DeProgram with John Kiriakou and Ted Rall - Pain-Off! | DeProgram with Ted Rall and Jamarl Thomas

Episode Date: April 14, 2026

Editorial cartoonist Ted Rall and political analyst Jamarl Thomas deprogram you from mainstream media every weekday at 9 AM EST. Today we discuss:• Trump is trying to choke off the country’s lifeline with a naval blockade of the Strait of Hormuz. But the Iranians are betting that his tolerance for political pain is limited.• Iran is waging the conflict in the global markets. If no Iranian oil gets through the strait, prices could keep rising over time — some companies say they are planning for $175 a barrel. The Iranians understand the potential political effects of continued inflation in the U.S. less than seven months before midterms.• For expert analysis about the energy markets showdown, we will be joined by Mark Barteau, a renowned chemical engineer and expert in heterogeneous catalysis for fuels, chemicals, and energy processes. He serves as Vice President for Research at Texas A&M University, holding the C.D. Holland '53 Chair in Engineering with joint appointments in Chemical Engineering and Chemistry. Previously, he directed energy institutes at the University of Michigan and University of Delaware. A National Academy of Engineering member with over 250 publications, his work advances clean energy and carbon management.• Ramsey County, Minnesota is investigating the arrest of a Hmong American man by ICE as a case of kidnapping, burglary and false imprisonment, officials announced Monday. On Jan. 18, ICE agents bashed open the front door of the St. Paul home of ChongLy “Scott” Thao, 56, at gunpoint — without a warrant — then led him outside in just his underwear and a blanket in sub-zero conditions. Thao is a U.S. citizen. The City of St. Paul is also investigating.MERCH STORE: https://www.deprogram.livehttps://x.com/tedrallhttps://x.com/JamarlThomasLIVE ON RUMBLE: https://rumble.com/c/DeProgramShowSPOTIFY: https://open.spotify.com/show/2kdFlw2w8sSPhKI8NRx8ZuAPPLE MUSIC: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/deprogram-with-ted-rall-and-jamarl-thomas/id1825379504

Good morning. Thanks for tuning into D-Program for Tuesday, April 14th, D-Program with Ted Roll and Jamar-Thomas. However, Jamarle is unfortunately, uh, was had a really bad night. He's been, he was sick all night, probably headed to the ER, hoping, uh, and praying for the best for him, uh, this morning. And hopefully he'll be back tomorrow. Filling in is producer Robbie West. Good morning, Robbie. Morning. Yeah. I, I've heard talking before we went live. I had a wrap that last night, too. I mean, it's weird because you get married i've been married i'll be married 20 years this year and my wife is out of town her her mama had a stroke and so she's in virgin she's uh in atlanta now and it is weird whenever you're used to sleep in somebody and they're they're just not there it's a real mind screw yeah it's uh you get used to it and uh you know they're there it's like the police song this bed's too big without you i don't i don't assume you're familiar but they're great No, but that's what I will definitely look up because it's just weird because it seems like, oh, you know, because we have a queen-sized bed, right?

So it's just like in your mind, like I'm just going to just, I'm going to stay up. I'm going to make videos, play games, just sleep in the middle of the bed, just take the whole thing. But now it's like a country song. Fart, fart in any direction you want. Exactly. Now's like a country song. My cat's gone. My wife is gone.

I ain't got nothing. It's so bad. Nothing to lose. Everything. It's like rock and roll. And then you're like, oh, this isn't as good as I expected it. No, it sucks. Yeah. Yeah. I hear you. All right. Well, thank you for filling in. I'm sure we're going to have a fun show, although we do always do. We do always. All right. So today we're going to be taught. Oh, the usual housekeeping. Please like, follow and share the show. We appreciate your donations. Please make them anytime. But particularly if you're watching live in the 9 a.m. Eastern Time Zone. And you are here live, either on Rumble or on YouTube. Please post your questions. We look forward to answering them as always.

And as always, we'll try to do all of them. But super chats, which are the don't know ones, tend to get priority. One announcement, because I keep forgetting to say this. So we have T-shirts over on the YouTube page. I'm putting up the URL right now. It's deprogram. dot live. And so anyway, there's some leftover John Kariaku t-shirts.

And if you have interest in those, I suggest that you get over there and get them while they're good because we're taking them down this weekend and they're never to be seen again. So there will be new ones going up. And we're going to try to. So basically, again, if you want those pardon John t-shirts or whatever, those are over at deep program. dot live. So I'll leave that URL up a little bit. So people can check that out, but it's easy enough to remember. We will, and so anyway, today we're going to be talking to an energy expert about

international oil markets. He didn't reconfirm this can happen with guests, right? So what happens is you book them, then you send them the link in the morning, and sometimes they forget. And I know, because I've been a guest who has forgotten that I was booked on shows. So I've seen this from both sides. But hopefully we'll be joined by Mark Bartow. He's the vice president for research at Texas A&M. And he has the chair in engineering there with joint appointments in chemical engineering and chemistry. So he knows things.

And he's an international expert on basically the processing, distribution, and sale of oil and natural gas and probably a lot of other stuff too. And we're going to get into, we're going to discuss the implications of the showdown over the Strait of Ormuz, rising energy prices, and what we can look forward to or not in the next few months and what the impact will be on inflation and all that. So this is, as they say, in the business news you can use.

We're going to be talking first of before we bring him on in the 930. We'll be talking about the Strait of Ormuse. And also, Robbie, this strange case that we discussed earlier. I remember we talked about it with John about ice basically bashed down the door of a 56-year-old homong man in St. Paul, Minnesota. In the dead of winter, trust me, you don't want to be outside in January in Minnesota. But they dragged him out in his underwear. they basically thought, well, you're a Hmong, so you must be an illegal immigrant.

Actually, he's a full-fledged United States citizen. Anyway, interesting development. The local county there where St. Paul is, Ramsey County, is investigating his arrest by ICE as a case of kidnapping, burglary, and false imprisonment. The city of St. Paul is also investigating. So I don't know where that's all going to lead, but we'll talk about that as well. And I always have thoughts about illegal immigration. Well, hopefully just some prison time for the,

for those thugs. And you mentioned the straight of course of Hormuz. You got breaking news. It broke like three minutes ago. A sanctioned Chinese oil tanker called the Rich Sterry passed through the straits and ran the U.S. blockade. The ship was ordered to stop and they kept the reportedly broadcast out U.S. Navy. Go fuck yourself and kept going. This is according to whom?

This is off of a this is off of a, uh, a, uh, a, uh, Russian channel that I follow. Okay. All right. So not fully confirmed. I mean, but the transponder, I mean, they see that the ship has left. I mean, it's gone. Now, I cannot confirm the U.S. Navy go fuck yourself. But I can 100% confirm that it has, it has left the blockade area. Well, that does sound like the Chinese way in this particular case. The Chinese are very upset about this. So we talked about it yesterday.

Robbie, we have the straight of our moves. Basically, the Iranians have blockaded it. And now we're doing what we basically, we characterized in the thumbnail as a pain off. And what's happening here is that both sides are trying to see who blinks first. The Americans have assessed that Iran will stop, will start running out of energy resources within two weeks. Their storage supplies will start to run out. And they only have about two weeks worth of storage. The Iranians basically think that within two weeks, the whole world is going to start seeing skyrocketing energy prices. And in fact, a lot of companies are already telling financial analysts that they're planning around $175 a barrel. Now, just to contextualize this,

before six weeks ago, before the beginning of the war, before Trump and Israel invaded and attacked Iran, their oil was about $60 a barrel. This is Brent crude, which is the benchmark. So if right now we're floating at about 100 or a little more than that, so already you're looking at about a 70% increases in oil prices. So to put that in, gas is directly proportional in case you're wondering about that per barrel. So if oil were to go to 175 a barrel, and let's say you were paying $3 a barrel before this happened. Ultimately, it will go to $9 a gallon from $3 a gallon. If you were paying four, it will go to $12 and so on. In California, there were already a lot of places paying well over $5. So you could see $15 a gallon gas. And we should talk about the, obviously, about the

politics of all that. The Iranians think that the Americans are going to blink because they have midterm elections coming up seven months from now in the in the united states it's always the economy stupid and the economy ain't going to be doing too well so um well i mean trump is jesus so he could just lay hands on the economy yeah what do you think of that so you know people who so trump shared this image of himself laying hands uh with basically uh light coming out of his hands and uh coming out of his had, you know, basically anybody who's familiar with Jesus or Christian iconography has seen these kinds of images and AI generated. Trump shared it.

And his followers, his supporters are, man, I have never seen anybody jump higher to try to justify something foolish than his right-wing supporters are. You know, but they're saying, well, Trump says, I thought it was an image of me as a doctor and I was supporting the Red Cross and I heal people. First of all, what on earth, first of all, which doctor is dressed like that? But also, who does he heal? And then the other thing is, how does he explain, like, the lady praying next to him? I mean, I guess maybe people pray for sick people, right?

But, I mean, it's just the whole thing is kind of like, I mean, does any? anybody really believe that? Do any evangelicals, do any Christians really believe Trump? Yeah, that's a good question. I'm sure that you probably saw some of the sparring that I've been doing on my Facebook page or some people I go to church with. I said, you know, I posted that thing and I called Trump a blasphemous pig because that's exactly what he is. And it is crickets. So the people who normally will. who will light up a post I make about Tucker Carlson are silent about this. And it's because their politics is more important than their religion.

And that is a very, very sad place to be. And as far as Trump saying he heals people, I guess if you kill them in a way you are healing them, because then they're not hurting anymore. So I guess you can kind of make that case. Is it feeling those Venezuelan fishermen is what you're saying? Yeah.

I mean, or dropping bombs. on hospitals or dropping bombs on all those people's problems are solved yeah 100% like they're they're gone financial issues like there's if they're being trolled on social media none of those things matter anymore yeah none at all uh you you you have been transcended to a to a new experience and it's not seriously it as a man of faith it really it really made me mad it it takes a lot to pissed me off. That did it. And the thing is, Trump doesn't even try, right? So he likes to use Christians.

But he doesn't even go to church sometimes. He doesn't pray ever. He doesn't know anything about the Bible. He literally, you know, I mean, like, he couldn't identify a single verse from the Bible. You know, I mean. Two Corinthians. Jesus wept, right? He can't do any.

He can't. I mean, it's crazy. I mean, in the adventures of Tom Sawyer, right? Like one of the things that they have is that there's different tickets and coupons you can get in Sunday school for memorizing Bible verses. Donald Trump would come up poor. I mean, it's like there's no way. Yeah, I mean, it's hard to say. I just, I don't get it.

It's a cult of personality. And I use that word. It's why they don't, there's just not quiet. Like, I understand the crickets. It's like, okay, my guy isn't fucking embarrassment. I'm, he be fucked up. I'm just not going to say anything. What I don't understand is the, oh, I'm going to make a fool of myself and make excuses for him.

I mean, the best thing to do it in that case is just shut up and just accept the fact that your guys are retard. Yeah, yeah. Honestly, that's what you got to do. Yeah. I mean, that's why that's the fault. That's the fault with team politics. Just like when, you know, Biden's people were like, no, no, he's really sharp as attack. He's doing great.

No worries. I mean, no, personally, and I know we have a lot of stuff we have to go in. I'm just going to say this real quick because I'm the co-host. I have the microphone. It does so much harm for these wishy-washy Christians when they do this crap because it may, it just completely cheapens and destroys the entire message of Christianity. It really does. And for people who claim the name of Christ, then to stay silent whenever Trump's

says an entire civilization will die tonight, or do these stupid Jesus posts, or pretend like that he is, that he is the Messiah, they should be madder than I am, and they're not. And that's disgusting to me. Yeah, I mean, I think the appropriate posture would be confusion. Like, clearly, the president is misguided. You know, he needs to get some better advisors. you know, I mean, that was kind of the excuses that Hitler had people, you know, on the, on the, on the eastern front freezing their asses off in Russia in 1942, where, you know, they were like, they were, they literally told each other, ah, if the Fuhr knew about this, he would be really, obviously he's getting bad advice, you know, that would be the appropriate response. I mean, I think it's the best spin you can do. You ready for some questions? Yep, let's do it. All right. Trobe 42.

Thank you very much for the $499. Hey, do you guys think that Tucker Carlson has a real chance for president in 2028? If so, which party would be, would it be, or would he have to run independent or third party? Yes, and he would have to run as a Republican. Definitely could not run as a Democrat, no question about that. And I think that the problem with third parties are that they are basically cock blocked out of the system and by the electoral college. even if you got 40% of the vote in a three-way race, which should make you the plurality winner.

And under our system, the Congress would decide and you would not be president. So he should run as a Republican if he's going to run. I've got to say the tricky part for him is he is branded from his years on Fox as a conservative Republican. Everyone remembers the bow tie years. And most liberals, most Democrats, even independent Democrats are not cognizant of like what they don't ever listen to his podcast.

They don't have any idea what he's saying. They're siloed into CNN or MSN. MS now. They don't know. So I think his challenge would be to without losing the Republican base, be able to reach out to enough Democrats to create a coalition for victory in the fall. Obviously, a lot of it has to do with how bad the Democratic. nominee might be in that particular year. But I'm pessimistic.

I wouldn't say he has no chance. So yes, he has a real chance. Will he win? Probably not, but he could, is what I would say. I think that it would be his to lose because when we talked about this last week and you mentioned that about the Democrats, I went back and I looked at the ratings from when before he got fired at Fox. More Democrats watched his Fox news shows.

and watched CNN or MSNBC DNC. Okay, well, still, I mean, I mean, they could just be rage watching. Well, it could be rage watching. I mean, look, he's in, look, I think most people who give Tucker Carlson a chance find themselves pleasantly surprised. But the problem in politics is to get people to give you a chance.

Once you've been branded, once people put you into a box that they don't like, it's very hard to get out of that box. So he would have to present himself as sort of some kind of new figure. Like even though I'm a super rich guy who used to be on Fox and inherited all this money, I'm bringing a new politics. And the other challenge here is Donald Trump kind of promised that and betrayed us and said, like there's going to be a new kind of republicanism, America first, you know,

no foreign intervention, no more stupid wars. that turned out not to be true. So someone, anyone who's making that pitch is, is saddled with the burden of the Donald Trump legacy, which is so recent, which is, well, we've heard that one before. That's true, but Trump is attacking Carlson now. Right. He's coming out like liars after lying after liars.

Yeah. And one thing, I think that I know what Bob will keep on going to get some more questions, but I think that Tucker's got one big thing going for him. And it's something you and me have talked about on and off camera. He's willing to apologize to admit when he was wrong publicly. That's huge. That is massive. Following Donald Trump, you know, like, yeah, I've always wanted to hear a politician say, like, I will make mistakes.

When you elect me, I will fuck up. What I promise you is that I will admit it and I'll try to fix it. And that would be an amazing thing to see. For sure. Flanderina? Good. ISIS literally kidnapping people. Remember when Trump said he's going to target the worst of the worst?

When they went to Chicago, they just walked around the nicest parts of downtown. Yeah, and Washington, D.C., too. Yep. I mean, Trump lost me on immigration. Think about what I just said for a second. He lost me on immigration. That is a very difficult thing to do, and he did it. Yeah, he did.

If you said, thanks for the dollar, Iran, no gas, no grass, no ass, no pass. Skalowski. As an atheist, it's hilarious that the media and his followers are more upset about a little Jesus image than bombing children or raping them. Fair. Yeah, agreed. But often it's like that with symbolism, right? You know, you get the big mafioso on tax evasion. Frasbatos. Question for Ted and Robbie, do you think Iran actually lost track of deployed mines? Lots of reasons to lie about it. Or is it an American lie, perhaps? Yeah, so what Fraz is referring to is this New York Times reporting where American officials claimed that they came out of the Islamabad talks and they were told, oh, you know, the Iranians say they can't, they don't really know where all the mines were left. They didn't really mark them.

And sometimes they also drift, right? There's three different kinds of minds. There's the floating kind. There's the anchored ones. And then there's the limpid mines that sort of have a magnet and attach themselves to the side of your ship. So the floating ones can definitely drift. And there's not a lot you can do about that. I suspect the Iranians, there's some truth to this because the Iranians were, you know, mad panic to mine the straight as quickly as possible.

But it would also be to their advantage to, it would definitely be to their advantage to say, yeah, we don't really, you know, know where those mines are. and it'll take us some time to find them. We see Professor Bartow in the background there. Professor, thanks for joining us. We'll be with you in just a few minutes. And we're looking forward to have him join us. Okay, so let's see. Mobe Bluth Funk, thanks for the 20 bucks.

Ted, speaking of our savior, Trump, did you mention that he used to hire people to push renters old ladies down the stairs? If you have any sources, let us know. I think that's how Yvana recently died. I have sources. You can, I'll look it up, my biography of Trump called Just Trump that came out,

I think in about 2020, maybe, 2019. It has a reference to that. This is, if you Google the Trump and Barbizon Plaza and rental dispute, and you'll probably find it. But Ari and Gordy, thanks for the 1999. Good morning, sirs. Thoughts on all the data centers popping up in the U.S., jacking up electric bills for the average citizens. I think they should be regulated to separate corporations from citizens.

In New Jersey, my electrical bill shot up by almost $400. That's crazy. Yeah, they should be regulated. And not just for electricity, but also for the water that they use. Yeah, no, for sure. There's massive environmental issues there. Flandrina says that we should not forget Tucker's social media presence. That's huge, true.

Yep. Okay. And before we bring in Mark Bartow, let's talk about this showdown that's going on. What's currently pending here between Iran and the U.S., first of all, there's probably going to be additional talks. And it looks like the main point is it's coming down not to the Strait of Ormuz, but more to how long is Iran willing to give up its nuclear enrichment program. The Iranians apparently offered to suspend all nuclear activity for five years. The Trump administration insists on 20.

Robbie, that suggests to me that there is room for a compromise here, a Salomonic compromise, maybe not. 12 and a half, but, you know, they can get there somehow. Maybe, but I'll tell you what, if I was the leader of Iran as soon as this war is over, I would race, and I use that word deliberately, I would race to develop a nuclear weapon and a delivery system. There is no way that I would not do that because they need the deterrent. Yeah, no, I mean, for sure. I mean, look, I mean, you can look at the Libyan and North Korean examples and just,

and the Iraq examples to just be like, when the U.S. has you in its crosshairs, it's good to have nuclear weapons. And I know there are those who disagree with that analysis, but, you know, it's, the recent history certainly suggests that. Robbie, let's go ahead and bring in Professor Mark Bartow. Mark Bartow is a renowned chemical engineer and expert in heterogeneous catalysts for fuels, chemicals, and energy processes.

He serves as vice president for research at Texas A&M, University, he holds the CD Holland 53 chair in engineering with joint appointments in chemical engineering and chemistry. Previously, he directed energy institutes at the University of Michigan and the University of Delaware, a National Academy of Engineering member with over 250 publications. His work advances clean energy and carbon management. Professor Bartow, thanks for joining us here on D program. Oh, thanks for having me.

It's a pleasure to be here. Let me just correct one thing. I'm no longer the vice president for research at Texas A&A. I've been back on the faculty, and it's wonderful. Yeah, I've heard that those management jobs can just end up just eating up a lot of your time and energy and there's drama. Well, especially today's environment. Yeah, we can do a whole podcast on that if you're willing, which I suspect you would be wise not to be. So, Professor, let's talk about, I mean, obviously this is a,

there's a lot of misunderstandings and a lot of confusion surrounding the showdown over the Strait of Ormuse here. A lot of Americans don't understand, for example, the idea of a global energy market. They say, okay, the United States, we've been told repeatedly is energy independent. And I guess that means if we were a communist country, we're pumping out of the ground what we would keep and it would be at least that would be one of the, problem this communist country wouldn't have, but we're not. We're a capitalist country, and there's a global market. So even if we have all the oil and gas we need, there's a, which is

that, first of all, do we really, are we really energy independent? Would be the first question. And the second question is, why should we care if the Indonesians or the people in Myanmar are having a shortage? Sure. Well, I think part of the problem is with this idea of energy independence. And we do produce more oil than we consume and we're a net exporter, but we actually export about half of what we produce and import slightly less than that. So there are lots of reasons for that. Let me let me just back up for a moment. You know, we hear also about energy security as well as energy independent. Think about food.

As a country, we are essentially food secure, with the exception of some parts of the population, but no one would argue that the U.S. doesn't have enough food to go right. We are not food independent, right? If you have a cup of coffee in front of you as I do, I can guarantee you that that was not produced and the beans weren't produced in the United States. So it's the same thing with oil.

It's fungible, right? You can move it around easily in tankers, at least over continents by pipelines. And by the way, natural gas is a little bit different. So it's really the global market that matters. The reason that we don't use what we consume is our refineries were built decades ago. been upgraded and expanded, but they're largely geared toward refining what's called heavy crudes, things that came from Venezuela in the distant past, things like oil from the Canadian oil sands, things like that. The oil we're producing, for example, in West Texas is what's

called light sweet cruise. So it doesn't have as much dunk at the bottom of the barrel. It doesn't have the heavy metals. And so we actually import oil that's suited for our refineries and export oil that's suitable for refineries elsewhere in the world. And you can't switch that easily and certainly not not overnight. Okay. So trade is a part of it. Right. So then, But is oil ever swapped or do we have to if we let if the American companies or have a demand for a type of oil that is not produced in the United States and they need to buy it on the open market. Can they get a is there ever an energy swap and where or are you just buying you have to pay cash? You sell it. It's like eBay.

If I have, you know, if I have an item, I have to sell it at whatever the market will bear and I have to sell. buy whatever I want at what price the market will bear. No, and a lot of this is under long-term contracts as well. So, you know, what you see in the news every day is the spot price, if you were going to go out into the marketplace. Professor, what do you think about Trump's tactic here of blockading Iran's blockade of the Strait of Hormuz? Makes about as much sense as everything else he's done.

I mean, what do you think is? on his mind. I mean, I mean, he's being advised by, you know, the Brookings Institution, which is supposedly liberal leaning, that this is a good idea. It just, I mean, it's just the sort of American idea that the only thing anyone understands is pressure, you know, sort of like if you're a hammer, everything looks like a nail, or, I mean, there's nothing to it or, or is there? I suppose what he's trying to stop is any exports of Iranian oil that would get through. But, you know, those are only a fraction of what comes through the straits. I think it's last numbers I saw were maybe about 20% of the oil that comes through the straits.

And I'm sure that with some of the damage that we've done to places like Paragu Island, that they probably don't have the production capacity right now either. So it's been reported that the Iranians basically have only about two weeks of capacity and that when originally when the war began, Trump was allowing Iranian crude to make it to market as an effort to try to keep prices down, that they assessed that that volume wasn't really having a significant impact on depressing the increase in oil prices. I guess a two-part question, do you agree with that analysis? And then the other question I have for you right now is how high can we expect oil prices to go?

I'm a little surprised that they're hovering, you know, they shot up to about 100, from 60 to about 100 a barrel, and now they're sort of sitting there instead of continuing to tick up. Well, I think people more knowledgeable than I would tell you that it's dangerous to bet on where the price of oil is going. You know, we've seen an increase of what perhaps a third in the price of gasoline at the pump. Historically, that's not that much, believe it or not. You know, during the first Arab oil embargo, the price of gasoline at the pump doubled in about six months. During the Iranian revolution, again, doubled again. And so these kinds of increases are enough to cause some pain and the public reacts.

In general, they're not enough to cause changes in behavior. So, you know, I, let's see, if I were good at prognosticating about the price of oil, I wouldn't be a professor. I'd be rich and retired. Yes, no, I hear that. Yeah. So I guess, you know, so what is being, I mean, what we seem to be seeing here is the Americans have calculated or are hoping maybe against hope. I'm not sure they really believe this is going to work. But they seem to be hoping that they can deny Iran the extra revenue that they're going to get from higher oil prices

and keep bombing and killing people in Iran. And that if they keep at it, eventually the Iranians will cry uncle before Trump has to cry uncle from all the foreign leaders and corporate CEOs who are calling the, White House every single day, but, you know, burning his ears about like, please make this stop, you're killing us. So which who's going to, so I know, I'm asking you to predict, to predict. But I mean, if you were, would you have advised the president, what would you, what would you advise President Trump to do if you were a paid advisor to him right now? Now or before the war started? Both.

Well, I think, you know, the idea that we could start a war. and the Straits of Hormuz would not be affected. It was extremely naive. You know, right now I'm not sure what our way out is, not one that saves face for him, which seems to be very important. You know, you have to realize that a lot of the world does not have the energy resources

that we have, especially Asia. Japan, for example, is 100% reliant on imports, South Korea. major economies, parts of the G7 and G20. So they are much harder hit by this than we are, as is Europe, because their energy is important as well. You know, Trump has tried to relax sanctions on Russia and Iran to try to keep the price down. Again, if you look at the Iranian production, I think it was about 4% of the global total before this. How significant is that 4%?

I think, you know, it's the sort of thing that we could make up from things like the strategic petroleum reserves that various countries have, at least for a while. we could potentially increase our production, although not by huge amounts. You know, it takes time to drill wells, and they're often dry. And you also do that based on bets on the sustained higher price of oil, right? Before this, it wasn't profitable to drill when oil was below about $60 a barrel. At $100 a barrel, then it looks. like a license to print money, except you're betting that the price is going to stay there during the time that you're drilling and ultimately producing. So, you know,

4% can, could the world handle that without major disruptions? Yeah, probably. Well, speaking, go ahead, Robbie. I have a question for you, Professor. You may or may not know the answer to this. Most people, they think about Iran because that's the new shiny thing. And the show of Hormuz is the same thing on the TV. But people forget that Iran has a major port on the Caspian Sea, and that port's able to export oil. So can't they just change the port that their oil leaves from, go over there and through Russia and call it a day, just totally bypass the blockade? Is there a reason why they couldn't do that? Well, in their pipelines as well.

So, you know, I think it's mainly the limitations of capacity of things like the pipeline. to the Caspian Sea. Yeah, there's a, yeah, there's, does Iran avail itself, it borders Turkmenistan, and Turkmenistan has a very major oil and gas, especially gas refinery. Does, do the Iranians use that? I don't know. Okay. Yeah, because I know there was a, the Chinese also are buying a lot of oil.

I mean, there's a big pipeline that goes from the Caspian Sea across Central Asia to, Xinjiang in western China. The Chinese are really angry right now about what's going on. I mean, let's talk about the peen, right? So we've already had reports in the UK of some gas stations running dry due to hoarding, though, not due to actual shortages. There's Myanmar. Nobody cares about Myanmar, but Singapore, they do care about Japan.

Those are Vietnam. Those are, you know, Americans might not care about Vietnam, but they should because their sneakers are made there. Those guys are running out of, they're running out now, right? I mean, like right now. How long can they go before, you know, and what does it look like? If a country like that actually runs out of crude oil, what happens? I mean, I don't, I'm 62. I've never seen that.

Yeah, I'm, yeah, I'm not sure I could answer that one either. Again, remember, these markets are global. So essentially, you know, by removing the supply that comes through the Straits of Hormuz, we've reduced the supply by about 20% overall. So, you know, the rest will equilibrate in some way, and the price is the way it does that. But the lights, I mean, are we going to see a Cuba-type situation? where the lights start to go off. You know, hospitals are no longer able to function.

Ventilators are turned off. I mean, you know, are we, could you see societal, the beginning of early stages of societal collapse? I think that would be more likely in places that would not be able to afford to purchase some, you know, part of the 80%. So Myanmar, yes, Singapore, no. Yeah, I think that's a fair statement. You know, and I think India is also feeling some pain,

although they had been importing a lot of Russian crude before this, which we hadn't been very happy about. So does the Strait of Ormuz ever, is, I mean, let's say this is going to end at some point, probably sooner rather than later, I would hope. And when it does, are we ever going to go back to a day where the Strait of Ramos is just another place on the map that ships sail through? Or from now on, does Iran and maybe Oman always control it and the same way that the Turks control the Bosphorus,

and they're always just going to charge, you know, they're just going to charge transit fees from now on. Is it it? And then that's part two of that question is, the Gulf states are now extremely vulnerable to Iran. They used to rely on their alliance with the United States to protect them from the Iranians. But could this force a geopolitical reconsideration among the Emirates in these other Gulf states?

I think that's entirely possible. So, you know, will it become an open waterway? Well, you know, in the 1950s, there was a fight over the Suez Canal. So, you know, never say never. You know, there's some technological solutions. There is an oil pipeline across Saudi Arabia to Yanbu. on the Red Sea. But again, capacity is limited.

You could think about building more pipelines westward from the Oman and the other Emirates. You know, you could even imagine a canal that would sort of cut, you bypass the Straits of Four Moose, right? And go through the peninsula that the Emirates and Oman are out on. You know, all of those things, I think, are conceivable solutions. I don't think we know yet what the impact of drone warfare is on future security. I think Ukraine has taught us some lessons, and we're learning a few more here. But, you know, it's interesting when a thousand-dollar drone can't be stopped. with, you know, a million dollar missile with 100% certainty.

You know, so it's asymmetric warfare at this point. And how we adjust to that is, you know, it's going to be as interesting as all the other adjustments in history. You know that what the weapons makers are all thinking about is how to make those drones have longer ranges. That's got to be it, right? Can we send a drone 4,000 miles? And some smart person will come up with that.

Professor, are you willing to answer a couple questions before we let you go from the listeners? Cool. Maid Blum Thunk, thank you so much. Professor, are there any sources and websites about the oil industry that you look to for reliable information? You know, the U.S. Energy Agency has long been a good source. The BP puts out an annual statistical review. There's a lot of data out there that is simply data. Now, it's not biased.

You have to separate that from projections, because often various groups, including the International Energy Agency, will try to project into the future. And my sense of those is that they're good at drawing straight lines. But I'm not sure how much stock I put into those. Excuse me. Frasmataz wants to know. Is the food stock biofuels trend finally over? Any progress on algae and cellulose, biodiesel and ethanol? That's a good question. I think the answer to any progress is not.

a whole lot. And that's been another question that's come up. You know, well, we already have 10% ethanol in our gasoline. What if we went to 15%. And most cars would probably tolerate that. That would be okay. Two things. One, we already use 40% or more of our corn crop to make ethanol.

People don't realize that. We use as much for fuel as we use for food. But secondly, okay, imagine that we increase the ethanol to 15% and that extra 5% we're free. That's a 5% change in the cost of gasoline. That's not going to make much of a dent in the kinds of price increases that we're seeing right now. So there are a lot of incremental things, but, you know, the bottom line is you can't, cut off 20% of the world's oil supply and not have a significant impact. And that seems like a good place to end it.

Professor, thanks so much for coming on. Mark Bartow is a chemical engineer expert in heterogeneous catalysts for fuels, chemicals, and energy processes. He is a professor at Texas A&M University. Thanks, please come back. Oh, anytime. Thanks for having me. Thank you for coming on.

So that was super interesting. You know, I'm glad we had him on. I think that clears up a few things. I mean, I come out of this, Robbie, a little more frightened than I was before. Oh, yeah, no, for sure. And I've had a couple people ask, does it help the show more to watch it on Rumble or on YouTube? Between the two, Rumble helps significantly more. I mean, that's just a statement of fact, especially with donations gone.

No, people aren't, no, no, with John's exit, a lot of the super chats that we depended on, that people ask them questions about this time of the CIA. I mean, it's been a hit. So anytime that you're able to consume this content over on Rumble, it is always going to help us significantly more than YouTube does. Yeah, I mean, it's true. The super chat donation structure is easier, like sort of logistically on YouTube. So if you're so inclined and you want to support the show that way,

I mean, I can't even begin to over to, you know, say, what a huge hit the donation drop post John has been. But in terms of just the watch hours and just watching, Rumble is like far and away the way to go. I agree with you completely. Okay, so let's see.

Do we have any questions we need to talk? Oh, do we have any ads? Yeah. I can do it. Oh, podcast kid. Thank you for bringing that up. I'm going to make a email list. list. So y'all let me know what will be easier for y'all in the comments. Y'all just want me to

just set up a service that y'all can sign up for or do y'all want me to email y'all an email every day? So this is about so people can get a link to the show every morning. Correct. Exactly. And so y'all just let me know either in the comments, if y'all watch later or whatever, just let me. So what are the two choices? I'm confused. Sorry. Bring a cartoonist very, small. So if you don't want me to email a list, no, basically make a mailing list that I will email out every morning. I can do that. Or if they would prefer me set up a, like a, find a service that's, it's either free or low cost where they can sign up for it for a newsletter that gets emailed out every day. I think most people would rather get an email. I'm just guessing. But let's see what people say.

Yeah. It's up to y'all. Y'all let us know. And what we could. did make your life easier. That's what we're going to do. And let me get that ad for you. Okay, cool. And so while you're doing that, let's see, there was, uh, no, I'm trying, where is this? Oh, we also got some, uh, rants up above the questions from the, from the, uh, guest. Oh, okay. All right, cool. All right. Well, here, let me do the ad first. Okay. Uh, you've probably noticed Rumble is growing fast and it's not slowing down. They're building a real alternative to big tech that puts creators first and actually protects free speech. And now there's Rumble premium, an easy way to upgrade your experience. With premium, you get ad-free viewing across the

platform. No pre-rolls, no interruptions, just the content you came for. Plus, premium members unlock exclusive content like bonus videos, behind the scenes, drops, and more from your favorite creators. Right now, Rumble is offering 10 bucks off, an annual subscription. Just go to Rumble dot com slash premium and use the promo code studio at checkout that's rumble.com slash premium pro promo code studio no ads more freedom and content you actually care about that is the deal ravi west okay so what did this rants uh so we got so here is one from may blue funky i just show butcher that name i apologize. Ted, speaking of savior Donald J. Trump, did you mention he used to hire people. You already read this one, never mind. So Ari and Doherty, good morning, sirs.

Through all the data centers, okay, we already did both these. Everybody was retarded. Yeah, we did. Listen, I didn't more coffee. Oh my God, I had a coffee disaster. We were talking about it before I went on this morning. So my coffee maker, the grinds got stuck at the bottom of the, it's an automatic drip. And it's, it like basically, so then it all owes. overflowed all over the counter and I ended up with a weak-ass cup of coffee. So it was a double disaster. The second part was worse. All right. Let's talk about this ICE story. So you guys might remember back in January, ICE broke down the door of a dude in St. Paul, Minnesota. His name is Chong Lee Tao. Goes by the name of Scott, 56-year-old kind of portly dude. And basically, they broke into his house. They didn't bothered a knock on the door. At gunpoint, didn't have any warrant whatsoever. They just sort of suspected this dude be brown, so therefore he's probably not an American citizen.

Wrong. He was an American citizen. They let him outside in front of all his neighbors in broad daylight, only stripped it down to his underwear and a blanket. They didn't let him put on pants or anything in sub-zero conditions. Turns out that, you know, they, I realized right away that they had fucked up because he kept telling them I'm an American citizen, blah, blah, blah, blah, and had all the details. So they drove him around and basically roughed him up and finally let him go. Well, you know, a lot of people, they, the shootings of Alex Preddy and Renee Good still haven't been investigated at all by federal, state, or local authorities because the state and local authorities are complaining that the feds aren't sharing any

information, but they should investigate anyway. But this particular, case is being investigated by the county of Ramsey, Minnesota, which is the county that St. Paul is in. St. Paul, by the way, is the capital of Minnesota. They're investigating this as a case of kidnapping, burglary, and false imprisonment. The city of St. Paul, which is a separate entity, is also looking into it. I thought it was an interesting story because, I mean, this is what, like us Marxists call a division in the ruling classes, where one agency of the government is up to one thing, and another agency is highly disapproving of that.

What do you think is going to come of this, if anything? Nothing. And I hate to say that because that man deserves justice. He was murdered. No, he wasn't murdered. Mark Bartow, I mean, sorry, not Mark Bartow, but... I'm talking about the... Charlie Chow.

Well, they dropped them off. and the dude ended up dying of exposure. If I'm thinking about the right guy. No, you're thinking about a different guy. Okay. Because when I was thinking about... With ice,

there's so many atrocities that they're easy to confuse them. Gotcha. Because the one I was reading about... This guy's still alive. Okay, so this dude still alive. So good on them. They didn't kill him.

So they just kidnapped him. So that's a plus. You got the watered down ice treatment. Yeah. I mean, either way, though. I mean, the man deserves justice. He deserves justice. Listen, I am not a shrinking

violent when it comes to deportations. I want mass deportations unapologetically so. But it has to be done the right way. What Trump is doing is like everything else he does, he's a he's a disaster. He's a train wreck. And if you want secure borders and laws to be enforced, he's the worst guy that you ever want to make those things happen because he's so incompetent. He just completely blows up the entire system that you would depend on to make that work. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, I think So look, I don't think anything is going to come of this at all. However, it may end up having a good effect because once this investigation takes place, the results of the investigation becomes subpoenaable.

So if and when, and I'm sure this will happen, Tao finds legal counsel and sues ICE, normally that would be an almost impossible, you know, legal battle in civil court because it's a federal government. and the federal government basically sets up all sorts of ways to make themselves immune from prosecution. But if you have a county and maybe a city that have all collected all sorts of information about the case, they've identified the ICE agents involved, they have more details about how it went down, they have video and so on, and witnesses, then that information can all be subpoenaed by a, by the civil court attorneys who are suing on Tau's behalf

and that could mean that he ends up with a payday not accountability for ICE but at least ICE has to pay yeah well that means we have to pay well of course I mean the ICE agents need to go to the pokey and they need to stay there for a

very very very long time and I'm typically against prisons as you know this is a case though where that that punishment seems to fit the crime or put them on a chain gang. I'm working to Cottonfields in Mississippi for a few years. That would work too. Either way, problem solved, right? Yeah.

They're very, I mean, these are very, these ice people who did this, they're very dangerous. I mean, they literally, I mean, if you can be sitting at home in your underwear and goons can break down your door without a warrant, without any justification whatsoever, no warrant. and drag you off into the night or into the day for this matter. I mean, you know, none of us is safe. That would never happen here in Montana because they would get shot. Right. So avail your self of your Second Amendment rights.

I mean, yeah, there was a case in my hometown in Dayton where a dude was sitting at home. He lived in a black guy, lived in a black neighborhood called the West Side of Dayton. terrible neighborhood back at the time. Not so bad now. Not great. All of Dayton is kind of like hard scrabble downtown now. And anyway, the point is the cops had a drug raid. They broke down his door. It was the wrong address. The dude was innocent. It was not a druggy. He thought that he was the victim of a home invasion. So protecting himself and his family, he availed himself of his Second Amendment solutions and shot had killed, at least one of the police. police officers. He walked the, it was, you know, by all accounts, the police were unidentified.

They didn't, they didn't have badges. They didn't have shirts. They didn't have, you know, they had no uniforms. The guy had every reason to be scared. You know, that's going to happen more. Of course. We got the best viewers. So Flanderina is just, I'm talking about the Rohinga guy and Rogue 278 said the guy that was talking about was in Buffalo. So, Yeah, that's right. That's right. That's the guy that they dropped off. Yeah.

The crippled guy, right? Yeah, the blind dude. In front of the donut shop at like 8 o'clock. Yeah, the blind dude. In the middle of winter. In the middle of winter. And it was a horribly cold winter. And Buffalo is always cold in the winter.

And anyway, the dude had to walk home along the side of the highway and froze to death. Yeah. No, it's completely terrible. It's. And he was here as a refugee legally, 100% legally. And I love how Christy Gnome said, well, you know, we brought him to a nice warm donut shop.

Okay, well, the donut shop was, they did bring him to a donut shop. Presumably it was nice and warm inside. What she failed to mention was that it was closed for the night. Yeah. And locked. So, yeah, pretty horrible. You know, now that Christy Gnome is gone,

it seems like, you know, she took the fall for ice, and now we're supposed to forget all about that. But they haven't gone away. And even as we're speaking, their budget is trickling through the system. They've been funded as the biggest military force in the United States, bigger than the U.S. Army, anything else. They're highly militarized, poorly trained, and they've been given carte blanche with zero accountability, not even having to identify themselves. This is only going to get, this is going to get worse.

worse, and we're going to hear more and more of these stories in the months ahead. Yeah, I wish I could disagree with that, but I can't. I wish I could. But the good news is we have a vibrant opposition movement from the populist left and the populist right who are going to join hands and force the government to change. Oh, wait, not so much. No. Robbie, thank you so much for sitting in for JT today.

Tomorrow Thomas is out sick today if you're just joining us. And hopefully you'll be back in co-hosting tomorrow. We are here Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 10 a.m. Eastern time. On Wednesdays, we also do a supplemental Q&A show also on Mondays, but we didn't do Monday because of my fault. But tomorrow, we should be. be here doing Q&A at 12 noon. We'll let you know about that on social media as well as right here.

Thanks, everyone. Do you want to do a Q&A show today? Can't do it. Okay. Okay. But we could do it. Plus, we need tomorrow, but we could do one with you. Anyway, let's, anyway, we'll get to that.

TMI show with me and Manila Chan coming up right now. Thanks to everyone. See you tomorrow.