Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 8/26/26: Iran and Oman Defy Trump, Lake America, China Says Screw You

Episode Date: August 26, 2026

Saagar and Ryan discuss Iran and Oman making a deal for full control of the Strait, Trump lashing out at Canada with his Lake America imagery, and China refusing to comply with Economic D Day.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed Human. The new Red Bull Dragonberry and Tropic Berry Energizers, now at McDonald's, made with freeze-dried fruit, and an electric burst of flavor. The all-new Red Bull Energizers, now at McDonald's. This product may not be right for you. High in caffeine, details of McDonald's.cai at participating Canadian restaurants, excluding Quebec. Hey, this is Hayes, Davenport, and Sean Clements.

We host the podcast, Hollywood Handbook. we talk to someone in show business and try to help them with their careers and see what they have to offer us. Everyone has a good time and no one gets mad at their publicists for letting them do our show. We've had a lot of great guests like Sarah Sherman, Adam Scott, Danny McBride, Ben Stillard, and a lot of other big shots that wouldn't be where they are without us. Listen to Hollywood Handbook on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Munga Shatigula and I'm back with a new season of my podcast, Skyline Drive. This time I talked to scientists, biopunks, kermudgeon, Blue Zone.

Super Seniors and Goa's top cryotherapy lab to try to understand this obsession with living forever and what it means for all of us. And I get into a bit of trouble along the way. I'd say probably start bone smashing. That doesn't work. To make it look more defined. They say it works. I don't know. Listen to Skyline Drive, How to Live Forever on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Hey guys, Saga and Crystal here. Independent Media just played a truly massive role in this election, and we are so excited. about what that means for the future of this show.

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Happy Wednesday. I missed you guys so much. Bro show, people live for the pound. Thank you for having me, Ryan. It is a Wednesday. It feels a little different. Welcome to counterpoints. I'm happy to be here.

I'm happy to be here. It was great to be in Maine. I did the Tucker Carlson show. I believe the episode will drop sometime next week so you guys can look forward to that. We are going to start with Iran and Iran and Oman. We've got a month free of counterpoints. Oh, wait. What do you mean?

And if you sign up for you, get breaking points. Oh, oh, I see. I forgot. I see, usually I set the show up and then we do the match. but if you guys want to go first. It's your show. You tell me what you want to do. Right in the pitch.

Okay, put the pitch up there on the screen. Ryan, you deliver it. You deliver it because people are sick of hearing it from me. Breaking Points.com. Yeah. Get the show for free for a month. Love it so much. You can't cancel it.

Right. Or you forget to cancel it. And then you're a premium member. And you get to ask Saga, any question you want. That's right. You get to ask us anything. I did. I watched a little bit of your guys AMA.

I really enjoyed it. So thank you for. Yeah, you don't want to miss out on those. No, they're great. They actually are genuinely fantastic. So with that, go ahead and sign up. All right, now what are we starting with? Iran.

We're going to start with Iran and Oman. They are now announcing a new deal to govern the Strait of Hormuz. This comes as Trump claims that all minds have been taken out of the straight. There's some interesting stuff going on with oil markets. In addition to a long, new reported piece from the Wall Street Journal about the warnings that Trump received in the situation room that basically laid out exactly. what was going to happen and he did it anyway. Also, some major egg on the face, not just for Pete Hegg said, who we always knew was an idiot, but for General Dan Kane, who really tried to

whitewash a lot of his reputation of the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of staff ahead of time, and this does show how much culpability he has in this disaster. We're going to talk about Canada. Trump is now saying he's going to rename Lake America, or sorry, Lake Ontario, Lake America as Canada has retaliated with a 50% new tariff. I'm going to show you some of the economic fallout from that situation. China is now hitting back at Scott Besson's threat of an economic deed. Man, this is one of those days. I was so bummed not to be on the show.

I mean, just to ridicule the, I mean, to imagine General Eisenhower being like, Germany, I'm going to invade you. I might, don't make me do it. Right. Don't make me invade. And then the press goes, but why don't you just do it? And he goes, well, why would I want to take casualties? Yeah, yeah, why would you?

All right. All right. Have you seen saving private riot? It's going to be awful. Anyway, Robert Pape, the professor, the great professor, is going to join us not to talk about Iran, but actually talk about South Korea, another area of expertise of his, as Donald Trump continues to marginalize and to isolate South Korea, as South Korean public opinion flips against the United States for the first time in its entire modern history. Also, pet story here, I hope we have time for it and we don't get lost in the sauce influencers. I'm obsessed with this story. There's this woman who is on Twitter.

Her name is Data Republican. She's like, you know, major Trump, I guess, influencer. She's like a not as smart Nick Shirley. Right, right, yeah, which is saying something in terms of spelling. Anyway, so she has been out posted for years, you know, behind her moniker, has revealing fraud and all this other stuff also happens to be pro-Zionist. Well, it turns out not only she screw up a monumental story, which they tried to hand. her leak, but through the revelation, she is a working as an employee for the Pentagon. And so, I mean, can you imagine like some anonymous leftist influencer with a million followers

who under Biden, who it turns out is literally working for the government? Bunkers. Absolutely crazy. Finally, Dan Osborne is going to join us, the candidate in Nebraska to talk about this beef situation. There's a very sketchy announcement where Donald Trump said we're going to import millions of pounds of beef, and then these beef producers have agreed to sell at 25% below market price. Nobody knows where the beef is coming from. He literally won't say they're covering it up.

The ranchers are losing their minds. Ranchers and Midwestern senators, GOP, people are losing it. All of these people are getting destroyed by two separate things. The price of diesel and fertilizer on top of the tariffs. So they are getting absolutely nuked on the bottom line and to have the government basically bring in a bunch of foreign beef undercut the entire market. I mean, this could literally be the death now of the ranching industry. So that's all of it. Finally, we did our pitch already.

It's not enough to do it. If you're watching this on YouTube, please hit subscribe to our YouTube channel. If you're listening to this podcast, please share an episode with a friend. All right, let's go ahead and start with Iran, as you said, A1. Let's put it up here on the screen. This was by far the biggest news that came out yesterday. So on the left, this is from the foreign minister of Oman. Here he says, constructive dialogue in Tehran with my colleague, Dr. Arachi.

I am hopeful we will soon announce a temporary corridor for the Strait of Hormuz and practical arrangements to restore safe navigation. Future management of the Strait and a permanent solution will follow in due course as per Article 5 of the Islamabad memorandum. Discussions with regional partners will be conducted in support of peace, cooperation, stability, and freedom of navigation. But in the joint statement that they put out, let's look at this very carefully. The proposed framework, this is a translation from Farsi, includes creating a temporary joint operation through the Strait of Hermuz for the purpose of implementing a joint corridor through the Strait with the goal of managing a single corridor for the permanent and future management of the Strait, as well as providing mechanisms for

information exchange, traffic management, and security-related services. In other words, this is a single, Corridor through the Strait of Hormuz, guaranteed by Iran and Oman. It has nothing to do with the United States. The United States had nothing to do with brokering this agreement. This agreement, as you can read between the lines, will include management fees and environmental fees, security-related expenses, perhaps, in which Iran would be able to charge some sort of a toll.

It comes immediately after this new announcement from Donald Trump. Let's put it up here on the screen. He claims, quote, I have just been informed by... by the United States Navy. All mines have been removed and or detonated from within the international waters of the strait. Iran has been notified. Any ship or boat placing new mines

will be immediately and systematically destroyed. Through space force, we are watching every square inch of the strait, as we are also with Pickax Mountain and the already destroyed three other nuclear sites. There is a zero tolerance policy on mine placement in full force and effect. Thank you for your attention to this matter. It will shock you, absolutely shock you to learn.

No independent analysis has been able to be able. to confirm, Ryan, that all the minds have been removed through the straight. Basically, it's a battle of propaganda over who controls the actual straightforward moves. Yeah, and this comes after the Trump administration said that if Oman cooperates with Iran, he will, quote, bomb the hell out of them. No, bomb the shit out of them. Oh, sorry. My fault.

These are actually important distinctions. Yes. Umans, what Oman is signaling here is that they understand who's a more important player in the region. and who's going to be there longer. Spoiler, it's the country that has been there for thousands of years. That it's going to continue to be there surrounded by mountains. And while it is the one on the other side of the ocean that has 15 of its bases in ashes, that is less likely to be there for that long.

So Oman is like, you're really going to bomb the shit out of us? I'm not so sure about that. This also comes, interestingly, think about this. We spent Monday and Tuesday talking about how. Scott Besson is planning to launch D-Day. Yes. On any country that does any business whatsoever with Iran. Oman, our ally, responds by jointly releasing a plan to reopen the straight together with Iran.

Right. It's like people are watching Scott Besson in amusement and a little bit of kind of concern and horror. Like, what, and is he okay? Like that's the kind of, I think, the driving concern when people are watching Besson at that press conference. Like, what's like, I don't, is he going to survive this just physically? And then they're like, okay, anyway, back to the business of negotiating with Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. Meanwhile, so they're going to let oil flow through the Strait of Hormuz. They've said they're not interested in nuclear weapon.

We'll end the program. Like they've said that for days, for months, for weeks, for years. So everything that we could ask for except the fact that it's embarrassing because they and Oman will collectively run it. Meanwhile, the U.S. seems to think that they have some time on their hand. We can put up A3. This is oil analyst Roy Johnson analyzing some of the new information coming out, showing that directionally, the U.S. claims that there's a little bit more oil coming through. It seems true. Straight-up from Muz.

The absolute number that they're claiming is a bit preposterous, Right. But directionally, as Johnson is saying here, it's in that right direction. The problem is the Red Sea has collapsed because the Houthis have effectively shut down, particularly Saudi ships. And in the beginning of this, you know, several months of this war, the Saudis were able to move a lot through the pipeline and through the Red Sea and through the Western Coast. And that was keeping things. Right. And actually just to understand. Your point, put A4 up here on the screen to show the damage that they're continuing to take in the red sea. This happened yesterday. So there was a direct hit at sea, a projectile that was fired from more than 1,000 kilometers away.

As you can see, the Yemenis, as this OScent account is saying, are improving their skills. I mean, this takes serious effort. It's a moving ship. Right. It's a moving target. It's 1,000 kilometer shot. The amount of GP at navigation, technology involved. Remember, you have the full force of the empire against you.

You've been bombed. You've been bombed by the Saudis. You've been taking hits in caves for the last 10 years. You've proven that you've been able to clip an F-35 to survive the onslaught of the Biden administration, of the Trump administration, of the Saudi regime. And on top of that, you're still able to hit a direct target, a thousand kilometers away and to menace the global oil market. So I'm curious for your reaction. Me reading this, this makes the situation 10 times more dangerous. Because what is Iran seeing? As Rory has shown, through his independent analysis, golf loadings are now roughly 7 to 10 million barrels per day. That is 50% of pre-Hormuz or pre-Iran war Hormuz traffic. They're learning.

Predominantly the way – and even though it's not just about oil, this is what I also want to emphasize, the way they're doing it is still really expensive. They're called ship-to-ship transfers where they load it up onto one ship. And then they take little ship and put it in a little ship. on another ship and then they run the blockade. It's kind of like Confederate blockade runners on these tiny little ships. And then they get to the big ship, which is raiding outside the straight. And then they put the oil back on this. Super expensive. It's all uninsured, too, completely uninsured. It's backed by the Gulf nations, which are paying for all of this.

So it's 10 times more expensive to do business this way than normal. But some oil is beginning to leak out just because the price is so damn high, especially with diesel. So there is an economic incentive for this to continue. As the United States and the Gulf allies are able to prove that they are able to get some oil out of the strait, and if Iran and Oman are going to say, hey, we manage the strait, in my opinion, this escalates the situation to a dire consequence for Tehran, because Tehran is in a situation now where they're beginning to feel the economic blockade. Yesterday, the Financial Times, which has a actual correspondent in Tehran, is saying that there are lines, cues to get petrol, gasoline,

that there's beginning to be significant amounts of rationing throughout the state. They can only sit there and take this for so long. And they still have the ability to horizontally escalate. I was reading this morning, Qatar's LNG has down 96% in the last six months, $24 billion in revenue that they have had to give up. What's worse for them is that the United States is the one that's backfilling all of this LNG. I also read this morning that European gags. I also read this morning that European gas inventory is very, very low. So the amount that we're all going to be paying for electricity this winter, it's not going to be good. So all of this right now is in a situation where you're Iran, you're being slowly suffocated to death. You have the ability to lash out. I've talked

about the Germans in 1916, unrestricted submarine warfare. They didn't want to press the button, but ultimately they felt like they had to. They said, we're going to die. We're going to be strangled, literally. So what do you do? You use the last thing in your arsenal. And Iran still has that ability. That's why I think that as we see more oil begin to flow through the straight, it makes escalation more likely on their part because it's the only thing they have left in their quiver. Yeah, I'm glad you picked up on that because that seems to be the piece that both U.S. policymakers and also the American media seems to be missing that and also some kind of Iranian, I don't know, I don't want to call them supporters or whatever, like they're missing the fact that Iran has been able to,

you know, basically annihilate all the American bases. They've been able to withstand the punishment, the punishing attack from the U.S. They've been able to inflict real damage, not just militarily on the U.S., but also economically. But those things by themselves, to your point, are not enough to, quote-unquote, win the war. Like, you can't force the president to abide by the MOU. You were able to pressure him into an MOU, but then as he was feeling shame or whatever, he felt comfortable walking away from it. And to your point, yes, Iran probably doesn't have years of this. Now, does the U.S. have years of it? Politically speaking, can we keep that going?

Who knows? The point is, Iran does. have the capacity to escalate this. And Iran has kept signaling over the past couple weeks. They keep saying, we are still at war. We do not have a ceasefire with the United States. We consider this blockade and this D-Day from Besson. We consider these to be acts of war. And we reserve the right to respond violently. And I think that's the real question. Do they do they do that? And have we, through our many decapitations, put enough hardliners in place that the ones arguing for that are going to do it? And if they do it, what does that look like? More

attacks on American bases, attacks on Gulf infrastructure, or attacks on Israel? Like, we don't, we don't know exactly, or do they start hitting some of these shuttle boats and shut down the shuttle trade? We don't know, but you're right that the pressure is on them. Yes. The ball's in their court. Obviously, the more that there's no major munitions flying, it's actually on the side of the United States, because we're not expending our munitions. We're sitting there. We're marshalling this international coalition. The Gulf guys, they desperately want their oil out of there. They need to make money. And so for them, like, they're basically the gamble that they're making is that they're just going to sit there and they're going to take it. And I mean, no country on Earth is just going to sit there and take it. By the way, meanwhile, in terms of the messaging that's going out, we just wanted to give you a taste of potential. our next White House press secretary, Scott Jennings, talking about how all of the shows we won the war. Let's take a listen. And I believe this announcement may confirm something that many in our political class refuse to acknowledge. The United States has won the war against Iran. Wars are won when one side achieves its strategic objectives and the other loses the ability

to achieve its own. Iran entered this war with four great pillars of strength. It's nuclear program, its missiles and drones, its regional terror network, and its ability to hold the world economy hostage through the Strait of Hormuz. Every one of those pillars has been severely damaged or outright destroyed. Severely damaged or outright destroyed, as we just did, an entire segment about how even our victory, six months into the war, is that the Gulf Arab allies driven by desperation to fund their countries are able to get. at roughly 40 to 50% of their oil traffic out of the straight. Yeah, does it look like victory to me? The new Red Bull Dragonberry and Tropicberry Energizers now at McDonald's, made with

freeze-dried fruit and an electric burst of flavor. The all-new Red Bull Energizers, now at McDonald's. This product may not be right for you. High in caffeine, details of McDonald's.cai at participating Canadian restaurants excluding Quebec. Hey, this is Hayes, Davenport. And Sean Clements. host the podcast Hollywood Handbook on the Big Money Players Network. Our show is extremely accessible to first time listeners. Each week we talk to someone in show business, aka the biz, and try to help them with their careers and see what they have to offer us. Everyone has a good time and no one gets mad at their publicists for letting them do our show.

We've had a lot of great guests like Sarah Sherman. Can you help me shape this? How about we flip it on his head, right? How about we flip this around? What is the surprise woman? Actually, you think it's the straight man is actually the one who's acting weird. Adam Scott, this entire time you've been expecting Adam Sandler to come to visit the show. I would never expect.

I would never set expectations for something like that to happen. If the universe allows for something like that to happen, I'm open to it. I'm always going to accept. You know, Danny McBride, fine. Yeah, it's all this fragile masculinity exuding. I could smell it walking down the hallway, to be honest with you. I was like, I was like, is that weed? Nope, it's fragile masculinity.

Ben Stiller, no. Because a lot of times, out of context, people don't get it or even know what a circle is. You know what I mean? They're like, oh, they're like, oh, what's a state. Everyone's so dumb. And fake. Right, fake and also not interested. or just like, oh, I've got my life, I don't care about your life.

And a lot of other big shots that wouldn't be where they are without us. Oh, and by the way, Will Ferrell told us personally he loves the show and he wants to be a guest on every episode, but he's just so busy. Listen to Hollywood Handbook on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Munga shit together and I'm back with a new season of the podcast Skyline Drive. This time I'm diving into a rabbit hole of peptides, organoids, blood boys, blue zones, and brain replacement. to try to understand what this longevity obsession is all about

and what it really means to live forever for all of us. I learned about some rad science. I can make a brain for you, and then we can test what draw is the best for your brain, as opposed to his brain. Here are some hard truths. I would expect Indians to age faster, but I did not expect it to be almost a four to five year.

acceleration. And get myself into a world of trouble. I'd say probably start bone smashing. That doesn't work. To make it look more defined. They say it works. I don't know. Listen to Skyline Drive, How to Live Forever on the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Which leads us to our next part. Let's put this one up here on the screen. This is from the Wall Street Journal, one of the longer retrospectives that they're doing.

The warnings that came before a war now reaching. the six-month mark, and I believe we will hit that mark two days from now on Friday. February 28 is when the entire thing kicked off. Here's what they say. Days before going to war with Iran in February, President Trump summoned his intelligence chief to the Oval Office to ask whether a full-on assault was a good idea. Iran was at its weakest point in decades. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had told him, providing Trump the rare opportunity

to dismantle the nuclear program and thus bolster his legacy as a peace. maker. Then director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, outlined assessments from America's intelligence apparatus. She told Trump, quote, killing Iran's supreme leader would usher in a more hardline regime open to acquiring nuclear weapons, true. Tehran would rush to close the strait of Hormuz, true, destabilizing the global energy market, true, and it would force U.S. forces and partners, strike U.S. forces and partners in the Middle East, prompting questions about American resolve and reliability with allies. True. The notes of caution echoed warnings Trump was receiving from all corners. Trump top military officials had told the president a war would

lead to casualties and major concerns about weapons stockpiles and readiness problems for an overstretched force. And then Trump decided to order that attack on February 28th. What's even more interesting, actually, here, are what they talk about with General Kane. And so this is where I want to reserve my most smoke for. Good. Okay, all of the Hegs, you know, Tulsi, all right, I mean, you did your job. I see Reed's Dropside News. Right, yeah.

Watches this show. Yeah, watches, maybe. I mean, who even knows. But, okay, you did your job. You spoke truth to power. You didn't do shit else about it, and you left and still apparently had good terms. So whatever. JD, allegedly in the situation room, was the only person who said, I really don't think you should do this.

But if you do, I guess I have to back you. Those are the only two people who actually said anything even remotely against it. Tucker Carlson, again, was in the Oval and he was like, I really don't think you should do this. And Trump said, what did he say? He said, it always works out. Why do you think it's going to work out? Because it always does. It always does.

Okay. So, but here's what General Kane, and the reason, again, I'm going to reserve all my smoke for General Kane, Heg said, all these other people, they're all, ultimately they're in politics. Kane, by acts of Congress, his only job, he doesn't actually command any forces. His only job is to provide unbiased military opinion to the president of the United States. That is literally his constitutionally mandated role as described by Congress. Here's what they say. General Kane and Admiral Cooper had briefed the president several times on plans to strike targets, etc. However, despite the warnings, Hegset and Kane replied on multiple occasions they would navigate any complications and that they would be able to.

to deliver the victory that Trump had promised. And so, again, it's one thing for the sectef to say it. We all know he's an idiot. Sure. But Kane backing up the Secretary of Defense, not providing unbiased information. And remember, too, there was all kinds of a sciop that was happening in the immediate days of the war. They're like, oh, Kane told him not to do it. No, he didn't.

And actually, I even reported some of that at the time. I said, no, he didn't. He was very muted in what he said. And now what they're even saying, is that in reality, what he really did is that he provided a lot of the cover to Secretary Hague's and to Donald Trump's mind as to why actually it was all going to work out. Okay. So if you want to say, you know, for recriminations, when the time comes,

Kane needs to be up there very, very high on the list. I mean, he needs to go up there in infamy with General Taylor from Vietnam, with any of the other, you know, genuinely like any of the chairmen's of the Joint Chiefs, ironically enough, H.R. McMaster, who was Trump's National Security Advisor, first term, wrote a whole book about it, which is actually quite good about how the entire chairman staff failed Johnson on Vietnam and never told him any of the truth. And Kane, who I know has read the book because it's like required reading in military cycles, comes out and repeats the entire thing. A total sycophant. And the one regret I have about the fact that that we never got the kind of parade of lies to push us into the war that we got with Iraq is that because of that we don't have, many or almost any public records from these people of where they stood before the war. Like with Wolfowitz, for instance, we know that he said it would be a cakewalk.

Right. Because he said it in front of Congress with the cameras rolling. So that gets to live in infamy. And it bought us this 20 years of being like, well, let's not start any new wars. It didn't end the forever wars, but at least it took until Trump to like start another giant war. We don't have any clips of Kane talking publicly. All we have is reporting from the Times, reporting from the journal.

You're reporting that, and his own spin at the time of saying, no, no, I was, I said a lot about, you know, the material limitations of our capacity at the moment and that, you know, Trump should be concerned. That was the thing that Kane's people were trying to spin in the media that, no, he said, we've got to be careful about our stocks and munitions. It's, you know, we're not sure that we really have everything in the barrel that we're going to need to do this. When behind closed doors, talking to this guy who was, you know, really itching to do this, he's saying, we got you boss. Don't worry about the naysayers.

These same naysayers who told you that you couldn't swoop in and grab Maduro and his wife in the middle of the night and you went in, did it, sir. you know, we are going to make sure that, okay, yeah, maybe what Netanyahu's saying is a little bit over the top, but, you know, and certainly there are going to be some problems, but we got this. It's the greatest military in the world, sir. Exactly. And, you know, at the same time, just to show you kind of where things are, let's put the next one up here on the screen. It appears now that the U.S. State Department is basically offering $10 million, this is very war on terror-esque, offering $10 million bounties for information. on key IRGC leaders, including the new Supreme Leader. And so they basically have a list here of all of the top leaders from the IRGC and of Iran saying, hey, anybody will pay you $10 million to give us information. The reason why I'm putting these two things together is they are now offering $10 million

of bounty for information, obviously for potential assassination purposes, because all of these people are now in power because of the operation. It fulfills the exact promise or the exact prediction that was made apparently by the U.S. intelligence community. You and I have a lot of smoke for the intelligence community, but even they apparently were like, wow, the Israelis are just blanked liars whenever it comes to their prescriptions about how this entire thing is going to go. And we cover the day to day over and over again. But how we got here is vitally important because every single one of these people is still in power. Tulsi aside, I mean, the new DNI is equally as much of an idiot. Sycophant. General Kane is still running the war. Secretary Hegset is still running the war.

I mean, all of these people, they're horrible judgment. And if anything, as we've seen many times in history, they only have even more of an incentive to double down on their previously bad advice to cover up how much of a disaster it's been. Yeah, and five of these 14, we don't even have photos in the pictures. It's like what an incredible collapse of our intelligence and our ability to have any eyes on the ground inside of Iran, a country of 90 million people with like

six to seven major ethnicities which makes it much more able to be penetrated where the Israelis are everywhere. Like they're not sharing the Facebook photos that they have of these guys. And of the 14, they're like a bunch of gray-bearded bureaucrats. You think they don't have gray-bearded bureaucrats who can take their place if we go in and assassinate them?

Like, we're going to assassinate Mojitaba come in here? Yeah, well, no, apparently, the new cope is that he's actually dead. Well, whether he's dead or not, the people who are running the country in his name, they seem to have a hell of a better idea on how to do it than his father did.

Or if anything, him being dead or brain dead is probably the best case scenario for all of it, just be a convenient figurehead and they can run the country in his name. Likely, almost certainly, to continue now for many, many years. Okay, let's get to... The next 200 years. He certainly will.

All right, let's get to Canada. The new Red Bull Dragonberry and Tropic Berry Energizers, now at McDonald's, made with freeze-dried fruit, and an electric burst of flavor. The all-new Red Bull Energizers, now at McDonald's. This product may not be right for you. High in caffeine, details at McDonald's.com. At participating Canadian restaurants, excluding Quebec.

Hey, this is Hayes, Davenport. And Sean Clements. We host the podcast, Hollywood Handbook on the Big Money Players Network. Our show is extremely accessible to first-time listeners. Each week, we talk to someone in show business, aka The Biz, and try to help them with their careers and see what they have to offer us. Everyone has a good time, and no one gets mad at their publicists for letting them do our show. We've had a lot of great guests like Sarah Sherman, not that great.

Actually, can you help me shape this? How about we flip it on his head, right? How about we flip this script? What is the surprise woman? But actually you think is the straight man is actually the one who's acting weird. Adam Scott, this entire time you've been expecting Adam Sandler to come to visit the show. I would never expect. I would never set expectations for something like that to happen.

If the universe allows for something like that to happen, I'm open to it. I'm always going to accept. You know, Danny McBride, fine. Yeah, it's all this fragile masculinity exuding. I could smell it walking down the hallway, to be honest with you. I was like, is that weed? Nope, it's fragile masculinity. Ben Stiller, no.

Because a lot of times out of context, people don't get it or even know what a circle is. You know what I mean? They're like, oh, what's a state. Everyone's so dumb except for you. And fake. Right, fake and also not interested or just like, oh, I've got my life. I don't care about your life. and a lot of other big shots that wouldn't be where they are without us.

Oh, and by the way, Will Ferrell told us personally he loves the show and he wants to be a guest on every episode, but he's just so busy. Listen to Hollywood Handbook on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Mungisha together and I'm back with a new season of the podcast Skyline Drive. This time I'm diving into a rabbit hole of peptides, organoids, blood boys, blue zones, and brain replacement to try to understand what this longevity obsession is all about. and what it really means to live forever for all of us. I learned about some rad science.

I can make a brain for you, and then we can test what draw is the best for your brain, as opposed to his brain. Here are some hard truths. I would expect Indians to age faster, but I did not expect it to be almost a four-to-five-year acceleration. And get myself into a world of trouble. I'd say probably start bone smashing.

That doesn't work. To make it look more defined. They say it works. I don't know. Listen to Skyline Drive, How to Live Forever on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. President Donald Trump has come back with the ultimate rebuttal in his trade war with Canada.

He's going to rename Lake Ontario, Lake America lookout. In any event, here we have the Canadian Minister of Finance, I love this, Francois-Philippe Champagne, with what the Canadian response to the U.S. trade war is going to be. On August 22nd, the United States of America imposed tariffs on 50% on approximately $28 billion in Canadian goods. Those tariffs will have real consequences for Canadian workers,

businesses, and communities across our nation. Canada must respond, and today we are in a proportionate, targeted, and strategic way. Today I am announcing that Canada will match the United States tariffs dollar for dollar rate for rate. Effective September 8, Canada will impose counter tariffs of up to 15, 25 or 50% on 27.6 billion in imports from the United States. United States of America. For each product, our tariff would match the American tariff on the same type of Canadian good. And the Canadians said that they're trying to target with precision states that voted for Trump. And so if you live in one of those states, they're going after particular products made in those states because they know they don't have the capacity to kind of break

the back or break the economy of the entire United States because they're not big enough, but they can make things very difficult for particular towns and cities in states that voted for Trump. Trump however has got your back and here's how he's going to do it. Put up B1 here. Donald Trump on Truth Social

the United States is giving serious consideration to changing the name of Lake Ontario to Lake America in that we don't expect to be doing much business with Ontario any longer. Thank you for your attention to this matter, President Donald J. Trump. And of course, he also posts

a little image, a little AI rendition where he exes out Lake Ontario and replaces it with Lake America. Now, with B3, we can roll through some of the specifics here. So Canada is talking about, so Trump is saying that he was going to move tariffs on Canadian vehicles up to 50%. So Canada has come back and saying, okay, well, then we're going to. We're going to push tariffs on Canadian vehicles back up to 50%. It's kind of a crisis situation where you have the auto workers in both states, and the United Auto Workers represent auto workers in Canada and the U.S., and you have the auto executives begging him not to do this.

So the industry that he's fighting for is pleading with him not to do this. he's saying he's going to do it anyway before Honda which I think like what five of their five of the American made five of the top ten like vehicles it's one of the top sellers

to the United States yeah and made in the United States too and made in North America many of them are made in America they invested very heavily in creating supply chains and factories in the U.S. and Canada not out of the goodness of their heart

no way because we force them to do so force them to do it. And so they're saying we might have to raise prices because their supply chains run back and forth but across the border. Right. I can explain this actually. It's, it's, this is part of the, first of all, I just want to say at the top. Like, obviously, and this is, look, Canadians, you're going to get mad, but it is actually true. NAFTA was a disaster for us. It wasn't for you. It worked out real well for you. A lot of our manufacturing plants in Detroit and throughout the United States moved to Canada and to Mexico, either for labor arbitrage purposes or for various other access to resources. I get it. I don't blame a multinational for doing that for taking advantage,

but it did not work out for our working class. The way that the cars are made right now is basically NAFTA plus USMCA, which means that many of these cars, and this is what Honda is talking about. The parts in the car, in some cases, can move across the border up to 10 to 15 times. I'm exaggerating. It may not always be that much, but various different types of the car, once it's finally assembled in the United States, there are parts in it that come from all over the world, but particularly move back and forth for machine purposes, manufacturing purposes, that eventually make their way into the Honda vehicle, which you eventually purchase in the United States. Honda does this because that's the way that NAFTA and USMCA set out the law.

They said there won't be any tariffs that are on those. Again, I don't support this system. I don't think it should be that way. But it is what it is at this point. So then when the tariff comes into effect, what ends up happening with the way that Trump is doing it is it would increase the cost every time that thing. moves across the border. That's why the car manufacturers are freaking out because that would raise the imminent cost of them. If you have to pay that cost, even once, imagine 10 times, that

explodes the cost of the increment on the actual part. Also, from what I understand, the car makers know the shit's not actually going to last. So most of the time, they'll just keep it in Canada. They're like, look, we're just going to wait for the taco and then we'll move it across the border that time. But obviously, what does that do? Now, production has to shut down. Now you're going to not meet quotas. It causes all kinds of insanity whenever it comes to the vehicle tariff. I mean, even right now, Trump said he was going to double the tariff to 50 percent whenever it comes to the Civic sedan, for example. Honda currently assembles the Civic in Canada. It's the largest vehicle manufacturer by volume. And so a lot of that is eventually sold here in the

United States. Again, I'm not going to, I don't want to give the Canadians like too much credit because when, and this has happened under Biden, so this is in. just TDS or anything. Under Biden, you can go and read the headlines. There were all of these made in America provisions for the EV manufacturing credits. The Canadians were lobbying the hell out of the government. They're like, how can you do this to us? You can't just make it in your country. You need to make it in an hour. We're like, no, we want to make it in our country. The Canadians were furious with Biden and even more so under Donald Trump. So it's kind of a year's long story. Same thing happened in Europe. I get it. They're looking out for their interests. I think we should

lookout for hours. Now, is this the way I would handle our relationship with Canada? No, as I said, I don't have any great love for Canada. But what we can see here is even if you were to support this in a vacuum, which is, it's true. Canada needs us a lot more than we need them, but we still need them, top, major, top trading partner to launch this at a time of massive inflation and to do it in such a manner where the Canadian population is much better positioned to absorb the price increase. Yes, put this up here while I'm talking about it, is that their population is 100% united.

They're like a war footing. They don't care. Yeah, they're like, all right, we're going to pay more for Tim Hortons. We'll eat grass. Yeah, as long as you agree. It was like, so be it. We'll sit there and we're going to take it. Are we going to sit there?

And are we going to take it? While you're paying, what's the gas price today? Let me check. $4.10 on average per gasoline? That's like, well, we're sitting here paying high gas, high grocery and all this other stuff. They've obviously have their own problems, but we're the aggressor. And if we're going to be the aggressor, the whole population has to be ours. And nobody's on there.

So they don't care about this at this time. Again, in a vacuum, sure, whatever. You can make a case, et cetera. Even then, you wouldn't probably want to do like a back and forth type of trade war on again, off again, be extremely incendiary. And what you're watching effectively is that the Canadian government, government right and left is totally united against the United States. I mean, Doug Ford is like a national hero in Canada for all of this like Kiss My ass stuff. And what you're watching is on our side, nobody wants to pay any of these higher tariffs, also because they don't even think it's

going to be paired with a bigger manufacturing push, which now we had the tariffs for over a year. We know it's not leading to that, especially because of downward pressure from the overall economy. The diesel price press the tariff, a lot of these manufacturers are dead in the United States if this continues. And it's also a bit of a sideshow, given that electric vehicles in the next decade or whatever are going to sweep the entire country. It would be sort of like... I don't know if it will here. I think that they'll put so much protectionism on gas that... Maybe.

Also, look, I've got to save my smoke for the American consumer. Dodge was out here bragging about the Dodge Ram being the number one seller in the country. There are guys out there taking out 9% interest car loans over 48 months buying $80,000 souped up trucks for literally no reason. And so there is a part of that in the American heart, which will never go away. Maybe that's right. Right. I look at it as like two different countries competing over the manufacturing of horse and buggies in like 1905.

It's a fair point. I mean, gas is always going to be part of our market. Maybe I'm wrong. And you're right that just the construction of our lives and the suburban nature of it and the cultural attachment to the gas guzzlers is going to override pure economics. We'll see. But you're right. Like if you were going to redesign the system, you would renegotiate it. Like sit down.

You know, Trump had the USMCA that he agreed to. Like if he wanted a different trade policy. the massive trade negotiation that was underway was like the place to do it. This this like ad hoc scattershot tariff war that he likes to do is yeah like because they don't expect it to stick it doesn't have the effect. You're right that the reason that Honda is here is because of U.S. tariffs and because of U.S. trade policy and also just enormous amounts of kind of it bordered into xenophil anti-Japanese.

Right. So the game that everybody knows about the Japanese. But it was a long game. Right. And so what happened is post-1970s after the, you know, actually Trump was all over Oprah talking about how bad Japan was. I had a point, actually, at the time because of the undercutting of our market. The deal of the Japanese made throughout the 80s and 90s, especially post-NafTA,

is we were like, look, we know everybody who wants your cars. They're cheaper, they're better than ours. You just got to build them here. The Japanese is like, we don't really want. But I guess, all right, we'll do it. And so what I've heard from more recently is inside Japan, their belief is that they would have been better off in the long run, just making them Japan and shipping and paying the tariff. They're sick of building here. They're done.

They hate American work culture. They hate most of the states. I'm dead serious. They hate American work culture. They hate the government. They think they would have been better off just building the cars in Japan and paying whatever the variable tariff would have been. And let Ford deal with these American workers. Let Ford deal with all this

bullshit and the state of Michigan government, right? Because in Japan, when the CEO of Honda needs something, the Japanese prime minister is like, what do you need? All right? Here you go. They're like, oh, you want $100 billion? Here's 200. You know, make sure that it works out. It's not how it works here, right? So basically, look, the TLDR

is that while I do think we have major structural problems in our trade with Canada, the way that this has been done, especially the whole Lake America. I'm like, my God, do you have any original ideas. Sure, it was funny on the first day, Gulf of America and all of that. We can all start looking at maps and why Gulf of Mexico is actually a Spanish colonial name. It's actually quite woke to rename it. That's right. Yeah. It's important. It actually is. Yeah. Why should we

using a Spanish colonial name? But in reality, we all know, number one, this is not going to lead to a better deal. It will lead to chaos. It will lead to higher prices. It will also lead to worsening relations with Canada, which maybe we could have afforded pre-Iran war. I don't think we could right now with our top trading partner. It's part of a global isolation game. I will say, though, with Canada, you know, it's their population wants to fight. But remember Mark Carney gave that whole speech about neoliberalism and the standing up. The sign in the window.

Yeah, he's like, we're going to change everything. And then immediately came back and backed Trump on the Iran war and became like this native. you know, obsessive. So they need to make up their mind too. Like, what are you guys going to do? I think we have to live together and we got to work it out. But look, that's not really what either. That's not, that's maybe what our population wants. I'm not so sure what that's what they want. And meanwhile, China is like playing a lot of footsie and with Canada. Totally. They have very different rules in Canada. A lot of their Teslas have much more Chinese components from Giga Shanghai. I think maybe 10% or so a lot of them are not even allowed to be

sold here in the United States. So they have very different rules. relations with China and kind of their engagement with the rest of the world. So they're doing a balancing act, which they didn't previously used to have to do. They're mostly on the side of the United States. It's certainly not like that anymore. Speaking of China, let's get to China. The new Red Bull Dragonberry and Tropicberry Energizers now at McDonald's, made with freeze-dried fruit and an electric burst of flavor. The all-new Red Bull Energizers, now at McDonald's. This product may not be right for you. High in caffeine, details of McDonald's.ca.

At participating Canadian restaurants excluding Quebec. Hey, this is Hayes Davenport. And Sean Clements. We host the podcast, Hollywood Handbook on the Big Money Players Network. Our show is extremely accessible to first-time listeners. Each week, we talk to someone in show business, aka the biz, and try to help them with their careers and see what they have to offer us. Everyone has a good time, and no one gets mad at their publicists for letting them do our show.

We've had a lot of great guests like Sarah Sherman. not that great. Actually, can you help me shape this? How about we flip it on his head? How about we flip this? What is the surprise woman? Actually, you think is the straight man is actually the one who's acting weird.

Adam Scott, this entire time, you've been expecting Adam Sandler to come to visit the show. I would never expect. I would never set expectations for something like that to happen. If the universe allows for something like that to happen, I'm open to it. I'm always going to accept. You know, Danny McBride, fine. Yeah, it's all this fragile masculinity exuding. I could smell it walking down the hallway, to be honest with you.

I was like, is that weed? Nope, it's fragile masculinity. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Ben Stiller, no. Because a lot of times, out of context, people don't get it or even know what a circle is. You know what mean? Like you're like, oh, what's just a state? Everyone's so dumb. And fake. Right. Fake. And also not interested or just like, oh, I've got my life. I don't care about your life. And a lot of other big shots that wouldn't be where they are

without us. Oh, and by the way, Will Ferrell told us personally, he loves the show and he wants to be a guest on every episode, but he's just so busy. Listen to Hollywood Handbook on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm MungaShaegasya Together and I'm back with a new season of the podcast, Skyline Drive. This time I'm diving into a rabbit hole of peptides, organoids, blood boys, blue zones, and brain replacement to try to understand what this longevity obsession is all about and what it really means to live forever for all of us.

I learned about some rad science. I can make a brain for you and then we can test what draw is the best for your brain, as opposed to his brain. Here's some hard truth. Here's some hard I would expect Indians to age faster, but I did not expect it to be almost a four to five year acceleration. And get myself into a world of trouble. I'd say probably start bone smashing. That doesn't work. To make it look more defined. They say it works.

I don't know. Listen to Skyline Drive, How to Live Forever on the Iheart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Okay, so as we were talking about speaking about China and the way that they're navigating this entire. situation. It's kind of a boon to them, the entire Iran war, and even the trade war, honestly. Let's put this up here on the screen. It comes on the heels of Scott Besson, promising economic deeday. And so how is China responding? Let's take a look. China has vowed to protect its interests after the U.S. announced plans to widen economic sanctions against Iran and its trading partners. Foreign Ministry's spokesman Lin-Jean said that China was formally opposed to what it called

illegal unilateral sanctions and would take all necessary measures to safeguard its rights. This comes after Scott Bessent saying that he will announce new measures, warning any nation financially partnering with Iran would be isolated. China buys 90% of Iranian oil. And Lin said further, cooperation between China and Iran has always been conducted within the framework of international law and should not be interfered with or disrupted. Obviously, Besson had said the single greatest financial offensive ever against Iran and then proceeded to release absolutely zero details about the entire thing. And so they're making it clear. And this is part of why the D-Day thing, you and I both know

it's not even going to happen. If we were going to target any nation, it's going to be some small, piddly nation, which buys oil from Iran. President Xi is coming to the United States, I think next month, sometime in September. Are we really going to center our entire relations with the second largest power on earth, our number one trading partner, a number one, you know, unilateral trading partner whenever it comes to China. Such enormous effect on the global economy, on us, on our relations and all that in Asia, which we've effectively abandoned. Are we really going to do it when it comes to Iran? And that's the thing, too, even if we did, would it work? I think the fact that we did it to Russia, a second rate power compared to China, that it didn't

work entirely, that it showed that their, you know, resilience to a sanction-proof defectively financial system and weapons manufacturing allowed them to prosper for the entire time. So I think what we see with China in this entire thing is that the Trump administration is really in a bind because their rhetoric, as you said, remember, like D-Day, it's a thing that we, it's a term that we has meaning, I think, in rhetoric, rhetorical influence. D-Day is like all-out, of offense. Right. It's all-out offense.

We roll the dice and we go all in and we're going to defeat. But if you don't do that, that's humiliating. If you do do it, it will be a disaster because we know that we don't have the ability to actually compel their behavior on Iran, which they have continued to support for the last six months. If anything, sending them weapons, giving them lots of intelligence, supporting their drone industry, and really bolstering their ability to stand up against the United States. And on your Russian point, CIA director, John Ratcliffe, was just in Moscow. Yeah, flew there yesterday.

The reporting was, and maybe you've heard how accurate this reporting is, is that one of the messages that he conveyed was, we want you to sever ties with Iran. And if you don't, we're going to do X, Y, and Z. Russia relayed that to Iran, said, don't worry about it. We're not going to do it. And the threats that they made were not actually that's serious. And so that's Russia. Like, as you said, Russia is not China. So I'm curious from, like, if you have any insight into why it is that the Trump administration moves publicly forward with these ideas that to any person just casually observing are unworkable. I think it just makes Trump feel good. I love. Words. We talk about Lake America.

D-Day. Go out and do the words. Great. Yeah. Besson walks in. Sir, economic deal. And he doesn't realize there will be a week after the week that he's living in now. And then he's like, well, wait, hold on.

So we can't actually do that. So you announce it, but then nothing actually happens. Like I said, I mean, the prestige to the empire is immense. I mean, if the empire says D-Day, people should be like, oh, shit, like we're about to get rocked. Except the Chinese are like, yeah, okay. They're like, go ahead. Let's see. Let's see how it works out for you.

The Financial Times actually wrote this up in a very good op-ed. Let's put this up here on the screen. They talk specifically. In the event, it seemed more like a serious. of warning, shots fired from far offshore. The campaign to turn Iran into an economic outcast is, moreover, not even one that the United States can fully accomplish on its own, but requires cooperation with Tehran's trading partners. The biggest of those, China has signaled little intention to play ball. And as Besson acknowledged, moving too quickly with U.S. secondary

sanctions that do not comply would blow up the global financial system. And especially what they talk about here whenever it comes to China, says Beijing, which already buys 90 percent, of Iran oil warned that if the U.S. it would retaliate if Chinese companies were included. Any significant increase in U.S. sanctions on China would then torpedo delicate trade negotiations only a month before Trump and Xi are due to meet in Washington. Even if the U.S. did manage to impose the significant new economic pain on Iran, there is no guarantee that it would even force Tehran's capitulation. After two years, after two wars in the past year have damaged industrial capacity and left inflation

running at 80 to 90 percent, their economy is in far deeper crisis than when Iran had launched maximum pressure in 2018, but the regime is now more hard-lined by the conflict only increasing its defiance. And so what they call, say here, is the China problem, is basically there is no way to compel Chinese behavior, which would not immediately have blowback on the United States, which the Chinese is not going to do. And even if they did do, it probably wouldn't work. And one of the reasons, and I remember now in retrospect, how much criticism we took talking about here about those Russia sanctions. Because I remember, and I said this, I said, if you do this, you need to do it for something which is actually vitally important to the United States. Because by pulling it out, making Russia the most sanctioned economy on earth, then you show your hand.

You show exactly the way that you can use the global financial system to your advantage. and what if it doesn't work? And we know now, it's four years later. It didn't work at all. GDP is up in Russia. Missile production is up. Weapons manufacturing is there. They're able to pay all of the widows.

They can take, who knows what the real number is, at the very least, hundreds of thousands of casualties, and survive. Their population is fine. There's still food on the shelf in Moscow. Everybody's fine. In fact, some of them are so rich that can fly to Thailand or whatever these countries.

We'll take them. But then you look here at China the last four years is sitting there studying the entire thing. Oh, here's how the sanction worked. Here's how the bank is. Here's how they implemented it. Here's what they did against Iran.

Here's what they did against Venezuela. They're just picking up data points. Then they go in because it's a nation of bureaucrats and they say, how do we make sure this doesn't happen? How do we make sure that doesn't happen? They've had so many years. And lo and behold, let's put the next one up here on the screen, is that China now says, quote, they need U.S. dollars, but is building a hedge against Washington sanctions.

And what they specifically laid out is that China's bank, are now currently in a position where Beijing can reject the demand, even though some of its biggest lenders still have a strong incentive to preserve access to the dollar. Bessent had actually even said, if they facilitate transactions that are part of the ecosystem that turns Iranian oil into money, they will be targeted. But the Chinese, what they're doing is they have internal mechanisms to use a different system of banking. It's called the Chinese cross-border interbank payment system or CIPS, which allows it to diversify from dollar-centered finance without abandoning it altogether. PRC built CIPS in 2012, which was apparently the first year that they ever

got sanctioned, and they've now had 12 years of experience actually using it. They also have put in multiple different systems inside their own banks to be able to trade on different types of currency. I know this is all very technical, but this is the machinery and like the railroad if you will, which banking systems in China used to work, and they built an alternative pathway to do deals with Russia and with any other country that America doesn't want it to do. They would prefer to use the primary one, but the secondary one is there, battle tested, and ready to go if we were to put it against them. And CNBC notes the symmetry here that it was actually, in 2012, we sanctioned a small Chinese

bank specifically for doing business with Iran. And that's why they built this parallel clearance projects. But Obama. Yeah, so that if we did that again. And it goes back to that old saying, you know, if you owe the bank a million dollars, the bank owns you. If you owe the bank $40 trillion, you own the bank. And it's like Besson needs to go back and reread his like volume through, volume three of Marxist Capital, which talks about the way that debt and leverage shape who has control over.

over resources, because I think he's forgotten the way that this has unfolded. That goes back to your point, that anything that we could do because they own the bank, they own us because of our dead with them, our relationship with them, it blows right up in their face. And so China has announced, we will not take this lying down. You can do D-Day if you want, but if you try to storm our beaches, Don't forget you can blow up all of your own treasury bonds. We have guns.

We can put your economy to the brink. He even said, he even said, quote, we have our own tools and we know how to play the game. We've been waiting for these plans for a long time. It's an ominous quote. Unlike us. We planned this last week. Yes. And, oh, that was the last thing I wanted to put on up here.

I forgot to mention. Put C4 up on the screen. Remember that we've been talking about the only reason that, the entire economy did not implode as a result of oil prices was entirely because China reduced its overall oil imports to a low which we did not even think humanly possible. It remains the reason why that oil continues to be relatively low despite the fact that there's been this major disruption. And if you're watching our show, the chart in front of you shows why. As you can see exactly the number of crude oil exports that's sent to an all-time high, where,

where you can see now is that they're beginning to climb up back to levels that we haven't seen from the very beginning in April and in May. And the reason why that they're beginning to climb up is because it says Asian buyers are snapping up U.S. crude, adding stress to a tight market. And what it means is that with very little oil coming out of the Strait of Hormuz, then everybody has had to readjust and buy oil from where it is available in America, thanks to the Shell Revolution. Now, immediately, some of this was being bought by Europe, by Japan, and others, but what they point to here specifically is China. And specifically, that China is beginning to ramp up slightly. It's overall by. We're not even close to where we are at normal levels. They still think the price is too high. It's very clear that their electric grid capacity, their EV reliance, and their overall strategic petroleum reserve, bought them a runway, which nobody even thought possible. But as Asian buyers run through their petroleum reserve, just like the United States, eventually you're going to have to go out and buy. And that's what sends the bid price up. And so as we see right now with the Chinese, they can use

their own buying leverage to inflict maximum pain on the United States. They don't even have to necessarily do it on sanctions. They could easily take a strategic loss by buying oil at a very, very high price, which would send demand skyrocketing in the United States. And they could easily, If they just resumed to their buying where it was pre-war levels, they could send gas prices here up to $5.50 a gallon if they wanted to, which would be a total disaster. I mean, a monumental change, I think, politically. And not only saying with diesel, of which, of course, they also have their own capacity. So I just wanted to flag that for everybody. As the buys continue, and if they tick up even more, that $410 that we're seeing, I mean, every last two weeks, every time I say something, I'm like, $4.2, $4 and $4.4 and $6, I would. was gone for a couple days, $4.10. It just keeps on ticking up to where things are. And there's not even any bullets that are flying. God save you if you need diesel.

My God, yeah, actually. I can see it in front of me, $5.62 a gallon. And diesel was at $3.70 a gallon a year ago for context. And has now been above $5 a gallon for months. And the proportion of, like, Trump supporters who buy diesel versus gas. Oh, it's got to be immense. Yeah. Right.

Like I said earlier about the idiot men out there who live in suburbs to buy these diesel trucks. I'm like, hope it was worth it, buddy. Hope it was worth it so that you can use it to move once every four years. Move your buddy's couch. Or you buy it. Move your friend's couch. Somewhere out there, there are a lot of wives saying, I told you so. I told you so.

And she was right. She bought a CRV. All right. Let's get to Robert Pape. Hey, this is Hayes-Davimport. And Sean Clements. We host the podcast, Hollywood Handbook. Each week we talk to someone in show business

and try to help them with their careers and see what they have to offer us. Everyone has a good time and no one gets mad at their publicists for letting them do our show. We've had a lot of great guests like Sarah Sherman, Adam Scott, Danny McBride, Ben Stillard, and a lot of other big shots that wouldn't be where they are without us. Listen to Hollywood Handbook on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Munga Chitigula and I'm back with a new season of my podcast, Skyline Drive. This time I talked to scientists, biopunks, kermudgeon, blues owners, super seniors, and Goa's top cryotherapy lab to try to understand this obsession with living forever and what it means for all of us. And I get into a bit of trouble along the way. I'd say probably start bone smashing. That doesn't work. To make it look more defined. They say it works. I don't know. Listen to Skyline Drive, How to Live Forever on the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your

podcast. On the new podcast, Solita, we share the messy reality of traveling alone as a woman. I can wait four hours for the next bus or this random dude is offering me a ride on his motorcycle. I chose option B. I'm Julie Pinero and I travel by myself because it's a rare space where I can say yes without asking anyone else first. I'm on a mission to reclaim the word Solita, trading the pity for possibility. Listen to Solita on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an IHeart podcast. Guaranteed human.