China CHALLENGES Trump's Iran Blockade

Good morning, everybody.

Happy Tuesday. I have an amazing show for everybody today. What do we know? I have to do it whenever somebody else is here. So I think we have something good. Should we do a high five?

So we had the bro show. This is fascist points. Welcome to Sagar and Emily. Total takeover of the feed for the next two days. So we're going to do our best to convey why we need a benevolent dictator here in the US.

Just joking, just joking, don't worry about it.

That is the name of the group chat though.

That, yeah, Fashion Point is the name of the group chat and I named it, so yes, all of my critics were correct the whole time. Okay, I have to do Crystal's, this is the hardest part. It actually is the hardest part. This is absolutely the hardest part. Because people don't realize we do not have teleprompters. Right, exactly. So I have to like go off the top of my head

and usually I just sip a coffee, but all right, I'm gonna do my best. Blockade, we're gonna start with a blockade. That's what we're gonna do at the very beginning. J.D. Vance gave a very interesting interview. well, two can play at that game. Yikes, not usually supposed to say the quiet part out loud. We're gonna talk about Bibi saying, again, more quiet parts out loud, saying that the Vice President

and the administration reports to him on a daily basis. Not talks to him on a daily, reports to him on a daily basis. We're also, Emily, I'm gonna need you to break this one down for me. Trump posted a photo of himself as Jesus and is now saying he thought he was a doctor.

Yeah.

So, yeah, so evangelicals are very upset. He did delete the image, very, very rare. He also is in a beef with the Pope. That's another thing I'm gonna need you to explain to me. Pope Leo is weak on crime, a lot of crime, apparently.

Just incredible.

Out there in the Vatican. Just an incredible sentence, by the way. That's right, that one will live on for quite some time. Saurabh Amari is going to join us to discuss this Hungary election, where Orban officially lost election for the first, what, 16 years? A center-right figure will now supersede him, but what's more interesting, honestly,

is Orban's alliance with the United States. Remember, the vice president, JD, literally flew all the way over there just to campaign for him. Orbán got completely blown out despite being endorsed by Donald Trump, I think by Bibi Netanyahu. So big, big shift there.

It's not exactly like a bunch of lefties have taken over, but it's interesting. Nonetheless, Sorob has been following that very closely. And then Emily and I are going to discuss Sam Altman and a recent attack that happened on his home, perhaps what it says about our current society. The FBI made an arrest and raided that person's home

who perpetuated the attack yesterday. So we'll have some updates. And then finally, we're going to do an interview with Kristen Breitweiser. She is a 9-11 widow. She lost her husband on 9-11

and she has some serious accusations against Secretary Howard Lutnick. She alleges that he has not been nearly as helpful to helping 9-11 widows gain access to the funds that they are, of course, you know, they rightfully have and as well has not aligned a meeting with Donald Trump, which she claims that on behalf of other 9-11 widows

was promised to them. We did get a response from Secretary Lutnick and we will tell you all about what he said during that interview. Before we get to that, please hit subscribe to our YouTube channel.

And if you are listening to this on a podcast, please share an episode with a friend. And of course, please hit breakingpoints.com and become a premium subscriber. Emily and I are going to do the AMA, but with all of that, and a lot of talking.

You did so well.

No, this is way harder. This is so hard. Haven't even had a sip of that coffee just yet. Let's go ahead and start with Donald Trump and the latest on the blockade. Here he was speaking in front of the Oval Office

with a door dash driver from McDonald's. Maybe we'll get to that at one point.

Go ahead. So this was his attempt, it's tax week. So to set the stage a little bit before we roll the sot, he's trying to highlight the one big beautiful bill's tax benefits to average Americans, hence the door dash driver you're going to see in this video.

And his no tax on tips initiative.

Yes, which is a perfect illustration of politically where he is right now. He's trying to talk about no tax on tips and instead this is what happens.

Let's take a listen.

Round of talks planned with Iran and if so, will you send Vice President Jane advance

with? Well, he's done a good job at Steve and Jared. They've all done a very good job. And I can tell you that we've been called by the other side. They'd like to make a deal very badly, very badly.

What was the sticking point over?

You said it was over nuclear.

It was over nuclear. Very similar. Yeah, very good. I guess you're listening. It's over the fact that they will never have a nuclear weapon.

As far as the naval blockade is concerned, what's the endgame? Is it to force Iran back to the negotiating table? Is it to open up the straits so the gas prices ultimately come down?

Maybe everything. I mean, both of those things, certainly, and more. We can't let a country blackmail or extort the world because that's what they're doing. They're really blackmailing the world. We're not going to let that happen. And, you know, the amazing thing is we don't.

Can you believe this? We don't use the Strait. We don't need the Strait. We have our own oil and gas, much more than we need. We have more oil and gas than Saudi Arabia. Think of this, we produce more.

Saudi Arabia and add Russia to it.

If we don't need the Strait, why are we blockading it? That's a very good, why are we blockading the blockade? Look, I mean, the whole thing is crazy, Emily. He is totally in a vice of his own making and we can even report to everybody this morning that the blockade's not even working, so.

No way. Yeah. That can't be right.

No, I'm kidding.

I'm kidding.

It sounds exactly right. It sounds exactly right. I thought they were eager to make a deal, they've been calling President Trump, which is what he just said in that clip of course. But no, no surprise there at all. As Trump would say, you don't have the cards.

Yeah, let's go ahead and put A2 up there on the screen as well. We'll take a listen to this where Trump claims that other countries want to help in the blockade. Let's take a listen.

Your anticipation, Mr. President, that other countries will assist in this effort to blockade Iran and those... Yeah, other countries are gonna also.

Which countries, sir?

We don't need other countries, frankly, but they've offered their services. We'll let it be known probably tomorrow.

Has the lock-in started, sir?

Yeah, started at 10 o'clock.

So we've been trying to track that down, and so far we haven't been able to find a single one. Well, let's put A3 up there on the screen. Here we have the UK, Keir Starmer, probably the most important naval ally of the United States. Starmer says the UK will not join Trump's blockade of Iran's ports.

We also know from the French that they will not join the blockade. Germany has not yet said. Nobody in NATO has said that they're going to be joining the blockade. The Japanese, as far as I can tell, so far haven't said, and South Koreans, which we covered yesterday, how furious they are with the nation of Israel.

In fact, they have an opposite tactic, Emily. They have a special envoy in Tehran right now on the ground who's trying to negotiate safe passage for Korean vessels. So there's none of that that is happening right now. And of course, the Chinese also issuing threats

against Trump on the blockade.

Yeah, and this, by the way, is an important part of the case for the war that we continue to hear for supporters of the war, which is that it has, once again, isolated Iran, further isolated Iran, and all of America's allies are rallying around the United States.

And that is an actual case that I continue to hear. I don't know about you, but I continue to hear that case too. Well, I mean, particularly with the Gulf allies, but yeah, like the free world more broadly as people talk about. Now, China, we should bring China into this.

A4, let's put it up on the screen. A4, please.

Yeah, this is a Bloomberg tear sheet here. The headline is China urges restraint as Trump threatens to blockade Hormuz. Sagar, the Chinese reaction to all of this, not surprising, but also again, undermining the case that this was some type of 4D chess move

that was going to isolate China.

Yeah, what's interesting about the China thing here is they urged restraint. They also came out and they warned Trump. They said, you're not gonna threaten our energy alliance with Iran. It has nothing to do with you.

Remember, they've been buying a lot of Iranian oil over the years. It's not a huge percent to them, but now at this point, they kinda wanna prop up Iran and they wanna make sure that they're getting money, especially as an adversary here.

We do know that they were some of the people who tried to get Iran to the table in the peace deal, which is very interesting. They're one of the people who actually pushed them over the edge. Now, though, by antagonizing China and directly threatening to inspect and to board their vessels, which would be heading to Iranian ports.

You're in a whole other universe, right? Like, I mean, imagine, you know, in the United States, a Chinese vessel. Well, if an American vessel was transiting through the Taiwan Strait and it was subject to boarding and it's, I mean, we're going to war over something like that. And a significant amount of our trade moves through

either Taiwan or the Straits of Malacca. Either of those could be very, very easily boarded and or inspected by the Chinese according to their whole nine dash line claims, which, you know, I mean, who exactly are we to say whenever we're gonna blockade Iran? And by the way, blockade is, of course, an act of war, which needs to be authorized by Congress.

Congress is actually back in session. Are they gonna lift a finger? Probably not. The other thing, just to allude to the blockade not even working, is let's put A9 up there on the screen. This was from tanker trackers yesterday.

They said, we spotted a tanker on satellite imagery, which actually departed Kharg Island and was spoofing like it's signal to show that it had departed Saudi Arabia. We also got multiple reports this morning. Let's put A9B please up there on the screen. A US sanctioned tanker, which was linked to China,

is actually making its way through the Straits of Hormuz testing Trump's naval blockade. And we also know that there were three separate ships as of yesterday, which were able to get through the Straits of Hormuz. Now, it is unclear exactly what type of ships those are. We do know that some of them are sanctions linked.

We don't know whether they're going from Iran or not. It's all very complicated because of this whole spoofing thing where they can claim that they're coming, let's say, from the UAE. Apparently this is a long-tested thing now for Iranian-sanctioned oil tankers,

but it kind of exploded after the Russian oil sanctions where all of these, they're called gray tankers, where they're technically kind of uninsured or outside of the normal legal system or sanctioned system from the United States. But clearly there's a dark network of tankers and of oil

which is moving across the ocean, testing the blockade so far, at least a few of those ships have gone through. All of this almost doesn't really matter because a few ships here or there basically means nothing to the global markets

because you need hundreds of ships which are currently trapped, not to mention all of the oil stored in the Persian Gulf and all of the production capacity. OPEC announced yesterday 27% cut in production in a single month of March.

That is millions of barrels. And as Rory, who are a frequent guest here on Oil, has said, is that dialing that up just takes a long, so you have a shortage in the amount that's being produced, you have a backlog in the stuff that's getting out of the strait,

and now you have China and others testing the blockade. So, I mean, this is a very dangerous situation. Ships can fire upon each other. Maybe the Iranians will threaten to close the Bab Al-Mandab Strait and or the Red Sea. Like this all just demonstrates serious danger, I think, for the US.

Like if you're gonna threaten a blockade and then there's no actual blockade, what are people gonna think, right? I mean, then it's actually humiliating

and it's very, very much, I think, fitting with the way that this whole war has gone. No, that's exactly right. When Donald Trump is out talking about the blockade, how successful it is, how wonderful it is, and then it's juxtaposed on the split screen

with this news about Chinese vessels going right through. So this, let's be careful, because they're not Chinese vessels, they're owned. It's very complicated, right?

I just wanna, I don't wanna give a false impression. It's very false. You're totally right. The point that I was going to make is that you have all of these other countries involved because of ships coming in. It's not just a conflict between the United States and Iran when you have vessels flying under other countries' flags or what have you, trafficking in and out of the strait. Again, even though there's a blockade that's

very, very successful, of course, lest we forget. But all that is to say, that is early World War I days. It has that feel all over it, because China obviously also now, this is our deep state leaking to like Natasha Bertrand again, allegedly already starting to help,

and I said allegedly, intentionally, help Iran rebuild its military supplies. So that can go in a really, really, really scary direction, especially when you have the American president staking some political claim on a successful blockade and then the potential for him being humiliated.

Absolutely. As soon as an American soldier gets hurt, if it happens, the escalation trap explodes yet again.

Yeah. And we have, I think we have 15 different warships in the Straits of Hormuz right now. Let's go ahead and put A7 up there on the screen just again to show you all how the blockade is going. Trump said 34 ships went through the Straits of Hormuz yesterday, by far the highest number since this foolish closure began.

Maybe he's right, he has access to information that we don't have, but fortunately for us, there's actually a lot of open source data whenever it comes to these ships. Let's put A8 up there on the screen. This was from Macro Edge, an economic intelligence firm.

They say actual number of straits yesterday, or ships in the strait yesterday, was four, contradicting Trump's claim of 34. One oil tanker apparently was allowed to pass through. And as we've just showed you all, the three at least that we know of so far

that were able to come through all have been able to do so. Another very, very troubling bit of news actually is A11. Let's put that up there on the screen. This shows the danger to the US military and this is from US Naval Institute. So they say, the carrier USS George H.W. Bush

is currently operating off Southern Africa as the Iranian blockade begins. Now, you know, they kind of buried the headline because what they're saying is that the USS George W. Bush is off the coast of Namibia because it's going to have to sail around the entire African continent

and set to join the growing naval force in the Arabian Sea amid the blockade of the Straits of Hormuz. Now, it deployed at the end of March, and it did not sail via a typical transit for East Coast-based carriers to the Middle East. And the reason why is that this allows the carrier

to avoid transiting the Red Sea and the Bab al-Mandeb Strait, which were both hubs of activity for the Houthis in their drone and missile attacks on commercial shipping in 2024 and 2025. So I think what this confirms more than anything

is US fear of the Houthis and of the Red Sea. That has not previously yet been closed in the entire Iran war, but it remains like the ultimate trump card if they can close both the Straits of Hormuz and the Red Sea.

But look, a carrier costs, I don't know, 100 million a month to deploy. So this is an extra transit time, I forget exactly, but it's a decent amount. And of course, a ton of fuel, which is all very expensive right now,

not to mention all the guys there, everybody's getting paid. So you can just think about the multimillion dollar decision that they've just made here to sail around all of Africa just to avoid the Red Sea transit because they're afraid of getting shot at and they don't want to instigate some sort of conflict.

If we had complete, total, and free confidence that we'd be able to do, then that's what would have happened but this, I think, really shows the danger also of this current blockade and there's also a story out this morning from Saudi Arabia,

from the Wall Street Journal about Saudi Arabia. They are very afraid of the blockade. They're urging Trump to reverse it, specifically because they said, hey, if you close the Straits of Hormuz, then they're gonna close the Red Sea,

and that's where 75% of our oil is currently going through, and if that's closed, we're dead, it's over. Then there's not a single drop of oil that's even coming out of the region and of OPEC's largest producer. So again, it's very embarrassing,

like a US carrier having to divert itself because of a stateless group with a couple of like cobbed together ballistic missiles. I mean, that's humiliating. We're talking about a, what, multi, I don't even know, how much does an aircraft carrier cost?

Several hundred million dollars? It's supposed to be the crown jewel of the US Navy. It should be able to sail wherever it wants. So that shows you again the asymmetry, I think, of the conflict.

Yeah, and I was just gonna say, I mean, the president alsoxies. And then you have the aircraft carrier going around the entire African continent at whatever hundreds of millions of dollars cost it takes. And that just, again, undermines his entire claim that the war has been won and is a major, wonderful success. You literally having the aircraft carrier go around Africa to avoid the Houthis. And so the asymmetry is obvious, but at what point does it become necessary

for the president to try and completely quash the asymmetry and just say, this is asymmetrical, so therefore we're going to like escalate.

But that's the danger, right? Beyond what the public is comfortable with. Yeah, that's the danger. Because you know, with the Houthis, we tried in 2024 and in 2025, and as I understand it,

it was genuinely no holds barred on the Houthis. We did everything that we possibly could to try to take them out, from missiles to bombing. And remember, the Houthis, at the end of the day, they retained their capability. We basically just packed up our toys and left, and that was humiliating to the United States military, and it was a serious test of the US Navy as well.

And it demonstrated the same problem that we found in Iran. Ground or air alone is not going to accomplish it. At the end of the day, a determined adversary will take a lot of damage, but will figure things out. Remember, the Houthis even clipped an F-35 during that campaign in 2025,

which happened again in the Iran war. You can go and check it if you don't believe me. The interesting thing about all of this, I think, together, again, just shows you the problem of trying to do this ad hoc blockade with the immense consequence of the global oil market. So every day that the strait remains closed,

that means higher oil or sustained oil shortages, shortages in helium, fertilizer. Already the farmers are freaking out about the fertilizer. Trump said something, I forget exactly, it's something like, you know, I'm watching fertilizer prices very closely.

They better not raise their price. And it's like, at a certain point, like you have no control over stuff like this. Like once you've unleashed completely on Pandora's box. So things not going so well right now. And you know, for the escalation that you keep warning about, it's not like there isn't

a sustained drumbeat here in Washington pushing this along. Here's Mark Levin immediately over the weekend saying that we should use nuclear weapons to end this conflict once and for all. Let's take a listen.

I have in front of me, though, you know, the Potsdam Declaration, July 1945. I wasn't even going to mention this, but I have it. And then we have the instrument of surrender by the Japanese, September 2, 1945. And in order to implement the Potsdam Declaration and get them to surrender to the terms that the Allies wanted, we drop two atomic bombs. Now, I'm not encouraging it, I'm asking about the law.

Is that legal today under the law of war or not?

Yeah, so the calculation is a bit different when it comes to weapons of mass destruction, because that's really a, those are munitions that have a strategic level effect. And so for us, it would be the president of the United States who decides whether to launch nuclear weapons. And so, which was also the case back in World War II. The considerations are probably a bit different now, but it's still, this law of armed conflict still applies. It's just the decision-making process for weapons of mass destruction is elevated because of

the strategic nature of the impact of those weapons. So I take that as a possible yes.

I'm not encouraging it, you know, the left goes crazy and they try to put words in our mouths. I'm just trying to get the law now down here. I think it would be very helpful to go back and read the terms of surrender for the Japanese, for our envoys to read it, because the Japanese were dug in, even after the dropping of two atomic bombs.

And it took a lot of pressure, even after that, to get them to surrender. So, as you can see there, Mark Levin continues to pound the drum. A lot of ahistorical stuff. Damn. Whatever comes to his entire reading of Potsdam and all that, but I'll save that for another lecture.

Oh, you're gonna save it?

No, so we have too much stuff to do to get through. People don't want to hear it. Oh, I thought we were going to get it. Maybe one day.

See, I'm tempting you.

Friday, yeah, I know. You're pulling on the strings, but we would have to go much, much deeper. You also flagged this, Emily, from Nikki Haley, if you want to set it up.

Yeah, so Nikki Haley was on Sunday shows, this was could probably predict her answer, but still worth noting, this is A6. So, do you believe that the U.S. military special forces and those who support special forces

just need to go in and extract the enriched uranium?

I think that's probably what it's going to come down to. I mean, this is a special-force mission. It would take about a week to 10 days to get done. They know how to do it. It's dangerous. It's not something that we can just sit and think it's casual. I think they have to do it. But once they do that, they're taking away literally one arm of the Iranian regime to where

they no longer can threaten any of our allies or anymore. They, I think they've already known it's a small special operations force that they would have to do to be able to extract that uranium, not just any military man or woman could do this. This is special forces for sure.

Break this down. What do we listen to?

So Dana Bash says boots on the ground and Nikki Haley doesn't want to say yes. She doesn't want to give the yes answer to that. You'll notice she also said, well, it's not something that's just casual, you know, but it's it is special forces. They're trained to do this. So I think that's probably, Sagar, you and I have both heard this from different people

is Delta Force going and digging up the enriched uranium. Nikki Haley is saying that's probably what it's going to come down to it would take a week to 10 days. No big deal, it's not casual, but it's no big deal. But she is in a position where obviously the Israelis have their zero enrichment line that they're pushing over and over again that is likely not making JD Vance's job any easier

or the peace negotiations any easier at all. But this has really become the conventional wisdom in neoconservative or maybe even just interventionist circles, is that you're at some point going to see actual boots on the ground, not just CIA or whatever else, but an actual boots on the ground operation to retrieve the enriched uranium. And when Nikki Haley says she thinks that's quote probably what it's going to come down to,

I think it's, that's to. I think that's correct. I think that's probably true, Sagar, that Trump can only resist the temptation to do that for so long as the war continues to go this way.

And I think it is important also, last thing that we'll put in here, honestly kind of a stunning admission from the US Vice President in an interview on Fox News, Vice President saying Iran tried economic terrorism, so that's what we're gonna do, let's take a listen.

The only thing the Iranians have been able to do, they haven't of course beaten us militarily, they've had their military been decimated, they haven't been able to prosecute the case when it comes to weapons of war. What they have done is engage in this act

of economic terrorism against the entire world. They basically threatened any ship that's moving through the Straits of Hormuz. Well, as the president of the United States showed, two can play at that game. And if the Iranians are going to try to engage in economic terrorism, we're going to abide by a simple principle that no Iranian ships are getting out either. We know that's a big deal to them.

We know that applies to additional economic leverage. And again, Brett, the president wants the Iranian people to thrive.

So two can play at that game. Yeah, I mean, look, you know, you're not usually supposed to describe these things in the truth, but I guess that's what we're talking about here. Two can play at that game. That probably strikes very clear to Donald Trump's heart, but it definitely, I think, undermines the entire purpose.

I mean, it just shows the preposterous nature of it, is they closed the Straits of Hormuz and are interrupting international waterway. That's why we're gonna blockade the Straits of Hormuz and disrupt an international waterway. All so we can do, restore the February 27th status quo

of free passage through the international waterway. What are we doing here? The whole thing is crazy.

It reminds me a lot of last week when Trump posted his Easter, close the fucking straits, or open the fucking straits, you crazy bastards, and then threatened to wipe out an entire civilization never to return again, whatever he said, just trying to paraphrase the insanity there. You heard so many of his defenders say, oh, you mean just like Iran chants death to America? It's like, are you saying that justifies

the President of the United States, who the entire point of your argument is should be held to a higher standard because we are, again, their argument is predicated on the idea that we are the good guys. Therefore, we aren't the ones that are threatening people

with an entire civilizational genocide. And then here you have them being like, no, he's just, it's just death to America. It's just JD Vance saying, well, if they're going to do economic terrorism, we're going to do economic terrorism too. And it's an example of threatening to stoop to the level that their argument is predicated on them being better than.

Like that is the argument that we are the good guys here because we don't do that. We don't do the economic terrorism. We don't say, oh, you do it too, can play at that game. That was the entire purpose of the Western agreements

after World War II.

Yeah, all right, so there you go. It is definitely a little bit of a shocking development, but demonstrates kind of the tenuous and dangerous nature that this entire thing has devolved into. Where will things go? We have no earthly idea. They say that they want to talk,

but they're not talking. Maybe they are talking. We have the blockade, but it's not really a blockade. We have countries that are being involved, but we have other countries that have said that they're not going to be involved.

Ships are not allowed to translate, but ships are transiting. Economic terrorism not will be tolerated, but we are tolerating and perpetuating economic terrorism. The only people who are losing is us. What's the price of gas right now? Let's take a look.

National price of a gallon, $4.11. California at 5.88 a gallon. God bless you all out there. And the price of diesel, let's see, 5.65 a gallon. Yep, little bit of a nightmare. Hey, if you liked that video, hit the like button or leave a comment below. It really helps get the show to more people.

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