speaker 2: And Trump's like, do it.
- 38:50Speaker 1: Yeah, so he basically forced them to do it. Heavily, actually,
- 38:53Speaker 1: controversial decision, at least amongst the energy community in Europe,
- 38:56Speaker 1: because they're like, no, we shouldn't do this. They're like,
- 38:58Speaker 1: we need to wait. Who knows what we could be
- 39:01Speaker 1: sitting with in November and in December, but they decided
- 39:04Speaker 1: ultimately to buckle. So likely, this is kind of my guess,
- 39:08Speaker 1: now that I can see the bigger picture, the diesel
- 39:10Speaker 1: export ban and the pressure with the G7 They knew
- 39:14Speaker 1: that if the war in Yemen escalates, that's going to
- 39:16Speaker 1: send the price of oil dramatically up. So what they
- 39:19Speaker 1: want to do is do this in addition to put
- 39:21Speaker 1: B5 up here on the screen, is apparently the U.S.
- 39:24Speaker 1: is going to loan up to 40 million barrels of
- 39:27Speaker 1: oil from the SPR, the very last batch. from one
- 39:30Speaker 1: of these global SPR release deals, is they're trying to
- 39:33Speaker 1: cushion the future blow. Now, part of the problem with
- 39:36Speaker 1: that is that the original SPR release was supposed to
- 39:40Speaker 1: cushion the blow entirely. And yet the SPR is at, what,
- 39:43Speaker 1: the lowest level since 1982 or something? Yeah, I think
- 39:45Speaker 1: it's down to 280. It's like from its inception.
- 39:48Speaker 2: And it can only really get down to 250.
- 39:51Speaker 1: Right. Something about salt caverns and implosion.
- 39:54Speaker 2: The caves start to collapse or something. We know enough
- 39:57Speaker 2: about this. I'm not learning anymore. I refuse.
- 39:59Speaker 1: Yeah, that's right. I refuse to learn more about salt
- 40:02Speaker 1: cavern integrity. All I know is that the people who
- 40:05Speaker 1: are knowledgeable tell me it's not good. And yet, even
- 40:09Speaker 1: with all this, the national price of gasoline this morning,
- 40:11Speaker 1: $ 4. 36 a and diesel sitting around 632 a gallon. The
- 40:17Speaker 1: all-time high is 652, so only about 20 cents off
- 40:22Speaker 1: of the all-time high, which was only like, you know,
- 40:25Speaker 1: two weeks ago. So you can see here, it's not
- 40:27Speaker 1: exactly trending in the right direction for everybody. Things hovering
- 40:31Speaker 1: right around that 435 a gallon. And what they say
- 40:36Speaker 1: is that if the East-West pipeline does fully go off,
- 40:38Speaker 1: even with all of this craziness and hormones, which we
- 40:41Speaker 1: just talked about, When you put it together, you are
- 40:44Speaker 1: facing a very dangerous situation for the oil market, and
- 40:47Speaker 1: especially going into the November and December heating demand. Apparently,
- 40:54Speaker 1: we're very lucky. Something about El Nino means that we're
- 40:57Speaker 1: not going to have that many hurricanes this year. It's
- 40:58Speaker 1: like one of the first, whatever, like Septembers, there was
- 41:01Speaker 1: no hurricane in the Atlantic in forever. So we're actually,
- 41:04Speaker 1: this is a dream scenario, because at least the refineries
- 41:07Speaker 1: and the Gulf are not currently under threat. So, I mean,
- 41:10Speaker 1: who knows? I don't know. I mean, something crazy could
- 41:12Speaker 1: happen and you have a hurricane and there you go.
- 41:14Speaker 1: We're going to see it all over again.
- 41:16Speaker 2: Could also just end the war and give frozen funds back.
- 41:19Speaker 1: Yeah, we could do that. It'd be a lot cheaper.
- 41:22Speaker 2: Certainly would. It'd be a lot easier, too. It's their money.
- 41:24Speaker 2: Give them their money back.
- 41:25Speaker 1: Just give them... We'd be like, hey, here's $ 200 million,
- 41:28Speaker 1: and we're just going to leave, and we wish you
- 41:32Speaker 1: the best. We're going to sign some fake agreement on IAEA.
- 41:35Speaker 1: We'll just forget if any of this ever happened. I
- 41:37Speaker 1: actually think they would take that deal. They'd be like, okay, sure.
- 41:39Speaker 1: All right, let's do it. And that's it. But that
- 41:43Speaker 1: would be smart, obviously, for our country. It would save
- 41:46Speaker 1: us a lot of money. I think it's what most
- 41:49Speaker 1: people at this point... would want. You're going to hold
- 41:50Speaker 1: your nose and be like, yeah, it sucks to sign
- 41:52Speaker 1: a deal with the Iranians, although I'm not sure so
- 41:54Speaker 1: many people would care at this point. But Israel, you're right,
- 41:58Speaker 1: would not stand for that. So speaking of all that damage,
- 42:00Speaker 1: let's get to the midterms. Turning now to the midterms,
- 42:05Speaker 1: Trump continues to barnstorm the country and give the most
- 42:08Speaker 1: inspiring pitch ever, which is you may literally hate the
- 42:12Speaker 1: Republicans running, but you have to vote for them. uh...
- 42:15Speaker 1: followed by some clownish of behavior by the candidates themselves
- 42:19Speaker 1: here was one example from ohio name-checking the big rama
- 42:22Speaker 1: swami before he almost dropped child let's take a.
- 42:26Speaker 6: List you're voting on voter i think a lot of
- 42:28Speaker 6: what even if you hate you are used to it
- 42:31Speaker 6: even if you hate david grab this while me you're
- 42:34Speaker 6: going to go out yet about it that you get
- 42:36Speaker 6: a political is but nobody had said this so good
- 42:41Speaker 6: voter i think Wow, that's, John, voter ideas on the ballot.
- 42:46Speaker 1: Oh. I'll pick you up.
- 42:50Speaker 6: There you go. Big guy.
- 42:53Speaker 1: Oof, that was a rough one there for Vivek. I
- 42:56Speaker 1: will say, in his small defense, not that I'm some
- 42:59Speaker 1: great fan of Vivek, as a father of four, you know,
- 43:02Speaker 1: when they go limp, it's real annoying. You know, when
- 43:04Speaker 1: they go limp and you're trying to pick them up,
- 43:06Speaker 1: you're like, how does this 30-pound meat sack, you know,
- 43:09Speaker 1: like you're trying to pick it. So, you know, small
- 43:11Speaker 1: defense there. But regardless, it's not good. It doesn't look good.
- 43:14Speaker 2: It's like they say in the courtroom, don't ask a
- 43:16Speaker 2: witness a question you don't know the answer to. Don't
- 43:19Speaker 2: pick up a child that you don't know. If you
- 43:22Speaker 2: don't know how they're going to react.
- 43:23Speaker 1: And even if you do know them, even if you're
- 43:24Speaker 1: their parent, they might still go, oh, yeah, literally no reason.
- 43:29Speaker 1: You know, for for Trump there, it's just it's the
- 43:32Speaker 1: least inspiring pitch that you could possibly have. And it
- 43:36Speaker 1: is funny because it fits this whole I hate them
- 43:40Speaker 1: fits with some of the current polling. So let's go
- 43:42Speaker 1: ahead and put here's an amalgamation of the New York
- 43:45Speaker 1: Times Siena poll. We're going to spend a lot of
- 43:47Speaker 1: time on this. Let's put it up here on the screen.
- 43:50Speaker 1: What they show in this summary. is you have perhaps
- 43:54Speaker 1: the most shocking number. It's not just Texas. It's actually Alaska,
- 43:57Speaker 1: although there are signs here. So they show Alaska, Mary Peltola,
- 44:02Speaker 1: plus seven. And I'm going to get into that number
- 44:04Speaker 1: specifically because there's some very interesting dynamics in that race.
- 44:08Speaker 1: Then Texas, they have Tallarico, plus five. Ohio, Sherrod Brown,
- 44:13Speaker 1: plus three. Michigan, El Sayed, plus five. I wouldn't call
- 44:17Speaker 1: that shocking. That one was pretty much expected. But here
- 44:21Speaker 1: it is. Kansas tied. Tied. A tie race in the
- 44:26Speaker 1: state of Kansas. Iowa, Hinson plus one. And then Ryan,
- 44:30Speaker 1: I'll definitely lean on you for this. Collins plus three
- 44:32Speaker 1: in the state of Maine. Huge problem there for the
- 44:34Speaker 1: Troy Jackson campaign. Let's put C3 up here on the screen.
- 44:38Speaker 1: This is Nate Cohn's write-up of the New York Times'
- 44:41Speaker 1: Sienna poll. I'll read from some of it. He says,
- 44:43Speaker 1: on paper, the Democrats' path to winning the Senate in
- 44:46Speaker 1: November is very daunting. They need to flip at least
- 44:48Speaker 1: two seats that President Trump won by 11 percentage points
- 44:50Speaker 1: or more. No party has pulled off a similar feat
- 44:53Speaker 1: since 2008. However, once you look at some of these
- 44:57Speaker 1: new polls for Democrats, what they show... is some of
- 45:01Speaker 1: the breakdowns in some of the strength that the GOP
- 45:04Speaker 1: has had over the years. Obviously, number one is Trump.
- 45:07Speaker 1: Trump himself is not on the ballot. And two, he
- 45:10Speaker 1: also is dramatically unpopular whenever it comes to his approval rating.
- 45:14Speaker 1: So they say across the five states, the president's approval
- 45:17Speaker 1: rating is just 40%, with 57% who have an unfavorable view.
- 45:21Speaker 1: That is not much better than his ratings in recent
- 45:23Speaker 1: national polls. And they represent a significant decline in his
- 45:26Speaker 1: support since our last polls in these four states in June.
- 45:29Speaker 1: Since then, his ratings have fallen by five net percentage points.
- 45:34Speaker 1: There are two basic explanations for this. One is that
- 45:36Speaker 1: his ratings continue to slide everywhere, not just in these states.
- 45:39Speaker 1: Another possibility is that he is suffering disproportionate losses in
- 45:43Speaker 1: these five Republican states. Demographics alone are not a sufficient explanation.
- 45:48Speaker 1: It's something more like greater exposure, as we've hammered home
- 45:51Speaker 1: on this show, to high diesel prices in the farm belt.
- 45:55Speaker 1: And I don't think I can stress that enough for
- 45:57Speaker 1: the Kansas, the Iowa states. numbers is that these farming economies,
- 46:02Speaker 1: when you're so heavily reliant, a swing in one direction,
- 46:05Speaker 1: you don't have a tech industry or government employment or
- 46:12Speaker 1: some other diversified economy. When you are so all in
- 46:15Speaker 1: on one thing, we know what that does. Whenever we've
- 46:18Speaker 1: looked at Michigan, for example, in the past for auto workers,
- 46:22Speaker 1: GM goes down, the whole state goes bust. That's the
- 46:25Speaker 1: biggest exposure that they have inside of this, Ryan.
- 46:27Speaker 2: And the irony is that Kansas is also a manufacturing state,
- 46:33Speaker 2: and bizarrely, this wouldn't be what you would think automatically,
- 46:38Speaker 2: Trump's tariffs have actually really punished Kansas' manufacturing base.
- 46:42Speaker 1: Yeah, I didn't realize that either.
- 46:43Speaker 2: Because so many of the inputs into the manufacturing capacity
- 46:49Speaker 2: of the plants in Kansas are are coming from overseas
- 46:52Speaker 2: and then they're assembling things here, selling them here and
- 46:56Speaker 2: then exporting. And so the two major industries of Kansas,
- 47:01Speaker 2: manufacturing and agriculture, are both taking a whack. Plus, you know,
- 47:08Speaker 2: there's plenty of, you know, trade with Canada that's messing
- 47:13Speaker 2: them up. Plus the cost of labor going up, because
- 47:15Speaker 2: you saw the Republican senator there complaining about ice raids
- 47:19Speaker 2: in southwest southwest kansas um so i was i'm actually
- 47:26Speaker 2: a little surprised that kansas is even more in play
- 47:30Speaker 2: than iowa but you know that's all within the margin
- 47:32Speaker 2: of error right exactly everything's and they didn't have nebraska
- 47:34Speaker 2: up there no they didn't which is they didn't pull
- 47:37Speaker 2: that because dan osborne's not a democrat he's an independent
- 47:40Speaker 2: exactly but you throw in nebraska idaho you know being
- 47:45Speaker 2: something that people have to worry about montana the There's
- 47:48Speaker 2: an independent and a Democrat running in Montana, and the Democrat,
- 47:52Speaker 2: the bottom is just completely falling out from her. She's
- 47:54Speaker 2: going to end up being a non-factor by November. Montana is,
- 47:58Speaker 2: you know, in play for Democrats as well. I saw
- 48:02Speaker 2: that South Dakota, which is not in play, but it's
- 48:05Speaker 2: normally like a 40-point, you know, romp for Republicans, and
- 48:09Speaker 2: they're up by like 10 or something.
- 48:11Speaker 1: Right, exactly.
- 48:12Speaker 2: So enough to win, but it's an indication that like
- 48:15Speaker 2: The headwinds are fierce.
- 48:17Speaker 1: What's important, actually, which Nate points out, and this is
- 48:20Speaker 1: something which really does show in the polling, is that
- 48:23Speaker 1: Democrats have something going for them, which is beyond Trump
- 48:27Speaker 1: and even the structural, is a significant advantage in candidate quality. So,
- 48:30Speaker 1: for example, in all five states that they polled, more
- 48:33Speaker 1: voters view the Democrat favorably than unfavorably, while more voters
- 48:38Speaker 1: view the Republican candidate unfavorably than then favorably, a triumph
- 48:42Speaker 1: for Democrats in reliably Republican states because they have managed
- 48:45Speaker 1: to find candidates who are both personally appealing and ideologically
- 48:48Speaker 1: acceptable to a red state voter. I feel like that
- 48:51Speaker 1: is so important because the biggest problem the Democrats have
- 48:54Speaker 1: had is being tied to their national brand. And ironically,
- 48:57Speaker 1: the Republicans have the opposite problem, where even though some
- 49:01Speaker 1: of them have broke hints and breaks with Trump on Iran,
- 49:04Speaker 1: Mike Rogers says, let's ban data centers. Let's get out
- 49:07Speaker 1: of the war. with Iran. They're so tied to Trump
- 49:10Speaker 1: and with MAGA, the brand, nationally. It's like the Obama
- 49:13Speaker 1: problem from 2010. No matter how blue dog you are,
- 49:16Speaker 1: you're a Democrat, you're in the same party as Obama.
- 49:18Speaker 1: So now the Republicans have the same problem. We're toxicity
- 49:21Speaker 1: will drag down everybody across the board because they can
- 49:24Speaker 1: just point to that person wearing a MAGA hat, that
- 49:26Speaker 1: person appearing at a rally with Trump. Texas, they point to,
- 49:30Speaker 1: is actually the number one problem in a nutshell. Put
- 49:33Speaker 1: C4 up here on the screen and I'll read a
- 49:36Speaker 1: little bit from their analysis, for example, on Texas. Of
- 49:39Speaker 1: all the polls, none capture the Republican challenge better than Texas.
- 49:43Speaker 1: Democrats are cooking with the same recipe in all five states.
- 49:45Speaker 1: Texas is the one where Republicans have contributed the finest ingredients.
- 49:48Speaker 1: The president's approval rating has fallen to just 38. You
- 49:51Speaker 1: know he loved writing that sentence.
- 49:52Speaker 2: Yes, he did.
- 49:53Speaker 1: Has fallen to just 38% amongst likely voters. The same
- 49:57Speaker 1: as in our last national poll. Mr. Paxton is the
- 50:00Speaker 1: least popular of all 10 Senate candidates that were tested.
- 50:04Speaker 1: All of this is occurring in a state where Hispanic voters...
- 50:06Speaker 1: who swung hard towards the Democrats, represent a large share
- 50:09Speaker 1: of the electorate, while the GOP is spending hundreds of
- 50:12Speaker 1: millions to try to bring down Tallarico. So far, his
- 50:15Speaker 1: candidacy appears essentially undamaged. His favorable ratings actually ticked up
- 50:20Speaker 1: in June. Only 40% say he's too far to the left,
- 50:24Speaker 1: unchanged from 39%, and less than the 47% who say
- 50:28Speaker 1: Paxton is too far to the right. If there's a
- 50:31Speaker 1: glass half full interpretation for Republicans, it's that the poll
- 50:33Speaker 1: found a very favorable electorate for Democrats, If the poll
- 50:37Speaker 1: is right about who will show up to vote, then
- 50:39Speaker 1: many Trump voters, especially Hispanic and young Trump voters, will
- 50:43Speaker 1: stay at home. At the same time, any influx of
- 50:46Speaker 1: Democratic-leaning voters would enter the electorate, and together that electorate
- 50:50Speaker 1: jolts to the left. If the 2024 electorate did show
- 50:54Speaker 1: up to vote, however, the race would be a dead heat.
- 50:58Speaker 1: And so I do feel like that is a major problem.
- 51:02Speaker 1: And the bigger problem for Paxton is, He actually said
- 51:04Speaker 1: it himself. He just keeps getting caught on leaked audio.
- 51:07Speaker 1: So guys, let's go ahead and do C7. Let's take
- 51:11Speaker 1: a listen.
- 51:11Speaker 3: Which in a federal race comes from other people a
- 51:14Speaker 3: lot of times, which you don't control. So I have
- 51:17Speaker 3: a little control over my bucket. That's about it. in
- 51:20Speaker 3: my little bit of time, that I can go out
- 51:22Speaker 3: and get to as many people as I can. But
- 51:25Speaker 3: I've never been in a situation where I felt less
- 51:26Speaker 3: control over the campaign and what issues are going to
- 51:30Speaker 3: matter because it's all coming from D.C. and I don't
- 51:33Speaker 3: control the message or what we're doing. And I don't
- 51:37Speaker 3: have the ability to change anything. So I have to
- 51:39Speaker 3: live with whatever I've got. So it is a challenge.
- 51:42Speaker 3: And hopefully this polling will help us figure out how
- 51:46Speaker 3: we can work so hard to get. Make sure that
- 51:49Speaker 3: we are.
- 51:55Speaker 1: So people understand the difference between him and me. Everything's
- 51:58Speaker 1: being controlled by D.C. Also, if any of you were
- 52:01Speaker 1: watching the National Football League yesterday, you may have been
- 52:04Speaker 1: a customer like me sitting in the Northeast. watching television
- 52:09Speaker 1: and watching Ken Paxton ads and saying, what the hell?
- 52:14Speaker 1: I actually thought, I'm like, did my YouTube TV forget
- 52:16Speaker 1: that I live here? I'm like, do they still think
- 52:19Speaker 1: that I live in Texas? What is going on? So apparently,
- 52:22Speaker 1: this is so funny. No, it is a TV market problem.
- 52:26Speaker 1: So this is from Ed O'Keefe. If you're seeing political
- 52:29Speaker 1: TV ads during football for elections far away from where
- 52:31Speaker 1: you live, That's because at this stage in the cycle,
- 52:33Speaker 1: it is less expensive to buy a TV ad during
- 52:37Speaker 1: a regional or national NFL game than it is to
- 52:40Speaker 1: buy locally because there's more inventory nationally. So it is
- 52:45Speaker 1: more expensive to buy 30 seconds in Des Moines or
- 52:48Speaker 1: Dallas if there's no airtime left there than it is
- 52:51Speaker 1: to buy nationwide. So it was actually cheaper for the
- 52:54Speaker 1: Paxton Super PACs to blanket the nation than it was
- 52:59Speaker 1: just to buy specific airtime on, what was it, I guess,
- 53:02Speaker 1: the Cowboys and Texans, whatever that particular regional market was.
- 53:06Speaker 1: So it was easier for them to just blast it nationally.
- 53:09Speaker 1: I saw all kinds of reactions. People were like, I'm
- 53:10Speaker 1: sitting here in Roslyn, Virginia, hearing about Tallarico and trance.
- 53:15Speaker 1: I'm like, how is this even possible? I really thought
- 53:17Speaker 1: it was a personal thing. I was like, I must
- 53:19Speaker 1: be going crazy. I was like, YouTube TV must think
- 53:21Speaker 1: I live in Texas again, even though I've lived here
- 53:23Speaker 1: in like 16 years. But that's apparently what happened.
- 53:26Speaker 2: Just a comically bad candidate, too.
- 53:28Speaker 1: Even here, listen to him with his donor. He's been like, well,
- 53:31Speaker 1: it's not my fault. It's actually Trump's fault, and we're trying,
- 53:34Speaker 1: I guess.
- 53:34Speaker 2: I'm being controlled from D.C. What an incredible thing to
- 53:38Speaker 2: say in October of an election year. Vote for me.
- 53:41Speaker 2: I'm controlled by.
- 53:44Speaker 2: The people in D.C.
- 53:45Speaker 1: So funny. All right, let's put, what is it, C5
- 53:49Speaker 1: on the screen. I do want to give a reality check.
- 53:52Speaker 1: This is from Ryan Gerduski. He says, if Colin survives,
- 53:55Speaker 1: Dems need to flip three Senate seats in a double-digit
- 53:59Speaker 1: Trump state. Polls say it's a guarantee. Only eight races
- 54:03Speaker 1: in the last 25 years have voted for POTUS by
- 54:06Speaker 1: double digits and then flipped a Senate seat to the
- 54:09Speaker 1: opposite party instead. A blue wave could be harder than
- 54:12Speaker 1: it seems. I think that's, you know, it's one of
- 54:14Speaker 1: those where I don't think we're presenting it as a
- 54:16Speaker 1: foregone conclusion. I think we try very hard on this
- 54:19Speaker 1: show to be like, look, let's contextualize how crazy this is.
- 54:23Speaker 1: The polls say one thing. We will obviously find out
- 54:25Speaker 1: on election day. What do you think, you know, going
- 54:27Speaker 1: into this? Especially with Troy Jackson, because you know him
- 54:28Speaker 1: a little bit. You have a lot of good reporting
- 54:30Speaker 1: on him. He seems to be really whiffing this one.
- 54:32Speaker 1: He doesn't seem to be playing it well.
- 54:34Speaker 2: Big time. And it is definitely possible that we could
- 54:36Speaker 2: be up here on election night and say, you Wow,
- 54:40Speaker 2: they came really close in Kansas. They came really close
- 54:44Speaker 2: in Iowa. Brown ran an amazing race in Ohio. They
- 54:48Speaker 2: came so close. Dan Osborne ran a great race in Nebraska,
- 54:52Speaker 2: but he's losing by a half a point. Like you
- 54:54Speaker 2: could imagine Republicans kind of running the table on a
- 54:57Speaker 2: lot of these and just holding off.
- 55:00Speaker 1: Can I? Yeah, let me pick up on that. One
- 55:01Speaker 1: of the reasons why this is outside of Maine is
- 55:04Speaker 1: this happened in Virginia. Remember with the redistricting fight is
- 55:08Speaker 1: even though the Democrats won. Republicans came out like crazy
- 55:12Speaker 1: to vote. This is when Trump was unpopular. And that's
- 55:15Speaker 1: because for them, they were like, hey, you're literally going
- 55:17Speaker 1: to strip us of all representation in our state. We're
- 55:21Speaker 1: at least going to fight a little bit. You know,
- 55:23Speaker 1: it's like we're going to come out and just be like, hey,
- 55:24Speaker 1: we exist. Actually, you know, we're all going to come
- 55:27Speaker 1: out to the ballot and vote off your election. Some crazy,
- 55:29Speaker 1: you know, national or statewide ballot. And they all came
- 55:33Speaker 1: out to vote. And so I look at that and
- 55:35Speaker 1: I just think this is just me being from Texas.
- 55:38Speaker 1: the whole, like, it's a machine. The whole economy, the
- 55:42Speaker 1: whole industry, everything runs on Republican governance. Like, From the
- 55:48Speaker 1: top down, from taxes to oil to the data centers,
- 55:55Speaker 1: the power grid. I mean, it literally is a machine
- 55:59Speaker 1: top to bottom that has not lost a statewide election
- 56:03Speaker 1: since before I was born. I'm trying to think, Ann Richards,
- 56:08Speaker 1: somebody like that. at a statewide level. Lloyd Benson, these
- 56:11Speaker 1: people are ancient figures. I mean, I talk about Benson,
- 56:13Speaker 1: he was their last Democratic senator. He's the guy who
- 56:15Speaker 1: made that quip, I knew Jack Kennedy. That's how old
- 56:18Speaker 1: he is. He literally served with Kennedy in the Senate.
- 56:22Speaker 1: So I'm like, I don't know. I mean, I just
- 56:24Speaker 1: feel like for the evangelicals, how much is at stake
- 56:27Speaker 1: for them? I mean, their power, because look, the evangelicals, obviously,
- 56:33Speaker 1: why do they care about the Senate? Anyone want to
- 56:35Speaker 1: tell me? You got a bunch of freaking 90-year-olds in
- 56:37Speaker 1: the Supreme Court, right? So, Tallarico's not going to vote
- 56:40Speaker 1: to confirm anybody who's pro-life. I mean, look, I'm not
- 56:45Speaker 1: saying you care or I care. I'm saying these people
- 56:47Speaker 1: care a lot, and they will crawl over broken glass. So,
- 56:50Speaker 1: I don't know. That's why I have trouble with this.
- 56:52Speaker 2: And to your point about Maine, it's quite possible a
- 56:56Speaker 2: bunch of these Democrats win, and Maine and Susan Collins
- 56:59Speaker 2: still holds on. Troy Jackson... Yeah, what's going on? Let's
- 57:03Speaker 2: just do this.
- 57:04Speaker 1: What's going on?
- 57:13Speaker 2: He was holding multiple events a day all throughout. It
- 57:17Speaker 2: feels like he met almost everybody in Maine during his
- 57:21Speaker 2: primary campaign.
- 57:22Speaker 1: And his volunteers were hardcore. I was there before the primary.
- 57:25Speaker 1: I was out there taking a walk, and literally in
- 57:26Speaker 1: the middle of the rain, this guy's like, hey, man,
- 57:27Speaker 1: you want to talk about Graham Platner and have free
- 57:29Speaker 1: iced coffee? I was like, wow. This guy's out here
- 57:32Speaker 1: in the middle of nowhere offering free coffee.
- 57:34Speaker 2: Exactly. So 10,000 plus. Maine is a small state. To
- 57:38Speaker 2: amass that level, those aren't donors. That's volunteers, people who
- 57:43Speaker 2: are out knocking doors, sitting in the rain, giving free coffee,
- 57:46Speaker 2: we'll just hear a little bit about Platner, the Jackson
- 57:49Speaker 2: campaign has sidelined them. Like, won't work with them.
- 57:55Speaker 1: Why? Is there toxic?
- 57:58Speaker 2: They did this thing where they said anybody affiliated with
- 58:03Speaker 2: the Platner campaign was, and it was a kind of
- 58:07Speaker 2: a top-down, not just from D.C., but from the kind
- 58:10Speaker 2: of establishment wing of the party in Maine that it
- 58:15Speaker 2: became this jockeying for power. Is it going to be,
- 58:18Speaker 2: is there going to be a populist takeover of the
- 58:21Speaker 2: party in Maine or is it going to remain in
- 58:23Speaker 2: the hands of the establishment Democrats? And they said, so
- 58:28Speaker 2: we don't want to like, it makes no sense at
- 58:32Speaker 2: all because obviously none of those volunteers are responsible for
- 58:36Speaker 2: what Graham Platner may or may not have done five
- 58:39Speaker 2: or 10 years ago. Yet they just, it got so
- 58:45Speaker 2: bad that a couple weeks ago, when Troy Jackson jumped
- 58:50Speaker 2: into this volunteer Facebook group to defend himself against this
- 58:54Speaker 2: Rebecca Tracer investigation in New York Magazine, the volunteers were
- 59:00Speaker 2: so offended by how he was behaving, they were like,
- 59:02Speaker 2: there's no way that's Troy Jackson. Troy would never talk
- 59:05Speaker 2: to us like this. This must be his DC staffers
- 59:08Speaker 2: who took over his Facebook account and they banned him
- 59:11Speaker 2: from the Facebook group. The candidate kicked him out. A
- 59:15Speaker 2: couple days later, he was like, it's me. That was me.
- 59:18Speaker 3: Sorry.
- 59:19Speaker 1: And there's been this whole Israel waffle where he called
- 59:21Speaker 1: it a genocide under pressure. Then he was like, I
- 59:23Speaker 1: apologize to Jewish people for using that word. Like, dude,
- 59:26Speaker 1: what are you doing? I don't get it. I mean,
- 59:29Speaker 1: you liked Jackson. A lot of the progressive people like Jackson.
- 59:33Speaker 1: They all seem like he was the best option. I
- 59:36Speaker 1: don't know. The whole thing, it stinks to me.
- 59:38Speaker 2: Yeah, he came in and he was like, his defense
- 59:42Speaker 2: basically is, He didn't have a team, and so he
- 59:45Speaker 2: had to go with these guys. And he never thought, well,
- 59:50Speaker 2: there was a team and a group of volunteers that
- 59:54Speaker 2: just showed that they could win. Well, he's at home.
- 59:57Speaker 1: Doing what?
- 59:57Speaker 2: He was invited to give this Labor Day talk that
- 1:00:02Speaker 2: he gives every year at the local library. And he's like, yeah,
- 1:00:05Speaker 2: I'll do that again. And the whole world came down
- 1:00:08Speaker 2: on him. Cheyenne Hunt is like, how dare he? Fox
- 1:00:11Speaker 2: News does a bunch of segments on it. He's like, fine,
- 1:00:13Speaker 2: I won't do a Labor Day talk about the history
- 1:00:15Speaker 2: of labor.
- 1:00:16Speaker 1: I don't know. I think a lot of the segments
- 1:00:20Speaker 1: we did around that time are not going to age
- 1:00:22Speaker 1: very well for the Jackson campaign. I'll just leave it
- 1:00:24Speaker 1: at that. All right. Let's continue to break down some
- 1:00:27Speaker 1: of these other races. Ohio. I definitely wanted to mention
- 1:00:30Speaker 1: this one. Absolutely interesting. AI and data centers is one
- 1:00:33Speaker 1: of the number one. important issues. For example, in Ohio, 3%
- 1:00:36Speaker 1: of all voters, may not sound like a lot, actually
- 1:00:39Speaker 1: a ton compared to the national sample, said that AI
- 1:00:42Speaker 1: was the most important issue whenever it came to their vote.
- 1:00:45Speaker 1: They said Sherrod Brown, who is leading Husted by some
- 1:00:48Speaker 1: three points, has been the epicenter of the backlash over
- 1:00:52Speaker 1: data centers, and Brown was, quote, an early mover to
- 1:00:55Speaker 1: capitalize on the issue. I also think Sherrod Brown is
- 1:00:59Speaker 1: when we talk about candidate quality, I mean, this guy
- 1:01:02Speaker 1: has always just been massively out of step for all Democrats,
- 1:01:06Speaker 1: like nationally, like pro-union, pro-tariff. He's been, he wrote some
- 1:01:10Speaker 1: book in the 90s about steel and how important it is. Like,
- 1:01:14Speaker 1: this is just a, you could say whatever you want about, oh,
- 1:01:17Speaker 1: he's a lib and, you know, what are these companies, like,
- 1:01:19Speaker 1: you can't deny his actual credentials and the time that
- 1:01:23Speaker 1: he spent in this. I know this for a fact
- 1:01:24Speaker 1: from having observed these issues. His team would go to
- 1:01:29Speaker 1: war with the Biden administration over manufacturing. They actually walk
- 1:01:33Speaker 1: the walk.
- 1:01:34Speaker 2: I'll give him credit for that. I remember we used
- 1:01:41Speaker 2: to do at Huffington Post fashion, just as a joke,
- 1:01:44Speaker 2: fashion stuff around State of the Union. Chair Brown always
- 1:01:46Speaker 2: was like, Union made shoes, Union made pants.
- 1:01:48Speaker 1: He's the real deal. You can't.
- 1:01:53Speaker 2: You can't hit them with the culture war stuff. It
- 1:01:55Speaker 2: just doesn't land. And also, when you have built up
- 1:02:00Speaker 2: that trust over the decades that this is where you stand,
- 1:02:03Speaker 2: when you come out and say, I am against the
- 1:02:07Speaker 2: data centers here, people believe you.
- 1:02:08Speaker 1: That's true.
- 1:02:09Speaker 2: Whereas when Mike Rogers in Michigan is like, all of
- 1:02:11Speaker 2: a sudden, he went from pro data center to anti
- 1:02:13Speaker 2: data center, people don't, I don't think they actually internalize
- 1:02:17Speaker 2: that you're going to stand against them. They think that
- 1:02:20Speaker 2: you're just saying it. With Brown, they're like, oh, If
- 1:02:23Speaker 2: he says he's against this, and it was probably a
- 1:02:25Speaker 2: hard thing to do because the unions are generally for them.
- 1:02:28Speaker 1: It's fascinating, you know, even continuing like with some of this,
- 1:02:32Speaker 1: the number one thing and oh, I wanted to return
- 1:02:34Speaker 1: to Alaska. That was important. And let me make sure
- 1:02:36Speaker 1: I do. Let me put C6 up here on the screen.
- 1:02:39Speaker 1: This was a flag from Nate Cohn. This is in
- 1:02:42Speaker 1: context of a discussion that he was having. Basically, what
- 1:02:46Speaker 1: he says is Democrats are now very strong with low
- 1:02:49Speaker 1: propensity voters in our polls. In the 24 primary, Trump
- 1:02:52Speaker 1: plus two, recall Peltola plus five. No 24 primary, Trump
- 1:02:57Speaker 1: plus 16, recall Peltola plus nine. Now, he caveats this.
- 1:03:02Speaker 1: He goes, look, I should remind everyone this is one
- 1:03:04Speaker 1: crosstab in an idiosyncratic race. An extreme pattern doesn't extend
- 1:03:09Speaker 1: to the Senate control question in Alaska. And I just
- 1:03:12Speaker 1: think the flag that he's making there, where this is
- 1:03:15Speaker 1: the open question of this entire thing, is, is this
- 1:03:20Speaker 1: The same polling error that we've seen in the Trump era,
- 1:03:23Speaker 1: which is basically low propensity voters. They don't show up
- 1:03:26Speaker 1: in our polls to the extent that they do. They're
- 1:03:28Speaker 1: massively under sampled. And then come Election Day, Republicans win
- 1:03:32Speaker 1: by much more than ever, you know, ever thought, except
- 1:03:35Speaker 1: for that one time in 2022 when Democrats overperformed. Or are,
- 1:03:41Speaker 1: is this the first time some of the bros and
- 1:03:44Speaker 1: the Hispanics, you know, like these, these lower propensity, younger
- 1:03:48Speaker 1: voters just kind of check in, check out at a
- 1:03:51Speaker 1: vibe based level on politics. Are they actually turning on
- 1:03:55Speaker 1: Trump and are they going to come out to vote
- 1:03:57Speaker 1: in a midterm election? And no, even if they don't
- 1:04:00Speaker 1: come out to vote at all, that is obviously an
- 1:04:02Speaker 1: affirmative choice than if they did come out to vote
- 1:04:04Speaker 1: in 24 and it would work out for the Democrat chances.
- 1:04:07Speaker 1: That's something he picks up on. It'll be one of
- 1:04:09Speaker 1: the biggest questions on election night. And by the way,
- 1:04:12Speaker 1: that is the difference between what you said, Ryan is between,
- 1:04:16Speaker 1: because one easy possibility on election night is, you know,
- 1:04:21Speaker 1: looking at this New York times Sienna thing, we could
- 1:04:24Speaker 1: live in a world where Susan Collins wins Maine and
- 1:04:28Speaker 1: then Tallarico wins in Texas, which two huge seismic events.
- 1:04:34Speaker 1: But like you said, Ohio, hosted by point to uh...
- 1:04:38Speaker 1: recount territory outside even wins michigan but that was like
- 1:04:42Speaker 1: relatively expected that i want you know he said my
- 1:04:45Speaker 1: point five kansas iron members was it was a guy's
- 1:04:49Speaker 1: name adam hamilton yet raise that so he said he
- 1:04:52Speaker 1: wins by two point three o even then reports in
- 1:04:56Speaker 1: the republican rise roger roger roger doctor roger marshall dr
- 1:05:00Speaker 1: marshall peltola uh... well that was totally crazy because of
- 1:05:03Speaker 1: rank choice voting so it'll take a little bit longer.
- 1:05:06Speaker 1: But you could see this universe where that's the universe
- 1:05:10Speaker 1: where the Republicans get scared or some of these lower
- 1:05:13Speaker 1: propensity people just simply didn't show up even in Democratic enthusiasm.
- 1:05:16Speaker 1: And then you could also see actually in a blue wave,
- 1:05:20Speaker 1: what happens is you don't fully capture all of the
- 1:05:23Speaker 1: energy and then it moves on the other side of
- 1:05:27Speaker 1: the curve. So I wouldn't rule out any of this.
- 1:05:29Speaker 1: I just think, I do think Ryan's point is really
- 1:05:31Speaker 1: important and well taken. And it does show the extent
- 1:05:35Speaker 1: I mean, I think it's highly possible, just to return
- 1:05:37Speaker 1: to Maine for a second, I think it is highly
- 1:05:40Speaker 1: possible that the decision to oust Plattner would be maybe
- 1:05:43Speaker 1: one of the most consequential decisions. And this full embrace
- 1:05:46Speaker 1: of Me Too, hysteria, witch hunt leads basically to the
- 1:05:51Speaker 1: loss of Democratic control of the Senate. And I think
- 1:05:54Speaker 1: a lot of people should ask questions if that happens.
- 1:05:56Speaker 1: I really do. Because not only in the media campaign
- 1:05:59Speaker 1: or the way it went down, But then that whole,
- 1:06:01Speaker 1: remember the main Democratic Party, they're like, we decide who
- 1:06:04Speaker 1: the nominee is. Right, not Plattner.
- 1:06:06Speaker 2: Not Plattner's team, not Plattner's supporters.
- 1:06:07Speaker 1: Nobody associated with Graham Plattner will influence this decision. And
- 1:06:11Speaker 1: then they all seem to be fine with Troy Jackson.
- 1:06:14Speaker 1: Now he's acting weird, controlled by D.C. I think it's
- 1:06:17Speaker 1: on them if it comes down to it. And the
- 1:06:19Speaker 1: Republicans retain control.
- 1:06:21Speaker 2: It's going to be an interesting couple weeks.
- 1:06:25Speaker 1: Very crazy race. But currently all things pointing in the
- 1:06:28Speaker 1: Democratic direction. Who knows?
- 1:06:30Speaker 5: Everything.
- 1:06:30Speaker 1: lots of things within the margin of error. Like I said, if,
- 1:06:34Speaker 1: if these polls are, I think it's highly possible just
- 1:06:37Speaker 1: lasting on this, that these polls are all correct. Every
- 1:06:39Speaker 1: single one of them. And that means it becomes a
- 1:06:41Speaker 1: catalyst for Republicans is that people in Kansas are like,
- 1:06:45Speaker 1: hold on a second here. They're like, we can't be
- 1:06:47Speaker 1: living with Democrats, you know, in the, in our Senate
- 1:06:49Speaker 1: for six years, we got to come out to vote
- 1:06:51Speaker 1: where previously you're like, eh, whatever. So we'll see at
- 1:06:54Speaker 1: the very.
- 1:06:55Speaker 2: This one caller to Emily's program said, you know, look,
- 1:06:58Speaker 2: I voted for him three times, but it's going to
- 1:07:00Speaker 2: have to get worse before it gets better. So they're
- 1:07:03Speaker 2: already rationalizing voting for Democrats and knowing that they don't
- 1:07:07Speaker 2: like them. And it's going to be bad. But the
- 1:07:11Speaker 2: medicine is, you got to take your medicine.
- 1:07:13Speaker 1: You got to take your medicine. So the country needs
- 1:07:15Speaker 1: democratic rule to return. You can make an argument for that.
- 1:07:20Speaker 3: Okay.
- 1:07:21Speaker 1: All right. Let's get to AI video.