Latest / Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar / 10/26/26: Obama Rips Trump, Bibi Accused Of Treason, Oil Market On The Brink, Pentagon Doomsday Warning

Transcript

10/26/26: Obama Rips Trump, Bibi Accused Of Treason, Oil Market On The Brink, Pentagon Doomsday Warning · Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar

0:00
Speaker 1: Had a busy day? Don't have time to listen to
0:02
Speaker 1: the show?
0:03
Speaker 2: Catch up on Breaking Points with our free daily newsletter.
0:05
Speaker 1: You'll get our breakdown of every daily story.
0:08
Speaker 2: And lots of links in your inbox every day.
0:10
Speaker 3: So head over to BreakingPoints.com. You can sign up for
0:13
Speaker 3: the newsletter at the top for free today.
0:21
Speaker 4: Good morning and welcome to Breaking Points. Calamitous problems with
0:24
Speaker 4: the studio this morning. Crystal is on her way into
0:29
Speaker 4: it to see if it can work for at least
0:31
Speaker 4: half of us. When she does get in here, we're
0:33
Speaker 4: going to have a lot of midterm updates. The early
0:35
Speaker 4: vote is in. Spoiler, it is absolutely cataclysmic for Republicans.
0:41
Speaker 4: We're also going to be joined after that by Brett Erickson,
0:44
Speaker 4: who's going to talk to us about the surge in
0:46
Speaker 4: oil prices lately. He's in oil and gas. Analyst's latest
0:51
Speaker 4: updates on AI +. An unbelievable comeback from Lula da
0:56
Speaker 4: Silva in Brazil. In the second round and second and
1:01
Speaker 4: final round in the Brazilian elections there, he came back
1:03
Speaker 4: and trounced. Well, he didn't trounce Bolsonaro, but he was
1:07
Speaker 4: way behind, surged to a victory there. We'll talk about
1:10
Speaker 4: why and what happened there. Afterwards, we'll be joined by
1:13
Speaker 4: Manny Hassan, who will be talking to us about his
1:17
Speaker 4: new or Zateo's new documentary on AIPAC. Finally, of course,
1:23
Speaker 4: we don't want to let a day go by without
1:25
Speaker 4: talking about the marquee Michigan Senate race. A lot of
1:29
Speaker 4: new Mike Rogers news. He made the mistake of doing
1:32
Speaker 4: a few interviews over the weekend. We'll talk about those
1:35
Speaker 4: in his attempts to to answer the question of whether
1:38
Speaker 4: or not he is a MAGA Republican. Now, let's check
1:43
Speaker 4: in with Crystal in the studio.
1:45
Speaker 2: Hey, guys. It's been a little bit of a rough
1:47
Speaker 2: start to the morning here. I guess, Ryan, you were
1:49
Speaker 2: saying that not enough people signed up, so we weren't
1:51
Speaker 2: able to fully get our technical issues in the studio resolved. So, really,
1:53
Speaker 2: it's on you guys, to be honest.
1:55
Speaker 5: Yeah.
1:55
Speaker 4: A few weeks ago, we did say that if enough
1:57
Speaker 4: people signed up, we would fix the lighting in the studio. So,
2:01
Speaker 4: if you go to breakingpoints.com, get the free month trial.
2:04
Speaker 4: I think the problem is the free part. Everybody's doing
2:07
Speaker 4: the free month, and I guess too many of you
2:09
Speaker 4: are remembering to cancel free And so.
2:12
Speaker 1: We haven't been able to buy those light bulbs yet.
2:14
Speaker 4: But literally half the studio is blanketed in darkness as
2:18
Speaker 4: we speak. It's not actually the studio's fault. I think
2:20
Speaker 4: we can kind of own that one. We will figure
2:23
Speaker 4: out where to get light bulbs. and get this sorted
2:26
Speaker 4: out by tomorrow though.
2:27
Speaker 5: Indeed.
2:28
Speaker 2: And also just for a note, I had a cold
2:30
Speaker 2: over the weekend. You can probably hear my voice is
2:31
Speaker 2: still struggling. So hoping that it lasts for the show,
2:35
Speaker 2: but we will see how it goes. It's going to
2:37
Speaker 2: be a little touch and go. So I'm going to
2:39
Speaker 2: defer to Ryan here quite a bit today so he
2:41
Speaker 2: can dominate the conversation. It's not a misogynistic thing. It's
2:44
Speaker 2: just literally my voice is struggling. But let's go ahead
2:47
Speaker 2: and get to the latest with the midterm elections. We
2:49
Speaker 2: had dueling rallies with Barack Obama in Ohio and Michigan,
2:53
Speaker 2: and then Trump also following in his footsteps going to
2:56
Speaker 2: Michigan as well. Obama, Ryan, really proving he's still got
2:59
Speaker 2: the it factor on the campaign trail. Let's take a
3:01
Speaker 2: listen to a little bit of what he had to say.
3:03
Speaker 6: You hear people say this is somehow radical. What is
3:07
Speaker 6: radical about that? Wanting everybody to have health care?
3:11
Speaker 3: How's that radical?
3:15
Speaker 6: Wanting everybody to have a place to live that they
3:17
Speaker 6: can afford?
3:18
Speaker 3: How is that radical?
3:19
Speaker 6: I don't know if you've noticed, but he seems very
3:23
Speaker 6: focused on home renovations. He should be on HGTV. Guys
3:32
Speaker 6: building a ballroom that's bigger than the White House. It's
3:36
Speaker 6: paved over the Rose Garden, put a helicopter pad on
3:40
Speaker 6: the South Lawn, and there's gold everywhere. What's up with
3:43
Speaker 6: the gold? Everything, more gold. He's got the White House
3:50
Speaker 6: looking like Saddam Hussein opened a cheesecake factory. Just gold everywhere.
3:57
Speaker 6: You already got a pretty good senator right here. Imagine
4:01
Speaker 6: the power duo of Abdul and Alyssa. You've got a
4:04
Speaker 6: Muslim man. You've got a Jewish woman fighting for you
4:09
Speaker 6: in the United States Senate. That's something, Michigan, you can
4:12
Speaker 6: be proud of. There's a decency that we should expect.
4:18
Speaker 6: out of our public officials. And I don't know what's
4:22
Speaker 6: happened where the standards of behavior have gotten so low
4:28
Speaker 6: that somebody can run an ad like that. There's got
4:34
Speaker 6: to be something inside you where you just say, you know,
4:36
Speaker 6: no office is worth stooping that low. Because you know what?
4:44
Speaker 6: Character matters.
4:46
Speaker 2: It's easy to forget, Ryan, how talented he is. Also,
4:49
Speaker 2: what did you make of the whole Cheesecake Factory discourse?
4:53
Speaker 4: That has really picked up on Twitter.com for people who
4:56
Speaker 4: are not following that. And to me, it's kind of
4:59
Speaker 4: a Rorschach test into how comfortable you are in your skin.
5:04
Speaker 4: You have some people who are out saying, oh, how
5:06
Speaker 4: dare he criticize?
5:09
Speaker 1: He's such an elite.
5:10
Speaker 4: How dare he come after The glory is Cheesecake Factory,
5:13
Speaker 4: which so many working class Americans revere and do their
5:16
Speaker 4: birthday dinners there. And it's like, no, you can you
5:19
Speaker 4: can say like, look, yeah, a lot of people think
5:22
Speaker 4: that Cheesecake Factory is good and have their birthday dinners there.
5:26
Speaker 4: But those same people would not want the White House
5:29
Speaker 4: to look like a Cheesecake Factory. And also, it is
5:32
Speaker 4: OK to make fun of the Cheesecake Factory. Their menus
5:36
Speaker 4: are 175 pages long.
5:36
Speaker 1: That's absurd. I also, I have four kids. You know
5:40
Speaker 1: what it takes?
5:41
Speaker 4: You know what it costs for me to go to
5:43
Speaker 4: Cheesecake Factory, especially if my mother-in-law's there too?
5:47
Speaker 1: Like it's absolutely insane.
5:50
Speaker 4: So yes, like this is like an over the top,
5:52
Speaker 4: like there's gold everywhere. It's like, it's ridiculous. It's called
5:55
Speaker 4: the Cheesecake Factory. It's OK to make fun of it.
5:58
Speaker 4: That doesn't make you an elite. Working people make fun
6:01
Speaker 4: of it, too. Nobody wants the White House to look
6:04
Speaker 4: like Cheesecake Factory. Crystal, what was your reaction to how
6:09
Speaker 4: the kind of spiral there?
6:10
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, I mean, on the Cheesecake Factory thing, my
6:13
Speaker 2: favorite addition to the discourse was someone crunched the numbers
6:15
Speaker 2: and it's like, actually, there's vastly more Cheesecake Factories in
6:18
Speaker 2: Kamala one counties than there are in Trump one counties.
6:21
Speaker 2: But Putting that aside, I mean, I do think it's
6:23
Speaker 2: a sort of like condescending, LARPing, working class attitude of like,
6:28
Speaker 2: how dare you? Working class people couldn't possibly understand that
6:32
Speaker 2: the White House or imagine anything better for the White
6:34
Speaker 2: House than like Cheesecake Factory. But the other piece that
6:37
Speaker 2: is really significant there that I know you probably picked
6:39
Speaker 2: up on is Obama really actually, for the first time
6:43
Speaker 2: to my knowledge, embraced Medicare for all. And this is
6:46
Speaker 2: Abdul's framing of Medicare for all is it's a continuation
6:49
Speaker 2: of the work that was done with the Affordable Care Act,
6:51
Speaker 2: not as a rejection of that. And it seems like
6:54
Speaker 2: Obama is embracing that framing. You know, his trajectory post-presidency,
7:00
Speaker 2: you know, of course, I have all kinds of complaints
7:01
Speaker 2: about the way that he was in office and then post-presidency.
7:04
Speaker 2: Most of all, he's popped up politically in order to
7:08
Speaker 2: thwart the ambitions of the left and protect his legacy.
7:12
Speaker 2: It seems like this cycle between the outreach to Zoran,
7:15
Speaker 2: backing Abdul, backing Angie Nixon, he has started to embrace
7:20
Speaker 2: and understand the direction that the party is going in.
7:23
Speaker 2: And I think that's an incredibly important development as we
7:27
Speaker 2: look towards this midterms and beyond.
7:29
Speaker 4: Yes, that really was to me what was so kind
7:32
Speaker 4: of startling in a way about the way that Obama
7:36
Speaker 4: approached this. Abdul had been very smart in reminding people
7:40
Speaker 4: that Obama talked about the Affordable Care Act as a
7:43
Speaker 4: starter home, and.
7:44
Speaker 1: After a starter home, you hope to move up.
7:48
Speaker 4: And Obama kind of then was embracing that language and saying, yes,
7:54
Speaker 4: what's so radical about everybody getting health care? And what
7:58
Speaker 4: Obama's doing there is saying, what I always wanted is
8:02
Speaker 4: the same thing that he always wanted. He's kind of
8:03
Speaker 4: reshaping his reform as, okay, that's what was possible then,
8:09
Speaker 4: more is possible now, and therefore I am for that, which,
8:13
Speaker 4: like you said, is a significant difference from what he's
8:18
Speaker 4: been doing in the past, which is kind of rallying
8:21
Speaker 4: the establishment to consolidate its power against the Bernie-Abdul kind
8:28
Speaker 4: of wing of the party and.
8:29
Speaker 1: Keep them back, but now he sees it coming.
8:32
Speaker 4: It came out the same day, I don't know if
8:33
Speaker 4: you saw this video of Mayor Mamdani going around New
8:36
Speaker 4: York City with Governor Kathy Hochul.
8:40
Speaker 1: It was incredible.
8:41
Speaker 4: If you go back and rewatch that, look at Kathy
8:45
Speaker 4: Hochul the entire time.
8:47
Speaker 1: She's not used to adulation.
8:50
Speaker 4: She's not used to people being glad to see her,
8:54
Speaker 4: being excited, wanting to take pictures with her. And it
8:58
Speaker 4: appears that basically nobody even knows that the governor of
9:02
Speaker 4: New York is there. And they're just losing their minds
9:05
Speaker 4: for Mamdani. And Mamdani keeps pulling her into the picture.
9:08
Speaker 4: Let's get the governor too. Let's get the governor too.
9:11
Speaker 4: And I think that's going to be a moment that
9:13
Speaker 4: she remembers, that she feels, and that she.
9:17
Speaker 1: Tells all of her allies about.
9:19
Speaker 4: Like, guys, set the polling aside, even though the polling is,
9:24
Speaker 4: you know, sending us a blaring signal.
9:26
Speaker 1: Like, people are energized by this guy.
9:29
Speaker 4: So the combination of that, seeing how how much people
9:33
Speaker 4: are kind of loving the work that Mamdani is doing
9:35
Speaker 4: in New York, plus now Obama saying, you know, this
9:39
Speaker 4: is at least a way. If it's not the way,
9:42
Speaker 4: it's a way. It really does feel like a new
9:45
Speaker 4: phase for this Democratic Party.
9:46
Speaker 5: Yeah.
9:47
Speaker 2: And Hochul Terekradet has been pretty savvy. She recognized the
9:50
Speaker 2: power of Zoran's movement and shifted, I would say, pretty quickly.
9:54
Speaker 2: Someone who is not excited about this movement is Donald Trump,
9:57
Speaker 2: who is so jealous of Obama in general. I mean,
10:01
Speaker 2: I really think that this goes sort of deep to
10:03
Speaker 2: his insecure core. Let's put this up on the screen.
10:06
Speaker 2: Maybe Ryan, you can read a little bit of this
10:07
Speaker 2: true social for us.
10:09
Speaker 4: Donald Trump, Obama was a grossly incompetent president. He paid
10:13
Speaker 4: off Iran with billions and gave them a road to
10:16
Speaker 4: a nuclear weapon He said that crooked Hillary Clinton was
10:19
Speaker 4: going to win. He campaigned hard for her, and she
10:22
Speaker 4: lost in all directions and ways. He then campaigned full
10:25
Speaker 4: out for Kamala, and likewise, she lost. Now he's campaigning
10:29
Speaker 4: for a Muslim Brotherhood jihadist who hates Jews and blacks
10:32
Speaker 4: and Americans and Trump, and he is going to lose also.
10:35
Speaker 4: He's a fake doctor who runs what is considered to
10:38
Speaker 4: be the worst clinic in America.
10:41
Speaker 1: I won Michigan big.
10:43
Speaker 4: Have brought back the car industry, the Air Force base,
10:46
Speaker 4: and everything else. Also, more jobs than ever before. Michigan
10:50
Speaker 4: doesn't want an arrogant, open borders, fake Dr. Jihadist whose
10:53
Speaker 4: reputation will only get worse as more information is revealed.
10:57
Speaker 4: And there's plenty. Vote for Mike Rogers. He will never
11:00
Speaker 4: let you down, President Donald J.
11:04
Speaker 1: Trump.
11:05
Speaker 4: So, yes, Trump, you know, Mike, we'll talk about this
11:09
Speaker 4: later in the program, but Mike Rogers was asked over
11:13
Speaker 4: the weekend, would you define yourself as a MAGA Republican?
11:17
Speaker 4: And just absolutely refused to answer, was offended by the question. Like,
11:20
Speaker 4: this is kind of the kind of gotcha stuff that
11:22
Speaker 4: the liberal media wants to do. It's like, wow, like
11:25
Speaker 4: you can't even embrace MAGA at this point. So I
11:30
Speaker 4: think Abdul Alsaid is happy anytime Trump wants to weigh
11:33
Speaker 4: in on the Michigan Senate primary.
11:35
Speaker 2: Well, and Trump was in Michigan to rally for Mike Rogers.
11:39
Speaker 2: Not sure that Mike Rogers would be super excited about that,
11:42
Speaker 2: but they do need to do some base turnout. So
11:44
Speaker 2: perhaps it will help him. Let's take a listen to
11:45
Speaker 2: a little bit of Trump.
11:46
Speaker 5: What are you.
11:47
Speaker 7: Hearing is the top issue for most voters? Well, first
11:50
Speaker 7: of all, I hear that we've turned the whole thing around. And,
11:53
Speaker 7: you know, for whatever reason, presidents don't win, almost never,
11:58
Speaker 7: the midterms. And I think we've really turned it around. And,
12:02
Speaker 7: you know, I think the rallies have turned it, frankly,
12:04
Speaker 7: just to be honest. And every senator feels the same way.
12:08
Speaker 7: Bringing people in from all these terrible places, Somalia. You know, 98%
12:13
Speaker 7: of the people that we have here now in Somalia
12:16
Speaker 7: They don't really have to work because they steal so much.
12:19
Speaker 7: They all have a Mercedes Benz. Can you believe low
12:22
Speaker 7: IQ and they live better than you do? I don't
12:25
Speaker 7: know what's going on. Maybe they're not as low as
12:28
Speaker 7: we think.
12:30
Speaker 2: So some unsurprising but still horrifying blatant racism there, par
12:34
Speaker 2: for the course for this president.
12:35
Speaker 4: You hear him finish, though, say maybe they're not as
12:37
Speaker 4: low IQ as we think since they're ripping us off
12:39
Speaker 4: so effectively.
12:40
Speaker 3: Yeah.
12:41
Speaker 4: A little Trump praise for the Somali community there.
12:45
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, he does respect fraudsters. It's sort of a
12:47
Speaker 2: core to his ideology, for sure. He also weighed in
12:51
Speaker 2: on another issue where his policy is deeply unpopular, which
12:54
Speaker 2: is on data centers. Let's listen to that.
12:57
Speaker 7: So I say, let him come in. Like in Memphis,
13:00
Speaker 7: I think it's Elon. He's building some in Memphis. I
13:03
Speaker 7: could give him plenty of other locations, but he's building
13:06
Speaker 7: them in Memphis. We just talked about it. They need
13:09
Speaker 7: the jobs. And they're fighting him. And if you offered them...
13:14
Speaker 7: A few bucks, I guarantee you this, they'd love it.
13:17
Speaker 7: But you should really be cool on data centers because
13:19
Speaker 7: you can make a fortune with the data centers. You
13:21
Speaker 7: can make a fortune.
13:23
Speaker 2: And Ryan, there's very few people who put data centers
13:25
Speaker 2: as their top political issue. However, it does seem like
13:30
Speaker 2: it may be depressing. The data center issue may be
13:32
Speaker 2: depressing some of the Republican turnout in rural Texas and
13:35
Speaker 2: other places across the country.
13:37
Speaker 4: There was that really instructive survey that found that the
13:41
Speaker 4: closer you live to a data center, the more likely
13:44
Speaker 4: you are to be voting for Democrats in the midterms,
13:47
Speaker 4: which is counterintuitive since they're mostly in rural areas. They're
13:53
Speaker 4: obviously almost all in rural areas, and those are most
13:57
Speaker 4: likely to be Republican voters. So there's a real kind
14:02
Speaker 4: of kryptonite effect that they're having.
14:04
Speaker 1: There's so many of them.
14:05
Speaker 4: It's like they have hyperscaled this to a level where
14:09
Speaker 4: it actually can move the needle.
14:11
Speaker 1: There's a consequential.
14:13
Speaker 4: number of people who live very close to these either
14:17
Speaker 4: actual operating data centers or proposed data centers. And yeah,
14:22
Speaker 4: it's it's one of the biggest kind of political loser
14:25
Speaker 4: issues in decades.
14:27
Speaker 2: Another political loser issue is gas prices. And I took
14:32
Speaker 2: note that in particular, I mean, obviously, last week, the
14:35
Speaker 2: price of barrel went up dramatically. We're back to near
14:38
Speaker 2: the peaks that we were at during the heat of
14:40
Speaker 2: the Iran war. The heat so far of the Iran
14:43
Speaker 2: war that is likely to get passed through to consumers
14:46
Speaker 2: at the pump. The timing could not possibly be worse.
14:49
Speaker 2: CNN took a look at some of the specific regional impacts.
14:52
Speaker 2: Let's watch that.
14:53
Speaker 8: Two days ago, the average in Michigan was $ 4.
14:56
Speaker 3: 44 a gallon.
14:57
Speaker 8: Not cheap, but look where we are now.
14:59
Speaker 6: $ 4. 77 a gallon.
15:00
Speaker 2: So that is a 33 cent increase.
15:05
Speaker 8: You go weeks or months with that without that kind
15:08
Speaker 8: of an increase. But we got that in just the
15:11
Speaker 8: last 48 hours.
15:12
Speaker 3: And it's not just Michigan.
15:14
Speaker 8: When you look at other states in the region, Wisconsin, Indiana,
15:18
Speaker 8: Ohio and Illinois, all of them moving sharply higher, all
15:22
Speaker 8: of them in the last two days. And look at
15:24
Speaker 8: Ohio in particular, another major battleground state. We're looking at
15:29
Speaker 8: a thirty nine cent increase in the last two days. Look,
15:33
Speaker 8: Michigan was already experiencing the biggest 12-month increase in gas
15:38
Speaker 8: prices of any state in the country. Prices there up
15:43
Speaker 8: $ 1. 67 over the last 12 months, more than any other state,
15:46
Speaker 8: more than even what's been experienced in California. The consumers
15:51
Speaker 8: in Michigan are paying an extra $ 2. 6 billion more since
15:56
Speaker 8: the Iran war started.
15:58
Speaker 3: That's just on gasoline.
15:59
Speaker 8: It doesn't count diesel. It doesn't count interest rates. This
16:03
Speaker 8: is costing the typical household almost $ 650.
16:06
Speaker 1: And Ryan, if.
16:08
Speaker 2: I had to pick any metric, I would actually pick
16:11
Speaker 2: the gas price increase and where they stand over the
16:15
Speaker 2: polls as being predictive of what's likely to happen in
16:17
Speaker 2: the midterms.
16:18
Speaker 4: And it's not just the the raw absolute number, although
16:22
Speaker 4: that is infuriating. But when you drive past the gas
16:25
Speaker 4: station on Wednesday and you're like, I should fill up.
16:29
Speaker 1: I don't have time. You don't do it.
16:32
Speaker 4: You come back on Friday and it's 30 cents higher.
16:38
Speaker 4: You want to like bludgeon somebody. Like you want to
16:43
Speaker 4: smash somebody's face into the curb. Like it's just so
16:47
Speaker 4: absolutely infuriating. And that's what you're... That's what you're seeing,
16:50
Speaker 4: I think, in all of this early voting data is
16:53
Speaker 4: just raw, absolute, complete rage.
16:58
Speaker 1: Actually, we could put up a six here.
17:01
Speaker 4: And so this data Republican who worked for the Pentagon, right,
17:06
Speaker 4: under Hegseth, and was like, why is everybody so worked
17:11
Speaker 4: up about the fact that I'm a special government employee
17:13
Speaker 4: under the Pentagon? But it was a well-respected kind of
17:15
Speaker 4: Republican number cruncher. She writes here, I've been asked about
17:20
Speaker 4: early voting analysis.
17:21
Speaker 1: This is on Twitter. is going to be a fight.
17:50
Speaker 4: That last line makes me wonder if she had AI
17:52
Speaker 4: write this, because she didn't change the grammar of the
17:55
Speaker 4: you must turn out, and she says their friends instead
17:58
Speaker 4: of your friends. If you were writing that yourself, you'd
18:00
Speaker 4: say your friends. But anyway, aside from that, think about
18:06
Speaker 4: what she's saying about how she needs to create a
18:08
Speaker 4: safe space on X, that if she tells her audience
18:14
Speaker 4: on X, you know, what the actual numbers are. This
18:18
Speaker 4: is not her take. This is not her prognostication. We're
18:21
Speaker 4: not talking about her forecasts. We're talking about what she's seeing.
18:27
Speaker 4: We can put up A9 because it turns out you
18:30
Speaker 4: can leave the Everything app and you can actually go
18:33
Speaker 4: to datarepublican.com. Here we got Florida 2026 general early vote.
18:38
Speaker 4: If you look at this, you're looking at significant surge
18:45
Speaker 4: in the early vote for Democrats. And what in particular
18:49
Speaker 4: finding is that people who haven't voted before are turning
18:54
Speaker 4: out in a kind of significant way. People who haven't
18:59
Speaker 4: voted in the last four elections are turning out pretty
19:04
Speaker 4: dramatically this time. And Democrats who haven't voted in the
19:09
Speaker 4: past are turning out much more substantially.
19:11
Speaker 1: Than Republicans.
19:12
Speaker 4: We can just do A7 real quick. This is a
19:15
Speaker 4: tweet from a polling analyst, G. Elliot Morris, where he says,
19:23
Speaker 4: we don't know if the early vote will be predictive
19:25
Speaker 4: because all Republicans could just be waiting to vote until
19:29
Speaker 4: Election Day. What this means in practice is that to win,
19:32
Speaker 4: the GOP will have to have the most successful Election
19:36
Speaker 4: Day mobilization operation in modern history.
19:40
Speaker 1: And that it's completely stealth.
19:43
Speaker 4: And so in other words, with the president at somewhere
19:49
Speaker 4: between a 30 and 35 percent approval rating, with gas
19:52
Speaker 4: prices surging, you'd have to have this kind of secret
19:58
Speaker 4: enthusiasm for Republicans that is not emerging in the early vote,
20:03
Speaker 4: that comes out in a way that Trump didn't see
20:06
Speaker 4: in 2024, that Trump didn't get even in 2016.
20:12
Speaker 1: That that nobody has ever seen from either party.
20:15
Speaker 4: Like that's what it would take at this point for
20:19
Speaker 4: for Republicans to stop some of this bleeding. Crystal, were
20:25
Speaker 4: there any any of the early voting data over the
20:28
Speaker 4: weekend that really.
20:28
Speaker 1: Jumped out at you?
20:30
Speaker 2: Lots of it. But I just was thinking about the
20:32
Speaker 2: early vote and what you can tell from it and
20:33
Speaker 2: what you can't. You can kind of get a rough
20:36
Speaker 2: sense of the relative enthusiasm of the two parties because
20:40
Speaker 2: you're just looking at, OK, are you registered Democrat? You're
20:42
Speaker 2: registered Republican. You're assuming that those people are voting in
20:45
Speaker 2: a partisan way. That's really all you can get from this.
20:48
Speaker 2: So we're getting a sense that Democratic enthusiasm is much
20:51
Speaker 2: higher than Republicans based on what's come in so far.
20:54
Speaker 2: The other two pieces we don't know are what percent
20:57
Speaker 2: of independence will go to for Democrats versus Republicans. So
21:00
Speaker 2: persuasion of independence. We don't know that part. And will
21:03
Speaker 2: there be any significant Republican defectors? So just because you
21:06
Speaker 2: registered as a Republican or you voted Republican in the
21:08
Speaker 2: last primary doesn't necessarily mean you're still voting Republican. So
21:13
Speaker 2: those are the two pieces that really remain outstanding question
21:17
Speaker 2: marks and I think will determine whether it's just a
21:19
Speaker 2: good night for Democrats or whether it's something that is
21:21
Speaker 2: truly historic.
21:23
Speaker 4: Right, because there are a lot of reasons to think
21:25
Speaker 4: at this point, as strange as it may sound, that
21:29
Speaker 4: the polls have been underestimating Democrats. pollsters have been very
21:35
Speaker 4: frightened over the past many cycles because they kept screwing
21:39
Speaker 4: it up and overestimating Democrats and missing out on Trump
21:43
Speaker 4: voters who weren't answering the polls or whatever the explanations were.
21:48
Speaker 4: And so they're adopting this kind of Trump era mindset
21:54
Speaker 4: to a post, not post-Trump era, but to an anti-Trump era.
21:58
Speaker 4: Like the country is united in frustration and anger at
22:04
Speaker 4: Trump right now. His supporters will acknowledge that he probably
22:08
Speaker 4: shouldn't have gone to war in Iran, even if the
22:12
Speaker 4: mullahs need to be stopped from having a.
22:14
Speaker 1: Nuclear weapon or whatever.
22:15
Speaker 4: They will even acknowledge that, yeah, it's not going exactly
22:18
Speaker 4: as planned. It's not going the way that Trump said
22:22
Speaker 4: that it would. That's his supporters. The people that have
22:26
Speaker 4: always hated him hate him with an even greater passion
22:30
Speaker 4: at this point And so what pollsters are doing is
22:33
Speaker 4: they're taking the normal kind of registered voter panel that
22:37
Speaker 4: they get in and then they're doing the Trump tweak
22:40
Speaker 4: to it where they're saying, well, this can't be exactly right.
22:43
Speaker 4: We've got to turn the knob a little bit over
22:45
Speaker 4: here for these kind of secret Trump-loving Republicans. And so
22:50
Speaker 4: you get this bizarre situation where their likely vote screen,
22:53
Speaker 4: that they call it, is actually friendlier to Republicans than
22:56
Speaker 4: the registered vote screen when normally it's the other way around.
23:00
Speaker 1: But that's just their guess.
23:02
Speaker 4: And the pollsters are saying that all of the early
23:05
Speaker 4: voting data that's coming in is suggesting that their likely
23:09
Speaker 4: vote screens were wrong and were too friendly to Republicans
23:13
Speaker 4: because there's no evidence that Republicans are turning out. That
23:18
Speaker 4: the only Republicans that you're seeing turn out are the
23:21
Speaker 4: ones that vote all the time. There was even some
23:23
Speaker 4: data I saw out of Florida that they can look
23:25
Speaker 4: at what's called cannibalization.
23:27
Speaker 1: So in other words, if you voted.
23:29
Speaker 4: in the general election on election day in 2024, but
23:33
Speaker 4: already you've voted early, then you're basically cannibalizing the vote
23:39
Speaker 4: on election day. Because if you already voted early, you
23:41
Speaker 4: can't vote on election day. So they looked at cannibalization
23:44
Speaker 4: on both parties. About 80,000 Democrats who voted on election
23:50
Speaker 4: day have early voted already. So they've cannibalized 80,000 of
23:55
Speaker 4: their votes.
23:55
Speaker 1: But with Republicans, it was 120,000.
23:56
Speaker 4: So- More Republicans, even though there's fewer Republicans turning out,
24:02
Speaker 4: more Republicans who were voted on Election Day have now
24:05
Speaker 4: voted early, which means that those are votes that Republicans
24:09
Speaker 4: don't have on Election Day. So that that means that
24:12
Speaker 4: Democrats could even be even more competitive on Election Day
24:15
Speaker 4: itself than people think. So, yeah, this could be a
24:18
Speaker 4: just assuming the Internet holds together for another week.
24:22
Speaker 2: Right. Which we'll talk about in a bit.
24:24
Speaker 1: And we count the votes.
24:27
Speaker 4: This could be a historic wipeout of like 94 and
24:31
Speaker 4: 446 level.
24:33
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, in Brazil, the poll miss that you described
24:38
Speaker 2: just happened where the pollsters were so afraid of underestimating
24:42
Speaker 2: Bolsonaro that they juiced his numbers too much and they
24:45
Speaker 2: were inaccurate and underestimated Lula's support. If you look at
24:50
Speaker 2: past midterm elections, they have not overestimated Democratic support. In fact,
24:54
Speaker 2: in 2022 and then in this most recent special election,
24:57
Speaker 2: they underestimated Democratic support. So, you know, it does seem
25:01
Speaker 2: to be very different when Trump is not specifically on
25:05
Speaker 2: the ballot than when he is. With that being said,
25:08
Speaker 2: let's go ahead and turn to one of the main
25:10
Speaker 2: factors that is leading to so much disgust among the
25:13
Speaker 2: broad American public, which is the war in Iran.
25:18
Speaker 4: With oil prices surging around the globe and with an
25:20
Speaker 4: election scheduled in Israel on Tuesday, There is a full-blown
25:25
Speaker 4: political crisis going on with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
25:30
Speaker 4: pressuring the Israeli military into some type of attack on Iran.
25:36
Speaker 4: It is unclear precisely what order Netanyahu gave to the
25:40
Speaker 4: Israeli military, but the Israeli military has responded by effectively
25:44
Speaker 4: refusing and making public his order. This is from Israeli media.
25:49
Speaker 4: An unprecedented confrontation between the chief of staff and the
25:52
Speaker 4: prime minister that reached its peak or low point in
25:55
Speaker 4: the last day. The issue in the background, the Iranian matter,
25:59
Speaker 4: and fears of Zamir, this is the chief of staff,
26:02
Speaker 4: that Netanyahu and the political echelon might lead to a
26:04
Speaker 4: scenario of miscalculation against Iran just before the elections.
26:08
Speaker 1: All of this, by the way, was cleared by the
26:11
Speaker 1: Israeli censors.
26:12
Speaker 4: A security source says, this is an action that could
26:15
Speaker 4: lead to a sudden confrontation with Iran itself. at a
26:18
Speaker 4: sensitive and dramatic timing and create a miscalculation. Sources with
26:24
Speaker 4: knowledge of the details say, quote, peers of the military
26:27
Speaker 4: echelon from an attempt to exploit the Iranian issue for
26:30
Speaker 4: political momentum, a claim that political figures deny and argue
26:34
Speaker 4: is an outright lie. Be that as it may, two
26:36
Speaker 4: sources tell me that it reached a level where today
26:38
Speaker 4: during the visit to Pamasheem, the atmosphere in the discussion
26:44
Speaker 4: was extremely tense in the last few days. Zamir received
26:47
Speaker 4: some directive from the political echelon, but requested an in-depth
26:51
Speaker 4: discussion before execution. He also requested legal authorizations signed by
26:56
Speaker 4: the political echelon for the move. Senior security official says,
27:00
Speaker 4: history will not forget the role Zamir played here in
27:03
Speaker 4: the last few days. The bottom line, an exceptional confrontation
27:07
Speaker 4: in its deviation between Zamir and Netanyahu around the issue
27:10
Speaker 4: in Iran just before the election date. Now, Avigdor Lieberman,
27:14
Speaker 4: if you can put up this next element, has now
27:16
Speaker 4: come out and said that he wants to pursue charges
27:21
Speaker 4: of treason against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. He writes, This
27:26
Speaker 4: morning I appealed to the Attorney General demanding the opening
27:29
Speaker 4: of a criminal investigation against Netanyahu for the charge of treason.
27:32
Speaker 4: In the past month, Israel's Prime Minister has been pressuring
27:36
Speaker 4: the heads of the security establishment to take steps that
27:39
Speaker 4: could create a miscalculation vis-a-vis Iran. The attempt to drag
27:43
Speaker 4: the state of Israel into war on the eve of elections,
27:46
Speaker 4: together with the willingness to sacrifice IDF soldiers solely due
27:50
Speaker 4: to fear of losing the elections, constitutes treason against the state,
27:55
Speaker 4: its security, and the IDF soldiers. And so this comes as,
28:02
Speaker 4: at Dropsite, we had been reporting that it was, our
28:06
Speaker 4: reporting was suggesting that Netanyahu was indeed trying to relaunch
28:13
Speaker 4: the war on Iran ahead of the election because polls
28:18
Speaker 4: were showing that if the election goes off, he is
28:22
Speaker 4: going to fall short of a majority. And if the
28:25
Speaker 4: opposition party joins with the Palestinian parties who are expected
28:29
Speaker 4: to get to roughly 15 seats, they would have enough
28:32
Speaker 4: for a majority to be able to form a government
28:35
Speaker 4: and kick Netanyahu out. The The thinking for a long
28:39
Speaker 4: time had been that it would be too politically disadvantageous
28:43
Speaker 4: for Netanyahu to launch a war right before the election.
28:46
Speaker 4: But with the polls showing him losing, you can see
28:49
Speaker 4: him with his back up against the wall and saying,
28:53
Speaker 4: you know what, I don't have much else to lose, Crystal.
28:57
Speaker 4: Donald Trump actually weighed in on this very briefly. Let's
29:00
Speaker 4: play that and then let's react. Let's put up before.
29:04
Speaker 4: This is Trump asked about an attack on Iran.
29:08
Speaker 3: The answer is no.
29:10
Speaker 7: There will not be a strike today.
29:13
Speaker 1: So no, there will not be a strike today.
29:18
Speaker 4: One thing that had persuaded me that strikes before the
29:22
Speaker 4: midterms were quite on the table was that Trump kept
29:26
Speaker 4: explicitly saying, we will not attack. until after the midterms.
29:32
Speaker 4: It's not something that he normally does. Normally, he'll say,
29:35
Speaker 4: I'd be a fool to tell you what I'm going
29:36
Speaker 4: to do. I got to keep the element of surprise.
29:38
Speaker 4: You know, I can't, I can't, I can't tell you,
29:40
Speaker 4: but he kept, he keeps explicitly saying there will not
29:44
Speaker 4: be an attack until after the midterms.
29:47
Speaker 2: There's a, like, oh, Yes.
29:49
Speaker 3: Yeah.
29:50
Speaker 2: It's very concerning. And there's a report in Haaretz this
29:52
Speaker 2: morning that the IDF chief also warned his U.S. counterpart
29:57
Speaker 2: that striking Iran would disrupt Israel's election, which is, of course,
30:01
Speaker 2: the entire point, apparently, of what Netanyahu is trying to
30:04
Speaker 2: do here. And my understanding, Ryan, is that this IDF
30:06
Speaker 2: chief of staff, this guy was seen as a yes
30:09
Speaker 2: man for Netanyahu. So for him to pull the fire
30:12
Speaker 2: alarm is really something really quite extraordinary when Netanyahu is
30:17
Speaker 2: getting too wild for his own handpicked IDF chief of staff.
30:21
Speaker 2: But I also was recalling that just recently. there was
30:25
Speaker 2: this huge show of force from the Israelis where they
30:28
Speaker 2: were sort of trying to provoke Iran with these flyovers
30:32
Speaker 2: very close to the Iranian border. And the theory at
30:35
Speaker 2: the time, as posited by Barack Ravid over at Axios,
30:38
Speaker 2: of course, very well sourced within the highest echelons of
30:40
Speaker 2: both the U.S. and the Israeli government, was that Netanyahu
30:43
Speaker 2: was hoping to provoke Iran into some sort of an
30:46
Speaker 2: attack so that he would then have a justification to
30:49
Speaker 2: go all the way in.
30:51
Speaker 4: Yes, and Trump just recently endorsed Netanyahu Netanyahu, we all
30:55
Speaker 4: saw that awkward phone call where Netanyahu put him on speakerphone,
31:00
Speaker 4: but apparently behind the scenes, Netanyahu has been complaining a
31:03
Speaker 4: lot that Trump hasn't more vocally supported him. If you
31:07
Speaker 4: watch Netanyahu campaigning or you watch any of his ads,
31:10
Speaker 4: he just keeps saying, Trump wants you to vote for me,
31:13
Speaker 4: so therefore vote for me. That wouldn't work for any
31:18
Speaker 4: Republican candidate here at this point in the United States,
31:22
Speaker 4: but in Israel, he still remains a popular figure.
31:26
Speaker 1: And Trump just today.
31:28
Speaker 4: Or maybe in the last 12 hours or so, put
31:32
Speaker 4: out a new statement talking about how wonderful Netanyahu is.
31:35
Speaker 4: So that could be part of the kind of apology
31:38
Speaker 4: for not letting him go forward with his relaunch of
31:42
Speaker 4: the war right now. There's also been some leaks coming
31:45
Speaker 4: out of the White House that White House officials consider
31:49
Speaker 4: Netanyahu to be desperate and annoying and and they're kind
31:53
Speaker 4: of losing confidence in him. So that isn't, those aren't
31:57
Speaker 4: the anonymous comments that I think Netanyahu wants at this moment.
32:01
Speaker 4: He wants more kind of celebratory stuff like he got
32:04
Speaker 4: on Truth Social, but what he really wants is the
32:08
Speaker 4: bullets and the bombs to start flying again so that
32:11
Speaker 4: at least if you postpone the election, you know, the
32:16
Speaker 4: thinking is he would still lose a couple months from now,
32:19
Speaker 4: but You live to fight another day. You know, he
32:21
Speaker 4: and Trump both are very much of that political survivor mentality.
32:27
Speaker 2: I mean, it's worked for him. Can't say it hasn't
32:30
Speaker 2: worked for both of them.
32:30
Speaker 7: Yeah.
32:31
Speaker 2: One of the great I mean, Netanyahu is one of
32:33
Speaker 2: the greatest political survivors in all of human history. And
32:36
Speaker 2: after the complete debacle of October 7th and the mass
32:39
Speaker 2: security failures both leading up to it and on that day.
32:42
Speaker 2: that he's managed to hang on to power and hang
32:44
Speaker 2: on to any sort of there's been a pushing off
32:47
Speaker 2: of any sort of reckoning or analysis within Israel of
32:50
Speaker 2: those exact failures. That's exactly how he operates. It's always, OK,
32:54
Speaker 2: what war can I start? Who can I bomb to avoid,
32:56
Speaker 2: whether it's a political reckoning or whether it's a legal
32:59
Speaker 2: reckoning with his corruption trials as well? So certainly par
33:02
Speaker 2: for the course. There was another interesting moment with Trump
33:05
Speaker 2: where he was getting asked about what he would do
33:08
Speaker 2: with Iran. I want you to pay close attention, guys,
33:11
Speaker 2: to what he says here about the intelligence he's getting.
33:13
Speaker 2: This is B5.
33:15
Speaker 3: B5.
33:15
Speaker 2: Let's listen.
33:16
Speaker 8: Did that strike you as very different from what you'd
33:19
Speaker 8: read on Iran before?
33:21
Speaker 7: They're two very different sets of intelligence reports. I have
33:26
Speaker 7: them both, but they're very different.
33:28
Speaker 2: Two very different sets of intelligence, Ryan. Where do you
33:32
Speaker 2: think that these two different sets of intelligence are coming from?
33:34
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly.
33:36
Speaker 4: He's got his good friends in Israel who have one
33:39
Speaker 4: set of ideas.
33:40
Speaker 2: One set of intelligence, quote unquote.
33:42
Speaker 1: Intelligence.
33:44
Speaker 4: And then he's got his own intelligence community, which he
33:50
Speaker 4: has tried to revamp pretty substantially, but still considers them
33:54
Speaker 4: to be part of the deep state.
33:56
Speaker 1: I think there is You know, I think.
34:01
Speaker 4: It is reasonable to say that he has more trust
34:04
Speaker 4: in what he hears from Israel because he believes that
34:07
Speaker 4: the American intelligence officials are.
34:10
Speaker 1: Out to get him.
34:11
Speaker 2: They also tell him what he wants to hear, too. Right.
34:14
Speaker 2: which is that there's a solution to this, and it
34:17
Speaker 2: just requires more bombs. Whereas what anyone else would say
34:22
Speaker 2: to him who was grounded in reality would be, you're
34:24
Speaker 2: going to have to take an L here one way
34:26
Speaker 2: or another, and there is no military solution. He wants
34:28
Speaker 2: to hear there is a solution to your problems. You're
34:31
Speaker 2: going to be victorious. Mission accomplished is just around the corner.
34:34
Speaker 2: So that makes him very inclined towards that set of intelligence.
34:39
Speaker 4: Yeah, I've been told by administration sources that even War
34:42
Speaker 4: Secretary Pete Hegseth at this point is pessimistic about another
34:46
Speaker 4: attack on Iran. Now, partly I think that's because he
34:49
Speaker 4: sees the writing on the wall that he's going.
34:51
Speaker 1: Out, he's going to get booted.
34:53
Speaker 2: He's about to be the scapegoat.
34:55
Speaker 1: He's going to be the scapegoat.
34:56
Speaker 4: And there's this reporting that he wants to take Marsha
34:59
Speaker 4: Blackburn's Tennessee Senate seat if Marsha Blackburn wins the governor's race.
35:04
Speaker 4: She's currently a senator in Tennessee. So he's looking for
35:07
Speaker 4: his way out. But he doesn't see another round of
35:10
Speaker 4: attacks Even with his back against the wall, you can
35:14
Speaker 4: imagine him saying, okay, well, I'm about to be scapegoated.
35:16
Speaker 1: I'm hoping to go to the Senate. Might as well
35:18
Speaker 1: take one more crack at Iran.
35:21
Speaker 4: Even he doesn't seem to think that there's any reason
35:24
Speaker 4: to have optimism that that's going to go better this
35:26
Speaker 4: time around than it went last time.
35:30
Speaker 1: And Netanyahu probably doesn't think that either.
35:32
Speaker 4: But what Netanyahu thinks is I'm going to lose and
35:36
Speaker 4: might even go to prison if we don't do that.
35:39
Speaker 4: So whether it works or not, if it keeps me
35:42
Speaker 4: alive for another day, then it's better than me.
35:47
Speaker 1: Losing an election.
35:48
Speaker 2: Mm-hmm, exactly right. Of course, the fallout of this is
35:52
Speaker 2: vast and continues to impact people's pocketbooks right here at Homeless,
35:55
Speaker 2: but be one up on the screen just so we
35:57
Speaker 2: can see where the current oil prices are. The price
36:00
Speaker 2: of a barrel of crude really skyrocketed last week, and
36:04
Speaker 2: now we've got, you know, continuing to have quite high
36:07
Speaker 2: gas prices, and diesel still sits, I believe, around $ 6.
36:11
Speaker 6: 30.
36:11
Speaker 2: This, Trump made yet another orion. unbelievable comment. It really
36:19
Speaker 2: does feel like this guy wants to lose. Like he's
36:22
Speaker 2: just testing how far he can go, how much ridiculous,
36:27
Speaker 2: like condescending, how much can he say that is just
36:31
Speaker 2: completely unacceptable? How clear can he make it to the
36:34
Speaker 2: American people that he does not give a shit about
36:36
Speaker 2: you whatsoever? So we've got a new entry into the
36:41
Speaker 2: increasingly long list of Trumpian comments in that regard. This
36:44
Speaker 2: is B2. Let's take a listen.
36:46
Speaker 7: We're making hundreds and hundreds of billions, trillions of dollars.
36:50
Speaker 7: But my people said, please don't mention that, sir, because
36:53
Speaker 7: people are paying a little higher. That number is going
36:56
Speaker 7: to come way down. But what we've done for this country,
37:00
Speaker 7: we're making money like this country has never made before.
37:04
Speaker 7: So I said, let me say it very gingerly, very softly,
37:07
Speaker 7: because somebody would say the fake news. He's bragging about
37:10
Speaker 7: making money while people are suffering at the you know,
37:14
Speaker 7: because You know, you're still paying lower than Biden and Obama.
37:19
Speaker 7: And they don't have nuclear weapons. But they're going to
37:22
Speaker 7: be coming. No, I could just see the fake headlines.
37:27
Speaker 7: President Trump is talking about all the money they're making
37:30
Speaker 7: while people are suffering at the pump. That'll be the headline.
37:33
Speaker 7: But I said, I don't give a damn. I'm going
37:35
Speaker 7: to say it. We'll make it a freaking fortune.
37:38
Speaker 2: And I guess, Ryan, it is our role now to
37:40
Speaker 2: say exactly the thing he's predicted. He's bragging about making
37:43
Speaker 2: a lot of money while gas prices are high and
37:45
Speaker 2: people are suffering. And he says, I don't give a damn.
37:47
Speaker 2: I'm going to say it anyway.
37:48
Speaker 4: I think if you compare it to shooting someone on
37:50
Speaker 4: Fifth Avenue, it's almost more aggressive because you shoot somebody
37:54
Speaker 4: on Fifth Avenue. People are going to have a moral
37:56
Speaker 4: and an ethical problem with that. But the chances are
37:59
Speaker 4: they don't know the person that was shot on Fifth Avenue.
38:02
Speaker 4: They regret that the person was shot. But, you know,
38:04
Speaker 4: it's between Trump and that person and, you know, they
38:07
Speaker 4: can rationalize their way out of it. He's talking about
38:09
Speaker 4: raising your gas prices and the cost of everything and
38:15
Speaker 4: saying it's good because they're making hundreds of billions, trillions
38:20
Speaker 4: of dollars.
38:21
Speaker 2: And who is the they there? The oil executives, exactly.
38:24
Speaker 2: And the shareholders, that's who's making this money.
38:26
Speaker 4: It's like, I mean, yeah, at that point, like, you
38:32
Speaker 4: never want to close the possibility for more submissions into
38:36
Speaker 4: the category because Trump has an ability and an imagination
38:41
Speaker 4: and a way to come up with depths that you
38:45
Speaker 4: never thought could even be plumbed and you couldn't even imagine.
38:47
Speaker 4: So I don't want to close off the possibility, but
38:49
Speaker 4: this one's pretty incredible. I will raise your gas prices.
38:56
Speaker 4: I will lie to you about them being more than Biden, Obama.
38:59
Speaker 4: I will claim that something great happened, which is that
39:02
Speaker 4: they don't have a nuclear weapon when they didn't have
39:04
Speaker 4: one before.
39:05
Speaker 2: And are more likely to get one now than they
39:07
Speaker 2: were previously.
39:07
Speaker 1: And are more likely to get one now.
39:09
Speaker 3: Yes.
39:09
Speaker 4: You got out of the deal and you showed them
39:11
Speaker 4: that they really need to march towards one.
39:15
Speaker 1: But my friends are making.
39:17
Speaker 3: A lot of money.
39:19
Speaker 2: I mean, just spelling it out for you, who this
39:22
Speaker 2: administration is really out there to serve, which is primarily themselves,
39:25
Speaker 2: but also oligarchs of all sorts and flavors, a diverse
39:29
Speaker 2: array of of oligarchs across the nation and the world.
39:32
Speaker 4: I think, and if you assume that Trump has complete
39:36
Speaker 4: and total contempt for everyone in the country, obviously, if
39:41
Speaker 4: you didn't vote at all, he's probably indifferent to you.
39:46
Speaker 4: If you voted against him, He hates you and wants
39:48
Speaker 4: you to suffer pain and wants you to feel revenge,
39:52
Speaker 4: wants revenge against you. If you voted for him, he
39:55
Speaker 4: thinks you're a mark. He has contempt for you. Yeah,
39:57
Speaker 4: that's right. And if you accept that as true, everything
40:01
Speaker 4: that he's doing actually starts to make sense.
40:04
Speaker 2: Yeah, it reminds me of the other day when he said,
40:07
Speaker 2: I could say the dumbest thing and you people would
40:08
Speaker 2: clap and get, what did they do? They laughed and
40:10
Speaker 2: they clapped.
40:11
Speaker 4: So why would you not, if you're him, why would
40:13
Speaker 4: you not have contempt for those people? So I think
40:18
Speaker 4: he has a real contempt for his own supporters and
40:22
Speaker 4: he is okay with them. And actually it's a feature
40:25
Speaker 4: that they're suffering and humiliated because it's that much more
40:29
Speaker 4: satisfying to him to be able to then garner the
40:32
Speaker 4: attention and the praise because it's like the Michael Jordan
40:36
Speaker 4: of narcissism. Like a lot of people, a lot of politicians,
40:39
Speaker 4: they get adoration by doing good things. That's boring. He
40:45
Speaker 4: wants adoration doing bad things to people You see, you know,
40:50
Speaker 4: this is not a new phenomenon. You see it a
40:51
Speaker 4: lot in relationships, too. But I think, yeah, we're seeing
40:55
Speaker 4: it on the on a grand stage here.
40:57
Speaker 7: Yeah. All right.
40:58
Speaker 2: Well, for more on where the oil market is today
41:00
Speaker 2: and where it's likely to be headed, let's go ahead
41:02
Speaker 2: and bring in our guest.
41:06
Speaker 4: OK, well, let's now bring in Brett Erickson, oil and
41:08
Speaker 4: gas analyst with Obsidian Risk Advisors.
41:12
Speaker 1: Brett, thanks so much for being here. Absolutely.
41:14
Speaker 3: Appreciate you guys having me here today.
41:16
Speaker 1: Of course.
41:17
Speaker 4: So guys, if we could put up this Wall Street
41:19
Speaker 4: Journal article, it would be three. So the U.S., Brett,
41:22
Speaker 4: is trying to crack down on what they're calling these
41:25
Speaker 4: overland trade routes that Iran has been using to get
41:29
Speaker 4: oil out as the Strait of Hormuz has been effectively
41:33
Speaker 4: and significantly closed off to them. What percentage would you
41:38
Speaker 4: say of the kind of oil trade in general or
41:42
Speaker 4: what kind of volume are we talking about? And what
41:45
Speaker 4: ability does the United States have to effectuate a ban
41:49
Speaker 4: like this?
41:51
Speaker 3: Yeah, so this is definitely a way for Iran to
41:56
Speaker 3: move both oil as well as refined products, and in particular,
42:02
Speaker 3: refined products, because that's where the greatest profit margin is
42:05
Speaker 3: going to be, through these overland routes into these neighboring countries.
42:10
Speaker 3: And While closing border crossings will absolutely have an impact,
42:18
Speaker 3: of course, it can always be rerouted and it's going
42:21
Speaker 3: to be impossible to crack down in full. But every
42:25
Speaker 3: time that disruptions are made to Iran's ability to move
42:32
Speaker 3: oil or refined products, that increases the expenses, increases the cost,
42:38
Speaker 3: and therefore increases forces Iran to charge higher prices domestically
42:45
Speaker 3: as a result of greater expense. So it's going to
42:48
Speaker 3: be marginal in the grand scheme of things. But every
42:52
Speaker 3: disruption to the supply chain and to exports will add
42:58
Speaker 3: costs and, as a result, will hurt the Iranian economy.
43:01
Speaker 3: It's just a matter of how much are.
43:03
Speaker 1: We talking here.
43:04
Speaker 2: Yeah, so let's talk a little bit about that. How
43:07
Speaker 2: effective has the blockade by the U.S. been in hurting
43:11
Speaker 2: the Iranian economy? And I had seen somewhere that they
43:15
Speaker 2: were coming close to selling all of the oil that
43:17
Speaker 2: they had on the water. So are we at a
43:19
Speaker 2: point now where the blockade is going to begin to
43:20
Speaker 2: bite more than it had previously?
43:23
Speaker 3: This is a great question and I think is really
43:26
Speaker 3: important to look at. So when the White House mentions
43:30
Speaker 3: Iran is losing $ 500 million per day from the US blockade.
43:35
Speaker 3: That's an entirely fabricated number. The original number came from
43:38
Speaker 3: the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, which cited losing 435
43:41
Speaker 3: million per day, of which 139 million was from Iranian
43:44
Speaker 3: oil exports. In Iran's year 1405 budget bill, they account
43:47
Speaker 3: for exporting 1.7 million barrels per day at $ 55 per barrel. Now,
43:51
Speaker 3: throughout the entire war, while the U.S. blockade has been
44:04
Speaker 3: very successful in halting Iran's ability to export through the
44:08
Speaker 3: Strait of Hormuz, that's basically the wrong number to have
44:11
Speaker 3: been looking at this whole time because they had 160
44:16
Speaker 3: million barrels at the beginning of the war. That came
44:19
Speaker 3: down significantly. But then during the MOU, Iran exported an
44:23
Speaker 3: additional 72 million barrels that was previously trapped inside. So
44:27
Speaker 3: taking advantage of the extreme increased price. Again, Iran is
44:33
Speaker 3: accounting for $ 55 a barrel. Now they're selling it at
44:36
Speaker 3: about $ 100 per barrel. So Iran really hasn't begun to
44:42
Speaker 3: feel any pain on their oil throughout the course of
44:46
Speaker 3: this entire war up until now, where again, they are,
44:50
Speaker 3: like you say, are running out of oil at sea.
44:54
Speaker 3: So they will start to feel that additional $ 139 million,
44:59
Speaker 3: give or take, that they were previously accounting for. But
45:03
Speaker 3: we're only really now starting to see that eight months
45:07
Speaker 3: into the war. And again, we just aren't seeing the
45:11
Speaker 3: macroeconomic devastation of Iran. Their inflation sucks. The Rialto USD
45:16
Speaker 3: FX rate sucks. It's always been bad. That's nothing new.
45:21
Speaker 3: So they will feel additional pain. but we're eight months
45:24
Speaker 3: into the war. So it's kind of a little bit
45:27
Speaker 3: too little too late, it seems like.
45:29
Speaker 1: And how much can clamping down on the land routes hurt, though?
45:33
Speaker 3: So clamping down on the land routes will marginally hurt,
45:37
Speaker 3: but they're going to reroute. They're going to smuggle. They're
45:41
Speaker 3: going to move into other countries. And yes, as they smuggle,
45:44
Speaker 3: that will increase the cost. That will increase expenses. They
45:48
Speaker 3: may need to, if they have a lower available pool
45:51
Speaker 3: of buyers willing to risk purchasing this, They will have
45:55
Speaker 3: to sell it at steeper discounts. But we're not talking
46:00
Speaker 3: all or nothing here. We're talking about maybe getting 80%
46:04
Speaker 3: of the market value to now 70%, where really your
46:07
Speaker 3: only loss is about 10% of the otherwise revenues. So
46:12
Speaker 3: it does matter. But this is not going to be
46:16
Speaker 3: game-changing for collapsing the Iranian economy in the next two weeks.
46:23
Speaker 4: A few months ago, you had Trump saying that within
46:25
Speaker 4: two weeks, the refineries were all going to explode because,
46:29
Speaker 4: you know, he was explaining all of the physics and
46:32
Speaker 4: the chemistry to the public. What did he miss about that?
46:37
Speaker 4: And is there some risk now that, you know, they're
46:40
Speaker 4: not able to load new ships, they're restricting land overrides?
46:46
Speaker 4: Is that threat that he made months ago now at
46:49
Speaker 4: least reasonable? And why was he so far off?
46:52
Speaker 3: So to say that President Trump was explaining it might
46:57
Speaker 3: be a little bit of a stretch. When he went
46:58
Speaker 3: on the Hugh Hewitt show, he said that in two weeks,
47:02
Speaker 3: Iran's oil infrastructure will explode due to something having to
47:06
Speaker 3: do with nature. So he didn't have any idea what
47:10
Speaker 3: he was talking about. He just ran with it. And
47:13
Speaker 3: this oil well shut-ins, again, comes from Miat Malachi, the
47:17
Speaker 3: Foundation for Defense of Democracies, And this is something him
47:20
Speaker 3: and I went back and forth on a lot in
47:22
Speaker 3: the Washington Post and Bloomberg and Reuters, everywhere. That's just
47:26
Speaker 3: not how it works. Iran, their national oil company has
47:31
Speaker 3: twice shut in their oil wells, once during COVID as well.
47:37
Speaker 3: And they were able to bring that production back online
47:40
Speaker 3: without any notable hurdles. The premise that their oil infrastructure
47:44
Speaker 3: would explode is absurd and just not the way that
47:49
Speaker 3: any of this works. Robin Mills over at Columbia has
47:51
Speaker 3: a great piece on the physics and mechanics of this.
47:55
Speaker 3: But Iran has lowered their production to be equivalent to
48:01
Speaker 3: their domestic consumption, plus what they are exporting via land
48:06
Speaker 3: routes or other means. So They've just lowered their production,
48:12
Speaker 3: so they don't need to shut in nearly as much.
48:15
Speaker 3: And even if they do, they've proven the capability to
48:17
Speaker 3: be able to bring that back online. So this was
48:21
Speaker 3: always a very absurd theory that is just completely incompatible
48:26
Speaker 3: with the actual mechanics of these oil wells.
48:29
Speaker 7: Yeah.
48:30
Speaker 2: I mean, I relate to Trump a little bit. I
48:31
Speaker 2: am a little also lost and searching my way around
48:34
Speaker 2: talking about some of this too. I'm trying to learn
48:36
Speaker 2: as fast as I can. But so the Iranian oil
48:39
Speaker 2: wells are not going to explode because of something in nature.
48:43
Speaker 2: But what about the global economy? What can we say
48:45
Speaker 2: about where we are right now and why we haven't
48:48
Speaker 2: had the $ 200 a barrel oil catastrophe that had initially
48:54
Speaker 2: been predicted?
48:56
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, there's several parts to this that are significant,
49:00
Speaker 3: not least of which is the incredible decrease in Chinese
49:05
Speaker 3: imports of oil that was at 1.5 million barrels per
49:12
Speaker 3: day that they were not importing from their historical norm.
49:16
Speaker 3: But it also should be noted, and I will give
49:20
Speaker 3: credit to CENTCOM, although I completely disagree with the entire strategy,
49:24
Speaker 3: so credit is maybe a stretch, but they have certainly
49:28
Speaker 3: moved a lot of oil along the Omani route. I
49:33
Speaker 3: think it comes at exorbitantly high costs, which raises kind
49:38
Speaker 3: of the floor. Essentially, if you're, you know, having to
49:41
Speaker 3: charge an additional $ 35 per barrel, which is roughly what
49:43
Speaker 3: it is for the increased shipping risk and risk premium,
49:49
Speaker 3: you can still move some out. But, you know, that
49:51
Speaker 3: essentially sets your floor at $ 95 to $ 100 per barrel,
49:54
Speaker 3: which is essentially what we're seeing. So we've been able
49:58
Speaker 3: to extend the timeline. And there are a lot of questions.
50:02
Speaker 3: It's worth noting in a U.S. Treasury Office of Foreign
50:06
Speaker 3: Assets Control press release, OFAC acknowledged that Hormuz Safe, which
50:11
Speaker 3: is the formalization of the Tehran toll booth, had received
50:16
Speaker 3: payments into it. And they acknowledged that publicly. So we
50:20
Speaker 3: do know Iran is getting paid something by someone in
50:25
Speaker 3: some amount. And I think that very much raises questions about, okay,
50:30
Speaker 3: we are moving a lot through, and that is buying
50:32
Speaker 3: a lot of time. And that has kept a lid
50:35
Speaker 3: on the global energy markets. But is there backdoor deals happening?
50:40
Speaker 3: What do those look like? And at the end of
50:42
Speaker 3: the day, Brent said greater than 110 per barrel. It
50:46
Speaker 3: reached 117.40. Diesel is in the mid-sixes. Gasoline is 429
50:48
Speaker 3: a gallon. This isn't good. This isn't a win in
50:52
Speaker 3: any way.
50:52
Speaker 7: Yeah.
50:59
Speaker 4: And China, at the beginning of this conflict, kept prices
51:03
Speaker 4: significantly low by massively reducing the amount of oil that
51:07
Speaker 4: it was bringing in.
51:08
Speaker 1: What are we seeing them do at this point?
51:11
Speaker 3: So with China, their imports are significantly coming back online.
51:18
Speaker 3: And I think what's also notable is when CENTCOM and
51:23
Speaker 3: the Trump administration were like to claim that 90% of
51:27
Speaker 3: pre-conflict flows are moving through the Strait of Hormuz, which
51:30
Speaker 3: is very cherry-picked. But still, they're excluding Iranian exports in
51:38
Speaker 3: a lot of that data, which is anywhere from 1.7
51:41
Speaker 3: to 2.1 million barrels per day, which are actually, believe
51:44
Speaker 3: it or not, very real barrels of oil. So when China,
51:49
Speaker 3: who would import about 90% to 95% of Iranian oil
51:54
Speaker 3: due to US sanctions, that oil is now gone. So
51:59
Speaker 3: just to make up that ground alone, they have to
52:00
Speaker 3: now import 2 million additional barrels from other sources from
52:05
Speaker 3: the global markets, which then will raise the global energy prices.
52:08
Speaker 3: So in a lot of ways, yes, it is a
52:10
Speaker 3: win for the economic warfare perspective of the United States
52:14
Speaker 3: to cut off Iranian oil outside of the US blockade line.
52:18
Speaker 3: And at the same time, that's now an additional 2
52:21
Speaker 3: million barrels that have to be made up elsewhere. And
52:23
Speaker 3: that is going to be problematic. And we haven't even
52:26
Speaker 3: resumed the war. And we're at $ 117, $ 115 per barrel.
52:30
Speaker 3: So again, like what happens when this kicks off again?
52:34
Speaker 3: Where do we go to? I mean, the SPRs are
52:36
Speaker 3: greatly depleted. We're very much in uncharted territory now.
52:39
Speaker 1: Absolutely.
52:40
Speaker 2: Well, Brett, thank you so much for your analysis. We've
52:42
Speaker 2: really relied on it both today and through your Twitter posting.
52:46
Speaker 2: So appreciate that very much.
52:48
Speaker 3: Absolutely appreciate you guys having me.
52:52
Speaker 2: All right, let's play a little game here. I'm going
52:54
Speaker 2: to read you a bit of a news article, and
52:56
Speaker 2: you just tell me how this makes you feel right now.
52:58
Speaker 2: In this moment, put C1 up on the screen. This
53:01
Speaker 2: is from Fox News. They say, Fortress, the Pentagon, is
53:05
Speaker 2: preparing every major U.S. military base to survive 90 days
53:10
Speaker 2: without outside support. No civilian power grid, no global supply chains,
53:14
Speaker 2: no outside fuel or water. The initiative envisions portable nuclear reactors,
53:19
Speaker 2: massive battery storage, and microgrids that can disconnect installations from
53:23
Speaker 2: civilian electricity entirely. Strategic reserves of munitions, fuel, critical minerals,
53:28
Speaker 2: and medical supplies would be stockpiled based on wartime consumption rates.
53:32
Speaker 2: Civilian factories are being pre-identified to shift to defense production
53:36
Speaker 2: during a crisis. So, Ryan, given the fact that we have,
53:41
Speaker 2: you know, an ongoing war with Iran and a number
53:44
Speaker 2: of spiraling and overlapping conflicts, we also are in this
53:48
Speaker 2: proxy war with Russia, nuclear superpower. Given the fact that
53:52
Speaker 2: separate apart from that, We have this rogue AI hacking meltdown,
53:59
Speaker 2: cybersecurity meltdown that is being described as Black October. And
54:03
Speaker 2: then out of nowhere, the U.S. military is like, you know,
54:06
Speaker 2: we probably better be able to survive off the grid
54:09
Speaker 2: completely with no supply chains and no electricity for 90 days.
54:13
Speaker 2: And we're going to prioritize getting that done right now.
54:15
Speaker 2: You could be forgiven for being a little bit nervous
54:18
Speaker 2: about this development.
54:19
Speaker 4: Yeah, the revelations that people are calling Black October, all
54:22
Speaker 4: of these zero-day exploits being discovered and really foundational elements
54:26
Speaker 4: of the internet, coupled with the Pentagon going prepper, yeah, it's.
54:33
Speaker 1: A little bit disturbing. And I think people who.
54:38
Speaker 4: Have themselves been kind of on the fence are like, oh, wow,
54:42
Speaker 4: maybe it's time for me to start stocking up as well.
54:45
Speaker 4: Because I'm petty, one of the first thoughts I had was,
54:50
Speaker 4: One of the first things that the Trump administration did
54:53
Speaker 4: was gut the Inflation Reduction Act, which over the next
54:56
Speaker 4: decade was going to put trillions of dollars into energy
55:01
Speaker 4: security here in the United States. Battery power, renewables, clean energy,
55:06
Speaker 4: also dirty energy. It was agnostic as to where it
55:11
Speaker 4: was coming from. But because Democrats did it and because
55:17
Speaker 4: Trump didn't like it and he promised the oil industry
55:19
Speaker 4: that if they put a billion dollars into him and
55:22
Speaker 4: his friends that he would.
55:23
Speaker 1: Do whatever they wanted, they got rid of this.
55:26
Speaker 4: And now they're running up against a massive problem with
55:30
Speaker 4: power supply. China is adding more clean energy to its
55:35
Speaker 4: grid on an annual basis than we require for huge
55:38
Speaker 4: amounts of of of our own you know industrial production
55:45
Speaker 4: and so yeah we we really just cut off our
55:48
Speaker 4: nose just to spite our face and now they're like
55:51
Speaker 4: gonna be hoarding all the battery power all right great.
55:53
Speaker 2: Awesome Yeah, I mean, one thing we've certainly all learned
55:56
Speaker 2: the hard way with the Iran war is it doesn't
55:59
Speaker 2: matter if you're a net oil producer, exporter. It's a
56:03
Speaker 2: global market. So you are still subject to the whims
56:06
Speaker 2: of the global oil market. So here in the U.S.,
56:10
Speaker 2: they're looking out for the military first and foremost. Over
56:13
Speaker 2: across the pond in the U.K., the prime minister there
56:15
Speaker 2: is calling on people to stockpile food and water. Let's
56:19
Speaker 2: take a listen to that.
56:19
Speaker 5: It's just about being prepared for and having a sensible
56:23
Speaker 5: amount of supplies in the home. If you were down
56:27
Speaker 5: in Cornwall today, Matt, you'd be glad if you had
56:30
Speaker 5: a bit of extra bottled water in the house, a
56:33
Speaker 5: bit of extra food that you've got in the cupboard,
56:36
Speaker 5: and other supplies that you might need, because these events, sadly,
56:41
Speaker 5: in the world that we're in, are becoming more likely.
56:45
Speaker 5: I'll stick to the basics, I think, Matt. I do
56:48
Speaker 5: like my beans, so there are plenty of those in
56:50
Speaker 5: the cupboard and soup. I think those are the kind
56:52
Speaker 5: of things that I would recommend.
56:55
Speaker 2: So, Ryan, I was a little bit reluctant, excuse me,
56:58
Speaker 2: about doing this segment simply because I don't want to
57:00
Speaker 2: like I don't want to fear monger. I don't want
57:02
Speaker 2: people to panic. But I do look at the landscape
57:07
Speaker 2: and look at the fact that we have this one
57:10
Speaker 2: exploit in particular that the PHP one that impacts 70
57:13
Speaker 2: percent of all Web sites. And then you now have
57:17
Speaker 2: superhuman hacking capabilities in the hands of literally any schmuck
57:21
Speaker 2: around the world. How can you not be a little
57:24
Speaker 2: bit concerned about what that may mean in the near term?
57:28
Speaker 2: And in terms of our government, they're completely asleep at
57:30
Speaker 2: the switch. They're not doing anything to protect us from
57:33
Speaker 2: any of this. It's just off to the races on
57:35
Speaker 2: the whole AI development. And they're increasing number of people
57:38
Speaker 2: from within the frontier labs who are sounding the alarm
57:41
Speaker 2: about what this is going to mean in the immediate future.
57:45
Speaker 4: Yeah, and the top security official over at CrowdStrike, which
57:48
Speaker 4: is responsible for cyber security, was out sounding the alarm
57:54
Speaker 4: on CNBC. Now you could say he's talking his book
57:56
Speaker 4: there because he wants you to beef up your cyber security.
57:58
Speaker 4: And certainly the last year or two has been tremendous
58:01
Speaker 4: for the valuations of cyber security companies. But with that
58:08
Speaker 4: grain of salt added, let's get a flavor of C3.
58:12
Speaker 9: George, walk us through, not to doomsday, but what are
58:14
Speaker 9: some downside scenarios or examples of things that could go wrong? Well,
58:20
Speaker 9: what can go wrong is a lot of what you've
58:21
Speaker 9: already seen and reported on. You know, you've got data breaches.
58:25
Speaker 3: You've got ransomware.
58:26
Speaker 9: You've got the ability to steal trade secrets.
58:29
Speaker 3: You've got disruption.
58:31
Speaker 9: All of the things that you have been reporting on,
58:33
Speaker 9: we've been talking about, you know, myself on your network
58:36
Speaker 9: for many years.
58:38
Speaker 1: That is now all possible.
58:39
Speaker 9: But with AI, it's actually just democratizing who can do this.
58:44
Speaker 9: We wrote a report on this, and we're seeing many
58:47
Speaker 9: different adversary groups with very low skill now able to
58:51
Speaker 9: conduct nation-state level attacks for basically the cost of tokens
58:57
Speaker 9: and a prompt. And that's the scary part.
59:00
Speaker 4: That's what you like to hear, that basically anybody can
59:03
Speaker 4: launch a nation-state level attack. We've set ourselves up for
59:08
Speaker 4: an interesting couple of months and years. The internet was
59:14
Speaker 4: really built in earnest over the past 30 years, more
59:18
Speaker 4: than that, but it really started taking off the last
59:20
Speaker 4: 30 years.
59:22
Speaker 1: Just layer on top of layer on top of layer.
59:24
Speaker 4: A lot of amateurs contributing, not built with any long-term
59:29
Speaker 4: intentionality about cybersecurity connected to the potential advent of, you know,
59:35
Speaker 4: nation-state level hackers being in the hands of everybody. Even
59:38
Speaker 4: if you shut it all off now, there are, you know,
59:41
Speaker 4: you can run an LLM on your laptop now that,
59:45
Speaker 4: you know, you could prep with, you know, a solar panel,
59:49
Speaker 4: a generator, water, some beans, and an LLM on your laptop,
59:54
Speaker 4: which could keep hacking.
59:55
Speaker 1: Like, you know, even.
59:57
Speaker 4: in a post-apocalyptic scenario. So yeah, I agree with you
1:00:02
Speaker 4: that I don't like to try to, I don't want
1:00:05
Speaker 4: to cause panic among people for no reason. On the
1:00:08
Speaker 4: other hand, this is where we are.
1:00:11
Speaker 5: Yeah.
1:00:11
Speaker 2: No, I think it's a good idea to take whatever
1:00:14
Speaker 2: cybersecurity precautions you can. The OnePass app is a good
1:00:18
Speaker 2: idea in terms of password security, two-factor authentication, just have
1:00:22
Speaker 2: decent Hygiene, not that that's necessarily going to save you,
1:00:25
Speaker 2: but at least it makes you, as you were saying
1:00:27
Speaker 2: last week, Ryan, not an easy mark. Having some food
1:00:29
Speaker 2: and some water and some basic supplies at your home,
1:00:33
Speaker 2: that seems like a good idea, too. And just to
1:00:36
Speaker 2: bring this around full circle, you know, where the AI
1:00:39
Speaker 2: threat meets the Iran war threat. We're so used to
1:00:42
Speaker 2: here in the U.S. really being protected by our geography.
1:00:45
Speaker 2: You know, we've got Canada in the north. We've got
1:00:47
Speaker 2: Mexico to the south. Like, we're, you know, at least
1:00:49
Speaker 2: before Trump, we were pretty much good with them. And
1:00:51
Speaker 2: so because of these vast oceans, we really felt safe.
1:00:55
Speaker 2: We feel invulnerable. And I think if nothing else, you
1:00:59
Speaker 2: can see from these military preparations, they no longer feel
1:01:01
Speaker 2: that way. I believe this is accurate to double check,
1:01:05
Speaker 2: but I think anthropic and open AI are attempting to
1:01:08
Speaker 2: cut off Iran from access to their products. But I mean,
1:01:12
Speaker 2: first of all, I don't think that that's foolproof. Second
1:01:14
Speaker 2: of all, the Chinese open source models are nearly as effective.
1:01:18
Speaker 2: And Iran has promised to up the ante in terms
1:01:22
Speaker 2: of the type of targets that they would attack, whether
1:01:26
Speaker 2: with conventional warfare or cyber warfare, if there is a
1:01:30
Speaker 2: renewed escalation in the war. So, look, it's not hard
1:01:34
Speaker 2: to imagine these things. Is your bank account safe? Is
1:01:38
Speaker 2: the electrical grid safe? Are the local utility companies safe?
1:01:43
Speaker 2: Many of whom are running completely outdated. It's not state
1:01:46
Speaker 2: of the art that you're talking about here with a
1:01:48
Speaker 2: lot of these municipal systems. So it is definitely something
1:01:51
Speaker 2: to be very concerned about in the near term since
1:01:55
Speaker 2: we have just, without really a lot of thought of
1:01:57
Speaker 2: the consequences, shipped to the world the ability to have
1:02:01
Speaker 2: nation state level hacking in the hands of anyone with
1:02:06
Speaker 2: some basic knowledge. The PHP exploit that was identified, it
1:02:10
Speaker 2: literally came from someone putting in the prompt, like, find
1:02:13
Speaker 2: any vulnerabilities in PHP. That's it. That's all it took.
1:02:17
Speaker 2: And it's like, okay, here it is. And for people
1:02:20
Speaker 2: who haven't watched our previous coverage, it was a known problem,
1:02:24
Speaker 2: but that had previously been considered not exploitable because it
1:02:29
Speaker 2: was too complex. Well, that is no longer the case.
1:02:32
Speaker 2: now with these tools. So that's where we are.
1:02:36
Speaker 1: Yeah, great. Well, I'm looking forward to seeing where this
1:02:39
Speaker 1: goes and what kind of world we develop on the
1:02:41
Speaker 1: other side of it. That's for sure. Going to be interesting.