PBD Podcast - Joe Kent Resigns + Trump's Cuba Takeover | PBD #761

Episode Date: March 18, 2026

Patrick Bet-David, Tom Ellsworth, Brandon Aceto & Jeff Snider break down Joe Kent’s resignation and Trump’s response, rising diesel prices and Strait of Hormuz tensions, Iran’s Ali Larijani killing and USS Tripoli deployment, Trump’s Cuba takeover comments, and Bob Iger stepping down as Disney CEO.------👍 LIKE AND SUBSCRIBE!🥃 BOARDROOM CIGAR LOUNGE: https://bit.ly/4pzLEXj📺 JEFF SNIDER'S EURODOLLAR UNIVERSITY: https://bit.ly/4i5uz3WⓂ️ MINNECT WITH JEFF SNIDER: https://bit.ly/4c27s9xⓂ️ MINNECT WITH BRANDON ACETO: https://bit.ly/4anHnR3Ⓜ️ CONNECT ON MINNECT: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://bit.ly/4kSVkso⁠⁠⁠ Ⓜ️ PBD PODCAST CIRCLES: ⁠⁠⁠https://bit.ly/4mAWQAP⁠⁠⁠👔 BET-DAVID CONSULTING: ⁠⁠⁠https://bit.ly/4lzQph2⁠⁠⁠ 💬 TEXT US: TEXT “PODCAST” TO 310-340-1132 TO GET THE LATEST UPDATES IN REAL-TIME!ABOUT US: Patrick Bet-David is the founder and CEO of Valuetainment Media. He is the author of the #1 Wall Street Journal Bestseller “Your Next Five Moves” (Simon & Schuster) and a father of 2 boys and 2 girls. He currently resides in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida.

Did you ever think you would make it? I feel I'm supposed to take sweet with the dream. I know this life meant for me. Adam, what's your point? The future looks bright. The handshake is better than anything I ever signs. Right here. You are a 101?

My son's drive, very. I don't think I've ever said this before. All right. Business Wednesdays with lots going on. Bob Iger today, apparently resigned. Today's his last day. I don't know if you got heard or not. We got Snyder in the house, Asseto and Ellsworth.

We're all going to get smarter today. And gas hits diesel. What was it, Tom? Diesel hit five. Was it gas hit? $5 national average. $5. U.S. diesel prices soar to $5 national average.

We're going to look at the numbers to date. The numbers are high as we're going through how people are being affected by these gas prices. I think today the number is, what, $96? Is that what it is? $96? Oil right now. as of right now. U.S. Texas.

Right. 10 bucks more in Europe. So that's that. So we'll talk Disney with Bob Iager. We'll talk about gas prices. We'll talk about how NATO kind of push back and said, we're not going to get involved. And even Starmer came out and is like,

we're not going to get involved in your war. We have to react to that. Joe Kent, not the great Jeff Kent from the Giants. We don't want to undermine Jeff Kent. Jeff, you were great when you played. We watched you. All of Fame, finally. Joe Kent comes out and calls out.

the president and the White House on the decisions that were made. And he worked directly with head of DNI, which is Tulsi Gabbard. And then Tulsi Gabbard had to come out and post a tweet about it. This video, this tweet, if I'm not mistaken, I don't know how many views I got, but it's got nearly 800,000 likes on X alone. And we haven't talked about it yet. Let me go to it. Yeah, 800,000 likes on X.

and still go in. 86 million views is what this one tweet got and a letter, which we will read. And Speaker Johnson reacted to it, the president reacted to it, the market reacted to it, left, right and center. Even some baseball players thought he was Jeff Kent. They're like, wait a minute, is he back running?

We had no idea as this, but it's not Jeff Kent. It's joking. I want to make sure we qualify those two very clearly. Then U.S. economy, we have to talk about McDowell. how closely they're paying attention to the affordability, as well as coal, as well as dollar store. They're making moves. Everyone's trying to find out because this affordability conversation is no longer just the thing people are talking about. They're starting to realize there is something here and we have to definitely talk about it. And then you have the chief of Intel in Iran was

taken out. You know, the more you talk, it's like you're next. And he's the guy that. that said to Trump, you better watch your life because we're coming after you. And then next thing, you know, there's this thing called karma. It's happening to a lot of Iranians with the threats that's coming back now. We'll see if any of that's going to come back to us as well or not.

Poles came out, WAPO and CNN poll, of where Americans are for the Iranian war, where they support and they don't. We'll talk about that. I think it's 53 to 59% that don't as of today. So we'll address that as well. Aside from that, we got a bunch of other stories to get into.

A billionaire Uber co-founder, Travis Kalanick, admits strategically moving to Texas before California's wealth tax goes into effect. Washington actually passes millionaire tax despite concerns of the wealth flight, and they're not worried about it. Even Forbes came out and did an article. It's an interesting way the article is written,

saying only six billionaires left the state of California, But of the six that left, they generate $27 billion of revenue in taxes for the state, allegedly. We're going to look at that on what that number is. And then aside from that, we've got a few other things we'll get into as well as it's going on. I mean, if we're able to make these stories, if we're able to make these stories, time forward, we'll get into it. I do want to talk to you guys about something. A lot of you guys, DM me and message me and say, hey, you know, how do I become a member of the cigar lounge, the boardroom that you have here?

Last night, I can't tell you how many people were here, watching the great game of Venezuela against U.S. When Bryce Harper hit the home run, I mean, it was beautiful. And I'm like, this is the moment my son Dylan called it that he was going to hit the home run. He hit the home run. But then we fell one short and the score ended up being three, two. Congratulations to Venezuela. I know how much this means to Venezuela. Venezuela's had a great 2026.

Some may call it the greatest year, 90 days Venezuela's had in 20, 30, 40 years is what people are talking about, the way they're celebrating. So congrats to the Venezuelan team. As much as I was rooting for America, I want to judge to hit that home run and have that victory, but you've got to recognize it. A ton of people were here watching it. Just yesterday I did a podcast with Joey Merlino here. Allegedly, Rob, we have to say this correctly, the allegedly boss of the Philadelphia. Philadelphia crime family. That podcast will come out. We had the Eric Trump here. We've had Stephen A. Smith here. We have a lot of people here that come to the club, the boardroom. So if you want to be a member, it's by invitation only. Everybody goes through background checks. You can't bring a cell phone inside. If you want to learn more to come in here and network with others in South Florida at Fort Lauderdale at a high-end premier cigar lounge, we'll do Louis, you know, the 13th events. We'll do different kind of events here that you'll come in and be involved. Go to, boardroom cigar lounge.com,

boardroom cigarlounge.com. Rob, if you want to put the link below, click on Become a Member and one of our representative will reach out to you. With that being said, let's get right into it. I think the first story I want to get into, Rob, if you want to pull up the NATO story, I think the NATO story

kind of goes with everything that's going on in Iran, the President went up to them and said, hey, listen, we need you guys to be, with us, are you with us or not? I'm just paraphrasing. And it was a very different approach. I think here Starmor came out. If you have that clip, Rob, if you want to play the clip with Starmer, here's what he had to say about their involvement in a war with Iran. Go for it. Our priority is always the national interest. And so we have been clear and consistent in our objectives throughout this conflict. First, we will protect.

protect our people in the region. Second, while taking the necessary action to defend ourselves and our allies, we will not be drawn into the wider war. And third, we will keep working towards a swift resolution that brings security and stability back to the region and stops the Iranian threat to its neighbours. to see an end to this war as quickly as possible. Because the longer it goes on, the more dangerous the situation becomes, and the worse it is for the cost of living back here at home. Okay, so that's Kirstarmer saying that. The president, I think, responds to it as well, Rob. You've got to maybe a clip on that. There's an article from Wall Street Journal saying

U.S. allies rebuff Trump's demand for help, opening straight of her moves. President Trump is pressure and allies to help open the Strait of Hormuz and relive pressure of the global economy and relief. So far, most of them aren't biting. Germany has rejected taking apart, while Japan and Australia have indicated they are unlikely to send vessels to help Britain and France said they are assessing possible action but haven't committed to doing anything before fighting halts. All our close U.S. allies on Monday, German defense minister Boris, pistorius, dismissed Trump's call for help, asking rhetorically what Trump expects a handful or two handful of European frigates to accomplish in the state of Hormuz that the powerful

U.S. Navy there cannot achieve on its own. This is not our war. We did not start. Trump sent a pointed message to allies over the weekend, Rob. Is that the clip that you have? This is, yes, Boris. You want to go to the president first because I already read this. Just go to the clip you have with the president. Here's the president. Go forward. I'm very surprised with the United Kingdom. Because the United Kingdom, two weeks ago, I said, why don't you send some ships over? And he really didn't want to do it. I said, you don't want to do it.

We've been with you. You're our oldest ally. And we spend a lot of money on NATO and all of these things to protect you. I mean, we're protecting them. We're working with them on Ukraine. Ukraine's thousands of miles away separated by a vast ocean. We don't have to do that, but we did it. Well, Biden did it.

I mean, I have to be honest with Biden got taken to the cleaners. But we worked with them in Ukraine. We don't need to work with them in Ukraine. And then they tell us that we have a mine chip around and they don't want to do it. I think it's terrible. No, I was very surprised.

I told him, you know, we requested two aircraft carriers, which they had, and he didn't really want to do And then right after the war essentially ended, you know, meaning they were obliterated. He said, I would like to send the aircraft carriers. I said, I don't need them after the war has ended and won. I needed before the war. So I was very upset with not upset. I was not happy with the UK.

I think they'll be involved, yeah, maybe. But they should be involved enthusiastically. We've been protecting these countries the years with NATO. Jeff, your thoughts. Yeah, I mean, what is the reason that they can really come up with to say we don't want to participate in this? I mean, what is it really going on here with the UK? Is it really a political thing here? Because that's the immediate thought I have.

On why they're not wanting to get involved? Yeah. Is it really partisan politics? Are they really looking to say, if we drag this out a little bit more, then Trump will relinquish and that will be a... Speculate. What do you think it could be? I think that's what it is, honestly. Purely.

Purely politics. Tom, where are you at? I'm on the same page. I think that the Europeans are playing very careful. You know, I parsed the words out what Strummer said, and at the very open it says, we're interested in our national interest, protecting our people. He sounds very, very noble,

and all of the sudden he's of the UK by the UK for the UK. Wait a minute. He's a globalist that was caught on a train with Macron hiding a Coke spoon, and they were talking all about We Are Family and all these globalist agenda. Suddenly he's the noble statesman, you know, harkening back to Neville Chamberlain of the U.K. I think that the European leadership actually is enjoying the fact that Trump is in what looks like an extended war. I think they are enjoying it.

Brandon. Yeah, they don't want a swift ending or to help Trump a safe face here. I mean, the audacity after all the we've done for them, I mean, not once, not twice, but three times we've been there for Europe in major ways. I mean, World War I, we saved UK. UK would be decimated if it wasn't for us in World War I. They would be decimated if it wasn't for us in World War II. Then with NATO, we didn't have to do NATO, but I mean, part of it was just to like revamp

the military industrial complex. So, I mean, like we recreated this fake thing that we didn't even need under the guise of protecting Europe from Russia when Russia wanted to be part of NATO. So, yeah, no, I think we have plenty of leverage over the UK and the rest of Europe. They get 50% of their liquid natural gas from America, since 2022 before that it was only 10%. So, you know, we could cut that right off if we want to. What's given them this much of a backing to say we're not going to be?

Where is the confidence from? That's the interesting part because they get half of their weapons from us and half their liquid natural gas from us. I mean, either you are double dumb or someone behind closed doors is saying, don't worry about it. We have your back. Because while this is going on, Trump was supposed to go visit G March 31st. Right?

And he said, we'll see based on how to calls go. Well, guess what? The calls apparently didn't go as planned because Trump says U.S. asked China to delay Xi meeting a month or so due to Iran war. So why are we delaying it? Rob, you want to play that clip? Is this him? Yep. Go for it. I don't know.

We're working on that right now. We're speaking to China. I'd love to. But because of the war, I want to be here. I have to be here, I feel. and so we've requested that we delay it a month or so and I'm looking forward to being with them. We have a very good relationship.

So to me, is this NATO and those guys are sitting around saying, hey, we got to be careful with China. Maybe China's got our back. You know, let's kind of sit this one out. NATO, if you look up who gives the most money to NATO, we know who it is. This is something that everybody knows, the U.S. gives the most money.

I don't know how many billions of dollars we helped them out. He made the point with Ukraine. We gave how much money under Biden to Ukraine? 300 billion. How much? I think 300 billion. I think it's 160 to 200 billion dollars at this point. Buckets of the table too.

Yeah. Of comeback, weapons, all this stuff. Yeah, we've seen the numbers at this point. The numbers are. So we are willing to help, but you don't want to give the two ships until after the war is over with. that's when you want to give. You know, it's like a bank.

The bank wants to lend you money, wants to a deck of a millionaire, but you needed the money to start the business. They don't want to give you any money. We'll give you the money when you're no longer risk. So, but I don't know. The question is, what is the audacity coming from? The thing, Starmer said it. He said, look, we want this over to be as quickly as possible.

What would be the easiest way to get this over as quickly as possible? Help. Everybody get involved and get it done, right? I mean, because Trump has said, we're in the weight of the West. Right, exactly. Here's what's going to happen. So why are they, why would they not do that? If your interest is to end this as quickly as possible, then join, get it done, get it over with, and move on.

Let me read a quote. Let me read a quote to you, okay, which maybe they need to hear. Here's a quote. Okay, are you ready? And a part of this quote, I love, okay? I love when I read this quote. No friend ever served me, no enemy ever wronged me, who I have not repaid in full. Lucius Cornelius Sulla. Let me read this one more time. No friend ever served me and no enemy ever wronged me whom I have not repaid in full.

A ruthless Roman dictator in general, right? That's who he was back in the days, uncompromising. An element of Trump is he's an uncompromising guy that is going to remember these moments. So what does this mean? If you're an ally, we have your back. If you're an enemy, we will never forget. And we know Trump's never going to forget. I think this is a dumb move because a part of this that they can use as leverage as the following way. Here's how I would do it. Let you say you're part of these NATO countries. What if you come out and say, Mr. President,

we are absolutely with you. We all have your back with one reasoning. What's that? We want to make one ask. You cannot raise tariffs above 10% the next 12. 24 months. Go back to this following levels. If you do that because this is going to be a cost to us, if you're willing to do this, we're all in. What would you like to do? This is an opportunity for them to negotiate. I don't know if you understand. Like a dealmaker. Yeah. Guess what? Instead of just being like,

I'm out. Listen, maybe the president's like wanting to make a deal with you right now. Propose something. What if we do this? And by the way, how do you know that's not been talked about? If it's been talked about, maybe somebody could leak it to the market and say, hey, you know, what if in this moment where you're coming to us for help? Great. Give us a two-year commitment. The real number you want to negotiate for not raising tariffs is what? How many years?

It's not two years. It's three years. Exactly. Why do you want three years? Because he's out in three years. And you're hoping the guy that comes after him. I don't know. I think a part of this is Trump's not going to forget.

Yes. And in two years, when you guys desperately need him, he will not forget how you handle this. And he's going to delay the support for you. Then what's going to happen? You don't think you're going to need the help on the other way around? Who do you think needs who's help more often? You know what it's like? It's like when a guy comes to you for help 19 times, you go to help for one time.

But the one time you go to help for him, he holds it over your head. And you're like, I'm sorry. What did you just do? I help you 19 times. And the one time I need you, you are, you're using this as a, wow. Okay, no problem. Let me get back to it. No friend ever served me and no enemy ever wronged me,

whom I have not repaid in full. You're going to get paid in full. That's what I think is what's really bad about this. I think the calculation from the Europeans is that they're betting that gasoline prices and diesel prices, which we're going to talk about. they're betting that gasoline prices and diesel prices inflict enough pain on the American voter that they get Trump to relent

to call a quick, you know, call a victory, then just, you know, go back to the way it was. And I think that's a political calculation in both directions, first of all, from their own perspective, but also from the Trump perspective. So go ahead, Tom.

I agree with that 100%. I'm sorry to cut your off right then. There are two types of leadership. There is clear vision leadership, and then you go all the way downhill from that to pure political leadership. leadership. Pat, the Europeans have always been political leadership. Political leadership, conversations, muddy visions, we'll consider it, we'll think it over. Whereas clear vision leadership

is Mr. Gorbachev take down this wall. It's very clear, very defined. The Europeans think they have allies right now. They think the midterm election in the United States is an ally. They think the Democrats in the United States is an ally. They think an upset consumer is an ally. They don't have to have clear leadership, Pat. They're waiting for everything else to pinch Trump. They would rather than go out and stating what they want the future world to be, where they want to go, what they want to do, how they want to get there, how they want to provide for their people in the future. Rather than that, they'd rather let other things happen. You know, it's astonishing to me to see this.

But you know what it is? It's UN leadership because they are still globalist. They are still UN leadership. And I'm not surprised. I'm really not surprised. Tom, do you think they're underestimating Trump here? Because, I mean, we've talked about this many times. Trump has a plan.

Because people say you won't see anything negative about Trump. But I'll tell you, they are underestimating a true leader. When you come up against a true leader like this, you were underestimating him. It's not only the legend of Lucius Sulla, which is correct. It's also dealing with someone who is a dealmaker and is going to come back and go, wait a minute, you did, wait a minute, you did what? and he's got levers to pull. You don't think Starmer is going to need it? Look at what's starting to happen right now in the UK.

He's got his own issues in his backyard as the people of the UK. He's the most unpopular prime minister in UK history. In UK history! And the people are starting to erupt about the rape gangs and about things that are going on. And he's up there. We're interested in the people. He was about to resign anyways, guys. I mean, at any people, he was about to resign.

So I think at any point in the next few months, we could be like it's the end of it. Rob ran a poll here. Should NATO support the U.S. and helping keeping the straight of Hormuz? It's an 80-20 issue, okay, even with our audience. Our audience is a reasonable audience that watches and gets involved. So 80% saying yes, 20% is saying no. To the 20% saying no, can you put in the comment section, why not? And can all of you guys debate it out, the reasonable players?

Can you guys debate it out on why you say no? So that's that part. Now, this leads to oil gas prices, U.S. diesel prices, soar to all. Almost $5 as Iran war pinches global supply. Rob, if you can pull up the AAA gas prices for the last 30 days while I'm reading this article, that'd be great. U.S. diesel prices have jumped to more than a third, more than a third over the past month to almost $5 a gallon as the war in Iran. Average diesel prices at the pump $499 on Monday, a 37% increase a month ago as the blockage of Strait of Hormuz chokes energy support. applies. It marks the highest price for diesel a fuel that is vital for industry since the aftermath of Russia, full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Diesel costs rocket up and float back down, said Ed Hears and energy economists at the University of Houston. The only thing that Donald Trump's administration can do is finish this war. The diesel surge is pushing up costs for motorists and farmers threatening to trigger spiraling costs for consumers across the world's largest economy at a time when the president,

is battling an affordability crisis, Tom. So right now, diesel's $5 a gallon, and gas is about gasoline, regular automotive gas, is creeping up now. It's crossed $3.80 a gallon. This is going to start having a pinch on the consumer. For everybody that says it's going to be runaway inflation, that's not correct. This will be a short-term inflationary catalyst. However, frequently, when this is short-term, people that are paying for transport,

product makers, produce makers, they'll eat a short-term increase because they don't actually don't want to raise prices on the consumer right away because that's how you lose market share. You know what I mean, Pat? You and I are making products at a company. Oh, diesel is up for a week. Let's raise the price. You go, wait a minute, wait a minute. What if our competitor doesn't?

We could lose market share. Let's be more careful. So for the short run, you know, producers that are selling into retail are a little bit conservative, but not forever. But right now, $5 diesel is not good. that's increasing the cost on producers and $3.80 gas, which pushes it up to $5.50

because the people that live in California have almost $2 of localized taxes. This is not good. We need this war to be over so that this can settle back down. Jeff Snyder, thoughts. Yeah, again, it goes, you know, what Starmor said.

We want to help people's cost of living. What's the best way to do it is to end this conflict as quickly as possible because Trump is correct. If the Straits of Hormuz get open tomorrow, prices are going to go down. They're going to go right back to where they were immediately, like the guy you just quote it said. Overnight in Texas. But the oil prices, we saw this last summer. And when there's a brief 12-day war in the conflict, oil prices shot up. They didn't go as

high as they are now, but they shot up and then they went right back down again. And Tom, you're absolutely absolutely correct here. It's a time issue. If oil prices go back down and energy prices can go back down quickly, there'll be limited downside in the economy because in the initial stage, people do absorb the pressure. However, the longer it goes, the more it does erode consumer spending, it erodes a business's ability to maintain employment. That's the true downside here. Any oil shock case, the real issue is not really inflation so much as it is unemployment. When you have energy prices that skyrocket this much and stay there for even just a couple months.

Think back to the 1990-example. It only took a three-month oil shock to produce the 1990-91 recession. So that's the downside case. But if you're on this, I mean, I can't get over this. thing with the UK? I mean, if you, you want to avoid that, that scenario, then why not contribute? Why not? Don't just sit there and wait for it, even root for it because you're politically opposed to Trump. If you want to help out the economy, you want to help out the Middle East, the thing to do would be to participate at the absolute maximum level. They don't like oil, though.

You know, the UK doesn't, they like expensive oil. And then instead of them getting blamed for it, they could blame it on Trump. So I think that's a part of why they like this. It's politics. It's disgusting politics. But the thing that's bugging me, though, is that everybody's saying, oh, the good thing is at least China's being hurt more than America's being hurt. But it's widely acknowledged that the Iran's letting Chinese ships with Chinese oil go through the Strait of Hormuz right now to China. So China's actually not being hurt by this in the way that we are. And then Trump is saying, it's okay. We produce more than enough oil domestically to supply ourselves for years and years and years. But not exactly the case because we built refineries to handle the heavy crude oil.

You know, because we didn't know that we had all this light crude oil that we found in 2008. So we do produce the most oil in the world by far, but we could only refine like 10% of it because we don't have refineries that could refine the light crude that we have. Does it make sense? I do. But did you see the subtle support that France gave to Trump with Macron? Did you see what Trump said about Macron? Did you guys see this or no? Bob, I think there was something there.

Were they sending something? he says you know there's a micro no he'll never help in the straight of hormones yeah he said it's it's an eight call eight and a half call he'll be out of office very soon so we'll have to see what is this this is about there's two clips which one is this one

play this one let's see this one because this looks like a traditional trumpet and he's got the green tie on so it's yesterday go for it said in the last hour that he will never join a task force in the Strait of Hormuz until hostilities finished. Yesterday, you said... Who said that?

Who said? President Macron of Brons. What's your reaction to that, sir? Well, he'll be out of office very soon, so we'll have to say, you know, I don't know. I like the trail off comments, right? Well, he'll be on. Yeah, he'll be out of office. Look, I mean, what this is doing, what the Strait of Hormuz conversation is doing

is it's making you wonder how many other choke points are there in the world that can impact the economy, okay, and what leverage different people have. So we got a history lesson the last two weeks about Strait of Hormuz, right? The world did. Sometimes when this stuff happens, you're like, oh, I don't know that. Everybody's learning collectively, right? So what do we learn? We learned the power. We learned who goes through it. We learned who really has control at the choke, which Iran has a lot of influence in a country like Iran, people are scared of that they could attack, and we learn about Karek Island on what could happen with Karek Island and the influence. We learn about the mines. We learn about all this stuff, right?

Yeah. But what other choke points are there out there that China may be afraid of, you know, that other people, we hear about Suez Canal, right? You hear what Suez Canal does. And by the way, with the choke point of can you go to the Strait of Hormuz? Do you guys hear about what Saudi Arabia just announced yesterday that they've been working on the last 40 years that almost got done, the pipeline?

Can you type in the Saudi Arabia straight pipeline? Go to bypass Hormuz as Iran locks. Yeah, go to the east-west pipeline, right? You see it to the left? Okay, can you do me favor? And go type in Saudi East-West pipeline and go to images. Saudi, out of nowhere, they announced this.

So check this out. Go to right there. That's a good one. So the straight of Hormuz is that choke point to the right. Do you see top right? All the way to the top right. No, go even further, right? And Iran is right above it.

That's Iran right above. So if you look at this image, there's better ones. Okay, perfect. So Strait of Hormuz is to the right. Okay. Kuwait to the right of Kuwait is Iran. Well, quietly, Saudi's been working on this East-West pipeline that's able to do five to six and a half million barrels of oil

through not having to go through Strait of Hormuz, and they're claiming it is ready. So they don't have to deal with this. So they're playing prevent offense, right? Hey, if you're going to do this to us and put the threat, we're going to protect ourselves. So everybody's paying attention to the different choke points. The other one was Panama Canal. We talked about it extensively that now, you know, Panama came out, Supreme Court saying,

hey, you guys can't have control over China. So somewhat Panama Canal, Panama has control with the influence of America, right? Then the other one we have to look at is what Israel is doing, that they're talking about. They proposed this in the 60s quietly. Rob, if you can go to the Ben-Gurri, pipeline. Type in Bangurian pipeline and go to images. They proposed this quietly internally in the 60s. They named it after their first prime minister. And this is what the Bangurian pipeline

looks like. Can you go to images, Rob? So it's just immediately people will see it. Let me see which one to go through. Go to, none of them are good. I mean, go to the second row. Keep going, keep going, keep going. The fourth one, right there. So currently the story, the story, West Canal is to the left, which is roughly 193 kilometers. You see that to the left right there, the red line. That's 193 kilometers, which, by the way, we know who controls that. That's Egypt. So now Egypt, for the most part, they're making a lot of money off of that.

I don't know what the number is, but they make four and a half to seven billion-ish off of that. You guys can fact chunk beyond this. If you look to the right, you see Israel, Israel came up with this idea of building their own canal. We know straight is God made canals. to build that through, it's going to be around 250 to 300 kilometers, to not be reliant on Suez Canal, and by doing so it'll cost them $55 billion.

They'll need 300,000 employees to build it. Some claim this may go through Gaza, and that was part of the war. It'll save them a few kilometers if they're able to go through Gaza. If not, it'll be 290 kilometers. And they're proposing to do that. So everybody right now is kind of sitting around seeing what do we do next. But you know what's the other two that one of them we don't talk about a lot? One of them we know is the choke point is what?

Taiwan with 90% of the semiconductors, we all know how much control they have and how everybody has ships around that area to protect Taiwan, Japan, US, and then China's flying jets constantly to make sure no one's messing with that because they eventually want to find a way to have control over it. This is the last one that we have to talk about. and it's the straight of Malacca. Rob, can you tap in Strait of Malacca? Straight of Malacca is by far the most important straight to China.

Nothing is more important than the straight of Malacca. If you go to map, I'm trying to see which map to use that shows it. Just go to the, yeah, that's a good one, Rob. Click on that and go to the site. Yeah, Strait of Malacca is probably the one no one is talking about. Look at mainland China to the right. okay up top okay right there straight of Malacca is right there on the bottom

if you go to Malaysia and they don't have it too zoomed in all the way that small little island at the tail end between Indonesia Indonesia's the bottom one okay go to the go to south of Malaysia Rob go to south of Malaysia go to Malaysia go to Malaysia you see where Malaysia's at right there no you're right there just put the arrow

on south on Malaysia see that land to the left right there that's Indonesia That's Indonesia. So Malaysia gets $7 billion a year from that straight and revenue. Indonesia only gets $3 billion a year. But that small little island, Singapore, that you can barely see gets $15 billion of revenue. And they know if anybody wanted to make China's life a living hell,

that's the one you mess with. And China knows that. So to me in the negotiation where Trump's talking to China, you don't think Trump knows that straight of Malacca is the... China probably doesn't want... any attention on Strait of Malacca. Any. So if I'm talking and Trump's

talking the way he's talking, I don't know, but I would kind of drop it in there. And I would kind of give a hint and say, hey, let's not, by the way, you know how much money goes through it every year? You know what the number is? $3.5 trillion. $94,000 vessels a year go through this area.

$3.5 trillion. So it's not like, I don't know what the number is. Some 30, 35% goes through this area. 35% go back to the number you had right. right there, Rob? What did it say in 2024, 35% of oil transported by sea and 20% of gas flow through the straight? 35, more than a third goes through this.

So to me, if they're talking threats behind closed doors, and I trust Trump's team has talked about this probably immensely with them, but we haven't heard this name a lot. We haven't heard this name a lot. This is something China wants nobody to pay to. This is a place China wants nobody to be talking about. So to me, while all this negotiation behind closed doors are going on, I wonder how much if this thing gets a little bit deeper and

China plays a little bit of an asshole move and tries to come and help Iran with the straight of Hormuz, I wouldn't be surprised if America goes out there and does something, not anything to this area, but dangling something saying, hey, don't forget, we know how much important this area to you is. You better not be acting too crazy. Knowing Trump behind closed doors in his own way, he may do that. I don't know. So we'll see. Pat, don't you think that one of the reasons they, you know, Trump delayed the meeting with Xi was to get this Iran conflict resolved.

He wanted to go over there in a position of strength and power and say, look, look at what we did with Iran. Iran was supposed to be this major country, major ally. We've heard endlessly about their ability to inflict harm all across the region, all across everywhere. We took care of them in about a month. We can do that to Iran. Don't mess with us in all these other different places. I think that's what Trump was thinking. But let me tell you.

Besson says it's got nothing to do with any of this stuff. Like it didn't get delayed because they're not willing to play ball. That's what Scott Besson said. He's supposed to say that. Rob, you want to play this clip? You know, we will see whether the visit takes place as scheduled. But what I do want to parse, and there's a false narrative out there, that if the meetings are delayed, it wouldn't be delayed because the president's demanded

that China police the straits of her moots. It would be. Because there was a report. out to that effect this morning. That's completely fault. So if the meeting for some reason is rescheduled, it would be rescheduled because of logistics. The president wants to remain the NDC to coordinate the war effort.

And that traveling abroad at a time like this may not be. I think they're talking right now, to be honest. But do you agree? Do you agree with Scott? Do you agree 50-50 with Scott? Well, that this isn't the reason that he's not going? Do you agree 50% that the, The reason to not go is because the calls didn't go well as planning, hey, let's delay it.

And do you agree the other 50%? This is not the time to travel. Do you give both sides a little bit of credit that's probably happening? I do. Yeah. What do you think? No, I think this is Trump playing power politics. Again, my whole framework is this is Cold War II.

You go to Cold War II, you go to Shish and Ping in a position of strength. You go to them after you got the Rant thing bottled up and say, look, we took out Venezuela. Cuba's next. Panama Canal, we've done all of these things. Now, Iran, we're negotiating on our terms. Even though I'm in your country, visiting you, we're negotiating on our terms. I think that's the world and Taiwan's a friend. And keep in mind, keep in mind that one thing that the Strait of Hormuz in a war with Iran has almost taken off the table as a topic that no one's talking about right now. Taiwan? No, tariffs. You know, and the court's saying you got to pay back to $193 billion in tariffs

and said, oh, it's going to take yours. Not really. We want the money back now, and they're kind of pushing. The judges say, no, you guys going to. So to me, he's going there to China at a time that tariffs didn't rule for him. It ruled against him. You need to get a position of strength to go there? I agree with Jeff.

I think there's a part of it that, and by the way, I would do the same thing. Like, yeah, no, not right now. Guys, you don't want to. But again, to me, straight of Malacca is very important to China. Yeah. I want to know what hurts you. Okay? And I'm going to remember, I'm going to go back to our nice quote from our friendly general back in the days.

No friend ever served me, no enemy ever wronged me, whom I have not repaid in full. Trump right now is watching to see who's an enemy, who's a friend. Or you don't want to help us? Either way, we're going to repay you in full. Whatever it is, good or bad. You choose whether you want to be a friend and an enemy. we're not going to forget, okay? We're not going to forget.

So anyways, we'll see what's going to happen here. I don't think it's going to weigh this, you know, Iran, straight of Hormuz, all these stuff that we're talking about. At the same time, while this is going on, Israel says Iran's security chief Ali Ladi Jiani has been killed. Ladigiani, no relation to Larry Bird. But so Ali Ladi Ladi Jiani has been killed in a strike, according to CNBC.

Rob, is this, is this Adam's best friend? Go for it. Go for it. This morning we eliminated Ali Larijani. Ali Larigiani is the boss of the Revolutionary Guards, that group of gangsters that effectively runs Iran. Alongside him, we also eliminated the commander of the Basij. They are the gangsters' assistants who are terrorizing the population in the streets of Tehran and other Iranian cities.

We are operating there as well, operating from the air with Air Force jets and UAVs. We are undermining this regime in the hope of giving the Iranian people an opportunity to remove it. It will not happen all at once, and it will not happen easily. But if we persist, we will give them the chance to take their destiny into their own hands. At the same time, we are helping our American friends in the Gulf. I spoke at length with President Trump on this matter yesterday. There is cooperation between our air forces and navies between myself and President Trump and his staff. We will assist both through indirect attacks, which create immense

pressure on the Iranian regime and through direct actions. There are many more surprises. By stratagems, you shall make war. We will not reveal all the stratagems here, but as I told you, there are many. Now, regarding another matter... You can pause it right there. So by the way, this Ali guy that they killed, the way to put it, he is like, to make a comparison, is it like the director of CIA type of thing? It's a heavy way to take out, right? Tom, your thoughts? You think this is the end of it with leaders getting killed? Do you think there's more of this that's going to be coming every other day? Well, it feels like the war is methodically moving along, and Israel is doing exactly what we've been watching for two weeks.

They are knocking down leaders, and they are tightening the no leadership in there. You know what the stratagem is for Israel right now, right? Is, you know, take down the leaders. It's a bingo card, and they're just another one, another one, another one, another one, another one. That's what I see. And I see Israel kind of on their own strategy here. I don't know, I don't know how aligned we really are and I don't know how much I trust. But, you know, that's their strategy.

And, you know, he's making a speech. He's also showing he was, there was 72 hours. He didn't make any comments publicly. And then we had a bunch of, you know, a BS about, oh, you know, BB's been heard or worse, right? There was that going on for 72 hours. Now he's up there speaking. It's not AI. Very, very clear talking about, you know, that's what we're doing.

So this is their plan. Their plan is leader. And by the way, BB had five fingers in that video. I don't know if you saw that. It wasn't seven. So he also had the Bugs Bunny and the Superman costume sitting on the shelf, which I'm trying to figure out. To say who he was, he was like the, go back to his title, Rob, go back so we can say it correctly. He's like the Speaker Johnson, right?

of the parliament of Iran for 12 years. So he's like the Speaker of the House. And he was a media personality. That's, you know, educated guy, Ph.D. and philosophy. Iranian saw this guy on TV and he had a lot of weight. Jeff, where are you up with this? I think the strategy here has been pretty consistent from the beginning. Israel has said their goal is regime collapse, not regime change, but regime collapse.

And that means not just taking out one or two guys, but taking. out the ability of the regime to sustain itself. So what they're really hoping for is if by continuing to pressure the top leadership, it splinters what's remaining, what's left there, and it opens the door for the Iranian people to rise up and remove the regime, or at least for somebody within the regime to say we're no longer part of the regime, we'll start moving in a different direction. And I think the U.S. goal is similar, but then to contain the fallout, first of all, the economic fallout, but also the longstanding, goals of the U.S. foreign policy, which have been to eliminate Iran as a threat. So there's a bit

of symbiosis here, even though I think there are different tactics and different strategies going on. But overall, this is why I think, you know, it's underestimating Trump from the European perspective and other perspective that they're not going to stop until they accomplish their goal. Everybody thinks they can wait out Trump in Europe, you know, we'll just wait until gas prices go high enough and the midterm election goes wrong. And Trump will say, okay, we'll just declare victory, you know, and go home. That's, they've, they've crossed the Rubicon here. They've gone way too far.

And I think Trump has shown, and Israel certainly has shown ever since October 7th, that they're willing to go to extreme lengths to accomplish their goals. And what they've said is our goal in Iran is regime collapse. And we're not going to stop until we actually get it. And I think that's, that's both the, the aim here as well as the resolve. Brandon. Yeah, I'm, I'm curious. What happens once we do?

do say we do take out all the leaders. I mean, what does that look like in terms of how involved do we get in the regime change, the transitionary period? How do we make sure it doesn't become a even more volatile and lethal and deadly place that continues to execute terror attacks? Because, I mean, what it's it typically look like when you create a power vacuum like that? And I'm not saying it's a bad thing that we're doing that. I think it'd be great if we methodically took out all the leaders. I'm just saying what degree do we have to be involved in that transition. And I mean, does Israel have any plan or vision for being involved in that leadership transition? Do we have a person in mind to be the leader? Because that's the

weird thing. And that's the unfortunate thing about Reza Pavlovi that he has no interest in being the leader. Because like, what else? Who else is there, that's a name that could be? It's not Reza Palavi has no interest in being the leader. It's President Trump has no interest in him being the leader. Has he said that. No, President, him or Reza Palve? I thought Reza said he said that on the podcast. Right now he's saying, moment the regime collapses, I'm coming back to Iran to help being a transitional leader. And we don't fully know what that means. But he can't do that without Trump. Without Trump. Yeah. And so Trump said he seems like a nice guy, but he's been out for 47 years. I think we need

somebody on the inside, not somebody from the outside. Do I think the president will work with him, meaning could he play a role in helping in the transition? I think yes. Do I think he's going to going to be the guy they're going to look at? The president is saying no. He doesn't believe. He says he's a nice guy to do. That's the portion where we need like potentially boots on the ground even more so than taking people out because like how do we even protect the person that like whoever he

does decide to make that person? How's that person safe from the people who are upset about that turnover? That's always the gamble, right? That's the one reason that nobody has ever acted in Iran and other places. You don't know what comes next. That's always the question. Okay, we want to, everybody agrees. We got to take out the leadership in Iran.

This is bad. We don't need to keep going for 50 years, but what has sustained them for 47 years is this question, what comes next? And I see Trump as not some crazy bad man who's just going around the map and just randomly blowing things up. He's a gambler. He's a dealmaker. You guys say it all the time. He is a dealmaker. A dealmaker doesn't start down a road toward a deal without having some idea how it's resolved. You don't just throw the dice. Throwing the dice is a loser's game. So I have to believe at some point or in some way, I don't think, I don't, you know, Israel, I don't know if they're necessarily going to be involved, but I believe that the Trump administration has some roadmap. Whether they can execute or not, that's always the question. But they have some strategic roadmap that gets them to answer that question, what comes next. I don't think what comes next is, you know, the marine expeditionary forces landing in Tehran. I think it is solidifying opposition leaders enough that once the regime collapse, which would the regime collapse become. viable that the opposition leaders can then, therefore,

what you hope is a seamless transition. It probably won't be seamless, but... It's like a civil war type of situation. Worst case. But again, I don't see Trump as a gambler who's just going to throw the dice and say, well, you know, like a rock. We'll just go in there, blow everything up, and just hope that everybody's happy on the other side.

I think they have at least some idea that this was going to go. There was a significantly positive outcome that was a realistic one. Yeah, I mean, look, while this is going on, you know, you got the concern when you hear the numbers from WAPO and CNN on what percentage Americans are supportive of the war, you see the 53 to 59 percent are not, are not. And there's different polls. You can pick and choose on what these polls are. And that's only going to go up. The opposition to the war is only going to go up and the reason why it's going to go up is what. You think you felt the impact of money, you know, and affordability hasn't happened yet.

right now it's kind of like maybe 350 380 you know i can deal with that yet that that right there disapproval which poll is that rob is that the cnn n wapo and wapo 52 to 59 uh where it's like can you go search it for yourself as well on what some other polls are saying so that's that's what americans are worried about how bad this could turn into the moment it's hitting their pockets they're going to be reacting to it in a different way this is why being swift and fast if it becomes a lengthy thing. Oh, you're going to have some issues with that. Let me read this that came out yesterday, which, by the way, Tom predicted this last week. U.S. worship believed to be carrying additional Marines to Middle East tracked off Singapore, okay, which kind of we talked about a little bit earlier,

Singapore. Go ahead. Is this a rock? Go for it. Right there. Okay. So what is it doing there? Is there a good restaurant in Singapore they're checking out? Are they there because there's good fishing? lobster. There's good lobster. Maybe it's lobster. We don't know about it because we saw the numbers of lobster. They like to eat lobster before going to war. So we don't know why they're there. Maybe it's innocent. It's just lobster. You know, they're trying to catch it and have some food. But Tom, why are they there? What is going on here? What's your guesstimation?

That is the USS Tripoli. The U.S. Tripoli is a ground invasion ship. It looks like a little baby aircraft carrier, but there is one purpose of that ship. It is not a hospital ship. It is not a floating barrack. it is a invasion ship. And it is what is on there is 2,500 Marines from the Marine Corps Expeditionary Force, and now they've made it to Singapore. I and a lot of defense analysts are believing that the reason we loaded those guys up and sent them over there is Carg Island,

is to take possession of the island, shut off the valve, and say, okay, you get what you want to get through the new Saudi pipeline, that's not near the volume we're going to have here. We need to figure out the straight. Now, by the way, there's not a lot getting through the straight. I think the actual number, Pat, was 21 ships over 96 hours. I believe that's a number of ship that have got through. So all this comment about, oh, we're only going to hold up the Americans and their ally ships.

There is not unfettered passage going on right now. So China is still being limited in its ability to get. get that oil. But that ship, that is coming. And I believe it's going to get a lot of support. And soon as you see it, within 300 miles of the Strait of Hormuz, and turn north, you know where it's going. It's going to Karg Island. Because where else would have been going? You're not going to take 2,500 Marines and come ashore in Iran. Rob, can you see exactly where it's at right now as of this second? Jeff, your thoughts. Yeah, I agree with Tom. I think this is more pressure on the Iranian regime. I mean, what better way to

to help bring about regime collapsed than the cutting off Iranian oil? I mean, what is it? 90% of Iranian oil goes through Karg Island. So if you take control of the island, you can effectively control what Iranian oil is doing, assuming they don't, you know, sabotage the pipeline going to the island, which is a whole set of other different circumstances. But it's another layer of pressure that's being applied to the Iranian

regime, as well as accomplishing the mission of trying to manage the energy fallout and the energy costs fallout. So it's, it really isn't any ambiguity here. Just to play devil's advocate for fun, I mean, the whole, I think, philosophy of Trump and the art of war and the CIA and everything, it's like, all right, like, look over here because I'm actually doing this. I mean, if we could see the ship going to the thing from, you know, miles and miles away, if the whole world sees it going there and is anticipating this, I mean, like Iran obviously

has plenty of time to see the threat coming. and plan for what they want to do about that. So, I mean, like... Yeah, you're right. Because for you to have the audacity to go through, what are you saying? You're not going to do shit. Yeah. That's what you're saying.

Right. If they go through the choke point... And he runs right there, and they're just going to look at them. Just do something. Go ahead. If they don't, that is the ultimate, you know, sign of... Well, that's the resolution to this problem, right? is to prove, to prove that we can park something like that in the middle of Strait's Hormuz,

and then that will operate as a platform to help protect shipping. The biggest problem right now with the shipping isn't Carg Island, it's insurance costs. Even though, you know, London insurers say, yes, insurance is available. We aren't denying coverage to anybody. Their rates are ridiculous. I mean, I think I saw the report, and I think you guys have it in here to talk about. The insurance rates to cover vessels going to the Straits of Hormuz are like 5% of the vessel value. And that's just the prices that we can get.

So to get oil moving and to get not just more than oil, but to get everything moving through Hormuz, you have to have a credible solution to the Iranian problem isn't even direct attacks. It's almost like the naval doctrine of fleet and being. When you have a lesser powerful adversary, all they need to have is a credible threat that they don't actually have to act on that causes the more powerful adversary to dedicate resources to trying to protect the threat.

So if you drop a bunch of Marines on this island, you eliminate even the idea of the threat of the fleet and being that Iran poses just, you know, lobbing some missiles or some suicide drones that traffic passing through the strait. That's really the, that's the goal here. The goal here is to remove the credibility of the threat from the Iranian side to restrict transit through that area.

You said insurance. Here's what this fellow, Jean Soroka had to say about the Hormuzzi. insurance. Go forward, Rob. There are thousands of vessels that are stuck in the Arabian Gulf and just to the east outside of the Strait of Hormuz. The companies do not have an interest right now, nor is there enough money for insurance to transit those ships through the strait. Risking the life and limb of crew is just not an option for the private sector companies today. So, Gina, you're saying that for many, they're just doing a hands-off approach and have canceled a lot of

transits. That's right. There you go. So that's what he had to send him. The president said this by Kierig Island. Rob, is this it? Yes. By the way, real quick, Susie Wiles, I hope she recovers. I hope everything's going to be fine. Word came out that she may have breast cancer. We pray for a full recovery. She's played a very important role in this administration. So our prayers go out to her and her family. Go ahead, Rob. I know we attacked Carg Island and knocked it, knocked it literally destroyed everything in the island except for the area where the oil is, I call it the pipes. We left the pipes. We didn't want to do that, but we will do that.

We can do that on five minutes notice. It'll be over. But for purposes of someday rebuilding that country, I guess we did the right thing. But it may not stay that way. Just one simple word, and the pipes will be gone too, but it'll take a long time to rebuild that. we are aggressively dismantling Iran's defense industrial base and ability to rebuild its missiles and drone. They are five days to the coast of Somalia. That's where the ship is now, according to five days from Singapore to Somalia.

And if you look at the map, you see where Somalia is. And so when the USS Tripoli reaches the Somali coast and turns north, the discussions over. over. You'll go take a look at where that is. Rob, you're trying to find a flight. It's like Rob wants to go to Somalia. It's interesting. Man on the ground? They are five days to Somalia, which means they're five days to Oman. And so soon as they show up down there, soon as they show up down there.

So look at this on Monday Tuesday. The U.S. Tripoli is going to be sitting right there. Everybody's saying, okay, are they going to turn toward Oman and go toward the street? It's five days. So it's like a movie. Five days to decision. Let me ask you, from there, how many days is it to get past the choke point? Two?

Yeah, it's probably a day and a half, two days to go all the way north. Got it. So that means next Wednesday, we will hear news that something's happening. Well, I think we'll hear it on Monday because we're going to know where the USS Tripoli is on Monday. And everybody's going to know, okay, if I hang a right turn here, we're not going back. Yeah, I think our Marines are going to be, these are Marines. You're not talking about regular folks. I just see them just looking north, just looking at them.

Just looking at them. Because if it does get through, listen, if Iran does something to the USS Tripoli, what does US do? If they do something, how do you think US reacts? Violently. How bad? They annihilate them. So what's the chances that Iran will take a gamble, like Jeff is talking about earlier, and try to make a statement and do something to the Tripoli?

What's the chances? The U.S.S.S. Tripoli is coming through the Strait of Hormuz. We're basically saying it's on. So what do you think the chances are? I think they would try to do something because they're telegraphing it. I think so as well. So what do you think the chances are? No, it's 100%.

They're going to try to. Oh, do you think they're going to try? From Iran's perspective, this is a war of survival. Nothing is off the table. I think this is the end of it. Like meaning, what I mean by the end of it is, check me.

If you don't, you're saying you surrender. If you do, you're saying you still have a lifeline. You know, you're still. That's why I think the pressure metaphor works because they add more and more pressure.

They're moving chest pieces around, getting closer and closer to checkmate. And enough of a checkmate that allows the Iranian opposition to start rising up and start exhibiting control. That's the positive outlook. That's if it works well, if they can execute this and it actually goes in the right direction.

Check this is the right word. Over the next five days, how many more leaders does Israel check off the list? Check? For the next five, so the next five days, does the noose get tighter? You know, all they have left is what a drone swarm? That's all they have left. They have two options, a drone swarm or, you know, the unthinkable that, you know, right now, Russia is helping them with satellite imaging,

if Russia or China actually help them with a weapon, forget about it. I don't think that's going to happen. I don't think that's... So, I'd be shocked if this is the actual plan, though, if the Tripoli pulling up and deploying the troops in there, I'd be shocked if that's

the actual plan with, like, how far ahead of the time we know about it. Like, think about it, that'd be crazy from a military standpoint. Like, we're just telegraphing it for five days in advance. I think that something else is going to happen. This is supposed to be the decoy that we're looking at. Because it's too easy. Remember?

Yeah. They had the B-2 bombers flying off. They made a big show that they were flying from the east or from the west, and then the actual strike came in the other direction. Yeah, the fact that the media is talking about it, I don't know. But, I mean, it's a good idea if they're using that as a decoy. But I think it's also to China and Russia to say, look, if they actually go through with us, it's to say, look, we're going to do this.

What are you going to do about it? Are you going to back the Iranians? It's pressure from all over the board and all over the map. Yeah, you know if the USS Tripoli has ever been attacked? You know it's been attacked once before, Rob, go pull it up. Oh, wow. February 18th, 1991, during Gulf War. Okay, location, Persian Gulf, damage, a massive explosion, ripped a 20 by 30 foot hole in the hall.

You can actually pull up the picture, Rob, and see it. Nearly 5,000 gallons of fuel was spilled. The ship could have been crippled or sunk. Four sailors injured, no debt. No one died. The crew was stabilized the ship within two minutes of state operas. and continued its mission. That's it right there.

Look at that. That's not a... It took that shot, and within two minutes, they were... 20 minutes. 20 minutes later, they were operational, you know, back at it again. So, to me, that's a mine. And we know where mines are right around Kyrgyz Island. There's a lot of them.

And drones. Yeah. So it'll be interesting. It'll be interesting. Let's... It'll be interesting if you're saying, if they do. So this NATO's saying no, as of today. Israel's playing off and is taking out more people.

China doesn't want to meet because they don't want to say they're taking sides. The USS Tripoli is on its way there and not for food, but they're just going there because they want to make a statement. So that means the most intense moment of this entire war could be next Wednesday. He's all in. Trump is all in. There's no going back here. All right.

So I believe Monday, Tuesday, decision type, I think you're exactly right. And an intense moment is there. Yeah. And by the way, that mine was a mine laid by Iraq. That was not even a mine laid by Iraq. So on this side, it's more minds laid by Iran.

So we'll see. So let's go to something that happened yesterday. Okay. Joe Kent, not Jeff Kent. Joe Kent, yesterday, out of nowhere, puts out a tweet. And by the way, before we read this, Rob, can you do me, this is a Director of National Intelligence, National Counterterrorism Center.

Rob, can you do me a favor and first go to the tweet that he has pinned to the top of his Twitter account? At the top of his Twitter account, he has a tweet from the president. It's pinned. Thank you, President. It's an honor to serve our nation again. Time to keep our nation safe and strong. It is my pleasure to nominate Joe Kent as the Director of National Security National Counter Terrorism Center as a soldier, Greenberry and CIA officer.

Joe has a hunted down terrorists and criminals his entire life. Above all, Joe knows the terrible cost of terrorism losing his wonderful wife. Shannon, a great American hero who was killed in the fight against ISIS. Joe continues to honor her legacy by staying in the fight. Joe will help to keep America safe by eradicating all terrorism from the jihadists around the world to the cartels in our backyard. Congratulations, Joe. It's February 3rd, 2025, okay?

Little over a year ago. Then yesterday, he puts out this tweet, Rob, can we first show how many views this tweet got? He puts out this tweet, zoom in 784,000 likes, 234,000 retweet, 67,000 comments, 87 million views. Let's read the letter. Here's what the letter had to say. After much reflection, I have decided to resign for my position. I cannot in good conscience support ongoing war with Iran. Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation, and it's clear that we stated that's war.

started this war due to the pressure from Israel and its powerful American lobby. And by the way, that quote right there is what's gone viral. I support the values in a foreign policy that you campaigned on in July 2016, 2020, 2020, for which you enacted your first term until June of 2025. You understood that the wars in the Middle East were a trap that robbed America of the precious lives of our patriots and depleted the wealth and prosperity of our nation. In your first administration, you understood the better. than any modern president how to decisively apply military power without getting us

drawn into never-ending wars. You demonstrated this by killing Hassam Soleimani and defeating ISIS. Early in this administration, high-ranking Israeli officials and influential members of the American media deployed a misinformation campaign that wholly undermined your America First Platform and sowed pro-war sentiments to encourage a war against Iran. This echo chamber was used to deceive you into believing that Iran posed an imminent threat to the U.S. and that should you strike now, there was a clear path to a swift victory. This was a line as the same tactic

that Israelis used to draw us into a disastrous Iraqi war that cost our nation the lives of thousands of men and women. We cannot make this mistake again. As a veteran who was deployed to combat 11 times and a gold star husband who lost my beloved wife, Shannon, a war manufactured by Israel. I cannot support sending the generation off to fight and die in a war that served no benefit to American people,

nor justifies the cost of American life. I pray that you will reflect upon what we are doing in Iran and who we are doing it for. The time for bold action is now you can reserve course and chart a new path for our nation and you can allow us to slip further into decline. You hold the cards. It's an honor to serve in your administration and to serve our great nation. This is what he said. The response to it after this went out.

Rob, can you go on the tweet and let's just read the top 20 comments and see who responded to it just to see what the market is saying? under his tweet because the market's reacting to it. No, just go under his tweet. Yeah, there you go. So, Jank, make note of everyone's criticize and his patriot. It's a good way of separating. Who works for Israel and who doesn't?

Every Israel first neocom will now either call him a traitor or that Trump's fault. Okay, great, that's his position. Next, interesting. What is that? Joe Kent's tweet, I personally think we should have crushed their ballistic and nuke capes, but Trump has a plan. He has definitely earned the confidence of any clear-eyed observer.

January 8, 2020, six years ago, go a little bit lower. Now the most toxic voices. Okay, keep going lower. That's the family. Dan, we got that. Just keep going. Just leaving this year. Okay, keep going. Well done. Keep going a little bit lower. Nothing else major. Okay. Boom, keep going, keep going, keep going. Keep going, Rob, keep going. Okay. So then if this is the stuff that we're seeing,

I think right afterwards, there was a lot of different people that responded. it. We have few of them. So let's go through a few of these things that he said. This is him three months ago on Sean Ryan. What does he talk about here on this one, Rob? This is where he talks I believe it's the threat to America that Iran poses. So this is just three months ago? Or this is like three years ago? Okay, let's listen to this. Go forward. They're still registering for the draft, aren't they? Like, that's the logical conclusion to the direction that we're heading in right now, unless we make some serious changes. I mean, it's I've already heard rumors that Fifth Group is going to be sending guys to Iraq because of the

escalated situation with Iran now. Yeah. I mean, most Americans aren't aware of it. Our troops in Iraq and Syria have been attacked 150 plus times by Iranian proxies. And when we say Iranian proxies, we've got to be clearing what that is. That's the Iraqi government that we pay. Because after the Iraqi military, we spent $2 trillion on, surrendered to ISIS. we had to go back in there in very short order and stand a military back up again,

and guess who filled the breach? The Shia militias controlled by Iran did, and the Iraqi government's controlled by Iran. Okay, so in this part, he is saying that Iran is still a threat. How does the president respond to it, Rob? Do you have that clip? Okay. So let's go. Guys, I'm going to come to you.

We've got a few other things. Speaker Johnson, there's a bunch of different guys that reacted to it, and we can process it together. Go for it. Your director of National Counterterrorism, Joe Kent, he just resigned to He said he can't support your conflict with Iran. What's your reaction to that? And did you talk to-

Well, I read his statement. I always thought he was a nice guy, but I always thought he was weak on security, very weak on security. I didn't know him well, but I thought he seemed like a pretty nice guy. But when I read a statement, I realized that it's a good thing that he's out, because he said that Iran was not a threat. Iran was a threat.

Every country realized what he was a threat. realized what a threat Iran was. The question is whether or not they wanted to do something about it. And many people, many of the greatest military scholars are saying for years that president should have taken out Iran because they wanted a nuclear weapon. They were, if we didn't do the attack, or if I'll go a step further, if I didn't terminate the Iran nuclear deal given to us, one of the worst deals ever made by Barack Hussein Obama. Remember when they said Boeing 757s over there? Loaded with cash. hundreds of millions of dollars you would have been very happy this was a wonderful they said

hundreds of million people forget that does anybody remember right you remember hundreds of millions of dollars in a Boeing 757 I think that two of them loaded they took the seats out and they put cash and it was so much that there wasn't a bank in Virginia Maryland or D.C that had any money left they stripped them of all their money put it into place sent it to Iran almost as ransom. That's not going to happen with Trump. And nobody ever did anything. You can pause it right there.

So Joe Kent with his letter with what he said, Tom, where are you at with it? The guy changed. You see people, there's a lot of people in American media, American government appear to be shifting. And he is clearly shifted. You can't say around, was it? isn't arming and funding Huthis, Hezbollah. You can't say that. How do you possibly say that?

And he himself gave statistics about the number of attacks on our bases and our interests in the reason, not just interest, not like an oil refined me, oh, I'm interested in that. These are men and women in arms that were attacked. How can you say Iran is not a threat? You can debate the nuclear. Was it four days? Was it four months or was it a year until they had nuclear weapon? Well, they were sure testing missiles.

They were building larger. They were building ballistic missiles. So you can talk about that, even if you want to debate how close were they with centrifuges and refining the uranium. But to say that Iran wasn't a threat, after you go back and everything, I do know this. The guy's a patriot. He's a decorated soldier. he endured one of the most horrible losses you can endure. But I really, I don't understand what appears to be a radical change in position.

Jeff. Yeah, there's a couple things here that really stick out. One is to parse his statement, which, I mean, what else are we going to do, right? We're going to parse every last word. But he says imminent threat. I tend to agree with him because, you know, we talked about this a couple of weeks ago. Mark Moss had that wonderful chart that showed missile production going faster than our ability to destroy it. So I think the idea, this is, I don't want to say this is, you know, Iraq WMD,

but I think that was, it's the same kind of idea here, that the Trump administration said, yeah, I don't believe that there was a plan by Iran to attack everybody overnight. It wasn't an imminent threat. I think the idea was, if we're going to attack Iran and get rid of their leadership, we have to do it now. It was, the imminent threat maybe wasn't a, it wasn't an explicit threat, which, I mean, you you can argue about that, but if you want to read his statement charitably, there probably was not an imminent threat. Of course, I have no idea. I'm not a security expert by any means, but just going off the language of what we've been talking about, I don't think there was

an explicit imminent threat that said we need to go attack Iran. If that's your problem, obviously he was in favor of doing something about the Iranian leadership. Maybe he doesn't like the strategy that Trump has chosen to do something about it. You could give him the most charitable view. However, I have a problem with right there in the first quote, the first paragraph, bringing in the Israel and Israel lobby. That changes this entire character to something

political. So if it was just an analytical statement where he left that part out, I would say, look, I mean, yeah, maybe he's probably right. There's something to the statement. By bringing in this whole Israel Israel lobby, it changes the character of what he's trying to say. And it makes it have a lot of

thoughts on this. Brent, I want to hear your thoughts. Yeah. Yeah. I I mean, I could totally see the side of people being upset about another foreign war. I mean, we're $30 trillion in debt because of the last foreign war in the Middle East that we get stuck in. So, I mean, we see that. But also, Iran's been something that we've probably had to deal with for the last 47, 48, 49 years. Like, it's always something that we were going to have to face at some point. I don't think that they were, they have the enriched uranium that people are saying they do.

But I do think that they're probably the biggest problem in terms of world instability, in terms of Middle East instability that we did have to address at some point. If any administration was going to address it, I'd want this one to be the one to do it because I think Trump actually listens to the military generals and chooses the best plans to go forward with instead of kind of putting the handcuffs in the military the way that a lot of other presidents have. So I don't know if it's been executed perfectly. Yeah, I think a lot of his other military attacks or military missions have been done pretty perfectly

meticulously. But yeah, if anyway was it going to be doing this, I'm glad it's him. but yeah, I could see the argument where it's not the best thing for America because it could cost a lot of money and lives. So I can see both sides of it. Yeah, Rob, do you want to pull up, do you want to pull up the tweet by Tulsi? There you go. Donald Trump was overwhelmingly elected by the American people to be our president,

commander-in-chief. As our commander-in-chief, he is responsible for determining what is and is not an imminent threat and whether or not to take action. He deems necessary to protect the safety and security of our troops, the American people in our country, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence is responsible for helping coordinate and integrate all intelligence to provide the President, Commander-in-Chief

with best information available to inform his decisions. After careful reviewing all the information before him, President Trump concluded that the terrorist, Islamist regime in Iran posed an imminent threat, and he took action based on that conclusion. So the way I read this, I don't read this as supportive. I read this as, you know, he is responsible if he sees an eminent threat. And whether or not to take action, he deems necessary to protect the safety. He.

She hates this. And the office of the director of national intelligence is responsible for helping coordinate and integrate all intelligence to provide the president and commander-in-chief with the best information available to inform his decisions. After carefully reviewing all the information before him, the president concluded that the terrorist Islamists were so it's it's almost a neutral towards Trump statement it's not fully towards Trump it's it's written so delicately to create possibly an opening in case she gets fired or she steps out she's saying

I'm on the team but I didn't do this that's kind of how I take it right because to me you know Tulsi's a independent centerer some people may even say she's a center leftist but I think she's a center right today a little bit more she's moved. This is my this is my challenge with with all of this stuff that you're hearing with what Joe Kent just said.

There are a lot of things that came out with tweets that he's made about Iran and about the president. That's very supportive. Rob, which clip is this? This is Caroline Levitch. She was just asked a few minutes ago. Okay, go for it. This is good if it's recent because then I'll get into what I'm going to say go for it Tulsi Gabbard's job in jeopardy right now given to Joe Penn stuff not to

my knowledge I haven't heard the president say that nor have I heard him say that so obviously that's a question for him but I haven't heard him to say that at all. One plus one equals more of the greatest stories Kulu on Disney Plus stories about survivors

the most dangerous planet family retribution murder prophecy beer and propane how we do it! The ultimate soldier. The best of the best stories now with even more from Hulu. Amazing. Have it all with 3-1 Disney Plus.

What's that? She said what? That she hasn't heard President Trump say that Tulsi Gabbard's job is in jeopardy over Joe Kent's resignation. But it's also not a firm. Played one more time, Rob? Her body language is weird the way she answers that. Played one more time? number's job in jeopardy right now given to Joe Penn stuff?

Not to my knowledge. I haven't heard the president say that, nor have I heard him say that. So obviously that's a question for him, but I haven't heard him to say that at all. Okay. All right. So, Rob, can you pull up this one tweet? I don't know if you have it or not. This is a tweet from Joe, okay? This is a tweet from Joe, if you want to pull it up. He said this a year and four months ago. Not this one, Rob, the one. the other one. I just send it to you, Rob. Just look at your phone. I just send it to you. He said this retweeting a tweet from the president. Okay. Iran has been after Trump since January of 2020,

after he ordered the target killing of terrorist Ghassam Soleimani. This isn't a new threat. The Secret Service consistently failing to secure Trump is new. We need to figure out exactly why these failures. are happening. So he's set some stuff that he's making it clear that Iran is a threat. Now, here's my challenge. My challenge is you say that, you've backed them up, now you're saying you think people are buying him and, you know, not buying him. Israel is kind of getting involved and doing some things like that. And then you want to come out and say it publicly becomes the most viral tweet of the day. Who did that benefit? Who did that tweet benefit the most?

While we're in war, who does that tweet benefit the most? Kent. Kent? Yeah. Okay. So that tweet benefits Kent the most. Yeah. Who else does it benefit?

I would have to say it benefits one other person as well. Tucker. I think it also benefits Tucker. Guess who's the first podcast he's doing? Tucker. With Tucker. And there are some rumors that while he was working there, he was sharing intel with Tucker. Okay?

And that was past that. Now, listen, say what you say about Laura Lumer. If you want to pull this up, Rob, Laura Lumer had a... Laura Lumer had this one thing that she said about the exchange between the two. And let me see if I can find this. And as reported, you know, his wife...

Let's know, reported Trump Hater and a Jew hater, Mexico. I'm trying to see which one it was. Because there was something that there was a communication saying that maybe allegedly some of the stories were being leaked from him to Tucker. So if there is a connection with how Tucker makes the video the other day saying, I don't know why the CI is coming after me, and then now you're saying this, okay, that you're stepping down the day after,

then you're going on Tucker. There's an alignment there, okay, between the two. It's very obvious. Tucker just announced right now that he's a lot of, going to be going live with him tonight or something like that. Yeah, his statement was political. It was obviously political. Yeah, and to me, again, but even above that, just go a little bit lower, Rob, go a little bit lower.

Even with the Israel stuff, actually, I'm not, you know, with the Israel comments that he's making, you know, fine, if you have that. This is a bigger challenge for me. So we're in it. You decide to resign. All the timing of it is a little bit weird. okay you all of a sudden decide to resign and after resigning you go out and put the tweet and then you go do the podcast you're definitely not making Trump look good okay you're definitely

not making him look good and where he's at so I just have a hard time with that I think the timing of it you accepted the job you went into the job now you're getting out to do this now look this kind of stuff happens this is the risk of hiring people and it can get out and it's not like You know how typically there's a, what is the disparagement clause, Tom? Like, you know, if you're leaving no defamation and any of that stuff. No defamation, no social media. Obviously, that stuff doesn't apply to here. So I don't know.

What's this, Rob? Which one is this? This is the tweet that Laura Lumer put out yesterday claiming Joe Kent was leaking information according to many White House staff. Leaking to John Hudson. Who's John Hudson? Can you go to it? Washington Post.

So John Hudson is. is a WAPO, not a coincidence that Hudson chose to run to CNN during prime time tonight to attack President Trump for less than 12 hours after Kent resigned. Who told Hudson that WAPO, that Joe Kent and Tulsi Gabbard met with J.D. Vance to show him the resignation letter ahead of time. Wow. Okay. So there you go. Guys, That's crazy. But we talked about this as well last week. I haven't seen this tweet. Did the vice president agree with the blood libels in Joe Kent's letter in which he blamed Israel for his wife's death.

Ken's wife was tragically killed by Islamic terrorist. Do you believe Joe Kent told Buckley Carson to tell his father he sends his regards when he met with JD? It's only one big family affair. Anything to blame the Jews and destroyed President Trump. Why was JD Tulsi and Kent's first stop at the White House? Interesting choice. I don't know.

I mean, look, one thing about Laura, you don't know what Laura's going to be saying, but a lot of people have gotten fired over Laura Lumer's tweets and somehow some way she tends to get a lot of news from a lot of different people. But you're seeing the connections. And gets it right a lot. And she gets it right a lot. She gets it right a lot.

And then people can come back and say a lot of stuff about her. Just the pro and the con about X. Debate it out. But if there's a connection, the person that gets negatively impacted the most by, this is who? Trump? No. Not true. Trump's going to move on.

This is a 24. our news cycle. Trust me. Trump knows 24 hours you've moved on. Okay. Mike Walts. How long did that last?

You moved on. This is not that big of a deal. You move on. But guess who was negatively impacted by this a lot short term? J.D. J.D. Vance. Yeah.

J.D. Vance. If it's true, which, by the way, how are you as the VP meet with him? That's not hard to document and find out. If there was a meeting with Kent, with JD, with Tulsi,

Tulsi's tweet is already a safe tweet. That's a bulletproof tweet. And I'm a fan of Tulsi. So even when I interact with Tulsi, she's always very calculating on what she's going to be saying. She's brilliant. It's why she does so well. But Tulsi's tweet is a protection in case she does get fired that that helps her for 2028. Because you got to also realize if I'm Tulsi, I'm sitting there saying I'm not being used.

How often do you see Tulsi being used? Never. How often do you see Trump using JD? Not a lot. No more. Why not? Maybe he gave him the Minnesota thing or California fraud or some of that stuff that we're reading about. But this could lead to one thing.

If this leads to, you know, J.D. be in the top candidate in 2028 or Tucker, because Tucker went from 2 to 4%, and he's now ahead of DeSantis on the odds. But if, let's say J.D. runs, which the world now knows what J.D.'s positions would be. He would need a VP like who. Believe it or not, a DeSantis.

Because J.D. and Tucker is too much of the same thing. And so DeSantis would be the VP because you need the pro-Israel, you need those guys. So DeSantis will play that role, Because we know how strong he is, you know, freedom of protecting. You can't comment anything on Israel. And then JD does to the Santis what trumped to JD. Trump hired JD for a very good position.

You need a JD. But he doesn't use JD that much. You think JD's in the inner circles of the inner circles? I don't believe so. Again, we're purely speculating. But while we're speculating the 28 Republican nomination for president on Calci, $22 million, $1,000. Rubio is now at 29%.

Look at third. Look at third, 5.3 out of nowhere. That's Tucker. But if you go on the bottom, the ones you have to look at that are critical VP positions, Desantis is the one. DeSantis is the one.

The Santis is a very, very, very safe, solid VP position that is useful not to Rubio, that is useful to JD and Tucker. Right. again, if it gets to that point. But this is all purely speculation conversations that we're having. So which one of you guys has the thoughts on this?

Because I'll come to any one of you guys if you have anything to this. Look, I think there's setting aside the politics of it, I think there is the reason we're talking about this and the reason is such a big issue is that there is a legitimate debate about all this. Let's face it, the Iran conflict makes us uncomfortable as it should. We should not be happy about this. Yep. So there is room for legitimate dissent.

there is room for legitimate debate. Is the Trump administration executing and prosecuting the war with a correct strategy? Obviously, we don't know that because we don't know what their strategy actually is, nor should we. He's right when he says, you know, every time they ask him, what are you going to do next? I'm not going to tell you. Why would I tell you? So we're sitting in the fog of war. It is understandable why people would be, would vehemently object to the idea of something like this because we went through Iraq.

We went through Afghanistan. We don't want to go through those things again. And there's every reason to believe that we shouldn't be doing those things. So the reason this is such a hot button issue is because there should be a legitimate debate about this entire thing. Yes, we should be positive and hopeful, but

let's be honest here. The history here isn't great. The history isn't great whatsoever, but also at the same time, alliances are being built and right now's in the open. Everybody's watching the same. That's the part that gets lost in this. There is opportunity here.

That's what's why I think Ken left. Say that again. I said that's why I think Ken left. I mean, we're talking about Tucker being a candidate. I think Ken made himself VP. I know they're too similar in that regard, but I think there was an angle for why he left. I only just did out principle.

I don't think until yesterday's letter, Joe Kent, you know, I don't know if he has been that, you know, a big of a name that you know. If I ask you right on who Joe Kent was last week, I don't know. You're going to say, is he a second basement for the giant? I was typing in Jeff Kent last time. I was looking this up.

No, exactly. You would have brought it. up and said, but you remember the guy that interfered with the FBI investigation making comments after Charlie Kirk was assassinated? And you would have said, oh, that guy, oh, okay, but there was nothing else. Good looking guy, solid guy. All of this leads to 2028, my opinion, AOC being the frontrunner. If this goes the way it's going, if AOC gets the right people around her, AOC could be the president of the United States in 2020. And when people have, you I'm like, you're crazy.

I know. I'm telling you I'm not. You're out of your mind. Oh, the Republican Party. Can you imagine, let's just say it's a Rubio and give me a good VP. Pick a VP for Rubio. Not DeSantis.

Give a VP for Rubio. Pick a VP for Rubio. Okay. A VP for Rubio would need to be who? Tulsi? No way. That's not going to work. That won't work because Tulsi's telling you

what camp she's a part of. Yeah. Tulsi's with J.D., with Tucker, quietly. She is... You think so on the Israel stuff? Oh. Yeah. Not saying 100%.

Yeah. I think she's there. Okay? She's definitely an anti, you know, non-interventionalist. Yeah. So she's definitely there. But to me, camps are being made. And this 27, 28 election will be very different.

There's going to be so much disruption that Trump knew how to handle it. we won't know if, you know, the Rubios and all those guys will be able to handle the chaos and inside the tornado of media at that level. We don't know yet. And the right split, too, which is a weird dynamic. The right is split. Yeah, I mean, listen, even, you know, it's, but. Rubio, Mark Wayne Mullen.

Okay, so let's just say if that is. Okay. Say if that's who it is, huh? Polly? Josh Hawley, if he does, right, Holly. Yeah. If the GOP gets her fingers. in it, they'll be pushing for

like Stephanac or Huckabee Sanders. Not going to happen. No, but they'll be the GOP money, Pat. You're saying rhino? Rino money? Yeah, they'll be pushing for a female. That's the most boring ticket in the world. I know. Zero chance. I don't disagree with you strategically. Zero chance. But I'm pointing out

that the GOP money machine that's in the middle that will dictate the conventions, the order of the primaries, and buckets of money will severely attempt to influence it and they'll be saying, what about Stefanik? You know, you need a female. That's what you're going to hear. Yeah, yeah.

But I agree with you strategically. Issues vary every four years and we're going to see, by the way, here's the reality of it. We also don't have a clue what the hell is going to happen with this war. It's going to end good or bad for Trump. We don't know. If it ends good, guess what?

You know, they have to eat their words. If it ends bad, you know, Trump's got to eat their words. We're like, oh, shit. So we don't know anything yet right now. We don't fully know what's going to be happening and how it's going to be handled. All we know is NATO said no. China's stepping out, playing quiet. We got USS Tripoli that's on its way to Somalia.

We don't know what's going to happen next Monday, Wednesday. It's going to be very revealing how Iran's going to attack. We don't know what's going to be happening the next few weeks. And if it ends up being done less than three to six months, then the guys that said, this is the next Iraq, the next this, the next that. They have to sit there and say, well, it's not. But they're still going to come back and say, yeah, but, yeah, but there is no winning, you know, certain 5% of people that no matter what you do, you're not going to win it. But, you know, all along Rubio's coming up, okay, and Tucker's coming up as well.

Look at Tucker here, you know, 7, 28%. He is coming up. I called this three years ago when I said Tucker is either, he's campaigning for 2028 and he wants to run Churchill type of thing, you know, a media I called this three years ago. Rob, I don't know how many clips did I say this to, Rob, that we did this. We almost have to cut it. Eventually we'll do it when it becomes a reality.

And I think he's playing that card. And he's playing a well. He's constantly in the news. Now, if anything happens with CIA coming out and arresting, changes the game a little bit. Yeah. It may even help them ten times more, by the way. It may even increase the popularity. It's exactly what happened when the Dems got mugshots

of Trump. It became the campaign. The look that he's gave he may almost want it so by the way okay let's talk about Cuba the president asked about Cuba but I think by uh what's his name Rob um uh uh Scalton no what's the guy that to the father and son that were Ducey Peter Ducey yeah here's what when he was asked about taking Cuba watch this go for it but it's next Cuba is Cuba whatever you do with the military there seems like something will that look more like Iran or Venezuela can't tell you that I can tell you that they're talking to us.

It's a failed nation. They have no money. They have no oil. They have no nothing. They have nice land. They have nice landscape. It's a beautiful island. I think Cuba, I don't know, in its own way,

if there's, you know, tourism and everything else, it's a beautiful island. Great weather. They're not in a hurricane zone, which is nice for a change, you know. They won't be asking us for money for hurricanes every week. But I think Cuba is seen the end. all my life I've been hearing about the United States and Cuba. When will the United States do it?

I do believe I'll be the honor of having the honor of taking Cuba. That's a big honor. Taking Cuba. Taking Cuba. In some form, yeah. Taking Cuba. I mean, whether I free it, take it, I think I could do anything I want with it. You want a very weakened nation right now.

Brandon, go ahead. You seem like you have some thoughts on this. No, I love it. I mean, you know, if you were to think about it from terms of precedent and international law and everything, yeah, I sure you could say like, oh, so we're talking about taking over our country. But no, like, I mean, let's be real. I don't think there's a Cuban in the world that exists. That would be upset if the United States won in and took out the leader of Cuba, the way we did with Venezuela. And talk about wasted potential what Cuba could be.

Cuba could be like a Hawaii, like Puerto Rico. I mean. What it used to be. Yeah, right. I mean, like it was a booming place before the freaking Castro took over. It wasn't perfect, but geez. No, but I mean, it has all the potential in the world. It's what, like less than 100 miles away from us?

It could be a crazy vacation place. You know, they have deep water ports. They have everything. So, yeah, I mean, I'm all for it. I think that every Cuban, like, in existence would be in support of that. It's, again, it's the same template, right? It's presidents, governments, people did not want to touch Cuba. Cuba's been festering there for 70 years.

Nobody wanted to touch them, even though they were relatively weak nation, relatively weak economy, relatively weak political. I mean, top heavy, everything else. Nobody wanted to go that far. And here's Trump saying, I'm going to do it. Why wouldn't I do it? So you got to take the guy at his word. You got to understand he has the resolve to do it. Whether you disagree with him or not, he says what he's going to do.

If he says I'm going to take Venezuela or I'm going to take Maduro, he took Maduro. He says I'm going to attack Iran, which nobody, I mean, it was a third. third rail in geopolitical circles for a long time. He goes and does it. He says, I'm going to take Cuba. I got to think that, you know, probably six months from now, we're going to be sitting here talking about the new Cuban regime and what's the opportunities are in Cuba.

Cuba, I think, is probably much easier to crack than Iran. I think it's just a knock on a door. Yeah. It's all it is. Right. Oh, it has to be a knock on the door because you can't ring the doorbell because there's a nationwide power out. Literally.

Literally. Literally. The westernized resorts, you know, owned by Europeans and Latin American interests, have generators, but the generators are low on power. It was a nationwide blackout that happened on Monday. They've been going 16 hours a day, Pat, without power. And the people there are literally suffering. The citizens are suffering. Look at that. You know, this supposedly was Monday night, Tuesday morning. There's no lights, right? And that some of the hotels. Of course, we had nothing to do with this. We would never do such a thing to show like... No, it's Fred and Louis, vacationing from Langley, having a carmainean, and pulled the plug.

Yeah. So I believe you're correct. It is a knock at the door. You know why it's a knock of the door? Look at the rich Cuban population that is in Miami. Look at what's going with Latin American and World Baseball Classic and what's going on. It is culturally much different.

Those people are clamoring for something better. they are waiting. And right now, they can't, they are short on oil. They can't get fuel. They can't get energy. And the grid has collapsed. What side do you think the citizens are on, right? Trump, all I has to do is walk over there and hold up an extension cord.

And people are going to say, I'm with him. Well, the people were always there. They just never had anything to grab onto because nobody would support them, right? They would always, oh, you guys are on your own. You guys hate Castro. Well, maybe do something about it. So now Trump is giving them a life friend. We go to baseball games with them.

I hit him, but don't say it, please. This is the final piece of socialism in South America, too. I mean, you have some small ones like Colombia, but this was the epicenter of South America's socialism spreading. So if you take this out after taking out Venezuela and getting the Argentina fixed, I mean, I think we eradicate socialism in South America after this. Yeah, I don't know. I think if that power went out, then it's one way of, the easiest way to say,

hey, like imagine visually, there's a CIA officer that's there and saying, this is the switch? Yeah, turn it off. Okay, boom. You want me? Turn it back on? Turn it back on. Okay, boom.

And just kind of mess with them a little bit like strove lights. And then for them, to people who say, listen, let's become part of America. Let's finish up, finish this off and figure something out and move. I don't know. But I think this will be the easiest thing for them to do. By the other, did you guys see the president saying he spoke to a previous president and they asked him, was a Bush? And he said, no, he says, but I don't want to talk about which president I talked to.

Did you see this clip? Like, yeah. Yeah, you want to play, have we played that clip yet or no? No, sir. Do you have that, Rob? Right here. So here it is. So you're saying he spoke to a president.

Go forward. But they never had the chance. I never gave them the chance to use it. And other presidents should have done. I spoke to one of the former presidents, so I actually like. Can you move the arrow? I actually speak to some. I do like some people.

Be shocking. And he said, I wish I did what you did. Could have done it. Other presidents. somebody should have done 47 years this one on they call Iran the bully of the Middle East

Look what he has on his desk he's got a B-2 Palmer sitting on his desk the model is sitting there it's like Hey wait a man I need this Okay I'm ready Can you go Rob to the one where he's being asked Who the president was? Do you have that one?

Because immediately somebody asked Who was the president you spoke to and he gave the answer. It's very, he didn't give the answer. He says, maybe I'm going to call him and ask him and see, you don't have it? He'll find it. He looks like he's having so much fun, by the way.

He does look like he's, he looks like he's playing loose. A lot of other people are stressed out. He's a wartime president. He's in his favorite arena right now. Yeah. Well, like you said, love him or hate him, he's a leader. I mean, if you disagree where he's going, that's fine. But he's a leader who's taking charge.

And I think the reason people resonate with, he resonates with people is that we haven't seen something like that in so long. It's kind of like a, it seems like a brand new phenomenon. He at least has clear-eyed ideas and is not just has ideas. He's not just talking about him. He's executing them. Again, love them or hate him, disagree with them or not. He's executing a strategy and a plan. On all the problems that we've had and complained about for a long time aside from the national debt.

Is what? I said he's checking the boxes on all the problems we've complained about for a long time aside. from things like the national death. Yeah, Rob, that's the one. Go ahead. Even Reagan never really got there. Watch this. I just want to ask you about something very interesting

that he said twice today. That you talked to another former president about the Iran strikes. Was it George Mubush? No. Was it Bill Clinton? I don't want to say. Yeah.

I don't want to say. Because a member of a party, a member of a party, they have trucked arrangements syndrome. them all, but it's somebody that happens to like me, and I like that person who's a smart person, but that person said, I wish I did it. Okay, but I don't want to get into who. I don't want to get him into trouble. Maybe, hey, you know what? I think you probably know.

You know, it's interesting. And maybe he'd be proud. And I could even ask him that. Would you like me to reveal your name to Peter at Fox? Well, at least you have high ratings. You're really, ratings are through the roof, Peter. Thank you for noticing. Congratulations. Can I ask you another question? Wow, by the way, he is doing a million and one things, and he says, your ratings are by the roof.

And he says, thank you for noticing. The guy doesn't, can he imagine, like, what this guy's paying attention to with the numbers? It's amazing. Interesting. So, you know, I noticed the pitcher for, you know, yesterday that was the game. He's watching everything like a hawk. Your thoughts, Tom. Who do you think it is?

Okay. I have an idea who it is. So it wasn't W. It certainly isn't going to be Biden. What is he going to call Biden? There is no conversation there. There's no conversation with Biden. And it's not going to be Obama.

Obama would have wanted to prop up, you know, the ghost of Che. The ghost of Che. So the only one it could be is Bill Clinton. That's why he said I don't want to say. And you know what else he did yesterday that validates that is him. yesterday he's talking about the Churchill statue okay the Churchill statue

there was a statue behind him he's turning around and taking shots at Tears Starmer but he talks about how Obama got rid of the statue okay I don't know if you have that Robert and I just send it to you as well it may or may not be this clip I haven't listened to it but he says when Obama got elected he got rid of this but here's one thing we know for a fact who's not a Churchill go ahead Rob okay when I sell my business I want the best tax and investment advice.

I want to help my kids, and I want to give back to the community. Ooh, then it's the vacation of a lifetime. I wonder if my head of office has a forever setting. An IG Private Wealth Advisor creates the clarity you need with plans that harmonize your business, your family, and your dreams. Get financial advice that puts you at the center. Find your advisor at IG Private Wealth.com. When West Jet first took flight in 1996, the vibes were a bit different.

People thought denim on denim was peak fashion, inline skates were everywhere, and two out of three women rocked, the Rachel. While those things stayed in the 90s, one thing that hasn't is that fuzzy feeling you get when WestJet welcomes you on board. Here's to WestJetting since 96. Travel back in time with us and actually travel with us at westjet.com slash 30 years. Getting ready for a game means being ready for anything. Like packing a spare stick. I like to be prepared.

That's why I remember, 988, Canada's suicide crisis helpline. It's good to know, just in case. Anyone can call or text for free confidential support from a train responder any time. 988 suicide crisis helpline is funded by the government in Canada. You see that man right there? You know who that is? Churchill. The late great Winston Churchill,

and Barack Hussein Obama did not want his bust in this office. Did you know that? and Barack Hussein Obama sent that bus back to England. They didn't want it. And when I came in, I was asked if I wanted. I said, absolutely, I want it. And I put it right there, Winston Churchill. And, you know, unfortunately, Kira is not Winston Churchill.

In 30 seconds, he took shots at two people and validated that it's not Obama that he spoke to. So that means it's only one of two people. And paid homage to a wartime leader. it's either himself because he's a previous president of 45 or it's Clinton okay he's like I thought to my show he was he was regretting in his first term not doing it no he wouldn't say that it's only Clinton is who he is so we know we know it's only a Clinton situation here but uh okay there you have let's go to the next story rob Iger story Bob Iger okay uh I believe he is stepping down today

if I'm not mistaken if we go to news Bob Iger at Disney's CEO transformative leader, you know, look at his tenure as a dynamic, transformer leader with an asterisk or two. Yeah. And I don't know if the stories in the articles that we have, but I do know, I think today he is stepping now. Tom, thoughts on this. Well, as a dealmaker, Bob Iger got high marks. As building long-term valuation, his report card didn't stand up to Michael Eisner. And the transition, Pat, unless you're walked to the door or you have a heart attack at your desk,

who is responsible for a CEO's transition, the CEO and their board? No question. Who has the ability to do that? And Bob Eiger now has presided over not one, but two guys that come from the theme park side of it, which I believe is the wrong way to focus. So my asterisk for Iger is, look, Chepec was not the guy, and you were the CEO, and you could have helped influence that. The board just didn't run it down your throat for absolutely nothing. There's too much respect.

Could they have had a lot of influence? Yeah. I think Iger will be known as a dealmaker, will be known as a guy that built a great big library of content. But he was also the guy that missed a couple spots on streaming, made a couple things on streaming, the way Disney went through step by step. step by step by step to acquire Hulu, which I think is a master class in sequential acquisition. I love how that turned out. And I think he gets credit for that. But the transition to theme park and then what's happened over the last eight years is just was just not handled well. But I got a lot of respect for the guy. And he's a guy, I think, who'll look back and say,

man, I wish I stayed retired the first time. Jeff. I think Disney is just struggling with the change, the evolution of the entertainment space and everything else. And they had an opportunity here to reset everything, which Tom's right, they should have done it years ago, but to really reset their strategy and their focus and they didn't take it. So I think they're another one of these big corporations

that hasn't got the message yet that the landscape has completely changed and they need some kind of radical reset to, first of all, where they doing things well, or at least they could be doing things well, their content library, it definitely needs to be reset too. But also they need to get with the fact

that the legacy media is no longer going, to be a profitable center for the business. They should do something about that before it's too late, which they haven't. It just continued to drag that baggage forever forward. So I think Tom's right. Bob Eiger are tons of missed opportunity. And I think an even bigger missed opportunity with Eiger's retirement to go in a radically new direction and reinvent the business.

And never known as a jerk CEO, always known as a genuinely good guy. Who's this? Iger. Yeah. And you know, we were having dinner with somebody. about a month ago, who works for Iger. It's one of the guys that's got a massive nine-figure contract with Iger. Super complimentary of him.

Defended him. He's a good guy. He's this. He's that. To me, there's a couple things you've got to be thinking about here. He was involved in his replacement the first time, Sheapec, that came in. And then he came back. And I'm sure he was involved with the new guy that they replaced him.

Josh, what's his last name? I want to get Diomaro. which I think both of them were from the parks, right? If I'm not mistaken, Tom. Both of these guys are from parks. Both of them are from the parks. If Josh Diomaro fails, Bob Iger will be the first person that found two new replacements that both failed.

And failure to me is if he steps down within 36 months. That to me is failure because 36 months is generally the shortest lifespan of hiring a CMO. The lowest lifespan of a C-suite executive a company hires is a CMO. CFO is CEO a little bit longer and CEOs definitely longer, you know, five, seven, ten years. So we'll see how that's going to work out. But, you know, they say you're judged by, you know,

to judge how great of a father you were, you don't judge it based on your kids. You judge it based on your grandkids. Well, let's see what happens there. Maybe they do it right. Maybe they do it wrong. But in the business economics side, Rob, can you pull up,

what is the difference in valuation between Disney and Netflix? Okay, what is Disney award, valuation versus Netflix. So Disney is worth, as of right now, what's the market cap as of right now? If you just go to their stock, let's just say $180 billion today.

Perfect. What's Netflix? Let's look at Netflix. Let's look at Netflix right now. Netflix valuation. So Netflix, Netflix is worth $400 billion. Just over two acts.

Disney is worth $185 billion. Netflix got started in 1997 selling DVDs, and they didn't get into streaming until 2007, I don't know what it was, some many, many years later. Disney got started what year, 1923. Disney's been around for 103 years. Netflix has been around for roughly 29 years. Netflix valuation two times them, watch this. Netflix has never bought any major asset, even recently when they moved away from Paramount,

they're like, we're builders, we don't need to buy anybody. The philosophy with Disney was they went and bought companies. Now, what companies that Disney buy? Let me give you some names here, Tom. We've talked about it many times. They bought Pixar, which was Steve Jobs' company, Toy Story. They bought Marvel that came with Avengers, Iron Man, Spider-Man, all of that, right? They bought Star Wars.

They bought Indiana Jones. They bought X-Men. They bought X-Men. They bought X-Men. They bought Hulu. Okay, you got ABC, Strategic Bies. ESPN. You got Miramax. I can give you so many list of things. Even though they bought all of those companies, there's still less than half the price of Netflix. They bought brands. They didn't

buy creativity. They didn't buy businesses. They bought brand. That's the point. That's the point. And so the opportunity here lies to think about if you're just going to go up and buy up every and you're going to stop building, it's okay to buy up everybody while you're still building. Maybe critics could say you're a great dealmaker, but Netflix beats you. And that's just the reality of it. What happened with Netflix? And Netflix did it without buying up everybody. They just said, hey, we're going to buy shows.

We're going to buy this. We're going to buy that. In my eyes, he's one of the better executives we've had the last 40 years. I've studied this stuff many times. I'm actually a fan, and I hope he enjoys his next ride. that he's going to go on the actual final right of a lifetime and gets involved, and he's probably going to get him off some charities

and helping out with some presidents and sitting on certain boards. So we'll see what it happens there. On the soccer team. Yeah, he's not going to be, he's going to have time on his hand to do stuff, but I don't see him being a guy that's going to sit around. Brandon.

Yeah, I mean, they haven't had a, it makes you think of that video you made a long time ago called, I think it was how to strategize as an entrepreneur. And you spoke about how there's linear growth and exponential growth. And, you know, makes me think of, the next innovative campaign category with the exponential growth. I mean, when's the last time they've had an explosive innovative campaign? You can't think of anything with that. So like,

I said, no creativity, not building anything, just like trying to acquire things that are already built by others. So yeah, I don't, I'm not too impressed with them as a CEO, but I think if they get hungry again, if they try to like get bold and take some risks, which they haven't taken risks in a while. They've been in like preserve and survival mode. If they take some risks, then they could do some things. That's a scary thing to do. They need to blow things up. Yeah, you need to do it. You need to do it. I mean, you know, Jeff talked about it earlier, you know, risks and gambles, you got to take some of that, right? Yeah. And if the president's doing it at the political level, at the highest job, sometimes some of these other companies, as big as they

are, they have to sit there and realize America's a bigger company than you. Maybe you ought to be able to take some risks and not be to them. By the way, the affordability conversation with McDonald's, numbers came in with McDonald's, the dollar menu, and we saw the $5 gas prices, and Cole, Tom, what's going on with affordability right now? So affordability, and I love your perspective on this, too, and also you were watching the news yesterday, Pat. A bunch of things happened yesterday that sounded individually like good news. McDonald's seeing continual traction on the value meal and the super value meals.

Dollar Tree announces a really good quarter. Coles comes out and says, no, thank you. are picking up a bit and we're not going to do any further store closures at this time, which was good for employees and hold. But what does that tell you? Where are the consumers spending their money down low? This is down low, which means that discretionary spending is not happening up high, furniture, clothing, a lot of categories that are kind of flat. And so it's both of that. Then AI, is it a bubble or not? Invidia comes out. strong earnings. So,

Nvidia up on strong earnings. So AI, is it a bubble? Is it not? Well, it still seems to be chunking along. And then you've got a lot of success with low-end businesses, which I don't think is a good sign for consumer spending over the summer. When you see all the people catering to the lowest part, the lowest half of the economic society, actually doing exceptionally well. Rob, is this the one with, is this the one with McDonald's?

Because McDonald's now has a McValue 2.0 menu with $3 items, $4 meals. After years of post-pandemic price hikes, they won the complete opposite way. There's a fight for the $5 bill going on in fast food right now. Rob, this says three minutes. They get right to it. Okay, go for it. Go for it. Fresh off the grill this morning, another serving of savings as fast food companies

wrestling with affordability. From breakfast to late night, make it a meal and save. McDonald's will reportedly launch a new third. $3 and less value menu. That will include popular items like a sausage biscuit and four-piece chicken McNuggets, according to the Wall Street Journal. The company is also reportedly set to unveil a $4 meal deal with a McMuffin, Hash Brown, and coffee, extending efforts to offer cheaper combos. Let me show you what I got for $5. While the days of the dollar menu are long gone, we give you lots of great choices to make your own meal. The Golden Arches now leaning into $3

dollar deals. As McDonald's CEO Chris Kamchinsky said last month that traffic has been pressured with lower income consumers. $3 is the new $1, basically, to give lower income and younger consumers something that they can get when they're going to McDonald's. It comes as price-pinched consumers bulk at higher fast food prices, as the cost of eating out has risen faster than the cost of groceries over the last year. The fast food prices and the regular food prices. and the price for fruits are all the same prices. In September, McDonald's relaunched extra value meals after a six-year hiatus. It's time for a reset.

The McDonald's USA president telling us on today, the fact that McDonald's is actually going to be lowering prices, I think is really notable and shows that we're in lockstep with our consumers. Other fast food chains are delivering more deals too. This is still Domino's best deal average. We get the idea with what's going on with this. Jeff, where are you at with this? Look, McDonald's for years. kept stubbornly raising prices and losing traffic.

They did that year after year after you're expecting that either they could out-priced the lost traffic and therefore win on just a nominal level, or they were expecting that consumers would pay the higher prices and eventually come back, which they never did. So in many ways what McDonald's is doing and across the restaurant business too is admitting that they were wrong in pursuing higher prices

because they sacrificed market share and traffic to lower values. And Tom is right, this is not a good sign. when you know the joke we always had when Walmart is doing really well you know the economy's bad because that means that people who shouldn't be shopping at Walmart who don't really want to be shopping at Walmart are shopping at Walmart

in fact that's what Walmart has said over the last year or so they have grown really well with people who make $100,000 and more people who would rather shop at places like Target and boutique shops so yeah McDonald's who else is it that's PepsiCo recently said they're cutting prices the same exact thing for years

They were raising prices on Doritos and Mountain Dew and Gatorade and sacrificing volume in the process, thinking that the economy was going to pick up at some point, therefore, would justify the strategy that never did. So what we're seeing is these companies, especially consumer-focused businesses, time and time again, are admitting they pursued the wrong strategy and now going back to affordability because, again, this is not a good sign for the state of the consumer. And by the way, this is before we get to the prospect of $5 gasoline, extended out into the future. So it adds even more pressure on the economy to get this Iran thing done and get to Hormuz thing done to get oil prices back down before it actually does lead to a 1990

scenario where it really does break the economy. Brandon. Yeah. I mean, man, I remember just when I was in the high school, you could get like a bag of 30 cheeseburgers, 30 McDonald's for like less than 100 bucks. I mean, you know, it's crazy. And now that it's on the same level as a grocery store. You would buy 30 cheeseburger?

I was going to say, like after a football school. Like after a football game or something. What was he talking about? Me and my buddies. Like after a football game, we'd buy like a ridiculous amount of cheeseburgers and McDonald's. Because it used to be cheap, right? Yeah.

I remember Arby's used to have five for five. You get five roast beef sandwiches for five bucks. Yeah. I mean, that was 30 years ago. Setting a war record for cholesterol, it's not a good thing. But like after an exhaustive workout, though, you know, like that type of thing. But, I mean, yeah, it doesn't even feel cheap anymore. I mean, I don't need fast food anymore, but it, like, it used to feel like cheap compared

to the grocery store, cheap compared to a restaurant. But now I don't even know what the argument is to eat fast. food if it's like on the same level like you can't go to macdonalds without spend 20 bucks on a basic meal it's not fast either right yeah so it's not fast not cheap but definitely toxic and poisonous for you so guys says uh the dollar menu is now three dollar menu so fast we have to change fast food and call it you know uh moderate swift overpriced microwave food swift swift swift food okay on time you know maybe a little bit delayed but it'll get to you food anyways last one here before we wrap up last, I think it was on Monday, we talked about them. We did some math because,

you know, we're numbers people, right? I'm a numbers guy. And one of the stories was meta. That meta wants to let go of 20% of their employees, 16,000 and what that math is going to look like. Well, guess what? And I said it's going to go, but the stock's going to go up, what, three to 12%? Did we do the calculation on the EBIT or something, Tom? And you came up to $6, $7 billion and we did the math? You made a post, and you posted a range. And guess what happened? This is a New York Post story. Meta shares jump 3% as Zuckerberg reportedly moles, cutting 20% to workforce.

By the way, this is on reportedly, this is on this, it goes up 3% just on he may. Hasn't even happened yet. Imagine when it says it does on what's going to happen with Facebook. So we'll be watching that closely as well. And we'll talk about it. said gang. Great being with everybody on the podcast. We're going to do it again on Friday. Rob, tomorrow is Joey Marlino? Yes, sir. Okay. You got questions for Jeff. Manect him. You got Brandon and Tom here as well. And Jeff's also got a podcast. If you guys want to go

subscribe to it, let's put the link below. We will do this again on Friday, but tomorrow, me and Joey Marlino sat down. And he and I used to be neighbors. It's going to be a very, very, very interesting. He may have broken the record for the most F-bombs dropped in a two-hour interview. I think he had a few hundred, by the way. He can track it. Anyways, having said that, that'll come out tomorrow. Take care, everybody. God bless. Bye-bye, bye-bye.