'GET YOUR OWN OIL': Trump Floats Total Surrender

Good morning, everybody. Happy Tuesday. We have an amazing show for everybody today. What do we have, Crystal?

Another wild morning. We've got a Trump truth to reckon with. He says he's very much indicating he'll just walk away from Iran, leaving the Strait of Hormuz closed. He tells the world to go get their own oil, that he's done with it. So I don't even know where to begin with this.

So we'll get into that. Also that's maybe quite related, he's seeing some of the worst poll numbers, if not the worst poll numbers of either terms of his presidency. So there's a lot going on there, some new analysis too of just how dire things may be for him and where we are heading. National average for gas is officially over $4 a gallon. Our

oil analyst is going to join us to talk about the level of disruption and what would happen even if Trump does unilaterally taco now, what that will mean for the future. Meanwhile, global ramifications of that oil blockade are spreading rapidly. So we'll take a look at that. Israel yesterday passed a death penalty bill that is only for Palestinians in another new disgusting low. We also are going to pick up the story we tried to do yesterday.

We just couldn't put it in the show about the IDF assaulting a CNN photojournalist and the fallout from that. And then had to take a look at Trump's ballroom. Apparently it's coming with a new nuclear bunker.

Yeah, wow.

Great timing. Really-

Is it time to put the tinfoil back on? Oh, it was on yesterday.

A little unsettling there.

I had to take it off to go home, but maybe we put it back. Maybe all those people who've come up to me in the last several months to tell me that data center under the ballroom. Maybe they were right. They were onto something. Maybe they were right. They were onto something for sure. Trump just says the stuff out loud. All right, before we get to that, thank you to everybody who's been supporting the show, breakingpoints.com. We did our AMA yesterday, which was very enjoyable.

You can, of course, have access to that if you want to sign up for our premium program. We're now at 1.98 million, just a mere 20,000 YouTube subscribers to go to hit the coveted two million mark. We get no plaque, it's just bragging rights, but it is of course thanks to all of you. And if you are listening to this podcast,

please go ahead and share an episode with a friend. It really helps other people find the show. Let's go ahead and start then with the unilateral potential Trump taco. And let's put this up here on the screen, literally breaking as of this morning. Let me go ahead and read it. All of those countries that can't get jet fuel because of the straits of Hormuz, like the United Kingdom, which refused to get involved in the decapitation of

Iran, I have a suggestion for you. Number one, buy from the US. We have plenty. Number two, build up some delayed courage. Go to the strait and just take it. You'll have to start learning how to fight for yourself. The USA won't be there to help you anymore, just like you weren't there for us. Iran has been essentially decimated. The hard part is gone.

Go get your own oil. This fits very much with a late breaking story last night. Let's go and put the Wall Street Journal up there on the screen. Alex Ward over at the Journal. I highly recommend the follow, by the way, excellent reporter, he was also the person

who broke the Roe versus Wade story back in the day, so highly recommend, I've known him for a long time. He says, Trump tells aides he's willing to end the war without reopening Hormuz. So if you put these two things together, it does indicate that at the current moment,

that is what Trump wants us to think or is potentially doing. So this is at least what Donald Trump is telegraphing now publicly and or privately behind the scenes. Everybody do keep in mind that all of this could be an elaborate psyop as we have seen now multiple times from the Trump administration potentially trying to signal that the war is over while if we continue to follow all of the ground troops in the region. So I in no way want to say that this is the end. But let's pretend that it is. Let's pretend that it's Taco Tuesday.

And of course, stock futures are surging right now, as you and I speak over this. Should they really be surging? I mean, this is a genuine Suez moment for the United States. Let's think about this. The US military went into this campaign unilaterally

with Israel with a singular objective, unconditional surrender, the decapitation of the Iranian regime, a replacement of that regime, a reopening, re-control of the Straits of Hormuz. At one point, we floated a reinsurance scheme backed by the United States and the United States Navy sailing freely through the Strait. Now, after over a month, there is now

an effective declaration, Trump says, well, we have actually changed the regime because we killed the original Ayatollah. Now we have a new Ayatollah whose father was murdered and his brother and his wife, I mean, can't even go through the list of family members.

The guy who had the fatwa against nuclear weapons, he's gone. The hardline IRGC is all in control. The Straits of Hormuz is under Iranian control, who is allowing selectively certain ships that were either Pakistani or Chinese or any country which is willing to make a deal with them.

They passed a piece of legislation yesterday in their parliament saying that they have officially approved a toll program, almost like the Egyptians, in the control of the Suez Crisis. And then Trump comes in and he says that we are, basically, we'll be done because you didn't join us.

So first of all, it was a war of choice. It's not like we needed anybody. Allegedly, we were told we could do this all by ourselves. We didn't necessarily need anyone to come in. We blew up the global economy, quite literally. We're gonna tell everybody just in the one month of what it looks like.

Asia, 80% of oil through the Straits of Hormuz goes to Asia. Only 50% goes to China. The rest of them are extremely critical US allies. LNG, which is heavily reliant, Europe is after the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Oh, well, sorry, 70% of Qatar's Rosaliphon gas, that's gone, just evaporated for the next four to five years.

Good luck paying for it though, by the way. So what this means is that the US came in here, didn't even military accomplish its objectives, basically got all of our bases like destroyed and or hit. We lost all these strategic aircraft. We humiliated ourselves really in terms of what people

expected the United States to be able to do. Now we could finish the job with ground troops. We decided we don't want to do that. And we tell the Europeans and the Asians, go get your own oil. So what's more likely, Crystal, that the UK and the Asians, go get your own oil. So what's more likely, Crystal, that the UK and the EU and Japan and South Korea

are gonna form a coalition of the unwilling and go and militarily take the Straits of Hormuz or Tehran is gonna be like, pay up, let's go. And by the way, no more dollars. You're gonna denominate it in yuan. Any US flagship, you're never coming through here.

If you're sailing to Israel, you're not coming through here either. And this is the new sheriff in town in the Straits of Hormuz. What's that sound like to you? That sounds like a strategic victory right now. So far for the Iranian Empire, they get to,

or the Iranian regime potentially, used to be an empire. So we've got the Iranian regime, which is now re-empowered, massively rich already as a result of the war and spiking oil prices, control over the Straits of Hormuz. They stood up and survived over the big bad American military and Israel. I mean, this is a strategic nightmare.

And yet somehow it is still the preferable outcome. And that's what's so insane about it. Is we were really screwed either way, which is why we never should have been in this war. I'm just like thinking through all of the global ramifications and I'm like, I cannot believe that we just blew up the global empire and then, or the global economy,

and told all of these countries, I mean, if you're the Gulf, I was telling you before, what do you do now? Iran has been firing on your ship, now you gotta pay the piper. Yeah, Dubai was getting messed up just yesterday. Dubai was getting, they got more missiles yesterday than the first week of the war.

Do you just pay it?

I guess. I mean, and you bought all these billions of dollars and all these troops are here

and everybody's backstopping your economy.

Dubai, your Abu Dhabi, like your whole brand is screwed.

Oh my God.

It's over. I mean, it's, okay, so again, very possible that this is just a psyop and some other thing is in the works, we'll put that. But I do actually, I actually do believe that Trump would really like to taco. That he, all the reporting about he's trying to find an off ramp, blah, blah, that he's bored.

I mean, I think that is all true. And you see the bond markets are a problem for him, the oil market's a problem, the stock market's a problem for him, his poll numbers are tanking. He's looking at this and going like, all right, we need to wrap this up. So I do give it some credence that this is possible, that he's like, all right, we're just going to walk away. So let's be really totally clear. If he walks away and leaves the Strait of Hormuz in Iranian hands for them to do with

as they wish, it's a surrender. I mean, it is a surrender. The ultimate surrender. Yeah, because-

Of the role of the US Navy. Why do you and I pay the taxes we pay? Is to guarantee commerce on the high seas. That is literally the point of the empire. That's why Japan and South Korea and all these other countries are like,

okay, let's do all this right. In exchange, you guarantee our security and our ability not to be Chinese vassals. I mean, what are we doing here now?

So we came in, okay, let's just remember, let's rewind back when Trump announces in his baseball cap without a tie on before going to a party in Mar-a-Lago announces that he started this war, okay. He's calling on the Iranian people to rise up, right? So regime change, like not the fake kind

that he's claiming, but the real, like, oh, we're gonna have somebody who's a puppet and amenable to our interests, blah, blah, blah. That's what the original goal was. That and to destroy or make, render impossible or do some deal with them to make sure

that they're never gonna pursue a nuclear weapon. Okay, those things are off the table. Then the war became about reopening the thing that the war closed, the Strait of Hormuz. Now they're saying that is also off the table. And this is why you could never get a straight answer out of them after the initial days of the war

of what the objectives actually are. So now, what are we gonna, I mean, Trump will claim mission accomplished, we decimated them and we set them back. No, what you did is you strengthened them. There's zero doubt about it.

Yes, there, you know, this and that got hit and there were, you know, tons of civilian death. It was horrible, right? There's no doubt that there were losses on the Iranian side. over the Strait of Hormuz, this is like an ability for them to play in the world and have the sort of sanction power that we do, right? If some other country is messing with them, if some country is supporting a genocide in

Gaza or whatever, they can wield this now as a weapon. They can throw their weight around. Not to mention, okay, they still, by all accounts, still have all of the highly enriched uranium and nuclear material and know-how. Do you think that they may pursue a nuclear weapon now to make sure they don't get messed with again?

I certainly would if I was them. So, I mean, what are we, like, so, okay, so let's play this out. I'm just trying to think of, like, what all the implications are. So you're right, the Gulf Arab states, totally fucked. Totally screwed, like what are they gonna do?

Okay. They have all these bases, the Iranians. Listen, I'm Iran. I've got you by the balls. And you're Saudi Arabia and you're UAE. Every US troop on the ground, gotta go.

Yeah. Now what?

I mean, Trump says he doesn't want to invade. Right, and this is what they said their original goal was, we want all US troops out of the region, we want these bases closed. And we all look at that and we're like, that's insane. Now it's like, is it? Is it insane? Israel's out here floating,

hey, we want the US bases on our soil, which would be a major, I mean, that's a major change in terms of their orientation. Our orientation basically means like the merging of our states completely. That's a whole other can of worms, but that could be where we're heading if these Gulf Arab states are like, you know what, this is not gonna work for us.

Like you made us a target, and then you screwed everything up for us, and then you cut and run. Okay, so that's the Gulf Arab states. For the Israelis, Iran is not in chaos. They did not collapse the state. state, they strengthen the logic of pursuing longer range ballistic missiles and a nuclear

weapon. Do you think the Israelis are just going to sit back and say, that's cool, we're going to let that happen? No, they're not. You're still going to have the same logic on the Israeli side from Netanyahu and his whole crew, and they're going to continue to be trying to drag us back in the same sort

of thing that played out here where reportedly Israel is going to strike Iran anyway. And so our leaders were like, well, I guess we're going to do it too. Are we just going to let them get hit by Iranian missiles? Like that. So that's, you know, a whole situation.

I mean, the whole thing is. And then, of course, in terms of the rest of the world, they look at us, this global superpower, allegedly, nuclear-armed global superpower, and we were like opening the Strait of Hormuz is going to be too militarily difficult for us. You think they're going to go, no, of course not. Of course not.

They're going to look at this and go, okay, China, okay, Iran, time to make some deals. This is a new world order. I mean, that truly is what we're looking at here. And I know that may sound really grandiose, but this level of humiliating defeat at the hands of, you know, I mean, Iran is a large country. It's sort of like a middle-income country. They have clearly military power, but really, they just out-thought us.

They out-planned us. They out-thought us. They were much smarter, much more strategic, and Trump came barreling in thinking that he could do a few day excursion and get some W before his meeting with China, and then it'd be all good. And he's an idiot, and he's a fool, and they revealed it.

This is why part of me is like, why is that we shouldn't be too declarative? Is because all of this is about to become real obvious to NATO, to Japan, to South Korea, to the Gulf.

Saudi.

I mean, yeah, MBS and MBZ are gonna be on the phone today, right, being like, listen, man, this is, you can't leave us hanging like this. And that's why every single report out of the Gulf is they're like, finish the job, finish the job, we can't live this way.

So now, so when Trump tells the UK and Japan and South Korea to go get your own oil, they're like, oh, we'll get it, all right, but we're gonna pay the Iranian hostage toll. Whatever they want, we'll pay.

And denominated in Chinese yuan.

And then what are they gonna say? I mean, what's America gonna say? They're gonna be like, oh, our security guarantor or 90% of our oil. What do we do? What choice would you make? I mean, this is when your actual back

is up against the wall.

I mean, Pakistan is already. They're dead. Making deals with them. Right.

Because they are so screwed. 100% of Pakistani LNG comes from Qatar. They don't have a choice, right? That this is, it's literally existential. Bangladesh, all of it, India, I mean, already you've watched what happens with Russia. I mean, yeah, by the way, even Russia, in terms of their strength that's come out of this war.

Like, I don't accept that Russia is an enemy of the United States. You could say adversary, largely as a result of our own creation, but whatever. It has now proven its ability. And this is part of why- Well, we're strengthening this Iran-China-Russia alliance.

Yes.

And that's very powerful.

So right, then let's think about China. So China's gonna come and say, we have to denominate all of the current, all of the exchanges have to be denominated in one. 50% of our oil comes through the Strait. So they will make a deal

where they massively enrich Tehran. They already created the parallel banking system to get around US sanctions. They could create an entire exchange. I mean, this is the backbone of America, of what we really are, is not just the strength of the dollar but all of the power of the swift sanctions

and our ability to compel commerce across the globe because of the strength of our consumer economy. And that's part of why I go, he may want this today, but soon the phone is going to ring. And that's part of the reason with those troops in the region, he might just have to use them. He might say, you know what? What we're all talking about here is so unacceptable that we actually do have to do some sort of

– not we don't have to, but they will want to do some ground invasion, because you just can't, you cannot have this if you are all of these critical US allies.

And you could end up with a scenario where we, you know, effectively surrender, and then Israel and Iran are still warring, and we're right back in. I mean, that's another possibility here is, you know, after the 12-day war, something we warned about, and many others who were opposed to going to war with Iran to begin with, that this is not over. Like, yes, Trump is declaring mission accomplished, and it was a much, you know, cleaner way to

wrap it in a bow than anything that he thought of for this new phase of the Iran war. But what we said is you have not fundamentally changed the logic coming from the Israelis and the way that Trump is very susceptible to being lured into, and again, I hate using this language because obviously it's on him, but clearly the Israelis were pushing for this, right? And we knew that after the 12-day war, the fundamental logic was not going to change,

which is why I don't think any of us were surprised. When we ended up back in, horrified, yes. Surprised, no. And so if he does walk away now, you still have a situation. Not only has the logic not changed, the logic has gotten worse for the Israelis or stronger for the Israelis in terms of continuing to pursue this war. Because you've got more of an impetus

to actually pursue a nuclear weapon. You've got a harder line regime, and now you've handed them this extraordinary power. Now, I will say the Israelis are talking about, oh, well, we'll create a pipeline that bypasses that. That takes a lot of fucking time.

I mean, even if we-

It takes a decade and we get wiped out with a drone.

Right, exactly. We all have to learn that. Yeah, such a great point. But even if you give that credence, I mean, the time alone. And so in the next decade, we're just going to deal with it. I mean, you'd be better off just going whole hog on like nuclear and renewable energy versus thinking that some pipeline Israeli society has its own problems. And I don't know. I agree with you that I do believe, if I had to say, I think Trump does, he wants to be done with this. He's trying to find an off ramp.

There's a lot of reporting in that regard. He's been floating various things, trying to, you know, trying to basically like will a deal into being, project some sort of strength, pretend like these ships that are passing through the Strait of Hormuz because other countries are making deals with Iran, like this is some gift to him. He's trying to figure something out, but he has really, this is Robert Pape, he is in

an escalation trap. It is a trap. And if he walks away now, the repercussions may be such that he just can't stomach it. And the countries surrounding us, our allies also can't stomach it, and the business world can't stomach it. And so there's going to be tremendous pressure on him to continue this thing and try to,

I don't know. I mean, and that's the other thing is, let's say he hears from everybody, he's like, all right, I guess I got to keep going with this thing. What does that mean? Because the seizing of the nuclear material is a fool's errand and insane. The seizing of the islands just enmeshes you further, whether it's Karg Island or the UAE

or whatever, that just enmeshes you further. That's no solution. The only solution is a a full scale ground invasion. Even then, it's not really a solution, but this is the corner that he's backed himself into and it is a disaster.

It's a disaster for the world. I mean, we're gonna suffer here in the US, but people around the world, we're gonna talk about this later, like, you know, developing countries around the world, the level, people are gonna starve to death. Like, there's gonna be places where you just can't buy fuel.

The level of demand destruction that would be required is just, you know, shocking.

Like, the- Well, they may not starve now because of the taco, but it's one of those where, look, we may have an end to the actual crisis, but this is a full-blown, like, this is the Pandora's box. I mean, this is why you shouldn't get into any of this in the first place. Again, we have a lot of elements here. I'll skip most of them, but let's just make sure, again,

that we set the table, that there's still a war going on with Iran. Let's put A2 up here on the screen just to show all of you. This is video that came out just yesterday. This is, by the United States just yesterday on an Iranian ammo depot,

which was in Isfahan, which is near, of course, all of those nuclear facilities in Iran. Now, here's the thing. Originally, there was some cope and hope, honestly, that there would, they were like, oh, we finally hit the missile city.

The Pentagon even confirmed this is an ammunition dump with artillery and other things. And that is what made me think, look, you're gonna strike an ammo dump with bunker buster bombs, not the missile city? Now, you probably would if you could,

but why would you do that? Especially in the area where you have these nuclear facilities and some sort of potential nuclear operation was going to happen. So keep your eyes open. You know, the unilateral taco could also still happen, even after some sort of potential nuclear operation that's happening there on the ground.

The other reading of this, so one reading of it is that, yeah, this is, you know, Isfahan is where they think a lot of the nuclear material is at this point. And so you could be trying to, you know, degrade their capabilities there for some eventual commandos

coming in and trying to seize the nuclear material, all that stuff. That's one possibility. The other possibility is Trump shared this on True Social, which makes it more noteworthy because clearly he wanted to highlight, oh, look at this big explosion. The other possibility is this is just him trying to show, like, you know, oh, look at this grand display of how much we've decimated them, et cetera,

because it was a large explosion. So I don't know, but I think either of those interpretations are possible.

Take it for what you will. You also, look, now that we have this truth, the taco stuff, it's everywhere. Let's put A3, let's go ahead and play it. This was Caroline Leavitt telling everyone just yesterday well the president said four to six weeks we're on day 30 so we're on track let's take a listen. President Trump initially said about four weeks secretary of state Rubio on Friday reportedly said it might be another two to four. Is two to four the current ballpark that

the administration is thinking? With respect to the timeline again, the President, Commander-in-Chief, the Pentagon has always stated four to six weeks estimated timeline for Operation Epic Fury. We're on day 30 today. So again, you do the math on how much longer the Pentagon needs to fully achieve the objectives of Operation Epic Fury, which I will reiterate.

So there she says, laying out the timeline. Secretary Hague said this briefing literally right as we're all talking here. I haven't seen anything exactly noteworthy, but he has continued to say Iran should try to make a deal because we're decimating, we are the people that are making sure, he said, we are like, you know,

bringing them to the table, negotiating them with bombs. So you could see that the messaging has shifted dramatically. We also should go to A7. Now this, again, was a little bit of a preview of the current Truth Social this morning. Here is Secretary of State Marco Rubio

in an interview with Al Jazeera, where he again opens the door to, well, maybe we don't have to control the Straits of Hormuz, other countries can do it. Let's take a listen.

The Straits of H, it will be open, and it'll be open one way or another. It will be open because Iran agrees to abide by international law and not block the commercial waterway, or a coalition of nations from around the world and the region, with the participation of the United States, will make sure that it's open.

So the Straits of Hormuz will be open. Iran either agrees to abide by international law and not by by international law from this administration?

Come on. I know.

This is fake as hell.

I know.

You opened the war by murdering a bunch of school girls and assassinating their head of state.

And threatening to bomb nuclear, or sorry, it's a bomb like power plant.

Yeah, Trump literally yesterday was like, I'll blow up your water plants. I mean, this is like textbook war crimes, but whatever. As I said, international law is fake.

And that's fine.

International law has always been fake. It's really all been in terms of the norms and the enforced ability of being able to do so. We have decided to get in bed with Israel, this rogue state, and conduct ourselves the way that we have.

It always kind of has been an illusion. We just decided to put the blinders on. And it's like, all right, well, if we're gonna go about the world and we're gonna kidnap Maduro and we're going to just come in, create a gigantic mess, withdraw, tell everybody else to do so,

who are we to tell the Iranians exactly how they're gonna govern the Straits of Hormuz? They will govern by force, as we could do it too. You can invade and take it if you want to, it'd be a nightmare and a disaster. Part of the reason he maybe shouldn't have gone into this mess in the first place.

Well, and just really quick, Hegsteth is doing a press briefing right now. And just a couple things that were noteworthy here, I see this one clip of him. He says, President Trump will make a deal. He is willing, and the terms of the deal are known to them.

If Iran is not willing, then the US War Department will continue with even more intensity. So that's the messaging they're putting out, is continuing like this, oh, we'll deal with them, but we're gonna come in with even more, you know, fire and fury or whatever,

is where he's still messaging this morning from the podium.

Yeah, so look, very important just to put, I just, I really am all over the place this morning just because I have to deal with the ramifications of what this would mean. Also to make sure our audience understands, the war's still happening, the bombs are still dropping.

It's not like the Israelis, oh, they're doing just great. They just basically annexed half of Lebanon in case anybody's wondering. The Israeli empire, it's expanded. The regional super, think about this nation

since October 7th. They've expanded their border into Syria. They've, I mean, removed the leader there. They're basically taking half of Lebanon. They're basically taking, I mean, they had the West Bank. Now they're solidifying control over at Gaza.

Wow, you have to marvel at it. This country, which I don't wanna say hijacked, it was willingly given, I guess. Think about it, we will end our own empire and create a new Israeli one. That's effectively been the net policy if the current status quo remains as it is.

Although the Israelis have their own vulnerability because they can only act the way that they act because they have our full and complete backing at all turns and the moment that that is taken away, then they are extremely vulnerable. So they have their own vulnerabilities here.

My heart breaks for them. Actually, I saw Ryan was sharing this thread on Twitter about this whole, do they have a right to exist? The state of Israel have a right to exist discourse. And someone was pointing out, in what way are they even a state?

Because a state would indicate that there are borders and laws that are applied consistently to the citizens of that state. So by the conventional definition, Israel isn't even a state because of the way that they operate. But that's another discussion for another day. I mean, another thing I wanted to point said, we are not allowing US military planes

to land at our bases and enjoy flyover rights. So, I mean, that's really significant. So it also tells you-

Italy is way bigger than Spain.

Yeah, Spain from the beginning has been like, you know, it's a left-wing government, their adversary, like they've been opposed from the beginning. Italy coming out and joining them and being like, yeah, we're done here too.

That is highly significant and also shows you, you know, shows you the way that our allies are feeling about this and that they are also coming to a point where they're like, okay, whatever we're getting from the US, it is not worth it because the costs that are being imposed,

I mean, the energy prices in Europe already were high. Now they're going even higher. So they're in quite a bind here as well. And yeah, I don't think it's your point about like, let's say we do walk away and just tell them, go get your own oil and good luck with the straight-up foreign news.

They're going to be quite willing, I think, to go and make a deal with Iran

at whatever terms are necessary. People know, no big fan of Europe. I would decouple on my own terms. These aren't the terms that I would do it on. And let's think about Italy. All right, so Italy, NATO country. It is, I think, four US, I wanna say four major US bases,

probably 15,000 or so troops, a major hub for AFRICOM, remember Benghazi and Libya and all that were scrambling the jets out of Italy. It's kind of a critical US note, last time I checked. Their own prime minister, we'll get to this later

on the show, their defense ministers saying like, he's like vague posting, being like, I can't sleep at night because of the things that I know that are coming. So they're obviously then, they're facing a crisis and it's not like their economy was doing all that well, even within the EU context.

So for them, high energy prices, it's a nightmare. It's a total disaster, especially on top of what just happened with Russia and with Ukraine. I guess continuing on down this line, let's just make sure that we get a couple more things that are in here.

Oh, right, A11, or sorry, A12, please. This also happened yesterday. This was the Kuwaiti crude carrier, the Al-Salmi, was directly attacked by Iranians docked at the anchorage area of the Dubai port in the UAE. So yesterday, the UAE took more missiles and incoming drones than at any time since the first week of the war, showing again Iran's projected ability, or Iran's ability to continue to project some force in the region and also to be able to hit whatever

you know, tanker that they want to. There is some confusing stuff around this tanker. Apparently it was bound for China. So there's a lot of reasons as for why Iran hit it. They may have actually mistakenly targeted this carrier.

There was another one that was heading to Israel. I've also seen it could have been a shrapnel from a missile interceptor, something like that too. I've got another clip here from Hegseth that is noteworthy on the Strait of Hormuz, significantly, specifically he says, on the Strait of Hormuz, there are many more vessels

flowing through today than there were, as the President has arranged, oh my God, the Cope. No he's not. The Pakistanis arranged that. That's not even true. The president's been clear to Iran, open it for business or we have options, and we certainly do. There are countries around the world

who ought to be prepared to step up on this critical waterway as well. It's not just the United States Navy. Last time I checked, a big bad Royal Navy that could be prepared to do things like that as well. So he's pointing out this is an international waterway that we use less than most, in fact dramatically less than most, so the world ought to pay attention and be prepared to stand up.

President Trump's been willing to do the heavy lifting on behalf of the free world, oh thank you so much President Trump, to address this threat of Iran. It's not just our problem set going forward, even though we have done the lion's share preparation to ensure that that straight will be open. So sort of consistent with what the reporting about Trump saying basically and his true social being like, hey, you guys use this more than us. Go and get the oil.

But in other comments, Hegseth also said- What year do they think we're living in? 1898? I know.

Where the sun never sets on the British Empire?

Right.

People look at the UK and their society.

I know, the idea of-

And they wanna go and-

We can't do it, but we're gonna, oh, they're gonna, okay, right, yeah. And then he also says, "'We'll negotiate with bombs,' he loves this line, that this new regime, this regime in charge is in a better place if they make that deal and so we'll continue. We're working hand in hand, but the primary effort is a deal.

We want the deal to be accomplished if at all possible. If not, then we're prepared to continue. So take from that what you will.

Look, I think-

I mean, we can't trust Trump's way.

We certainly- Can't trust any of his words seriously either. I think this is what he wants to do. I just don't think that it can be done. I mean, well it can, it can. And then all the consequences that we've laid out just are.

But let's just not forget. And those consequences are probably best case scenario at this point. It probably is. Because if you continue, it only gets worse.

But let's then talk about the economic ramifications. They've got the UAE and Saudi Arabia, they're effectively being held hostage here now by Iran. They've proven their capability to hit you. They have, I was listening to an episode this morning about the amount, from Adelaide, shout out to them, about Dubai and specifically the real estate market. But they touched on the amount of 40% of global sovereign wealth is just the Gulf.

The big four countries.

Holy cow.

Out of the globe. Golf, almost all that wealth is invested in US companies, from venture capital to commercial real estate to private credit markets, which are having their own problems right now. Now, let's take Qatar, the Qatar Sovereign Wealth Fund, right?

QIA, Qatar Investment Authority. Well, they just took a 17% haircut on their natural gas. Stands to reason they're gonna take some haircut on their flow of cash, which maybe means they can't fulfill future deals or other things. So let's call it 10%.

Well, if 10% of that money just dries up, that's a lot of money. I mean, that's billions of dollars. So what's that mean? And then you've got high oil prices as a result of this shock,

potentially for years if Iran is messing with the oil market. So these Gulf economies will either be held hostage or they'll have to pull back their investments here in the United States, Japan, South Korea, all these Asian countries which we're supposed to invest all this money here, they are getting destroyed right now

in their stock markets and their economy. So just think about the ramifications for all of us. I mean, again, look.

And our economy's a house of cards. Like it's basically AI speculation. It's like the whole economy and gambling.

That's it. And for everybody saying, well, I don't care about that. I'm like, well, listen, oh, actually it'd be a good thing. Yeah, I mean, theoretically, you know what it also means? It means you're gonna lose your job. It means you're gonna pay higher interest rates.

It means that you're gonna pay high gas prices. 10% haircut, can you realistically afford to take that? The answer is always no, is that the people at the top will be okay, they're largely insulated from these decisions, but you know, when the bottom falls out, then people get laid off, they lose their jobs, can't buy a home, can't buy a car. There's all, it's a genuine nightmare.

There's all, it's a genuine nightmare. So look, that's where things stand.