Power at the Edge of Failure

Summary

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American Power Podcast

Episode: "Power at the Edge of Failure"

Date: April 29, 2026
Hosts: Nat Towsen (A), Chad Scott (B), Matt "Mr. Global" Randolph (C)

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Episode Overview

This episode dives into how global energy markets are teetering on the brink and why American power—military, economic, and political—keeps finding itself at a strategic disadvantage despite overwhelming tactical might. The panel explores how misinformation affects energy prices, why U.S. strategies in Iran keep faltering, and how entrenched systems—from military procurement to energy infrastructure—are stressed at the edge of failure. The hosts’ blend of energy expertise, military insight, and systems thinking exposes the vulnerabilities (and illusions) that define the current geopolitical and domestic landscape.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Domestic Energy Squeeze (01:27-07:50)

• Wholesale fuel prices in the U.S. are at their highest since June 2022, despite oil being ~$25 per barrel cheaper than a month ago.
• Rising exports are depleting domestic inventories, pushing up prices and slashing profit margins for U.S. gas stations.
• Gas stations are absorbing costs to keep customer traffic, making more profit from snacks (eg. Snickers bars) than on fuel (03:28).
• Critical inventory warning: U.S. commercial fuel reserves projected to dip below operational minimums by July, risking parabolic spikes in prices if export pace continues.
  • Quote: "When industry is talking about hitting operational minimums...you don't ever want to hear that." - Mr. Global (06:44)

Key Segment

• Operational Minimums & Refinery Bottleneck:
  • U.S. refining capacity is at its max, so extra crude cannot be processed into fuel (07:00-08:17).
  • Loss of a single refinery (due to accident or hurricane) would be catastrophic.
  • Quote: "We're walking a tightrope, basically." - Mr. Global (08:42)

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2. Market Manipulation and Unreliable Reporting (09:18-23:28)

• Recent oil price swings are tied to misleading reports about the Strait of Hormuz and supposed breakthroughs in Iran negotiations.
• A pattern emerges:
  • Reports of negotiations often originate from a single Axios reporter known for pro-Trump leanings (17:13-20:54).
  • These stories frequently coincide with market openings/closings, influencing oil prices before being debunked.
  • Quote: "All of these reports have come from this one person...not one story has turned out to be true." - Mr. Global (21:35)
• Illusion of progress tempers market reactions temporarily, but the suppression of prices only worsens future shocks.
  • Quote: "You're just making the problem worse...it's like putting a band-aid on a broken leg." - Mr. Global (22:32)
• Solution? Let prices rise to reflect true scarcity—this would force political action sooner (23:30-24:21).

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3. U.S.-Iran Negotiation Breakdown: Cultural Blind Spots (11:00-42:24, esp. 34:09-42:24)

• Stalled, incoherent U.S. strategy: The Trump administration cycles through phases:
  1. Military punishment (tactical success, strategic failure)
  2. Maximalist demands (unrealistic)
  3. Reactionary bargaining (only over Strait of Hormuz)
  4. Failed counter-blockade attempts
  5. All major demands dropped, focus reduced only to immediate crises (12:14-16:53).
  • Quote: "Both the United States and Iran think they have the upper hand, and both sides are actually wrong." – Chad Scott (11:11)
• U.S. possess undisputed military advantage, but lacks political will; Iran knows the U.S. won't risk a ground war with high casualties.
• Negotiation impasse rooted in cultural misunderstanding:
  • "Pressure campaign" approach doesn't work on the Islamic Republic, which sees compromise (sejesh) as capitulation, not cooperation.
  • Iran’s leadership is willing to absorb pain and pass it to its population—unlike the U.S., where public discomfort drives rapid political change.
  • Quote: "This value is ancient...the word for compromise...they take it as a slur. Instead of it meaning compromise...they see it as selling out." - Chad Scott (36:34)

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4. Media, Markets, and the Consequence of Perception (17:13-23:28)

• Market reactions are highly sensitive to news cycles: A single misleading report can swing oil prices $10+.
• Major outlets circulate the same unvetted story—leads to widespread misunderstanding among both public and policymakers.
• Call for critical media consumption: Don't trust stories with only one source, especially in energy and geopolitics.

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5. Will Price Shock Spur Real Change? (24:29-29:33)

• Current price manipulations shield Americans from true energy costs, making the public slow to invest in renewables or push for policy change.
  • Quote: “Americans are going to have to own that themselves...the biggest pie...is just people doing it themselves instead of waiting for billion-dollar corporations to save them.” - Mr. Global (25:45)
• Panel expects a ‘libertarian’ solar revolution: Individuals, not government or corporations, will drive the next wave of renewable adoption (26:21-28:01).
• Systemic blockages remain: Even if the public desires clean energy, political and corporate resistance slows transition (28:01-29:33).
  • Reference to "Why Nations Fail" book: regime hostility can doom smart policy, regardless of public will.

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6. Military Stockpiles and Global Capacity (29:33-33:57)

• U.S. munitions and shipbuilding fall short if facing a true peer like China.
  • "One singular Chinese ship maker has made more ships in the last five years than the entirety of the US shipbuilding capacity since World War II." – Chad Scott (30:12)
• Prolonged conflicts (Iran, Ukraine) have depleted “exquisite” stockpiles (Patriot missiles, advanced munitions) needed for major future wars.
• Strategic overstretch: U.S. can probably handle a regional conflict, but can't fight simultaneous peer wars as once planned.

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7. Cultural Gaps: Why “Maximum Pressure” Fails (34:09-42:24)

• Iran, Russia, North Korea endure pain as a point of pride; U.S. tactics that focus on economic or military pain only entrench resistance.
  • Historical note: The Ayatollah’s doctrine is to never compromise, seeing Gorbachev’s downfall as a warning.
  • Sanctions and force hurt Iranian civilians far more than the regime, which has little incentive to capitulate for fear of appearing weak.
    • Quote: “Their life is pain...you can’t hurt us more than we already are...And if you’re going to hurt us, we’re just going to transfer that pain to our people.” - Chad Scott (41:08)
• Unlike in the U.S., Iranian leadership is insulated from domestic backlash, giving them more endurance in standoffs.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On gas station margins:
  • "They make more money on that Snickers bar than that entire $70 worth of gas you bought." – Mr. Global (04:29)
• On negotiating against Iran:
  • "We have historically dominated every military...but rarely got any kind of a good strategic outcome..." – Chad Scott (13:18)
• On news manipulation:
  • "All of these reports have come from this one person...not one of these stories has turned out to be true..." – Mr. Global (21:35)
• On American consumer insulation:
  • "Politicians desperately want to keep the price at the pump down and will do what it takes to do that. And as a result, we don't actually realize what the cost of our energy is." – Nat Towsen (25:29)
• On cultural capacity for pain:
  • "Their life is pain...you can’t hurt us more than we already are..." – Chad Scott (41:08)
• On renewable energy at scale:
  • "If there's a hostile government towards it, major companies aren't going to fight that hostile government. I don't think." – Chad Scott (28:59)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 01:27 – Current status of U.S. fuel prices, exports, point-of-sale economics
• 06:01 – Explaining operational minimums for fuel inventories
• 07:12 – Refinery bottleneck and system vulnerability
• 09:18 – Spot vs. futures price divergence; the impact of "the big lie" about Strait of Hormuz
• 11:00-16:53 – Why negotiations with Iran deadlocked; shifting U.S. negotiating positions
• 17:13-20:54 – Manipulative news cycles and Axios' hand in market perception
• 21:35-23:28 – "Fake good news" and consequences for oil price stability
• 24:29-29:33 – Americans’ ignorance of true energy costs; inevitability of grassroots renewables
• 29:33-33:57 – U.S. munitions stockpile, industrial base, and China comparison
• 34:09-42:24 – Strategic consequences of misunderstanding Iranian (and autocratic) endurance
• 42:50 – Teaser: Next episode to address long-term diplomatic strategies

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"Least Worst" Segment: Uplifting Distractions (43:17-50:29)

To wrap up, the panel shares their "least worst" stories of the week:

• Mr. Global: The saga of Yuji, a 1.4lb orphaned patas monkey in Mexico, who captured hearts after being rejected by her mother (43:17).
• Nat: Discovery of the world's smallest otter (Oriental small-clawed otter) in Nepal, long believed extinct (46:27).
• Chad: A milestone in clean energy—global growth in renewable power is now outpacing new demand, largely due to Chinese investment, though the U.S. lags far behind (48:00).

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Tone & Style

Conversational, witty, punctuated with dark humor and exasperation about systemic dysfunction. Frequent analogies (e.g., gas stations as comedy clubs) make complex topics relatable. The hosts approach the topics with a mix of deep expertise, sardonic realism, and a sense of shared doom, but occasionally cut the tension with optimism or irreverent asides (celebrity monkeys, cute otters).

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Summary

"Power at the Edge of Failure" lays bare the fragility of American power—from energy infrastructure to military readiness to the reliability of information flows. The hosts reveal how illusions, wishful thinking, and system-level incentives block adaptation and leave both markets and politicians stumbling from crisis to crisis. If there’s hope, it’s in citizens’ ability to act at the edges—installing solar, demanding a broader view, and scrutinizing the sources of their news and power.

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Transcript

[A]

Foreign. Welcome to the New York City traffic report for finding hotels. You're listening to American Power. I'm Nat Town, your host today. Stand up comedian, writer, all sorts of writer, speech writer, article writer, and most importantly and likely to outlast me, podcast host. I am here with my panel of experts. As always, our expert on both the military policy and so many other things, Chad Scott. Chad, how you doing?

[B]

I'm doing well, Nat. Glad to be here. Good to see you guys.

[A]

Good to see you too, man. And joining us as always, of course, our expert on oil, renewable energy, the energy sector as a whole, Mr. Global, Matt Randolph. Matt, how you doing?

[C]

Great, how are you?

[A]

I am full of energy, excited to talk about our rapidly declining world. I was hoping on that note that Matt, we could start with you. We are recording this a little early. It's the afternoon of Monday, April 27th as we're speaking right now and the global energy markets are unsurprisingly in flux once again. And Mr. Global, I was hoping you could give us a big picture look at what's going on in the world of energy right now.

[C]

Well, I think most importantly here at home, wholesale fuel prices have risen to their highest levels since June of 2022. If you remember 2022, fuel was really high. Now, we haven't reached those levels, but it's the highest since then. So a lot of this is due to the huge increase in exports out of the United States. Everyone's celebrating the tankers coming. It's a, you know, know, it's a, we're going to have a parade. Those takers are leaving with our gas and our diesel and that makes it significantly more expensive for us. So even though oil prices are about $25 a barrel cheaper than they were a month ago, gas prices are going to surpass where they were a month ago, easily. Average price of gas today was 411. Diesel is somewhere like 545. Those are going to start increasing more and more. They're up about 15 cents from a week ago. It takes a few days for these wholesale prices to sort of bleed into the retail market. Another thing that OPUS is reporting, and OPUS is a paid subscription service that oil companies use to track. Is that an oil and gas, huh?

[A]

Is that an acronym?

[C]

Oil Production Information Services? Yes. Gentleman named Tom Cloza is the founder. They are reporting that margins at the convenience store or wherever you buy your gas are about a third of what they typically are. And that's a bad sign. What that means is that gas stations themselves are pushing down gas Prices by taking less profit. You know, a lot of people think that they're gouging. They're actually not. So nationwide, on average, they're making about 11 cents a gallon right now is what a typical gas station is making on a gallon of gas. That's normally somewhere between 30, 30, 35 cents.

[A]

And why are they reducing those prices in this specific moment?

[C]

To keep traffic. Mostly to keep traffic from coming into their stores or to keep traffic coming into their stores. That's where they really make their money. They don't make a ton of money on gas. And they're, they, they're afraid of demand destruction. They're afraid of people, you know, buying less gas. And that means less people coming in the store. This.

[A]

And so you're talking about specific point of sale with gas stations, like, yes, consumer facing gas. And what I'm understanding is that these run on something of the comedy club model where the comedy is not actually what makes money. It's the, the booze and bad hamburgers that you sell that are actually the profit driver. So similarly, I'm learning now for the first time that Citgo is making a profit off Slim Jims and, you know, old hot dogs. Just enough monster energy drink to kill a toddler versus the oil itself, which is what gets people in the door.

[C]

Yeah, that's where they make all their money in the store.

[A]

Slightly more relatable. It might be the popcorn at a movie theater, but I've spent a lot of time in comedy clubs, so.

[C]

Yeah, interesting factoid. If, if you go to a convenience store and you fill up your gas tank and you buy a Snickers bar, they make more money on that Snickers bar than that entire $70 worth of gas you bought.

[A]

Wow.

[C]

Yeah, because they just don't make that much on gas. But this reduction in profit margin at the station, at the, at the point of sale like you're talking about, that almost always drops in times like this where you see big oil price jumps, but they always recover. And the amount to which they bounce back and recover is usually relative to how far they drop. And so they're concerned because they dropped farther than they normally do. So what they're saying is we could see a 30 or 40 cent increase in gas prices even if oil prices don't move anymore. And then when you stack on top of that, declining inventories, when they say by July, our commercial inventories in the United States will be below the operational minimums, which is really bad. So not looking good.

[A]

Wait, what? Explain what that means. To me, below the operational minimums, as in like, we will have too little surplus to function as usual.

[C]

So basically, you know, the EIA says based on how much fuel you use in a day, every country needs to have an operational minimum amount of fuel in storage to run their country. Right. And once you get to that, you should probably stop exporting. Right. But we're not going to do that.

[A]

Logical. To me, a non oil expert. Yes.

[C]

Yeah. So for the United States, it's 200 million barrels is our operational minimum. If we get below that, I don't think we'll stop exporting, but we will reduce the additional exports that are currently. Because our exports have increased by one and a half million barrels a day, I think that'll get reduced. And because we will have to maintain operational minimums or the prices will just go parabolic from wherever they are then. So that's a really bad spot to be in. When the industry is talking about hitting operational minimums for commercial, you know, diesel and gasoline inventories. That's a really bad thing. You don't ever want to hear that.

[A]

You don't want to get close.

[C]

No, you don't want to get.

[A]

So if I'm processing this correctly, the closing of the Strait of Hormuz has made oil scarce in such a way that's driven up the cost per barrel. So US Stores of oil are being sold more, they're being exported more now because there's a higher profit margin, thus depleting local reserves of oil and driving up prices domestically, causing gas stations to make less profit as well. Is that correct or am I getting the cause of there?

[C]

Pretty much sums it up. And there's not a lot we can do about it because we're refining at maximum capacity. So we can't, you know, as in

[A]

we are like within the US we're refining it. Okay. Yeah.

[C]

So when they talk about increasing oil production or selling oil out of the strategic reserve, it doesn't matter, because we are refining. We cannot make any more gas and diesel and jet fuel than we're making, no matter how much oil we have. And when inventory levels get as low,

[A]

we literally can't get it out of the ground faster than we're currently.

[C]

Like we can produce it, we just can't refine it.

[A]

Oh, sorry, I shouldn't say get it out of the ground. We can't prepare the crude fast enough.

[C]

Exactly. So what we're going to see, I predicted this last week, you might see crude level crude inventories actually rise while inventories of distillates so distillates are diesel. For the people that don't know that's your diesel. And your home heating oil and your inventories for gasoline and jet fuel are all going to be dropping as crude levels rise because we can't refine any more than we currently are. We're maxed out. And if we lose a refinery. Holy shit.

[A]

How would that.

[C]

This would be the worst time to lose refinery.

[A]

Sorry, what's that, Chad?

[C]

How could that happen? Well, they blow up all the time, you know, anything can happen.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So you're saying hurricane season comes along?

[C]

Oh, yeah, hurricanes. Oh, my God. Yeah.

[A]

So. So if any of the, the regularly occurring reasons that a refinery could fail were to happen right now, we would be in a particularly vulnerable moment.

[C]

Yeah, we're walking a tightrope, basically.

[A]

Not to give anyone ideas, but we

[C]

can't really afford for anything to fail. You know, we usually have some redundancy built into the system where it's okay, we've kind of wiped that out.

[B]

So are we seeing a. So I guess I have a question. Are we seeing a closure of the. The futures versus the spot price or is that still kind of a wide gap? That's kind of unprecedented because I keep trying to explain to people, they're like, well, they go Google that price and they're like, why is my gas price.

[C]

So I want.

[B]

I'm like, the spot price is still really high versus the futures. But I'm also hearing that that's starting to normalize again. Is that what you're seeing?

[C]

So they normalized for the wrong reason and now there's a gap again. So the reason they normalized was the big lie that came out last week about the ceasefire and the peace talks where oil crashed by like $20 or whatever that caused physical prices to come down to the closest point to futures prices than they had been in about a month. But now that prices are rising again, they're starting to gap a little bit more. So there's a little bit more separation there. But everyone is saying that that gap won't get as big as it was a few weeks ago when physical oil was 150 and the futures market was at 110. They said that's not going to come back. Like the market has kind of figured out what's happening, so we'll see what happens.

[A]

Matt, there's so much going on right now. I want to make sure I know what you're talking about. Which big lie last week, for the listener especially, because it's going to be a little while since they've heard of it. Which of Trump's lies that affected the oil markets temporarily are you referring to?

[C]

Well, it wasn't just Trump's lie, it was Iran's lie too. But when they said the Straight of Hormuz was open. Ah, yes, it was never open. And, and that caused oil prices to fall by more than $20 a barrel. But it never actually opened. And by the time they came out and said, yeah, it's not really open anymore, like the oil had already fallen. Right. So that's the big lie. I'm talking. That's this particular big lie. Yeah.

[A]

So on that note, where are we at with negotiations with Iran right now? It feels like we've gone back and forth. It feels like they have effectively flailed a number of times. I don't understand where things are breaking down. I was hoping, Chad, you could talk to us a little bit about what the current status of that is.

[B]

Well, I mean, obviously the big kind of upfront news is it seems that the negotiations are at a complete standstill. Trump has pulled Witkoff and Kushner. I'm glad he has. They are awful negotiators. I don't think they've ever negotiated anything worth talking about in their careers. Whether it was Russia, Iran doesn't matter. But the primary problem is that both the United States and Iran think they have the upper hand, and both sides are actually wrong. The United States obviously has the upper hand militarily, and that's really not something that's very debatable. I see people talk about how the, the Iranians have, have held off the US Navy, the US Military, but the fact is, is we're not truly forcing open the Strait of Hormuz. We're not forcing fully shutting down Carg Island. We're not actually doing the things that we have the capability to do, but we just don't have the political will. It's about choices for the United States, not about capability politically here.

[A]

One of the things that we've talked about in the past is like, yeah, we could do a full scale ground invasion of Iran, but Iran's massive and we'd be pulling troops from elsewhere in the world and we'd be exposing ourselves in other vulnerable territories where we'd be pulling those people from. Or also even just sort of depicting what the actual scale of our military might, you know, rather than making it

[B]

hypothetical, it would be a massive endeavor. US Casualties would be huge regional chaos. It'd be a long term war worth costing hundreds of Billions of dollars. It's not something we want to do. And Iran understands that. They know that that's not where we want to go. So they believe, though, that they have the upper hand in these negotiations because the United States is unwilling to go all the way. And so they say, well, we're holding this key choke point at risk, which is the Strait of Hormuz and kind of the Red Sea through Bob Al Mandeb. And they're exploiting the political toxicity of what Trump has already done. And that's what you see it in, their propaganda, the videos they send out and things like that. So they believe they could survive the storm. The problem is, is the. That both sides are mistaken because it's, it's never going to allow for them to come to a true negotiating table. The mistake Iran makes is there may come a point where if they keep saying no, Washington is going to have to do something with their overwhelming military power, and that would be a disastrous day for Iran. We know that Trump has this willingness to use force, but on the American side, the mistake is having us bounce between all these negotiating positions. I counted over seven weeks, the administration moving through five different phases of negotiations, and they're different where their position is going to stand. And I'll go and I can tell you all five of them. Basically, the first one is there was a military punishment, large amounts of force. It was generally successful from a tactical level, but seemed kind of a mixed bag on the strategic level, kind of leaning towards a strategic failure. Obviously, we're dealing with this right now. So because of the tactical strength that the military showed, Trump came out beating his chest. Maximalist demands. We want full dismantle of nuclear program. End your support of your proxies, Hezbollah and the Houthis. Dismantle the missiles and drones. And at one point, he even hinted at complete regime change. That obviously didn't happen. Close the Strait of Hormuz leverage shifted and a reactionary ceasefire bargaining deal over the Strait of Hormuz started. That was the third item. Now fourth, we're still reacting. Everything is reactionary now, which is always problematic. Try to counter blockade, didn't pursue. The desired results weren't produced. And then fifth, now we're to our fifth phase in this whole thing where everything's come off the table. We're not talking about nuclear issues, we're not talking about the missile and drone program. It's just we are dealing with the Strait of Hormuz, and Iran has watched as this position continuously changes. And so they just sit back and go. We have no reason to believe Trump is serious, has the discipline or the commitment to, to stick to something, and that's an advantage to Iran. So this is why we're probably not going to get a deal that is very good, and it's certainly not going to be as good as the Obama Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. And so from a standpoint of the negotiations, we're essentially at an impasse because both sides think they're winning, but both sides have a huge amount to lose and are completely ignoring that fact. And I just don't see us getting by that in the near term. Trump keeps telling the American people we're winning, but then. And he says things like, Iran is begging to negotiate. But the visible reality, everything we all see, is he is backpedaling consistently. It's like he talks about our performative strength, but then backpedals. Pete Hegseth backpedals. And I'll, I'll kind of close out this point here with, I think Pete Hegseth, the Secretary of Defense, if you don't, if you're not aware of it, is feeding Trump a steady diet of tactical updates without the diplomatic context. He's talking about all the cool things the military's doing, the targets they hit, the ships that they've stopped. But the tactical success is not the same thing as strategic success. We have historically dominated every military and every war throughout history, but rarely got any kind of a good strategic outcome, whether it was Vietnam, the Afghanistan, obviously, that went back to the Taliban. Every, every war eventually ends through diplomacy. I just do not think the leadership we have in place have the diplomatic chops to close this Iran chapter out. I think we're facing down a problem where we have to go to a diplomatic move because the military has kind of run out of its capability to inflict damage on Iran without doing some really atrocious things. And because of that, the diplomatic effort is just not there, and it's going to cause us to continue to fail and kick the can down the road. And we're just going to hear Trump talk about how awesome everything is when we all know it's not.

[A]

And I want to talk a little bit more about how we could possibly move forward for this. But I'm curious, because there has been a lot of reporting. You know, if you're, if you're watching mainstream news and you're looking at what's going on in Iran, it does sound like there's a lot of diplomatic back and forth. Where is that information coming from? And is Trump really in there negotiating or are we just sort of getting prisoners?

[C]

Well, so it's, it's very interesting you ask that, Nat, because a large portion of the reporting about negotiations and peace happened to come from one person that works for Axios, who happens to be a huge Trump supporter. And you might read a story on Reuters or see it on CNN or Fox News, but you know how the media works. If, if one person puts out a story, it's picked up and shared by every major media outlet. And we have figured out that this one person with Axios keeps reporting on all of these peace negotiations. And we've also figured out that most of them are completely false. They regurgitate old news and rewrap it as new news. So it's really hard to put a finger on what is actually happening concerning negotiations. All we know is every time Donald says there's negotiations happening, Iran says there aren't. And then nothing happens. Like we know that. But we also know that 12 different stories released by this same reporter with Axios that were all released within three to five minutes of the market opening were all false. And we know that that reporter is a huge supporter of Donald Trump. So, you know, that leads to a lot of confusion and what appears to be contributing to potential market manipulation and other things like that. Some of the stories also dropped a few minutes before markets closed. So the timing and inaccuracy of these reports are very, have been picked up like people are noticing.

[A]

So just to be clear, are you suggesting, does this indicate coordination or does this indicate a person who you need not coordinate with the president to serve his interests. But I'm curious as to, does this feel like just a PR wing of the White House or is this more do, do you, would you suspect more of an independent arm of support?

[B]

What am I looking as well, Yeah,

[C]

I, the reporter is Israeli, but I can't say there's coordination. All I can say is reports keep coming from the same reporter that are shared by the larger media moments before markets open about peace deals and they keep happening.

[A]

Yeah, I'm only asking because it doesn't suspect. I mean, I'm not suggesting conspiracy. Conspiracy need not exist to be mutually beneficial.

[C]

I'm just curious for sure. Yeah.

[A]

And we're in a mute as you're sort of suggesting a media environment in which a fast breaking story people run with, you know, maybe with a little less fact checking and a little, little less independent reporting than, you know, a slower media environment used to allow for. So if someone has a buzzy story about this Sort of thing. It can often get repeated into fact because it's been now reported by a series of different interconnecting web of sources. Whereas you're saying ultimately there's one source for a lot of this information that sounds a little regurgitated or repackaged or completely false in certain cases.

[C]

Yeah. And the thing is, Axios is considered to be one of those very trusted, respected news organizations. You know, when Axios reports something, people pay attention, you know. Yeah, I, I would. You know, I don't. Maybe up there with Reuters, maybe not. But the point is, they're not known to be fake news or hyperbolic.

[A]

No. They're generally considered more of a newswire. Like. Yeah, it's not quite ap Reuters level, level objectivity. They are considered to be an international newswire that's like trustable for basic facts.

[C]

Yeah, but all of these reports have come from this one person.

[B]

Right.

[C]

It's not from the organization as a whole. It's one person within Axios that keeps putting out these reports about peace and negotiations that not one of these stories has turned out to be true in any way. So that's something to. Look, I tell people, you know, get. Always get a second opinion. It's just like anything else. But it's tough for people when all of the news media is sharing the same original story that can be false. And so someone goes to get a second opinion and say they see it on Fox News or they see it on cnn, they're like, well, I got a second opinion and they're saying the same thing. No, they're just sharing the same story that was originally false to begin with.

[A]

Right, exactly.

[C]

You gotta be careful with that.

[A]

And just to put a finer point on it, what does that do to the markets? Like if there is cheerful or optimistic news, but, oh, negotiations are actually going really well. And that's the currently believed status of Iran at the moment the market's open. What does that do?

[C]

It moves the market. You know, if just spelling it out,

[A]

I'm just being very clear, like, what, what are we implicating here?

[C]

Yeah, we've had many days where we were expecting to see big jumps in oil prices which lead to big jumps in gas prices.

[B]

And then five minutes before the market

[C]

opens, it's, hey, peace. You know, oil falls 10, 15 a barrel. And the, really, the belief that, that,

[A]

that this will be dealt with and that the prices, that oil will be less scarce as a result of these imaginary negotiations drives oil prices down versus or prevents them from climbing up a little further. Due to the fake optimistic news.

[C]

And the dangerous thing with this is that it makes, when the real oil prices come, right when the market figures out, it makes it a lot worse. When you've suppressed it for so long. It's, it's, you know what I mean? It's like, it's like putting a band aid on a broken leg and, and thinking, oh, it'll be okay, you know, while it's sitting there festering and rotting or whatever. Like it's going to be worse because you didn't. You know, a lot of people, and I agree, a lot of people believe that we need to allow oil and gas prices to just go however high they're going to go because that will naturally cause demand destruction, which lowers the demand and can correct the market. But by continually artificially manipulating it, you're just making the problem worse. You're not treating the disease. You have to treat the disease to fix it. And by giving it Tylenol when it needs antibiotics, you're just making it worse

[A]

for how do we fix it?

[C]

You have to leave it alone. Like, this is how free markets work. You have to, you know, and it's going to be scary and it's going to be bad, but you're only making the future worse by prolonging that from happening. Because people look at oil prices and they're like, oh, that's not that bad. It was worse in 22. All you're doing is what is going to happen in three months from now, six months now, with inflation and food prices and all of the other things that are going to be impacted by this. You're making the future significantly worse by basically not taking your medicine now. You're also prolonging a war which I believe would end much quicker if oil hit $150. I believe that would end pretty quick. Like if it got there and stayed there for, you know, a couple of weeks, the peace negotiations would happen and they would figure it out.

[A]

But because the average person would feel the impact of it, you think, well,

[C]

just politically, it would be so bad politically for Washington, D.C. that they would have to end it. They're like, we have to end this. Like, this is the worst.

[A]

But specifically I'm asking is that because citizens are experiencing the pain point that they've been, they've been protected from until now. Because I think that's, you know, I want to ask you this because you're also a renewable energy expert and I think one of the. I sort of heard this bandied about. I think it's an interesting point which is that like I've heard people explain that most Americans don't actually understand what oil or gasoline costs partially because I mean, I remember going to the UK when I was younger and said oh my God, why is the gas twice as expensive here? And I had it explained to me that oh, some of this is, these are subsidies in the U.S. there's, there's tax breaks. And I quite frankly until going to the UK in my late teens or twenties, was not aware of how manipulated just at the pump our gas prices are at what point? I mean, because I've heard a lot of people in the renewable energy sector say like, oh, part of the problem is that Americans don't know how expensive gas is. They don't understand how expensive oil is because I mean, not quite I'm talking prior to the current conflict in Iran, but that even before this rapidly fluctuating oil market that Americans are generally politicians desperately want to keep the price at the pump down and we'll do what it takes to do that. And as a result we don't actually realize what the cost of our, of our, of our energy is.

[C]

Honestly, I think Americans are going to have to kind of own that themselves. I don't feel like this price shock would induce more investments in renewable energy, you know, commercially, but it would induce a lot more investment in renewable energy personally with people, more EVs, more at home solar, which is really, I mean if we're being honest about it, that's how, that's probably the biggest pie of, of how renewable energy is going to grow in the future is just people doing it themselves instead of waiting for billion dollar corporations to save them.

[A]

They're going to go libertarian approach.

[C]

Yeah, they're going to go get solar. They're going to figure it out.

[A]

Like, I mean you're seeing happen a lot of plug in solar is, you know, Arizona's got a bill, Utah's got a bill, Colorado's New York has the sunny Act. Looks like it's going to pass. I mean it's blowing up in other countries right now. I mean like Germany is, it's got a huge balcony solar movement going on right now. Yeah, and I said this before, I don't know how I'm supposed to tan my sexy ankles, but otherwise I do support. I mean it's blocking the front of my balcony. And we think about all the peeping Toms out there who watch me every day. I mean, is that really worth the cost of our environment? I guess I'm willing to Sacrifice it for them. Just saying there's an emotional cost. However, it does. Okay, it does bother me a little bit where we're like, all right, well, we all know wind and solar is cheaper, but now Trump is giving carve outs to the oil industry. And like, I live in New York State, where we then passed a, you know, three years ago, we passed a bill to get on 70% clean energy by 2030. And now they're telling us it's not possible to even start until then. And it just feels like it's getting smaller and smaller. Okay, so if I, if the state won't, we can't do it federally, we'll do it at the state. Okay. Our Democrat governor hired a Republican fossil fuel lawyer to run the power authority. All right, we'll do it within the city. Okay. Am I allowed to, am I allowed to have a potato clock on my desk that. Or is the price of produce due to shipping oil going to get so expensive that I can't have a little penny? The penny plugged into my potato clock is going to be too costly for me. A Casio watch with a, with a little solar panel like, I support balcony and rooftop solar as much as we can do it. But it does drive me insane where it's like, oh, the. What the, the solution is going to be, all right, fine, I'll do it myself.

[B]

Well, it's a, There's a broader problem, I think, with, there's a fascinating book called why Nations Fail. And it, this energy problem kind of correlates to some of the other problems that come up in that book, where there may be a necessity for it, there may be a need for it, there may be even a market driver for it, but you have a leadership, if you have a regime or an administration or whatever you want to call it in place that is actively blocking it. It'll never take off the people, unfortunately, even in the United States, even though we have a bit more power than other countries, but have this, have a problem where even if their voice. There's an overwhelming majority of people that want to have cleaner energy, cheaper energy, if the, the, the powers that be, whether it's the Trump administration or even Democrats or whoever, aren't playing ball or actively going against it, it won't happen all the way to the destruction of that country. We've seen it historically happen over and over again. Obviously, that was. Energy wasn't the reason back then. It was usually things like an unpopular war or they've made policies that cause massive amounts of famine. Things like that, but I see a correlation there where we can have all the political will within the populace we want. And yeah, I'll get my own personal solar. But if we want to have it at scale in huge amounts, if there's a hostile government towards it, major companies aren't going to fight that hostile government. I don't think.

[C]

I think that's a great lead into a question I want to ask Chad, talking about things being at critical or chaos levels to keep them more profitable because we're hearing and I don't know if it's true at all. So Chad, is that true in the defense contractor world? Because we've been hearing lately that like maybe we don't have the missiles, you know, and I don't know if any of that's true. Like if we're short on ammunition, missiles, things like that. Is that something that occurs in that world and is there any truth or do you know, like do we have stockpile issues maybe with stuff we've sent to Ukraine and now fighting this war? Can you talk about that?

[B]

I guess it depends on what the, the outcome of the fight you're looking at. Like if we're trying to fight another like regional skirmish like we are in Iran, we largely are going to be fine. The problem comes when we're trying to look at things like the potential pure fight against something like a China or something like that. A lot of it has to do with not necessarily the, the current stockpiles we have. In the near term it's the industrial base to continue replenishment that is something that China outpaces us on a pretty significant scale. Their ability to build not just missiles, munitions, but things like ships. Like they. One singular Chinese ship maker has made more ships in the last five years than the entirety of the US shipbuilding capacity since World War II. So it's a pretty significant problem that we would run into in a near peer fight. That being said, we do have the stockpiles currently that could sustain us long enough to probably get to what I would say the negotiating table. We could put enough pain on a country that they don't want to continue fighting us. But if we go into a protracted war like what I would call the World War 3 scenario or the scenario where we have to fight two foes at the same time. That used to be the kind of the primary effort of the United States was the simultaneity is what they called it, the ability to fight two wars or 2.5 wars at the same time. We just don't have that capacity anymore to do so, largely because we overextend ourselves within things like Iran and can't get to a negotiated settlement. And it leads us down a path where we previously, when it came to Iraq, 2003 or whatever, we had the ability to kind of eat away at our munitions because there wasn't really a pure foe out there that was challenging us. Now there are. And so we do have a problem with, with munitions on us on a grander scale from a manufacturing standpoint, the ability for us to build them in real time, kind of like how we did in World War II, where we turned a forward plant into building like aircraft and things like that. So, yeah, there is a problem there for sure.

[C]

And I think they were being more specific to interceptor missiles.

[B]

Yeah, well, Patriots, what they call the exquisite weaponry, it's like those types of weapons are, it's the weapons we would use. Like we have huge amounts of dumb bombs. But those weapons were never meant to destroy in Iran. They were meant to counter and ex what we would call a near peer adversary. And I did air quotes there. So it's like this adversary that is kind of fights the same way we do. And really the only near peer adversary we have is China. People could say Russia, but I disagree. And that near peer adversary with China, that's where that exquisite weaponry, the very expensive Patriot missiles, the, the Jasms, which are kind of the, the air to surface missiles that are, are extraordinarily expensive, but they're effective in the type of fight we need for Iran using that type of weaponry on, or, excuse me, with China using that type of weaponry on. Iran has depleted our, our, our stockpiles. And unfortunately we are to a place now where if Iran were to start the fight up again because negotiations fail, we would have to prioritize do we want to fight Iran still while looking across the globe at potential adversaries in China. And we'd have to make those decisions. So. And it's a lot of to do with misunderstandings with culture in, in Iran, the culture in China, Russia, et cetera, in our negotiating positions and how we understand that.

[A]

So if these negotiations fail, that's the situation that we find ourselves in. But what's going on with these negotiations? Obviously things aren't quite working. But why are they breaking down?

[B]

Well, there's, there's a fundamental misunderstanding of how these countries think. And it's not just Iran. The Trump administration views Iran, Russia, North Korea through a Western lens. And you see the rhetoric here, you see from Trump, Hegseth, even His supporters, that there's this almost rabid instinct to ramp up pressure, keep hurting Iran, keep intensifying the pain, force them to the table, make them capitulate. But that misses cultural context. They just aren't built to respond that way. Iran has endured almost 50 years of economic pain, brutal wars, sanctions, isolation, et cetera. And you have to separate, obviously, the Iranian people from the Islamic Republic, because I'm not trying to say we should apply more pain to the Iranian people, but things like the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the Ayatollah, they have a massive capacity to absorb a huge amount of pain. So when you see Trump and his administration look at it through a lens of, well, what would hurt me as an American, what would I not want to happen? And then try to apply that logic to Iran, it doesn't work. It leads to failure.

[A]

And Western countries, are we talking casualties? Are we talking economic or, you know, economic realities or economic effects or what?

[B]

All of the above. Okay, it's all of the above. Any kind of just sanctions, pain, isolation, pain, military pain, they're built to. To weather it in a. In a capacity that is. Is greater than what we have in the West. And we. We relate, react almost emotionally to small economic shocks, global instability, political pain. Iran, Russia, North Korea, they live inside of a world that is painful for them because of the way they operate. And it goes back to the teachings of the Ayatollah. When he came to power some 50 years ago, he argued that the Islamic Republic should never compromise on their core principles, and they should never capitulate to an enemy without exact exhausting every option to fight. And this value is ancient. It's a deeply held Persian value, where the word for compromise, which is sejesh S A Z E S H. I might be saying that wrong because I don't speak Persian or Farsi or whatever they speak, but they take it as a slur to them, instead of it meaning compromise. Where we see it as compromises? Oh, yeah, we're working together. They see it as selling out.

[A]

Different word, different cultural.

[B]

Yep. And so they feel that to compromise is cowardice, and strength is showing that you can take punishment, keep moving forward. And that connects the. How the Iranian hardliners are seeing these negotiations, and it goes back to the Soviet Union. They watched as Gorbachev compromised. He compromised the Soviet principles because he thought the west would save the Soviet Union. And the Soviet Union ended up collapsing. And the Ayatollah watched that, and it. That shaped his view. And so Iran walks into these negotiations believing that if they compromise, it would be capitulation, they would acquiesce to the US and that's existential for them.

[A]

I know you're making a really important distinction between obviously the Islamic Republic, the Islamic Republic and the people of Iran. But I'm curious because Matt and I were talking, or we were all talking earlier about essentially the American consumer is protected from sticker shock at all costs. Right. Like we are. We are. The most important thing is that we don't think that our economy is failing. Like we will do anything to manipulate to the point where the American consumer doesn't have to think that they are financially unstable. That's a massive cultural value, right? Like that's a massive way of doing things here. Is that different in Iran? Are you saying, like, obviously, like the civilians and the government are different, but, but are, is in Iranian culture, are people more directly connected to the impacts of what their government is doing in the way that, you know, Western societies have been a little bit protected from?

[B]

Unfortunately for the Iranian people, the negative effects amplify for them, but the positive effects are minimized. So whenever something positive happens to Iran, it's generally similar with Russia. A small group of powerful people, often obviously men, nearly all men obviously benefit from it. But when painful actions take place like sanctions or say a war, namely like the Iran Iraq war, it is hugely disproportionately the people that are impacted. The problem is those people have very little means to react to it. We saw the protests, we thought, oh, protests those are happening are great. They failed because the Iranian regime, the Islamic Republic, killed anywhere between 15 to 40,000 of them, machine gunned them down. And so they, they unfortunately do not have that outlet to find a way to, to overthrow the regime. And it makes that regime incredibly resilient. And so any pain we apply to the Islamic Republic, they're going to, just by the nature of their design, are going to be able to weather it more so than we are as Americans. Because the Islamic Republic will say, kill thousands of people. We aren't willing to do that. Right.

[A]

And they're completely willing to pass that page on to the citizens. And so we're not inflicting any damage on the Islamic Republic themselves with these sanctions necessarily as so much as on the civilian population. But they're not responding to the civilian population in the way that, I mean, obviously America's catapulting towards authoritarianism, but we have elections and people are still worried about winning them.

[B]

Yeah, we're, I mean, to be clear, we are nowhere near gunning Our people down in the streets like the Islamic Republic. I get concerned about what we have, where we're headed.

[A]

We gunned some people down on the street this year. Let's not act like we haven't.

[B]

That is true.

[A]

Labeled federal troops to murder civilians. You are in Minnesota earlier this year. It, you are correct several times over the last few years. So we are not. Not at that point. We are just not doing it as regularly. And on math.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

We've crossed a very significant line there in recent years.

[B]

Yeah. And, and we have in the past. I mean, obviously you have Kent State back.

[A]

I mean, yes. It was such a huge deal because it.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Once. And you know, of course, it hadn't. It happened to white people, too. That's the other.

[B]

Yeah. So it's, I will say that it's, it's just because of this, because the Trump administration looks at the Islamic Republic and thinks, if I do what hurts, what would hurt us? To them, they think that's a negotiating tactic and it's not going to work. This tactic, he's learning in real time why it took the Obama administration, John Kerry, Jake Sullivan, all of them, well over 18 months, some say up to five years of secret negotiations to reach just a singular negotiation on the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. It took that long just to talk about only the nuclear program. And now Trump is trying to say, do this or you're going to get hurt. And the Iranians are like, that's our life. Our life is pain. You can't hurt us more than, than we already are. And if you're going to hurt us, we're just going to transfer that pain to our people. And you're. You. We, they know that we are more humanitarian, focused, more that, that has more of a. That plays more at the heartstrings of Americans. We will watch the news and, and be upset that this is happening, whereas they, they don't care. And what ends up happening is they leverage that as a negotiating tactic. And so when Trump says, I'm going to hurt the Islamic Republic, they're. He's playing right into their wheelhouse what they want. Yeah, sure. Apply the pain. Go ahead. We can take it. It's the same thing Russia did. It's the same thing North Korea. These are countries built on pain. And unfortunately, if we want to overcome that, we would have to do extraordinarily atrocious things, which I hope to God we don't. But. Yeah.

[A]

So his only negotiating tactic seems to be bullying, but. And can only really double down on that. But doesn't seem to understand or accept at least that it's not. It just isn't going to work with people who are seemingly immune to that.

[B]

Yeah, it's definitely a what we wouldn't. The nice word is a pressure campaign, but it's not a pressure campaign. Gives the error of. It's a strategy. It's not a strategy for him. It's I'm upset, I'm pissed, and I want to hurt them. And that's where we hear the MAGA base come in and say hurt them more until they capitulate. And that's not the way out of this. But that the way out of this is a whole nother podcast discussion.

[A]

But perhaps we'll talk about it next week or yeah, the following week or in between now and then. Probably not. On that note, I'd like to go to a segment that we call the least worst part of my week. Let's look at a little bit of optimism, if not optimism story that's turning up is less horrible than everything else in the world of the military, energy or American culture and power in general. Matt, what's the least worst part of your week?

[C]

I fell in love with a monkey. I don't know if. I don't know if you guys have heard of Yuji, but use. Yuji is a 1.4 pound POTUS monkey in Mexico whose mother has rejected her. So she wakes up every morning cuddling a little, like, teddy bear, dog thing. And they're trying to figure out how to react, what introduce Yuji to her, you know, family species, whatever, however you say that. And this little bitty tiny. So I have like this little toy schnauzer. Her name's Tilly and she weighs two pounds. And this dog isn't any bigger than my foot. So I. This little monkey is like this little bitty tiny. And I implore you to read about Yuji, the Mexican baby patas monkey. It's. It's a really cool story. She has swept the hearts and minds of people in Mexico.

[A]

That's a small monkey, 1.4 pounds. I want to say I love when there's a celebrity animal. I love when an animal which could not possibly understand its level of celebrity becomes famous. Let's. Let's let them. Every celebrity disappoints you. You're never like, oh, grumpy cat was racist. Like, no, it's fine. He lived a good life. Remember that hot gorilla? There was a, there was a gorilla that a lot of people were attracted to.

[C]

You're talking About Harambe?

[A]

No, Harambe was a gorilla that was unjustly murdered. The hot gorilla lived a long full life. It was a phenomenon in Japan a few years ago that there was a gorilla in a zoo that people thought was like incredibly handsome. And I mean, I gotta say, the guy's got it going on. Like if you, if you google handsome gorilla, you'll look at it. You're like, I mean he's distinguished. But again, I just love it. Handsome gorilla is never going to have like problematic tweets where we can root for. I'm not for celebrity culture, but I'm like sure. So famous lion or whatever. I can get behind that.

[B]

So I do have a, I do have a question on this, this monkey. Because I have been watching the story. It's been really kind of heartwarming. But you start to wonder why is this monkey keep getting rejected by its people? Like are they looking at this monkey? And it's like, oh no, maybe it is racist. Maybe it's like this guy's really sucks

[A]

in the monkey realm.

[B]

Yeah. And the humans are inter intervening. Is that. I hope not. I hope it's the. I'm sure I'm like derailing the good news story with the, with like my cynical views, but no. I just wonder why does this monkey, why does everyone hate this monkey in the monkey?

[C]

All I know is that hours after giving birth, probably smells like us. Yuji's mother, Kamaria began exhibiting irregular behavior and struggled to hold this monkey correctly, leaving the infant unable to secure a grip on its mother. And ever since then, the people have taken over. So for whatever reason, maybe it's because it's so small. It's only 1.4 pounds. I, I don't know. I don't know a lot about monkeys, honestly.

[B]

Our producer just said he has bad energy.

[A]

Yeah, he just has bad vibes. Or isn't that be around perhaps? You know, I've got a least worst story that's similar. Matt, you're speaking my language. Because I love a very small animal. I love several. Very sorry. I love every very small animal. If I'm being only some buddy, I thought a bee was cute the other day. It's all, there's it's all happening for me at this point. I can look at a lizard and be like, oh, looks so cuddly. But. Nepal Discovered in Nepal in the past week, past month, I believe the first sighting of a long thought extinct otter. The world's smallest species of otter, the Oriental otter, was sighted in Nepal for the first time for 185 years. Not actually extinct, just very small.

[B]

My wife will love you for that.

[A]

Hard to find.

[B]

I assume that's her favorite animal. She'll love that news.

[A]

The. The elusive otter that she thought. Long thought extinct.

[B]

No, just otters in general.

[A]

That would make a lot more sense. Yes. The elusive oriental small clawed otter. So old that we were still calling things oriental at the time. That otter due for an update. You know how I said celebrity animals will never disappoint you? That is a problematic otter title and we need to, we need to update that otter. It's not his fault. He's been hiding 185 years. Do you have a story I can

[C]

go seek world champion right there.

[B]

I don't. Yeah, there you go. I don't. I don't have an animal.

[A]

No, that's not really the focus. We've just skewed that way.

[B]

My minor never is fun like. But this is, I think this is some good news and it kind of ties back into what you all were talking about earlier with the clean energy. We've reached a male, a huge milestone where the clean, all, the clean out, the clean power, all new global electric demand is in clean power now and not in fossil fuels. So kind of rephrase that because I was stumbling over that. But basically we.

[A]

The new clean energy being built is outpacing the new demand for energy, which was almost gonna be my story until Matt had a cute one and I want to do a cute one.

[B]

Oh, so you have the same thing on my phone. Yeah, so I, I thought that was very cool because it's just. And honestly it was. I found this before the whole conversation on clean energy and whatnot. But yeah, the only thing is the reason it's a least worst story and not because I usually say, well, this is the best story is because it's driven largely by the Chinese, which is a good thing because the Chinese really are the biggest polluter still in the world as a country. But it means that the United States is not doing what it needs to do.

[A]

Oh, of course not. No. China's clean energy production in the past 15 years has been incredible.

[B]

Enormous growth infrastructure and it's actually going to help them geopolitically in the future. They still are the largest polluter as a country, mainly because of their, the industry and stuff like that. But. And the number of people they have. But also they. All of this new solar power, like 50% of all new solar energy was in China. And it's. That's a good thing. It means it's a good thing for humanity in the globe. But it also means that we need to step our game up here in the United States so that we can get going on the clean energy to be better with it. But that being said, we have reached that milestone of, of all new energy requirements are now covered by clean energy. So that's, that's good news.

[A]

Yeah. And for all our old Cold War enthusiasts, you can say you don't want China to beat us at clean energy, do you? I'm not saying we should be a nationalist, but I say there's those people exist already, you know, tap into whatever.

[B]

It's like the Olympics. I mean, it doesn't matter how globalist you are. When the Olympics happen, my country is going to beat yours.

[A]

I don't know. I was, I was rooting for that Turkish sharpshooter who wasn't wearing protective lenses, personally. Yeah, I learned, I learned very quickly that my country loyalty is immediately overridden by someone who looks a little cool. Oh, absolutely. I mean, don't get me wrong, I'm rooting for our curling team, but that's mostly mustache based. I just like their vibe.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Next week we'll talk a little bit more about the negotiations in Iran and how we could actually, in the long term, get out of this current situation. That'll be our discussion for next week. Thanks so much for listening for Chad Scott and Mr. Global. Matt Randolph. I'm Nat Town. This has been American Power from Find out Media. Remember, power corrupts, but American power corrupts Americanly.