PBD Podcast - Oil’s Most VOLATILE Day In History w/ Anthony Scaramucci | PBD #757

Episode Date: March 11, 2026

Patrick Bet-David, Tom Ellsworth, and Brandon Aceto are joined by Anthony Scaramucci to break down Trump’s Strait of Hormuz takeover threat tied to the Iran conflict, Anthropic suing the Pentagon over AI and defense contracts, the Panama Canal port war involving China, and new warning signs in the U.S. labor market and jobs report.------👍 LIKE AND SUBSCRIBE!🏢 VT CAREERS: https://bit.ly/4ungnZZⓂ️ MINNECT WITH ANTHONY SCARAMUCCI: https://bit.ly/4sCB6ar

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

My son's drive there. I think I've ever said this before. All right. Great to have everybody here with us. We have Anthony Scaramucci in the house. We have Tom Ellsworth and Brandon. Aceto. Anthony and I met 2017-18. I don't know what you're at why. 2017. The first time we were at this hotel. First, Bernard Carrick comes. I do the interview. Then Anthony comes. And then it was General McChrystal right afterwards. Great conversation. Great to have you back. Lots going on. Tom, we were talking to a Caucasian sports analyst this morning. And I don't want to disclose his name. But he said something that some may call inappropriate.

I just felt compelled to want to share it because I think the White House is always, Rob, don't you think the White House is always welcoming good recommendations, people for them to consider, if you guys are following the baseball, you know, the baseball classic, this game, Bobby Wood Jr., when they were playing U.S. was playing Mexico, which was an incredible game. I don't know if we can show the catch. He made this catch that seemed like he was a magician. Rob, I don't know if we can show it because I'm sure.

we're going to get hit with the stuff that they do. This analyst, I don't want to say his name, but you guys can't guess who he is. He says the White House should consider hiring Bobby Wood Jr. to replace Christine Ome because no Mexican can get past him. So I thought it was inappropriate, a little bit funny, but I'm not going to disclose a person's name time. I just want people to know that I would never do such a thing. So I thought I was funny, but good for baseball.

By the way, yesterday, Mikhail, who runs the boardroom, comes to me. quietly. He says, hey, Patrick, I want to show you. Italy beat U.S. yesterday, 8-6. Like, are you American or Italian, McKellie? But anyways, there's a lot going on tonight. There's a big game, Venezuela against the R that's going to be played in Miami. It should be a very, very big game. Anthony's son, by the way, for some of you guys that aren't to collectibles, I know I am, his son just bought a very small card, cheap card. He bought a very small card that nobody was watching, nobody was tracking, and some people called this son crazy. But this guy's on the way to want to.

to buy T-Rex. He wants to buy anything and everything. He paid six. Your son paid $16.5 million for the Pokemon card, which I'm sure we'll talk about here today as well. And there's a plan behind what he's doing. Maybe it's some of the investment DNA that he has from his pops. We'll see what's going on over there. Of course, we've got to talk about Iran with what happened yesterday. They're calling it the most volatile day in the history of oil. Most volatile day. Price, is going up and down. The president making an announcement saying, hey, this thing's going to be done soon. Then this morning reports came out with U.S. forces saying 16 Iranian mine layers as reports say Tehran is mining the strait of Hormuz. And by the way, some guys are like, look, I don't want to go through. The president saying, stop being afraid, have some courage, go through.

We'll escort you. No, we don't escort you. Chris Wright. We are escorting ships. Caroline Levin. We're not escorting ships. What are you doing? Take that tweet on. There's a lot of. of stuff that's going out right now communication-wise. We'll address that to get some thoughts. Oracle stock went up. So the Ellison family's doing good, which means their shareholders are probably happy with the Paramount decision.

That was made if that ends up going through. There's a lot of talks about that, so hopefully we'll see as more stories come through. Ronorousy and Gina Carrano, yesterday, Gina Carrano walked up on stage. And I literally started getting 50 text messages of people like Vinny and some other people texting saying, is she single? Is she single? I'm like, what is who's single?

Gina Carrano, is she single? And then in the interview, you know what Gina Carano announces that she's engaged? Rob, did you see that? She screwed it up for a Gina. I had all these guys message in me anyways. You look amazing. Rhonda had some choice words towards the UFC with Jake Paul was right in between them, Rob. I don't know if you saw that or not. I don't know what we can show. I'm sure maybe we can show some of that stuff. So that, that's, fight. Ronda said this is going to be the biggest fight in any MMA. It almost seemed like she kept taking shots, not sure the history. We'll cover that a little bit. And then aside from that, we have to talk about Putin and Trump had a phone call together. First phone call this year

that they had. It's a long time to have the first phone call this year in March, but they had a conversation together. Oil prices declined nearly after hitting $120. I said, we'll talk about that. Let me see what else I got here. Consumer index schemes. CPI came in, right, this morning, 2.4. My saying it correctly, the reports literally just came in 30 minutes ago. 2.4%. Better than expected or expected. It's a positive sign on what's going on.

Just a tick better. Brandon is not happy about it. He's always got something that he's not happy about with the president. He's going to share his thoughts. Anthropic, we have to finally touch this story. Crowdstrike and 11 other stocks that have gained every day of the Iranian war. We'll talk about those 11 stocks. and a few other things when Mexico trade agreement, if we get to it, Hong Kong,

firms $6,2 billion over Panama, takeover, which by the way, that's a story that's important. We'll address that. U.S. economy shed 92,000 jobs in February below expectation. So this CPI may be good, but job expectation, not good. And then we've got a few other things we'll get into. We'll give an update on the Iranian woman soccer squad. There's a picture of one of them flying back on the air. airline. You see her picture. She was forced to go back. Two others, I believe, seeked asylum and

they got it. And then there's this thing called the NBA. It's the worst game it's ever been today. Nobody plays defense to the point where a guy from Miami Heat yesterday scored 83 points. The team scored 150 points. They got to go back to the defense days. Nobody plays defense nowadays. They played against the Washington Wizards that have 16 wins and the guy scored 83, breaking Kobe Bryant's number of 81. There's only three players that have scored over 80 points. I don't know if Bam, you know, listen, congratulations to him.

Good for you with the history books. He shot nearly 40 free throws, but it is what it is. We're definitely not going to be talking about that. I'm just putting that out there that the NBA needs to start playing defense again or else it's getting boring himself. Having said that, gang, before we get into the stories,

I want to tell you guys what's going on with us. We're hiring aggressively, nearly 50% plus of the employees that work out value taming, any one of our companies, whether it's the Valuetim investment group, whether it's BADDGNAC, or higher metrics or the production team or any of this stuff that we do. 50% is not from here.

They move here to work with us. If you're looking at the different jobs that we have right now, we have, I don't know, 30, 40 different job openings. Rob, if you have the clip to show on working over here, if you want to play that clip, and then at the end, I want to give you guys a tip. Guy sends me a text. A lot of people send me text saying,

can you put in a good word in my best friend's nephew applied you know I applied what can I do to get up there I'm going to give you a tip at the end what to do to be a differentiator because our HR team only looks at people that do this one thing but go ahead and watch this clip go for it Rob many times when people think about value team and all they think about is a podcast but it's a lot more than that it's nine companies working together on an 11 acre campus if I was to give you virtual tour here you'll see the HR department hiring talent acquisition we have full stack developers that are working on Manak and hire metrics. We have a full-fledged events team that puts together events with thousands of people. We have a merch department designing the latest

product. We just launched the FLB shoes made in Italy. We have a marketing department. And if you go to the complete opposite side of the building, 50, 60 people making calls working for bid david consulting, sales, setters. And then on the complete opposite side of the campus, there's a full-on production company with editors, shooters, creating content, doing podcasts. Then he can drive down a couple miles and go to our private boardroom, cigar lounge with members only. Regardless of what it is, working at Valuetainment, every day is a surprise. You could be walking into work and right next to you is a governor, is a billionaire, as an athlete. We are hiring aggressively, but VITEMAN isn't for everybody. For the right person, this could be the last company you ever work for. So if you're watching this

and you want to learn more, go to VT.com forward slash careers and apply now. Perfect. So now, when you go VT.com forward slash careers and you apply your resume, you're going to get an email to do a five-minute AI interview. If you don't do the AI interview, they won't look at your resume. So apply, submit your resume, but we don't hire anybody without the AI interviews because we wanted to be an unbiased feedback that we get from our reports afterwards from higher metrics. So if you want to find out more about different jobs that we have again, go to vt.com forward slash career, apply now, looking forward, hopefully working together soon. And you wanted to give them a tip. If they're reaching out to you saying, help me with my. Do the AI interview. Do the AI interview. It's a big differentiator

that other people won't get through because we're going to come back to and say, did you do it? No, okay, we're skipping to the next candidate. All right. Let's get right into it. Okay, so first story you start off with. We have to go to oil. Oil prices decline after hitting nearly $120, as Trump says, U.S. considering taking over straight of hormones. Rob, I think you got a video on this one. If you want to pull it up, I'll read it. and then we'll get right into the story. So oil prices fell Monday in extended trading after President Trump said he was considering seizing control straight of Hormuz, the most important choke point in the world for crude

market. The crude oil was down 6.19% to 85.27. And Trump told CBS News in a phone conversation that ships are moving through straight. The president said he's thinking about taking it over. he also indicated he thought the war would be soon. The moment he said that, people reacted, Rob. Is this the clip? This is Fox News.

Yes, sir. Do you have the numbers? Can we see what oil prices are right now? As of literally right now where prices of oil are. Tom, have you looked at it this morning? It's US WTI, West Texas Intermediate, which usually runs about $2 to $3 less than Brent crude. Those are the two global markers.

And so we're hovering around 85. right now, which is significantly down. So we're up a couple bucks today, but it's certainly a subtle down from the last two days. Can you press on five days, Rob? You might be tempted to let Taco Bell's new Lux value menu go to your head. Because 10 indulgences for $5 or less makes you feel fancy. Like you might think you need cloth napkins.

Well, you don't. Just use the ones that come in the bag. Don't let the Lux go to your head. Five days high was what, 110, 112? One, one 10-ish? Okay. Anthony, what do you think is going on here with oil prices? Went up, went down. What are your thoughts?

Well, I mean, obviously, you know, you've got 21 miles straight, 20% of the world's oil coming through there. You have to shut down production because there's no place to put the supply of oil in places like Saudi Arabia and Qatar. So they're shutting down production. And unfortunately, it's not like an on and off switch. You can't just flip it back on, Patrick. So it takes about three to six weeks to get it back up and running. And so, you know, I used to work at Goldman Sachs, Jay Aaron, commodity division.

They would get in there and get, you know, long oil and play the volatility trade. And then, of course, the president, you know, he likes pulling Ripcourt every once in a while. I mean, they call it Taco. I think he has a really interesting strategy or in the Middle East, which we'll talk about later. But I think the bottom line is oil prices, my prediction, will trend lower back to where they were. beginning of the year once this resolves itself. Tom. Yeah, I'm on the same page of trending back lower. I mean, if you go to that chart and you just look back for, say, three months, and you know, we were 67 to 74, was kind of the range. Yeah, there you go. 67, keep going, going, going,

right there we were. Right before there's 63, 62, so between USWTI and Brent crude, Brent runs a couple bucks more. That's where we were. And we were. we were in a happy little place. That's above what's called extraction cost. 67, 70 bucks is good profit for most everybody in the value chain, even profitable for Alberta Oil Sands or North Dakota Shale. So the oil market was okay. And what this is is uncertainty creates this. If you take a look at what uncertainty does in markets, that's what people need to understand. These are not permanent things. These are reactionary. Rob, could you look at S&P and go back a full year so we can see last April.

You know, Liberation Day, whatever we wanted to call it, no, no, one year, one full year, and it goes back, you had this huge spike that happened. And you were sitting there looking at, there we go, in April, look at the spike down. That was uncertainty. But then the fundamentals of the market came back. People announced earnings and everything was okay. Oil is a little bit different because, as Anthony said, it takes time to spin the stuff back up. But North Sea oil hasn't stopped.

And West Texas Intermediate hasn't stopped. And North Dakota and Alberta hasn't stopped. So there's a lot of supply in the West that was business as usual. And we are, I believe the number, correct me here, we are two times the amount of oil is now going out of Venezuela as in the 30 days prior to, you know, relieving Maduro of his president. duties, dictatorial duties, because they were basically limited shipping because there was embargoes and other things going on. And now they have all the pipes going. And so if you can get a boat to Venezuela and you've got a place to refine heavy crude,

which is what comes out of Venezuela, then you're going to be good. So for most people freaking out, I don't think this is going to affect travel costs like air, like, you know, avgasas, as they call, aviation fuel. I think the spike is going to settle back down, Pat. I just add something. Sure. And the thing about Venezuela, which has been brilliant for the United States, is our refineries, remember, were set up pre-Moduro, pre-Chavez,

so they can refine that heavy crude. And so it's an easy shipment to the United States. And I think that was the play. You know, if you combine Venezuela and Iran, it's 31% of the world's oil reserves. So there's a big play going on right now. What do you think the strategy is? You said earlier, you know, Trump's strategy, it's interesting. What do you actually think the strategy is?

Well, I mean, you know, he's got tremendous communication skills, President Trump, but he has sometimes a hard time articulating vision. So I'll channel it for you because I know him a long time. He's looking at this and saying to himself, I was able to figure out a way not to have regime change, sort of regime change light in Venezuela. I was able to get Delci Rodriguez to come on side with me and basically flip Venezuela into a friendly, okay?

and that also gives them some leverage on China. And he was told, again, rightly or wrongly, he was told by intelligence, he was told by DIA defense intelligence, that there were secularists in Iran and that this sort of revolution that was happening in January was an indication that people were getting tired, 85% of the people against the regime, et cetera.

And so he said, okay, here's an opportunity to create a Delsey Rodriguez, too. Let's see if we can get to the table. I guess the big question I would, have for the president, him and I don't talk anymore, but if I had, I would have, what happened in Oman? Because they had a deal in Oman. The Iranians more or less gave them exactly what they wanted. So there has to be something underlying why he ultimately made the decision to attack. Maybe it was the Israeli thing that Secretary Rubio said, but the vision was knock out the regime, or at least

the top few guys, and then find a secularist to do business with and create the pivot. But where I know, and fairly certain he's upset with the Israelis because the Israelis went down the line and killed everybody, Patrick. And I think the president, any more or less admitted that in an Oval Office conversation. He said, I'm trying to find somebody to do it. Well, we like the guy, but he's dead. Yeah.

We're trying to find somebody to do it, and they keep killing the people. And so you had it. They keep. So that's funny because the they is Israelis keep killing the people. So the Americans and the Israelis were on side, on message for the original. strikes, and then they diverged in terms of what their objectives were later on. The Israelis have made a decision, you caused us this problem in Gaza, Hezbollah, Hamas,

you've been a state sponsor of terrorism, and remember, and I think everyone here knows this, but in the Iranian constitution, if you read it, because I've gone through it, they want to export their radicalism, and they want to end Israel. Those are the two things, and so you're the Prime Minister of Israel. someone's telling you they want to wipe you out. Imagine if, you know, one of the countries near us was saying, hey, our number one dedication is to destroy the United States, you know, you've got to put your guard up.

There it is. It's all the information. So for one is more ideological, for one is more business. For Trump, it's more business. For Israel, it's more emotion. Emotion, survive, all. I want to kill everybody. And Anthony, over the weekend, didn't Trump basically say, you know,

says, the country is yours for the taking, come and take it? He was encouraging them over the world. weekend. The citizens. Okay, so there's another very big problem there. So the citizens have been declawed. Okay, over the last 20 years, all the guns have been taken away, all of the right to really peaceful dissent. They've got a full-on security state. So imagine the NSA to the ninth power. And they've got a tippy, tip, or a payment structure going on. So if I see you in your apartment doing something that I think I don't like. I can call the regime, and they'll send supada come in and check on you, right? So they have this massive surveillance state, and they've suppressed the

people. So president's right. We'd like you to overthrow the regime, but you don't have any guns, and you don't have any ammo to overthrow the regime, right? And you don't have an ability on your own to overthrow the regime. So they've been declawed. And that's a big issue. And so what's that, what's at issue now? And I'm, you know, not in love with. I mean, it's about regime change, you went from Hameenie to younger Hameini and less than a scaramucci. I mean, eight days later, they got, you know, you got no real regime change. And this guy's a hardened guy. And so I'm, I'm worried about that.

Now, having said all that, what's planned two? Plan two is, blow the living daylights out of them, degrade their missile strike capability, their drone capability. And manufacturing. And manufacturing. But remember something, because, you know, I've been to. Afghanistan, and I understand those mountain ranges over there. They've got so much stuff hidden in those mountains. And so you're going to have to drop some severe bunker buster bombs all over the

place to try to dislodge that. And it's a gigantic country, guys. You know, Patrick grew up, or was at least born there, 93 million people, gigantic country. You know, it would basically fit in the middle of the United States without the coast. And they got a lot of terrain there where they could be hiding stuff. Last point, which I think is the most important one, you've got 460 or so kilos of uranium that's missing since we dropped those bombs. And so the president knows that or people know that. That's why they're thinking about putting a ground troops or special forces in there to see if they can get that at the nuclear fizzile material out of the country. That's 1,000, so it goes kilos, so that's about 1,000 pounds of weapons grade.

We think. We don't know, but that's what we think. But if that number is correct, it's a thousand pounds or what. Yeah, okay. So be in the situation room. Let's, let's workshop the situation room. You're the president of the United States. Your allies is real. They want to destroy Israel. They're wreaking havoc in the region. I'm sure Patrick knows this. The Gulf states are saying two things at the same time. Telling the president quietly, we support you. Publicly.

And then they're writing open letters that they don't support them. Which is totally cool, by the way. This is exactly what Delsi Rodriguez did after the decapitation of Maduro. I'm not going to take the BS of the president. But that was all staged. So you're getting two channels of information. But the Gulf states are really telling the president, hit him as hard as you possibly can, but don't destroy our economies and don't destroy the global economy.

And by the way, the Iranians, because they've been thinking about this too, I can't beat the United States, but I've got to outlast them, and I have to terrorize the countries in this region that are allied with the United States. And that's why you're seeing drones going into the Dubai airport, hitting apartment buildings. Bahrain desalination. The desalination. That was a rough one. You probably shouldn't be shooting at schools. I think that was a mistake. I think the president is making a mistake by not owning up to that.

That was a tomahawk missile that hit the school. I'm certain that the Americans didn't do that on purpose. That's unfortunately the fog of war, but just admitted and let's let's move on. Because if it happened to us, we'd be crazy, right? Yeah. This thing feels sloppy, though, compared to Venezuela. Like Venezuela was meticulous. That strike on Iran last year was meticulous with the bunker buster bombs.

So it's almost like I'm wondering if they're strategically acting incompetent right now because even when Hague Seth and the other general goes up there, they're acting like they're unclear on what they want to do with the straightforward moves, which is why I think the oil market's been so volatile, because I mean, I imagine that it's pretty easy to clear it out if they want extra savage, but they're not showing the willingness to be extra savage. So let me jump in, because I think, I think that this is the problem.

They got a little overconfident, as we sometimes do. Some of my worst mistakes is when I'm overconfident, particularly in markets. They beautifully executed in Venezuela. They saw this as a six or 12-day war. And I know what they did. They went to the president of Muralago and said, hey, look at this six-day war in 1967. The Israelis knocked the daylights out of the Egyptians.

It forced secularism in Egypt, and it eventually led... Fronts in that war. Yeah, exactly. And they took over the Sinai Peninsula. They had to give it back to him in the Camp David Accords. But it caused secularization. You have a chance here. Last year, you had the 12-day war.

No real damage from the Iranians coming back to us. We're going to do this 6, 12, 21 days. There'll be no real damage. But once you went after the Supreme Leader, remember what Trump has said from the White House. If they take me out, there's a whole list of things I've given people to do to the Iranians. Yeah. You've heard him say that. So just imagine the Supreme Leader has now been taken out and the Iranians are going down the list.

They were told to do after that takeout, right? And so the president and his team, I am now being critical. tell you what the vision is, they didn't anticipate that. And that's the big thing, right? That's what, you know, Mike Tyson would tell you, you know, everybody has a planet that you're punched in the face. You know, you were in the 101st airborne, 81st, 82nd airborne was dropped offsite on June 5th prior to D-Day. They had to fight their way out of that in a 360-degree circle. So we have things that go on in war that are bad, so now they're recalibrating. But that was ultimately the mistake. But I, if he handles this well, okay, and I've been a critical.

of the president. I think people know that. I don't like the process. We talk about the democracy and the threat to it. But if he handles this well, he could have his cake and eat it too. He could have a marginal he's maybe not going to get the regime change and they end the fanaticism there,

but he could have a marginalized country, which will lower those oil prices and stable. What's victory, though? Because you got to me, what victory is to U.S., I don't think is the same victory as it is to Israel. I don't think they're aligned there. Would you agree with that?

100%. Tom, would you agree with that as well? 100%. Victory to U.S. is different than victory for Israel, Tom? Yes and no. There's part of it is, but Masad has always had, and I'm not a spokesperson for Mossad. I'm very critical of them. Massad has always had their agenda, and their agenda has been very different and sometimes a lot more lethal than the West and the U.N. because NATO has been a friend, the U.S. have been a friend, people say, no, no, no, no, no, you've been led by Israel. No, no, no, no. There have been times where, okay, here's where we all agree, but then Israel's had these other lethal things to do. Israel has taken people out of apartment buildings in Lebanon with missiles and didn't tell the U.S.

U.S. CIA knew about it. I've read stuff. We've talked to CIA people that have leaked it. said, the CIA knew and said, you know, we really think that guy, they got in Lebanon, Kaboom, they did it, you know, and so. So to them, if you were to think of them. They have another agenda down deep. I get that. So what I'm saying is. I think they want a failed partition state.

That's what I think. Okay, great. So they want to get rid of what's their right. They want Syria, Lebanon. Israel looks at its survival and says we do really well in this region. If we have failed partition states and we have secular. Arabs that want to do business with Israel in the United States. That's the Abraham Accords.

On the side where there's the radicals, mostly, unfortunately, the Shia Muslims, they would rather have them have failed states than anything organized. I don't think the Americans want that. I mean, that's just me talking now. Americans don't want. No, the Americans don't want a failed state.

They want controllable leader. That's what they want. Because you get Somalia with the Orleans. You don't have it right now. No. No. Which is, they want a Delcy. You can't do a Delcy because there's not a VP model there, right? So it's not like you can go do what happened to Venezuela. It's not going to happen. Tom said something very important. He says, you know what's the problem with suicide bombers? And Humberto said what? He says the suicide part. He says when you're going to war and you're

willing to commit suicide on behalf of your country, you change the game. Venezuelans don't think that way. There's only a couple countries that think that way, right? I'm willing to go out there and, you know, and you know, Iran being one of them. But when you're looking at this, so in your mind, I just pulled up right now just to search for myself. So Israel planned and executed the strike operationally to kill Chalmenei.

U.S. simply provided the intelligence and military support for the operation. Israel took them out. They provided. Now, of course, they're working together on this. Sure. But this is where I'm on. When they asked me a question, they said,

do you think they should kill Chaminet? If you kill Chaminé, the Supreme Leader, you know, he's 86, he's about to be dead here soon anyways. But if you take him out and now you take out 50, it's like in the mob war. If all of a sudden you took out the boss, the underboss, the capos, the consulari, you better take out the entire family. You can't let them stay because this guy that's left behind,

Did you guys see the clip Then the cardboard? I think everybody saw this clip People thought this was a Initially when I thought I thought this was South Park But by the way, have you seen this Brandon or no? So this is them celebrating their new Supreme Leader press play Okay, turn off the music rap

So this is not AI This is real At first I said there's no way This is real Can you go to the comment section on the bottom? and go to one of the Grog's saying, is this real? Okay, can you go to keep going, keep going, keep going, keep going, keep going, keep going, keep going. Okay, go to that one right there.

This clip is from IRGC, Allegiance Ceremony of Mocitabal Khomeini, new Supreme Leader appointed March 8th through the 9th after his father, at least death in strikes. He didn't appear alive, so they used the cardboard cutout. This is Grock, broadcast on Iranian state. TV from Tehran. The short version is one circulating widely no longer raw footage is publicly built. So what's the point? So you took them out. Now the son is left. You killed his father, you killed his wife, you killed his mom, you killed his sister, you killed his nephew's, you killed

his sons, you know, one of his kids is, I don't know who else it was that was killed. Now he's going to stay. And you're going to let him stay? I think if you've gone this deep, I think you either have to go finish the job or you should have never done it this way in the first place. Because the new guy is bitter with a vision. He's bitter with a cause, the new guy, with all of that around them. Let me flip it back around for a second. Let me let's let's flip it back around. So they're enemies of ours. They hit the White House. They blow up the president, God forbid. They then hit a school near one of our military installations and kill all the daughters of our military people. And then they hit New Jersey refurb.

which are very close to Manhattan, they blow up the refineries and they send black smoke into one of our most populated cities and they choke all the people. Okay? And how is the United States going to react to that? I'll give you the answer to it around. Oh, no problem. Yeah, good.

Okay, are we small or are we big? Are we the more powerful one or are we the underdog? Are we the favorite? Because there's a big difference, right? So let's go through both, Patrick. Go for it. Tell me if we're the favorite. I think if we're the favorite, we're going to go absolutely crazy like we did in 9-11.

You have to destroy them. We're going to go crazy like we did when they knocked down the trade center and bombed the Pentagon. So I think that's number one. If we're smaller than them, I think we're going to try to guerrilla tactically terrorize them. I agree. Those are the two things. They went after what's most vulnerable, though, because they went after the surrounding countries that were very dependent on in a lot of ways. You know, if you take out the oil or the, what was it, the water there?

the desalinated water there. Let me help you pronounce it. Desalination. Go ahead. That's the whole petro dollar system. The reason the dollar has value is because of the oil it comes from the Middle East and everybody has to buy oil in dollars.

So, I mean, I don't, I'm curious if they anticipated Iran going after the surrounding Middle East countries like that. And I'm curious if they anticipate Iran shutting down the straight of Hormuz. Like, I would imagine in war gaming, the thing you would predict that, but they're not reacting as if they predicted it.

So those are the things I'm curious about. I would say I don't think that they predicted that. The Hormuz are the bombing of those neighbors? I have both. Really? You don't think they thought that was going to happen? No, because I think they looked at the 12-day war from last year. They looked at the Soleimani hit in January of 2020, where they took out the general.

And they said that they're going to try to keep the regime together, and they're going to measure the response. And I think what the president was looking at is, okay, all that's fine. Let's remove some of these clerics. get a secularist in there. And he's a dealmaker, okay? Like or dislike Trump? Here's the deal. You're making money off drugs, and you're making money off oil, and you're heavily sanctioned. You're Venezuela.

I'm going to take the sanctions off. You can help me slow down the drugs into the U.S., and I'm going to triple the pay for everybody here, including your army generals. And they said, let's do it. Venezuela's not Iran. Okay, and then the next moment, they come in and they take Maduro, one night, no bloodshed.

they're not even fighting them. Yeah. Venezuela's not Iran, but I think the president thought that there would be a way to create some secularism as a result of degrading them. And now the question is, if you can't create this secularism, what's the next step? I think the plan B is blow them to smithereens so that they're totally degraded. But here's the problem with that. You don't know where the uranium is, and you don't know what they've got in these tunnels

inside those mountain ranges. To me, if you're this deep, if you're in this deep, and this is what happened, there is no turning around. If you're going to now do what? Okay, hey, we just killed 50 of your leaders and relatives. Okay, guys, can we not negotiate?

Yeah, look, come in and negotiate. How would you emotionally walk into the negotiating room? How would you be able to, you're like sitting there saying, we're going to take every one of these guys out. Did you, do you think this made the Middle East safer? No. Do you think this just made tensions go lower? Do you think, and by the way, let me, let me ask a question maybe in a different way. For us, we're out all the way out here in the Western Hemisphere. We're not worried about Iran. They don't have anything that could come to us. The only way they can, I know Iran's got a good-sized embassy in Mexico that they build in 1964 under the Shah. So who knows what they're going to be doing, their relations with cartel. You have a lot of different ways to come and try to attack us, right? But here's a question. for you, you know, to the community that says Israel has influence over what America does and Israel is going to negotiate on behalf of what's important to them, right? Do you think Israel is

sitting there, Abibi is sitting there, seeing where it's at right now, saying he feels safer for his people? Meaning, say Trump comes down and says, guys, the war is over, straight of Hormuz, oil prices are not going to go. This is not going to be the tank of war of 1984, 1988, we're not going to have the prices go up, you know, whatever, 400% that they have to come in and supply the insurance. We're going to protect. We're going to take care of everything. You don't have to worry about this stuff.

Okay. And because he's thinking from what? Market standpoint. Markets down, midterms, you know, approval, because, you know, Trump's a data guy, so it's always looking at what approval rating and, okay, and then China, he's trying to get China's negotiating going. But in this case, if Trump, my opinion,

if Trump walks out of this, and says, we went in, we did our part, we're scored away. Do you know who's screwed if Trump walks out of this? One country. Israel is screwed. Now, Trump may say, you're not my number one priority. Americans are my number one priority. If Trump walks out, you just drop the bomb, killed 50 of the biggest leaders, and they're your neighbors.

And they've said in the next 25 years, we're going to do everything we can in our power. He said this in 2015. Chaminet, he said, to make sure. sure that Israel doesn't exist. He said this in 2015, so he said 25 years, that's what, between 2015 and 2040? You don't think they're sitting there thinking about, so Israel in my opinion, officially, they've always been a target, but it just went up. So what is Bibi thinking right now? Is Bibi thinking, I've got to make the phone call and convince this guy to continue to finish this war. If not, I'm not safe. Yeah, he's thinking this is the first inning. I think Bibi right now,

BB's team is sitting there right now saying, guys, we can't, you think BB wants the war to stop? Guys, guys, we got, let's go. Let's go. It's like, no, not right now. I'm seeing what's going on with the economy. I don't think, you know, the part where you're saying with the disconnect between the two, if this stops today, first of all, if it stops today, it's worse for Iranians, the people who are there, it's terrible for Israel.

I think it's terrible for Israel first and the Iranians. those will be a tide for me. But Trump may simply say, look, man, that's your problem. We did our part. We gave you the intel. If you want to wrap it up, you have the opportunity to defend yourself. But I'm not going to come out here and screw up my deals that I'm trying to do with Russia, with China, with Putin, with G.

Xi's coming. They're having a meeting end of the month, I think March 31st. They got a meeting that schedule, if I'm not mistaken. I think the country that it's in the worst situation today, if this stops, I think, in my opinion, is Israel's first. Yeah, we're in too deep, though, because now, you know, we see what the... We may get out, though, what I'm saying. US may say, by the way, if Trump all of a sudden says, I'm out, that's it. This is how much I'm helping you, if he says, I'm out.

Because they're realizing you got 200,000, you know, IRGC troops. Okay, this is not Venezuela that you're going to be able to do the rewards for justice, that whatever, the CIA runs to give a million to $25 million bucks to conunds, convert them. Then you have the 95 million, 93 million Iranians that don't have guns, don't have weapons, don't have a way to protect themselves. So what are you going to do? Then you have the Strait of Hormuz, the longer it goes. Prices go to 200 bucks. Midterms are on the corner. American people are saying, wait a minute, like you see the videos being posted gas prices in some parts of L.A. 6, 7, 8 bucks, right? You think these videos are good for them? No.

No, but he, but how is the straight, the price of oil get fixed if he pulls out now? Because I imagine they're on a vendetta now because of what was done to them. So I imagine they're going to cause havoc in the region. They is who? Iran. So what is Vic? Okay, so why don't we do this? Let's let's talk about this.

What's victory to Iran? IRGC, not the people. What's victory to Israel? What's victory to U.S.? What would you say? Tom, I'll go to your first. Iran, Israel, U.S. The U.S.

backs off in any way. I think so. And then they can say, even if they're destroyed, even if we took Calargh Island, and then held it. No, even if it's all the stuff that's there. If we back off and the new Supreme Leader is there, they win. Because it means the regime hasn't changed.

They win by not losing. By the way, what do you do if you're a Supreme... What do you do if you're leader of Iran and the U.S. backs out? What do you do on TV? What do you say? You run all the fake videos and you say, we knock down airplanes and the great Satan ran away. Easiest propaganda. You do what Kim L. Jung did in North Korea.

with all the propaganda videos after Trump visited them a few times. Okay, keep going, Tom. So go ahead. Give the other two. So that's the victory. That is the victory for Iran. The victory for U.S. is complete regime change and this, you know, a secularist comes into power. So, so Iran, they stay in power. U.S. regime change, not collapse. No, no.

Collapse and a new secularist. Oh, so collapse, not change because regime collapse. You got to get them on the path back to 1970. So victory to U.S. is collapsed. How about to Israel? Same? Israel wants to see ironic. The victory for U.S. is the victory for Israel.

But Israel really wants, look, ideally Israel needs everyone to be Jordan. That's not going to happen. That's not going to happen in Syria. And so they need crippled states. So what is victory for Israel? Israel is that Iran is a crippled state with no ability to attack it. unfortunately that turns Iran into world's largest Somalia with warlords and districts taking okay well there's a lot there so I agree with the failed state because I think they feel like they

can manage a failed state better but in their way long-term interest they would Trump is going to Trump's vision is right so let's go over the different things if we pull out they'll declare victory the IRGC will rebuild itself it will stiffen its repression internally, which will really cause great anguish for most of the population. That's to them. The Israelis, Tom's point, they want a failed state because, again, you can see their interest diverging from the United States. And for us to win this thing, and unfortunately right now, as a money manager or somebody

that studied this stuff, I don't see us winning this thing the way we would like to win it, Patrick. But if the optimal Elysium field winning, they topple, a new government is formed that is moving towards the West and is more aligned with the Gulf Nations. And you have this whole brand new configuration. And then this summit meeting becomes very interesting because Trump goes in and says, knock it off with the rare earth minerals. President Xi, I'm going to send you as much oil as you need, not just from Venezuela, and not. just from Iran, which is where you've been getting it now. I'm going to send it from everywhere. You're going to have lower prices, but I need the rare earth minerals, and we're going to compete

with each other, and I'm going to tariff you, you're going to tariff me, but we have to stay in cohabitation on planet Earth, even though we have different systems. So that's the hope for me. But I think the most likely outcome is that the regime is completely degraded. The Americans pull out. Oil prices go down, as we said earlier in the show. And the other, Israelis are sitting there simmering saying to themselves, okay, we're going to have to do this another way. I mean, they're going to have to, someone's going to have to find that uranium because, you know, these people are fixated on destroying Israel. And they've been saying it repeatedly. And I'll put it to everybody on this panel and you as our host, if you were the prime minister of Israel, you would have no choice to stay on this, Patrick, because you have to protect your country.

I agree for them. The question for me is, you know, in your eyes, is the victory for Iran the same as Tom's, of them just staying in power? Same thing there. Yeah, yeah, but I think, but again, I was just adding some flavor to what Tom is saying. Right.

They're going to stiffen, you know, they're going to put a big hurt on their public. This is going to be worse for their public. First of those, it's going to be a way poorer nation. It's going to be more isolated. and in order to stay in power, they're going to have to repress their public population way more. Yeah, they have to, for people who know history,

it's the Pol Pot move. Pol Pot was brutal. But once the smoke cleared and he was up, then guess what happened? That's where you get the killing fields. He just took everybody out, every citizen. This is worse than Castro. Castro took out doctors and lawyers and people.

Remember, Castro did it. So never mind Pol Pot. You'll just look at Castro. What he did to the educated, to the people that were there, it was miserable. And what Castro did in those three years, you know, how anybody on the liberal side has ever seen him in a positive light is odd to me. But that's what you're going to get, exactly what he said. And we've seen it. We've seen Pol Pot.

We've seen Castro. The war is over. The West backs off. And the citizens get slaughtered. I think if Iran, IRGC survives, the Iranian people. who protested against it, oh my God. They're going to experience hell in ways.

Because guess what they officially don't have? Who officially has their back? Nobody. Nobody. They're going to be, the level of suppression. And they're not armed. And they have no way.

And they're not armed. And they're not protected. And they can turn off the internet. And they can end it. And they can do. It officially gives the IRG. G, see so much power to say we can do whatever we want to you because the most feared man on earth, the last 40, 50 years, we went up against them and we won. So if we can beat him,

what do you think we can do to you? That's what's going to be told on Iranian state TV every single day. We beat Trump. That's what they're going to say. It's only 10 to 20 percent of the population that supports the regime too, by the way. So I mean, is it out of fear that they didn't revolt? is it because we took a half measure and we weren't prepared to go all the way with it? Like, it doesn't seem like it's that much force. They have no militia. But like we have assets in there, though. Like we have massad agents undercover in there.

I'm assuming we have CIA agents undercover there. They admitted that they killed three thousand. They admitted that they killed 3,000. We're saying that they killed at least 30,000. So you're in a protest in Iran and they're coming out of you with machine guns. Oh, by the way, you know, some of the RRGC guys said, hey, I'm not going to shoot these citizens. They hired Iraqis.

And they brought Iraqis into the country to kill the Iranian citizens. This is a brutal, horrific state sponsor of terrorism, repressive regime that would turn in order to survive, turn itself on its own citizen. So I don't know. Maybe you could smuggle stuff in there. It seems very improbable to do the logistics that you would need. And by the way, they got 47 years. of entrenched power in this country.

So it would be a big dislogement. I think, I think, again, Trump was told rightly or wrongly, there are three or four secularists, if we can get them in power. CIA, Mossai, can work with them, and we can end the regime, and we end the terrorist nightmare. And the Israelis said,

hey, we're not having that. We're going for the failed state. And guess what? If you did, if that's the scenario, and Israel went for the failed state, and then if I'm Trump now, and I say I thought this was the plan. You went more aggressive than we planned on going.

I don't have your back now. I'm out. So I wouldn't be surprised if knowing Trump's profile of how he is, he just says we're out, we've done our part, we cleaned it up, Gulf states, you know, all came to us. Now we're together. We're at least unified. We know the enemy is Iran, but I'm not going to do anything else.

He won't do that. Can I tell you why? He doesn't get tricked into thinking there's actually uranium there, which is nothing. You think Trump's going to get tricked into thinking there's uranium there? Yeah. So you think the end of this is not here yet. You think the worst attacks are not here yet.

Oh, yeah. No, I think this is going to be drawn out. I mean, unless they get extra savage, like, you have to get more savage, but you have to clear out the straightforward moves. You have to hit more targets in Iran. See, to me, the reason why I think you have to do that is because you're into deep. Yeah. You go to a club with your friends.

So far. You go to a club with your friends, okay? So guys start talking to each other, okay? And you got your own crew of 10? They got their own crew of 10. They're going through it. Okay? All right.

So then they punch, they punch. Great, no problem. Punches is no problem. Then one of your guys goes and spits in the leader's face. Mm-hmm. And you know this is a leader of a gang. Yeah. What do you think is about to happen tonight?

Yeah, a brawl. Oh, it's not a braw. Yeah, we'll take the guns out. Oh, you better. You better be ready for anything and everything. If that and that, we spat in their face of the leader. Right. And we said, here's what we're doing to you.

So now we're so in too deep. To me, you know, the part about, you know, trying to juggle two ideas at the same time, right? The one side, which is like, hey, we made our point. We've done our part. Let's get out. Let's think business. Let's think economy. We're good.

Let's move on. The other side, hey, Marco. What do you want to do? Hex it. What do we do? We are so into deep in this thing. What are the generals recommending? The ones that we trust. Hey, we know what Israel is going to tell us. We're so close. Let's finish the job. They're about to, you know, we know what Reza Pallavi and his followers are saying. You know, we are so close. We almost have them. The people, they're about to defect. They're about to defect. And you're like, I'm not seeing a lot of military defecting and siding with you.

You keep saying they're going to defect, but we don't see anybody publicly defecting. He has to juggle these two ideas. And at the end of the day, guess who has to make the decision? Trump. Himself. Yeah. And is he going to go here or is he going to go here? So I want to make, I want to predict an outcome.

Go for it. And let's see what happens. The outcome is five to ten more days of intense battle and intense strikes and intense. And then we're going to come up with a system, which we don't have right now, which is why there's been a miscommunication for clearing out the straight. And then we're going to go to. our golf partners to say, we're done for right now. We're going to tell the Israelis we're sorry that we're done.

We're going to help you covertly look for the uranium and stuff like that. I'm going to tell you why. He does not want to go into the midterms with a ground war. It's polling at 12%. He doesn't want to go into the spring in the United States with a aerial attack like this, because this is the worst polling war. Yeah, with oil prices at this? to the summer?

Yeah. Yeah, top polling war was World War II, 98%. You never get to everybody, right? This is the worst polling war, below Korea, below all the other wars. And so for me, that's the move for Trump. He's already signaled that to his friends in the Gulf. And the one thing that I want to address here, Trump likes money. Yeah.

And he gets money from the Israeli donors. He gets money from Sheldon Adelson's widow. And he's getting a lot of money from the Gulf states in terms of these real estate deals that his kids keep announcing. He's got $4 billion that he's made so far in the first term. The PIF. The PIF, and he doesn't want that pulled away from him. And whether you guys, whether Trump supporters that listen to your show like it or not,

he's motivated by money. He's motivated by attention. And I think those two things are going to pull, and legacy at this point, though, too. Pull him out of the conflict. He doesn't want a bad legacy. Legacy is less concerned about that. You think legacy's number one?

At this point in life. Okay, you don't think legacy's number one. I think an extra billion dollars is more important than legacy when you're worth $5 billion. If legacy is number one? You see now you're thinking like you. You're not thinking like Trump. I think he cares about legacy and image. Trump wants to be the richest person in the world.

I think he wants to be. Trump's making the greatest person in the world. Trump's making a great billion dollars of dough for himself. You only wants to be remembered as the greatest president that did all these things? I think it's secondary. I think the three things are money, attention. He's got to have us talking about them. And then the third thing is, if I generally,

do a good job as long as it keeps inside the ambit of my self-interest, then that's fine. Yeah, in my opinion, I think he'd rather be number one president of all time than be $5 billion instead $6 billion. But quick thing, why I think he got duped is because every military... You got raised Catholic? Yes. Yeah. Yeah.

See, he thinks like a Catholic. He's a good guy. I guess that's a good thing. No, I'm a Catholic. I mean, you get raised Catholic. You're talking like a Catholic. Yeah. That's not how Trump thinks.

Real quick, though. So, I mean, I think he got duped here because every military strike that he's done has been like art of war style where it's basically, it's overpower. where it's basically it's over before you even know what happened, very smooth, meticulous, clean, and it's done by the time you're hearing about. But this one completely different than whether it's the Syria attack, whether it's the first Iran attack,

whether it's a Venezuela attack. So I don't know what went wrong here, who gave him bad information if he was manipulated, if they didn't anticipate certain things, but that's why I think it's going to drag out because it's uncharacteristic of the other attacks that he did. Can I ask a question? Sure.

By the way, just so you know, background masters and bachelors and national security. So this is like... Okay, so that it's such a good point. I have to ask a follow-up question. So there are neocons still working for Trump. They're shrouded and Macca, right? And you know who they are, right?

Lindsay Graham is who you're talking. Lindsay Graham is one of them, right? And, you know, in some ways more. Which, by the way, on the Republican side, probably the most hated guy in the Republican side this week. Is that fair to say? Almost like a cartoon. Everywhere. Almost like a cartoon character is in point of con.

Low of the surface, Nikki Haley and others on boards and influence. Yeah, Pompeo. But Hayle's been kind of low-key. Lindsay's in front of camera 24-7, right? He gets way too excited. So let me, not to make Trump paranoid or think paranoid, but let me ask you a question. Okay, so if I'm Trump,

and I know I'm surrounded by neocons that love this sort of stuff, right? Like we did a seance with Dick Cheney right now. He's dancing, but probably either dancing in hell and purgatory. I don't think Dick made it to heaven, right? But I'm just saying, answer the following question. Okay. When the mission is over, do those guys go, hard at him with the Epstein files, okay, to knock his block off to take him out and replace

it with somebody like Vance, who they think they have more control. If he doesn't do what they want him to do, you're saying? Correct. I think that people already went out after him as hard as they go with the Epstein stuff. I mean, you know, what more could they have? I'm talking about shots from inside the tent. I'm talking about the neocons going hard at them. Yeah, I mean, that's a fair question to ask, but no, I don't think that's a factor.

And I think that's a reach. I think the obscene thing hit its peak already. You're saying neo-cons are doing what? Holding it over him? If I were, look, I used to-holding it over Trump. Holding the obscene over him? Yes. Yes.

And by the way, by the way, I don't know what's in those files or not. And I've said repeatedly that he's never going to get strafed or hit by those files. So I'm in your camp there. Unless there's a bomb somewhere in the file that I don't know about, you don't know about, but they know about. Question is, would they use it on him once they have used him? Would Lindsay use it on it? Not him. I'm talking about these other guys.

See, all these guys want power. Look, I got an 11-day PhD in Washington scumbaggery. They all get up in the morning when they put it in their suits on. They want to be the president. They want to be powerful. It's worse than the House of Cards on Netflix. They're willing to take everybody out to serve their own personal interests. And so that's what I'm asking you.

And you're saying you're not worried about that. And that would give me comfort if you're saying. Yeah, I mean, I'm sure he's. influenced by certain people. I just don't think it's about that at this point. I think that people over here he came at him as hard as they could with the Epstein stuff. I don't imagine that's a factor. I think if there's one thing about his profile is a couple things. And look, it's obvious that, you know, the two of you guys have. By the way, if you're watching this, and if you agree or disagree with Anthony, you want to ask him a question, he's on Meneck. You can send him

a Meneck and agree, disagree, send him an article. What do you think about this? What do you think about that? And that's a new Menegg. I mean, just literally did that in the green room. That's how quickly this works. So you're officially on the neck. You will be shocked how many people come asking your questions. Yeah, it's a great conversation. Great exchange. But going back to it, to me, you know, apart with you, obviously the market knows you're not a pro-Trump guy.

So you're not somebody that's pro-Trump. But I would say you're probably more, your emotions are lower today towards him than it was two years ago, four years ago, six years ago. Once he went after my wife on Twitter, I am an Italian. We have to remember that at the end of the day, I am an Italian kid from Long Island, grew up in a blue-collar neighborhood, don't go after my wife on Twitter, who's never once said one thing about you publicly.

And who the hell are you to do that after I gave you a million dollars personally, worked on your campaign for over a year, was on your executive transition team. I said one thing that you didn't like on the Bill Marshall. And Bill told me he was going to go after me. And Bill said to me, you were seven for eight for Donald Trump tonight.

You got to go 10 for 13. So he's attacking my wife, Patrick. Let me tell you something about you because I watch your show almost every week. If this guy, after you did all of that for him and you did one thing that he didn't like, started attacking your wife, who is the mother of your children, I think you'd be pretty lit up. And by the way, maybe you wouldn't be, but I'm telling you, I would be. I'm glad you said that. You know why I'm glad you said that.

And I know why I'm glad you said that? You know why I'm glad you said that? Tell me. Because it's important for the market. I couldn't even live in my neighborhood if I didn't respond to that. I fully understand that. So for me, it's important for the market to know why you feel the way you feel. So respect there.

It's personal. It is. And I respect that. I respect the fact that he did that the audience need. That's exactly what I wanted. But let me give you where I'm going with this. To me, I think the profile of Trump is, you know, he believes that he truly is Teflon. he believes he's teflon no question he believes his teflon so he believes

nothing can get in his way nothing what did he say the other day he says yeah you know what he won't even believe who's calling me right now everybody's calling me right now it's like i can't do anything wrong it's like he said this i think a week ago or maybe five days ago right so he believes that at the highest level so do i think in his mind he thinks the epstein stuff's going to come and go and he can teflon that out i think he believes that okay where he's at to the Number two, I do think if you sit down two nights ago, I'm having a conversation with my son after one of the games that he had, I sat him and I asked my wife to come in to have a conversation with him. And I sat there and I explained to him.

I said, listen, let me explain to you. And I sold him the idea of what it is to mastering something and winning. And that moment where you go here was like, oh my God, I'm actually very good at what I do. If you really want to experience that, it's one of the greatest highs in life. And I saw him, I saw the eyes getting, what do you call it? Intense. Intense and not crying, but you can tell it was filled with, you know, he's emotional. He's feeling it.

Okay, and this is not an emotional guy. He's feeling it, right? And I said, okay, this is great because he's receiving it. This is something that'll move him, okay? Where am I going with this? I believe if you're having a conversation with Trump, the old timers, the Condoleezza Rice, types. These types of people that you kind of talk about, which by the way, she all of a sudden showed up. When's the last time you saw her around? She's now here? What part of the campus

Condoleezza Rice? Hello? Like it goes old school with her. Second term, what dream you think is being sold to him? What dream is being sold? Do you think the dream is being sold of, hey, guess what? One day you can be one the richest man on earth. You're not going to be. Elon Musk is worth. Just so everybody knows, the numbers came out. Elon's worth 840. billion dollars the next four combined are not worth what elon is worth they were all 200 200 200 200 and he's worth 840 billion dollars so guess what those days is so head of you could you be worth 20 billion 40 billion 80 billion yeah but you're not when you're worth 40 billion illan's going to be worth 3 trillion so you ain't never going to go into the room like you did 40 years ago when you're

sitting with david letterman and be the richest billionaire new it's not going to happen those days are behind us because compound interest is going to work against you and the stuff that you're investing in, they're running, and they own 16%. So I don't know if you understand math and business, so that one's out the window. Yeah. But to me, if somebody's sitting there selling the dream of Mount Rushmore, you're not going to get there just based off of economy. Right.

You have to do something big. And you have to make a massive empire fall. You have to make a massive enemy fall. You have to. Yeah. If he wants that on his resume, what is it? You think on the resume, if he takes over Greenland, that's Mount Rushmore worthy? No.

You think if he brings back Cuba or, you know, it's part of the country? It's like the next Puerto Rico? No. You think Venezuela's Mount Rushmore? No. You think toppling Iran regime collapse similar to Mr. Gorbachev, you know, tear down this wall? That type of a moment? Guess what?

he's he's a very very competitive guy and just like Edelman is it Edelman that was the slot receiver for Brady yeah you ever seen a clip in Tom Brady's documentary he says you suck you're old you're not you're done you're washed up and Brady'll shut the fucking is going back in the documentary because you know Edelman's trying to get

yeah hey you're a great president but Ronald Reagan caused the wall to come down what have you caused to come down nothing so you haven't even done what Reagan is done if someone's poking to try to poke knowing his DNA he knows legacy is going to be written he did great here great here great here but you're not a Reagan yet because Reagan made Soviet Union USSR and today's Soviet Union is Iran so to me if he is legacy he's got to go ahead then do this for the history books if he's purely economy he's going to step on and say, no, guys, we've got to get our World Cup is around the corner.

I don't want any issues with people coming down here. So, again, I don't know because none of us are inside his head to see what he's going to be driven by. But guess what's true? We're going to know in the next three years. We're going to know the next three years. I'm going with, you've made a very compelling point, but I'm going with option two because... Economy? Mm-hmm.

Because I, you know, listen, I did 70... Safer decision. I did 71 campaign stops with them, knew him for 20 years. in New York. I have been fairly predictive of a lot of things that he does, primarily because I understand general nature of his personality. He definitely wants to topple Iran, but he's really thinking about, okay, what is this going to mean for me and my family and my pocketbook? And, you know, he's got some things coming right now that he doesn't want to interfere. Let's talk what they are. He's got an 80th birthday celebration that our friend Dana White has got.

going to be celebrating with him on the White House South Lawn with the UFC fight. He's got the World Cup coming and he's got the 250th anniversary of the U.S. I don't think he wants to be in a quagmire. Now, if you told me, it got to him in the situation room and what you just said, it was totally achievable and he had to do X, Y, and Z, then, you know, I would say, okay, yeah, that probably would work. but I don't see that achievable right now based on what's on the playing field. Tom.

I think it's people talk about quagmar and maybe this is pessimistic, but I think we're there. I think we're at the front door of quagmire. And now we've got to figure out a way to get out and there's no good way to get out. And if you back out, think about it. I never thought I'd be saying this. But if he backs out, this could be like a failed retreat from a, extraction from Afghanistan. This could be like Carter backing out. This is the one country. Cheney said

it's all about Iran. It's not Iraq. It's going to be about Iran. Even Cheney said that when he was getting the president to look for weapons of mass destruction that were not there in Iraq. Everybody has looked at Iran and said, this is the guy. It's like for 20 years, this is Muhammad Ali and everybody, everybody wanted to get to him and it wasn't until age got to Ali that he ever lost and so this just drives me

a little nuts I think we're at the I mean maybe this is pessimistic Pat but I think we're at the front door of Quagmire and we got to figure this out. So you're not going option two with him you're going option one he's going to wrap it up for legacy going all the way you think so yeah I think it's more likely that we have a ground

Can you run to pull on that? Listen don't put the word quagmire Don't do that. Simplified for the audience. I use that word because that kid is a lot more. Hold on thing. You think he's going to put drought? I said I think boots on the ground is more likely than a complete pullout.

I think the most likely option is that something fast and unexpected happens that makes the situation better. So polling at 12% on the ground troops, Trump's like, I got to get this on my resume. I'm not saying I think that's going to happen. I'm saying I think that's more likely than a complete pullout. I think the most likely option is something actually competent because I think the They're re-gathering their, well, they're re-gathering our plan right now. If Israel, out of the 50 that were killed, if Trump's plan was only three or four, and they went and did the other 45, they're making it to say, listen, I spit in the guy's face. What should we do now?

You want to go home? Because they're coming. Yeah, and that's all. That's in their nature. That's what I'm saying. And so to me, if they, if they intentionally did that, I think this just goes in deeper. If they did, I don't know the intel, I don't know the stories. Well, we gave them the weapon and the intel and they just used it to kill them.

Yeah, but he kept saying you killed the next guy like Anthony said earlier. We had a guy, but they killed him. Yeah. Who's they? Right. You know, so if that's the case, they're saying, hey, we're already in so deep. And, you know, if we turn around, the people are going to say Iran won, do you want that on your resume? What do you think you should do?

So it's like one of those moments that we don't know. Let me go to next door. Let me go to next door, which I think I'd like to spend a couple minutes on this. Not a long time. Just quick thoughts on this. Story came in. Rob, can we real quick pull up the clip of U.S. forces, sink 16 Iranian mine layers as reports say Tehran is mining the Strait of Hormuz. I believe you have a clip on this.

Is this it? Yes, this is the strike. That's the strike. Yep. And we did that 16 of them. Yes, sir. Okay. And these are not big.

These are small, fast like Tom was talking. Let me read this time and then I'm going to come to you. American forces on Tuesday sunk several Iranian ships, including 60 mine layers near Strait of Hormuz. The U.S. announcement followed a post by President Trump that said, if Iran had put any mines in the strait, we want them removed immediately. If for any reason mines were placed, and they are not removed forthwith.

The military consequences to Iran will be at level never seen before if on the other hand they remove what they have been placed. It will be a giant step in the right direction. Trump said in a truth social. So as they're going to, Trump later claim that 10 inactive miscellane ships were sunk, located between Oman and Iran.

The straits saw roughly 30 million barrels of crude oil passing through 25 times. Your thoughts on this? So for people to kind of understand, The thing that created a huge problem in Afghanistan, Iraq, and other places was IEDs. Low tech. It's not a giant missile you can see. It's not a big radar installation. Those improvised explosive devices created out of gas canisters, hidden in little, you know, pipes by the side of the road, sewer pipes, activated with cell phones, low tech, but very effective at stopping, very effective that creating havoc, very effective that interrupting a high. highly organized opponent. So the U.S. and its friends are highly organized opponents in the Gulf,

and these mines are basically the IEDs of the water. The small fast boats, they only need about a 40-foot boat, 25-foot boat. These things sit on the back, almost like lobster traps. They have weights that hold them six to eight feet below the surface. They're hard to see, so you need sophisticated techniques to see them. Once they put those out there, it's like a grenade that goes off if it gets bumped hard. Well, guess what? Bumping hard is what a large ship would do. So this is low tech and really a pain in the neck to, this is why one of the reasons Lloyd's of London pulled back and said, hey, we're not going to insure you if you come through this, because it's not just about the Iranian big navy. It's also about all of this, about drones that could just, you know,

dive down onto the tanker or these. And so for the U.S. is now entering a phase that says, we got to get to the mine laying boats, which are not very big. We got 16 of them yesterday. This is talking to Lloyd's London. This is talking to oil transportation companies. This is not really talking to the American people. They're trying to build confidence in straight to Hormuz and say, we're taking care of it. We're going out after it.

And then they have to have other detection systems to see if they can detonate these things or find them and remove them safely. from the water. That's what's going on. IEDs of the water. Anthony. Well, I generally agree with all that. I think I would just add a layer to that. There's 250,000 Iranians living in Abu Dhabi and Dubai right now. Lots of them are princelings from the regime. And the banking, whether we like it or not, I think everybody here that's national security background knows that most of the sanctions avoiding most of the money laundering primarily going through Dubai. And so they, if they get those banks shut down on them, that's going to be a disaster for that regime. And so they don't want that to happen, which is why last weekend they were apologizing for shooting rockets

at them. They continued to shoot them, but they're really trying to find a balance. So my bad, I was aiming for a U.S. and naval. Yeah. So I think, one, I think you're going to be right. I think they're going to straighten out the Strait of Hormuz, to give more confidence to Trump to say that he's got unconditional surrender and victory. And then the secondary reason is that regime is going to stay on, which it likely will, they're going to have to do business with the Emirates. And so it's all connected. So there won't be a lot of blowback for blowing up these minesweepers.

Yeah. You know what's fascinating is that for some reason, Chinese shadow fleets are still making their way through the Strait of Hormuz. So I don't know who's letting that. I don't know why, one, I don't know why we're putting up with this, like, trying to negotiate with it. Like, this is a part we're talking about half measures. Like, what happened to, you know, decapitating them? Why are we even having the conversation of they better not be putting minds in the war?

Like, we spend a trillion dollars a year on our, on our defense, our national security. Like, there shouldn't be a single thing in the world that we aren't able to do that we aren't able to fix in an instance. But, you know, we're hearing about these low-tech drones. And I know, and I hear your point about low-tech being able to, um, inconvenient. means high tech but why aren't we able to produce drones right now like why why haven't we factored in every possible contingency or situation that we could have been faced with like you're telling me that we were planning this attack but we didn't come across this oh hey they might try to put mines in the straight of four moves if we do this let's be ready for that let's have like we've

been moving our military to this area for the last couple of months why like why are we seeming like we're unprepared for the situation that's baffling to me and unacceptable too like we waste a ton of money on defense like we know we get price gaugged on our defense we know like we pay it $300 for a screwdriver. We know we paid double the price for these planes and these rockets and drones that we buy. So that's what pisses me off. It's like one thing if we're going to get price couch and taxed and all that, but we better have everything that we need for these situations.

Yeah, it's true. And it's funny. It's because a part of it is I was in the military and we would buy the stuff. And I'm like, wait, how much do we pay for these lug nut? Is this a joke? Well, this is what we do as, and we always overpay. A part of it is also when the budget gets bigger. and spending less the next time around you come,

then they're like, well, you don't need that much anyways. You can get, so I don't know if you saw the report that came in about the lobster and the food. Did you see all that stories that came out? Seven million for lobster this quarter. Yeah. Seven million for lobster this quarter. So. But no drones.

It looks like what you think, yeah, $9 million spent on crab legs. This is a story that just came out today in the months before Iran report. So listen, at least our guys have good quality protocols. team with these crab legs, right? Like, we're ready for what could possibly happen. But it's a bigger story than that. I don't mind it if we're paying market price. Yeah, I'm with you.

But that's the part where a business people like us will look at this and say, what the hell are you doing? Never. What are you doing? Now we're unequipped. We're unequipped for a situation. We're paying for some of this stuff. I mean, listen.

This is what Doge was supposed to do, by the way, if you think about it. Oh, look what they did to them. Remember something about Washington? It has an immune system second than none. Okay, you get a, you get, you get, think about Elon Musk, I was talented and successfully is, and think about the immunological system of Washington and found a way to eject him after, I don't know, 130 days. Yeah. So yeah, I don't know if we can keep up this pace for a month or two.

I don't know if we have the materials in the, um, the, the, uh, the cupboard. I think the cupboard's too empty to keep this up for a couple months. And that's crazy to me that we spend 30 trillion in defense over the last 30 years and we don't have what it takes to handle the situation. Let me get to the next thing, Kier. So Trump and Putin discuss Iran in their first phone call. This is according to Bloomberg. Russia of Vladimir Putin and U.S. counterpart, Donald Trump, spoke, discuss Iran, their first phone call. The talks, which lasted about an hour.

We're constructive and business-like and will undoubtedly have practical significance for the further work of the two countries and various areas of international politics. Tasnoons agency reported. The leaders are also discussed the U.S.-led peace talks between Ukraine and Russia. the peace talks have stalled after Trump ordered U.S. forces to attack Iran, a planned fourth round of talks this year that was scheduled for last week was postponed because of the war in Iran, and the sites haven't indicated when they will resume. Putin and Trump also discussed Venezuela, according to Ushakob, and I believe Putin told him that they're not leaking intel to Iranians.

I think that was one of the conversations that took place because story came out saying that, that Russia, Putin are sharing intel with Iran. He says, I don't think we're doing anything like that. So, Tom, what do you think about this call between Trump and Putin? Well, I'm interested what Anthony thinks, because my question when I read about this and says, okay, why put this out there? Why tell people you had this call with Putin? You have all kinds of calls all day long with world leaders, economic leaders, banking leaders.

There's all kinds of stuff that you or a cabinet member at the highest level with your authorization is having. Why come out to the podium and say, I'm talking to Putin? I had the first phone call this year. It was constructive. It's almost like you're reassuring. And to me, it sounded like a point of reassurance for our allies and others. You know what I'm saying? I was getting to why say it. What do you need to say it? What do you need to talk about the call? What do you need to even put it out there? Because you have, it doesn't calls like this every day, right? First of all, I don't know who it is, but there's a mole inside the White House. If you want to call it that, a source inside the White House

that's dumping nonstop stuff to the Wall Street Journal. Okay. And that started with the 50-year-old birthday greeting, you know, the shapely thing and the signature that Trump sent to Epstein. And then Trump said that he didn't send it to Epstein. He sued Murdoch for $10 billion, but then sued didn't go anywhere because he really did send it to Epstein. And so the reason you tell people about the call is that there's moles

inside the White House are going to tell people about the call one way or another because the report came from somebody inside the White House that got signals intelligence picked up that the Russians were sending detailed satellite imagery to the Iranians. And so that got dumped into our press from inside. Okay, so Trump has to talk. He loves Putin. Okay, he's nothing to really help the Ukrainians since he got the job again. Trump, too. He loves Putin. Why does he love Putin? I submit to you, Putin has something on him, because it's like if the windows open, Tom, and you hear clippity clop, it's a horse, it's not a zebra. This is one of the very richest guys in the world, running the most powerful military,

arguably the best economy in the history of the world. And you got a failed state that's an oil and gas country with a few nuclear bombs that has a GD smaller than Canada. And Italy. Okay, and what are you doing? You could knock him into center field and end the Ukrainian war tomorrow and there's a lot of people pissed inside that government that are leaking on Trump.

And so that's why. This is what Trump said about Putin. Brand, I'm going to come to right after this. Go for it. Ask me the vomit big. Do you approve of Iran's new supreme leader? And secondly, can you tell us more about your call with Russian President Vladimir Putin? today. What did you discuss?

Yes. I had a very good call with President Putin. We had a lot of people on the line from our side, from his side. We were talking about Ukraine, which is just a never-ending fight. And when, look, there's tremendous hatred between President Putin and President Zelensky. They can't seem to get it together. But I think it was a positive call on that subject. And we obviously talked and about the Middle East. And he wants to be helpful. I said, you could be more helpful by getting the Ukraine-Russia war over with. That would be more helpful. But we had a very good talk, and he wants to be very constructive. Yeah. Please. Yeah, please. And by the way, yeah, but you're not pissed about this? Am I pissed about that? You, you, you,

you love the Putin-asker? Do I love it? Yeah. So I was going to, I'm glad you asked, because I was going to ask you a question about that. So if he loved Putin, Putin, why wouldn't you just, you know, take the weapons that were giving away to Ukraine and let Putin steamroll Ukraine like he totally could have? Why were we still? Whoa. Whoa. Actually, why wouldn't he help Putin against Ukraine? Why wouldn't he help Putin take Ukraine back? Why wouldn't he remove sanctions off of Russia immediately? I can't do that. Thank God because thank the good Lord. You remove sanctions. No, the United States has many checks and balances. The Biden put sanctions on. Trump could take them off. Thune is gone to him. McConnell is gone to him. The national security complex has gone to him. said you cannot do that and that they would stop him from doing that.

They also went to him prior to Davos and said, hey, you better knock off the stuff with Greenland. Okay. That is a treaty. You had troops preparing for a potential invasion of Greenland that were calling lawyers to say, hey, we're going to invade a country that we have a treaty with. So you're not about Poohen or Greenland. No, I'm talking about it. They're all connected because you have people inside the government through the checks and balance of the system

that are holding him back from. doing the stuff that he would like to do for that. But Greenland is a national security measure against Russia, though. That's why we want Greenland. No, Greenland is a attack on our allies to help Putin. Because when you go after NATO and you start attacking NATO, you're helping Putin. When you drop the material that we were sending to Ukraine and the Biden administration and are not sending it anymore, you're helping Putin.

when you lift oil sanctions on the Russian oil on the global oil markets, you're helping Putin. So you're telling me we're not helping Putin? He hasn't lifted the sanctions, though. So why has he? He just announced it last. A percent just announced it last week. No, that's what this conversation was about that they're going to discuss.

No, no, no, go have somebody Google it. Does Trump weighs easing Russia sanctions? No, no, he did. Other measures. The percent and made the announcement. Cool oil prices. That's Reuters that came out. Yeah, so he's weighing it.

He didn't do it. Why wouldn't he do it day one, though? And I say, I imagine he's doing this to ease the oil market. Because, as you know, there are people in the government that are the permanent people. They see the president as the Christmas help, and they have stopped him from doing it. But if he wants to do something, he's going to do it. And he hasn't been kissing Putin's ass. He's been telling Putin.

Oh, my God. Okay. He hasn't been kissing Putin's ass. Give me an example. Let me go to chat GDP and come up with the 10 things that. If you're so adamant about it, why can't? should name at least one or two. I just named several of them. What?

Okay. You said Greenland. Sanctions. Greenland. Peeing all over our allies. Hous and Putin. Taking out the European alliance, which is obviously helpful to Putin. Even these conversations are helpful to Putin.

The summit meeting that he had with Putin in Alaska, who started the Ukraine war? Who started the war? Russia. Okay. Okay. So they are, actually, I would say NATO did because NATO did. They decided to put weapons in the countries closer and closer to Russia. Okay, well, then let's really go back in our history then because in 1994, we signed an agreement.

They were the sixth largest nuclear arsenal. And we said, give us your nukes and exchange for that. We'll give you, you've been suppressed by the Russians for 300 plus years. We will give you security guarantees. Is it suppressed by the Russians for 300 years if you're part of Russia, though? Like, they were part of Russia for 97% of all of history of that territory. So we kind of went in there when the regime collapsed and said, all right, hey, guys, this could be a new country now. We'll help you're on it.

Hold on a second. So you're saying that the Russians were not an imperialist power and took over those republics? So in 1991. Okay, but everybody took over everybody. What are we talking about? Are you calling America imperialists for taking over this territory? Yeah, of course. Of course, look what we did.

We killed 32 million Mexicans in the Mexican-American War. So what are you mad that we took over Texas and the- California. Am I mad that we took over Texas and California? You know, I'm a realist about history, but this is current contemporary history that if you want to live in the rules-based order that we set up to protect our prosperity and to protect our freedoms here, you have to reject incursions into sovereign territory today. I'm not talking about the Mexican-American War, what happened in the 1630s. I'm talking about what happened in 2002. And so if you want to be in a rules-based society

and you want to reject this type of behavior so that we can maintain dollar supremacy, maintain our freedoms, and project our power around the world, yeah, you've got to reject nonsense like that. Yes, you do. What are you thinking right now? Listen to this exchange. So two things.

The first thing is I think it's true that Trump has some sort of an affinity with Putin. I don't think he's betraying any of his America first objectives or anything like that, but there always has been, from the media to cabinet members commenting, they said, you know,

it's like maybe he appreciates his style of leadership, not the execution of billionaires or of dissidents, or the seizure of rightfully owned companies, which Putin has done. There's a side of that government, Russian government over there that I think we all know is a mob.

So, but there's been this something that Trump has appreciated, liked, or otherwise been deferential to it with Putin. It's always been there. The other side of it is, I'm not sure everything, I agree with Anthony on everything. Greenland, I think we were thinking a lot about rare earth minerals and a lot about how China at the beginning of the administration, that was a big question because a lot of stuff was needed for U.S. manufacturing. A lot of those minerals were needed, right?

And so I really believe that he was trying to corner China and that Greenland represented an opportunity to prevent China from extracting and working with rare earth minerals. But what it also did, it did put him into this collision with our quote, unquote, friends in NATO who said, wait a minute. You know, one of the European countries has done a very good job

managing Greenland the same way you've done a reasonable job managing Puerto Rico. That's kind of the relationship, right? Greenland is sovereign to a point, but it's managed, and it gets welfare assistance from a European country. Puerto Rico has its own independence, but it gets support from us. So I think there is that going on. I'm not sure about the whole chess game that all the moves were helping Putin, but I do believe that the president's been deferential to him. But I think there was more to, I think there was more green. In Helsinki, when the press asked them, do you believe your own intelligence about the Russians meddling in the 2016 election, or do you believe Putin? What did he say?

He said Putin. Yeah, okay. Well, because his own intelligence were working, they were spying on him. So he probably- You didn't just say that, Mouge. Come on, Anthony. You said that? You think he's going to side with the Russian intelligence that the government, when they were, you know, going. I didn't say. I think siding with him and making a comment. I don't know. People told me they did. He said it.

I didn't say it. He didn't put a hand on a Bible for Russia. He said, I have no reason not to believe him is what he said. I'm not going by what I'm saying. I'm going by what he's saying. But what he said? I was asked to provide evidence about the ass kissing of Vladimir Putin by Donald Trump. And so I'm providing the evidence.

You know, it's interesting when you're saying that. This is the, there is a lot of people I don't like, and I'll still give a reasonable opinion about what they're doing. There's a lot of people I don't like that I'll still give my thoughts on him. I think to me, I trust him in the situational room better than anybody else we have right now. I trust his ability to negotiate on behalf of America, better than anybody we have in America right now.

I trust that the enemy hated him from day. did everything in their power with the $35 million dossier that, you know, Hillary wrote that saying Russians were involved and at the end of the day we realized it was all fake. I realized what Obama was doing using the DOJ to spy on his, worse than Watergate. All of this stuff has happened. This is not like it's a myth. I understand they went after this guy because he exposed the hell out of everybody.

And he's the first guy that will call out, say anything about you, your people. people, your family, he brought out, you know, women that Bill Clinton was with in a debate with Hillary in front of his wife. He's capable of doing anything to try to destroy you. That's his ammo. You like it. You don't like it. That's how he is. But if I'm sitting here, why did Putin attack under Biden? He didn't attack under Trump. He waited until Biden wasn't. You think Putin wants a Trump presidency? You think Russia wants a Trump presidency? You think Iran wants a Trump presidency. Tell me which of those three prefer Kamala Harris or Trump? Anthony, you really think Russia, Iran, and China would prefer a Trump president over Kamala or Biden? You can't.

You really want me to answer that? I know you're going to say. Go ahead. You're going to say who. Okay. Well, let me answer it with a question. Has China by our adversaries and our allies been perceived as being a more stable trading partner than the United States under Donald Trump to yes or no. You didn't answer my question, though. Well, he did answer it because China is doing way better with Trump as president. Way better as Trump's right. And if they want to take Taiwan, Trump has given them ample license to do that. Then why come they haven't yet? Why haven't they? Well, they don't have the military capability to do it. But trust me, the minute that they have the military capability of doing that, they want to do that because you said something about Trump,

which I do agree with about legacy. And you also said it. And she's legacies that he wants to be bigger than Mao. And that was Mal's legacy. He got the mainland, but he couldn't get the island of Formosa. And so she wants to go down in history as a guy that connected the two. But the Chinese are doing way better in the global economy. Are they really?

They are. Okay. Now, Hacheng Kai Shek. Look at the math. They may be... Look at the math and look at the... With the tariffs, though. What happened to... What happened to Panama? What happened to Panama? I'm in the markets all day. What happened to Panama? What happened in Panama? I mean, with the ports? Do you prefer Panama being controlled by C.K. Hutchinson or it being here? You think what's going

on with Panama is a good thing for China? First of all, the Lee Cushing family are clients of mine, and I understand the relationship that they had there. And I don't see that as Chinese nationalism like other people do. That is a Hong Kong family. That's a capitalist family that did every single thing that the United States wanted to do with those ports. Having said that, Okay, that the fact that the president didn't want those guys there, I've had absolutely no problem with it. I think Black Rock is, or it's true, Black Rock, I think it is taking over those ports. I have no problem with that.

And I think that's part of the good things. I'll call balls and strikes on Trump and tell you what he's doing right and doing wrong. No, no, what I'm saying is, do you think he did a great job in Venezuela. But I think he hurts us with tariffs on, tariffs off, tariffs on. You're saying, I said in April of. Anthony, the fact that you're saying. China, Iran, Russia would prefer they're more afraid of Kamala or Biden over Trump.

I didn't say they were more afraid of Biden. Here's all you got to think about. Behind closed doors. I didn't say that. When they're talking, Anthony. They're doing better with him with this sort of nonsense. When they're talking, when they're talking, do you think a Xi, a Putin or the leaders of Iran,

do you think they prefer a Trump or a Kamala Biden? Who do you think they prefer to deal with? Well, I think Putin definitely prefers dealing with Trump because I think he has been less adversarial to Putin. So there, I think as it relates to the mullahs, they definitely don't want to deal with Trump because Trump has the conviction to put a hurt on them, which he is doing. And I think with China, I've made my economic case with China when you're sending Mark Carney, Kearstormer. Who would they prefer? Do you think China? They're doing better under Trump, Patrick.

I still haven't answered my question, though. They would prefer Trump. They're doing better. There is no way. They are. Of those three, the only ones that doesn't prefer Trump are the Mullahs in Europe. Let me ask you this question. I'm just telling you based on the economic facts.

Do you think China could have stopped and shut down the airports earlier to not release COVID to the world at a time that they were being destroyed? Do you think at that time China could have prevented COVID? Now that we know it's coming from it, could they have prevented it? I do think that. Why didn't they? Do you think they released it intentionally? Well, I mean, you know, I do think that they released it intentionally. So why did they release it intention? You get rid of Trump. Is that what you're saying?

No, I want to know what you think. Why do you think they released it intentionally? $18 trillion of economy? I mean, it's, millions of lives, seven million people, I believe. It's very hard to know why. Let's speculate. You're saying, you're saying the superficial reason why was they were trying to get rid of Trump. Give me two or three reasons. but I think it was a lot deeper than that.

I think that there are seven Balkanized provinces in China. There are 90 million people that run the Chinese Communist Party, and they were losing their grip on China. Lots more VPN usage, lots more people like in Iran that don't like the system and want more freedom. And by unleashing that, they were able to go massive repression on their people. And as you know, they were locked. down in their area of the world for almost three years longer than us. So was another reason to dislodge Trump? Yes, probably another reason to dislodge Trump. I don't think they like the

trade deal that they did with Trump. And again, to be fair to the president, the president struck a very good trade deal with them for the U.S. farmers. And Joe Biden, due to Joe Biden's weakness and the incompetence of that administration, I think you guys all know this, they didn't live up to the deal. Okay, so they had three or four years where they were supposed to buy certain amount of agricultural products from the United States, and they didn't live up to it. So it's a mixed bag. I understand the point that you're making, but I'm making a little bit more subtle point where you can go down subject line by subject line and say they would prefer Trump, they would prefer Biden, they would prefer. That's what I'm saying. There is no way.

You think they leashed it, unleashed it to get rid of Trump, and I'm saying that was one of the reasons. How was America doing right before that? How was America doing right before that? Right before they released it in December 20, whatever it was, how was America doing? How were we doing? That's an American-centric view. I think the leadership in China was more cent.

Their view and decision-making was more centralized. What percentage of your investments are in China? What percentage of your investments are in China? What percent? So, C.K. Hutchinson, who is a client of yours? I don't have any investments in China. I have assets from mostly Hong Kong. Okay.

Yeah. I don't have money. You know, to me, when you see what America was doing, Trump had an easy route to being reelected. He was going to get reelected. There's no COVID. He gets reelected. I, I, okay.

So I agree that he was getting reelected when I would have bet that re-election. I'm just saying to you your view, okay, which I'm not disagreeing with. I just think it's number three on the list. of reasons that they... Yeah, they wanted to get rid of him. So if you wanted to get rid of the guy, let's make it number five, number six. Now, I don't care if it's top 20 list,

you want to get rid of somebody is a way of saying we don't want that guy back. Now that he's back, he's helping them with this arbitrary capricious, a tariff strategy. I don't mind, listen, I don't mind. The whole Supreme Court ruling that happened, 6'3, and they have to go back and now they're forcing to pay out. Apparently they have to pay out even sooner

the way the court's doing it, and they're going back and forward with that. I don't know you know I trust the Constitution this the Supreme Court became a very powerful thing for for us to watch the last eight years him replacing three seats and if it was the other way around I don't know what Obama's Supreme Court ruling would have been if they try to remove him from being on the Colorado ballots and if once they would have agreed two three four who knows what could have happened if we had six seven liberal Supreme Court justices there were with Trump on that I know they did but because it was a concern

majority of Supreme Court. Look, I mean, a conservative court ruled with Obama on Medicare. They did. And a conservative ruled against Trump on tariffs. So the part of what I'm saying is, I trust the Constitution because of Supreme Court. But the Supreme Court here, conservatives will typically more side, you know, with their values. Liberal Supreme Courts will typically side with their political party much more than conservatives will if you draw the line and go through it.

Definitely been the case of the decisions over the last 10 years. So to me, I realized Trump's a disruptor. I realize if we wanted something to happen to completely dismantle. And by the way, you know, I'm curious to go here, Tom. I'll go to this one since from this topic. Can we go back to one thing, though, if you don't mind? So you guys collectively, there's four people here, if we put it to a vote, I'm the only one that thinks that Trump kisses Putin's ass.

I'm the only one here? Yeah, definitely. So you don't, and you don't think he kisses Putin's ass. No, I don't think he does. Is he differential to him? Absolutely. not. I think it's three to one. I think it's the following one. Listen, do you think the audience is happy that I have you right now on the podcast? What do you think? I'm getting some negative reaction because

they love Trump. No, but here's what I'm trying to tell you is I don't care if the audience is not happy that I have here. I want to have the conversation with somebody that maybe has a deferred view. I want to have that conversation, right? I don't mind it. So there's a part where the audience is going to be like, I can't believe you had them on. I can't believe you had them on. I can't believe you We in Iran, I can't believe he had Cuom on. I can't believe. Well, that's what makes a good podcast. So they have an intelligent agreement. I want to talk to everybody. I want to talk to people and see how the conversations will go, even if it's differing. No. For me, when you sit there and think about what he's doing, he works the room. He's the best politician we've had in our generation. He's a negotiator. He's tough. He's strong. He's unpredictable and predictable in the most important ways that we've had in our generation. He's a negotiator. He's tough. He's strong. He's unpredictable and predictable in the most important ways that we, need today. So for me, I like that. I trust that part of it. You know, there's an element of certain

guys that come out of startups. You know how there's wartime leaders and there's peacetime leaders and there's startup CEO founders and then there's, you know, corporate CEOs. You ever want to see how startup CEOs don't typically go take that big corporate job? And corporate job guys, the big CEOs typically don't show up during the startup phase. Why? They're not used to the chaos that much. I don't know if you saw the new contract they just gave to the new CEO of Google. Just see the number. $639 million or $649 million payday.

He's not the founder. He's the CEO. He's going to get paid a few billion dollars over the next few years. And by the way, $6.92. Good for him. Trump is a founder startup, chaos, you know, being inside the tornado,

that's his comfort zone. That's not everybody. To be able to handle all of this at the same time and still come up to the state of the union, and drop the message as if it's the greatest time to be an American, three days after Supreme Court ruled against you, and some of them are sitting right in front of you, and three days after you know you're going to attack Iran,

and nobody knows, nobody in America can do that today. That's what makes him unique, and that's what drives his opponent's insane, because they know he's capable of doing that and taking the criticism? Why do you think his approval numbers then are so low? Amongst who? Amongst Republicans? No, if you look at, no, he's very high among the Republicans.

And that's what matters to him. That's his base. You think it's going to, by the way, voter ID, go to voter ID. What did CNN show with voter ID? All this stuff you see that blacks and, you know, what do you call it? Black people can't vote. Black people can't do this. Black people can't do that.

Like all these stuff that, Rob, if you want to show this real quick, I just have this on my phone. Not this clip. If you can show up this picture. So this is what everyone's saying about voting. Chuck Schumer said, blacks aren't capable of getting IDs. Okay? Hockel. Blacks don't know what a computer is. Newsom. I can't read. I'm just like you black people.

Okay. Biden, you ain't black unless you vote for me. That's the opposite. That's the Democratic Party. And you know what they're doing this fear porn of voter ID? They believe illegal immigrant, Mexicans, or others that are coming from South and Central America, they believe they're capable of getting an ID, but they don't think black people are capable of getting an ID. And in the interim, CNN comes out with a poll showing what? That majority of Americans are with them on voter ID, majority of blacks. You don't have to convince me on that issue. I think the historical issue there, this is where the Democrats are making a mistake, is that when blacks were voting after the voting rights act, and I'm talking about the one that was passed after the Civil War, they got their IDs, they went

to their houses and the KKK set fire to the houses and lynch the fathers. Okay, that happened 150 years ago. I don't think people should be able to go into the voting booth without an ID. So I'm for the voter. No, what I'm saying is a majority of the... Remember, I'm a lifelong Republican. There's stuff about Trump I like. Yeah.

And there's stuff about Trump I dislike. But I think he's crushing it, in my opinion. I think he's doing great. Okay. And I think he's... Again, I could be wrong. And when I am, we'll sit down and we'll talk about it. I think he's doing great.

Some of the content is great. I think some of the style is really hurting the country. I don't disagree. By the way, I don't think there's a disagree that his style hasn't heard it for nine years I was in, that he was in. I don't think, you know, whatever, five and a half years that he's been in.

But to me, you can't get one without the other. Okay, you can't. You see what Rubio is doing right now. By the way, this is the part I'd like to go to me because I'm curious to know what you'll say about this. We talked about this last week, but the story eventually came out and Trump talked about it.

Trump says that he and J.D. Vance have slightly different views on attack in Iran. Did you see this story that came out? Yeah, no, I've talked a lot about it. You want to play this clip rob? Go for it. Where are my gloves? Come on, heat. Any day now?

Winter is hard, but your groceries don't have to be. This winter, stay warm. Tap the banner to order your groceries online at Walla. dot CA. Enjoy in-store prices without leaving your home. You'll find the same regular prices online as in-store. Many promotions are available both in store and online, though some may vary. And your vice president when it comes to U.S. action in Iran? I don't think so, no. No, we get along very well on this. He was, I would say, philosophically a little bit different than me. I think he was maybe less enthusiastic about going, but he was quite enthusiastic.

But I felt it was something we had to do. I didn't feel we had a choice. If we didn't do it, they would have done it to us. I felt, based on the negotiations that were being had by Steve Whitkoff and Jared Kushner and Marco and Pete and everybody was involved, I felt that they were going to, that they were looking to tap us along before they hit, and I thought they were going to hit. And if they hit us first, that would have been a very bad thing.

How different you think they are, the two, J.D. and Trump, on this issue, specific Iran. I think they were meaningfully different. Do I think it was black and white? No. But I think they were more different than Trump is letting on. But Trump's not going to go up and stand there. And his personality is not that he's going to promote or give credence. to, you know, controversy on that level.

He's going to say, you know, he was less enthusiastic, but he was enthusiastic, but he was less enthusiastic. I think when Trump says a little like that, sometimes Trump is saying a lot. And I just look at where's J.D. Vance at the briefings? Where's J.D. Vance and photographs of the situation room? Where's J.D. Vance been? He's kind of been, you know, preparing to kind of go to war with Gavin Newsom, sorry to use the word, on fraud. Like he's going to be the fraud czar and go on that.

And so I've seen that. And then we've all seen how Rubio has conducted himself, not ahead of the president, very, very clear, good press conferences, good clarity that I think gives confidence. You may see things differently between the lines because I haven't worked with them. You have. But that's kind of my take on Vance. It's like, where is Vance? Where do you stand? Please.

Uh, he doesn't want those guys taking any credit for his success, number one. Number two, I said at the beginning of the term, I said that he's going to put Vance in the wood chipper, like in the movie Fargo, and Vance is halfway through the wood chipper. Uh, he, is that your partner in the wood chipper? Yeah, remember? Yeah, he put him in a wood chipper right now because a couple of things. He made the decision to pick Vance three days after he was trying to. traumatized by a near assassination.

And by the way, whatever you think I think of President Trump, thank God he was not assassinated. Okay. And I said picking Vance that quickly, I think it's going to cause a problem because he was under the gun there. And I think it was offered a lot of money into the campaign and things like that that I think influenced them. You read it pretty well.

Who did you think was going to be the choice? I thought Rubio was going to be the choice. Really? Yeah. Yeah, because Susie Wiles loves Rubio. remember they worked together very well in Florida you got to remember I've been in this party for 30 years Susie Wiles was tight with Jeb Bush

she made Ron DeSantis I mean they're fighting now because DeSantis sort of dispatched her okay which is why she ended up with Trump but she's very tight with Rubio and she was the pick he was the pick for Secretary State as a consolation and not getting the vice presidency

it's a better job by the way because Secretary of State's a better job but let me just finish this thought pattern two more things. They ran as peace candidates. Go look at the brochures. Go look at the, you know, the stuff on the internet. And they ran as non-interventionalists.

Am I making this up? No war. And they ran on No More Forever wars and things like that. And where Vance wants to differentiate himself, because he leaked this, the CBS News, I can show it to you, that he disagreed with Trump on the war. Okay, because he's trying to get his footing for 2028. Okay.

And he did, he did leak it. Okay. So he's, So he's, Vance leaked to CBS about this. I can show you the, I'm not doubting it. I'm just repeating what you said.

Because the actual article said, officials working very closely with Vance said that he did not want to do this. Moreover, Vance was nowhere on Venezuela, right? He wasn't in this, in the situation room like Marco Rubio. He was nowhere on this.

I mean, he made up some like fake situation room for himself to sit in while everybody that was around the president making the decisions were in Moralago. So Vance, whether you guys like it or not, in my opinion, is on the outs. Rubio is on the ins with Trump for now, but may not be forever because that's what happens in Trump world.

You know, you know who was on the ends with Trump and was like this with Trump? Mike Pompeo, like this. And Mike made a decision not to run in 2024 because he didn't want to be on the outs with Trump. Is he on the outs with Trump now? he is. Okay, and that's what happens in Trump world. You go in and you go out, unless your last name is Trump or your Cushner that's related to the Trump family, you can go in with Trump or out with Trump very quickly. I think they've taken a different approach with this. I'm going to go to the business. They've taken a different approach at the same timeline. You think Vance is on the

ins with Trump? No, no, no, no, no way. A weird thing Vance, first thing Vance said was we need to bomb Iran. He's like, hey, my name's J.D. Vance. We need to bomb Iran. So that's why I think this is weird. Trump never really spoke about. but remember that? Vance, that was like the first thing he said when he became vice. He wasn't comfortable with it. That's not him, though. And by the way, behind closed doors,

there's a community that's protecting JD because they want J.D. to go. Tech is on JD's side. And the other side is going to be with Rubio. I just think Rubio's, I want to go to business. I want to go to business, Tom. Yeah, my external feelings and gut was aligned with you, and you've kind of confirmed.

Yeah. So let me go to business. Okay. Can you go to Consumer Price Index rose 2.4% annually in February, as expected. that's that at the same time we have while that's going on which is great news

you know you have the other report that comes in within a week apart three days apart U.S. economy shed 92,000 jobs in February well below expectations so 2.4% Anthony what does that mean Rob is this the clip well we know what it is he's just given the report right what are your thoughts on this well I mean

you have to tell me how the war is going to end my thoughts on this is the near term numbers are not going to be that big of a deal it's the trend number The trend numbers, I think rates should have been cut six months ago. I could make that whole case for you. I want to bore you with it. But you're probably 50 to 100 basis points too high relative to where the statistics are.

And I would point everybody to truflation.com, which I think is a much better measurement of overall inflation in the United States. It's at 0.92%, something like that. So the Fed has lots of room to cut. I hate to say this about Jerome Powell, but I think he's been. influenced by the fight that he's in with Donald Trump. And I think he's trying to assert Fed independence relative to that. And he should have cut the rates earlier. So that 2.4 number and the 92, if you look at them in isolation, you say, oh, shit, we're heading for stagflation. I don't believe we're heading for stagflation because I think the war is going to settle out.

The oil prices are going to come down. And I think the trend line for the economy is still generally good. Tom. So job reports is like this parlor game of who's telling the truth. It's like listening to China talk about their own inflation stats and their own census stats, right? You just, you have a hard time believing China on that. And unfortunately, the jobs reports has been something that a number comes out. Everybody says it's political. One side's leaning this way. One side's leaning that way. And 30 days later, they revise it. Oh, so, and then they revise it again. For instance, December, Pat. Let me step back to December. December's report was revised down by 65,000 in the same report.

From a gain of 48,000, which seemed to match all of the seasonal workers and everything that the Amazon's and everything we're doing and seasonal gig work, from gaining 48,000 to wait, wait, in December we actually lost 17,000 jobs. In January, no, no, we didn't have 130,000 jobs. It was closer to 120,000 jobs. And so now we have these job loss expectations. So there is one simple truth, right? We need, and we don't have yet, the manufacturing machine kicking in. It takes time to build the factories. It takes time to build the infrastructure.

That is not hit yet. So those jobs are not coming. And we have seen a tremendous amount of layoffs just in the last 30 days from corporate America. But at the same time, we have CEOs saying, yeah, I kind of blamed it on AI, but we weren't completely sure that it was AI and maybe it wasn't. We've seen guys backpedaling. So this report is not good. It shows slowing job growth in the U.S.

and that they're backing up and correcting the last two months downward. That's not good. Even if you assume this report is only 50% correct, directionally, it's not good for jobs. Is it AI? Is it seasonal? Maybe, maybe. but we also are waiting for investment and manufacturing jobs to kick in

because trillions of dollars have been committed U.S. and internationally, but those facilities and those factories haven't been built yet. Yeah, by the way, did you see the unusual whales? Rob, can you post this tweet? I'm curious what you guys think whether there's an impact of this going on because they posted per Fortune magazine that thousands of CEOs admitted AI, I had no impact on employment or productivity.

And it got millions of views, your thoughts. And what happens to your stock, if you say, I'm increasing productivity. I have a little layoff because of AI. And I'm going to give you... Stock explode. That's right. I'm going to give you another three cents to share.

I think that statement, Patrick, is very similar to statements that we witnessed during Web 1, when people were talking about innovation related to the Internet. We're just not onboarded yet 100%. I don't think anybody's going to be making that statement in five years. Yeah, the implementation of it, that's going to be a big industry, is companies that are able to help companies implement AI the best way. But, I mean, inflation thing, biggest gaslighting ever.

I mean, the fact that we, I mean, I'll say Trump is doing a good job and bringing it down in the right direction, but for us to celebrate a 2.5 CPI gaslighting, I mean, that number, like inflation is not going down until that number is negative. Now, tell me if you disagree, but the fact that it's, 2.5% means just went up 2.5% from the year prior, right? So, you know, this goes back to the Pokemon car thing. That's why limited assets are going to be valuable and more valuable every year because

that means there's 2.5% more money added to the economy. So it means your savings account was devalued by 2.5%. So that happens every single year when they say the CPA was 2% or 3% or 4%. That's the amount of value you're losing off your money. Okay, but let's explain this because these are very important for viewers and listeners. Milton Friedman, the Nobel Prize winning. Economist. What did he say?

He said that deficit spending is unfunded tax liability. And you're going to pay the man one way or another. Our politicians have decided to pay it through the most pernicious and regressive way to pay it. And that is through the tax of inflation. Yep. Okay. Rather than just saying, hey, this is what we're going to pay for the military and our social services. This is what you owe.

They're afraid to do that. So they're taking it from your savings account. And one of the things that I really don't like about it, Pat, is that the working poor don't understand it 100%. You know, my parents bought their house for $16,000. It's worth $780,000 on Zillow, but if you priced it in gold, Patrick, the house was purchased for 450 ounces of gold in 1962,

but it's worth only 250 ounces of gold today. Okay, based on where the price of gold is. So I try to tell my folks, you guys think you made a killing on it, But the inflation is making you think that. And so this is a trick that we do to poor people. They think they have more money because $100,000 has $10,000 worth of purchasing power from 1971. But they now think they have more money because they're looking at $100,000 in their bank account.

So this really bothers me, which is why you're right. Cards like that, Mickey Mantle, Bitcoin will go up primarily because of what we're doing here in terms of money printing. But go look at truflation.com. The inflation numbers in the United States are not as high as that CPI is suggesting. I'm surprised by that because it felt like it was going up this year, but that's just a feeling. We had a 9, 10% move during the Biden thing if you want to attack Biden, okay? And they were out of control with the way they handled the economy. But they haven't gone up that much relative to that move.

That's why we're all feeling it because the egg prices are still very expensive. didn't go down. They're just not going up as fast as that number is saying. Just go look at truflation.com. They aggregate from the entire country. They don't do it in this old style methodology that the government does. Long before the deficits of today, I was an adjunct professor and NBA program. And I said it then. I'll say it now. If you don't believe what's you're hearing, Google this phrase, government long-term debt inflate their way out. 100% just just google that phrase i was talking to pepper dine and to biola 15 years i told people to search for that phrase and you will see the story of how the governments can actually

eradicate the debt it's called inflate their way out well that's why that's why fiat that's why fiat currencies don't last can we go back to that truflation thing is i want to show people that the u.s dollar has lost 28.25 percent of of its value since January 2020. Is everybody said that, ladies and gentlemen? Yep. So if you had $10,000 in your savings account, you now have $7,200 worth of purchasing power. Does everybody understand that?

And this is a malpractice by both parties, ladies and gentlemen, okay? You can like Trump or dislike Trump. Both parties are doing a number on you. And by the way, if it says $28.2, that means $100 in 2020, is not worth $71.71.75, right? But the question is this. It's correct. Six years later. What do I have to do to have maintained? I don't even think it's 4%. Because even 4%, 60, what would the number be to catch up with it?

You're good if you're in the S&P. No, no, you're for sure good if you're in the S&P because they're down and 6, 7%. I'm just doing the math off the top of my head. But most people can't do that, Patrick. and most people are living, you know, paycheck to paycheck. The other big problem in the country is if you want to own a house and the median price for a house, according to realtor.com, is $380,000, and you don't want to be house rich and cash poor,

you've got to make like $170,000. And the median income in the country, $84,000. So this is why people are angry. And this is why people are choosing populism and people like Mondani because they really feel left out of the system. How do you feel about Mom Downey? You're in New York. What do you think about what he's doing?

Well, I will say this, okay? I'm impressed with the relationship that he's trying to bill with Trump. I'm also impressed with the relationship that he has with the cops. You know, he kept Commissioner Tish and he's trying to give them exactly what they want

to maintain law and order in the city. And, you know, listen, I didn't vote for him. He wasn't my choice. Chris's brother was my choice. I grew up with Chris and Andrew. And again, I'm a Republican, so I would have chose the Republican, but there was no chance for a Republican in that city. So I went with Andrew. But I will say this. It feels like he's running the city more moderately than he campaigned on. It's only a couple of months, Patrick, but that would be very good for the city because if he goes in that direction, it'll be devastation for the city. Let's do a last couple stories here with five minutes. We got left. Bitcoin.

Prices rise. Why oil could dictate what happens next for cryptos? What do you think is going to happen with Bitcoin doing cryptos during this volatile? Is that Anthony Pompliano? Yes. Play the clip. All right. So let's put it all together. We've got a war in Iran. We've got a spike, at least for now, eight-day spike in energy prices. We've got AI disruption concerns. We've got cracks. She's just asking questions. And we have a weaker jobs report. How do you invest right now? Buy Bitcoin.

Got it. That's what it is. Where are you at with it, Anthony? Well, listen, it's my largest position by far. I've added to the position recently in the correction. I do believe that Bitcoin is going to be a big operating layer like your former guest, Michael Saylor, who wrote the foreword of my book about Bitcoin. And I'll just say two quick things.

When we move into agentic AI and a. computer is not, for regulatory reasons, able to open up a bank account somewhere, guess what the computer is going to do, is going to figure out a way to trade on the blockchain and use things like Bitcoin. And so don't underestimate the power of this. Moreover, in a decentralized society where we're losing our trust in fiat currencies, I think Bitcoin has a store of value or a potential layer of value that we transact with is going higher. And it's a very limited supply, and forget about you and me. I'm talking about kids that are my kids' ages. As they go 10 years from now, 20 years from now, they start running the big money, this is going to be a very

big asset. So is it a $35 trillion asset like gold trading at $1.5 trillion right now? I believe it is. Could it take 15 years to get there, probably? 35. So you think it can 20x where it's out right now? I do. I think it's going to be the market capitalization of gold, but I think it's going to take 15 years to get there. It's not going to happen overnight. Right, right. You see Michael Saylor and them, they just bought another $1.3 billion. I don't know what the number was. 1.3 billion. He's single-handedly propping up Bitcoin during this bare market. And he's set up now to buy, you know, another 10 to 20,000 Bitcoin at a clip every quarter. He's buying more than the mine supply of Bitcoin right now. Okay. So 450 Bitcoins are coming out of the network. And Michael's

buying roughly about 600 a day. Just to give you a sense for what he's doing. They got to do blood work on this guy. They got to do blood work on this guy to see if it's ice cold or, you know, where is it at? I mean, is there, is he that ice cold? You know, I watched your interview with him. I guess the only thing I would, not to overly simplify the interview, but Michael is in the software business.

And Michael tried to compete against Microsoft and lost. And he now sees this as the operating software for the future of money. And so he didn't make it, but he wants to. own it because he thinks that's where the future's gone. Let me get to this next one here. Anthropic sues Trump administration over Pentagon Blacklist. Rob, I think you got a clip on this one as well and we'll wrap up with the story Anthropic. Let me see what page is it on. Rob, you got a you got a clip on this. Let me read this to you. Page 27. Here we go. So Anthropics Sue Trump administration on Monday seeking to reverse blacklisting by the Pentagon

that declared the AI company a supply chain. risk. Is that the clip? How long is it, Rob? Does it get right into it? Yes. Go for it. Artificial intelligence firm Anthropic sued the U.S. government on Monday, trying to block the Pentagon from placing it on a national security blacklist. The lawsuit escalates Anthropics high-stakes battle with the Defense Department over the uses and limits of AI in military technology. Defense Secretary Pete Hegeseth designated Anthropic a national security supply chain risk last week. That came after the startup refused to remove guardrails against using its AI for autonomous weapons or domestic surveillance. Anthropics said in its lawsuit that the designation was unlawful and violated the company's freedom of speech.

The filing in federal court in California asked a judge to undo the designation and block federal agencies from enforcing it. The designation poses a big threat to Anthropics' business with the government and could limit the use of a technology that a source said was currently being used for, military operations in Iran. President Donald Trump has also directed the government to stop working with Anthropic, whose financial backers include alphabets Google and Amazon.com. Trump and Hegeseth said there would be a six-month phase-out. Anthropics said even the best AI models were not reliable enough for fully autonomous weapons, and that using them for that purpose would be dangerous. You can pause right there. You can pause right there. Anthony, what's happening here? Well, listen, you know, this is, again, you guys are going to be mad at me, but I like process because process made your family and my family rich.

When you're decentralized at the top and you don't have over autonomy and you have processed, then people can be aspirational. When it's too concentrated, then people think the system is rigged. And so I think they overly bullied Anthropic here. And they could have gotten to a deal with Anthropic, but this is that overzealousness that goes on sometimes. when people are bolded up with a lot of power. And I think they're going to lose, they've lost the tariff case. If you'd ask me that six months ago, said they're going to lose the tariff case. They're going to lose this case in court.

And if I was advising President Trump, and I'm not peak heck said, but if I was advising president of I say, sir, we're going to lose this case in court. I don't want to lose another case on behalf of the Trump administration. They have unbelievable technology. Before the show started, I asked these gentlemen here if they use Claude. They all said that they did, and they like it better than. chat gbt and i don't want the government and the department of war to lose the resource of claude so cut a deal and drop the case that's my recommendation but if they don't they're going to lose

the case well first of all let's let's talk about the scale this is a 200 million dollar contract um which the pentagon spends more than that just in the last 10 syllables i uttered um and that's all the was $200 million IT services contract and they said, but we don't want you to use their own domestic surveillance. Meanwhile, over at the NSA, they kind of already are, right? There's things that are happening that they're already already happening. Different bucket though. Sure. No one's pushing back about that. No one's pushing back about. We're talking about CIA inside the United States versus the FBI, Department of Defense inside the United States versus the NSA. Yep. No, no, but that's exactly right. So one part of the argument I think is kind of lunacy. Do we not think that there's three,

letter agencies that are using these new tools as part of domestic surveillance, tracking down terrorists, and, you know, expanding the oversight. Yes, I do. And I don't think anybody in rational argument could say it's not. To be arguing publicly about a $200 million contract with the Department of Defense and ending up in a lawsuit position that I agree with you, the administration will lose. I don't think that's smart. I think you've got to come back and say, sir, this is a $200 million contract. NSA has already, FBI are already doing stuff and more with and without warrants. You know, you want to talk about no knock warrants with the FBI?

This, that's nothing compared to what they were doing with, with tools like this. I think this was a dumb fight to have spilled over in public. Yeah, Claude, by far the best AI out there. But this makes me think of what happened with MySpace because I, if I'm not mistaken, I think MySpace was asked to do a similar thing. They said no. and then, you know, CIA, allegedly CIA backed Facebook, you know, crushes MySpace, my space disappears forever. So it tends to not go so well for companies that start off really

successful at the government's interested in. If they don't play ball, the government tends to not go so well. So, yeah, I disagree with how Trump is in the administration's handling this one. I mean, you know, like if we had Biden as president, he was trying to do this with a company like Claude, we'd be outraged by it. So, I mean, I don't like the nature of spying on citizens. I could get on board with the military usage of it, but not the domestic surveillance, because I'm not a Patriot Act guy. We're all agreeing again, Patrick.

This is a problem. We're all agreeing, guys. Some kind of a fight. By the way, chatGBT right now, weekly users, 900 million, 2.5 billion prompts per day, 50 million paid subscribers,

92% of Fortune 500 companies as of right now use them, and 2025 March. It's your Chad Shoebe. He had 87%. Right now, it's 68% and declining. Wow. Which is what's naturally supposed to be happening.

Yeah, because one is Yahoo and the other is Google. Right. And the other products, everybody I talk to now, like, no, I don't use Chad. No, I move to, no, I move to, no, I move to, it allows you to use all of them. This one has access to all of them. I'm using Claude. I'm using this. And Tom, you know, typically Tom, you know, normally mentions Kim, the female

name he uses the most in Tom's life is Kim it's his wife's name but there's a new girl in Tom her name is Courtney and it's his Claude assistant and everybody at the office is not I'm not even kidding with you everybody at the office walks around saying who the hell is this Courtney girl we've never met her and that's his assistant Tom how effective is Courtney for you so Courtney was a name that I gave to a replicant that I built on on the OpenClaw platform open claw started out as Claudebot in October of last year. Then the engineers got a letter that said that I'm anthropic, didn't like them using the word Claude.

So they said, okay, they changed it to molt bot because lobsters shed their skins called molting, which shows you why engineering should never be allowed near marketing. And then they subsequently changed it to OpenClaw and kept their mascot. So this is the origin of OpenClaught started last year. So I was reading about this last year, and in Aspen is when I sat down and said, okay, I'm going to do this. So I stood up in Amazon EC2 instance with Unbutu Linux, loaded open claw on it and started teaching its skills to get done what Jason Calcanus calls chores. So I said, can I get certain chores done and get them done faster so that I can make decisions do the mental work?

And that's what's going on. It does charts and it cranks out charts for me that are easy to see. So I don't have to do that with the numbers. Then I go and make the decisions in my daily work. But I'll tell you, I'm using it at probably 15% of its capability. Because if you look around out there, this is the, this is where agentic AI, you know. At Desjardin, our business is helping yours. We are here to support your business.

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Please play responsibly. Agents, and to get it to talk to me, I, you know, used telegram to talk to it, and I used open labs to choose a voice. So I chose this British voice that they called the Moneypenny voice, because she was the one that was always helping MI6 and James Bond. And I named it Courtney. I like it. And, you know, it gets a lot of things done.

Jim is okay with it. Tim is okay with it. Does it read your email? It can read the email if I want it to. I'm not, I'm being very careful in security, because also what happens when open clog gets a bug, and then it goes into your email, reads a bunch of stuff, stuff and you're a stockbroker and now a bunch of information inside of information

the street or it just decides to send random stuff out security BD, Rod. They're going to have a lot of security that's going to go through it. But remember, last thing to ask your anti-virus security needed viruses. Right. Anthony, last thing, your son bought Logan Paul's a Pokemon card for $16.5 million, $16 plus million. And he said he wants to buy a T-Rex. Is this the clip, Rob?

Of what he wants to do? Go ahead, Rob. My ambitions for the card. Let's have good genetics. It's a small story. That's my other son. Excellent. The real story is I'm on a planetary treasure hunt right now.

And I'm on a quest. What? To buy a T-Rex, dinosaur fossil. That's on my list. What? I'm going to buy the Declaration Independence, maybe from you. We'll find out. Oh, this is crazy.

And I'm not stopping there. This was only at the beginning. This is my brother, Tony Moochie. He's a film director. And we have been fans of Pokemon since we were kids. Oh, my God. This was the right way to start the treasure. I'm just starting.

I just started it. Bro. That is so epic. The Treasure Hunter. First of all, how's it feel your sons are doing deals like this? Well, first of all, I'm very proud of both of them. I would, you know, I'd probably sound like a brand. My oldest son went to Stanford Business School.

It went to tough. Stanford Business School worked at Google for Eric Schmidt. He worked at Tesla. And he built his own venture capital firm, raised a ton of money for himself, running, you know, several hundred million dollars at Solari Capital. And he is creating, apropos to what you were saying earlier, he's looking for assets that will go up in a debasement trade.

And so this would be physical assets, and that would include things like collectibles. And so I think there will be hopefully a T-Rex in there. There will be a Declaration of Independence. There'll be other baseball cards, other Pokemon collectibles. but I think he wanted to make a statement. And Patrick, you know marketing about as well as anybody, and I'll send this to you because I did an analysis for him. The impressions on Instagram,

the fact that we're talking about this on your incredibly successful show and the impressions that he got across social media and 40 different news outlets around the world, it was like buying the Super Bowl twice. Okay, so buying every advertisement on the Super Bowl twice. And so it's $10 million for 30 million. 30 seconds to get your story out on Super Bowl Sunday. And this was $16.5 million.

I think he's got his story out in most places. Steel. So I'm very proud of him. I thought it was brilliantly executed by him. What start did you give them? When they got started and they came to dad, can you give us some money to get started? What was that conversation?

Well, I spoil the shit out of my kids. They probably don't like me saying that because I live by Mel Brooks's adage. Relax. None of us are getting out of here alive, Patrick. And so my attitude is I didn't have any money growing up. I have a little bit of money now. Anything I can do to help bolster my kids. It's their lives.

And I'm not taking any credit for AJ's success or his vision, but I've certainly tried to help in the small ways that I can. Respect. That's amazing. It's great to see him doing what he's doing. Your two boys, especially working together and giving him the credit, that was great to see. And by the way, I got a text two weeks ago of a guy messaging me.

We're on a flight. says, do you want to buy a T-Rex? I thought it was a joke. And I said, what do you mean do I want to buy T-Rex? He says, well, there's a T-Rex owner of a museum in Europe that wants to sell it. Do you want to buy it? Yeah, we looked at that one. You looked at that one?

That's a good one. It's going. You said, the problem with these skeletons, they're... You know what he's asking for it? That was probably 55, I think, right? What was it? 55 million? Yeah, yeah.

Little less than that. But maybe I've got to introduce this guy to you guys. Okay, well, I think A.J.'s already talked to him. Okay. But there's one in Vancouver. The problem with these T-Rex is... There's only 38 of them. There you go.

And they're not complete. No, they're not complete. Okay, and so you have to really analyze and you've got to get the right parts of the skeleton to really make the thing valuable. You've got Lucy, which is almost complete, and then you have everything else, which was skull and this, and how many replica bones make it up.

You know what the sales was? Imagine if you buy it, and if you put it in your office and your hangar, and people stop by. I said, you want me to buy it? T-Rex and put it in my hanger for people to stop by. Well, let me tell you about a T-Rex. Okay, now that we're talking about it, you can get yield on a T-Rex. Okay, you can display that and get yield.

You know, I owned for, I don't know, 10 years, the Batmobile from Batman Returns, you know, with Michelle Fiverr, and we got yield on the car. You know, we bought the car, and we moved it around the country to various car shows, and they, that's the car. You know, we had a website called Chicks Love the Car, and I don't. allowed to do that anymore, but that's the exact car. And it was, it was in Batman returns. Would you buy it or would you sell it? Okay, so this is a big lesson for everybody listening. We bought it for $135,000, held it for 10 years. We sold it for $370,000. It's probably

worth $4 million today. Stop. Oh, no. That's what I was going to say. 370 is a steel. Yeah, we was, we probably sold it in 2009 or 10, right after the financial crisis. But, you know, I owned it from 1999. You know, listen, I mean, but here's a big lesson. If you own something like that, hold on to it. I think the very big lesson, 40 years of being an investor, my mistakes have been selling too early. That's my lesson.

Own quality, stick with quality. Think like Michael Saylor and Warren Buffett. By the way, the best part of this podcast was probably last 30 minutes. Talking about money and investment. Anthony, great having you on. Are you full-time New York? Full-time New York. I'm full-time New York.

I love Florida. But I'm raising, I've got an 11-and-8-year-old at home, so they're going to public school. Respect. In the town that I'm in. Good for you, man. But I'll hopefully get down here more. Congrats on the success.

Gang. Tomorrow is Scott Galloway. We talked about men, marriage, fatherhood. Rob, is this the... Awesome guy. Go forward. If you spent enough time telling young men that they are the problem and that they're predators, they begin to believe you.

How much of a young men struggling today is them versus the system? And the most frightening statistic is that if you go into a morgue and there's five people who have died by suicide for our men. I don't think we have enough voices of men that are good examples and challenging boys to become men. If you reverse engineer to the single point of failure when a boy comes off the tracks, it's to one point, and that's when he loses a male role model.

The far left hasn't been any more productive because their advice is to say, okay, you don't have problems. You are the problem. And my advice to you as a young man is to act more like a woman. Tomorrow, 9 a.m. God, Gallowick, cannot wait for that to come out. Having said that, he's phenomenal. We had a great conversation. Again, you got any questions, comments, thoughts, finance, anything.

Go to Meneck. That's his QR code, send him of Meneck. Welcome him to the platform as well. being said. Take care, everybody. I think we'll do this again home team Friday morning. Take care. Bye-bye, bye-bye.