Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov - Trump Signs Iran “Deal” — and GOP Hawks Absolutely Hate It

Episode Date: June 18, 2026

Get your tickets now for our live show at 92NY: https://www.92ny.org/event/scott-galloway-and-jessica-tarlov Jessica Tarlov and Scott Galloway dive into the newly released details about the “memorandum of understanding” that President Trump has signed with Iran, purportedly ending the monthslong conflict, and launching a new chapter in U.S.-Iran relations. The agreement includes at least $300 billion in funding for Iran's reconstruction and economic development, a reopening of trade and shipping routes, and a framework for future negotiations. But major questions remain. The deal does not address Iran's ballistic missile program, its conventional military forces, or the broader regional tensions involving Israel and Hezbollah. Scott and Jessica break down what's actually in the deal, why Iran ultimately agreed to it, what it means for Israel and America's allies, and whether this will be a lasting peace or simply a temporary pause in the fighting. Plus: new Federal Reserve Chair Kevin Warsh's first major policy meeting took place, with some noteworthy differences from his predecessor Jerome Powell. Are interest rate hikes still on the table?  And finally, both Scott and Jessica have a case of World Cup fever. They talk about reporting that fans of Scotland have taken over Boston and depleted some of the city’s most important natural resources. For ad-free episodes, exclusive livestreams, and to connect with Scott, Jessica, and the Raging Moderates community, join us at ProfG+ on Substack: https://ragingmoderates.profgmedia.com/ Get The Monday Rage newsletter: https://profgmedia.com/s/monday-rage/ Follow Raging Moderates on IG, Tiktok, and Facebook: https://www.instagram.com/ragingmoderatespod/ https://www.tiktok.com/@ragingmoderates https://www.facebook.com/ragingmoderates Follow Jessica Tarlov on Instagram, Substack, and Bluesky: https://instagram.com/jessicatarlov https://substack.com/@jessietarlov https://bsky.app/profile/jessicatarlov.bsky.social Follow Scott on Instagram, Substack, and Bluesky: https://instagram.com/profgalloway https://substack.com/@profgalloway https://bsky.app/profile/profgalloway.com Subscribe to our YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@RagingModerates Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Welcome to Raging Monarch. I'm Scott Galloway. And I'm Jessica. Jessica, what am I wearing? Your Scotland jersey, which does not look like a Nix jersey, but I'm going to forgive you because... It's the tartan army of we last. Are you excited about Team Scotland? Yeah, I have a bit of World Cup fever, too. But it's mostly the foreigners' content.

I agree. I agree. Them discovering American things. Did you read the Japanese post about the chips and salsa, the bottom list chips and salsa at Mexican restaurants? The Japanese in Texas keep getting full off of chips and salsa. They get for free. So this guy had to, like, almost.

release a statement saying stay away from the free chips and salsa. I stopped a waiter. We have not earned these. It's hilarious how, and they're like, they're just fascinated by our food. Yeah, I mean. I think the World Cup is doing what the UN was supposed to do. I think it's reducing the likelihood of violence between nations. It really is.

It is wonderful. Do you have a team that you're rooting for? I mean, it would be great if the U.S. won. Unlikely to happen. Would it really? Well, I mean. It feels like it's one thing. we should give the world and that was the World Cup. But I will say this, the U.S. team is the best.

They've fielded it in a long time. It was fun. Like Friday night's game, I watched it. Huge. Yeah. And like the stories behind it as well. I mean, not to make this political, but that like an anchor baby scored two goals. It's good vibes going on. Before we get started, we're headed back to the 92nd Street Y this summer. Tickets are on sale now. We'll be celebrating the release of Jesse's new book and we'll be talking about New York, politics, and the future of the country. Last time was a blast and we sold out pretty quickly, so grab your tickets at 92NY.org. Again, that's 92NY.org or the link in the show notes. All right, let's get into it. President Trump has signed a preliminary ceasefire deal with Iran.

The agreement would reopen the Strait of Hormuz, ease pressure on energy markets, and includes a $300 billion reconstruction fund for Iran. But a lot is still unresolved. It doesn't address Iran's missiles or military forces and Israel. says it isn't bound by the agreement and will keep operating in Lebanon. Here's a clip. And it's a memorandum of understanding. If it doesn't get done in 60 days, it's all right. We go back to bombing. You know, I don't want to do that because it's so good. But we might have to because we're never going to let them have a nuclear weapon. But they've agreed not to, and

you'll see that very clearly in the agreement. What do you think is worse for Howard Lutnik, talking about his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein or standing behind Donald Trump? as he talks up this MOU that everybody hates. Like, unless you're basically a Republican influencer that's being paid by the Trump administration or MAGA Inc. or like one of those packs, I have seen no positive response to this. This is a fucking disaster. And the political implication is that J.D. Vance has almost no chance of being president after President Trump. And you pointed this out on the five is hanging this anchor around his neck.

because he knows there's just no way to pretzel yourself and defend this deal. Just, first off, and I think we talked about this on Tuesday, memo of understanding is a business term. It's a business document for when you indicate interest in doing a deal or acquiring a company. And what it's meant to say is here are some general parameters. And now we're going to do the hard work of figuring out if, in fact, we can come to an agreement. And I would bet somewhere between a third and 50 percent of MOUs end up in an actual deal. And let's just talk very or more specifically about this deal versus the JCPOA.

The JCPOA was 159 page agreement. This is a two-page memo. The important thing that most people agree on is nuclear constraints. The JCPOA required Iran to reduce its enriched uranium stockpile by 98 percent and cap enrichment at 3.7 percent, which it was up until the point that Trump ripped it up and then it went to 60, or they took it to 60%, and also, except IAEA monitoring, the 2026 memo of understanding contains no nuclear constraints at all, just a pledge to never build a weapon, which Iran already made when it signed the nonproliferation treaty in 1970.

In terms of verification and inspection, the JCPOA had IAEA inspectors, continuous monitoring, 24-day access provisions, and the memo defers all of this to a 60-day negotiating window. with no guarantees, you pointed this out on the five, we're paying for more for less. The MOU is a $25 billion transfer in assets plus a $300 billion reconstruction framework. The JCPOA, I think, was $1.5 billion. Iran is now at 60% purity, just a short step to weapons grade material under the JCPOA, enrichment was capped at 3.7%. U.S. military leverage. We're giving it away. The memo reportedly commits the U.S. to not increasing its regional forces, with Washington withdrawing extra forces within 30 days of the final agreement. That's the first time the U.S. has

taken away its ability to deploy after negotiations with Iran. That's a big loss. And what people aren't talking about that I think is a key component here is the JCPOA was multilateral. It was signed by the U.S., the EU, UK, France, Germany. And get this, it was also signed by China and Russia, meaning that if Iran violated it, they were going to get economic penalties from everybody, including their allies. And this agreement is bilateral, meaning that China and Russia probably don't care if they violate this agreement or not. The bottom line is that people in the Republican Party, former intelligence officials, Israeli national security officials, all say that Trump's MOU is weaker than the JCPOA,

focusing on immediate economic relief in some lame attempt to save face with partial fixes while postponing core nuclear limits and rescuing, quite frankly, Tehran politically, this is a fucking disaster.

And to your point, Trump is already throwing vance under the bus. Yeah, it was strange sitting next to him as people were kind of like dancing around this element because he's a smart guy, right? Like he knows what's going on and Trump went so far at the G7 yesterday to say like if it goes badly that, you know, that's on JD. And he definitely means that the other person though, who I think will be interesting to see how this falls on him is Pete Heggsess.

Because, you know, we started off the Trump administration with Pete Heggsess on not so short footing from Signalgate. Remember when they were all texting the war plans to Jeffrey Goldberg at the Atlantic. and Mike Walts ended up being the fall guy for that. Now Pete Hegseth, and reportedly MS Now was talking about this earlier, that there were a bunch of GOP senators that have, you know, knives out for Hegseth in this, not only because he should have been the one to really impress upon the precedent that the Iranians could close the straight of Hormuz

and what the implications of that would be, not just casually mentioning it if they even did that, but that Hegseth was showing him, you know, those snuff films that they were talking about, out that they would show them like a two-minute, you know, series of us bombing Iran and basically saying, well, that's all that's going on here, right? And like, there's no way to come back from this obliteration, which was definitely the wholesale message that Trump bought, you know, hook, line, and sinker. He thought it's the same thing as Operation Midnight Hammer, essentially, from the summer,

right? And they're never going to be able to dig their way out of this. And then, lo and behold, the missiles and the guns, like, pop out from the mountains. And Iran is back in business. I found this from Amit Siegel, an Israeli commentator, to be really interesting. He said, the agreement is not a pause. The status quo held in place while negotiations ran their course. It was a rewind, actively restoring the Islamic Republic. That's pretty powerful, this idea that not only are we just, you know, settling for the ceasefire or the status quo in it, that we are actively helping Iran get back to

where they are. And I was curious, you know, as a history dude. like did no one talk to them about the optics of signing this MOU at Versailles? I mean, the second, I mean, people who really hate the deal are like, you know, this is the second biggest surrender that's ever, you know, been within the walls of Versailles, but were they overwhelmed with all of the gold, right, and thinking, like, I'm an imperial king. And so this is a great place to do it. And no one thought, like, Stephen Miller, he's depraved, like, but he knows his history, right? He didn't text someone and say, like, guys, I don't think Versailles is the right place for this signing of an MOU, which basically gives them, you know, free reign to go back to doing everything that they did before. I mean, Iran's already saying that once they get their funds unfrozen that they're going to start funding Hezbollah again.

I mean, they're going to have $5 billion right off the bat with selling oil on the open market, which they had been banned from doing, like, from even before this, right? They had their set partners. But this is just like a complete free-for-all. I don't know. I was shocked at the Versailles element. Yeah. So essentially Versailles is where Europe perfected the art of confusing a signing ceremony with a durable piece. So the irony here is just stifling and so obvious.

The only thing that seemed to be a better analog or a better metaphor was the reflecting pool in D.C. turning green. It's as if after witnessing what's going on in common. Congress, the pool finally said, I give up. I'm just going to algae. Yeah, the irony is incredibly thick here. And I want to get your view that Trump is Chernobyl and anyone close to him gets political leukemia and he doesn't give a shit. He has no fidelity to the party. He has no fidelity to his VP. He's basically sent a mob with a noose hunting for J.D. Vance right now. And I might be being dramatic here, but I think this is literally game over. And by the

How the fuck did J.D. Vance get pinned with this? Where, where's little Marco? Where did Secretary Rubio go? The Secretary of State. This is the vice president. Notice how Hegset and Rubio have been like, I'm out. Yeah, fine. Have J.D. do it. Have J.D. try and try and pretzel himself on wallpaper over the absolute clown car meat shit show that is this memo of understanding. How did how did Vance get saddled with this? You'd almost rather be the borders are for the Biden administration, which is what Kamala, I mean, she was supposed to be doing like the root causes of immigration, right? But like, she got saddled with the border, which was an abject disaster for the first three years of the Biden administration.

But like, I don't know if I'd take that over emboldening and enriching Iran to this level. I mean, in sheer dollars and cents, I feel like they're sitting there thinking, how did we get this lucky? And I've been collecting this running list of comments that Trump has made in the last 48 to 72 hours. And I'm not one that likes to play official doctor, you know, MD doctor, not PhD doctor. But you've got to think that something is going wrong in his head, right? If he's saying Hamas is behaving very well these days, Iran should have missiles. Why not? We're going to unfreeze Iran's money.

It's their money. Why should we steal their money? If the war keeps going, there would have been an economic catastrophe, so we had to end it. Some of the guys in the Islamic regime are really nice, not radicalized. If Iran didn't open the Strait of Hormuz, our oil reserves would have run out in four weeks. We had to make a deal. Like, that's all public information, right? Like, I don't have access to him.

He doesn't pick up my calls. So I think the IRGC is sitting there and, you know, Ayatollah Jr., wherever he is, I know that he's not, you know, technically in charge anymore. And they're saying, like, you're signing this. bad boy at Versailles, which they know the value of, you know, propaganda that way in the images. And the president is literally coming out there and saying we have no cards, right? We have no cards. And he's almost changed sides. I mean, he's conceding things that even the Obama administration, which they accused of traitorous behavior, right, in terms of doing the JCPOA and unfreezing these assets, et cetera. Like, he's just coming out with it at the G7 and then he's going to come home so that he can

make it for a weekend of golf or whatever the hell he's doing? Yeah, it's, when I saw it at Versailles, I thought, okay, this is like having a Kardashian officiate your wedding. I mean, it's just, what on earth do they have absolutely no reference for history? And he is, first off, this is going to be one of the 50 or 60 percent of MOUs that don't result in the deal. What they fail to realize, or what this indicates, is a two-page MOU is almost nothing. The original JCPOA was 159 pages because we had a very confident diplomatic corps

ironing this all out, including things like the logistics around unannounced inspections by the IAEA, and none of that is in here. Because again, I've been harping on this, we don't have the foundation or the pillar of an incredible diplomatic corps, which America has taken for granted,

because Feltie has taken precedence, precedent over confidence. There's literally no one even to like try and figure this out. And if I'm the IRGC, it's like, yeah, he can't, he's neutered. Every day that goes by, his balls are clipped more and more in terms of his options and what he can do. He says, there are a few lies, bigger lies,

that have ever been told then, well, if this doesn't become an agreement, we start bombing them again in 60 days? We're not going back. He really thinks Greg going into the midterms that he wants new shots of us bombing Iran again and then them launching missiles into the Gulf, into their Gulf neighbors and the Strait of Hormuz closing down again, and it may never actually reopen. This is, I find it, I'm just so curious, I would love to know what is the best argument that you. your colleagues at the five made in defense of this MOU.

What is, let's steal man this, Jess. You be, you defect to the four, the other four. Well, it's not the other four. Dana Perino knows what's up. Yeah. Dana Perino, who, you know, was Bush's press secretary. Mm-hmm. She was the one who asked Vice President Vance when he was on about taking the picture,

you know, saying, like, do you really want to take a picture with a terrorist signing this deal? that is only an MOU, only a page and a half, and we don't have, you know, any guarantees that they're actually going to follow the guidelines that we've set out, which, you know, fail anyway or pale in comparison to what you were even to get from the JCPOA. And Vance poo-pooed it and I thought it was a really big mistake, right?

Like, take it from somebody who knows about how tricky the Middle East is, right? And how important these pieces of propaganda can become, especially for a terrorist regime. I was talking about the MOU and everything that they're going to get and I made what I thought was a funny joke that they won the geopolitical power ball.

You know, like there's a lot of money, right? Especially for a Mideast country that like allegedly we had decimated. And Greg said, well, they got totally destroyed. And I was like, obviously not. Because if you're completely destroyed, you can't negotiate something like this. Right?

Like something that everybody agrees, except for a very select few, is actually really bad for the U.S. Gulf interests and certainly Israeli interests. I mean, I can't even imagine what's going on within Israel right now and how tenuous BB's power is. I mean, he's going to have an election where hopefully he gets pushed out. But, you know, his whole thing was basically I am at least one with Trump or I can control Trump. So the Washington had a big article about how Trump's telling his advisors, no one can handle Netanyahu and that he wants to bomb everyone. Yeah. Like that's always been the case with Netanyahu. It's like he just finally woke up and lives in the same dimension as the rest of us. Yeah, Trump's always acted like he's both the buyer and the seller, that he can will the seller into giving him a Ferrari for the price of a Camry. And Netanyahu has said publicly that if he's ever given the chance, he's going to go after all of his enemies and try and decimate them completely. What will be interesting here is, and my sense is the only way that Netanyahu has any political future and perhaps even figures out a way to avoid criminal prosecution is to be on a constant war footing. And I do think

what a lot of people don't recognize, there's a huge portion of the population in Israel that is exceptionally upset with the actions of the Israeli government. And, and, and, and, and, And he is, he's kind of riding, I think, on a similar popularity vein or as Trump right now. The issue is, and I don't have a feel for this, is whether America still has leverage over Israel. You know, Iran used to be legitimately the superpower in the Middle East. Now I would say it's squarely Israel in terms of their military, their economic growth, kind of the third Silicon Valley. They are the dominant superpower in the region. And I wonder, I know we share intelligence.

I know that I would say Israel is more dependent upon the diaspora in the U.S. as opposed to the U.S. government. But I wonder if Netanyahu is going to even comply because this agreement states or outlines the cessation of hostilities in Lebanon. But neither Hezbollah nor Israel are signatories. So Trump thinks he's negotiating on behalf of Israel and Hezbollah. So I don't, you know, I don't know what happens there. Do you have any thoughts on how Israel responds to this? Support for the show comes from Quo. In your personal life, a call from an unsaved number can feel like a nuisance, also very scary.

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Activia contains over one billion probiotics per serving to survive and reach the gut alive. When it comes to gut health, Activia is the number one family doctor-recommended probiotic yogurt brand. Choose Activia, feel good from the inside out. Visitactivia.ca for more details. I think Israel intentionally fucks it up. Right. I think that they want to finish the job and they want to work together when it makes sense and that they're on the same page. And at this moment, they're absolutely not on the same page.

I mean, I thought that it was a very aggressive move on our, a very aggressive move from the United States to not even preview the MOU to the Israelis. Like, I'm not saying you have to let them control it, right? Or, you know, make changes at its track changes, whatever they're going to do in the document. they wouldn't even show it to BB, which shows that they are not interested at all in the Israeli preference for what happens or, frankly, as Israel sees it, in Israeli security anymore. And I'm not saying that that's necessarily the wrong thing to do, but I feel like we are in a go-it-alone phase, right, where the U.S. has decided, a la what Trump has said, we can't be in this war anymore, we're going to head for economic catastrophe. which you told us just a month ago didn't really matter. Remember that? Where he was like,

it doesn't matter. I don't care about it. Because like NetNet, we're going to end up with an Iran that doesn't have a nuclear weapon. And so I think Bibi will do everything that he can to, in his eyes, protect Israel, but also most importantly, to protect himself. And you're totally right. If he's on a war footing, we've seen this since October 7th. That that's the only way that he can stay in power and potentially stay out of jail. Yeah, it's going to be, I mean, I mean, it'll be interesting to see this memo of understanding. It outlines, you know, what's supposed to happen in 90 days.

I think it effectively, you know, it might be a memo, but there's going to be little understanding or agreement, I think, within 30 days. So I just don't. So then what happens? I mean, I know we've talked about this way too long. We have other topics to get to. But that's what I'm wondering. So let's say this goes badly. Iran is going to fuck around, right?

Like they're going to start sending missiles up. They're going to push our buttons. Trump has already shown a cognitive dissonance, let's say, about violations of a perverial ceasefire. If it's very clear that they are not moving towards where we want to go, like, what do we do? We just sit there and take it because there's no appetite to go back in or we keep forces in the region and live in a perpetual state of quasi-ceasefire. Well, the IRGC has been much smarter than the Trump administration. I think the sweet spot for their actions moving forward will be, if we just go a week or two weeks, if the Trump administration claiming that, you know, they'll claim, I got us out of Iran and we're much better off,

we're not going back. And the IRGC knows that. I think the sweet spot is probably to, first off, they don't have to do anything around the nuclear stockpile. There's nothing in the agreement that even states they have to. to do anything around that. I think the sweet spot for them will be exert enough influence or be aggressive enough such that it's clear that you control the strait of Hormuz, but not enough action that would warrant a military response for the U.S., which gives them a tremendously way, because other than them, other than being very aggressive and starting to launch missiles,

not even into other Middle East countries, but perhaps parts of Europe or Israel, I think they have a really wide berth to do whatever the fuck they want. So they'll play nice for seven to 14 days because every day this goes by, it gets harder and harder. The door around a continued military action gets sealed shut every day this goes forward. So the sweet spot for them is enough activity and hostilities to ensure them and their neighbors understand they control the straight of Hormuz, but not enough to inspire military action from the U.S., which would need to be a lot. And the issue is what do they do behind closed laboratory doors? You know, their uranium has been enriched to 60%, which is only a few steps away from missile capability or weapons grade capability.

They were at 3.7 or two, yeah, 3.7 at the end of the JCPOA. And we no longer have the rights for, you know, unannounced inspection. So there's just no getting around it. They're going to come out of this stronger. and we have been totally neutered in terms of our ability to respond to anything. We've weakened our reputation globally. We've strained our relationship with our allies yet again.

We've absolutely created a sense of weakness that when you have military bases, it's not protection, it's a bullseye. That was one of the things we're not talking about is a lot of nations in the Middle East became our allies and probably agreed to things they didn't want to agree to because we put military bases there that they saw as a veil of protection,

and they ended up just being bullseyes. So all of a sudden, you're going to see nations all over the world, think twice before they agree to one of the 700 bases we have overseas, which has been a huge source of geopolitical advantage for us. I think China has one military base outside of their borders in Djibouti. In Djibouti, we have 700. Who's going to raise their hand and say, yeah, put a military base in my backyard, boss.

So. Not Greenland. Not Greenland. There you go. So this is, on every dimension, this feels, people are comparing it to the JCPOA. The JCPOA had real teeth in it. This does not. We paid a shit ton of money to hugely weaken our influence and reputation and relationships around the world. And I just don't, the political fallout here, I think, is going to be pretty. pretty immense. And my prediction is within 13 days, the memo of understanding is essentially a memo of misunderstanding or bullshit that isn't worth the two pages it was written on, that we will be back to the current situation only worse with Iran now with an incredible nuclear

weapon called influence and control of the Strait of Hormuz, and we will have absolutely no ability to do anything about it. Any thoughts before we move on? No, agreement in that, and I just wanted to add, not necessarily as a conversation point, but of all the things that Trump said at the G7, when he was asked a question about the 168 schoolgirls that were killed in Iran. And he said, that's war. It's nasty. You should talk to Pete Hegseth. It was like a particularly repulsive moment. And I guess looping back to the World Cup stuff, you know, seeing the Iranian team finally get in, but also that they had the 168, you know, the numbers on their. they had a pin when they arrived was moving and that we shouldn't forget that there's been real lives lost over 1,000 Iranians and 13 American service members in this. And that was something that we also did not have for the JCPOA. There was not a life lost in that diplomatic effort. Yeah, I think that if we're to take any lesson away from Iran and Ukraine, it would be an opportunity to

our military budget in half. And unfortunately, our military budget has become the new testosterone, and everyone's afraid to suggest cutting the military budget. But to go from a trillion to 1.4 trillion, it's just stupid, because if there's any lesson from Iran and from Ukraine, it's one word, it's asymmetry. And we could, in my view, if we did it thoughtfully in a measured way, take our military budget down to five or 600 billion

and be a much more lethal force if we embraced asymmetry, warfare, not these expensive platforms where we're afraid to send F-15s or troops in because America doesn't have a tolerance for U.S. military deaths, whether you agree with that or not, and these expensive platforms that have effectively become corporate welfare for the military industrial complex, the opportunity presented which the Trump administration is way too stupid and macho to receive will be the opportunity to take our military budget down dramatically, which we need to do in order to create some fiscal responsibility and embrace asymmetric warfare.

I am getting far afield here. Should we move on? Yeah. In Toronto, every arrival is a statement, and nothing says it better than this. Cadillac Optic was the number one selling luxury EV in Canada for 2025. Find your rhythm across a seamless 33-inch display and an immersive 19-speaker AKG surround audio system.

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Kevin Warsh wrapped up his first meeting as Fed chair with no rate change, but he sent a very different message from his predecessor. The Fed backed away from signaling future cuts, open the door to a possible hike, and Warsh announced plans to rethink how the Fed operates. So, look, Trump spent months going after Powell for not cutting rates, but he's been quiet on Warsh. What are your thoughts here, Jess? I think a lot of that was the time change, frankly, that he is at the G7. And no, I mean. He's too tired to be an idiot. Sometimes it, I mean, he's an insomniac.

So sometimes you get a good 3 a.m. Idiocracy. But I feel like, honestly, this week, he did technically have bigger fish to fry. I thought compared to how deferential to Trump Warsh was in his confirmation hearings, that it was good to see him signal that, like, we might have to do the thing that Trump doesn't want us to do. Right. And I think if we hadn't got that 4.2% inflation report last week or the week before, perhaps that would not have been the way that he went.

But I don't know. I'm curious what you think about it, obviously. But he seemed pretty, you know, quite solid to me. And I know that there was, there were bipartisan backers of Kevin Warsh, despite the fact that he was like unclear on who won the 2020 election. When the AI job apocalypse, it's increasingly looking like bullshit because we're getting a series of strong jobs numbers. The Fed's there primarily for two reasons. One, to manage employment or unemployment, and two, inflation. And not in that order.

If you had to pick one over the other, you'd rather manage inflation at a reasonable level than employment or unemployment. The jobs numbers have been coming in surprisingly strong. But we had a terrible print of 4.2% inflation. if Warren should attempt to cut rates or even signal that he wanted to cut rates, first off, the other governors would have said, don't be a fucking idiot. We're keeping rights the way they are. The markets would have flipped out if he had in any way signaled some discussion or debate around not, quote, unquote, raising rates. And now Kalshi has the likelihood of a rate increase at above 50 percent by the end of 2026. inflation is a much greater fear right now than all the catastrophizing around job loss and employment loss from AI. And look, the Fed itself, they forget there's a board of governors here. There's, I think, 12 of them. There's decent governance. A lot of voices in the room. It'll be interesting to see if, in fact, if this inflation number doesn't tamp down,

what is the likelihood of actually a rate increase? And Trump's in no position right now to start making noises around a rate cut, because all that does is bring up the fact that he hasn't been able to manage inflation. Ed Elson at Profite Markets made an interesting point that if you looked at tariffs and you looked at the war in Iran, you could almost explain two full percentage points

of that 4.2 percent, and that is without the decision to go into Iran and without the tariffs, you would probably be at our target inflation number. How quickly do you think that we will start to see change in like gas prices, inflation rates, etc., from this new MOU reality. I mean, gas prices already have come down a bit.

I think it depends if it holds. I mean, it's impossible. The markets are such a beautiful thing because they have a mind of their own and you can't predict anything. I mean, over the long term, you're going to see oil come down because the silver lining here is that people are going to recognize that a fossil fuels economy, global economy, is unstable economy because the people to control the flows of oil and produce the most oil are oftentimes at odds with each other or not necessarily the most responsible actors.

It's not just Norway producing oil here. And so what's happened, China is massively investing, as they have been in a long time, in renewables. This is the prices and the geopolitical uncertainty will renew a worthwhile discussion and more importantly investment in renewables. And I do think you're going to see kind of peak oil consumption if it hasn't already happened, and you'll see oil prices come down. In terms of inflation, I just think it matters what, you know, what happens in the next kind of 30 or 60 days with this quote-unquote memo as it relates to energy prices.

On the other end, I think it's boring shit like concentration of industries that are able to extract higher rents because there isn't enough competition. But I don't think inflation is going to drop as quickly as they're hoping. And typically what you find with consumer pricing, is the companies are very good at passing through price increases really crisply, but they're not as quick to drop prices, right? Gas prices go up really fast. They usually don't come down as quickly,

even when the underlying raw input, oil, goes up or down that crisply. So I'm skeptical that inflation is all of a sudden going to go from 4.2 to the target 2.1. It'll come down, but I think we're in a three-handle plus for a while. I mean, I would expect that as well, but like it took us also a while to get here. And so not like flipping a switch, despite what they tell us. And all of this is going to have huge implications for the midterms, which I don't want to make everything about my team winning, but I would really like to win so that we could have some control over policy and have a real check on the president. So it's, you know.

Speaking of what is really important in the world and what teams should win, we have a clip from Boston. If your favorite beer is missing from a tap... We've never seen anything like it. There's a decent chance Scotland had something to do with it. Sam Adams, downtown, ran out of their signature Boston Lager over the weekend and needed an emergency delivery to keep up with World Cup fans, and they're not the only ones running dry.

The White Bull Tavern, there was no beer. The Scots fans just drunk the place dry, and all they had was like Bud Light. I'm sorry. How can you not love these people? How can you not love the Scots? So tomorrow night, let's bring this back to me. I bought three jerseys and three kilts. I have a kilt. I bought two for my kids. My kids have agreed to the jerseys. They have not agreed to the kilt. And we're joining a tartan army here in London. The game doesn't begin to 11. That's how I bribe my 15-year-old. If he wears a kilt, I'll let him stay up for the whole game. It is so much. Have you seen the Scots in Boston, Jess? Well, my favorite is that clip from 630 in the morning when they're bagpiping. There's like a guy going to work and they're already outside their Airbnb playing the bagpipes and drinking. But everyone just loves it. Like that's the best part of this. I have heard very little, I feel like no upset about the weird cultural practices or what would feel like. weird cultural practices to Americans that are being imported, just like pure excitement and

enjoyment of people that are having the best time ever, right? And that it means something to them and is a moment of national pride. I love it. On the drinking front also, it's not just the beer. It's hard alcohol. Everything. And there have been reports that they're breaking the refrigerator doors at stores. They're just pulling on them way too much. So I guess they loosen your grip a little bit, Scots, and wait for us to replenish your source, I guess. I was with Mary, our great script writer and researcher, producer on the show this morning. And she said she saw a lot of Scots here in New York. So, like, I don't know if they took the train down to stock up.

And they're, like, heading back on Amtrak for the match tomorrow. But I like the idea that they had to spread fan out to other cities to load up on alcohol to make it through the rest of the games. So if there's ever been a team that deserves to do well, it's the Scots. They've been at eight World Cups and they've never gotten past the group stage. They're in the same group as Morocco and Brazil and are currently top of their flight right now with the win. Their goalkeeper, Craig Gordon is 43. He's the second oldest World Cup player ever. They qualified with a 98th minute halfway line goal versus Denmark.

And also the squad includes Tyler Fletcher, the son of former Scotland captain, Darren Fletcher, And they're already up, as I said, 1-0. And I know you're dying to know more about the team. McCominee. Jess is the talisman. He's a box-to-box powerhouse. He's scored 12 goals per season at Napoli. Operating as a shadow striker.

McGinn, 20 international goals. Defensively disciplined under Clark. Surprisingly potent, Jess, an attack. This is super exciting. And I can't wait for tomorrow night's game. In some, Go Scotland. to leave it there, Jess. I can't think of a better way. Surprisingly potent.

Surprisingly potent. Shockingly potent. Like, yeah, yeah, yeah. A man would want to be described that way. How was your date? He was surprisingly potent. Shockingly potent. Yeah, yeah, no, everything's a shock at this point. Well, go Scotland. Go Scotland. All right, let's leave it there. Thanks, Jess.

See, yeah.