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- [00:00]
A
Foreign. You're listening to American Power. I'm your host, Nat Town, stand up comedian, speechwriter, other kind of writer, and most likely to elicit skeptical follow up questions. Podcast host. With me, as always, is my panel of experts. Our expert on foreign policy and the military, Chad Scott. Chad, how's it going?
- [00:34]
B
It's going really great. I'm glad to be back home after being in Portland. Had a fun time. Looking forward to this episode, getting into it.
- [00:41]
A
Welcome back and joining us as always, our expert on energy of all forms, you know as Mr. Global, Matt Randolph. Matt, how's it going?
- [00:51]
C
Great. How are you?
- [00:52]
A
I am good. I'm surviving the end of a heat wave here in New York. If my lights get dimmer, that's because there's still a little bit of stress on our grid over here. However, I am lucky enough as of Monday, July 6th, we're recording in the evening of Monday, July 6th. As of this point, I have not had my power turned off by anyone other than my landlord who decided to do construction on the building at the height of the heat wave.
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C
Oh, great.
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A
So all things considered, I'm one of the lucky ones.
- [01:21]
B
Yeah, our heat wave's just starting. It's like 97. It's like 96 right now here.
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A
That's early days stuff. Yeah, so, yeah, so we were doing 104, 105 up here at one point.
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B
That'll be next month. It gets that way in August.
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A
Yeah, yeah, we were, we were cooking. I was gonna say, I was gonna say we were cooking, you know, frying eggs on the concrete. But this is kind of my part of Brooklyn. We were doing frittatas on the concrete with like a little fennel and f, we have roast yuca on the side.
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C
Forecasted temperatures of over 120 degrees. But it is two weeks out before that's supposed to happen. So maybe it doesn't happen. But that is what a lot of models are saying today in Oklahoma, Texas,
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A
and yeah, two whole weeks to evolve a new body that isn't killed by that temperature. So you're probably fine. The human brain will die at that temperature, but you've got a couple weeks to figure that whole thing out. Well, it's been a big week for America, celebrating our 250th birthday or noticing that it was our 250th birthday, depending on how you spent the weekend. As I mentioned, many of us spent it with a culturally and politically appropriate strain on the grid, trying to not make things any hotter by eating cold lunch. So I hope you all enjoyed the 102nd anniversary of the Caesar salad, which was invented on July 4th by an Italian American man named Caesar in Mexico City. And it, more importantly, can be produced without turning on the oven. And that's how I spent my July 4th. Wow. So I was hoping we could talk a little bit about what's been going on in the non sesquicentennial.
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B
Yeah.
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A
ICE Esquicentennial related news.
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B
Yeah.
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A
Non county fair related news. Big week in the world. A lot's going on. We have a NATO summit coming up. The Strait of Hormuz has sort of opened and not opened. And relations between the US And Israel seem to be increasingly strained. And I was hoping that we could start with a little bit of an update on Iran. We actually haven't talked about the situation there in the podcast in a couple of episodes in depth. Chad, could you tell me what's going on right now? Is the straight open? Has trade resumed? What's the status of U.S. iran relations?
- [03:45]
B
Well, a good portion of what's happening right now is surrounding rhetoric on who's winning kind of the MoU fight here. The quote unquote deal that's supposed to be happening, that's not really happening. And when it comes to the Strait of Hormuz, it's kind of open.
- [04:06]
A
They're.
- [04:07]
B
They're allowing some ships to move through on the United Arab Emirates Omani side of the strait. But also the Iranians are charging tolls and fees still going through that their side of the strait. And that still is the. The status quo, despite what the MOU said. And as such, since we last talked about this, the Iranians have struck at least one ship moving through the straits. So it's not, we're not back to the status quo anti and we never will get there. The Iranians have not moved the mines that they supposedly have placed into the Strait of Hormuz. And largely this is because we're seeing in Iran continue to realize that this is really a shield for them. The Strait of Hormuz is their, their nuclear option, so to speak, while they, they don't have a nuclear weapon. I want to point out, though, that it is only temporary. There are other countries, whether it's Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, they're finding ways to over the next three to five years develop infrastructure that is going to bypass the Strait of Hormuz that's already starting to move. I heard the Saudis, and maybe Matt has more insight on this, but the Saudis are trying to build pipelines to get to the Red Sea direct. They're expanding it. They already have one, but they're trying to expand it. And then the situation with the United Arab Emirates, they're building both rail lines to move fertilizer around the Strait of Hormu, and they're going to start a pipeline system to get around it. So there's a real concern here that over the next five years, Iran is going to use the Strait of Hormuz as a shield, not to elicit some form of concessions out of governments, but to defend themselves as they get to what is still their primary goal in their defense, and that's trying to develop a nuclear weapon. And because of that, with,
- [05:57]
C
with the
- [05:57]
B
Strait of Hormuz, they're, they're on a timeline. They are on a timeline where if over the next two years they will try, I think, I believe, truly believe they're going to try to break out as fast as they can and dare other countries to do something about it using the straight of Hormuzes or shield to. And, and they're, they're going to try to move towards a nuclear weapon. And they calculate that the Israelis are going to be held on a leash by the United States because Donald Trump has stated quite often that the Strait of Hormuz is his primary focus. Now, he will mention in tweets the nuclear issue, saying they will never have a nuclear weapon. But I truly believe in his mind, he is starting to think that the Strait of Hormuz is the more important thing and he'll take his eye off the ball when it comes to nuclear weapons. And I get why Iran would be doing this. If we can bypass the Strait in five years, they're defenseless at that point. And they'll look at a country like North Korea or at even an Israel or a Russia who have nuclear weapons and watch them go. They are doing whatever they want. They're. You can see that North Korea is a constant thorn in the side of everyone. No one's stopping them because they have a nuclear weapon. No one's really stopping Israel because they have a nuclear weapon. No one's stopping Russia. And so obviously Iran's like, even though the Strait of Hormuz is effective, that is, that's is still a goal for them. And I think that's where they're moving forward on that.
- [07:24]
A
And so with this timeline, they need to, they essentially need to use this while it's still valuable to them in order to, as you're saying, sort of trade it in for the more ongoing, massive Trump Card or bargaining chip. Always feel weird saying trump card in situations like this. The massive bargaining chip, it's still not quite the same function as the problem. I'll come up with a better Chris Edit a later future me who is good at metaphors. Potentially 10 years down the line it's going to be, I'm not saying it's going to happen later in this recording, but the point being, so they're trading it in ideally they're going to try to find a way to get some, you know, subs in the accords, like some nuclear development, like get these sanctions removed, get nuclear development going within the timeline while the Strait of Hormuz is still as valuable in the region as it is right now.
- [08:18]
B
Yes. And they've actually said it overtly, that's what they're going to do. The, this fund, this 300 billion dollar fund, the unfreezing of assets, which are Iranian assets. To be, to be fair, the, that money, the 12 billion in unfrozen assets and the 300 billion, the Iranians and the Islamic Republic have come out and said we are going to use this to build weapons before we build an infrastructure. We go down the road of infrastructure replenishment and rebuild. So Trump administration knows this is happening, but the fact is they know that the straight of Hormuz is going to be the election pressure point. And even though it's open and we've seen the, the, the gas or the, the oil prices drop, I, I, the gas is just not reflecting and I mean Matt, do you have any thoughts on that at all?
- [09:03]
A
Yeah.
- [09:05]
C
So the street's about, I don't know, 35% open and we're not seeing build to a point yet to increase that. Right. So in order for it to be fully open, you need enough ships coming back in. Right. There's, there's that numbers, the numbers aren't there yet. So I think there's about last I saw 40 ships a day coming back in. There was I think 140, 150 pre war in and out. So but now the thing about gas prices is and gas prices actually rose today by 8 to 12 cents a gallon, depending on what market I'm talking about wholesale prices rose today when oil fell. Part of that is because Ukraine hit Russia's largest refinery in Omsk. Am I saying that right, Chad? Their largest refinery by far and they're already having massive fuel shortages. But the thing is oil is artificially manipulated down and so the gas prices are actually reflecting what the oil market should be showing us. But without the manipulation, you would see oil would be about $90 a barrel. So a lot of people are celebrating $70 oil, but they're paying for $90. Gas is what they're paying. And like, they're not connecting those dots. And this isn't the normal. You know, they say gas prices go up like a rocket and drop like a feather. This is not that. This is not that phenomenon, which is a real phenomenon, but this is. You can't manipulate gasoline markets like you can oil because oil is easily replaced. We have a ton of refining capacity dead. We have historically low inventories of gasoline during a historically high period of demand in the middle of summer in 2026. Gas prices are not going to improve anytime soon, regardless of what oil does. These are two distinctly different markets. And historically, yes, gas prices always follow oil prices. They are completely disconnected right now. So.
- [11:22]
A
So an increase in supply in oil would not result in a decrease in the gas prices because refining is the choke point right now.
- [11:29]
C
It. So it does to a point because oil is, you know, about half the price of a gallon of gas. But once it gets to that point, It. It doesn't do it anymore. Right. So, you know, gas did fall. Gas has fallen by what, 60, 70 cents a gallon on a national average in the United States. Based on the price of oil right now, gas should be at least 50 cents a gallon cheaper on a national average. And it looks like it's about to start climbing again. And the. The gap. So the. This is something that's never happened. I don't know if you're familiar with the three two one crack spread. No, no three barrels. So the three two one crack spread is basically an indicator of the profit margin of refiners. Oil is so cheap, but gas is still so expensive. They're making. They're printing money right now. The refiners are. Because they're getting 90 oil for 70 bucks. The three two one crack spread states that three barrels of oil create two barrels of gasoline and one barrel of diesel. The crack sped is currently almost the same price as a barrel of oil. So what that means is refiners are almost doubling their profit for every barrel of oil they buy. So they're buying a barrel of oil for $70, and they're making $130 on a $70 barrel of oil. So they're profiting over $60 on a DOL. Now multiply that times 19 million barrels a day. That's what refiners are making right now because gas markets are still so high and oil is Artificially cheap. So. But we've lost refining capacity around the world. Russia's lost, I think, nearly 40% of theirs at this time. And then plus what we lost in the Iran war. So gas isn't going to get any better anytime soon. And demand continues to climb. And a lot of that demand climbing is because the oil markets were manipulated. So we didn't let gas prices get high enough during this war to create demand destruction. And that's what I was warning about a couple of years ago. You have to let the market basically implode on itself in order for those prices to fall. They get way too high. The cure for high prices is high prices. When you stop those high prices from happening, what you end up with is moderately high prices for a much, much longer period of time. So we didn't get to five dollar gas, but we are going to pay 50 cents a gallon more than we should for gas for an extended period of time. And over the long run we're going to end up spending more money on gas when we would have, if we would have just let it hit $5 a gallon. That's how this works. That's why manipulating markets does not work. It fails every time. So gas prices aren't going to fall no matter how many investigations they do. It was funny because Trump is demanding DOJ investigations three years after the Republican Party unanimously voted not to pass price gouging laws. He's up there screaming about price gouging and I'm like, hey, you guys voted unanimously to not pass that. So he went from blaming the oil companies to blaming the retailers to demanding the doj. And now they're like, okay, we didn't know how this works and they're asking the states to investigate price gouging individually. And nothing's going to come of that either. This is a product of his manipulation of the market.
- [15:12]
A
And so have we seen the worst of the. I mean, you said we're not going to hit five dollar. Sorry, we're not going to hit five dollars a gal. That's national average you're talking about, right? We've certainly seen $5 gallons in some markets in the US at this point. I think I've seen $6 premium even at some point. But, and I don't know exactly what that where diesel prices peaked. But yeah, even without that average. How prolonged? I mean, I guess this obviously depends on whether there's any resolution to the situation in Iran. But like how prolonged are these are these increases and have we even seen the full effect of it? Yet this massive shift to the oil market. Obviously things changed as a result of Russia's ongoing aggression in Ukraine. This war, you know, it's been going for a while but you know, they're recently hitting the refineries. It's not happening evenly. Right. Like it's obviously changing the market but ultimately the conflict in Iran is so recent, like you're describing this sort of evening out, it's not going to hit $5. But have we even experienced the full extent of, you know, the, the initial effects of delaying all this, all this oil shipping? Or are we, are we still experiencing downstream effects from the original closure of the straight of Hormuz?
- [16:29]
C
We're still experiencing everything. Oil prices are not indicative or representative of anything that's physically happening in the world. It's a complete total manipulation. And with oil at $70, we still have SPRs around the world dumping oil onto the global market. That's not, that's never happened. That's not a thing. You don't, you don't use your emergency oil reserves when oil 70 dol. But so the reason oil is $70 is not because of the fundamentals of the market. When those SPRs all stop doing that, that's going to have to come from commercial inventories. The question now that no one can answer is is the market going to wake up to the fundamentals or not? And nobody can answer that because we've literally never seen this happen before. We've never seen a market so blatantly manipulated and so oversold and undervalued that like nobody knows what's. A lot of people are still predicting $150 oil. I just quit predicting oil prices. Like I went back to my old predictions of gas prices from a few months ago and I'm like look what I was saying back then is holding because gas prices are actually representative of the market. Oil prices aren't. So who knows what's going to happen. People are almost 70% of the capital that was in the market. The oil market is gone. Basically everyone quit investing. All understand that when 70 really understand that when a billion dollar bet is made in the oil market for to short oil 15 minutes before an announcement is made and, and whoever did that makes hundreds of millions of dollars in 20 minutes. That's money that they were stealing from other investors using insider trading. So traders all over the world said I'm out and they just completely left the oil market. So there's nobody there to buy paper oil futures anymore because they can't predict the whims of the president. It's, it's not a normal market. So everyone just left like, and, and who knows when they will come back or if they will come back. So trying to predict what oil prices are going to do is impossible when you can't predict what side of the bed Donald Trump's going to wake up on. But we can predict gas prices. We can do that. It's a little bit different than normal. But I would expect gas prices, you know, even if oil stays where it is, gas prices will stay where they are. Like, it's, it's, we're not going to see this fall like a feather effect. It's going to be more like, I don't know what falls a lot slower than a feather, but whatever that is is what it's going to be, is what I'm saying.
- [19:26]
A
Again, Chris, if you could just cut in a really good metaphor later, we would really appreciate that.
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C
I don't know, falls like a feather on the moon.
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A
Falls maybe. Okay, that's good. That's, that's a start. You're going definitely falls like a feather.
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C
They're going to fall like a feather on a moon.
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A
Yes.
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C
But I can tell you this. If those, you know, if Jeff Curry is right, he's one of the world's leading experts. If he's right about oil prices going back to 1:30 and Dan Dicker says 140, if those guys are right, gas prices are going to freaking explode like crazy. Like so. But I'm not convinced. You can't convince me that those oil prices will go back up like that because Donald Trump is sitting there with his phone and his billionaire buddies on the line ready to manipulate it back down. So I'm not making that prediction. It's impossible to predict.
- [20:13]
A
So I want to talk to, well, I want to talk to you both a little bit more about the situation in Iran in a moment. But I want to clarify one thing because obviously, like you said, Trump has been drastically, artificially manipulating oil markets for a long time, since before the conflict in Iran and has, as we've discussed many times on this podcast, is now favoring, you know, the fossil fuel industry over the considerably cheaper renewable energy industry by giving them all these carve outs to make it competitive with, with the renewable energy industry. But haven't US or having US Oil prices or even gas prices always been somewhat manipulated like the oil market in the US what, what is Trump doing that's so much more drastic than what previous presidents are doing, like direct coordination with oil companies to a degree that we've never seen before. Or what's so different in this presidency?
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C
The insider trading. Like hey, I'm about to make an announcement, you know, place 800 or billion dollars short on oil. Like that's never happened before.
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A
He's just like literally communicating with them
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C
about like, like well yeah, when, when someone gets on their computer at 5:45 in the morning and bets a billion dollars on oil to fall and eight minutes later the President makes an announcement like people don't trade, make billion dollar trades at 5:45 in the morning. Like that's not a thing.
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A
Right?
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C
So it was, it's obviously manipulated. Everyone knows it. They say investigating it, trying to find out who did it, that's a lie. It takes you all of about 14 seconds to figure out who made a trade in the United States. Everything is tracked and documented. There's a chain of custody, all of it. Like so for them to act like they're trying to figure out who did it, that's ridiculous. Like one phone call, they know who did it. Now you know, historically we're talking about market manipulation, they're talking about opec, you know, but OPEC is the swing producer. OPEC controls so much of the world's oil that they can do that. Now is that market manipulation? They're, they're trying to make the most money off of oil that is not some other than Donald Trump asking them to increase production to lower oil prices. They did it so they could regain market share. But you know, is that market manipulation? I don't call that market manipulation. Like I call placing an 800 million dollar oil bet at 5:45 in the morning market manipulation. You know what I mean? That's to me that's natural trading. They're doing what's best for them, but it does move markets because they control so much of the market. So. But we're not, we're not going to with everything happening in Russia. And another thing to think about, the oil that was coming through the Strait of Hormuz, you know, pre war is a middle sour type of oil that creates, generates the most diesel and jet fuel production. Right? That oil is essential to diesel production. And we're looking at diesel inventories and diesel supplies and tying that to Russia. And they're 40% of refined. Like are we going to have a global diesel shortage? Is the question that's being asked. I can't answer that yet. But it is a question a lot of people are talking about because the oil that comes from that part of the world makes A ton of diesel and it was gone. So we'll have to see what happens there.
- [23:44]
A
Seems like a good time to ask about what we can expect from this upcoming NATO summit, which is having it happening at a pretty crucial time in global politics. Chad, could you for the listener, just explain what exactly what the summit is, what's about to happen, what we're walking?
- [24:04]
B
Yeah, for sure. I think a big part of the summit is going to focus on what is essentially the Trump administration caused rifts between countries, not just, and I'm not just talking about NATO, but also Israel. And I can get to that in a minute. But some of my, my thoughts on what's going to happen is I think Europe is finally getting the capacity where they're going to start doubling down on rearmament. This is going to be a major discuss now. The United States is not going to be completely excluded here because even today the, the major arms producer is the United States. So what's likely going to happen is, is they're going to start building their own arsenals for sure. But they're still, they're kind of in their infancy. Even in the post World War II era. They've had this long, but they, they've always just relied on the US that's going to continue, but they're going to rearm at a greater rate. So they don't have to necessarily rely on the US in the future. In the interim, they will, though, still rely on the U.S. that means that NATO is going to become more European. The United States has always been kind of this umbrella of we are the end all, be all of NATO. The, the parts of NATO that Europe provide is proximity to the potential enemy, which is Russia. So they have basing rights and things like that. I think the United States is going to remain an indispensable military power within NATO, but Europe is going to provide the bulk of the conventional forces needed to deter Russia. I also think that the U.S. nuclear deterrent remain intact, though I do know that France is bolstering their nuclear arsenal. So that may come up as well. I do believe that Europe is going to continue taking the lead on Ukraine's. The, the Trump administration is supposed to be meeting with Zelensky. I do think that every time that Trump meets with Zelensky, we do seem to get a little bit better of an outcome than when we saw that argument in the Oval Office last year. But I don't think that we're going to see any kind of major moves. Currently. The United States does provide intelligence, which is quite indispensable for them right now. And which is why the Ukrainians haven't completely just washed their hands at the United States. And the United States does provide weapons to Ukraine, but it's through the European purchases. So we're not giving them it as aid. It's through. We're selling it to European countries who then they decide to give it to Ukraine. And I, I do think that there's going to be disagreements, but I don't think this is, there's going to be a major fracture. I saw that Pete Hegseth was kind of prepping to talk about drawdowns of more troops from Europe and then he was promptly cut off and said that's not happening. And then he hurriedly corrected himself and said actually no, we're going to continue to evaluate troop drawdowns. And what that sounds like to me is the grownups in the administration, including Rubio, and that's hard to say that he's the grown up in the administration probably told Hegseth to shut the fuck up because this is not helpful when it comes to dealing with Russia. And then finally Poland will become one of NATO's central military powers. They're going to be probably the second or third most powerful NATO country outside of the US and the reason I say second or third is because I'm counting Ukraine as probably a top two European power. But the only reason they are is because 40% of their, their budget is going to, to the war. They're at war. So they are power is, is present and, and they are actually exercising it. The next one is Turkey and it's just because their size, they're, they're just a massive military. They're the second largest military in NATO behind the United States. So I do think that Poland is rising pretty heavily in that regard. But nonetheless, I think Iran is going to come up. I think the rift that we are having between countries, including Israel, is going to come up. But in the end, I think the summit probably will be a net benefit because Russia is going to leave the summit in a worse strategic. Not that they're a part of NATO, but the, the views and agreements on what to do about Russia are going to be worse for Russia in the end.
- [28:12]
A
I have a question that relates to something that you said earlier, and I apologize if this is something of a tangent or non sequitur, but assuming that we have free and fair elections in 2029, to what degrees do other countries within NATO and even Iran's strategy revolve around the idea that there could be a succession of power in the US in that like obviously we understand Trump to be both political leader but also an emotional person. And I have to imagine there's some analysis in that in to other leaders. But it just gave me, it just gave me a little bit pause just to think of when you were talking about, you know, Iran, the Strait of Hormuz is not going to be as big of a bargaining chip in five years. And other countries building out their nuclear armament so that the US Nuclear deterrent isn't the, you know, the stopgap against Russia, against other countries developing nuclear weapons. To what extent do power negotiations like this have to factor in the instability within the, within the U.S. executive branch? Like, how does that, I mean, I know you're talking, you're talking about Hegseth publicly changing messaging, which that kind of hairpin turn seems a little uncommon. So if I'm understanding you correctly, you're saying there was clearly like a he was spoken to. There was clearly like a changing, of course there. To what degree do these, do these other nations have to focus on our instability in, in planning and negotiating with
- [29:35]
B
the U.S. well, unfortunately for those nations pretty heavily because at least in the near term, there is no one else that can project power globally like the United States. The, the fact of the matter for Russia is we are very fortunate that Ukraine was able to do what they have done so far to weaken Russia. That being said, Russia still maintains a very big bite. They can go after other countries like Poland, Estonia, in the Baltics, Latvia, Lithuania. It would be extraordinarily foolish, but they, they still have the capability. And when I talk about Russia, I'm also ignoring China, who is obviously a major becoming a major player as well. So the United States, because it is really the only expeditionary power on, on the face of the earth. And what I mean is we're the only ones that can logistically and militarily deploy our forces anywhere in the world. We want and sustain them and sustain the fight necessary. Many other countries still are going to rely on this. And it's not just NATO. It's going to be Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, et cetera. And of course, they have to factor in the calculus. And right now, what I'm seeing in, in all these partnerships is not necessarily a, a backtracking of, oh, we need to get out of this. It's just confusion because the United States has been pretty much a very stable partner in a lot of these, whether it was a Republican or a Democrat in office, whether it was George W. Bush and Then the transition to Obama, NATO really didn't see a big difference. Yeah, we had the whole like Angela Merca and Merkel in Germany got hurt, got the, the, what was it, the AirPod or the iPod or whatever that had Obama's thing songs on. So there's those little faux pas. But there was never a question of the, the alliance Greenland threats changed everything. And I think it was more of a they're now concerned and not necessarily that the United States really will attack something like a Greenland, but that we just won't be there anymore. And that is a concern that I have. And every American should be concerned about that because what that does is when the United States isn't on the global stage being the balance or being the stabilizer, other countries have to find alternative ways to secure themselves. And as I was kind of talking about earlier in the episode, the fastest way to do that is a nuclear weapon. So we're going to see proliferation and we're going to see countries that aren't like Iran, where it's, it's kind of difficult for them. It's not really that hard for Japan to develop a nuclear weapon. It's not hard for Taiwan, South Korea, Poland, Turkey. These are countries that have held back on their nuclear aspirations because they felt that they were under the security of the US Nuclear umbrella. And as, as things start to roll down hill with the Trump administration, those are the questions that are being asked. And so they do have to factor it into that. I am still somewhat optimistic that a lot of what we're seeing come out of the Trump administration is now being gated. Even Rubio, who again, I'm sadly calling the adult in the room here he is, he is having to reframe Trump speech and reassure. And that tells me that he has been given the, the leeway to do that or he just feels he has enough political capital to, to burn when it comes to Trump. Because Trump needs, I mean, he does like 30 jobs right now. So I mean, he's running like USAID state, he's doing negotiations. So it's, it's just one of those things where, yes, they have to be concerned about the future of the United States, but I think it's a concern that they can manage and still maintain a relationship with the US because we've, we've ebbed and flowed on isolationism before. This isn't the first time we did it in, before World War I. And so history repeating itself. Sure. But again, you don't want to, and this is just a comment for The European countries in Canada and all of our allies. You don't want to make a mistake of putting all of your eggs in the US Basket. Perhaps yes, you should be arming yourselves and developing partnerships within yourselves like a Franco, German, Polish partnership, for instance.
- [33:44]
A
You want to look directly in the camera while you say that Franco team up Franker and Japan build a nuke.
- [33:52]
B
Yeah. That's the only reason they don't have
- [33:54]
A
a nuke is because they promise not to. Right. I don't mean to be culturally insensitive, but Nintendo, Nintendo could build a nuke at this point. Like.
- [34:01]
B
Well, there's problems with. They do. There's. There's some. A lot of the proliferation discussions surrounding nuclear development are based on automatic trigger sanctions. So they don't. And it's not just from the US it's for everyone will sanction other countries who are signers of the non proliferation treaty. And so because of that a lot of countries avoid that. That being said, nothing is more important to a country than its own security. So they may start making that calc where we need a nuclear weapon because our security matters more than sanctions from the US or European Union. And that's. That was a calculation Israel made. They made a calculation that we will eat sanctions that were. That technically are still in place. They just are living with the. We just don't talk about them. They operate around them. But. And they developed a nuclear weapon. They said they didn't and then. But we know and so as we
- [34:56]
A
discussed in a previous episode.
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B
Yeah.
- [34:58]
A
So air quotes. Do not have a nuclear weapon. Didn't. Yeah, just so quoted my own microphone.
- [35:05]
B
But yeah. So it is something that they other countries need to be concerned about. Do I think it's the end of the, the Western order? No, I don't. I But I do. I think that there's going to be more room for other countries to grow such as Germany, who I will not get a nuclear weapon. They. I just know they won't. That's not in their DNA and not at least not anymore. But yeah, if, if they are, if these countries are, are worried about their security, they're going to start hedging against the United States. But within the still kind of hey, we still want to be friends, you know, so. And Israel's another one like that.
- [35:43]
A
And Greenland, the, the threatening of Greenland was really the most. I, I only asked because I feel like a lot of, you know, obviously it seemed like an incredibly irresponsible threat to make, but it also I think to a lot of the public Seemed like Trump's typical bluster of, I'm going to say something extreme for two weeks to dominate the 24 hour news cycle and overwhelm everyone. Was that taken really seriously in the international community? As in, like you said, you don't think he's actually going to do it, but it signaled a instability or a fickleness to the administration that didn't exist there, or unpredictability that didn't exist in previous administrations.
- [36:23]
B
I don't know about you. What do you think, Matt, with the. Was it, was it just an Epstein thing? Was it an Epstein distraction? Because that was a lot of, a lot of it. I mean, there's a serious backing to that. I mean, you got any thoughts on that? Because then I can, I have my
- [36:34]
A
thoughts, but I'm just wondering, the strategy, I'm asking, did other. Did the international community really take that, that seriously?
- [36:40]
C
Yes, they did.
- [36:41]
A
Okay, listen.
- [36:43]
C
They take everything he says seriously because he's that unpredictable and. But that's just my opinion. The Greenland thing was just another business opportunity for Donald Trump and his first administration. One of his, I can't remember the guy's name, but he was trying to get him to get Greenland in his first administration because he wanted access to all these rare earth minerals and whatever else they think is there. I honestly believe that the whole Greenland thing was another grift. He can talk about national security and Russia come up with whatever excuse. I honestly believe he thought it was something he could pull off. I think he thought he could intimidate Denmark into basically giving us Greenland. But at the end of the day, had we somehow gotten to manage Greenland, the Trump sons would have had their names all over. Whatever corporations would be there looting that country of whatever natural resources it has. And that's what I think it was about. And I, I think they know that. I think our allies know that. And I think that's why they took it seriously as well.
- [37:50]
B
Yeah, I mean, I would say that it definitely was taken seriously. It was serious enough that they deployed troops. Denmark deployed troops. So it was not.
- [37:57]
A
That's true.
- [37:58]
B
And, and you have to understand this, it's so unbelievably frustrating because these are countries that went to war with us. Afghanistan. These are countries that per capita.
- [38:09]
A
Like, as in our allies.
- [38:11]
B
Yeah, they're our allies.
- [38:13]
A
They went to war alongside us.
- [38:15]
B
Yeah, with. They went. Yeah, exactly.
- [38:16]
A
Yeah. Thanks for being excruciatingly clear as to what you're saying.
- [38:20]
C
But.
- [38:20]
A
Yeah, because we're not at war with them. We were at war alongside Them, Yes.
- [38:24]
B
Yeah, they've helped us immensely and it was such a slap in the face. But they, they, you have to take it seriously because if you don't, that's when Trump opportunistically will, Will pounce on that. And he, he loved to talk about, well, he's not the only president that has went after well here. Yeah. Harry Truman went and offered to buy Greenland. Denmark said no, and the United States was like, all right, cool. I mean, we just, we're wondering if you guys want it. But Trump went, is going further with it with actual pain on, on NATO, whether it's troop or troop reductions or, or stopping the deals for equipment and weapons, which he's doing with Taiwan as well. It's, it's just a, he wants this personal prep pet project of Greenland. But I also agree it was a grift and a, a distraction, in my opinion. But it's a distraction that no matter what, you got to take it seriously because we all thought that things like Venezuela was going to be a distraction and he.
- [39:27]
A
Right.
- [39:28]
B
They actually executed that, that operation and same thing with Iran. So.
- [39:33]
A
And to answer my own question a little bit, it being a grift, like, doesn't make it less plausible and it be. I mean, I wouldn't even say it makes it more, it makes it more plausible. Right?
- [39:45]
B
Yeah.
- [39:45]
A
Because there's an actual reason to do it other than, I mean, he does two things for two reasons, spite and money. Right. I think those are the main. He's. He feels wounded or, and has to get back at someone or just shameless profit. And you know, not to go too constantly into the, the, the schoolyard psychology, but like, it is a little bit of the, like, haha, you thought I was gonna hit you? I was like, well, yeah, you do have to take the bully seriously when they lift their fist up because they do punch you some of the time. And like, it's that same, you know, threat, not a threat, threat, not a threat. Like, I, I'm saying it being like, in my secure place as an American citizen, being like, oh, yeah, he says that stuff all the time. He doesn't mean it. And like, yeah, if you're from a country that has less than one tenth the nukes we have, or no nukes, I see how that's not really something that you can write off as like, oh, it's just bluster. It's just, you know, it's just politics. And I also want to say I don't think anything he does is like, thoroughly a distraction. I mean to say that it fits into his general strategy since the beginning of his. Not even beginning of his first term, since his 2015 campaign, which is to overwhelm the news cycle with real and fake news. Like real threats. Fake threats. It's a very Russian strategy. But like enough real things to keep you alert, to make all the fake threats seem threatening. So I'm never one to say this is a distraction from the X Scene Files, although it does seem that the mainstream media has largely moved on from that story. But I think rather than anything being a distraction, I think it remains his strategy to make a constant spectrum of real and real to fake announcements. And, you know, I'm just used to processing it as an American citizen who, who is not about to be, you know, invaded.
- [41:31]
B
Yeah, I mean, I will, I, he, it's just whatever he can get for himself. That's what it is. He doesn't care on the international stage about partnerships. He doesn't care about alliances as long as he can get something personally across the board for his own. A feather in his cap. And he did this, he's doing the same thing to Israel. That's why there's this, this rift between the US and Israel right now.
- [41:56]
A
Yeah. What's going on there? Could you expound on that a little bit?
- [41:59]
B
Yeah. Because he's, he's doing some pretty interesting things considering a good chunk of his base. Absolutely support Israel. But it is, it's shifting. MAGA is shifting there, but there's conversations going on to kind of set the stage here a little bit. Israel and the United States have fundamentally different wishes for how this war in Iran ends. Israel wants a complete destruction of the Islamic Republic, ideally a break apart of Iran into tribal feuding so that they're not a regional counter to Israel. And basically allowing Israel to work freely with their Arab partners such as Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, etc, to build a Middle East. That is something that Israel is more reflective of what Israel wants. They want Iran completely removed from the equation, similar to how Syria was with their civil wars. Donald Trump, Trump just wants this war over and he doesn't, he doesn't really care how he gets there. So he's trying to get to a deal that is objectively bad for the Israelis. It is a bad, as bad as the deal is for the US it is exponentially worse for the Israelis. And you know, the thing about the Israelis is they don't want any deal ever between the US and Iran because it legitimizes the Islamic Republic. And this happened with the jcpoa Obama, when he was pushing out his deal, the Republicans invited Netanyahu to speak at Congress and he absolutely shredded Obama in front of Congress, which is that it usually is the purview of the president to invite a foreign leader. That was unheard of. That was the first that had been a problem. And it was inappropriate for the Republican Congress to actually do that, quite frankly. But Donald Trump is no different. He's had conversations where he's told Netanyahu, I'm the boss. He's, he's. And it's public. So the Israeli people are hearing this. He's saying things like, like expletive Laden diatribes about him, the, the Israelis attacking Lebanon and it's his deal up. And he said, you're crazy, if it wasn't for you, you would be in prison. He's telling Netanyahu this. I mean, he may not be wrong. Honestly.
- [44:10]
A
I was about to say extremely rare broken clock syndrome. But when he's right, he's right on that. Like, yeah, dude, like, you're very lucky to have that backing. You shouldn't.
- [44:20]
C
But honestly, that sounds like a normal conversation with anybody in his administration. Oh, yeah, if it wasn't for me, you'd be in prison.
- [44:30]
A
Yeah, you're lucky to not be in prison. The fact that you have a job.
- [44:32]
C
Yeah, that's the whole Cabinet.
- [44:35]
A
Yeah, you're lucky I regained power. That's why the Justice Department doesn't work right now. And all these people who should be in prison or not, and, or who would normally have been in prison or not. Well, also, I want to add to what you're saying, Chad, which is on top of that, Iran knows there's this ticking clock, Right, to make a bad, bad for Trump deal, because as you said, their major bargaining chip, the Strait of Hormuz, is not going to be. It's decaying in its value. And the fucking worst negotiator in the world isn't necessarily going to be our president in two to three years. So they have to get a very bad four old year, the US and bad for Israel deal at the gate faster. So Trump is stuck in the middle, has all this extra motivation to make a deal that's terrible for Israel, which, you know, in this particular case, I can't say I'm opposed to, with them, you know, completely trying to transform the region in the way that they are. But I don't see how that necessarily leads to an end in hostilities or anything. How do we see, how do we see this progressing as Israel continues To, you know, know, invade other countries in the region.
- [45:43]
B
Yeah. I mean, it's basically just we're going to watch as Israel's there. Netanyahu's in a position where he can't give on his side because he has an election coming in October. Trump can't give on his side because even though it's not his own election, the midterms are critical for his future aspirations of whatever he wants to do. So these are two countries that can't really move. And because of that, Israel is, is becoming more belligerent. We heard National Security Minister Ben GVIR on TV talk about how we need to reject what Trump is saying, reject this deal and we're going to start hitting houses in southern Lebanon. We need to remove the, not the, not Hezbollah, not the terrorists. We need to remove the residents of southern Lebanon. A sovereign country, another country anymore. Yeah.
- [46:36]
A
Two years ago. To be completely.
- [46:37]
B
No, they're reporting on it. And he, the thing is, is Trump enjoys like a 90 approval rating in Israel. So they're fine with all of this. And you have to understand that even though I say there's a rift, that this rift is taking place, it always goes back to money. There are massive contracts with Raytheon Palantir that are, have been negotiated over the last couple of years. This is a country that gets the F35. These. There's just not going to be a lot of movement. So we, we talk about the rift. It's likely a real rift. It's not just, I don't think it's. Some people have been talking about how it's going to be this top cover to give Trump some cover because he's taking heat for supporting Israel. I think there is a real personal beef right now between them because Netanyahu is, is doing things that hurts Trump's deal. But if we, let's, let's, let's expand out three years from now, I don't care who is president at that point. I don't care who's in Congress. Israel is still going to be considered our top ally in the region, whether it's Democrat, Republican. We may see Democrats, like lament what Israel's doing and they will come out. But I guarantee the laws and the deals, including a law that states Israel should, will never be the weakest country in, in the Middle East. The US Has a law that states we will continue to arm Israel to make sure they are the most powerful no matter what in that region. And those aren't going law that says that, yes, there's A law that, that specifically states. I can't remember what it's called. It's not the parody law, but it's some, some sort of. Not to Google it or whatever editors find a better expert than me in the future. But the. Yeah, it's an actual law. It's an actual law in the books that tells that. It states that the United States has a requirement to continue to ensure that Israel is the most powerful country, that they cannot be destroyed, taken over. And I just don't see those going away. Will there be public falling out? Is this going to be bad for Netanyahu? Probably. He's actually polling badly right now. He probably will lose the election. He probably will be investigated and thrown in prison in Israel for all his corruption, if not not handed over to the International Criminal Court because there's a warrant out for him on in for over there too. So we'll have to see. Exactly. I don't think that'll happen because that sets a dangerous precedent for Israel. But nonetheless, he's not in good position. And this is why.
- [49:08]
A
Because.
- [49:08]
B
Yeah, yeah. And I think there's a good, there's a good reason why Netanyahu is saying, I don't care what Trump says, I'm continuing this war. I'm going to continue hitting Lebanon, I'm going to continue striking Iran as I see fit. And I'm just going to tell Trump to pound sand, just deal with it. And it's going to be a problem for this deal that we, we just can't bring across the finish line.
- [49:31]
A
And it is interesting because you're going to see, I think in these midterms, you're going to see support for Israel as a larger issue that it's been in the American electoral politics basically ever. And I'm very curious as to whether the, you know, we've got a time, we gotta, we have several years before this. But is the presidential election go like, are the Democrats gonna put up an anti BDS candidate? I mean, AOC being the big obvious answer. But as someone who's come out against support for Israel prior to running for president, are the Democrats going to run a campaign that even hinges on that? I don't think it'll go that far, to be completely honest, because I don't, I don't think the party has the courage. And I think it's transforming, but not fast. Not that fast, but I think it'll be interesting to see. Whereas that was like once an unquestionable position for both parties. Like you're saying, will that law continue? Quite likely. But will the, you know, will the midterms make that issue? You know, will the midterms threaten the security of that certain. Excuse me. I check that again. Sorry, guys. Throat's going. It'll be interesting to see if the midterms. No, I just wanted to say it'll be interesting to see if the midterms, like, change the certainty of that position in America because it's usually so stable.
- [50:51]
B
Matt, do you want to go on that one or.
- [50:53]
C
I have no idea.
- [50:54]
B
Oh, okay. Well, so I here, here's the thing.
- [50:59]
C
What I think about. It's like, you're not allowed to be anti Israel in this country. Like, it's, it's a huge stigma. You're. You're immediately labeled a racist. Like, and it seems like it doesn't matter what Israel does. If you talk about it, you're anti Semitic. Like, so trying to figure out how like that will play itself out across the country. I feel like, I agree with Nat that there's sort of a, a shift. Oh, you know, toward. And I don't even want to say anti Israel. I would say anti Israel's behav. But I, I personally, I don't, I don't understand how we get so embedded with a country where they have so much power over us. And there's probably a lot of stuff we don't know that Israel knows about people in our government that they use over them. Who knows? But that, that makes it difficult and there's a lot of money involved in supporting Israel. So I think we'll see.
- [52:06]
B
Well, and I think, I think Matt is largely right in that regard to that. First off, I think Democrats will move in a more of an anti Israel stance. However, watch the Republicans too, because you're going to see Marjorie Taylor Greene and Thomas Massie, countries that were the true America first arm. They're standing up and being actually more vocal, whereas the Democrats are sitting back going, I'm a bit. This. I have some scar tissue about coming out as, as anti Israel and problematic with APAC and things like that. Thomas Massie and Marjorie Taylor Green and some of those, those original maga America first that have been burned by Trump who have been primaried. They.
- [52:47]
A
The anti globalist type.
- [52:48]
B
Yeah, they're. They're not. Yeah, exactly. The anti globalists. And they're, they're not gone. They're still very much in the lexicon. They are very much out there and they're campaigning again. And I think they're, they're going to start seeing of split in this mega. And you have to understand, like ev. Israel, yes, there is, there's powerful lobbies, but Israel has also embedded itself into our society. So you have a Democrat like Adam Smith who has, he, he's out of cac, who has contracts with things like Boeing. Well, Israel has contracts for Boeing. And if suddenly Israel pulls their funding from Boeing, that means jobs are lost in Adam Smith's district. Is that a good, Is that an optimal situation to be in where we are beholden to Israel because they have, they provide American jobs? Unfortunately, that was a function of the system that we developed where we want all these partners, whether it's Israel, whether it's France, whether it's Canada, it doesn't matter. And we generated jobs. And then suddenly one of them went rogue and started just scorched earth against Gaza. It becomes problematic because, let's be honest, the average voter is going to worry more about losing their job than what Israel's doing. And that's what's going to be the problem is if these Democrats or Republicans come out forcefully saying, I'm going to reign in Israel, and Israel's like, oh, yeah, well, we're going to just go ahead and cut this F35 deal off and Lockheed loses however many thousands of jobs or Palantir or any of these things, that that's where these, that's unfortunately a bug in our system that they can exploit. And everyone exploits that. That.
- [54:28]
A
And so it does kind of answer Matt's question, though, as to how do we get here, where they continue to, or I don't know how, how we get here, but how do they continue to wield that much power when it seems relatively infinitesimal compared to US Power, but it's so interrelated from a business standpoint. And I also want to be like 100% clear for our listeners that opposing our support of Israel isn't being anti Israeli. Right. We're not talking about the people of Israel. Many friends of mine, and even if I didn't have friends from Israel, I would recommend I would recognize them as people. But as you say with any country, you know, like, we're not, I'm not anti Iranian people. I do also not support the Iranian government. But I think that argument is starting that like any criticism of Israel, you know, the classic rhetoric around it is it's anti Semitic to criticize Israel. And also, it's a complicated situation that you don't understand. And I think both of those talking points are kind of dissolving right now. The situation you're describing is very real. It's not optimal, but it's very real in terms of how the Democrats are interrelated with their support for Israel right now. And I will say this until I'm blue in the face, but not everyone is making the clarification that I'm making, which is to say that I do not support the genocidal government of Israel and have zero negative feeling towards Israeli and Jewish people. The Democrats, in ignoring the actions of the state of Israel have allowed criticism of Israel to come from anti Semites. Which not only justifies that bullshit fake talking point that any criticism of Israel is anti Semitic. Because they go, oh yeah, look at these Israel, Israel critics who are openly anti Semitic. They're not even hiding it. I mean, the MAGA anti Israel movement is openly anti Semitic. Anything you encounter on, you know, social media, for example, at rallies, they will tell you it's, you know, encoded or non coded language that Jews are the problem. That's just international conspiracy, blah, blah, blah. You know, this is all, this is Henry Ford bullshit. This goes back decades if not centuries, right? Like this is, this is like, you know, oh, like drawings on the wall of people with horns. You know, this is, this is, this is pre technology anti Semitism bullshit like that exists. But I'm just saying that's, that's the level that we got scooped by because Democrats were so afraid or that they got scooped by. I'm not taking credit for the Democratic National Convention, but they got so afraid to be critical of Israel that the only people with a microphone willing to be critical of Israel were conspiracy theorists. Anti Semites like Marjorie Taylor Greene. The Jewish space lasers lady has a better Israel policy than Chuck Schumer. Yeah, and that's, that's embarrassing, you know, and it's not a better policy, but she had more willingness to criticize the state. Democrats have destabilized their own part. You know, they so terrified of this leftist insurgency which we can talk about. I think it's very funny to watch, you know, people who got Bill Clinton elected talk about how this is going to destroy the party. But maybe your take isn't that relevant these days, guys, but, but the, all of this, like the destabilizing from within the party around Israel really comes from that inability to criticize it before that narrative was co opted by conspiracy theorists. And that's going to be really, really hard to, to disentangle at this point. We have to, we have to face it forward by being, you know, good faith in our policy towards Israel from Now on. But they've already let conspiracy theorists take the wheel and I think that's. That was like a huge mistake on the part of the Democrats.
- [58:01]
C
Yeah, for sure. I think for me, like, if you have mass graves of people, a lot of them being children with hands tied behind their backs, like your race, religion, ethnicity, how you look, how tall you are, what you smell like, none of that matters to me. Like, you have mass graves of people with hands tied behind their back. I could care less if what your religion is, what your skin color is. None of that matters. It's the fact that you have mass graves of people with hands tied behind their back. Yeah, that's.
- [58:33]
A
Doctors executed.
- [58:35]
C
Yeah.
- [58:35]
B
You know, like American journalists.
- [58:38]
A
American journalists. Yeah, journalists of any ethnicity or origin. Aid workers, you know, just constantly, like so many stories about murdered aid workers and journalists that, you know, we've lost track. They don't even make headlines anymore. She's like, oh, yeah, of course they did that because they were aid workers in Gaza.
- [58:57]
B
And I, I just. The one thing I will say is I think there's a more moderate push to not say they're anti Israel. But just, hey, question, what exactly is going on? Because 38% of Republicans are, according to a Pew study, are wanting a different direction with Israel. They're not saying, hey, let's abandon Israel so that they have to be a 10 million person population dealing with a half a billion potential adversaries and Persians and Arabs and that's not even going to happen. They have allies in the region as well. It's just there's now even Republicans to the highest level they've ever been at 38. That's really high actually saying we need to reevaluate exactly what our weapons are doing in Israeli hands and make sure that they're still secure as a country. And a lot of, a lot of this is I think, unfortunately, but also somewhat fortunately that the, we have for a generation, we had this, it was almost a. I don't know what to call it. Like we felt bad for the Holocaust. That's, that's making it sound flippant and unserious. But we, maybe you have a better word for it.
- [60:06]
A
It.
- [60:06]
B
But the.
- [60:07]
A
I would say we were reckoning with the legacy of the Holocaust.
- [60:10]
B
Yeah. And so we, we just felt like we had to ensure Israel's survival and just as a. To make sure that that continued. And unfortunately, I believe Israel, specifically in the Netanyahu and Ben GVIR era, they have taken our wish to ensure the survival of Israel and the post Holocaust era. And they've decided to essentially roll with it in a way that we are now questioning not only the legality but the morality of what's going on. And I think that moving forward, we're going to see more bipartisan support and it's not just going to come from an anti Semite faction of the Republican Party. I think it's going to come from a Republican side of the Republican and Democrat Party that is just humanitarian. And it may be few and far between in the Republican side, but there are still those there that are like, hey, hey, it's just like Russia. They shouldn't be killing civilians. They shouldn't be trying to raise cities to the ground. And I think going forward, we're going to see more of a bipartisan effort to not abandon Israel, but to rein in or at least maybe start questioning what exactly is going on there. Netanyahu, what exactly what do you mean, Ben gvir, when you say you want to drive people out of their homes, not Hezbollah, but there are Lebanese people from their homes in their own country, that, that's hugely unacceptable. And Republicans have said that you, you can't do that. So I think we, again, we probably won't see it in the midterms as a lightning rod scenario. But I think over time, as Israel conducts this, this effort to unfortunately completely destroy Gaza as well as southern Lebanon, as well as engulf the West Bank, I think the American public is going to start pushing back, whether you're right or left at this point.
- [62:01]
C
Yeah.
- [62:01]
A
And just to expand on something you said there, the recent Ben GVIR quote was for every tier of an Israeli mother, a thousand Lebanese mothers must weep. All of Lebanon must burn. That's so clear who we're dealing with. And there's really just, it's really impossible for people, not impossible, but it's becoming harder and harder for people to deny it. And I do want to take just a note on one thing that you said, which is, I know you didn't quite mean it this way, but you said, you know, when that government suddenly, you know, goes crazy in Gaza or whatever, or goes all out in Gaza like you said.
- [62:36]
B
Yeah, they didn't do it.
- [62:37]
A
They, they went scorched earth two and a half years ago. But their policies in Gaza, it's been an apartheid state for decades. I, it's been really unpopular to talk about this in American politics for all the reasons we're talking about. But they've been restricting aid, Israel's been restricting aid to Gaza, restricting food. It's been A second class society for decades. The people of Gaza cannot travel freely. They are not entitled to the same rights as Israeli citizens. They are in an open air prison. They have been for and you know, similar with the west bank, like all the, it's, it's been a second class society for a very long time. And so like Israel has been committing war crimes in Gaza since long before what we have been calling a war, which is not a war, but this so called war in Gaza. So I'm not trying to like shut you down, but.
- [63:22]
B
No, no, yeah, you're right, you're committing.
- [63:24]
A
It's like the narrative has shifted because it's so undeniable. They're literally bulldozing towns in Lebanon, they are literally scorching the earth in Gaza. You know, the imagery and, and you know, again, it's similar to police violence in America. It didn't start in 2014. It was when everyone got access to phone to cameras that could reliably record video. Right. Like this didn't start on October 7th or October 8th. This is the most major thing that's happened in an era of, you know, constant connectivity and people have been shouting since from Gaza with their cell phones for a long time. But I think it hit this, you know, it hit this critical mass where it penetrated the media atmosphere and it penetrated the social media atmosphere in a way that mainstream media couldn't put a clamp down on as hard as they tried. You know, I'm not going to be someone to be like, only listen to podcasts. And I still think that we, I think that a lot of people, a lot of podcasting has shown us the need for gatekeepers and traditional journalism in certain contexts. But I think you've seen this huge, and this is statistical, you've seen a huge decrease in faith in mainstream journalism in America and also a huge decrease in the overall approval of our support for Israel, of the actions of the Israeli government among Americans and especially Democrats. And I think 8 out of 10 Democrats disapproves of Israel at this point. Like, you got to listen to the electorate at some point.
- [64:52]
B
My, my last thought on this is Israel has gone down a path that has put them saying things that the bad guy would say. And when Ben Gir was saying what you were saying, but not just what they're saying, but what they're doing. Like, so Ben is their, he's their national defense minister, like at the highest level and he is a part of the, the. I don't pronounce this right. I think it's Atsma Yehudit party, which is Jewish power party and it's a Kahanist party, that they don't want Arabs that live in Israel to be able to vote and would prefer that they just be completely ejected from their country. And they're now overtly saying that which would have never happened in prior administrations. They would have never prior administrations would have completely vilified Israel for those types of policies. But as we see here in the US we're kind of doing the same thing with our own ICE raids and things like that. So Israel is given a bit of a leash to to be subjectively awful in those.
- [65:48]
A
And the term for that is the imperial boomerang, listeners. Yep. The way that we treat, the way that we allow our allies to treat their civilians is the way we will eventually treat our own civilians. And it's been happening in Israel for decades and you should have paid attention. And we're coming to the end of our show. So it's time for the segment where we highlight, if not a highlight, a non low light of the past seven or so days that I like to call the least worst part of my week week. Chad, would you like to get us started?
- [66:15]
B
Sure. I can go ahead and start us off since mine is kind of a bummer. But it also is a good news story because did you know that across the the Americas, South America, etcetera, Female genital mutilation is still a thing. It's still a thing across all of the countries in Latin America, except for one. Now Colombia has been the first country in Latin America to pass a law specifically banning female genital mutilation. And I always talk to my wife about how I have a very visceral reaction to harming those people that and frankly, this may sound somewhat patriarchal, but as a man, I'm a defender of women and children and I want to make sure that they have safe places and safe spaces and that their bodily autonomy is maintained. And they, they and that's a part of that. I mean we talk, we, we in the United States talk about abortion, but bodily autonomy for women in places like South America includes female genital mutilation. That is unbelievably wild to me that in the year 2026, where the Internet exists in all of these countries, including cell phone, that women, especially children there as, as adults and and teenagers still genital mutilation is allowed in in many of those countries and people associate it with places like Africa or the I, I was frankly surprised to learn that Colombia is now the Only Latin American country where it's now completely illegal to do that. And I think it's a good news story that Colombia's doing that. Obviously the, the. It's a. Not great that they're the only ones. So I just wanted to highlight that and I don't need to go down the rabbit hole of what that is. If you need to go ahead and Google it's. It's pretty atrocious and accord. According to UNICEF, some 230 million women and girls around the world undergo some form of general mutilation and millions more a risk every year. So if we could take one more country off the board, I think that's good news.
- [68:26]
A
And ideally, you know, that's reproducible in the region too.
- [68:29]
B
Yeah.
- [68:29]
A
Inspiring. Well, I also just want to say, like, I don't think it's. I think you're. Yeah. Know. Right to be sensitive about this. I don't think it's patriarchal to recognize that patriarchy exists and to want to. I understand what you're saying. Protective impulse of women feels, could feel condescending. But like. Yeah, no, you're, you're talking for the cause of equality and for people's. This, it's not patriarchal to recognize that one, you know, population is more vulnerable than another and to want to equalize that. I think that's, you know, I have
- [68:57]
B
two dogs should be doing with your
- [68:58]
A
power as a patriotic.
- [68:59]
B
Yeah. I have two daughters, a wife and a mother. I mean that would be atrocious if.
- [69:04]
A
No, of course. But I understand that, that what you're saying in terms of that conflict. Like, but you know, you, you're totally right to, to recognize like if this is a kind of issue where, where I think we might walk comfortably through the world not even knowing that this is a risk that people experience. Not really knowing that this is a practice that people that, you know, is institutionalized in some places. So I think, I think it's, you know, I think it's smart to not only recognize your position of safety but also go, oh, wow, part of my position of safety is to not even have to know about that.
- [69:34]
B
Yeah. And frankly I'm, I'm fully believe that this is one of those things that even though it is absolutely dealing with a woman's body, nothing's going to change unless the men stand up and do something and say the power structure. Yeah, yeah. So unless men come out and say, hey, what we're doing to women is wrong, other men are just going to keep doing it because women are going to be unfortunately placed in that lesser status that we continue to see even in this country. So I just. Until men, not only as we've probably seen in Colombia, but in other South American countries, African countries, the United States, start saying what is happening to women is wrong, I just unfortunately don't think it's going to change. They're just, just a lot of terrible. Men will just keep discounting the feelings of women. And that is something that frankly needs to change.
- [70:27]
A
And I would even say in some ways, especially in this country, obviously we don't have certain practices like that, but we do have a rapist president. So, yeah, we're not, we're not exactly more evolved than these countries. We are just sort of differently. Patriarchal. Matt, what is the least worst part of your week?
- [70:45]
C
The three blind mice. The three blind mice. See how they run. They're not running into the wall anymore because researchers at Duke University have been able to generate lab grown retinal cells and restore their vision.
- [71:03]
A
Whoa.
- [71:04]
C
So the three blind mice are now just the three mice. And the next phase of testing is to try it in humans. And this, this particular retinal degeneration is the most common form of blindness in people. It's. It's like the biggest thing. So it's lab grown retinal tissue and cells that they inject and it repairs whatever's messed up in there and restores your vision. That's what it did to the three blind mice. Probably more than three blind mice. They probably tried it on seven or eight, maybe ten, who knows? But really good news for the blind people. That and bad news for the walking stick business, apparently. So we'll see what happens. But that's my good news.
- [71:51]
B
That's very cool.
- [71:52]
A
I'm hoping they can pivot to jousting equipment or something. You know, toy sword, you know, like practice sword. I'm sure, I'm sure the PVC piping types can, can, can. The industry will survive. That's great news. Imagine being that mouse, lost your sight, thought it was all over. At least a human can intellectualize it. Yeah. I was like, you could see again for the first time. That's.
- [72:17]
B
He probably freaked out. Like, what is it?
- [72:19]
C
Yeah.
- [72:19]
A
Or was it the first time those mice could see? That's ex. Wow.
- [72:23]
C
I'm assuming they were born. Yeah, you think? I was assuming they were born blind and they freaked out when they could see.
- [72:28]
A
That's gotta be. Yeah, that's. That's even more alarming. This is also how you get mice X Men. Like, obviously we Healed. This one healed too much. It can shoot beams out of its eyes now. Something like that.
- [72:39]
C
You know, some mice are just stupid. How do you know they're blind? Like, oh, he walked right into the wall. You can't see.
- [72:45]
A
Maybe you think they have that poor sense of direction. That's the thing when they put them in the. Like, if you put me in a giant cheese maze, I would be like, all right, I think I've been here before. Like, I. Like, it's not that I'm not smart. It's just like, I wasn't really paying attention. I'm, like, looking at my phone. Like, did I turn here? Like, these walls. All the. Like, that happens to me in, like, the West Village of Manhattan, and I grew up there. So, like, you're right. I'm. I'm pretty intelligent. These mice might just have other going on.
- [73:13]
C
There ain't no telling.
- [73:14]
A
Yeah, he's just, like, thinking of, like, a poem in his head or something, replaying an argument that he had in the cage.
- [73:20]
C
Have you noticed all my recent ones have been medical discoveries? Like, the last three, I'm predicting, looking like AI is going to cure paralysis in the next six months. Who knows?
- [73:31]
A
I thought you were going to say they've all been animal related, because I was thinking of this and barnacles and there. There have been a few.
- [73:37]
C
Well, there's the cancer one.
- [73:40]
B
The cocaine hippos.
- [73:42]
A
You did. You did have a sort of wacky Animal Planet bent for a little while, but I think we've kind of squared the circle. They've met. Your two. Your two focuses have met finally.
- [73:53]
C
It just seems like there's a ton of news that's just flooding us about these medical research, like these breakthroughs. It just seems. I don't know if you'll ever paid attention to that, but I'm getting. Maybe it's. My algorithm is bombarding me with it, and it was always happening.
- [74:05]
A
But, I mean, I've heard a lot of cures for blindness popping up until recently.
- [74:10]
B
I mean, I mean, you do wear
- [74:11]
A
glasses, Matt, or me? I do normally wear glasses. The viewer, the YouTube viewer is probably so confused. But, yeah, for distance, here's the least worst part of my week. Least worst part of my week. Obviously, we had a big electoral windfall here in New York, and some of the question was, will this be a flash in the pan? Or according to other people, will this completely destabilize the Democratic Party? Last Tuesday, we saw another leftist insurgent win in Colorado. Melat kiros unseated a 30 year incumbent who had passed, I think in that time, two bills. And I understand that the number of bills, this is, this is a misnomer often leveraged against active politicians. But what really excited me about this, this is not, you know, I don't work for her campaign. Melak Heros is a DSA member. But more specifically, the reason I'm bringing this up is because this is another candidate who ran on, among many other issues, public power utilities and has a Green New Deal climate platform. Very well defined, but specifically not even in the climate part of the platform, but just as a separate policy on the website and as part of the campaign ran on putting utilities, not exclusively power utilities, putting utilities in the hands of the people. And I think that's really exciting to see, as we said with the Claire Valdez campaign, really exciting to see the idea of public utilities, of federally owned utilities, of state owned utilities becoming more, you know, obviously, obviously Israel is this major issue as we're talking about that is really shifting within the Democratic Party. But you're also seeing this sort of solutions focused approach towards energy and climate change a little bit more quietly. I think people are still a little cautious about running on the climate, but we're seeing more people learning to run on energy from the. Also very legitable. Sorry. Also very legitimate affordability and renewability angle. So I thought that was inspiring. I think it's really cool to see that people are openly running on that stuff. And it's great to know there are going to be more people in Congress who support a Green New Deal and publicly owned utilities, which we have discussed at great length of this podcast. And that is the least worst part of my week.
- [76:32]
B
Yeah, I have a theory on some of this though, because we are seeing these Democratic socialists that are winning, but I don't necessarily think it's the. That they are being socialist that is what's driving this. I think they're running campaigns one, on affordability, like you just said, but two, where they're just like, I'm gonna do some like Donnie, like I'm not gonna just sit there and you say, yeah, the two bills. And I get that a lot of people co sponsor. So they're not technically the bills.
- [77:02]
A
Like it's just sometimes more complicated.
- [77:04]
B
Yeah.
- [77:05]
A
Than people make it out to be for sure.
- [77:06]
B
But like I'm seeing this youth uprise this youth almost vigor of candidates and people are starting to attach to that like this guy's going to do something, this girl is going to do something and we're gonna get somewhere Whether it's affordability or whatever it does, I, I only, I think that's what people are, are thirsty for on the left because the last time we felt that was Obama was this youthful, like, let's get, we're going to get in there and get some stuff done and pass the Affordable Care Act. And a lot of stuff happened. And it's unfortunate because Biden did a lot of good with his acts. He just didn't have that youthful vigor and, and that excitement and exuberance that you see with mom Donnie jumping in a pool and just being a cool guy. And we're starting to see that come out of these, these current candidates, whether it's in New York or Colorado. And I just, just, I'm, I'm happy to see that it's this, hey, policies aside, yes, we're trying to get to affordability and why would they feel that the Democratic socialism platform is the best way to do that? And it likely is at this point. But nonetheless, we're just going to do some stuff to make sure, I mean, we're going to do things. It's not going to be the status quo of. And that's why I think you see the Chuck Schumers and the, the whatever the speaker's name is not speaking. Jeffries, Hakeem Jeffries. I think they're on the outs because they're very much of the Huffy Puffy two years left. Like. Yeah, so yeah, I think I do, I, I. There's this excitement. It's almost like the World cup in politics or the Knicks winning in politics. There's just this excitement that's happening among the Democratic Party with this youthful uprising because people are just sick of boomers running apparently, because it's like, and so that's, yeah, so I just agree with you.
- [78:53]
A
I agree with you. Except for like to a certain point, I do think it is policy based. I think the thing that people are excited about is like policy. These campaigns are not just exciting and promising, you know, youthful energy. You know, people still love Bernie Sanders because he's policy, but you know, like all the people who love Kyros and who like Mamdani are Sanders supporters, I mean, not one to one, but like, I'm not saying that like we want more boomers in power, but I think the thing is like, these are the people who have the energy to pursue an issues based campaign. Like, it's not just about energy. It's about running on, you know, housing, health care, food affordability, good education, you know, taxing the rich all this stuff that like, these are like easy majority support issues. You know, these just these things that like the majority of Americans support, not just the majority of Democrats, like, you know, know, is a publicly owned utility. And that's maybe a policy that doesn't have majority support because there's lack of education around it. But is like energy affordability a issue you can easily win on? Absolutely. And like, you know, maybe things like transit or the climate are like, policy that gets like caught up in the wonkiness of it. But I think what, what's great, what you're seeing is that it's not just people running on like, that we gotta try something like get the old guard out of here. It's people running on like very specific issues and delivering. You know, I mean, like the Mamdani campaign had a lot of campaign promises. They had a lot on their policy, but the three that they led with were ones that they had a very clear plan and figured they could knock out. You know, we got six of these guys on the rent guidelines board are up for our upper, you know, their terms are up. I'm going to replace them with people who are sympathetic to the idea of a rent freeze and then deliver the rent freeze. And then they did. They did exactly that, that. And you know, was there a chance it wouldn't happen? Of course. But I think you're seeing people responding, you know, like you're saying it's the World cup of politics, it's the Knicks winning of politics. People are going, oh, like I can be a participant. Like, I can actually, like, because I think, you know, so for so long the Democrats strategy has been to just tell people that their expectations of government are unrealistic. And it's like, if we're supposed to be the party of big government, like, then why is the policy to tell people that we can't provide for them? Right? Like that's, that's, that's basically a Republican talking point, right? Like there's a reason to make the government small if they're not meeting your needs. But I don't think we should make the government small and hand everything over to corporations that have even less, you know, motivation to meet our needs. I just think we should make the government work for our needs. So, I mean, I totally agree with you. I think there's like a real change happening. I don't think these policies are drastically far left. These are, are, you know, these are like, FDR build things and give everyone a job and food policy.
- [81:37]
B
Obama was a moderate.
- [81:38]
A
Yeah, Obama was Like yeah, Obama center right by global standards on some issues like these are not crazy. You know, again, like, I think it's like just abandoning the fear of talking about these issues that are like common sense in so many ways. Even. Even when it comes down to Israel where it's like it got so far that like the common sense answer is like, yeah, the thing I've been seeing on my phone for three years is what's going on on and what's working is people who are saying like, yeah, you're, you're not crazy. I'm not coming in with the energy of. You're not being realistic. You're not educated enough. So I find that exciting.
- [82:12]
B
Matt, we getting any. You getting any Democrats elected in Oklahoma?
- [82:16]
C
I have a stat of the week but I, I did attend my first political thing the other day.
- [82:24]
B
Oh cool.
- [82:27]
C
It was. I was asked to go and I agreed to go. It was like a meet and greet, Q A type thing for the democr nominee for governor of Oklahoma. Her name's Cindy Munson. I was, I did show up 45 minutes late and I did sort of make a scene. So. But very, very nice woman.
- [82:50]
B
I.
- [82:51]
C
It was a little uncomfortable. So it was in this little store, right? And there's like a hundred people packed in this little store. And the thing is, politicians never come to where I live because we're out in the sticks. So when I walk into this little tiny stor door 45 minutes late, she had just finished her speech. Some like 90 year old lady screams, look, it's Mr. Global. And like standing, standing ovation when I walk in.
- [83:22]
A
Whoa.
- [83:23]
C
And this woman who's running for governor like I felt like I did something wrong because I like stole her spotlight. So I apologized to her. When it was over, I'm like, I'm so sorry for that. I got hung up. I was supposed to be here on time time. But anyway, that doesn't matter. Very lovely woman. The stat of the week, which is the much, much more important thing. Heat wave PJM interconnect, right. Grid serves Upper Midwest, Mid Atlantic, east coast. During the heat wave, wholesale electricity prices increased by a thousand. 1500% related to wholesale electricity costs on a kilowatt hour basis of over $0.50 up to a dollar a kilowatt hour, which is crazy. A dollar fifty a kilowatt hour in Delaware, fifteen hundred dollars a megawatt hour. That's how much wholesale electricity prices increased during the peak demand. PJM has 7% renewable energy, feeding it Texas ERCOT, 40% renewable energy. Same temperatures the prices stayed flat and did not increase a bit.
- [84:38]
A
Wow.
- [84:39]
C
Two and a half cents a kilowatt hour in Texas in 100 degree weather. Up to a dollar fifty a kilowatt hour in Delaware with 100 degree weather. And the main difference, there is some congestion differences there, you know, traffic. But the amount of renewable energy in Texas, during that hottest part of the day, almost 100% of all the electricity is wind, solar and batteries. And during the hottest part of the day on PJM, it's 95% natural gas and coal, so. And some nuclear. That's the difference right there between a, a significant presence of renewable power mixed with other types of power and almost no renewable power on pj.
- [85:29]
B
The hell's up with the Northeast there, Nat? I thought you guys were like, it's
- [85:32]
C
like you got, it's crazy. It's like the reddest state has the most renewable power and two and a half cent electricity.
- [85:39]
A
Yeah, I mean Texas has an independent energy grid, so it's a little bit of a different situation. But we passed a law saying that we would be at 70% renewable energy. This is the CLCPA. This was passed a few years back, earlier in this decade, saying that we'd be at 70% percent renewable by 2030. And then the bill that was supposed to, or the bill that outlined how to do so with, well, with union labor, for example, was the Build Public Renewables act, which it took us almost four years to get passed after the CLCPA and which involved, you know, electing eco socialists to the electorate. All these protests, this massive meetings with unions, all these things, things. They passed that bill in 2023 and are supposed to build 15 gigawatts of renewables. And it has been an annual fight to get them to build a quarter of that ever since. And most recently our Governor Hochul, who is, you know, a real conservative in the, in the Democratic Party, has come out and said that first bill, we won't be meeting that goal. The clcpa. There's no way that we can, that we can do that. So she's taking even steps back from, from the original. Oh, the Build Public Renewables act is too aggressive. She literally appointed this guy, Justin Driscoll, who is a Republican fossil fuel lawyer, to lead our public power utility. So that's kind of the answer to the question is that like here in my totally blue state, allegedly our, our Democrats are the ones actively fighting. Not like, not like actively fighting us passing these laws, actively fighting the will of the people. Kathy Hochul signed that Bill that didn't go through the bill. Public Renewables act passed in the budget. Okay, so that didn't, that didn't even go to a vote in the Assembly. She signed that bill and she's the one saying it's not possible. So like these are within her administration. So that's the answer to your question is that like, unfortunately New York has conservatives in the Democratic Party who are anti renewable energy.
- [87:42]
B
That's a hell of a stat of the day there, Matt, because I mean, shit, you're looking at the three of us, Idaho, Texas, two huge renewable energy. Now granted, dams are counted as renewable in my state. So we have, I like, we're in a heat wave. I'm not going to really, my bill will go up like 30 bucks, but. And then you have very blue New York where Nat's at, and it's like no green energy. That blows me away. I didn't know that.
- [88:09]
A
It's not that we have no green energy, it's that our build out has not, not even like remotely on pace with our needs and our, you know, promises basically. And also our grid is like drastically overdue for upgrades.
- [88:24]
C
There's an enormous amount of stranded renewable energy on that PJM interconnect where it's built and ready to go. But it's in the queue, which basically means it's waiting in line to get connected to the grid. And PJM is slow walking the hell out of that. So that's a big part of the problem. There's a ton of renewables there. It just has to get connected to the grid.
- [88:48]
A
Yeah. I do hope that people now seeing Con Edison completely shut off our electricity to entire neighborhoods. And not only that, but just like the rolling brownouts throughout the city and like, you know, hey, am I putting too much? Well, I need the air conditioner to survive the heat wave, but I don't want to put too much stress on the grid and blow a fuse in my building or lead to our entire neighborhood getting shut off because. Because it's too much use of the grid. Meanwhile, a billionaire is having her wedding in our centralized basketball stadium. And I recognize by the way that the center of Manhattan and Times Square and all that is on a different sector of the grid than the neighborhoods that we're getting shut off. I know that, but the fact that we can run the center of business and we are turning off energy to poor neighborhood, it's still not good to waste energy in the middle of an energy crisis, regardless of whether that's directly related to the reason that that's happening in poor neighborhoods is not because of a wedding or Times Square or any of those things. It's because they haven't invested in the area where those people live and they have invested in the grid where Times Square and all those businesses are. So, yeah, New York's, you know, we have one of the. One of the better ecosocialist energy movements. We have passed the nation's largest green New Deal bill. But we are fighting a real battle here internally.
- [90:06]
B
Prime example of electing people, just not getting shit done.
- [90:09]
A
Yeah, and this is at the state level. I mean, you know, our mayor's an ecosocialist. He was part of writing that bill when he was in the Assembly. But unfortunately, there's that choke point of, you know, for any bills to pass, they have to go through the speaker for each body. Right. The state Senate and the Assembly. So you can bribe those people. You bribe the head of the Energy Committee, you bribe the governor. It's not that many bribes. Well, thanks so much for joining us. Once again, you've been listening to or watching American Power from Find Out Media for Chad Scott and Matt Randolph. I'm Nat Town and always remember, power corrupts, but American power corrupts Americanly. 250, baby.