How Trump's failed war in Iran screwed Britain | The News Agents

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Don't play by Donald Trump's own imagined rules in that fantasy land inside his head.

The truth is that he hasn't ended the war in Ukraine.That means that the Iran war could last the same as the Ukraine war, which is not going to end anytime soon.

But you have an American defence secretary basically bragging about the idea that he's instructed his own soldiers to commit war crimes.

Yeah, turns out the world's favourite frat boy is actually a bit of a fascist.This is going to be a cost that escalates massively for America.And if it escalates for America, it escalates for us, too.

We give up.We give up.

The problem is the Iranians are not giving up.They are fighting fire with fire.And the consequences for the world economy are getting ever more perilous.

The true cost to this country was spelt out this morning by the Bank of England, who's warned us that inflation could hit 6 % at the start of next year and food prices could rise by 7 % at the end of this year.How on earth do we get out of this wall that Trump has started?Welcome to The News Agents.

The News Agents.

It's John.It's Maitlis.It's Lewis.And we've heard from Donald Trump there saying Iran'splease, please, please just surrender, which they're not going to do.And as a consequence of which, the price of Brent crude touched $126 a barrel.

That's the highest it's been since the Russian invasion of Ukraine.The average price of fuel in America has topped $4 .30 a gallon, way, way higher than it was before the Iran war started.look at the consequences in Britain and what Andrew Bailey, the Governor of the Bank of England, has spelt out is a really dark picture for the next year or so.He said that inflation, as Emily said in the intro, could hit 6 .2%, food prices 6 to 7 % by the end of the year, warning of a possible need for forceful rises in interest rates.One scenario has as many as six rises in interest rates, taking it to about 5 .25%.And that will be absolutely crucifying for homeowners who are on variable mortgage rates and will suddenly see the cost of their borrowing going through the roof.

And for what?What is there to actually show for this?The last time that we were looking at interest rates going through the roof was not that long ago, actually.It was 2022, when Rishi Sunak was in power at the end of the COVID pandemic, right?So we were just doing a quick check and inflation was at 9 .6 % then, which is horrendous.But that was after a global pandemic that affected the entire world.

And now we're looking at something that could be just two percentage points lower than that, which is entirely self -inflicted.What was that about?

This is the first time we've talked about RAMP for a little while, obviously not least because there has been, we've been in this weird stage of the war, which is that we've had these ceasefires which have been renewedintermittent talks which look like they're going to be renewed but very often aren't renewed, and to great fanfare, usually Trump but sometimes Iran, say actually they're pulling the negotiators away, they're not actually going to withdraw, particularly bizarrely the other day Trump said that he was not going to send Vance and his negotiating team because it costs a lot of money to send people over there, which is pretty sort of grimly, darkly hilarious when you consider this war has already cost about $20 billion to the federal government and counting.

28 billion and they reckon that's a lowball number.

Right.That's way higher than that.

That doesn't include the reconstruction of all the US bases.So they think they've underestimated that.

And doesn't include all of the indirect economic effects, which we've, you know, you've just both been talking about.And we're in this, period where, as a result, it still feels, in terms of the economic consequences which Andrew Bailey is talking about, it feels like this really weird artificial period economically.You know, it does feel a little bit like, you know, those days in the pandemic when we were sort of looking and hearing weird things that were coming from Lombardy and going like, what's on over there?And you could sort of feel a kind of darkness coming.And I think economically speaking, that is where we are, because it was so striking.You know, when the ceasefire first was announced, oil prices tumble because everyone thinks, right, we're there.

We're there, you know, we're at the point where Trump is willing to talk, Iran is willing to talk.

They probably tumbled before the announcement was made because that's how Trump rumbles.

But anyway, yeah.Yeah, that's true.That's certainly true.Lots of people making a lot of money.But we're finally there.And I think what the markets are now waking up to is something that we've been talking about for a little while, which is that as a result of the way that Trump has gone into this war without an endgame, without any obvious sense of kind of what might be acceptable both to him and to the Iranians as a kind of end point.

They are at stalemate.They are at stalemate because there is no obvious way of unlocking the fact that Iran, the regime there is not falling and as soon as it becomesclear that it was not going to fall, Trump had a choice which was to either basically accept a form of humiliation, which is that all of this war and all of this cost has basically yielded very little, or he had to up the military actually up the and intensify the military operation and perhaps even consider ground troops, something that he's clearly not willing to do.So we are at an impasse and every day that impasse endures, the global economy worsens and worsens and worsens.

If Leo Tolstoy was alive today, he'd be writing no war and no peace because that is the space we are in now where, yeah, missiles aren't being fired, bombs aren't being dropped, but neither is anything happening towards reopening the Strait of Hormuz.Nothing is happening about Iran's nuclear material.And you can just see a world in which, you know, we've had Donald Trump calling together meetings with his kind of military commanders saying, what are my options?And talking about ground troops again and talking about all these other things to break the impasse.And you've then had a statement from the supreme commander of Iran saying, you know what?If you start firing at us, we're ready to start firing at you.

We will make your lives hell.And so America will then Well, what will it do?Will it just say, OK, well, we better hold off?And so you've just got this total impasse where what you could see happening is that America agrees to some kind of short -term deal, which would look like an absolute defeat, whereby the Strait of Hormuz gets reopened, because we talked about how much oil prices have gone up and the shock that is coming to the world's economic system, which we are in the foothills of right now, in return for nothing.to happen on the nuclear material that Iran has.And as you say, Emily, so what has been achieved at the end of that is

that's how it comes to pass?

Well, yesterday, Pete Hexeth, the Secretary of War, was called before Congress for the first time since the Iran war began.And there are a series of utterly extraordinary exchanges where he is accusing members of Congress who are asking him about the cost To America of the Iran war, i .e.doing their actual job, he's accusing them of gotcha questions.Just listen to him talking to Congressman Adam Smith.

Do you know how much it will cost Americans in terms of their increased cost in gas and food over the next year because of the Iran war?I would simply ask you what the cost is of an Iranian nuclear bomb.

I'm going to give you that opportunity.

I would simply ask you what the...You're playing gotcha questions about domestic things.You're saying it's a gotcha question to ask what it's going to be in terms of the increased cost of gas?Why won't you answer what it costs to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear bomb?

I give you that, sir, but let me..

.What would it cost?What would you pay to ensure Iran doesn't get a nuclear bomb?What would you pay?Sir, I reclaim my time.Do you not know, you and no one do the analysis of what the increased cost of gas and food on the American people are going to be?

What is the cost of Iran holding that strait at issue with nuclear weapons?

So the fact that he's treating a member of Congress as if it was a sort of dog ship member of the press, which is frankly how Pete Hegseth talks to the rest of us most of the time, because they are asking about the cost to normal Americans of this war.And all that Hegseth can say is, well, how much would it cost if it was a nuclear bomb?And I think That is quite critical, because what Hexer has said is there will never be a nuclear bomb whilst America is watching Iran.In other words, he is setting open theidea that it is a forever war, right?Because if America is going to constantly, constantly be on the back of this regime without changing regimes to make sure that they never do anything, then that is an investment in making sure that Iran never, ever has a nuclear bomb forever, right?

This is going to be a cost that escalates massively for America.And if it escalates for America, it escalates for us too.

So there are two things about Hegseth and that appearance.The first thing to say, and you made it clear that this was the first time that he'd answered questions from congressional leaders.How unbelievable is it that a war that has been going on for weeks and weeks and weeks, and this is the first time that anyone from the executive is held to account by the lawmakers that pay the bills for the Pentagon.I'm taking such resentment and umbrage at the question.And I'm sorry, Ro Khanna's...I mean, look, Pete Hegseth is right to say what price.

Iran getting a nuclear weapon?Of course, that's a perfectly fair question.But the idea that he absolutely stonewalls the question of how much is it costing Americans today is so tone deaf when they're seeing the price of gas rise and who knows what's going to happen to interest rates in America if the same thing is going to be happening in Britain.They're not stopping Iran from making a nuclear bomb.

That's the whole point of this, right?They are not stopping anything from happening that wasn't happening before, except for oil getting through the Strait of Hormuz.

That's what I was going to say.I mean, again, we all come back to the sort of circularity of this war, which is that at precisely the moment it became clear that the Iranian regime wasn't going to fall, then everything goes back basically to the same question that American foreign policy has been asking itself for 10, 15, 20 years, 30 years, which is how do you stop Iran from getting a nuclear bomb?And there have been, long been, two schools of thoughton that.The hawks, the neocons, have always been pushing and saying what we need to do is take them on militarily.We can defeat them militarily.

The doves, those who say, are sceptical of that, basically say, look, it's not going to work down the barrel of a gun unless we were going to literally invade it with hundreds of thousands of troops and who knows what the consequences of that would be.So we've got to make a deal with them.And so basically we are, Pete Hex is there saying, what's the cost of getting a nuclear, of wrangling a nuclear bomb?Nothing, as you say, Emily, about what they are currently doing actually take us any closer to that point.Because right now, all that's happening is it's rocking the world economy.And just saying, actually, just, you know, just something else that was brought up there.

Quite extraordinary again, John, you said it's the first time that he's been asked about this.True.It's also amazing.We've kind of got used to these kind of, you know, absurdly bellicose, kind of macho, small dick energy kind of things from Hegseth at these things.And he was asked if he stood by his statement that American troops would allow no quarter, no mercy for our enemies.And he said the military under his leadership fights to win.

Seems quite kind of benign, that no quarter thing.Just remind people what it means.A no quarter order is one to kill all enemy combatants, even those who are badly injured or wounded.or have surrendered.The whole thing is not necessarily even managing to yield the thing that everybody wants, which is no nuclear war.But you have an American defence secretary with his hair slicked back, shouting with his suit that's far too small, basically bragging about the idea that he's instructed his own soldiers to commit war crimes.

Yeah.Turns out the world's favourite frat boy is actually a bit of a fascist, right?You don't have to scrape the surface too far to find that authoritarian streak in him.And Trump was also asked in a press conference last nighthe'd been on the phone to Vladimir Putin.Now, this is where it all gets complicated.

Trump said he had telephonic communication, not telepathy, but telephonic communication with Putin.And Putin asked if there was anything he could do to help him with Iran.Now, that is a total mindfuck, because the last time we looked, Iran was actually being helped by Putin to work out where American targets were coming in.So the fact that Trump and Putin are now talking about how to end the Iran war is just sort of a surreal step too far.But Trump was asked by Caitlin Collins of CNN whether he thought the Iran war or the Ukraine war would end first.And Trump quite likes that question because obviously, well, let's just listen.

Let's have a listen to his answer.

On your call with President Putin today, do you think the war in Iran ends first or the war in Ukraine?

Well, we talked about more about the war in Ukraine, but he would like to be of help.I said, before you help me, I want to end your war.So we had a good talk.I've known him a long time.I think he was ready to make a deal a while ago.I think some people made it difficult for him to make a deal.

But we talked more about Ukraine.

But which war do you think ends first?

That's an interesting question.You know, coming from you, that's very interesting.Which war would end first?I don't know.Maybe they're on a similar timetable.

So when you first hear that, you think, oh, Trump's very flattered because he likes the idea that he's a peaceman, he's going to win the Nobel Peace Prize, he's going to end more wars.But actually, the truth is that he hasn't ended the war in Ukraine, and that's now been going on more than four years.And if they're on the same timetable, then again, you'll start thinking, well, That means that the Iran war could last the same as the Ukraine war, which is not going to end any time soon.I mean, actually, it's even more depressing when you think that he could be in for the long haul on Iran too.There is a common thread.

In what he said there between the iran war and the ukraine war, you know when he said the problem is That for vladimir putin and he wants to make a deal he wants to make but there are some people who are just blocking it Yeah, those bastard ukrainians who keep on fighting and resisting and refusing to surrender And the same problem is there in iran those bastard iranians just won't surrender and roll over and accept They keep fighting back and it's this kind of total lack of awareness on his part that you know what countries under threat to try and fight quite hard to defend themselves and don't play by Donald Trump's own imagined rules in that fantasy land inside his head.

all ongoing, as we say, worsening.But the actual military side of things, Trump has basically, at least for now, given up.And he's tweeting out all of these threats, you know, no more Mr. Ice Guy and all of that.But you get the sense the Department of Defense, Department of War and the federal government and Trump's administration is now slightly at a loss as to know what to do, whether to pick up the fight and resume the fight or just continue deferring or postponing.Because simply at this point now, The plan did not go as it was supposed to.Militarily, they're confused and bewildered as to what they could even do next, because clearly, you know, despite everything they've thrown at Iran, it has not succeeded in achieving its objectives.

And you just get the sense of complete confusion and bewilderment as to what the next move should be.

Well, they keep saying we've won militarily.Well, you've won militarily, but you've just lost economically.And you've agreed to ceasefire.And you've agreed a ceasefire in return for what exactly?

Nothing.It's a really interesting war in that sense.I mean, I would always take an economic cost, frankly, to, you know, more human deaths, right?So on the one hand, I'm sort of relieved that we're not, you know, we're not pushing further kind of, you know, aren't you going to get your boots on the ground?All that stuff has stopped, right?They're not going to get boots on the ground.

I don't know what happened to those marines.It being extraordinary.So I would say this is the best kind of stalemate.But having said that, It doesn't need to be happening at all.I mean, nothing that they were going to achieve is going to be achieved now.So all we're talking about is damage limitation, which is vast.

And this can't go on and on.

And yet that is exactly what it seems is going to happen.Back to Tolstoy.

You better give him a ring.

Yeah, I'm going to.Leo, it's John here.He's no war and no peace.I reckon if you rang up a publisher, they'd take it.From you.We'll be back in just a moment.

medal for you that you can wear everywhere you want to go right now okay let me hold ah fantastic excellent it was a beautiful medal handed to Donald Trump last December by FIFA president Gianni Infantino and Trump looked delighted he hasn't won a peace prize but he has got something from the football guy he's won the FIFA peace prize

Don't belittle him.He's won the first ever FIFA Peace Prize.And look, the World Cup is just over a month away and invariably, in advance of these huge international tournaments, there are the odd glitches and things that are going wrong.But what's happening in America right now is It talks to FIFA.It talks to America.And it's a pretty unhappy combination.

I mean, just as kind of the one example that stands out about the way that fans are going to be ripped off is that this normally $12 train fare return from Penn Station in New York to the MetLife Stadium in New Jersey is now going to cost $150 or $160 during the World Cup.Instead of $12.It's about 20 miles.And that applies to kids and seniors alike.They're all going to have to pay $160 just to get out to a stadium.And there are complex reasons for it.

But the fans are going to be absolutely royally screwed by this World Cup.And then you've got the whole issue of certain nations, not whose fans won't be able to get there.You've got the issue of whether people want to get there.You're not allowed to get there, banned from getting there.And who can possibly afford to go to a World Cup in the way that people have done at previous World Cups, where it hasn't been that prohibitive, but the costs are astronomical.

Well, we're going to speak now to our old friend, Adam Crofton, newly award -winning Adam Crofton.Well done, Adam.And just tell us if it feels as weird from where you're sitting as it does to the stories we're getting here.

Well, it's a World Cup, so it's always rocky in the preparation.We should, you know, we should say that, first of all, you know, previous ones, Qatar, Russia.But this has been a pretty extraordinary kind of runway to the World Cup.You know, it kind of started with most famously the Trump Peace Prize in December given by the FIFA president.And then, you know, since then, there's just been this series of issues, whether it's around the cost and the prices of the World Cup, of course, Iran's involvement or potential non -involvement in the World Cup.the issues of Mexican cartels earlier in the year as well.

It really has just felt like one thing after another, one news story after another, like to the extent where, you know, if you're a reporter just trying to sort of get on with a long -term feature ahead of this World Cup, it's just been impossible because every single day there is new stuff breaking on it.

You mentioned the Trump Peace Prize last December, a moment of TV gold for many of us.Trump awarded with this gold statue by FIFA's Gianni Infantino for reasons I think none of us entirely understand but whether that moment forged something between the two of them is a kind of live question now because we're reading that Infantino himself has asked for Pope level protection, a motorcade during the World Cup in those Vancouver football matches.And Vancouver have said, oh, no way.What is all that about?

Well, it's really interesting because when FIFA travel, I mean, so this is kind of blown up around FIFA's annual congress this year in Vancouver, which has been taking place this week.And when FIFA travel to these events, they really do like take cities over.I mean, I was in the one in Asuncion in Paraguay last year, and it was like Asuncion became a militarized city.for the kind of 48, 72 hours that FIFA were in town, there was just police, state police absolutely everywhere.And I think FIFA has sort of become quite used to this.Now, FIFA have denied this week that they made this request or that Infantino was involved in this request.

But these kind of police escorts, I mean, it was kind of compared by the Vancouver police to like a Pope level or head of state level police motorcade escort where you're allowed to go through red lights and all of that kind of thing.And they basically said we don't think this is necessary based on our security assessment or a good use of taxpayer money.But it is written into a lot of the host city contracts during the World Cup that FIFA VIPs, FIFA president will be given police escorts.I'm not sure it will be on the level of heads of state, but that is the treatment that, you know, FIFA have become very used to.

that this is all spiralling out of control about FIFA imagining itself to be this kind of supranational body that is above any nation state, that you can charge whatever you like for tickets, that you can make whatever amounts of money that are available.And it's just seemed, I think for the ordinary football fan, it just seems increasingly obscene.

Yeah, and it's felt that way.You know, I must say, the The issue of pricing is interesting because the FIFA argument is that they are in North America, which is the most expensive sports economy in the world, where what they're using is this very controversial dynamic pricing, which is, you know, to be fair, what we often see in kind of machine ways through airlines and concerts andforms of tickets particularly in America and US sports tickets are expensive.Now there is expensive and then there is what FIFA have been charging for these World Cup games where you know pretty run -of -the -mill group stage games have been you know $500 to $700 in some cases as the kind of starting price and then it's becoming dynamic based on the level of interest and you know look I think I was sent some tip some of kind of their current ticket sales for their games in Los Angeles earlier this month and you know some of their games are selling pretty well.Games like the Iran games in Los Angeles where there was a huge Iranian diaspora was already tracking at over 50 ,000 tickets sold for a 70 ,000 ticket stadium and that may not have included hospitality as well.So some of those games, despite the prices, are doing really well.

Others interestingly including the U .S.men's national team opening game against Paraguay where even like the lower price tickets are over a thousand dollars which just It's just mind boggling.We're only around 40 ,000.So that shows that, you know, they may have to drop these prices at a certain point.

I don't want to turn everything into politics.That's your job.Well, okay, that's a lie.And I do.But it is interesting that the Iran game is selling out.And obviously, there is this huge, as you said, diaspora community there.

But given that Trump was talking just last week, about dropping Iran, banning Iran and replacing Italy, who didn't actually make the the qualifying round through.It does seem as if there is, you know, people are sort of, you know, voting in this way by buying the tickets, right?

Yeah, and I think both FIFA and, I mean,FIFA would never admit to this, but also you know the people buying these tickets are kind of just taking the bet of Trump says a lot of stuff.And nobody ever really knows whether he's going to follow through on stuff that he says.I mean, sometimes, I mean, clearly in the case of Iran, there's been times where he's absolutely followed through.

But he's not going to ban the Iran team now, is he?I mean, he's not.

No, I mean, you'd be you'd be very, very surprised.But there's been some very uncertain moments within that, you know, that they I mean Infantino went to see him at the White House, this must have been maybe six weeks ago, and comes out about midnight, and Infantino puts on Instagram, because that's how most of FIFA's communication now works, it doesn't work through sort of official FIFA releases, it just comes on Infantino's Instagram, and basically says, you know, he's spoken to Trump, and of course Iran will be welcome, and of course Iran won't have a problem.And then I think the next day, Trump was sort of posting about, you know, he wouldn't care whether Iran come or not.So it was very embarrassing for Infantino that, you know, he would go to the White House, appear to get these assurances, then Trump the next day would appear to sort of call that into question in some respect.But at this stage, it doesn't feel more than that.You know, there's been no material moment where you know the US government has said the Iran national team can't come or won't come but there is question about whether some of the federation officials who have alleged ties to the IOTC will be allowed.

Right.And Adam, you mentioned dynamic pricing, which we get in terms of ticket sales, and they want to see the top price they can go for.But this is starting to feel like a racket in so many other departments, whether it's the trains, whether it's the tickets for public transport, whether it's the way they're charging, I don't know.parking or hotels.These are all the sort of questions of infrastructure, which in a normal World Cup are meant to enable more people to get to these games more easily.And in sort of Trump's America, it feels like there is just an extra price on absolutely everything.

No, definitely.I mean, just talk through some of the train crisis.the usual train which would take you from New York Penn Station in Manhattan to MetLife Stadium in New Jersey, which is about an 18 mile journey, it's normally a $12 .90 return.For the special event train, if you are going to the World Cup games, it was announced a couple of weeks ago, that's going to be $150.So that gives an idea of the markup that's being made.Now, I actually don't think this is all about being in kind of Trump's America in this case.

I think part of what's going on here is that FIFA's model is that they take their tournament into countries and FIFA take all of the revenue from ticketing, sponsorship, broadcast, even the parking fees, FIFA charging like $250 in some cases to park your car, they take all of these revenues While the cities are expected to pay all the public transportation costs, the increased security costs, and the security costs for FIFA events are kind of off the scale, particularly when you get into what America charges for policing in any case.And a lot of these burdens are falling on the cities.And these cities, you know, when the bids were made seven or eight years ago, were talking about economic impact.You know, and they were projecting, you know, huge, huge, huge uplift in economic impact.However, as is so often the case as you get closer to these mega sports.events, the cities aren't really seeing that uplift in the way that was projected.

And what you're now seeing is they're attempting to claw back some of these costs by transferring it on to World Cup visitors rather than their own taxpayers.Which is an interesting debate because it's, you know, should I guess what you could argue is should the average low -income person who is going to work from Manhattan to New Jersey have to have to take on that cost over a period of time or should it fall to somebody who is probably an affluent World Cup visitor?That's the argument they're making.The counter argument is don't bid for something you can't afford in the first place.

Look, Adam, we spoke to you when the Qatar World Cup was going on and the problems there were around that and the ideological objections about Qatar hosting the World Cup.We've got it happening in America now.Do you think the fans are going to turn up?Because the fans turned up in Qatar and it was, broadly speaking, a pretty well run World Cup and there were all these facilities that were laid on without the price gouging that went with it.I mean, I just look at the sheer cost of it.If you were an England fan and you think you're going to get through the group stages and then you're going to get to the knockout stages and, you know, please God, you get to the World Cup final.

If you went to every match, you would have to be a very, very wealthy person to pay for that.

Yeah I mean we're already seeing the stories about you know people remortgaging houses and selling houses and things like that I mean but that's no with all due respect most normal nobody normal does that you know to go to a football match.It was always going to be a really hard World Cup for fans to attend in the sense of it's three countries so you know so it's already really vast you know if you're trying tofollow England, you're going from Dallas to Boston, to New York, possibly to Mexico.There's Atlanta and Dallas again for semifinals.You are always going to have to be pretty affluent to do this.But the level of the ticket pricing now combined with hotel prices, which started off just astronomically when the draw was made in December.

I mean, there was like, we did an assessment that showed across the 16 cities across North America I think the hotel prices were like 350 to 400 percent up which just gives you a sense of it.So you do have to be extremely wealthy and that is having an impact now on host cities you know who as I said were looking for this economic impact and I think a lot of them are now coming to terms with this will largely be a domestically attended World Cup which will mean that the stadiums are pretty well sold because America is huge and there's And there's a lot of people in the three countries that will go to these games, but you won't have that impact of people staying in the hotels and going to museums and spending money in the way that a tourist would, which was the original point of it and is meant to be the point of a World Cup.That's what it increasingly feels like.And even then, it's a World Cup for a pretty small percentage of Americans who can actually afford it.

Yeah.Adam, you started this whole chat by saying It's kind of always the way and certainly we feel like we've been here before.You know, what are we doing with Russia?The controversy around that.What is the World Cup doing in Qatar?The controversy around that.

And at the end of the World Cup, all anyone remembered was that brilliant Argentina victory and the football kind of won out.I mean, do you think do you think this is just part of the course that we always think it's going to be a shit show and then the football sort of, you know, becomes the thing that that's lost in the memory?

I was speaking to someone who works at FIFAcouple of weeks ago and they basically said even we can't mess up taking the best football players in the world to the biggest economy in the world and not having everyone at the end of it saying what a great football tournament.And that's kind of the reality of what tends to happen by the end of it.You know, once you're a couple of weeks in and you've got the best players in the world in incredibly high jeopardy games that they only play in every four years.I mean, we could have a quarterfinal in Kansas City of Portugal against Argentina.It'd be the first time Ronaldo and Messi have played against each other in what will be both of their last World Cups.

I mean, by that stage, that's what people are going to be talking about.However, you know, I think there are going to be, I think a lot of these stories are going to run and run during the World Cup.I mean, you know, there's still even issues around, you know, four of the countries who are competing, Senegal, Ivory Coast, Iran, Haiti, you know, their people are under travel bans.There's exemptions for the athletes but, you know, in some cases there's countries at their first World Cups or first World Cups for 50 years or whatever, and their fans can't travel to the get to the tournament which for FIFA it's it's completely unheard of and unprecedented, but the revenues that they are making for it.$11 billion in Fantino keeps coming out and saying, we're going to make and we're going to redistribute this to the world of football, which is their model that, you know, 90 % of it goes back.And then it just so happens that next year is FIFA election time.

So one member, one vote, all the federations get lots of money.So that makes them very, very happy with FIFA.And that's how they ride it out.

Yeah.And $11 billion is what, half an Iran war so far?Not quite half.

Adam, thank you so much.Thank you very much.

This episode of the podcast, we talked about what had happened at the White House Correspondents' Dinner and the attempted shooting that took place, how the guy was arrested.And then we look back over the years when there was the attempted assassination on Ronald Reagan.And there was a change in gun laws as a result of that in 1981.And we said, will anything happen now?And we said, not a chance.And I'm afraid to say, we were wrong.

I think something is happening.

Yeah, absolutely.There has now been an announcement that's going to be a big change from the acting Attorney General, Todd Blanche.They are going to repeal the rules of what the law actually allows by cutting unnecessary red tape.In his words, we're replacing confusion with clear, straightforward language so that everyday Americans don't need a law degree just to understand their rights.If you want to understand what that actually means, it is 34 new rules to make it easier.to own a gun.

Easier.Easier to own a gun.So the lesson from Washington is that you need to make it easier for people to have a gun.

Yes, it would mean that essentially all the questions around background checks, you know, the absolutely critical questions around who is allowed to own a gun have been getting in the way.Red tape.Bureaucracy.So thank God we'll clear off some of that.You don't need a law degree to own a gun.We'll cut out some of that.

34 new rules to make it easier.

I'm so happy for the gun manufacturers that they'll be able to sell more guns.I'm so happy for the gun shops that they'll be able to sell more guns.Happy days this year.good day for America.We'll see you tomorrow.Bye bye.

Bye for now.

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