The Chaser Report - Vietnam 2.0

Episode Date: March 24, 2026

Keeping true to their lifelong promise to only cover the most important and relevant news, Charles and Dom deliver you an update on the price of petrol, and which foods are being renamed thanks to a new trade deal. Oh, and something about the war, but that's not worth worrying about. ---Listen AD FREE: https://thechaserreport.supercast.com/ Follow us on Instagram: @chaserwarSpam Dom's socials: @dom_knightSend Charles voicemails: @charlesfirthEmail us: [e-mail] CEO’s Super-yacht upgrade Fund: https://chaser.com.au/support/ Send complaints to: [e-mail] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Chaser Report is recorded on Gatigal Land. Striving for mediocrity in a world of excellence, this is the Chaser Report. Hello and welcome to The Chaser Report with... Let me stop you there. Charles, the war is almost over. Donald Trump says that there's talks underway. He doesn't want to blow up the power plants. He says Iran wants to make a deal.

Ah, what a relief. It's all over. Wait, just a second. Iran says that it's fake news and that that's not true at all. Oh, no. Oh, no. They've completely denied it. They said it was fake news to try and manipulate financial and oil markets. This is for the Speaker of the Iranian Parliament.

Sorry, Dom. I'm just going to have to interrupt you there. Trump has just announced that the Saudis and the United Arab Emirates are taking steps towards joining the war. They're basically in. They're in. Hang on, I'm being told the war is over. Let's just take some ads so we can just check our sources. So the war is off.

Okay, so the war's off. But the Saudis and the UAE are joining. They're in. They're in. And it's fake news. Yes. And the good news is that the strait of Hormuz will be open very soon. And there's a deal.

There's a deal with Iran. It's also, America's not going to open the Straits of Hormuz. They've said that they don't use them. And so that any country that wants to use them has to send their own military. Yeah. Yeah. So it's literally like, so it's a new doctrine, isn't it? Because the thinking for the last, say, 5,000 years of human civilization has been,

you break it, you own it, right? Yes. That's, every shop has that rule. Yeah. And the Trump doctrine is, you break it, that's it. You break it. Oh, what a pity. That's it.

If you want to use that thing, you'd better fix it. Yeah. It is a very mafia. I mean, I know everyone always says, oh, Trump's basically just like a mafia. mafia boss. But it is such a street. Pity of that thing happen to it. Yeah.

Nice country you got going here. I mean, in the vast sweep of history, like the Persian Embai's 2,500 years old, right. And it's funny, I was reading a fantastic article in, I think it was the London review of books was yesterday. Oh, so relatable. Yeah. No, no, but it's about how, so the Persian language, Farsi, was for a thousand

years, the lingua franca, for one of a better word, of the entire Indian subcontinent I love that you use Latin, a different lingua frang. Yeah, that's right. No, it was the highly educated, sophisticated society. Did you do Darius the Great and Cyrus the Great in ancient history? I mean, this goes way back. And so it's a sort of diaspora, cultural, literary, scientific. Yeah, the Zoroastrians.

Yes. Well, I mean, that's way further back, isn't it? They're still going. They're still going. I've seen the flame. I went to the place where the original flame is lit. In Iran. It's just a really old civilization that I think it'd be fair to say that people do not understand.

I don't understand. And certainly Donald Trump, I'm pretty sure, has very little insight into. But it's funny because, you know, when you read histories of Persia, you know, the span is 2,500 years. It's not like, oh, what happened last Tuesday. And so having Trump, like, you know, you. He is not even a blip. He's not even a punctuation mark. He's just going to go down in history,

in the long sweep of history, as this absolute dick ward. Like, that's all he is. He's the sort of, he's not going to be, you know, Darius, the second's greatest foe, you know. You don't think he's going to get on to Mount Rushmore. He does, I think.

So it is very hard to follow all this. Donald Trump, in the meantime, by the way, he's had time during this, and during the massive airport, down that's going on, potentially, you know, all kinds of things going on. In the States, they've been airports, airports have been closed down, but partial government shut down that's affecting TSA agents, basically. And he's found time during all this going on.

They've also sent ice agents to all the airports. It's a whole, it's a whole thing. It's not worth getting into. He found time to go to Memphis and look at Elvis's guitar. He went to visit Graceland. While there's a war in the Middle East and the US government. He's partly shut down. Yeah, yeah.

And he's... Extraordinary. He's going and looking at Elvis's... Presumably you heard that good cheeseburg is there. So I saw some polling just recently about Donald Trump. Because the one thing that makes you go is surely his support is going to, you know, seep away slowly over this. Or fast.

But CNN did a poll and they asked mega supporters whether they supported Trump. And 100% of mega supporters said they support Trump. In the war. Yes, the idea of this was going to split them off. I mean, Joe Rogan and so on have broken with him. But no, the MAGA-Rites, they think it's great. But I read some analysis, which actually, it's a solopsism because defining yourself as MAGA is by definition supporting Trump.

That actually... Oh, yes, fair enough. Because it did feel a little bit like the Saddam Hussein elections where Saddam would win 99.8% of the vote and stuff like that. So, yeah, so Trump's still at 41% approval in the polls. That is just mind-blowing. No, that's fake news. It's clearly higher than that.

What they've been doing is, and this is the other fascinating US story, I'm sure that includes some mail-in polls or cheating fake news. Donald Trump's trying to completely change the electoral system, by the way, so the midterms. Basically, there's voter ID for the midterms, which means that people who worried about their immigration status won't vote. It's called the Save America Act. But the Save America Act says you've got to have passports

and half of Americans don't have passport. Well, you don't want the government to know your information, do you? Surveillance. So how do we make sense of all this throughout? Do you need a passport to get to Epstein's Island? They'll all be able to vote, won't they? I think they've all got passport. I think the global elite class that hung out with Jeffrey Epstein, yes.

Yeah, the predator class. You see, there's another princess that's involved. He basically knew all the princesses, it's seems. It's all these conspiracy theories about a giant. cabal. They're just more and more evidence of it. Yeah, yeah. I'm just looking at all the princesses. Norway's crowned princess Meta Murrett was friends with Epstein and she said she was naive and didn't look at his background properly. So what's the solution, Don? What are we doing here? What's the... Look, it's a very good question. Are we at war? Is anyone at war? Is the war going on?

I mean, the one thing we know for certain Charles in this uncertain time is that Israel is at war with Iran. and Israel is very determined to keep this going and not stop any time soon. And also they want Lebanon as well. Well, I mean, it's never, presumably they're still involved in Gaza as well. You don't need to finish the first. Sorry, sorry, this was at risk of getting into the actual things. I just have to update you that 100 petrol stations in Victoria and out of petrol. Oh.

Like I know that, you know, talking about the actual, you know, going on. I know, the petrol's much more important. But the petrol is much more important. So I just need 51 out of 2,500 in New South 100, 101 in Victoria. Actually, no, forget all that. There's something even more important. Here's what we need to talk about.

Sorry, I've just got to interrupt you there with something even more important than your more important thing, even though I don't know what it is. They're rebooting Baywatch, Charles. We should go back to the... Stop, no, they're rebooting Baywatch and people have been auditioning for the iconic red swimsuits because that ultimately is more important. Having Baywatch on TV is vastly more important. That'll solve everything.

Yeah, absolutely. It'll solve everything. Sorry, I've just got to interrupt you there. Yeah. The Australia EU trade negotiations. Oh, God, I'm already bored. Look set to ban the use of the term Prosecco in Australia for Australian wine. Thank goodness.

It's a geographic indicator. Yeah. So. Yeah. About time someone, someone got onto that one. And also, also on the chopping block is Black Forest ham. Really? Because it doesn't come from the Black Forest.

Monster cheese. I mean, I want to know, Charles, how do we know where the petrol we put into our car comes from? Is there a sort of origin statement on that? Because we're getting Singaporean oil, apparently. Deal's being done. Well, isn't that just where they refine it? That's where they refine it. Yeah, yeah.

But that means you put a label on it. Don't they get it from the Middle East. They get it from the Middle East. But, I mean, do we know whether it's? It's Iranian, extra virgin Iranian oil. Yeah, you're right. I think we've... Sorry, I'm just going to have to interrupt you there, Dom.

I've got another interruption to interrupt you with. Yeah. Oh, I can't be bothered. These are all just so depressing. Sorry, the problem is I'm trying to read the Herald's... The updates are coming so quickly that we can't actually comment on them. It's actually... Which is exactly what live news is like, right?

But go back to what you've been about with Israel. Just go back to that, because I shouldn't have derailed. I just thought it would be funny. I was just making the point that, I mean, I haven't heard Gaza's completely disappeared from the news cycle, right? Yeah, there's no discussion of Gaza. Oh, who? I don't even remember who that was now.

Yeah, no. No, it's all finished with. But presumably Israel is still doing their thing in Gaza and Lebanon and Iran. I mean, do you have to resolve one situation before you start another war? What are the rules on that? It doesn't seem like you do. Well, a war on a multiple fronts is always. so successful as well.

The Chaser Report, news a few days after it happens. Do you understand why Iran is being so effective in, you know, getting through Israel's defence shields? Have you seen the sort of analysis of that? Let me just tell you very quickly about it, because it is absolutely fucking fascinating. Yes, we have discussed a little bit already that they seem to be very good at asymmetrical war. I mean all the very cheap drones that are taking out the very expensive missiles.

Yeah. Yeah. So what the missiles that they're now using, the Iran's now using, they're a little bit more effective than the drones that they were originally using. And the whole thought was always Iran will wait for a few weeks before they start rolling out the really big missiles. Because at the beginning of the war, there will be lots of defences available. Israel and the US will use them up on our cheap drones

and then we'll be able to use our more sort of longer range missiles. They've got these things, I think they're called the Kag missiles or something like that. Carg is the island, but maybe they're the missiles. Oh, no, yeah, no, maybe I'm wrong. It's some sort of name for a missile. And what these Iranian missiles do is they go right up into space, right? And then they turn around and they send them up in clusters of about 50, right? and they go all the way really far up into space.

They've got guidance systems which allows them to turn around and actually adjust their trajectory in space. You don't need an atmosphere to adjust your trajectory with these missiles. Right. And they turn around and they just come back right from on top of Israel. So they can do it Ui. A space Ui. You know how the sort of iron dine,

the layer of the iron dine that's supposed to sort of intercept long range missiles is actually called Arrow 2. Is it? Okay. Yeah, there's these multiple layers. But it was always assumed that the missiles were becoming from like from Iran or whatever from, you know, like from somewhere geographically, like they'd be flat. Yeah.

Their trajectory would be flat. I see what you're saying. Instead, they're coming right. And they're at 18 times the speed of sound. So they're incredibly fast. Okay. They slow down as they hit the atmosphere. It sort of goes down to, I think, about, I don't know.

six or eight times the speed of sound. They're still going incredibly fast, and it's like 50th and they scatter, and there's just no way. Like, it was never conceived that the Arrow 2 defense shield would ever be able to, you know, deal with a threat like that,

especially as apparently the way they do this shield is Israel sends up two missiles for every missile that's trying to intercept on the basis that, you know, you know, one might be. Yeah, good to have a backup with those sorts of things. And so it doesn't, like, Iran, like, I heard this fantastic comparison last night, which is that actually everyone's looking for a parallel. Oh, is this like the Iraq war or the second Iraq war or whatever?

And it's like, no, this is like the Vietnam War. This is like the Vietnam War because America fell into this trap that they could just bomb the shit out of Vietnam and Cambodia. to the point where things would topple down and it just turned out not to be true and so they had to go in it, they got drawn in with ground troops and it was all going to be sorted, it was all going to be sorted,

and it's just this inevitable slide towards misery and never winning because you've got opponent, you don't know why you're there and then your opponent actually lives there so there's all the advantages of living there. Yeah, while I talk about it, missiles. The other bit of news has just come through is that their missiles can now go 4,000

kilometers. They fired two missiles at the Diego Garcia, UK, US Air Base. That means that capitals like Paris, Berlin, and so on, not quite London. No, actually, almost. London's 4,400 kilometers away. So these places are now in range. Israel's pointed this out, perhaps, you know, a bit to widen the war, but they're saying, yeah, they can attack now places in Europe, Asia, and Africa, these 4,000 kilometre warheads. So, yeah, this whole thing could widen considerably. That said, the Tarko principle seems to be kicking in, doesn't it? Trump always chickens out, is that where we're going?

Yeah, because the thing is, if I was a European nation with insights, is it the Coram-Shah missile? Is that the one? They're the ones that go up into space, the Coram Shire. I was trying to remember. There's, so the Kauram Shah has the range of about 2,000 kilometres. Oh, okay. They're the ones that go up in space. But, yeah, the newer ones go further.

Right, okay. So if I was a European country in missile range of Iran, the one thing you'd be going is, oh, I'm not part of this fight. Like, I presume Iran's pointing this out, not to necessarily draw those countries in, but to actually, you know, separate them from the US. so get them to actually be even more distant from the US to remain not part of the fight.

Well, they're also able to launch missiles from space now, apparently. So the ABC's got an article about it. It's all very complicated. So the bottom line is, I mean, these are all reasons for Trump to do a deal. And there's talk that he's potentially looking for an off-ramp because we've hit 48 hours since the deadline where he was going to destroy all the energy infrastructure if they didn't open the straits of formats.

And I thought Iran's response. to that was brilliant, which was just like, oh, well, you know, the Hormuz Strait will remain closed until we've then repaired that infrastructure. That was the, it was such a perfect piece of negotiation. It was like, oh, and they said, sorry, we'll destroy all your energy infrastructure as well. Yeah, sorry, in the Gulf. So what does he do? I mean, the good thing about not having any clear objectives in this, in this war for Trump's

perspective is that he can, he can declare victory in any, like, if you're not trying to do anything, you don't have to be judged on whether you've done it, do you? Isn't the point that, like, Trump is answerable at some level to his own military and his own, the capitalist class, like the Epstein class, and the Epstein class want oil? Actually, that's the way to resolve this situation, surely, is that the key, as you know, we've discussed it before, the key asset that Iran has in the Straits of Hormuz is a little island called Karg, which is where all the the oil tankers birth and fill up the...

It's an island, Charles. It's an island. The Americans have bombed much of it, which means it's right there for redevelopment. If you've got an island, a little bit off to the side without much surveillance of it, I think Iran knows what it has to do to end this conflict. Oh, that's disgusting.

Okay, well, we're part of the Ocona Class Network. Just to be clear, I'm not the one who is disgusting. in this scenario. No, no, no, no. No. No. I'm not part of the billionaire jet center island hopping, appalling behavior class. I'm just saying where there's an island without much surveillance.

You kind of wish there was surveillance. The world is terrible. Let's talk about it again tomorrow. Yeah.