7/2/26: Trump's Crypto Corruption Worth Billions, Vance Says US Reloading For War With Iran

Krystal and Emily discuss Trump's crypto corruption, Vance says US reloading for war..

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey guys, Saga and Crystal here.

Speaker 2 (00:01):
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Speaker 1 (00:25):
We need your help to build the future of independent
news media and we hope to see you at Breakingpoints
dot com.

Speaker 3 (00:33):
Good morning, Welcome to Breaking Points. I am back once
again in the Saga seat. You're gonna have to put
up with it for another day.

Speaker 4 (00:39):
I'm so sorry, Crystal, but we'll make it worse. It's
a gift, really lots to get to you.

Speaker 2 (00:44):
In the show this morning, we just got some Trump
financial disclosures and truly truly, truly world historic levels of
corruption billions of dollars that he and his family have
profited off of the presidency this time around. Break down
those numbers. Also, we got some a little bit of
insider trading, a little bit of catar force one, A lot,

(01:04):
lot lot going on there. And it's such a hard
story to cover because I feel like nearly every day
there is an incredibly consequential corruption story that we could
be covering. It's just so overwhelming that it's hard to
hard to adequately get into the.

Speaker 4 (01:19):
Show with the frequency with which it truly deserves.

Speaker 3 (01:22):
And there's a Trump quote we're going to talk about
in that block that explains why that is.

Speaker 4 (01:25):
I think, yes, very good point.

Speaker 2 (01:27):
We're also going to have a tree to PARSI join
us to break down these new comments from Vice President
jad Vance where he seems to maybe kind of give
up the game of what the Trump administration is really
up to with regard to this memo of understanding.

Speaker 4 (01:39):
We also are taking a.

Speaker 2 (01:39):
Look at the DSA coalition who are voting for these candidates.
What does it say about the future of the country,
the future of the party, What are the attacks. We've
got the numbers from Michael Lang to break down truth
from fiction. On that front, MTG and Tucker are thinking
about launching a third party effort.

Speaker 4 (01:58):
Could that succeed? What would that look like?

Speaker 2 (02:01):
We also have an update for you on several significant
members of Congress and their health status. Mitch McConnell continues
to be hospitalized after having been found unconscious, very scary situation.
Their representative Tom Keane is back after four months out.
He says, because of depression. So pretty interesting from a
guy who votes against paid time off. So we'll get

(02:22):
into all of those sorts of things.

Speaker 3 (02:24):
Yes, and I just have to say Crystal before we
jump into the show. Today's bottom Bar for the listening audience,
it is much, I think cleaner than yesterday's bottom Bar,
which I believe involved mk ultra brarains.

Speaker 2 (02:38):
Yesterday's bottom Bar was a little chaotic, but in a
good way. It was.

Speaker 3 (02:41):
Yeah, it was our own sort of Operation Chaos, the
Operation Bottom Bar Chaos.

Speaker 2 (02:46):
I always watched the show even when I'm not on
it because I learn a lot from my fellow co hosts.
And yeah, I was like, okay, we've got an eclectic
mix of topics today.

Speaker 3 (02:56):
When one Rojas came on, he looked at the bottom
Bar and he's like, what the hell is going on?

Speaker 5 (02:59):
Really?

Speaker 3 (03:00):
You?

Speaker 2 (03:03):
Kyle and I watched the brain segment together, which was
really fascinating, Which were which people? Yes, and that's sweet,
and that's the sort of thing we do, which anyway,
people seem to really respond to a lot of people
watched it.

Speaker 4 (03:13):
Ye you guys hooked them in with the like.

Speaker 2 (03:15):
Medical establishment stunned or whatever. The headline was true, but
it was a truly fascinating segment. So I love I
love you, and Ryan tend to look like a little
bit further afield and I like that.

Speaker 6 (03:24):
Right man, he brings the craziest sign in particular. Yes,
that knew Andrew Huberman, you heard it here. First.

Speaker 3 (03:30):
We should also mention, by the way, if you want
newsletter versions of crazy Ryan segments ranking points dot com,
you go ahead subscribe.

Speaker 2 (03:38):
Which you guys know you, I mean, you can't watch
that brain segment and then just leave it there. You
got to dig into the newsletter. You gotta find the Okay,
what's the study? What is he talking about? Let me
let me see a little bit more so, there's a
free version. There's a version premium subscribers you should already
be getting, by the way, if you aren't, what is.

Speaker 4 (03:55):
It support at supercast.

Speaker 2 (03:57):
Dot com if you're having any trouble at this point.
But so for the response has been really great and
you know, we're really proud and.

Speaker 4 (04:03):
Excited to bring that to you.

Speaker 2 (04:04):
So all right, let's go and jump into the details
here that we are learning with regard to the truly
truly extraordinary corruption to the tune of billions of dollars
in a single year to Trump and then even more
to his viille or.

Speaker 4 (04:18):
And I'm going to fully get into that today.

Speaker 2 (04:20):
In any case, Trump got asked about some of these
new disclosures. Let's go ahead and take a listen to
how he is responding to some of these new revelations.

Speaker 5 (04:28):
I don't get involved in my personal We have funds
that run my money. Well, I've made a lot of
money before I became president, and they invest my money
and I don't talk to them. I don't even speak
to him. So I have many people I don't know
what they call it closed accounts or something you put
your money in. And that said, I don't talk to them.
They're big institutions and they run it. But yeah, I've

(04:52):
had a great career in business. I've had a great career.
I don't know if I've had a better career in
politics or business, but I had a great career in business.
And you know, you saw the cash, and you report
the different things. And what they do is we gave it.
I think it's called the blind account, but they basically
they take it. And I purposely I never speak to

(05:13):
any of the people that run the money, but there
are big institutions and they invest in whatever they invest.

Speaker 7 (05:21):
You're profiting all the predator.

Speaker 5 (05:23):
Well you know why I'm profiting because the stock market's
going up. Everybody's profiting. If you have a four oh
one K, how's your four oh one K done? It's
met up eighty five percent? Thank you, President Trump.

Speaker 2 (05:36):
There's actually so much to get into just with that
one club Emily. First of all, for those of you
who are just listening standing in the background, or his
two sons who are deeply involved in all of the
business ventures, maybe not specifically the stock trading although who knows,
but the crypto ventures, which are where the vast bulk
of the wealth has been accumulated in Trump two point

(05:57):
zero that is run by his sons. He's I don't
talk to the money people. They're standing right there and
they're your own children. Okay, so that's number one. Number two,
he says, oh, well, my money went up because the
stock market went up because I'm such a great president.

Speaker 4 (06:09):
Everybody's benefiting.

Speaker 2 (06:10):
Well, again, the vast bulk of the wealth that has
been accumulated is billions of dollars from these crypto scams,
which anybody out there who has crypto holdings, you tell
me how the crypto market has been doing, in specifically,
how your investments if you dare to invest in like
the Trump coin, how they did. You know, there's a breakdown.
We're going to show you in a moment. They made

(06:30):
two point three billion dollars and that all came on
the other side with two point three billion dollars of
losses many of times. You know, many of the people
who are suffering the most are his fans who were
tricked into investing in this thing and have lost basically everything.
So you know, this is not about how the stock
market went up, so I just happened to benefit. And

(06:52):
then even on the stock market piece, we're going to
show you thousands, thousands of trades that were made and
some of them timed in a very specific way, seemingly
seemingly coordinated with actions that were taken directly either by
him or by his administration.

Speaker 7 (07:09):
Well.

Speaker 3 (07:09):
Also, Trump famously reads several papers front to back every
single morning, like physical papers. He gets them printed out
New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, and New
York Post, of course, And so for him to say
that he's not aware of how these decisions are being made,
let's just hypothetically, we'll give him the benefit of the
doubt and say he's not talking to Don and Eric
about World Liberty Financial. We remember, by the way that

(07:30):
was pasted on the octagon during the UFC fight, the
World Liberty Financial branding was on it.

Speaker 6 (07:34):
But let's just you give him the benefit of the
doubt on that one.

Speaker 3 (07:37):
He is damn well aware of what's happening with World
Liberty Financial, with the investments that his son in law
Jared Kushner has even just a fits through the media,
because once again, we know he watches Fox News, and
we know Fox News doesn't do much coverage of this,
but he actually does read these papers front to back
every single morning. This is like a well known fact
reported about how he spends the early hours of his day.

(07:59):
And so for him to say that he just knows nothing,
that none of this would be in his head while
he is making governing decisions is flatly ridiculous.

Speaker 2 (08:07):
Oh, of course, and so A two we can put
this up. I think he gave a much more honest
answer back in January to the New York Times when
they asked him why, having told his family not to
make new business deals in foreign countries during his first
term as president, he was permitting them to do so now,
He said, I found out nobody cared, I'm allowed to.
So I think this is you know, specifically about Kushner

(08:29):
at all making all of these foreign business deals. But
I think this is the true sentiment, is that he
has embraced with regard to his own profiteering off of
the presidency and you know, just incredibly corrupt dealings. The
crypto piece is really the locus of the bulk of
the wealth.

Speaker 4 (08:47):
That has come in.

Speaker 2 (08:49):
And I mean this is the top use case at
this point for cryptocurrencies at large.

Speaker 4 (08:54):
Is like being able to.

Speaker 2 (08:56):
Funnel corrupt to facilitate corruption, specifically for the president of
the United States and his family. Also further to the
point of whether or not, oh, he's involved in any
of these deals, and the New York Times had reporting
A eight actually put this up on the screen about
how he pushed specifically to grant access to this tungsten

(09:20):
mine in Kazakhstan, that his sons are a part of
the company that's going to be able to exploit the
mining in this region.

Speaker 4 (09:29):
So he directly pushed for that.

Speaker 2 (09:30):
So just so there's no doubt whatsoever that he is
directly involved in these deals that he is talking to,
the deals, that he is pushing things on foreign countries
to benefit him and his sons directly. Let's go ahead
and put a three up on the screen here. These
are some of the details that came out in this
financial disclosure. Trump pulled in at least two billion dollars

(09:55):
after returning to the White House. The release of a
mandatory financial disclosure for twenty twenty five shows the Trump
families holdings, particularly the president's crypto businesses, were stunningly lucrative.
All told, they say the president pulled in at least
two point two billion dollars, a figure that includes other
parts of his vast holdings such as real estate assets.

Speaker 4 (10:13):
That compares to.

Speaker 2 (10:13):
A minimum of six hundred twenty two million dollars his
enterprises pulled in for all of twenty twenty four before
he returned to the presidency. So we went from to
six hundred twenty two million in twenty twenty four, still
a lot of money to at least two point two
billion dollars since he returned to the presidency.

Speaker 4 (10:31):
They say.

Speaker 2 (10:31):
One of his biggest hauls in twenty twenty five came
when an investment firm tied to the United Arab Emirates
bought nearly half of the Trump family's main crypto company,
World Liberty Financial, transaction that blurred the line between foreign
policy and private enterprise.

Speaker 4 (10:47):
He had to put it mildly.

Speaker 2 (10:48):
He also collected hundreds of millions of dollars from sale
of his Trump meme coin and World Liberty sale of
its own digital tokens. The results detailed mister Trump's mandatory disclosures,
we at least Tuesday pulled back the kurt on his
business operations. His crypto ventures, the show report shows, are
now some of his most lucrative enterprises. Remarkable turnabout for
a man who wants lammed crypto as a haven for

(11:10):
drug dealers and scammers.

Speaker 4 (11:12):
He realized, oh, I could be one.

Speaker 6 (11:14):
Of those scammers.

Speaker 4 (11:15):
Why shouldn't I.

Speaker 2 (11:15):
Be involved in the scamming that's going on in crypto
and the World Liberty Financial transaction that happened here with
the UAE we cover at the time. Emily, right after that,
guess what, he's Oh, you know what, we can export
some of these highly.

Speaker 4 (11:29):
Advanced ships that you're looking for.

Speaker 2 (11:31):
He did something that they wanted, the UAE wanted. Shortly after,
this massive cash windfall comes to him through his cryptocurrency.

Speaker 3 (11:39):
Well, they're also this is another one that gets lost
and I'm trying to look it up exactly what it is.
But the Trump organization is currently working on a big
development project in Doha, so it's not even just that
it's all tied together. And don't tell me that Donald
Trump doesn't know his sons are working on a development
project in Doha.

Speaker 6 (11:57):
It's obviously ridiculous to say that that's not the case.
He has no knowledge of it.

Speaker 3 (12:01):
And this is not I forget who said this the
other day, but this is I wish I could give
them credit for this exact quote.

Speaker 6 (12:07):
But this is like real money.

Speaker 3 (12:09):
People were saying, like, oh, with Hunter Biden, which we
covered here by the way, and I cared about a lot,
and yeah, we had Ken vogelon we talked about all
of this stuff. At the time, it was ridiculous. This
is billions. This is billions of dollars, and it is
really directly tied back into Yes, there are still I
think there are still very serious questions about Barisma and
Carlos Slim and all these deals that were happening with

(12:29):
the Bidens. This is like literally peace deals that are
being made in the Middle East by people who are
invested with the countries, their companies are invested with the
countries that are at the center of the negotiations.

Speaker 6 (12:42):
There's never really been anything quite like this.

Speaker 2 (12:44):
Yeah, it's a complete smash and grab and a sale
of US foreign policy. I mean that's genuinely. You can't
look at the picture and think of it otherwise. Glad
you brought up Hunter Biden. I had Claude make a
little chart to help us visualize just the dollar.

Speaker 4 (12:58):
Amount differences that we're talking about.

Speaker 6 (13:00):
Here.

Speaker 4 (13:00):
Put a ten up on the screen.

Speaker 2 (13:02):
So on the one side, here, that little tiny sliver
that you can't even see, Okay, those are the reported
Hunter Biden earnings from Barisma over five years. Okay, you
can almost see it. It's about five million dollars. You
can almost see it there. That was his board salary
from twenty fourteen to twenty nineteen, over five years time. Okay,

(13:23):
Trump on the right, this is just from one part
of his crypto earnings from one year one point four
billion dollars roughly. That was just in twenty twenty five,
and Claude gave us this little helpful disclosure here. Note
these are not the same Apple to Apple comparison. Hunter's
figure is personal board salary over five years per the

(13:45):
DOJ tax and diamond Trump is one year of business
venture income twenty twenty five Federal Financial Disclosure Writer's calculation.
Trump is about two hundred and eighty times larger. Both
figures exclude value that flowed through intermediary entity. So just
to give people a sense of proportion here of what
we are talking about. Okay, you can barely see the

(14:05):
Hunter Biden piece, and we covered it only to your point, extensively, extensively.
And Ryan had like an encyclopedic knowledge of all of
the Biden like corrupt using the name, you know, his brother,
all that stuff extensively. We covered it here. There was
a lot of right wing concern about the Biden family profiteering.
I think that's fine, I think that's fair. That's why
we covered it. You cannot even wrap your head around

(14:29):
how much more profound, how much larger, and how much
more impactful in terms of the way that our government
and our country is behaving.

Speaker 4 (14:38):
In the world.

Speaker 2 (14:39):
It is all tied into is Trump profiting or his
son's profiting? Is Kushner profiting? Is wit Cough profiting? Are
his kids profiting? I mean again, we are narrowly focused
here directly on Trump today, but the circle of graft
and corruption in this government, it appears to be that
their primary focus and the lens through which they filter

(15:01):
their decision making is how can I get a cut,
how can I personally enrich myself or my family off
of the operations of the United States federal government.

Speaker 4 (15:09):
And there's always been corruption.

Speaker 2 (15:11):
We have never seen anything in our history, and I
would dare to say, you know, in world in terms
of the dollar amounts in world history, you would be
hard pressed to find larger dollar sums flowing.

Speaker 4 (15:25):
To the head of state and his family directly.

Speaker 3 (15:28):
Well, if we put the chart pack up on the screen,
just briefly, I want to say, if you put together
all of the different Hunter Biden deals that we learned
about from the laptop and leaks and the like, it
would probably not even get to that two hundred million
dollar mark, which is the first part of the chart
for the listening audience. So we're looking at one point
four billion. But if this is just this is barisma.
But if you put together like Romania, Mexico, all of

(15:50):
these other countries that Hunter Biden was trying to cut
deals with, which by the way, we're involving influence pedaling,
where he was basically offering access and so was his
hire family and Frank Biden, James Biden, Valerie Biden Owen,
that was happening, but the scale would still be and
you could put it all together. It would be tough
because they were doing so many random deals, but the
scale would still be wildly disproportionate between the Trump crypto

(16:15):
grift and the Biden grift overall. And in fact, the
crypto grift isn't it's just the tip of the iceberg,
because they're also doing all these investment deals and they
also involved Steve Whitcough, Howard Lutnick, and others. So the
influence peddling does I think a real moral injury to
the country. There's a some kernel of truth in what
Trump says when he claims nobody cares, he learned that

(16:37):
nobody cared. I do think some of that comes from
much of the like mainstream quote unquote mainstream media downplaying
some of the Biden stuff.

Speaker 6 (16:45):
We're just not covering it as a.

Speaker 4 (16:47):
Now I don't buy that.

Speaker 6 (16:48):
Let's do it. Let's do it.

Speaker 2 (16:49):
I mean, look, at a certain point, you just have
to say that his graft is so overwhelming that, first
of all, it makes it very difficult to focus on it.
And that is part of their strategy with this administration overall,
was you know, at the beginning, we're going to have
all of these executive orders and do all of these
outrageous things, but they're going to be so much and
so insane that you can't keep track of it.

Speaker 4 (17:10):
It's the same thing with the graft. So look, you know,
we can talk about.

Speaker 2 (17:13):
Mainstream media failures all day long, but the bottom line
is they have really given Trump a lot kind of
a pass. They grade him on a curve in a
lot of regards. There was way more focus on hunters
paintings and Hunters this and Hunters that than there are
on these corrupt dealings. It's just sort of accepted as
this is like, this is just how he operates and

(17:34):
what he does. So, you know, I don't I think
they're I don't think that they are primarily the I
don't think the fact that they let the Bidens off
the hook has anything to do with, you know, what
we see in the coverage today. I think that the
Trump Trump realized he can get away with it because
he can just do so much and you know, and

(17:55):
not just here, create so much controversy throughout the entire
country and the entire globe, and start wars and kidnap
foreign leaders that people aren't going to be able to
focus on this. And if you wanted to point anywhere
to blame, you have the Supreme Court saying and you
can do what you want. There's going to be no
there's gonna be no consequences.

Speaker 4 (18:12):
So it's off to the races.

Speaker 3 (18:14):
Well, and I think the Biden stuff, I mean these
are to be clear, I think they're completely on different levels.
I think the Biden stuff was also so spread out
and scattered that it was hard for anybody to focus.

Speaker 6 (18:22):
On in LATO.

Speaker 2 (18:23):
It's also be let's also be clear, like we're talking
about Hunter Biden, okay.

Speaker 6 (18:27):
And bid Joe Biden.

Speaker 4 (18:29):
The only thing we have on him is like ten
percent of the big guy.

Speaker 2 (18:32):
That's the most that we ever got on any direct
Joe Biden corruption. He didn't even he didn't even own
stocks as president of the United States. So you know,
it's also very different when you're talking about Trump himself
versus you know, Hunter and Bearisma and these sort of
like things that are tangential. They're related, and obviously I

(18:52):
covered it now at this point, I honestly regret covering
it as much as I did because it is of
such a.

Speaker 4 (18:56):
Different scale and proportion.

Speaker 2 (18:58):
Nancy Pelosi's stock training got nothing on what Trump has
been up to.

Speaker 3 (19:01):
Well, there was melding of the Biden finances in like
vague ways, but you're completely correct.

Speaker 6 (19:05):
I think that's absolutely true.

Speaker 3 (19:06):
What I was saying about Trump's point on this kernel
of truth being that he learns nobody cares. I think
what happened is that institutional trust in the country just
completely cratered, and so people put all of this beside
them now and they're like, yeah, you guys are all garbage.
And Trump has this unique insight into the American public
realizing that politicians are no longer seen in it. There's
no veneer of moral benefit of the doubt that people

(19:29):
assigned to their politicians and ascribed to politicians anymore. And
so he's picked up on that and he realizes that, Nope,
it doesn't matter.

Speaker 6 (19:37):
There is no.

Speaker 3 (19:37):
Longer this pretense that our politicians are great human beings,
and so many politicians still cling to that, this idea
that like, well, I'm at an elected office, like I
have the dignity of the office attached to me, How
dare you question me on X, Y or Z. And
Trump's like, nobody cares about that. So I'm going to
do whatever the hell I want to do because it's
twenty twenty six and people's expectations are in the basement.

Speaker 2 (19:58):
Yeah, certainly, although I will say I think that there
is a rising stench around this IIH rising sense that
this is this is of a different nature and kind,
and the size and scope of it is so different
from what we've seen in the past. And I've even
seen some sort of more like right wing people being like, oh,

(20:18):
if you want to have socialists sweep the entire country, yep,
this financial disclosure is how you're going to help to
make that happen.

Speaker 6 (20:25):
Ye, the last Night thing.

Speaker 3 (20:27):
It's exactly how that happens. I mean, And you could
go back to the first Gilded Age because we're obviously
in the second Gilded Age now and see certain like
capitalists panicking about exactly that. What did Lenin say, the
capitalists would give us the rope to hang them with,
Like that's happening right now. How could you possibly create
less trust in the financial system? Milton Friedman actually talked
about this too, than doing conducting yourself like this, Yes,

(20:50):
you could not possibly do it. By the way, World
Liberty Financial has a stable coin. Donald Trump is the
President of the United States, Howard Lutnik is the Commerce Secretary.

Speaker 6 (20:59):
Scott Best is a tresurey secretary.

Speaker 3 (21:01):
It's in and of itself, like it's an inherent level
of corruption that is egregious.

Speaker 6 (21:05):
There's nothing like it.

Speaker 2 (21:09):
Put a four up on the screen. Reuter's track down
some of the specifics regarding the two point three billion
dollars that Trump threw out all of his crypto ventures
appears to have earned. This was before the financial disclosions
came out. But this really gave a honestly heartbreaking look
at some of the people who were huge Trump fans

(21:29):
who invested like way.

Speaker 4 (21:31):
More of their money.

Speaker 2 (21:31):
Well, you should have given him a single dollar, but
really over extended themselves because they believed in him. Oh well,
Trump has his name on this shit coin, it can't
possibly be a scam.

Speaker 4 (21:42):
And it was.

Speaker 2 (21:42):
It was a rug pull, it was a pump and dump,
and now they're left with holdings that are basically completely
you know, I've gone virtually to zero.

Speaker 4 (21:52):
And one of the ways that you can.

Speaker 2 (21:54):
Know something as a scam is basically like, okay, is
there someone who's going to profit off of this regardless
of weather as.

Speaker 4 (22:00):
Well or not, and that someone is Trump.

Speaker 2 (22:03):
We can put the We've got a chart from a
five that we can put up on the screen that
shows you that as Trump and his family were gaining
here from these various crypto ventures. And this was put
out by Steve ratten compiled and put out by Steve Rattner,
by the way, based on the Reuter's numbers from that
report where it's just showing you so with World Liberty
Financial he has profited one point one billion dollars he

(22:27):
and his family, the investors have lost six hundred and
seventy four million on the meme coin, he has profited
six hundred and sixteen million. The investors, many of them
again were sort of rank and file Trump supporters, have
lost seven hundred and eleven million on this al five
sigma thing, which I didn't even know about. This one,

(22:49):
they profited five hundred and thirty eight million dollars. Investors
lost six hundred and seventy five million. And then on
American Bitcoin they haven't haven't gotten too much down of
this one, only a mirror Emily nineteen million investor losses
two hundred and sixteen million dollars. So these were all
set up so that no matter what happens, no matter

(23:11):
how much of the American people's money got scammed and
flittered away, that it would all flow into his pockets.
Is truly truly astonishing to see this. And the other
thing that was really sad in this article is there
were some of these people who were like, I am
an idiot, I got scammed. I can't believe, like it's

(23:33):
so different than I thought. And there were some people
who were like, I don't blame him that I lost
my entire life savings investing in his shit coin, and
somehow managed to still be like I think it's because
the Democrats are like shorting it, and so they have
they're the reason that it collapsed.

Speaker 3 (23:50):
The reflecting pool, the metaphor of the reflecting pool, it's
it's not working because Democrats are slashing it with knives.

Speaker 2 (23:55):
Yes, exactly, that was the you know in their head,
Oh it can be his fault. It has the Democrats
have to have on this somehow, and so they invented
these wild theories of what was going on and why
this thing went to zero.

Speaker 3 (24:05):
And that also is like you can you can follow
the logic of a person who doesn't trust anyone anymore
coming to a conclusion like that, Like, obviously I think
it's completely wrong, but I understand with this is that
it gets back to institutional trust. And to your point
about the politics of Trump's corruption, I don't think Republicans
have any idea what's waiting for them on the other
side of these midterms. I think they're starting to see

(24:26):
it creep into the campaigns as general elections get closer
and closer and the primaries are are settled.

Speaker 6 (24:32):
Because in the.

Speaker 3 (24:32):
First Trump administration, yes there was grift. There was there
was Kushner grift, no question about it. There was Trump
organization grift, no question about it. The hotel was here
in the middle of the city, like two blocks away
from the White House. I saw it, but it was
not like what's happening now, obviously, And also before the pandemic,
the Trump economy was better and we were not in

(24:53):
a hot war like well, I guess they would say
we're technically not in a hot war, but I think
we all know the answers to that question. We were
in clearly a hot conflot bombing around for weeks and
gas prices were going through the roof, and so I
don't think they're prepared for this scale of Trump corruption
in a bad economy, because I think when you're in
a bad economy, Trump's point about whether or not people
care changes, people do care when the economy is really bad,

(25:16):
and you claim to be a populist champion.

Speaker 4 (25:19):
And so it's just so blatant, you know, it's very shameless. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (25:24):
Well, and the other thing I would say is I'm
not going to play this club because the audio is
kind of shitty and it looks like it's from nineteen
ninety six. But you know, to your point about, okay,
what are the meta reasons that this.

Speaker 4 (25:34):
Is allowed to persist, et cetera.

Speaker 2 (25:36):
Is Republicans they never you know, Republicans in Congress never cared.
They never. They're they're happy to you know how many
hearings we have about Biden and pull up whatever. But
when it comes to Trump, when they get asked about it, go, oh,
I didn't see that report. I didn't read about that. Well,
I don't do those sorts of things, but I don't know.
I'll have to get back to you with regard to Trump, like,

(25:58):
there's just zero, zero moral accountability when it comes to
Trump for the Republican Party, and that's the place where
it really matters, because Trump doesn't care if some you know,
some lib like me is mad about his corruption, it
doesn't matter to him. What would matter is if you
had some you know, some pushback from within his own

(26:18):
side that would be consequential, that would make him much
more upset, that would act as much more of an
effective check potentially on what he's doing here. But because
so much has been you know, they didn't say a
word about it in the first administration, where there was
truly at that time, eye popping levels of corruption and
you know, which was astonishing. This dwarfs that by orders

(26:43):
of magnitude, and not on one of them has a
thing to say about it. So I think that's an
important dynamic here too, is just the total lack of
any sort of moral standards or standards with regard to
corruption or consistency on the issue coming from his own side.

Speaker 3 (26:58):
Well, I wonder actually if it matters at all to
him whether Republicans turn on this particular issue, which, to
be clear, I don't think they will. But you know,
Democrats can subpoena and there will be damaging things that
come out of subpoenas if they take back the House
and the Senate, and there will probably be impeachment proceedings
and the like, and subpoenas can do. Yeah, that can
do real damage. It can expose more of the problem.

(27:20):
It can expose them potentially to liability. He'll do whatever,
pardon preemptive pardons at the end of his term probably
as well. But all that is to say, I don't
To me, it almost looks like a race to the
end of the administration because he's not going to be
on the ballot again, So make as much money as
you can in the next few years. Doesn't really matter
for Republicans start to turn on him at this point. Yeah,

(27:42):
just rake it all in as quickly as possible.

Speaker 5 (27:45):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (27:45):
I mean there's a tie in here psychologically with like
the way that the tech oligarchs behave too. And I
don't think anyone has done a better job of describing
this dynamic than Naomi Klein, who coined it and times fascism,
where it's basically like they have these apocalyptic views of
where human civilization is going. Partly they have those apocalyptic

(28:08):
views because they are the ones that, between the climate
crisis but specifically through AI development, are trying to push
us over some sort of a cliff here, and so
it is just like a smash and grab. It's like
we what resources can we suck up immediately? What sort
of cash can we you know, accumulate, What kind of
wealth can we hoard so that when things go really

(28:32):
bad that we have enough money and power to be
able to protect ourselves from the fallout from In many times,
they're in many ways their own actions, and so I
think that is part of the mentality here too, is
like and you know Trump comes in also with all
of this, like, oh, they tried to throw me in prison,
and they failed. And you know, now I'm just going
to do whatever the hell I want to do, and

(28:53):
there's going to be no check and no limit on me,
and you know and what I'm up to.

Speaker 4 (28:58):
And so I think that comes.

Speaker 3 (28:59):
Through because you can report it as much you want.
You could supeena me as much as you want. A.
I can pardon, but B this is the Trump mentality. B.
The media could cover this every day. It could be
the headline every single day. And because people don't have
trust in the media anymore, like it doesn't matter. It's
not like a big headline story in New York Times
every day would have taken down the Clintons, or would
have taken down maybe like George W.

Speaker 6 (29:21):
Bush of his financial intaglements.

Speaker 3 (29:23):
It was a different time in the country, that was
a different level of institutional trust. But now that's all
burned up. So here I am. I'm doing whatever I
want to do.

Speaker 2 (29:30):
Yeah, no, he absolutely is. So let's do a couple
more year. We've got a nine the Qatar Force one,
the plane that was gifted to him to him, by
the way, not to the government, to Trump himself, that
has been rehapped into the new Air Force one.

Speaker 6 (29:49):
To his library. Right, it's a donation to the library.

Speaker 2 (29:51):
Yes, that's right exactly, So he gets to maintain control
over it in perpetuity. I'm sure that you know, has
no impact on his decision making whatsoever. Anyway, that has
been retro fitted using taxpayer dollars. By the way, and
that is now is now I guess, taking its maiden voyage,
we can put a eleven up on the screen. With

(30:13):
regard to the stock trading, twenty two thousand stock transactions
made in twenty twenty five, according to a Financial Times analysis,
is immediate predecessor. Joe Biden made thirteen transactions over four years.
In Trump's first term. The whole first term he made
five hundred and seventeen, which was I guess a significant amount,

(30:33):
but nowhere near twenty two thousand in a single year.
And this year already we've seen six thousand, one hundred.
In addition, put a six up on the screen. So
what is what's he doing in those in those stock trades?
You know, what's what? To what purpose? What sort of
companies is he investing in?

Speaker 6 (30:51):
Here?

Speaker 2 (30:51):
Well, his latest financial disclosures revealing invested about five hundred
thousand dollars in Abbot Laboratories. Abbot Laboratories is one of
the primary baby formula manufacturers in the country, responsible for
a large portion of the market. You guys will probably
remember when there was you know, a lot of problems
with the formula coming from Habit Laboratories. They had to

(31:13):
shut some of their manufacturing down. It created a baby
formula shortage that was a major major issue. The Justice
Department had spent years investigating them over how this is
for more perfect union. They managed a baby formula facility
where potentially deadly bacteria was discovered and suspected of causing
infant deaths. Well, guess what just after Trump invested in

(31:36):
Abbott Laboratories. Two months later, the Trump DOJ dropped that investigation.
And you know, and you would think Trump would be
in a position to profit off of that sin, see
how it had significant holdings in their stock. This is
one of many examples that have been tracked of the
type of corrupt dealings, potentially potential insider trading potentially that

(32:00):
was going on here with these twenty two thousand stock
Transactionally put a twelve up on the screen that he
also invested in Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, Nvidia, Broadcom, Meta as
much as five million dollars each in those in July
of twenty twenty five, and on that same day that

(32:20):
he invested in each of these, he unveiled his AI
action Plan which could help each of those companies. Prices
for most of those stocks have since increased, so just
on every level, in every way. And these are just
the ones Emily two that people can kind of like
trackwah and follow. So much of this is completely opaque
that we have no idea, but we see all of

(32:42):
this very likely insider trading that's happening, and it could
easily be the president himself, his sons, his family, et cetera.
We just we don't know. But as we covered, as
we covered last time on Tuesday, if the government was
interested in some of these blatant insider trading issues, they
could investigate, but they don't, which does raise some questions

(33:02):
over why are they uninterested in investigating those sorts of things.

Speaker 3 (33:05):
Well, I hope people also took a look yesterday and
you can read about this on Matt Stoller's newsletter Big
about the Justice Apartment's settlement with these big egg companies
where they're getting like three million dollar fines for naked
naked corruption. They have them dead to rights in these
transcripts of like phone calls and emails where you see
them colluding to drive up bag prices which caused so

(33:29):
much financial stress for average American families for a really
long time. You can see on a chart that Stolar
posted exactly when the Justice Department investigation is announced, the
prices start to go down. That's not even the biggest
piece of evidence, so people should check that out as well.
The Trump Justice Department settled with them. They didn't have
to admit they did anything wrong, which obviously prevents certain
future legal actions. And it's a great deal for them

(33:51):
because they have to donate eggs and pay like three
million dollar fines after they raked in tons and tons
of money. This isn't directly tied back to like Trump's investments.

Speaker 8 (33:59):
It may be.

Speaker 3 (33:59):
We don't know yet because we can't necessarily trace all
of it. But this is just I'm a pessimist. If
there is an optimistic take, it's that he's pushing it
to such an extreme that at some point it's not
like Pelosi's right, It's not just like who else was
trading like Marjorie Taylor Green was trading while she was
in office, Like, it's not like that. It's something on
such a different scale that maybe what comes after Trump

(34:23):
is finally you get a ban on congressional stock trading,
Finally you get some prohibitions on politicians doing this because
you can't possibly extricate their professional knowledge from what they're
doing with these track or with these investments.

Speaker 6 (34:40):
You can't do it.

Speaker 3 (34:41):
So if there is an optimistic case to be made,
I'm not optimistic about the optimistic case, but if there
is one, this has been pushed to such a logical extreme.
The economy is bad, there's a crypto bubble. Very clearly,
there's a crypto bubble that could pop, and what can
come after that is really dangerous. It could be potentially violent.
Not to be a fear mongerer, but I think we
all understand how these cycles work and how they worked

(35:03):
in the twentieth century.

Speaker 6 (35:04):
So we'll see.

Speaker 3 (35:05):
But if you want to feel hopeful, maybe that's the
dose of optimism.

Speaker 2 (35:10):
Last two things that I wanted to highlight here, one
in particular, so in the financial disclosure, it also shows
him receiving eighty six point five million dollars from settlements
in five separate lawsuits against ABC, CBS, YouTube, Meta, and X.
You know, eighty six point five million is I guess,
pennies when you compare it to the billions he's.

Speaker 4 (35:30):
Getting from Crypto.

Speaker 2 (35:32):
But I think it shows you the way that he
is systematically profiting off of every aspect of his presidency
that he possibly can, including his ability to weaponize the
federal government in order to bully companies into submission. All
or most of these cases would have been, I mean
laughable on their face. Many Oh, you edited an interview

(35:54):
in a way that I didn't like. But all of
these companies decided to settle because they were few full
of the consequences of continuing to push forward in these lawsuits.
So they just decided easier and better to effectively pay
off the president and not have to worry about it.
So you can see that as well in terms of
the way that he's operated and you know, his personalized

(36:17):
view of the presidency, the way that he uses the
whole of government to advance not the interest of the
country but the interest of himself, the interest of his
ability to accumulate power, and certainly his ability to accumulate wealth.
And then the last one that I'll mention too, that
I didn't even pull the element for because there's just
so much here again that it's kind of overwhelming. There's

(36:38):
also like the pardon granting operation is deeply corrupt, and
one insider said, yeah, it's well known in my industry
that for two million dollars you can have a pardon.
We talked to Jonathan Swan and Maggie Haberman and they
said that he's He's basically said, look, anyone who gets
within you know, however many feed of the Oval Office,
I'm going to give him a pardon. There was a
conversation about for the celebration of America's two undred and

(36:59):
fiftieth anniversary that they were going to maybe release like
a whole boatload of pardons.

Speaker 4 (37:04):
Move forward with a bunch of pardons.

Speaker 2 (37:05):
And if you look again at the track record here,
it's like who donated to him, who has business dealings
with his family, who gave the right person millions of dollars, etc.
And so it speaks both to the corruption and also
to the level of impunity that.

Speaker 4 (37:19):
They act with because he abuses the.

Speaker 2 (37:22):
Pardon power to just an extraordinary extent that we again
have never seen before. Not that the pardon power has
never been abused before, it certainly has been by most
of not all presidents, but the level that he's taken
to means that it's not just him, it's everybody around
him who feels they can act with impunity because they know,
at the end of the day, Trump's going to pardon me.
So there's not going to be any real accountability for
anything that I do that is criminal here.

Speaker 3 (37:44):
Yeah, And I think that's just a great point to
emphasize as we wrap up the segments, that there are real,
substantial consequences to policy and to governance that stem from
all of this. It's not just Trump getting rich on
this kind of icky scheme to leverage his influence and
you know, like get a prosecutor fire to go back

(38:05):
to the Barisma comparison, it's not like that. I mean,
these arely, hugely consequential psychological effects on people who are
in public office right now. But then also on I mean,
we're about to talk about Iran Cutter is in the
center of those UAE the Saudi, We're about to talk
about this big New York Times story on MBS and
the Saudis, who are heavily invested in Kushner's affinity in

(38:29):
his fund is just completely insane. There's no way to
capture it. But that's where we are right now. And
just so we're clear, as the economy goes into a
shakier and shake your place, this could get so so
ugly and Trump is to blame.

Speaker 2 (38:47):
Yep, well said, and that's a good transition to the
very latest with regard to Iran. Checking in on the
latest with regards to the Iran war. The negotiations are
they on? Are they not on? What is the Vice
President of the United States saying, we are joined this
morning by our front try to Parsy of the Quincy
Institute ord to Caesar.

Speaker 9 (39:07):
Good to be with you guys.

Speaker 2 (39:08):
So let me first get your reaction to these comments
from Jdvans that caught a lot of attention, where he
seems to indicate that they are using this moment of
a pause in hostilities to quote unquote refill the oil market.

Speaker 4 (39:21):
Let's take a lesson.

Speaker 8 (39:22):
There are a few things that we want. We want
durable commitments that are verifiable and backed up by inspections
that Iran will denuclearize their entire country. Okay, we're to
see how we get there. Number two, we want to
see what kind of an arrangement actually exists in the
Middle East between not just Iran in the United States,
but the GCC Israel Lebanon. We're going to play that

(39:45):
situation out. And then on the Straight of horn Moves,
I mean, I think you actually said it well, which
is that the Strait is open in the sense that
to oil traffic.

Speaker 9 (39:52):
We're seeing more oil come out.

Speaker 8 (39:54):
Of the Straight of Horn Moves and some days actually
more oil coming out of the Strait than came out
before the war even started.

Speaker 9 (39:59):
So there's this element.

Speaker 8 (40:00):
Of the you know where where the world oil economy
is kind of getting back into gear. That's going to
take a little bit of time, but you've already seen
the prices come way down. Now what the cynics will
say as well, if you look at the number of
ships that are trafficking, that's actually down from the pre
war start. But they're mostly talking about cargo ships and
other vessels. At least so far, what we've seen is
the oil traffic has reached its pre war its pre

(40:21):
war height. So I think what the President has told
us to do is use this MoU to sort of
refill the world's oil economy, to refill some stocks, and
then to see where the hand is. And you know,
if the as I've said this repeatedly, if the Iranians
are willing to make the commitments that we would like
them to make and are willing to back those up
with verifiable milestones, then we are going to change our

(40:43):
relationship with Ran. And if they don't do that, then
nothing has really changed except for what we've alread accomplished
from the military campaign.

Speaker 2 (40:50):
So he says that the president wants to use the
MoU to refill the oil market and then see where
the hand is.

Speaker 4 (40:57):
What did you make of that?

Speaker 9 (40:59):
I'm frankling out to be surprised.

Speaker 7 (41:00):
What I see this being is essentially that the administration
has a Plan B that they're trying diplomacy. I think
there's some people in the administration that are probably not
that excited about this diplomacy, and they have a plan
being in case it doesn't work out, and they want
to pursue their Plan A in a manner that ensures
that their Plan B is stronger. I think the Ionians
are doing exactly the same thing. This is part of

(41:23):
the reason why they're insisting on their position on the
Strait u ormost part of the reason why they're insisting
on their position in Lebanon. It's very much in case
there is no Plan A, there is no deal, that
they will be in a position to be able to
face the United States in another war. If that is
what it comes to. So in and of itself, I'm

(41:44):
not particularly surprised. Perhaps it was formulated in a way
that gives the impression that the Plan B actually is
the Plan A, that this whole thing is all about
making sure that you restock the storage of oil in
order to make sure that you can go to war again.
I'm not under that impression that that is actually what

(42:04):
the administration is doing. I do think, however, there's a
significant risk that that is where we will end up,
not because the intent is to go there, but because
either diplomacy doesn't work or because diplomacy is sabotaged. Also
want to point out one thing. Part of the reason
why oil prices never went up as high as they
could have during this war was because, by pure happenstance,

(42:29):
the inventory of oil globally was extremely high. So if
the idea is to go back in some ways improve
on that situation. I think it might be actually difficult
because it was extremely high in the first place, and
we still had a major, major oil shock and increase
of prices. And again, Vania has never went after the

(42:50):
infrastructure of oil in the Persian Gulf States in a
manner that they could have, which was one of the
cars that they kept to their close to their chest
if it was further escalation. So if the idea is
that some way, somehow, because of the MoU, the United
States is going to be in a much better position
to launch a war that militarily will be more successful

(43:12):
than the previous one. Color me skeptic. I don't think
the US has that option, even if the inventory of
oil is restocked.

Speaker 6 (43:19):
And this is exactly what we wanted to ask you about.
Next we can put B two up on the screen.

Speaker 3 (43:23):
Trita, professor of the University at the University of torontse
Ed Morandi responded to the Michael Noles interview that jadae
Vance did you just watched that by saying Iran is
rapidly rebuilding its civilian infrastructure, stockpiling critical supplies, advancing new
weapons systems, replacing thousands of destroyed decoys, fielding emerging technologies,
and expanding its network of underground bases and command and

(43:44):
control centers. From your understanding, is that an accurate description
of what's happening right now?

Speaker 9 (43:51):
I suspect.

Speaker 7 (43:52):
So this is also exactly what the Iranians did after
the Junie War, and they did it much more successfully
than I think US intelligence and is very intelligence expected
because they were quite ready for that word came later on.
So again, I think it's very important to understand both
sides are taking a bet on a Plan A that

(44:13):
diplomacy could work, but neither one of them are walking
into the situation thinking Plan A is so solid, so
likely to succeed, that there is no need for a
Plan B, and for a plan see. Both of them
are investing heavily in those as well. The question is
does it mean that the Plan A is fake, that
there actually is an real intent to make it work,

(44:35):
at least when it comes to what I've seen so far,
given how far the administration has gone in for instance,
pushing back these Raelis, the progress that is made at
the negotiating table, the signals they are sending about a
new relationship, and how the Yranians are responding and receiving those.
I do think that there is a serious plan A
from both summites. I'm more worried about that there may

(44:57):
be elements who are trying to sabotage this, whether it
is these Raelis or whether it is some of these
recent things that have happened. So, for instance, the MLU
that the US signed mediated between Israel and Lebanon, to me,
looks very much like an effort to salvotage to mL
you all together, and that was done by a different
part of the administration.

Speaker 2 (45:18):
Let's talk a little bit more about that. Put B
three up on the screen. This was your analysis over
at your substack, which, guys, if you aren't subscribed to
treat a substack yet, I don't know what you're doing.
The headline year is why Iron believes Israel will attack
again before October. The recent israelly Lebanese agreement and Heswel's
unreported role in the previous war is leading Tehran to
this conclusion. So break down your analysis here and why

(45:41):
you think that deal with Lebanon is such a problem.

Speaker 7 (45:45):
So the deal with Lebanon puts forward a completely different
approach on how to deal with Israel's presence in Lebanon.
It makes a condition for these Raelis to leave Lebanon,
and that condition is the disarmament of Hezbola. The disarmament
of Hezbola will not happen unless there is some sort

(46:05):
of a civil war that breaks out in Lebanon in
which against all odds, Hezbola loses. So it essentially ensures
that Israel will stay in Lebanon for a very long time.
The entire document is read as if the Lebanese government
is partnering with Israel, who is occupying Lebanese territory, against Hebola,
as if Hezbola is a common threat to both of them,

(46:28):
rather than Israel being a threat to Lebanon's sovereignty and
territorial integrity. This is completely different from the MoU. The
MoU essentially suggests that Israelis have to leave all of
Lebanese territory by the end of the MoU. It does
not make a condition for that, being that Hezebola has

(46:49):
to be disarmed. But although there's going to be part
of the negotiations on whether Hisbola will move further up
north in Lebanon, north of the Litani River, or other things.
But nevertheless, there is no suggestion that Israel will stay
in Lebanon for as long as Hezbola is not disarmed,
So this completely flips the entire equation. And part of

(47:11):
the reason why this is now really worried the Iranians
is because they believe that the Israelis have managed to
do this because they're currently holding certain positions in Lebanon
that were held by Hezbola during the war and were
critical for Hezbola's participation in that war, which has been

(47:32):
highly underreported. The Iranians tell me that they've only used
about forty percent of their offensive capability against Israel during
the war because they didn't need to because Hezbola was
so active, and this diverted Israeli horses and defense capabilities

(47:52):
because they had to face that front from Hebola as well.
By now having taken those positions, his Bola's ability to
participate in the next war is compromised, and this gives
these Raelis a very significant advantage, not a decisive one
according to the Varni's, but a significant advantage in which
they can launch a war again without having to worry
about Hezbwela having the same potency that it did during

(48:15):
the war, and incidentally, we never heard about any of
aswell as activities, or at least the extent to which
they were affected, because of this near complete Israeli censorship
of what was going on during the war inside of Israel.

Speaker 3 (48:30):
You mentioned that the Hasbal, a part of the agreement,
was being negotiated by a different part of the administration.
I'm assuming that you're referring to Rubio State Department world
versus Vance Witcough world. Is that what you're understanding is
of the dynamic here between what's being negotiated with the
Iranians on the strade of Horn moves and other territorial

(48:53):
Iranian questions versus what's happening with the Lebanese negotiations.

Speaker 9 (48:58):
I think there's a very common process that.

Speaker 7 (49:02):
Rubio is not particularly excited about the nuclear deal, about
the MoU and now suddenly he got very active in
the region, which he had not been before that spent
most of his time focusing on Cuba and Venezuela, and
then you had this agreement as well as a joint
statement by the GCC states that took a very pro

(49:23):
American position when it comes to the Strait of Ormuz,
so there was a flurry of activities by Rubio suddenly
in the region. The perception region why not just on
the Iranian side, is that this is done in a
way that undermines the MoU because there is a struggle
within the administration. I can't claim that I can confirm

(49:44):
that that is true or not, but if you're standing
on the outside, it certainly does look this way, and
I find it very difficult to lead the MoU and
the Libanese agreement in a manner that makes them compatible
with each other. They actually seem to be almost designed
to be income patible. The time frame, the conditions, everything
is different. And this also tells you why it was

(50:06):
so important for the Iranians to make sure that Lebanon
was a red line for them, because it meant that
if it wasn't, if Israel could remain in Lebanese territory,
if they were not pushed out as part of the MoU,
the Israelis and the US would be in a much
stronger position to attack Yvon again, which goes back to

(50:26):
what I said earlier on. Obviously, Levanians have been working
on their Plan B and their Plan SEED just as
much as the US administration has, and this contradicts their
plan B. If the Israelis remain in Lebanon, it means
that Yvon's ability to defend itself if Israel attacks again,
in which the incidentally Levanians believe, is now inevitable. Because

(50:47):
there's another aspect that comes into play here, which is
by October, these Radis are going to have their elections
and Prime Minister Netaniagu is already in a bad shape
as a result of the MLU as a result of
him not being able to deliver the United States. He's
being attacked by all sides for this failure from their perspective,

(51:08):
and if he loses that election, he just doesn't lose
his political career, he will then also lose his immunity
when it comes to the corruption charges that he faces,
and as a result, may end up in jail. So
he has all the incentives in the world right now,
both political, personal, and strategic, to launch a war, and
keeping those positions in Lebanon makes it much easier for

(51:29):
his world to do.

Speaker 2 (51:29):
So, let's talk a little bit more about the economic realities.
If we go back to the first clip we played there,
Vice President Jady Vance saying basically like, yeah, we're getting
the oil market back to normal, We're refilling it. Certainly
the administration wants to project a lot of economic confidence
at the same time, can put before up on the screen.

(51:52):
There was a declaration of emergency and authorization for temporary
duty free importation of phosphate fertilizer from Morocco. It is
not just the oil markets that are impacted by disruptions
in the straight upfor moves fertilizer, we've all learned, it's
also a very important commodity that flows through that area
and comes from that area. So what did you make

(52:14):
of this announcement? Does it indicate that there is perhaps
more economic pressure and strain continuing on the US and
the global economy than what the administration was to project.

Speaker 7 (52:24):
Well, there certainly is much more, because there is the
oil impact, it's the fuel impact, and then it's all
of the different secondary impacts. And one of the most
important secondary impacts is fertilizer, for which a lot of
oil products, of course are needed for and the fertilizer,
of course are tremendously important because it feeds all of

(52:45):
our agriculture, which means that it feeds our food, and
if we don't have food, we have a completely different
crisis rather than just people having to pay a little
bit too much at the gas pumps. So we always
knew that there was going to be these repercussions. Now,
if this since coincided with the continued closure of the
straight up foremost, obviously it would have been much worse.

(53:06):
But this is at a minimum reducing it. But it
doesn't mean that we're completely out of the woods, or
that these secondary impacts are not going to occur. They're
going to occur, but they're likely going to be less
impactful or detrimental than they would have been, of course
had the straight continue to be closed. But this is
part of the reason why I'm very skeptical about the
idea that just restocking these the oil inventory is going

(53:30):
to make sure that everything is going to be fine
and the next war is going to be fantastic. I
think that's a highly optimistic view from the perspective anyone
in the administration who would think that, and I'm not
really sure that that is what they're thinking.

Speaker 2 (53:43):
Do you think the Iranians and the US have a
slightly different conception of the pressures on the oil market?
I was reading one analysis that said, effectively, what the
Iranians are really watching is the strategic patrol room reserves,
which continue to go down, so even as there is
more flow into the oil market, that there continues to
be a pressure that is mounting over this time period.

(54:06):
Because I know one of the internal arguments in Iran
is whether or not they should have even moved forward
with this MoU, whether they are losing some leverage in
the meantime. What's your understanding of those arguments.

Speaker 7 (54:16):
No, I think the strategic reserves are tremendously important, and
first you're going to see the rest of the global
economy being able to absorb this oil before you will
see the strategic reserves being restocked, and that again is
going to make it's going to take some time before
you have that type of a full restocking that would
bring us back to the previous situation. There is obviously

(54:39):
an argument on the Iranian side that says that they
should have gone further, They should have attacked the GCC
states more aggressively, particularly the UAE. They should have kept
this going longer than they did in order to get
the strategic reserves to go down even further and the
question is. At the same time, there is a flip
side of that argument, which is, if you wait too long,

(55:02):
you will also then make it more difficult for the
administration to have the time needed to be able to
provide the sanctions relief that would come through a deal
that you're trying to achieve. After the midterms, most likely
the Republicans are not going to do that well, at
least in the House. Trump is going to have less

(55:22):
leverage than he did before. He's going to walk into
becoming more of a lame duck. His ability to provide
and deliver on the sanctions relief that would be agreed
upon in a potential MU starts to get compromised, and
as a result, that actually weakens Iron's ability to be
able to get a good deal. This is part of
the problem that was happening during the JCPO. The JCPI

(55:43):
in many ways was over negotiated. It took them way
too long to get to that deal, and as a result,
by the time they got the deal, the administration had
very little time left to make sure that the implementation
was solid enough to protect it from any future presidents
trying to walk out of it, and as a result,

(56:05):
it became weak and any what it otherwise could have been.
You don't want to repeat that mistake now by allowing
the negotiations to take way too long time, and then
by the time the deliverance of the different agreements is
supposed to take place, the US side is going to
be too weak to be able to fulfill that those promises.

Speaker 3 (56:24):
We wanted to get your take on this big New
York Times piece as well. We can put the next
element up on the screen about US Saudi relations. Kind
of going under the radar this week, is that the
Saudi Foreign Minister is in China. The Times this headline
is how the Iran were ignited a clash between Trump
and the Saudi Crown Prince, which sort of a remarkable headline,
of course, given the close ties between Trump, certainly between

(56:46):
Jared Kushner, his son in law, and the Saudi Crown Prince.
Reading a bit from the piece here, it reports since
the US and Israel attacked Iran on February twenty eighth,
Saudi Arabia has tried to chart a middle course to
protect its interest. It gave military and diplomatic support to
them and was attacked by Iran, but the Kingdom has
also opposed mister Trump at critical moments, flexing its muscles
when it sensed greater dangers resulting from American and Israeli aggression.

(57:10):
The piece also asserts that the Saudis are seeing the
US increasingly.

Speaker 6 (57:13):
As a less reliable partner.

Speaker 3 (57:16):
Does this story resonate with you treated Does this sound
like an accurate rendering of what's happening behind the scenes,
and what could the consequences be of that?

Speaker 9 (57:24):
If so, I think.

Speaker 7 (57:26):
The overall picture absolutely resonates that you're seeing. First of all,
that the Saudis at first were actually in favor of
this war. They did provide military support, but I think
they were deeply disappointed. They thought the US was going
to be much more effected in this war. They too
had underestimated the strength of the Vannians, that had overestimated

(57:46):
the impact of the protests when it came to the
fragility of the Yvanian theocracy. So they were disappointed in
seeing how this whole thing went down. And then we're
questioning many of the different decisions that the US made
going forward, and did not want to see meaningless escalation
that only would lead to the Saudis and the other

(58:07):
GCZ states suffering more without really changing the strategic picture,
and that's part of the reason why they stood up
in a few couple of occasions against this. But they
had also struck their own deal, most likely with the Iranians,
part of the reason why the Saudis or did not
get the brunt of the attacks.

Speaker 9 (58:23):
In fact, a very little.

Speaker 7 (58:25):
Amount of attacks from the Iranians in comparison to other
states such as Kuwait, Bahrain and the UAE, so I
think at least relatively early on in the war, the
Saudis realized this is not going the way they thought.
This is not going the way the US stopped, and
they started to look at their options instead of blindly
following the United States, realizing that the US didn't know

(58:47):
where it was going, and the fact that they are
now coordinating with the Chinese that they're looking for further
diversification is going to be a pattern that we are
very likely to see not just with them, but with
many of the other ECC states as well, including the UAE.
The UI may very well double down on its relations
with Israel and Saudi Arabia, but it is simultaneously striking

(59:11):
deals with Ivanians. They struck a deal with Ivanians just
in the last couple of weeks, which is part of
the reason why when it came to the last round
of exchange of fire between the US and Yvan, the
Ivanians retaliated against Kuwait and Bahrain and did not strike
the Mradis because they had already struck a deal. So
you're going to see a lot of double play, a
lot of countries making deals with many of the different

(59:33):
actors instead of just simply putting all of their eggs
back into one baskets. That's what they did before it
didn't work. They're going for diversification now.

Speaker 2 (59:43):
And lastly, what is you're understanding our talks happening this week?
Are they not happening this week? Do we expect another
market timed resume of bombing campaigns here over the weekend?

Speaker 4 (59:53):
What do you think?

Speaker 7 (59:54):
I mean, talks did occur in Doha, whether they get
renewed or not remains to be seen. You know, I
think we should also remember we've seen a tremendous amount
of drama and tremendous high dicibel of all kinds of statements,
even threats, etc. Nevertheless, with some delay, talks have gone

(01:00:14):
forward and I think it is a reminder of the fact,
and in fact, on top of just you know, high disciple,
we also saw attacks from both sides. I think it
is a reminder at the end of the day, neither
side really wants to go back to a full scale war.
It is not to their benefit. They need to get
to some sort of diplomatic arrangement. It is to the

(01:00:37):
benefit of both of them, as well as for many
others as well. So there will and unfortunately a lot
of snaffoos and a lot of elements of escalation. But
so far we have not seen the talks collapse altogether.
Could they absolutely, you have a couple of more of
these type of exchanges of fire between the US and
the environment. It's very difficult to see that this mu

(01:00:58):
will collapse, but it will not collapse easily. I think
that's the lesson we should learn from the last two
or three weeks.

Speaker 2 (01:01:04):
All right, Well, that's a hopeful note to end on
doctor True to Parsi of the Quincy Institute and also
of the Tree to Parsi Substackrae to have you secret
to see again.

Speaker 9 (01:01:11):
Thanks so much for having me appreciate you. Pleasure