The Adam Mockler Show - he just blew it up...

Episode Date: May 18, 2026

Adam Mockler breaks down growing fears surrounding Donald Trump’s handling of the Iran war after another last-minute reversal on military strikes exposed deep concerns about America’s energy reserves, missile stockpiles, and global credibility. As oil prices surge and experts warn the Strategic Petroleum Reserve is rapidly depleting, critics say Trump’s repeated threats and humiliating climbdowns are leaving the United States looking unstable, weakened, and strategically trapped. Click below for premium Adam Mockler content 👉 https://www.youtube.com/@adammockler/join 👉 https://adammockler.com/subscribe JOIN THE COMMUNITY: Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/AdamMockler/ Discord: https://discord.gg/y9yzMU3Gff Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/adammockler/ Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/adammockler.com/ Twitter: https://x.com/adammocklerr/ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@adammockler Contact: [e-mail] Business inquiries: [e-mail] Adam Mockler - Mockler Media LLC Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Now let's change it for the better. It's a new work day. All right, we have some breaking news that is utterly humiliating for the United States. We are on week 11 of Donald Trump's war with Iran that he claimed it only last four to six weeks, and he has once again just backed himself into a corner with an escalation ladder that he can't actually live up to, and then at the very last minute he has just backed down and claimed he is on the verge of a negotiation breakthrough for about the dozen's time since this war started. I want to be very clear.

I'm not calling for Donald Trump to continue escalating. My ask isn't for him to continue bombing civilians. But I think there is a very big reputation hit that the United States takes when we act impulsive, unstable, strategically confused, and continue to threaten war crimes only for our president to then back down. It makes us very unreliable. So I am happy that the war is not escalating today, and I hope it does not escalate tomorrow. but Donald Trump needs to actually find an off-ramp without just threatening war crimes and civilian infrastructure over and over and over.

The scary part is, not only is the United States stumbling from crisis to crisis with no coherent doctrine beyond just, you know, threatening everybody, but we are also very vulnerable as it pertains to energy right now. There is an oil crisis, a petroleum crisis, and our strategic petroleum reserve is rapidly, being depleted according to all experts.

A lot of Americans hear the phrase strategic petroleum reserve and assume we have like an infinite gas tank for emergencies, but that is not the reality. The SPR has been heavily drawn down due to this war, and according to most energy analysts, the bottom 20% of the reserve isn't even fully usable in practical terms because it's just like low-quality sludge, degraded crude, and low-quality, you know, slop that we can't actually use. So it's very important to point out how much we actually have left. We learned from Patrick DeHan at Gas Buddy just an hour ago. Record, the Strategic Petroleum Reserve just fell by its largest ever weekly amount, almost 10 million barrels. The total strategic petroleum reserve

is now at under 375 million barrels. And according to energy analysts, once more, let me just repeat this. The bottom 200 million barrels aren't even usable. We can't use the bottom 200 million barrels, meaning we only have about 175 million left, and that will last us about 15 weeks as all of the other reserves are drawn down.

So when politicians brag about how much, many barrels remain, the real usable amount is only about half of how many we see there. Again, the bottom 200 million barrels are all unusable sludge. Then Patrick DeHan says, as the strategic petroleum reserve drops and more oil is sold overseas, U.S. inventories are now drawing at very fast levels. WTI crude oil now up $3.41 barrel and $109 a barrel as more U.S. inventory heads overseas looking for record U.S. oil and refined exports again this week, not good for consumers. So global inventories are tightening. Oil prices are spiking. The second the Middle East even looks unstable because the entire

modern global economy runs on energy and the oil markets are internationally connected. They're all interconnected, which is very well known, of course. Shipping runs on energy, manufacturing runs on energy, agriculture runs on energy, even the grocery store runs on energy. When you visit the grocery store, everything you're buying was transported using energy. So the entire system depends on stable fuel flows and stable energy flows, so to speak, and we are seeing the exact opposite of that. Again, there are record pullings from the petroleum reserves, And let me mention the chief of the IEA, which is the International Energy Agency, states that oil stocks are running low. Only a few weeks left.

So we are being exhausted energy-wise by Iran. And now the question is this. If the CIA reports that Iran can withstand this blockade for about four more months, maybe five more months, then can the rest of the world withstand this blockade for four or five more months? the answer is likely no. Now, before we dig into Trump's post, where he just humiliates all of us, one more thing to point out that I've been, you know, researching and learning a lot about is that different refineries are built for different grades of crude oil. Not all oil here is the same. And this matters a lot for a very specific reason. So American refineries are heavily optimized

for heavier and more sulfur-rich crude blends, meaning you can't just magically replace every lost barrel that the United States loses with whatever random oil is out there on the market. There are only certain types of crude you can replace it with, and that means certain types of crude are becoming scarcer. The system is becoming more strained, and the United States is not just losing oil overall. We are losing very specific, valuable, rich types of oil that we cannot replace easily. So when politicians are screaming online and posturing about war and doing this and that, we're actually sitting here watching the energy markets

just shudder. People are panicking. The energy experts are panicking, and here comes Donald Trump with his grandiose threats and then his humiliating climb downs. I can't tell what's more offensive. The fact that he keeps threatening war crimes over and over,

or the fact that he then seems like an unstable maniac claiming we're on the verge of a deal when no deal is actually happening. It's all so offensive. He said, I have been asked by the emmer of Qatar, Tamim bin Hamad al-Tani, the crown prince of Saudi Arabia, Muhammad bin Salman al-Saud, and the president of the United Arab Emirates, Muhammad bin Zaid al-Nahun, to hold off on our planned military attack of the Islamic Republic of Iran,

which was scheduled for tomorrow, and that serious negotiations are now taking place, and that, in their opinion, as great leaders and allies, a deal will be made, which would be very acceptable to the United States of America. Okay. I hope a deal is made. Let me just be clear. I hope that we are able to find an off-ramp and make a deal. But this is about the 15th time that Donald Trump has escalated, escalated,

backed himself into a corner, and right before striking, he decides to back down. The Center for Strategic Intelligence at CSIS is telling us that we have depleted one-third to one-half of our precision munition stockpiles. We have depleted a lot of our interceptor missile stockpiles. We are running low in China and Russia are going to take advantage of that and get more freedom of military action. So the main problem that is now popping up is that Donald Trump has backed himself into a corner. He can't just continue to launch missiles and rockets willy-nilly because we are running low. He also can't keep this war going because we are running low on oil. Iran has effectively checkmated our dumb-ass president, and if Donald Trump decided to strike tomorrow,

This is what would happen if Trump decided to strike tomorrow. While the missiles were launching, Iran would launch their own final salvo into the Middle East, and it would be destroying as much energy infrastructure as possible in countries surrounding them. So this is what really happened. When the Emir of Qatar, the crown prince of Saudi Arabia, and the president of the United Arab Emirates asked Trump not to launch, he asked Trump to tone it down, it's because, These are the surrounding countries that would immediately have their oil and gas fields destroyed in a final salvo by Iran. Think about it as like a, you know, suicidal final message from Iran.

They would say if you're taking us down, we're taking down everybody with us. And they would strike the entire Middle East, or at least as much as they could, right? So they obviously talked Donald Trump out of this, if he even planned on doing it in the first place, because this would screw all of us. Now the next problem, if we continue to go at this pace and do nothing, it will also screw all of us. Iran essentially has the United States in a chokehold right now, and there is nothing we can do other than a humiliating climb down in which Iran continues to build their enriched uranium facilities, nuclear facilities, and in which Iran continues to control and toll the Strait of Hormuz and fund the exact type of terrorism that this administration was scared of in the first place. We're going to leave it there. I really wish the Iranian people were closer to freedom than they were a year ago, but it seems like Trump has pulled them farther away.

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