What A Day - Is Trump Escalating The War In Iran?

Episode Date: October 2, 2026

The Group of Seven wealthy democracies said Friday that they plan to release 100 million barrels of oil and fuel products in the coming weeks — starting with “substantial” amounts of diesel. The announcement comes as Trump’s trade battles and his war in Iran have increased U.S. prices for oil and other goods ahead of next month's midterms. To discuss the latest on the war and what's happening in the Middle East, Jane speaks with Tommy Vietor, co-host of Pod Save the World.Show Notes: Check out Pod Save The World – tinyurl.com/2kuvmdy8 Subscribe to the What A Day Newsletter – https://tinyurl.com/y4y2e9jy What A Day – YouTube – https://www.youtube.com/@whatadaypodcast Follow us on Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/crookedmedia/ For a transcript of this episode, please email [e-mail]

There's probably part of it that was just Trump's ego. There was like a bunch of people getting in his ear and saying, sir, if you go so great. If you take out the Venezuelans and then you take out the Iranian regime and then we topple Cuba, you will be the greatest president in history, sir. I bet there was a lot of that bullshit. Right. But like, I guess maybe the polling is so bad that they're like just flailing for any explanation. But drugs is a wild one. Are we just doing the boat strikes rationale?

It's Friday, October 2nd. I'm Jane Koston. And this is why today. President Donald Trump is on his, I am on the ballot. No, really, I am, Tor, across red states, hitting Texas and Oklahoma yesterday. It was in Denton, Texas, where Trump said this. Remember, they came up with the word affordability. So from day one, they said, well, what about your prices?

And then they came up. You know, they always come up with these words. Affordability. So the fake news starts using it because they're partners with the Democrats. And the fake news would say, oh, they say it all the time. to me. What about affordability? And I'm saying, what about affordability? The prices are high. I said, they're lower than they were. Think of it, gasoline's lower than it was with Biden, and we'd knock the hell out of a country that was going to try and kill us, probably.

The word probably is very important. I would say more than probably. They would have taken a shot. Sure. Normal and sure. Today, Trump is in Mobile, Alabama to shore up GOP votes in Alabama. Probably, I would say more than probably, to talk about this new oil deal he announced on social media this morning. That deal? The G7 has agreed to a plan to release 100 million barrels of oil and fuel products within the next 20 days. They will start with, quote, substantial amounts of diesel after the fuel recently hit record high prices in the United States. You know, the ones Trump is in denial of. And it's the first Friday of the month, which means we have new jobs numbers today. and they're not great.

U.S. employers added a disappointing 29,000 jobs in September, much lower than what we thought would happen. Economists had expected September payrolls to come in around 90,000 jobs. The unemployment rate ticked up to 4.2% from 4.1% in August, which is still reasonably low, according to the Labor Department. New York Governor Kathy Hokel appointed Attorney General Letitia James as a special prosecutor to take over the investigation of members of a Cornell University fraternity accused of gang rape. The investigation initially was closed without charges in 2024, but it was reopened on Monday after the woman filed a new lawsuit against seven former members of the fraternity, Cornell University, and others.

Hockel said the woman was, quote, failed by people obligated to protect her, including campus police and the county prosecutor. During a news conference, the governor said that she had appointed James after learning about how authorities mishandled the woman's claims, including the district attorney closing the case without having anyone interview the accuser or anyone else involved in the alleged attack. But I want to talk about the war in Iran, the reason why oil prices are so high and the conflict Trump seems to be in weird denial of. Joining me is Tommy Vitor, co-host of Pod Save the World.

Tommy Vitor, welcome back to what today. Great to see you. So Tommy, we heard a brand new explanation for the war in Iran yesterday from Donald Trump. drugs. Let's listen to his description of the first night of the war. They unloaded every single bomb, went right down airshoots into this drug factories, really. That's what they were doing. They were nuclear and drug. They were doing drugs, but they were doing the nuclear. But these drug factories slash nuclear factories were hit so hard. Can I just tell you, I'm learning about this for the first time from you, and that is incredible. Yeah. What drugs do we think? Was it we?

I don't know. I don't know. Caphtagon? I have so many questions. I want to know where he got the idea that there were drugs involved in this. But, okay, this would be, by my estimation, the 18th reason for the war in Iran. You counted them all. It's a brand new one. We've had revenge.

We've had, they can't get a nuclear weapon. We've had, we're actually been at war for them since 1979. It's been, oh, remember. Remember the protesters. We've forgotten about the protesters years ago. It's been nearly eight months. Why has the Trump administration, no member of the Trump administration, been able to center on an explanation for the war in Iran this whole time? It's a good question. I mean, I feel like they actually do have a reason. It was denying Iran a nuclear weapon. Like, that's why they really did want to go to war, seeming. And there's probably part of it that was just Trump's ego. There was like a bunch of people getting in his ear and saying, sir, if you would go so great. If you take out the Venezuelans and then you take out the Iranian regime and then we topple Cuba, you will be the greatest president in history, sir.

I bet there's a lot of that bullshit. Right. But like, I guess maybe the polling is so bad that they're like just flailing for any explanation. But drugs is a wild one. Are we just doing the boat strikes rationale? Right. I don't understand this. And I'm really looking forward to seeing how right-wing media tries to backfill this to be like, to be like, oh, actually, we're doing this about poppies,

which, because I was like, I remember the war in Afghanistan where we were apparently also worried about drugs. But I think it's interesting because the denying Iran a nuclear weapon explanation has now shifted to, you're starting to see arguments in conservative media that the U.S. is winning the war in Iran because oil is getting through the Strait of Hormuz. But I thought the Strait of Hormuz was not the point of this war. Again, it was denying Iran a nuclear weapon. And we have National Review making the point that like, you know, this is all going great.

We just have to stay the course. Trump himself is saying that Iran will be, quote, very quickly ended. He said that on Thursday that the U.S. will win the war right after the election. Yeah. So what's going on here with, I mean, we've seen kind of declarations of victory from the administration and from conservative media before. But why are we centering on the Strait of Hormuz when the Strait of Hormuz was open before this conflict began? Yeah, I mean, Strait of Hormuz issues are a problem created by the war, not one that has been solved by the war.

I think for Trump, just politically, the high gas prices, the high diesel prices are his biggest political challenge right now. He's tried the thing where he tells us that if you complain about high gas prices, that you actually wanted to run to have a nuke and shame on you. Right. And we've seen that messaging go out through right wing media, where you see that copy paste on Twitter. Yes. It's like, I will pay $8 for gas and like whatever you're into. And that one has landed like an enormous thud. Yeah.

Like Tucker Carlson's like openly mocking Trump for going to war in the first place. Parts of the conservative media world are making fun of him. Obviously the left didn't want to go to war with Iran everywhere. The normies are just like pissed that the gas is expensive. It may be true that the shipments of crude oil are almost back to pre-war levels. but refined petroleum products like diesel fuel, that's still about half of where it was pre-war. And also, what's happening is countries like the UAE and the Saudis, they figured out workarounds to get oil out of the strait. But all other shipping is way, like shipping itself is like 85% down.

Lots of other things used to get shipped in and out of the Strait of Ormuz. And none of that is happening because the Iranians are firing missiles at them. So with regard to the war, the war that apparently is going to end right after. the election or maybe just before who could say Trump sent a third aircraft carrier strike group to the Middle East and 10,000 troops now this buildup is massive we've already seen uh the end to whatever negotiations with Iranians that was supposed to happen this week what's going on here like what are we escalating are we deescalating we seem to be in this weird holding pattern of a conflict that is ongoing.

But where are we now? I was talking to someone yesterday who is a former pretty senior person at the Pentagon who thinks they're reloading the clip. They're sending a new carrier that can go out and be prepared for whatever the next escalation is. It seems pretty clear that Trump feels like he's going to have to escalate at some point. They may send one of those aircraft carriers home when the new one gets there. We have 11 total. The way it's supposed to work is a third are deployed, a third are, like, you know, getting fixed up, their fuel replace, you know, whatever, like repairs they need. And then a third are involved in training.

When you have them all deployed in the Middle East at all times, it means a lot of other things aren't happening. Like, we don't have an aircraft carrier in the South China Sea, for example, right now. Which China is very well aware of. Extremely well aware of. She is psyched about it. And he's like, I just gave this guy two pandas. I loaned this guy, two pandas. Yeah.

It's like the aircraft carrier. Meanwhile, I'm just going to be. working with Taiwanese dissidents to be like, hey, isn't China super cool, our good friend, China? Yeah, I'll sell you some weapons, China. Yeah, exactly. I'll sell you some weapons. So there's like 50,000 troops in the region. Pete Hagsath is extending the deployments of all these service members and destroying their lives.

You know, we talked about the USS Abraham Lincoln, who had this super long deployment where you had, you know, sailors and Marines like trying to throw themselves off. the ship and kill themselves. You had families who are just like unbelievably taxed and upset and worried. But it seems like every signal is that we're going to escalate the war, not end it. So given that the opponent gets a say in these conflicts, we've seen Iran's president, you know, there was the UN General Assembly last week, Iran's president talking about how, you know, we haven't really seen diplomacy from the U.S. from Iran's perspective, what's happening? here where we have, you know, the IRGC is still in place. It seems as if, you know, I keep saying

that Iran doesn't have to win this conflict and likely couldn't. It just doesn't, it just can't lose. And so they have been very clear about like we will hold out until after the midterms. We will hold out as long as we possibly can because this is an ideological fight, not just a one of military might. So from Iran's perspective, what's going on here? What are, you know, what's going on with the Houthis, what's going on with their allies in the region? So Iran's in a really tough spot because the Trump administration have set up this blockade and they don't seem to be able to get any oil-lip gas out of the Strait of Hormuz right now. And over time, that will cause them enormous economic challenges because they won't have any revenue.

But also at a certain point, you're going to have to shut in your oil wells, which causes them damage for a long period of time and we'll make it challenging. So it seems like they're increasingly under pressure from. these blockades. My guess is that is going to lead them to escalate in response, whether that means firing more missiles and drones at Israel or, you know, U.S. bases in the Gulf or, you know, Saudi pipelines. We don't really know. But to your point, they live there. Right. They're not going anywhere. The IRGC is more and more in charge. Life is hell on earth for the Iranian people who are at one point going to support. Now they have no money. There's inflation. They can't get

basic goods, but it seems like these military leaders are just going to, you know, increase their grip on power. We'll get back to my conversation with Tommy Vitor in just a moment. What Today is brought to you by DeleteMe. Have you ever thought, I should really be doing something to protect myself from stalkers, scammers and hackers, but you're not sure what? Here's what you do. Go to www.joinedleetMe.com slash Wad and enter code Wad. You'll get 20% off, Delete Me. Delete Me removes your personal information that's being sold online. In the age of AI, we're all especially vulnerable to scammers using your personal data that's floating ground on the internet against you. Have you ever Googled yourself and found your home address, phone number, or the name of a family member? It's unsettling.

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which we were just talking about, they accused rebels of attacking an electricity distribution center in Medina, which is home to the second most holy site in Israel. form. Why is Saudi Arabia having such difficulty fighting the Houthis? Because I think that for many people, you think of the Saudis as being just sitting on piles of money, having the ability to access not just American resources, but also their own resources with regard to planes and weapons. What's going on there? So it's sort of a similar challenge. I mean, the Houthi rebels are these Zadi Muslim tribes that kind of emerged.

like the 80s and 90s in the hills of Yemen. And they live there. And over time, they grew in political sport and clout. And, you know, a lot of Western countries had relationships with them because they were kind of a check on the kind of extremist form of Islam that was coming out of places like Saudi Arabia. So they, like, had these diplomatic times ties. Then after the Arab Spring, they took a bunch of territory in Yemen and the Saudis decided this was an existential threat to them. So they launched this disastrous war in like 2015, I think, that the U.S. initially backed that went on for many, many years and led to a humanitarian disaster where hundreds of thousands of people died. In 2022, I believe, there was essentially like a pause where everything was frozen in place. And then recently, the Saudis kind of restarted the conflict by bombing a runway in Houthi territory, which kicked off this latest round of fighting.

So the Houthis, as you mentioned, like just recently took a ton of territory. They are more in control of the Babelman-Dep straight, which is how you. get in and out of the Red Sea than they were before. And now everyone has to figure out what happens here. Like, how did the Saudis try to expel them? Because in the past, they have failed in their war with the Houthis. They have even less support this time because the Emirates are no longer on their side. And apparently, Mohammed bin Salman, the Saudi Crown Prince, called Donald Trump and said, hey, we need your help. And he was like, yeah, yeah, yeah, you're going to have to do this one by yourself because the Houthis aren't beefing with us. They're not firing missiles and drones at us, just you.

So good luck, MBS, you're on your own. So I think my last question here is actually kind of a follow-up on something that happened when I was the year I turned 16, which is that this week, the U.S. withdrew completely from Iraq. This is happening at a time in which obviously we're at war with Iran. What does Iraq withdrawal mean for the context of the war in Iran? Because obviously, this is something that was begun by the Biden administration to, its credit, I think. I think that, you know, the Iraq war was bad and it was a bad idea the whole time. It has been, you know, this withdrawal has been obviously finished by the Trump administration, but what does it mean with regard to the war in Iran? Is this kind of like, we need to move those

troops to be thinking about Iran? What does this mean more broadly? I don't have the exact numbers. I imagine the footprint for the U.S. government in terms of the number of troops that were in Iraq until very recently. It was like pretty small and was kind of seen as like a big, you know, basic defense and stabilization force for the government. As you recall, Barack Obama ran on promising to end the war in Iraq and get all U.S. troops out. He withdrew troops in 2011 and then had to send them back in 2014 because ISIS took major cities and population areas in Mosul. And I mentioned that only because in addition to the Houthi rebels firing at the Saudis, there are also these like Shia-backed Iran-backed militia. of groups in Iraq that have also been firing at the Saudis. And we think that those are the ones

who took out their major oil and gas pipeline. So the question becomes like, what is this going to mean for the stability of Iraq's government going forward? I don't know how important the U.S. troops were in this sort of like most recent iteration to their ability to like kind of stay alive. But it's a fraught moment. And these stories about the U.S. kind of fully getting out of Iraq kind caught me by surprise. I imagine they did to you too. It seems like such a monumental thing and it kind of ended with a whimper. Yeah. It did feel kind of like it was less like, oh, we have concluded this armed conflict and more like, oh, we needed these people to be somewhere else relatively close by, especially since you see kind of the Iraqi government still being understandably

pretty uncertain of what to do here. And you're seeing that they're permitting flights from Iran. It's all very confusing. Yeah, there's a lot of ties between these countries. There's a lot of Iranian influence in the Iraqi government. The entire Middle East has kind of been upended by the war with Iran. Because even the Trump administration is out there crowing about crude oil flows being back to the original level. But like the LNG facilities, the natural gas facilities in Qatar that got blown up are going to take like three to five years to get fixed. You know, like, there's a lot of, all half of our bases in the region are blown to shit and are interoperable.

So things have fundamentally changed in a way that probably will never go back to being the same or if they do, we'll take decades. Fun. I know. It's good stuff. Tommy Vitor, as always. Thank you so much for joining me. Thanks for having me. That was my conversation with Tommy Vitor, co-host, a pod save the world. Before we go, CricketCon comes just after the midterms and there are some big questions ahead.

Like, how do we maintain election integrity? in the face of rising authoritarianism? How far will we let AI seep into our daily lives before we put up guardrails? And can the Democratic Party brand be saved or are we doomed to an eternity of cringe by association? I'm hosting a panel this year, and I'm super excited to be there with all of you

on the convention floor. So join us. Ticket prices go up on October 6, so get yours now to lock in the early bird price. See you there. That's all for today. If you like the show, be sure to subscribe, leave a review,

get me whatever National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett is taking and tell your friends to listen. And if you're into reading, and not just about how the not great jobs report apparently was amazing if you're Kevin Hassett on Fox News speaking to host Bill Hemmer today. So we're very, very happy with the number six week and I think the markets are too.

You're bullish. Like me, Waterday is also a nightly newsletter. Check it out and subscribe at cricket.com slash subscribe. I'm Jane Koston and Bullish is one word for it. Why today is a production of Crooked Media. Our show is produced by Emily 4, Erica Morrison, and Adrian Hill. Our team includes Haley Jones, Greg Walters, Metberg,

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