CIA Targets Tucker + Trump's WARNING To NATO | PBD #760

Summary

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PBD Podcast #760 — CIA Targets Tucker + Trump's WARNING To NATO

Date: March 16, 2026
Host: Patrick Bet-David ("Pat") with Tom, Adam, and Vinny
Timestamps included throughout

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Episode Overview

This episode dives deep into major current events: Donald Trump's warnings to NATO and China regarding the Strait of Hormuz amid heightened Iran conflict, Tucker Carlson’s claim that the CIA is targeting him over communications with Iran, major divides in right-wing media (including a public spat between Mark Levin and Megyn Kelly), and the economic impact of rising oil prices and Meta's potential massive layoffs. The panel debates the pressure on US foreign policy, the “woke right,” and the state of political media infighting.

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Main Topics & Key Insights

1. Trump’s Warning to NATO and Strait of Hormuz Crisis

Start: [11:00]

• Pat kicks off discussing Trump's demands for more NATO and Chinese support to keep the Strait of Hormuz open, emphasizing the intersection of global oil supply security, alliances, and leverage against Iran.
• Tom: Expresses concern at a perceived weakening of U.S. “independent leadership,” noting, “we’re rallying people. And while he may be using it in the right way to get the right leverage…it looks like we need our friends.” [26:40]
• Pat: Defends Trump’s leverage play, arguing that public pressure is meant to force China and NATO to clarify their stances; it’s about “finding out, are you with us or Iran?” [26:20], tying it to broader US strategic interests.
• U.S. has a significant military/economic commitment to NATO but receives little direct support, leading the podcast to question alliance value: “Why are we giving 16%?” of NATO’s budget. [23:17]
• Adam: Frames Iran as a “hostage-taking nation since 1979,” now using oil to hold Europe and Asia hostage. Warns, “If we don’t deal with Iran now, we’re going to be dealing with Iran for the next 10, 20, 50 years.” [29:13]
• Iran’s Foreign Minister’s Statement ([31:02]): "The Strait of Hormuz is only closed to the tankers and ships belong to our enemies...” Panel dismisses this as bluff and propaganda, noting Iran attacked non-U.S. vessels (Thailand, Japan, Panama).

Memorable Quote:

• “At the end of the day, Iran is the bad guy… Our kids or our grandkids are going to be dealing with this, and the debate is over.” — Adam [29:13]

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2. Escalation in Iran: Boots on the Ground & U.S. Strategy

Start: [43:25]

• Deployment of 2,500 Marines and amphibious assault ship USS Tripoli signals escalation; panel debates whether this was anticipated or a “mission creep.”
• Pat: Urges trust in Trump’s instincts: “Either you trust Trump’s instinct or you don’t… You don’t have all the information.” [46:33]
• The roundtable confronts the “stay and finish the job or leave” dilemma — audience poll: 70% favor staying to finish the job. [56:06]
• Tom: Cautions that eradicating the IRGC isn’t as simple as toppling leadership: “Those guys are not gonna quit, bro. If your ideology is kill all these people…and you kill yourself, you’re going to get virgins in heaven… That’s a crazy mindset.” [56:22]
• Panel contrasts Iran with Iraq post-Saddam, warning against unintended consequences: “You can't just say, well, Trump went in there and just started it. There has to be a plan, Adam. And from the looks of it, there isn't a plan when it comes to a leader.” — Vinny [59:02]
• Calls for Middle Eastern countries to take more responsibility; “You can talk the talk, but are you willing to walk the walk?” — Adam [39:09]

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3. Tucker Carlson Claims CIA is Targeting Him

Start: [71:01]

• Tucker Carlson video highlights:
  • "The CIA is preparing some kind of criminal referral against me… on the basis of a supposed crime I committed… Well, talking to people in Iran before the war. They read my texts.” [71:05]
  • “I have only one loyalty, and that’s the United States… I’m not an agent of a foreign power.” [71:54]
  • “Countries tend to become more authoritarian in wartime…” [72:27]
• Vinny: Dissects the likelihood of CIA “monitoring Tucker” — probably more about signals intelligence picking up his number when monitoring Iranian targets.
• Panel debates if Tucker was used by the White House as an unwitting disinfo vector, possibly even as a ruse for the Iranian regime: “Is it possible that Trump played Tucker to take out the leaders of Iran? …It is not possible. Is it possible that Trump plays media guys and presidents have done this?” — Pat [88:14]
• Pat: Draws a line: “If you are helping and you came to the White House, I want you arrested… 90% chance he didn’t do that.” [77:47]
• Tom: Raises J.D. Vance’s connection through Tucker’s son, speculates it could hurt Vance's trust rating with Trump.

Memorable Quote:

• “The person this hurts the most… you best believe it’s one person: J.D. Vance. That hurts the most. You know why? Because Tucker’s son works for JD.” — Pat [80:17]

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4. Right-Wing Media Civil War: Mark Levin, Megyn Kelly, and Israel

Start: [93:38]

• Public feud: Mark Levin calls Megyn Kelly "emotionally unhinged, lewd and petulant," she fires back labeling him "micropenis Mark Levin." [95:09]
• Core division: Whether support for Israel should be prioritized over "America first." Panel discusses accusations that Mark Levin and Ben Shapiro are “Israel first”; Adam argues, "America first doesn’t mean that Israel needs to be the villain." [103:09]
• Pat: Observes “Trump is siding with Levin, not Megyn Kelly, not Tucker.” Wonders about the shift in alliances and the missed opportunity for unity on the right.
• Panel laments the lack of figures trying to unify the right and warns infighting ultimately helps Democrats in 2028.

Notable Quotes:

• “If you’re pro family, pro capitalism, sick and tired of ESG, LGBTQ in the military… and you’re falling for the trap of woke right, you’re gonna get a Democrat president.” — Pat [112:27]
• “Unification doesn’t bring eyeballs. People want controversy, people want change, people want conflict — the three Cs is what gets eyeballs.” — Pat [105:12]

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5. Economic Turbulence: Oil, Meta Layoffs, and Inflation

Start: [15:58], [123:39]

• Oil prices surge amid Strait of Hormuz standoff (latest crude at $94—$100, spikes threaten consumer pain) [15:04], [127:52]
• Meta (Facebook) eyes 20% workforce layoffs—panel dissects claims that “AI costs” are driving this (about 16,000 jobs). Pat calls it “AI washing”: layoffs justified under the buzzword of AI efficiency, while boosting EBITDA and share value. [124:18]
• “Wall street loves almost as much as EBITDA? Layoffs.” — Tom [125:06]
• Pat's analysis: “Firing 20% of their workforce adds a quarter of a trillion dollars of valuation to Meta.” [130:04]
• Gas prices: audience weighs in; panel discusses the nationwide impact, with Pat joking, “Small price to pay for eliminating the greatest terror threat in the world.” [139:46]

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6. Bonus & Lighter Segments

• Bigfoot Sightings: Brief comedic detour noting “eight sightings in four days,” leveraging political humor (“Maybe we should say he’s an anti-Semite, then they’ll find him faster”). [16:47]
• Birthday Shoutouts: Panel gives lighthearted birthday wishes to friends/family. [13:09]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Strategic Alliances:
  “We’re typically accustomed to [others] telling you guys what to do, but you don’t seem to be afraid of it. Here’s what I need you guys to do.” — Pat [27:33]

• On Authoritarianism During War:
  “Countries tend to become more authoritarian in wartime... The U.S. fights wars on behalf of freedom, but there’s always less of it here in our country during war.” — Tucker Carlson [72:25]

• On Infighting and Tribalism:
  “If your brain automatically goes to everything is Israel, you lose everybody… maybe it’s kind of flirting with that though right now…” — Tom [98:42]

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• [11:00] – Start of main discussions: Trump, NATO, and Iran
• [19:00–23:00] – NATO’s value, U.S. contributions & friction
• [28:05–31:02] – Iran’s history, nuclear fears, and the Tehran regime's logic
• [31:02–34:00] – Iranian foreign minister’s claims on Strait of Hormuz
• [43:25–54:00] – U.S. deployments, strategic options, audience poll on “stay or leave” in Iran
• [71:01–73:06] – Tucker Carlson claims CIA is after him
• [80:17–86:00] – J.D. Vance, trust, and internal campaign politics
• [93:38–112:00] – Mark Levin vs. Megyn Kelly: Israel, the media, and right-wing fractures
• [123:39–133:34] – Meta layoffs, AI, and valuation analysis
• [127:52–139:59] – Oil prices, gas price discussion, and economic impact

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Final Thoughts

• The episode paints a turbulent geopolitical and ideological landscape: military brinkmanship with Iran, shifting alliances, and deep schisms on the American right.
• Themes of trust (in leaders and allies), skepticism of media motives, and the tension between unity and division dominate the discussion.
• While occasionally irreverent or combative, the hosts seek to challenge their audience to consider long-term consequences, whether in foreign policy, economic choices, or political movements.

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End of summary.

Transcript

[Tom]

Sa. Sa. Sa. Sa. Sam. Did you ever think you were made? I feel I'm supposed I could take sweet victory I know this life meant

[Pat]

for me Adam, what's your point? The future looks bright.

[Tom]

My handshake is better than anything I ever saw. It's right here.

[Pat]

All right. Hope you had a good weekend. We got a lot of stuff going on to talk about. I know one of them is some good news for some of you guys that were having a hard time with the cost of renunciating your citizenship of $2,400. I, I suggested they make but they're giving a massive, massive 80% discount to those who hate America and want to go to a different country. Lifechanging news to those that want to leave America. Big news. Give a shout out to Marco Rubio for giving that discount to you. I was hoping he would go full 100%. I don't want to say the word. Yeah, I was hoping he would go full 100%, but he didn't. He went 80%. It is what it is. Sometimes you got to kind of be thankful for any discount you get. So for those of you that have friends and family who always talk about how much they hate America, share that article with them. Life changing from $2,350 to $450. We are a business podcast. We're all about saving money. This saves you nineteen hundred dollars. For some of you guys that want to leave this place. There's some, some stuff that's going on this weekend with NATO. President Trump comes out and warns NATO presses China to help. Repeat Strait of Hormuz. A reopen Strait of Hormuzzi. This is from Reuters. And by the way, it's. He's almost saying he's not going to meet with XI end of the month. Tom and I were talking about this. If they don't participate and help out, which is kind of weird to do that, and who knows how much leverage. You know, the president knows the, you know, rules of leverage. Who knows how much of the leverage he's using behind closed doors? But we'll talk about that. Of course. We're going to spend about an hour and a half today's podcast talking about Oscars. No, we're not. There was an Oscar last night. What's more important than Oscars is three people that won Oscar in our lives here. One of them is Sawyer Garglio. It's your birthday today. That's Rob's son. Happy birthday to you. Oscar winning for this, for this group, number two. Veronique Vero Oshana. Happy birthday to you as well. Vinnie's sister. And last but not least Oscar winner for us. Happy birthday.

[Tom]

Happy birthday,

[Pat]

Becky. And happy birthday to you.

[Tom]

Shout out to Tico as well.

[Pat]

Yeah, that's right. We got something going on with Tucker. Tucker came out and dropped a video that got 24 million views saying the CIA is watching his text messages he had when he was talking to folks in Iran. It's a lot of different things. You know, people are speculating what could happen. Could he get arrested? Could something happen to him? Laura Loomer is involved. Then Candace and not Candace, Megan and Mark Levin got into it and it got so. I don't want to talk about the macro and the micro, but, but it got so like, really, did you see like the comments about micro. Not microeconomics, but it wasn't micro. Micro dangling. I mean this, this stuff got personal very quickly. But we'll show that to the point that the president had to put out a long, one of his long, you know, novels that he tweets out. He put one for Mark Levin. We'll talk about that reaction from the audience because I know Adam's very close with Mark, so we'll talk about that. And then Ben Shapiro, Pierce, Tucker, some conversations there as well. And then what else do I have here? Israel saying they're putting boots on the ground in Lebanon. The war so far has cost $21 billion to all the people that are taxpayers wondering how much you have to pay up. That bill is coming here very soon. $21 billion thus far. And then aside from that, Iran might be. Iran war might be the least popular conflict in modern US History. This is Daily Caller. Trump says many countries will send warships to patrol Strait of Hormuz. Pentagon sending assault ship, at least 2500 marines towards Iran as US works to reopen Strait of Hormuz while oil prices spike. I think it's at 95. Crude oil was 9. Tom, am I correctly on 95ish this morning?

[Tom]

94 down, down 3 this morning.

[Pat]

94. That was up a point. Everything pre market is around a. A half two point. Yeah. So we'll see, we'll see how it opens up here in a minute. JD Vans response to report he op opposes Iran war behind closed doors. And what else we got here? It's not just oil. Here comes Hormuz inflation. US oil groups in line for $63 billion windfall from Gulf war disruption. Meta eyes massive. You ready? Meta doesn't want to lay off 100 people not a thousand people. 20% what? Of the workforce cut as AI infrastructure costs continue to soar across operations report 16% of their employees. They're laying off because of AI cost. That's what they're saying. I mean, listen, maybe other things.

[Tom]

Everybody's blaming AI.

[Pat]

Yeah.

[Tom]

Oh, I had a layoff. It must be AI.

[Pat]

We got it. We got a few other things to get into. Maybe we'll show something. One clip from one of the Oscar winners yesterday that talked about moms and family, which, thank God somebody's talking about that there. And we have a few other stories that we'll get into as well. Eight sightings of Bigfoot in four days. Reports of 10 foot tall beasts making grunting noises. So this is eight sightings. By the way, there's so many jokes with this one here. I mean, you have to realize, yeah, we were able to find Khamenei and kill him and 50 guys. We were able to find a lot of people, but we're having a hard time finding this Bigfoot guy. Maybe we should ask, you know, somebody. We should say he's an anti Semite.

[Tom]

Will find him. Oh, we'll find him real quick. We just find him real quick.

[Pat]

I think Bigfoot hates anybody that's from the Israel Jewish community. Within a week, they're going to find him. He's going to get targeted.

[Tom]

He'll have a golden pager.

[Pat]

By the way, that rumor got started here. We started the rumor. If you hear in the next week that Bigfoot is out, our apologies. Or maybe the other way around because everybody wants to find out where this guy lives. All right, having said that, let's just get right into the stories. Which story should we start off with? Let's start off with the story. Go with this. Trump warns Naito presses China to help reopen Strait of Hormuz. What does this really mean? Tom's got some thoughts. Tom, Rob, if you want to play the clip and then I'll read the story. Like as an example, in many cases

[Tom]

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Visit lifelock.com podcast Terms apply We're always there for NATO. We're helping them with Ukraine as many

[Pat]

it's got an ocean in between us,

[Tom]

doesn't affect us, but we've helped them. And be interesting to see what country wouldn't help us with a very small endeavor which is just keeping the straight open that by comparison is a small it's small because Iran has very little firepower left.

[Pat]

Okay, so to read this, Trump warned Naito of a very bad future if allies do not help open up the Strait of Hormuz and said he may also delay a planned summit with President Xi in comments published in Financial Times on Sunday. I think China could help too, because China gets 90% of its oil from Straits, Trump told a newspaper, adding he would prefer to know Beijing's position before the planned visit. We may delay he set up the trip. Scott Besant and the Chinese Vice Premier he Lifeang I I thought it meant like his lifeline, but that's actually his name. He H E L I F E N G Lifang He Lifang this is not like desalination. This is something else. Desalination. We're not talking about that. This is literally how his name is spelled. Rob, can you please highlight the name so everybody can see how his name is highlighted right there.

[Tom]

He's living his best life.

[Pat]

Zoom in as close as possible. Zoom in if you can. He Le Fang. Great name. I mean, it's really a great name if you think about it. Wrapped up the first of two days of talks in Paris on Sunday to iron out kinks in their trade, truce and clear path for Trump's trip to Beijing to meet with Xi. It's only appropriate that people who are the beneficiaries of the strait will help to make sure that nothing bad happens there. Tom, thoughts?

[Tom]

So over the. Over the weekend, you know, I was kind of disturbed by this because we've been holding a strong leadership position, Trump's been holding a strong leadership position. And then over the weekend, it's like he opens it up in three directions. The first thing he says, I think China should help us. As you pointed out, I think they need to weigh in. They need to get their oil from Straits or Hormuz. They need to exert their own pressure. Hey, let the oil go through. The second thing he does with China is. Doesn't just ask that. And he says, and I need to know what's going on before we do the summit next week, otherwise, I'm not going to do the summit. So he says, vinnie, I'm going to call off the summit. These are important economic summits. We're trying to get the ball rolling with China. We're trying to get economic agreements and things in place, you know, and keep our eye on them with Taiwan. The third thing he did is he reaches out to NATO and he says, hey, you know, you guys. You guys should weigh in as well. You know, I want to know where you stand. Are you supporting us? And do you. Can you put some deposits?

[Pat]

You have a problem with that? Do you have a problem with that? Ask.

[Tom]

So I don't have a problem with the ask in normal circumstances. But you went in, we went in to do this, and now it feels like we need other people's help. When the tone we had Pat for the first 10 days, we got this, we're taking care of it. We have a structured plan. Here we go. And now it feels like maybe things are getting a little bit not as certain and we need some help here. And so that's what I'm. That's what I'm a little bit concerned about. It's like, are we reaching out for help? Even trying to influence China, I mean, on something that was ours and that. That we need to mop up?

[Pat]

Here's how I process this, Tom. I'M not a fan of NATO in the first place, and let me tell you why.

[Tom]

I don't trust.

[Pat]

So, but, but the point is, why do we started. Why did NATO get started? The fear of who?

[Tom]

Russia, Soviet.

[Pat]

Soviet Union. All right, and how much money do we give them every year?

[Tom]

Too much?

[Pat]

No, but you know what the. Rob, can you pull out what we give them every year? NATO's annual budget is 3.8 billion. US share, 16%. Why?

[Tom]

For what?

[Pat]

Why are we giving 16%? And by the way, we give you 16% and you want to come out and say, you know, you don't want to support. What does Spain contribute? What does Spain contribute? I'm curious, what does Spain contribute towards?

[Tom]

Just the fees, Pat. Remember the supports. Another.

[Pat]

No, no, I know the on top. I was about to read it. On top of that, the military support that we offer, the defense support that we offer, the 100,000 U.S. troops that are stationed in Europe that we offer, we're paying for all of that. Right?

[Tom]

So.

[Pat]

And you don't want to back us up if we're making the ask. How often do we make asks? Actually, Rob, can you pull up the top 10 times US has asked NATO for favors? Top 10 times US has asked NATO for favors? How often do we ask them for?

[Tom]

Definitely after 9, 11. That was the first time I think we implemented Article 5.

[Pat]

I want to say, however, how many, how many times?

[Tom]

I think that was the one major crisis. Times. I would be surprised if there was more than four or five actual crisis.

[Pat]

So then if that's the case, if we're doing this, hey, we need you to be with us. We're your biggest contributor to your fund. Every year until President showed up, they're like, how much money are you putting in? I just looked up right now how Spain contributes, and Spain came out and said, we're not going to be doing anything, you know, you can't fly over us. They pay 5 to 6% of NATO's budget, okay, which is 150 to $200 million per year. How big is Spain's military? How does Spain help NATO be safer? How does Spain help Europe be safer? I don't know. When you, when you hear some of this stuff and they don't want to defend it, the reality of war is here's how war works. In my, my opinion. You say you're going to go to war, you got all these plans, you have all this stuff, you get as much intel as you want, right? And then it's the actual war. Then what happens? Well, you can train all you want against somebody. You're going to fight them, and then you fight and you're like, oh, my God, I wasn't expecting that. What was that all about? Right. So to me, there is some, some weird things that's happening with the war that they did not expect that for him to not come asking NATO. And by the way, if he's saying this publicly, if he's saying this publicly, Tom, which is what I think China should help, too, because China gets 90% of its oil from the Strait of Hormuz. Trump told a newspaper, adding he would prefer to know Beijing's position before the planned visit. Visit. Let me read that one more time. He would prefer to know Beijing's position before the planned visit or the summit. Right. What does that mean, though?

[Tom]

That's what he said in the paper. The phone call was probably a little bit more direct.

[Pat]

But, but, but if he's saying this publicly, he would prefer to know Beijing's position before the planned visit. That means he doesn't know their position.

[Tom]

That's right.

[Pat]

That means when he's having the call, are you with us? Are you with them? He doesn't. You know what Macron said yesterday? Macron came out and said, I called President Possesskian from Iran and I told him, hey, stop messing around with Strait of Hormuz or else. What's Macron publicly saying to Trump, I'm with you, I'm with you. And Trump is trying to find out, hey, China, before I come to you and we do any of these deals, are you with us or are you with Iran? I actually think he's, he's leveraging NATO as a way to see what position China is going to take. I understand it's probably not as what. And by the way, push back if you have a different position. What other way do you see it?

[Tom]

You're right. My point was independence. We look like we had a strong independent voice. Now we're rallying people. And while he may be using this and, and, and using it in the right way to get the right leverage and the right phone calls, you know, we looked real independent and strong, and now it looks like we need our friends.

[Pat]

Oh, there is from day one. We needed friends from day one. I mean, you know, this is, this has been with Israel. Then golf's been involved and other people have been involved. I don't think this been. This has been an alone project from day one. Has it been?

[Tom]

No. Well, here's my thing.

[Pat]

Did you think this was an alone project from Day one.

[Tom]

No, we were. We weren't even getting verbal support from NATO, especially Spain. So I don't know that. Did we go alone? No, but there was not full throated support for this. Everybody was like, I can't believe you're doing this.

[Pat]

Oh, that part I agree with. That part I agree with. But guess what? He called the shots now what? He's the president. There's consequences with elections. If a guy gets elected and they go to these different events and they realize this is not a Biden would Biden guess what they do? It's the other way around. They tell Biden what to do. This time it's a new president coming in and he's telling other people what to do. They're not used to that. Like, wait a minute. We're typically accustomed to telling you guys what to do, but you don't seem to be afraid of it. Yeah. Here's what I need you guys to do. Adam, your thoughts?

[Tom]

So ultimately, this comes down to Iran. You know the one word I think of when I think of Iran? It's hostage. You know, they came in in 1979 and held how many of our citizens hostage?

[Pat]

444.

[Tom]

Okay, so they came in in 1979 and held.

[Pat]

Can you fact check?

[Tom]

400 to hundred of our own citizens hostage. And now what they're doing for leverage is holding the world hostage. So that starts with this Hormuz thing. That starts with oil, that starts with energy.

[Pat]

52, 44 days.

[Tom]

Okay. And then it ends to the supply chain. Remind me where we used to hear the supply chain, supply chain, supply chain, all during COVID But if they didn't expect this from Iran, then they went in a little naive. I would like to think that they knew. All right, what are the options Iran has? They. I don't know if they expected them to attack their own neighbors. I don't know if they expected that. Oh, gee, that caught them maybe off guard. Did they expect them to use the straight of Hormuz as, as leverage? Well, if according to one of the top insiders who was on Meet the Press with the Kristen Welker this weekend, they expected this. They said, what's the highest gas prices we've ever had in America? Well, it was in 2022 when gas went up to five bucks during the time that Russia invaded Ukraine. So money, power, respect, this was all it comes down to. Look, at the end of the day, it's this. Iran is the bad guy. And we could kick the can down the road or we can deal with this now, and Trump and I respect the hell out of him. He's dealing with this now because who knows who the next administration is going to be? Who next. Who knows who the next president's going to be. And if you don't deal with Iran now, you're going to be dealing with Iran for the next 10, 20, 50 years. And ultimately, this is my biggest fear. If I could just land this plane. Do we want a nuclear armed jihadist regime in the middle of the world? You know, they talk about, what's a case example here, North Korea. North Korea. They called, you know, what they call North Korea, the hermit kingdom, because they're all the way on the other side of the world with nukes. They don't really affect geopolitics to an extreme, but we know what that's like dealing with North Korea. Could you imagine a North Korea with jihadist tendencies, funding terror with nukes? At the end of the day, if we don't deal with this now, our kids or our grandparents or grandkids are going to be dealing with this and the debate is over. We're dealing with it now. It just. Now what are the next steps?

[Pat]

Yeah, I mean, it's, it's fair what you're saying. And by the way, this leads to what Iran foreign minister came out, two things that was mentioned on the foreign minister's call. One of them was about the nuclear conversation, and the other one was about the fact that any country, this is what they said, Rob, if you got the clip, any country except for us and Israel can pass through the Strait of Hormuz. Iranian foreign minister says this is a New York Post story. So Iran, Is this it, Rob?

[Tom]

Yes, sir.

[Pat]

Go forward.

[Tom]

Well, as a matter of fact, the Strait of Hormuz is open. It is only closed to the tankers and ships belong to our enemies, to those who are attacking us and their allies. Others are free to pass. Of course, many of them prefer not because of their security concerns. This has nothing to do with us. And at the same time, there are many tankers and ships who are passing through the Strait of Hormuz. And I can say that the strait is not closed, but it is only closed to American, Israeli, you know, ships and tankers and not to others.

[Pat]

Tom.

[Tom]

So I, I think this is your classic bluff. And it's like, all right, all these tankers can go through, except these, all of these tankers are like registered. They don't carry certain flags. They're like Liberian registry and stuff. You have to go look and see what the registry is. And some of them may be carrying for Exxon. Some of them may be caring for this. I don't know that how you sort it out. And I, I read this this weekend that said, okay, so he's not going to allow tankers this. So really, because there's, there's these freight lines, and so I don't know how they sort them out. And so that's kind of the, the question that I had. How do they know who's carrying what? Right. And you have to, like, board them and ask for the manifest. Oh, you know, we're, we're, we're this line and we're. Liberian registry. And we're caring for Shell oil today. Where's the Shell Oil going? Oh, we're, we're, we're going to Los Angeles, San Pedro. First of all, why would they be doing that? But you see the point, Pat. So I was trying to figure out how exactly do they sort him out, or is it just the great bluff, only these people can go through? Only these can go through. What, is there a TSA checkpoint on one side of this? Are they checking papers? So to me, it seemed like a little bit of a, just a kind of a bluff. It's like, how do you know?

[Pat]

I mean, bluff is one. The other part is he's lying because if he's, if you look at the ships that were hit by. One ship was from Thailand, that they were hit by the projectiles. Right. Okay, so that's not us.

[Tom]

A little drone kind of crashed into the side.

[Pat]

That's right. And it was three missing members or whatever. Another one was Japan. And you got a couple other countries that you have that. Panama was one of them, an oil tanker, one crew member killed, again, another projectile. And you have Angola. So they're using this as a way to say, hey, world, we're good with all of you. Just not good with Iran and Israel in the interim. What other countries did you hit in the Gulf States? Who else have you hit?

[Tom]

Bahrain.

[Pat]

Are you, are you attacking all these other places?

[Tom]

Everybody.

[Pat]

So what do you mean? Your allies and you're good with everybody except for Iran and Israel. He's lying to the world when he's saying that many.

[Tom]

So here's my question, though, Pat. If we own the skies, which we do, we've sank all their ships, all their navies, why the hell are we, who, who is going to tell us what we can and we can't do there?

[Pat]

Who.

[Tom]

Who's stopping us from doing exactly what the hell we want to do his military. Lloyd's. What's, what's that? The insurance. So the insurance has said, I won't insure you if you go through this. Which is why Trump had to say, well, we'll do bonded insurance through the United States of America. And yet. And that it's nuisance. It's, it's, it's nuisance bombs. Right. They don't have a navy.

[Pat]

Not newsome. Nuisance. Yeah, Newsom's not that smart to have that kind of a nuisance. Yeah, you were making it.

[Tom]

Although if you've seen his hair, he's big in oil. So you've got, you've got all of the nuisance and the low tech stuff, which is the drones. And so the drones can kill a sailor. And one did. Drones can damage the ship. One did, but it's not like a torpedo going to sink the ship. They were concerned about mines and then they're concerned about all these little drones flying around. That's the question. And so Lloyd says, all right, you're not insured and everybody has to stop. We're not going to drive through. So Lloyds of London, Pat, do you disagree? Lloyds of London closed the streets of Hormuz based on the threats of, of drones and these things that could cause claims because there wasn't like a big navy out there sinking tankers.

[Pat]

Yeah, but that's their job. The actuaries are sitting there, have a meeting saying, hey guys, it's a lot of risk for us to protect these guys. We got to figure out a way to drop the insurance on these guys.

[Tom]

Yeah, well, if you look at it right now, the Strait of Hormuz is, is closed. So the actuaries and the insurance people are, are one component for sure. But what about the distributors? Like the ships have a say. There was a great interview expose on 60 Minutes over the weekend where they dealt with a major German shipping company and they interviewed this woman. I don't know, I think this might be her right here. Looks just like her. And she's like, well, why aren't you moving your ships? She's like, for fear of my sailors getting killed. And he goes, well, what happens if Trump increases the insurance? She's like, well that's great, but you can't put a price on my sailors lives. So she basically said, I mean there's, there's tons of graphs of this. They show like there's tons of moving and straight of hormones, tons of movie people coming and going. There's this choke point and now it's basically At a standstill. It's like a parking lot. So if you've ever been on i95 in the parking lot, it's not good, you know, and especially if your driver doesn't want to drive. So these guys have made the decision that they don't want to pass through the Strait of Hormuz for fear of what Iran will do. And you know what, Pat? You know what it ultimately comes down to. Yeah. We're talking about America, we're talking about Israel, we're talking about alliances. The Middle Eastern, Gulf states, they need to step the hell up. What do I mean? We talk about having a future looks bright. Future looks bright. Future looks bright. There's so much brightness and there's so much possibility in the Middle East. You have MBS in, in Saudi saying what he feels and, and using a directive in that. You have Dubai, you have the UAE doing amazing things. You have these Gulf states that are rich in oil. Guys, at the end of the day, this is going to be on you. You realize that you have a nuisance, not a newsome, a nuisance of a neighbor, and he's basically getting cornered and he's basically bombing you. So what are you going to do about it? You can't always rely on the United States or even Israel to take care of your mess. Ultimately, this is the Middle Eastern country's mess to clean up. What would you like to see him do? Because you have Qatar, Oman and UAE and Bahrain. Those are the four that have really suffered. And yet they've called out to Saudi and saying, hey, can we have a hand here? We don't have your armies. We don't have your air force. We don't have more than border navies. We have basic things. And they called out the Saudi. Can you get the neighbors to turn it down a bit? So when you say step up, they've been pretty vocal, almost breaking ranks a little bit. What more do you want to see these Gulf states? So you can talk the talk, but are you willing to walk the walk vocal? You know, forgive me that that's not enough. So follow the money. At the end of the day, most countries, which Iran does not want, most countries want peace and prosperity. Are you willing to say that Saudi wants peace and prosperity? I am. Are you willing to say that UAE wants peace and prosperity? I am. Do you? Do the NATO countries want that? Does Israel want that? United States want that? Yes, yes, yes. Does Iran want that? I don't think so. If you look at their actions or

[Pat]

their rhetoric, what do you.

[Tom]

What they do.

[Pat]

You're asking what military action for Step up, and I'm like, being vocal. What else can they do?

[Tom]

Okay, oman doesn't have 30F35. I'm not asking them. We gave them. But at the end of the day, this is going to affect their bottom line more than even America's. Because if we're talking about the Strait

[Pat]

of Hormuz, which nobody asked this question, what do you want him to do?

[Tom]

So it comes down to the economics. So they're going to need to put pressure on Iran, whether it's from the top down, whether it's monarchs or from the bottom up, and have their citizens understand what it's like to feel the pain from Iran. At the end of the day, Iran is isolated, they have very few friends, and we're stepping on their neck. And what are we going to do? Let them off the hook. Who does the Strait of Hormuz affect more, Asian countries or NATO allies in the U.S. well, it's Asian countries. Who gets their oil from the Strait of Hormuz? China, India, Korea, Japan. The end of the day, they're going to have to put pressure on their distributors. These Middle Eastern countries that are shipping oil, follow the money. And if the, if the money doesn't work, then you're going to have to use some alternative measures. But at the end of the day, the oil is the number one thing for those people.

[Pat]

Yeah. So by the way, the Strait of Hormuz currently is open. Obviously, the risks you got to take, you got to take, but it's currently open. Besson even said recently that it's open. As of when here? As of right now, it's open. If you're right now, go check right now, straight up or markets open is open. If you want to play this is 11 minutes ago. If you want to play this clip, Rob. Well, let's pull that apart. So we are seeing more and more the fuel ships start to go through. The Iranian ships have been getting out already, and we've let that happen to supply the rest of the world. We've seen Indian ships go out now. So the Indians, who rely very heavily on Gulf oil, we believe some Chinese ships have gone out. So that. And that should start ramping up before there are any the flotillas or protective armadas in the Gulf. So we think that there will be a natural opening that the Iranians are letting out. And for now, we're, we're fine with that. We want the world to be well supplied. The other thing that we did, we gave a 30 day waiver for Russian oil that was already on the water. Well, the Besson normally doesn't speak like that case typically very thorough. And this is this the same interview that he had to step out and come back in? Rob, this is a different one.

[Tom]

Different interview.

[Pat]

Yeah. This is from this morning. Anyways, that's a different conversation. But it is open. So while he's talking about. Is that the one you have right now, Rob?

[Tom]

This is called away.

[Pat]

Yeah, just show. Show. This is yesterday, right?

[Tom]

A couple days ago.

[Pat]

Go ahead, Rob. I listened to you on the

[Tom]

president wants you. Sorry? The president wants you.

[Pat]

Okay.

[Tom]

Allegedly they were going to the situation.

[Pat]

No problem at all.

[Tom]

When the president falls.

[Pat]

See you shortly, Mr. Secretary. You can work that in. Mr. Secretary. I have to say it's a first, I'm sure a loss as well that an interviewee has been pulled away to go to the Situation Room. How was the president? Was he. Was he stressed? No, the president is in great spirits. The Iranian mission is proceeding well ahead of schedule. And I have to tell you, Wilf, that I have a teenager who's considering military service and I could give this team my highest compliment. From President Trump to the head of the Joint Chiefs to the Secretary of War, I would say that I would trust my child's life in their hands.

[Tom]

That is kind of weird going from a regular interview to the president needs you right now, which is an emergency. You leave for an hour and a half and you come back and sit down and the first thing out of your mouth is, hey, listen, I have a son and I'll send him to war. That, that to me sounds like this is my opinion that they went in and say, hey, listen, we're probably going to be sending ground troops since you're going to be on this interview and it's going to be going everywhere. Kind of say that you would send your kid. That's a, that's a wild shift. Tom, what do you think is that. And you saw his body language. Normally, Scott. Betsy, like you just said, Pat, normally Scott's like this. He's using precise. In command of his facts. He'll correct the. The, the news media. Excuse me, let's say this here.

[Pat]

Pentagon sending assault ship, at least 2500 marines towards Iran as US works to reopen Strait of Hormuz while oil prices spike. This is a couple days ago. Yes, but that story came out that they are doing that. Rob, is this.

[Tom]

It's on the way news reporting on.

[Pat]

Is it right off the bat? Yep, go for it.

[Tom]

Over an hour ago. We did get word that 2500 Marines and another warship are now being deployed to the Middle East. This is one of several developments in the fighting that continues between the US And Iran that Erica Brown is reporting on. The Pentagon Friday confirmed the deaths of all six crew members aboard a US Military refueling tanker that was supported by supporting operations in Iran. Officials say a second aircraft was also involved but landed safely, and they believe the incident may have involved a midair collision.

[Pat]

Was not the result, as CENTCOM has said was not the result of hostile or friendly fire.

[Tom]

Iran's threats to the Strait of Hormuz continue to disrupt the global oil supply. The Trump administration is considering deploying US Navy warships and to escort oil tankers through the waterway.

[Pat]

Iran still has the capability to harm friendly forces and commercial shipping and our war. Tom, thoughts?

[Tom]

So the ship they're talking about is USS Tripoli. That was confirmed, multiple sources. The USS Tripoli is a. Rob's probably looking that up. This is basically an amphibious assault ship. It is designed to go ashore and open up this great big door where all the amphibious vehicles and everything come pouring out. The purpose of the U.S. tripoli is one thing to bring troops ashore in a military action. It's not a hospital ship. It's not a barrack ship or a transport ship, this thing. That's what it's made to do. And after what happened on Carg island, many people, including me, are speculating that the strategy may be patient to bring because there's 2500 Marines. This is the Marine Corps Expeditionary Force, which means, you know what that means. Those are the guys that are trained to go in, kind of like first responders, first guys out. And you have the U.S. tripoli going there. So, number one, he's sending that message to Iraq. Number two, you. You throw 2500 Marines on Kharg island and you just go up and you shut off the valve so that they can't export the oil. You've already hit all the military things that are supporting it. So I think this is pretty significant.

[Pat]

I think so as well. But remember what Pete Hex had said. He said two, three days into it, the president has the ability to send troops if he chooses to send. So. So they said that. Now, you know, the critics are going to come out and say, wait a minute, this is the thing. We thought this was going to be like Venezuela in, out, and there was not going to be any troops on the ground.

[Tom]

Vinny, let me ask you a question, though. But do you think that they thought that you think the President was briefed by by Pete Hexth and all these people like, hey, Mr. President, this is gonna be in and out, but from

[Pat]

what it seems, I don't think so.

[Tom]

Okay?

[Pat]

No, no, no, I don't think so. I think from the beginning, no, look, you either trust this guy's instinct or you don't. Just make up your mind. It's that simple for me. You either trust Trump's instinct or you don't either. He is a guy that got lucky to become a billionaire. He got lucky to run a show that was number one for 10 plus years. Either he got lucky to get become a president one time and then, you know, he gets whatever happened with the second time and then wins again after getting shot at in his ear and somehow pulls off the greatest comeback, or you think he got lucky or he's not that smart, or you believe he is. If you're part of the camp that you believe he is, you have to trust his instinct that in the Situation Room, he's making the right decisions. But pick and choose who you are. You can't, you can't just be like, I voted for, I didn't vote for this. You don't have all the information. So you, you either voted for, like, you know, when you hire somebody, be an executive and you gave them the job, either trust. Like the other day we had a conversation with one of the people we're hiring and it was like, so do you want this person to do this or do you want that person to report this? Or do you. I said, what do we hire this person to do, to do this? Why are we not giving them that authority from day one? If we collectively are making a decision, empower the man to make those decisions or not. Right? So then let's, let's go to the next. And I'm not talking to you, I'm talking to anybody that's watching this. So if you do trust this instinct, do you not think in a room? What is the one question anybody asks when you make an investment or you take a risk? What's the one question anybody. And you ask it in your mind all the time. You ask this question when you're dating somebody about to get married, you ask this question when you're about to buy a house, you ask this question when you're about to start a business, you ask a question when you make an investment into a company, you ask this question when you're about to have a kid, you ask this question when you move to a different state, you ask this question when you do anything you do ask this question. You ask this question 247 in your brain. You don't even know it. What's the question?

[Tom]

Is this the right. Am I committed?

[Pat]

Aside from that, what's the other question we ask? Trust me, you ask this question all the time. There's a book called how to Stop Worrying and Start Living by Dale Carnegie. You wrote it 100 years ago. The question is, what is the worst thing that can happen? You ask this question all the time. We all do. What is the worst thing that's going to happen in this relationship? It's not going to work out. She's going to do this, he's going to do this. What's the worst thing that's going to happen if we move to the other state? Oh, my God, I got to move back. I got to do this. I'm going to lose someone. So what's the worst? You don't think. Trump asked what's the worst thing that's going to happen? We send troops, drones.

[Tom]

Protracted experience. Okay, what do I do then?

[Pat]

Right?

[Tom]

And what do I do then?

[Pat]

Then what do we do then? We do this. If they do this, then. Then we got this down. You don't think he asked those questions? You don't think a guy that negotiated all the deals in New York is used to, you know, sitting there and, you know, asking. One of the deals that he did, he wanted to buy a property and the guy wouldn't work with him because they were dealing with, what do you call it? Not air.

[Tom]

Air rights.

[Pat]

Air rights. I don't know if, you know, New York real estate has air rights. Yeah, like, you know, you can't build above certain thing. Cuz I have to be the higher one than you. He's like, yeah, I got patience. It's good. I'm patient. Will take our time. This guy's been doing these types of things for a long time. So you're either, I trust his instincts. Great, Then trust. When you trust instinct, the guy's not going to get it right all the time. Or guess what? You don't trust his instinct. Which is fine. I didn't trust Biden's instinct. I didn't. I didn't trust that Desantis was the guy to do the job today. Maybe in 10 years, but not today. I didn't trust his instinct today. I didn't trust his marketing instinct. I was right. He had a terrible marketing instinct. I trust his instinct today to know that they knew this was going to happen. Is his critics going to come after him? Non.

[Tom]

Stop.

[Pat]

If there's troops on the ground? Absolutely. What's the number right now, Rob? 13. 13 U.S. troops?

[Tom]

I. I believe so. Kill check.

[Pat]

I think the number is 13. 2 over the weekend, if I'm not mistaken.

[Tom]

Correct. It was 11 on Friday.

[Pat]

One is too many. One is too many, but I think we're at 13 right now. So it is one of the options and choices he had to put troops on the ground. The people that don't want it, can they criticize him? Absolutely. The people that voted for him, if this is a choice that he had to use. Because right now you have one of two choices. You either leave right now and you delay the issue later on for somebody else, or if you're already in too deep, guess what? Finish the job. Which one do you want him to do? Where are you at? Like, really? I'm asking you, Vinny, right now, would you want him to leave?

[Tom]

He can't leave. No, he has to finish it.

[Pat]

You're an advisor. You're in the room, but there's not a right or wrong answer to this question. It's just where you are. And by the way, run this poll, Rob. Okay. Right now you're in the Situation Room. And not even that. He just calls you Vinnie. I saw you on the podcast the other day. Yes. Okay. What do you think we should do? Should we. We've taken out their day, we've taken out this. We've taken out 50 people. The. The son has left, but his right shoulder, his leg is gone. Bad situation. He might be gay, according to the new. Recent reports that came out. Yes. Anyway, so these types of stuff that's going on. But do you think we should get out and just claim victory or do you think we should stay and finish the job?

[Tom]

No, you have to stay and finish the job. But, but be clear. And I understand what you're saying about the, you know, the mission and I do trust his instincts and. But it's the, it's the being honest of. It was about. This is what I thought it was about, Mr. President. The Iranians in the streets dying because they wanted to. A revolution. And then it shifted to, no, we have to take out all the nuclear capabilities. I thought we already did that. So now my question is, what about those people? Where, how. How is the objective? Because I'm trying to think objectively, militarily. The straight Hormuz oil, that's huge now, that's a different, you know, phase of it. It's the leadership. The guy that was. We just saw the, the. AYATOLLAH package. I don't, I don't see them stopping. Because here's my thing. We kill the Ayatollah, we get rid of this, the loudmouth guy that is lying to everybody. Then. Then what? Because what just happened, Reza Pahlavi was just like, hey, I'm going to be the official. What do they call him? Transitional leader. Transitional leader. After you guys get rid of all the Khomeini, they're not going to stop. After the regime falls, I don't see them stopping.

[Pat]

So you're telling me. You're telling me finished.

[Tom]

Finish the job. And, and I was going to say when Tom was talking about the drones and the. We know.

[Pat]

Okay, so let me ask you where everything is. Vinny. Yeah, this last part. I have to send 2500 troops to finish the job.

[Tom]

Hurry up then go do it. And mind you, this is amphibious. On.

[Pat]

Yes.

[Tom]

We're not overt. I want people to understand we're not going to Iran to go kill people. So let. On a military standpoint, don't put. Oh, he's gonna send them to die. No, this is a expeditionary force that's going to go there and, and guard the island and maybe shut it off. That's a whole different. We're not invading like we're invading Iraq. I would say that, Mr. President, finish the job. Because what it's seeing, what seems like it's going to last probably a couple of months, maybe six months, which people don't want that. We were told weeks. It's almost like sl. Stop the spread. Remember the six week spread of, of. Of COVID No, it's, it's, it's. We want this. I want it, Pat. Done as soon as possible with. With the least amount of Americans dead. You nailed it, Pat. One is too many. I'm with you.

[Pat]

That's what I would say.

[Tom]

Adam, finish your job. Mr. President, first and foremost, I trust Trump's instincts. So, you know, instincts are great, but they're at the very beginning. You know, they say, what's the famous Mike Tyson phrase? Everyone's got a plan until they get punched in the mouth. We didn't punch Iran in the mouth. We beat the living crap out of them. And much like an NFL game, all right, now we're at halftime and each team is making adjustments. So Trump sitting there with Pete Heth and Marco Rubio and Scott Best, and he goes, dude, we're up 35 to. To 2. We have an unforced error on a safety. We are kicking their butt. What adjustments do we need to make. We're not losing this game. Okay? It's just a matter of how much are we going to win by. On the flip side, Iran is in their locker room halftime. They're like, dude, we're down 35 to 2. We're going to do a Hail Mary. What do we want to do? Dude, let's start bombing our neighbors. Yeah, that's the thing. Hey, let's close down the Strait of Hormuz and affect the global economy. Okay, we're still down 35 to 2. So Trump, we're looking at him. You know, this started with Scott Besson. He didn't know what was going on. The. The game has changed. Like, we're not where we were a month ago when they started this thing. So now the game has to continue. So two things can be true at once. We don't want endless wars. We know that. But at the same time, we also don't want endless threats. And threats could lead to catastrophes from Iran. So we've already made our bed. Now we need to line it. We're eliminating the threat, and it's a multifaceted threat. Why are we doing this? It's because they kill their own people, because they have nuclear threats, because they're funding jihadi terrorists all over the region. There's multiple reasons here, but we have their foot on their neck. And what are we going to say? Well, we've had enough. At the end of the day, there's going to be a winner and loser here, and United States and Trump is going to win. Well, let me ask you a question, Adam. Like, we're like. And I'm being honest, we have this conversation. You're going to have to go in there and kill every single leader. Irgc, you have to just get it over with. But my question is, we do that, they're going to keep popping up. Those guys are not going to quit, bro. If your ideology is kill all these people, and if I kill myself, I'm going to go get virgins in heaven with Allah. That's a crazy mindset. So my thing is, you got to go and kill all of them. Go get it over with. Get it over with. I don't.

[Pat]

3,500 votes. 3,500 votes. 69 says stay in and finish the job. 31 says get out of Iran and claim victory. That's the number right now. 69. So 70, 30 issues where it's at right now. And that's what our audience. You think about that? That's what our audience. But that's what our audience.

[Tom]

Can I add one thing? I hear what you're saying. We got to go. We got to kill all of them. To me, that is an extreme outcome. Why? So we're not just going to go kill a half a million irgc. That just not what we're going to do. At the end of the day, the people of Iran have to figure this out. Wait, hold on, hold on. I have to, I have to push back. You're saying they got to figure it out. That is not an easy task to ask civilians on them, bro. No, it's not. We, we just took out all their freaking leaders. Best possible help we can possibly give them their leadership. We're taking out their infrastructure. Every single revolution starts with the inside out. Did we ask the French to go help us beat the British, or did we have to do it? Okay, at the end of the day, the, the Iranian people are going to have to step up. The regional actors are going to have to step up. Yes, we're going to help. Yes, our allies are going to help. Yes, Israel and the United States Air Force are decimating them. But the end of the day, they're gonna have to rise up and nobody has the answer. You know, they say if it was easy, anyone would do it. Trump did the hard part. He started this. So the ultimate thing is this. Can I just give like my major emphasis? We constantly hear this theocratic regime, this thug, like theocratic regime, this theocratic regime. What does theocratic actually mean? They keep saying that. Well, it means that you believe that God, Allah is dictating your very move. There's only three countries in the world that are governed by theocracies. Full automatic autocratic theocracy. You know, the three. Iran is. Number is one of them. Right below Iran, you have Afghanistan, which is run by the Taliban. Taliban, we, we learned our lesson there. They're a theocratic regime without nukes. That's the future of Iran. The third, the Vatican. Nobody here is worried that the Vatican is going to start jihading all of us. But that's a theocratic regime. In the Vatican, they believe that God, that Jesus Christ runs their city. Respect. I'm good on that. But when you, when you believe that Sharia law and Allah is governing your every move, you're not negotiating with these people. I understand. They're not going to negotiate away from Allah. So you have to completely the. The phrase that the council uses, defang them, Defang them, defend them once they have no nuclear and they have no intercontinental missile. Continental ballistics at the end of the day, they're going to be a regional threat, but we cannot turn them into a nuclear. Okay, intercontinental threat. So that's not. That's.

[Pat]

What are you guys saying differently?

[Tom]

Here's my thing. I'm going to tell them right now. I. Adam, they don't. Me personally, we've decimated their nuclear talk. It's over. But when you're saying we have to go and kill 500,000, you think, Adam, let's say Reza Pahlavi walks in. 500,000 Islamists following Ayatollah Khomein. They're gonna go like this. Yeah, we're gonna be cool. Now, bs, That's a. That's a fairy tale. But here's the thing. The prime example is Iraq. We went in, we're like, saddam Hussein's a bad guy. 911 had nothing to do with it. We kill him, Adam. Look what happened when you killed him. I know people from Baghdad. I know Syrians. My cousin's wife Nina was like, vinny, we have family over there. They would much rather have had him stay because he controlled all these maniacs, isis, and everything happened. So now you can't, you can't just say, well, Trump went in there and just started it. No, we. There has to be a plan, Adam. And from the looks of it, there isn't a plan when it comes to a leader. Because the people, Adam, they don't have guns. They're not like us. What are they going to do? Go in there and just give them a bunch of guns and go, guys, go take care of this yourself and kill the irgc? No, I do trust Trump. That's sort of the contra method. Yeah, yeah, the contra method, Tom. Imagine what crap show that's going to happen. You go, you go and you dump a million guns. Then other people are going to take. They're going to start their own little freaking regime. Well, you understand what I'm saying?

[Pat]

A million guns. You know what they're going to do? What? The regime's going to kill 50 times more people and say the people did it.

[Tom]

Yeah, exactly.

[Pat]

They're going to say it's the weapons. You drop. Civilians. We're killing civilians.

[Tom]

You're right. Absolutely right. No, no, that's my point. And just murder people. They would never do something like that.

[Pat]

Now, if you, if you're. This. This is different than Iraq. This is. This is different than Iraq. Iraq had a Saddam Hussein who was. He was. He was a player. He was somebody that was a player. He could get up there, talk, communicate this is a very different regime. This guy is killing his own people. This is not a normal thing that you see somebody killing 30, 40, 50,000 of its own people. It's a very different regime you're dealing with. And if you go back to Iraq, you don't hear a lot of Death upon America. You don't remember that?

[Tom]

No, no.

[Pat]

There's only two countries that have ever said Death upon America, Iran and North Korea. That's it. North Korea started in 54, and then Iran.

[Tom]

That's it.

[Pat]

It's not like it's a similar regime as the. As the rest, but we're going to see. He is going to. He says, I'm fluid. We're going to use different strategy for different events, and he's using a different strategy for this one than he did with Venezuela. Did you think this was going to be a Venezuela type of a strategy?

[Tom]

Not me, no.

[Pat]

By the way, whoever did, they're sorely. They're. They're not sorely mistaken. You're. You're delusional. And by the way, quick, shout out to Venezuela that home run that was hit by. Who hit that home run? Abreu. He hit that home run. The greatest bat flip of all time. They were down four or five of his players with the.

[Tom]

He almost hit somebody on the side.

[Pat]

Yeah, yeah. So shout out to Venezuela.

[Tom]

Shout out to United States beating Dominic.

[Pat]

I think tonight plays Japan, and if they win, they're going to go Italy. Nobody thought the score was going to be 2:1 last night. Obviously, this is more important issues than anything else in the world. We have to cover this. Oh, by the way, Rob, can you show a stat? Guys, can I ask you guys for. I have a request. This is last 28 days. 69 and a half, 30%. This is the last 28 days of. You that watch this are not subscribers. Okay, can we ask you to just press that subscribe button if you can? Okay. If you can press that subscribe button and you know, to subscribe to the podcast, it'll mean a lot to us because our audience, as we get bigger, we can get better guests, and we like to get to 10 million subscribers. So if you haven't yet subscribed, click on that subscribe button. Many of you watch it regularly and still haven't subscribed. It may not mean a lot to you. It does a lot to us. Okay, thank you so much. Let's get into the next story. Next story I want to get into is the Iran foreign minister. Okay, while this is being talked about, he has a meeting. He talks about the conversation with Witkoff because Witkoff brought up nuclear. I don't know if you saw this or not. He says, when we talked to the foreign Minister, they kept threatening us with nuclear says, what are you talking about? And then the social media is like, no, they never did. They never this. Why would they do this? They're just making it up. Well, here's what the foreign Minister said about his call with Witkoff. Go forward.

[Tom]

I never said that we are going to make bombs. I said that we have 440 kilos of 60% enriched material. And that was not a secret. That is what is mentioned in the reports of the iaea. So I said that, look, this is mentioned in the report. This, if enriched more, can be good enough for 10 bombs, as your own experts claims. So we are ready to give them up and to give them away. We are ready to dilute them, to down blend them into lower degrees. And by saying that, I wanted to say that the concession that we are making is really big. But how they have interpreted that, I don't know. Maybe, maybe because the lack of enough knowledge, maybe because of, you know, their intentions to justify, as I said, the act of.

[Pat]

Can pause it right here. Tom, do you believe him?

[Tom]

We're not going to party. We're not going to party. We do have a kilo of coke, five bongs, and enough Turkish hash to last through the winter, but we're not going to party. Okay, I'm not doing anything. So I'm. That's kind of what I heard in my head.

[Pat]

Hash is like.

[Tom]

I didn't say. I didn't say we're going to make a bomb. I said that we're going to get away from fossil fuels and we're going to. No, listen to what he said. I didn't say we have a bomb. I said we have 450 and we're going to get away from fossil fuels and we're going to use it to make nuclear energy. Oh, you really are. It's like, how do you believe this? It's just like those talking points are somewhere between bizarre and contrived. I didn't understand how to even process.

[Pat]

Well, the critics could say the following critics could say Witkoff came back and he can say, you know, this is what they said as an excuse to be able to attack. Right? Because it's Witkoff and Kushner. And, you know, a lot of people see Kushner as, you know, Israel connection. So he's going to be from that.

[Tom]

He said Bomb, Right?

[Pat]

Then the other side could be like, no, maybe. Maybe they were not being fair players and they're BSing and they're playing propaganda. Who do you believe is the question, Vinnie?

[Tom]

I don't know, Pat, because I. And Rob, I sent you this clip of him. I don't believe him, but that's his job. And my question is, is he on a hit list? If he's the foreign, he's the foreign minister, are we actively trying to go after this guy? Out of curiosity, Pat, because he's alive and he's doing well. He's a liar. Because this is actually great. Margaret Brennan from Face the Nation, she actually asked a good question. I thought I had to run it through AI because I honestly thought you said that. Margaret Brennan actually asked a good question. I thought it was a iPad. So Abbas is over Zoom, and she's asking him about, like, the Internet's down. They shut up all the Internet for everybody. Abbas, Abos.

[Pat]

Abos.

[Tom]

Abos. He's Abbas. And then this. This answer, it tells you everything you need to know about this guy and his character and how honest he is. Go ahead, Rob. I just do want to point out you're speaking to us via Zoom. The Iranian people don't have open Internet access, but you do. Why? Well, I'm the. Because I'm the voice of Iranians, and I have to defend their rights. So this is why. What a noble thing to Internet.

[Pat]

Vinny, keep your mouth shut, don't speak on your behalf.

[Tom]

Have Royce being helped by the international community, but Internet is closed because of the security reasons, because we are under attack. We are under aggression, and we have to do everything to protect our people. In any country, there are, you know, urgent measures taken for this, for the sake of war, I just do want to point out. You want to talk about control, although the gold frame in the black ribbon is a step up from the cardboard cutout. Yeah, of course. Like, think about that. He's on Zoom, but the people can't. And that's why, guys, if you think about it, you haven't been really seeing anything from the people in the streets. What's happening? I did see a video where people were in their apartments, Tom. Like. Like, I won't say high rise, maybe 20, you know, 10 to 15 stories up, looking just down. IRGC is walking in the street. They're looking down, and they just open fire at people in their apartments. So you're not.

[Pat]

They would never do that.

[Tom]

No, I mean, they would never do

[Pat]

such a thing, Vinnie. That's Just propaganda. Why are you saying you would say that Iranian government would kill their own people?

[Tom]

I saw it.

[Pat]

Why are you making up stories?

[Tom]

I saw with my own eyes they

[Pat]

do that These are noble people. That Islamic Revolutionary Guard. You realize how sarcastic.

[Tom]

Obviously I know that you're being sarcastic, but think about it. And that, that actually. This actually answered my question. I haven't seen anything from the people of the streets of Iran. What the people are going through. This is. This proves it, right? He, he, he. They shut off all the Internet. I'm curious to when they did that. Rob, if we could find out.

[Pat]

Adam,

[Tom]

the. The who. This guy, the foreign. Foreign minister. Foreign minister. Okay. You know how I know his lying? This. I know this guy's lying because his lips are moving. You know, Bill O'Reilly used to have a show and he's call it the no spin zone, where now there's no spin here. We're telling the truth here. This guy is incapable of telling the truth. It's all spin. So, you know, they say you got to trust but verify. You trust but verify. Dude, we don't trust this guy at all. And because we don't trust him, we need to verify everything. So this regime is fighting for their lives. They're fighting for their ideology. They're fighting for everything they've ever built since 1979. And they're not going to go down quietly. So if you speak up, they'll kill you internally. If you're a neighbor and you even give the impression that you're not on their side, they'll shoot at you. So this is all about to get very ugly. And then the left media shout out to this lady for actually pressing this guy. Good for you. Because the left media just believes the Iranian state media, they believe the Hamas media as if they're credible whatsoever. So I love the fact that, you know, there's been this whole ongoing discussion of what happened to this girl's school, you know, 100 or so girls. Horrible, disgusting. Who knows what happened there. Let's get to the bottom of that. This is war. But where were you when tens of thousands of people were murdered and the Internet was blackout? You didn't really talk about that. So the selective outrage and the selective media coverage is a major issue. At the end of the day, this regime is the bad guy and we need to eliminate them.

[Pat]

There you go. Okay, guys, brought me ear drops because this weekend I was at Miami Beach.

[Tom]

Yeah.

[Pat]

And I was in the. We had the best. My entire body is so red right now. I'm in pain. I can't even tell you. But we were in the water, hanging out with these waves. Waves are hitting us. I have Brooklyn. I turned around. Bam. Wave hits. Incredible. I got water here. So I can't hear what you guys are saying. Just so you know, they're texting everything for me to understand what you guys are saying.

[Tom]

On behalf of my left ear, I'm very jealous of you because sometimes you get very loud.

[Pat]

Well, I think it's kind of fortunate because you're sitting to my left. So it. It helps.

[Tom]

Yeah.

[Pat]

That I can't hear a lot of the stuff you're saying. I'm in such a good.

[Tom]

You want to hear what my left ear feels like? A whole hour and a half since you said Adam. What's your point?

[Pat]

Let's go to the next story. Let's go. Next story is there's a lot of stuff that's going on. Yesterday, Tucker comes out and posts a video out of nowhere, and everybody's like, wait a minute. What is this video about, Rob, if you want to pull it up on X or wherever you have it, you may have it on your own that you've downloaded. Yeah, go for it. He post, Rob, is this only a buck 56 of it?

[Tom]

Yes. It's a shorter clip of it.

[Pat]

Is it the beginning of it or

[Tom]

where he's talking about the text?

[Pat]

So here. Here's Tucker, go forward. The CIA is preparing some kind of criminal referral against me, a crime report to the Department of Justice on the basis of a supposed crime I committed. What's that crime? Well, talking to people in Iran before the war. They read my texts. So the crime under consideration apparently, would be the Foreign Agent act or something like that, acting as an agent of a foreign power. And I don't expect this to go anywhere. I'm not too worried about an actual criminal case against me for a bunch of reasons. One, I'm not an agent of a foreign power. Unlike a lot of people commenting on US Politics and global affairs, I have only one loyalty, and that's the United States and have never acted against it. Its interests are the only interests I care about because I'm from here and

[Tom]

I have a lot of kids, so

[Pat]

that's not a concern. I've also never taken money from anybody. Don't need it, don't want it, and that's provable. And moreover, it's my job to talk to everybody all the time and try and figure out what's happening around the world. That's literally what I do for A living. And I'm not going to stop doing that, nor should I, I don't think. I'm also an American. I can talk to anybody. I have no secrets to divulge. So legally, I think the case is ludicrous, and I doubt it'll even become a case.

[Tom]

I'm bringing this up for a couple

[Pat]

of reasons, though, and they're pretty obvious. One is that countries tend to become more authoritarian in wartime. It's just the nature of war. People are dying. The stakes are high. People's emotions have risen to a very high point, to a crescendo. And so there's much less tolerance for any kind of dissent in the homeland. The irony, of course, is the United States fights wars on behalf of freedom, but there's always less of it here in our country during war. So that's a widely recognized phenomenon, and it's likely to happen now, too. Okay, Vinnie, thoughts?

[Tom]

So let's. Let's go all the way back to the beginning. He said, the CIA read my text. So I don't think me personally. I mean, he has connections, allegedly, with the CIA, with his father. There's controversy. If he wasn't. If he is, he might know people in the CIA. But the. The CIA is not monitoring Tucker Carlson. The CIA, during war, is more than likely monitoring all the leadership of the Iranian irgc. So if they're monitoring that and then all of a sudden they see an American number, I don't know if it's Tucker's team budget. This is all my opinion. This is what I think. They trigger that, and they say, wait a minute. Tucker Carlson is talking to leadership over there, potentially just to have an interview. Tom. Maybe. Maybe he just wants to go there and talk, which is. Whatever. I get it. You want to talk to the ayatollah whenever it happened. Okay, fine. I understand that. But then I started thinking, wait, what? A couple weeks ago, do you guys remember what we questioned on this podcast? Tucker. Tucker was very critical of the president, which is his total right to do whatever he wants. Talking crap about the president. And then all of a sudden, he was in the White House. And then we even saw him walk in. He, like, looked at Tucker. He didn't give him any love. He saw Tucker. And then they took this photo. Tom, do you guys remember this? He took this photo. Trump is smiling really, really hard. And then I thought about it. Maybe there's a reason. Maybe, you know, Trump knew because of the CIA. He gets briefings all the time. He's in communication with Iran. Let him Keep doing that. This photo goes out, the Iranian government sees it with them smiling. Maybe they think that Tucker's talking to the president and he's in his ear and he's cool. Communication keeps happening. Maybe he's trying to talk to the Ayatollah Tom. And that communication finds out exactly where the Ayatollah is, and we bomb and we kill him. How early into the war was it, Pat? Do you guys remember? It was quick right when we started. So maybe that's it. Maybe, you know, they're. They were using Tucker. Maybe. But now maybe they're going to go after him for having this communication about the war. Maybe he divulged some information, but I think he might have been used by the President. That's my opinion. I'm just saying you never know. Well, something weird is going on with Tucker that's undeniable, whether you're on Team Tucker or not on Team Tucker. I'll let you decide that. But certainly this is not the Tucker that we're used to from the 90s or even the last 20 years. By the way, Trump will have people that he completely disagrees with and have them in the Oval Office. He already kicked Tucker out of maga. He already said that about a week ago. He's out. Just like he'll have someone like Mamdani in the office and say, all right, this guy's a socialist, communist, Islamist, but I'll invite him in. We can get along. So I don't look at this as anything other than Trump will talk to his enemies, but the bigger conversation with Tucker is this. Is he trying to bring people together and be a synergist and be a unifier, or is he being divisive? In my opinion, he's not bringing people together at all. He's causing division. He's causing outrage. And I'm all for debate. One of our cornerstones here is having a debate. Cool debate, policy debate, what you think should be done. But at the end of the day, the Republican Party is the last. Trump is the last thing that we have before the enemies at our gates enter America and the rest of the world. And Tucker just sort of like glossing over Islamism. And, you know, I'm an American, so I buy a house in Qatar. Something is kind of weird for that. I would love to see Tucker get to a place of normalcy or be someone that can actually help Trump. But if you don't support Trump and you're actively trying to sow chaos in Trump world, what's going to happen? You're going to lose elections. That means you're going to hand power to the left, and that's just political suicide. So at the end of the day, is this. Is Tucker helping Trump or is he hurting Trump? And in my humble opinion, he's doing everything that is possible, anything in his power to basically hurt Trump. But what do you think about this situation, Adam, about the CIA? Like, the CIA, this isn't a joke. The CIA is reading your text and going after you and saying that they might, like, open up, like a legal case against you.

[Pat]

You have to show why.

[Tom]

So that's why I'm all for sure.

[Pat]

So they're not.

[Tom]

They're not doing it for nothing.

[Pat]

This isn't a if. If, by the way, in this case, it's one of few things, either you can talk to anybody you want to talk to.

[Tom]

Yes.

[Pat]

But if you come to the White House and you meet with the president and then you go and communicate with Iran, and then it shows communication that you shared a part of the conversation you had with Trump, with anybody in the IRGC, you're going to jail. So guess what? Yeah. 90% chance he didn't do that.

[Tom]

Yeah, of course.

[Pat]

So if he didn't do that, he has nothing to worry about. If, like, we had a call with Ahmadinejad three times, each time was about where we're doing the interview. If anybody sees any of that recording, no one's getting in trouble because the conversations are, meet us at this country in Europe. Let's interview here. I'm not comfortable doing the interview here because if I do it, they're gonna catch me. And I would like to do it in Europe. Are you willing to meet me in Europe? And Rob, you remember, within 18 hours of our flight, everybody's ready, everybody's locked and loaded to go to this country. Last minute, they canceled. They said there's a death threat on me. Story comes out, they're trying to take it out. Nothing happened. So if it's that kind of a conversation, because Tucker said, they did this to me as a woman. I was at Fox. I was trying to interview Putin, and it didn't work out. And then a year later, I was able to get the interview and I went and did it. Nobody saw that as a problem. Great. That was A good interview. 400 million views. It was a great conversation. Everybody wanted to see that. Criticizing for Putin. Went on 30 minutes talking about the history of Russia and all. No problem. If you are helping and you came to the White House, I want you rested. I want you rested if you're helping, which I Believe less than 10% chance he was. Less than 10% chance he was. And the only reason he was the 10% that he could have is the following. You ever meet these types of people that they naturally talk too comfortably about stuff that they shouldn't be talking about? Absolutely. Without your permission.

[Tom]

Loose lips.

[Pat]

I have people like this in my life till today. Some of them are very close to me. They'll never be in the inner of the inner of the inner circle. But you know what I will do at times? Like in. In when I ran the insurance company and I knew a guy that hated me the most, and I wanted to make sure who he talks to the most. I would take him out to dinner, and I would drop three things nobody else knows about. Then I would wait for two weeks to see who brings it back to me, and then two weeks later, who brings it back to me. I'm like, okay, so those are the people you talk to Now. I put you guys in this camp. I know who you guys are. Great. And I knew he was the guy that was trying to do everything in his power to hurt the company, and it wasn't really hurting. The company was trying to hurt me. So I haven't seen Tucker being too. What's the word? Too pro Trump. He's been very critical of Trump for a long time now, not a short period. By the way, you know who this hurts the most? You know all this stuff that they're talking about, who it hurts the most? The person this hurts the most. Believe it or not, you best believe it's one person.

[Tom]

J.D. vance.

[Pat]

J.D. vance. That hurts the most. You know why? Because Tucker son works for jd. You want to go to Kalshee today? Rubio and Calcio are officially. Rubio and Vance are officially tied.

[Tom]

Wow.

[Pat]

Okay, look at that right there. And Rubio is about to pass up Newsom 0.3%. $18.7 million.

[Tom]

Yep.

[Pat]

Okay. $18.7 million is what you're talking about. Okay.

[Tom]

On.

[Pat]

On where it's at. So in some ways, you look at it, Rubio's ahead. So what happened here? What's that, Tom?

[Tom]

One month shift. Look at the one. This is 30 days.

[Pat]

Yeah, go back, Rob. Go back. February 14th. Just go back to February 14th. Look at that. Rubio 9.4. JD 24. Newsom 21. He JD's two. Xing Kim, three Xing Kim. Right. 27 is three X. Come to today, tied. So you don't think. You don't think by the Way. Knowing the way Trump is. You don't think Trump is sitting there saying, who. Do you think JD's in the top 20 people that he trusts in the camp?

[Tom]

Nope.

[Pat]

You think he's on that list?

[Tom]

Yes, top 20.

[Pat]

You think he's in the list when it comes down to issues like this, you think he's the guy that brings in for every single thing that he's processing?

[Tom]

I don't think so.

[Pat]

I don't think so.

[Tom]

I don't think so.

[Pat]

I don't. I don't think that's happening today. Because of the ties. Okay. Because the, the, the loyalty of Tucker's son is going to be. To who. Who first.

[Tom]

Say it again.

[Pat]

The loyalty of Tucker's son who's working for JD as an insiders, to who first?

[Tom]

Tucker first. Yeah. And then Tucker first.

[Pat]

Exactly. It's to Tucker first. So you have to know, like, you know, what's going on over here. It's a little bit of a. I think it could be a. You know, when they say, when they say Trump, you know, what's something. D. Chess. He plays 5D chess or 3D chess or whatever he plays.

[Tom]

Yeah.

[Pat]

It's too many stuff that happens for you to say. Smith's not smart man, doesn't know what he's doing. This is too many times you bring the guy in. Can you imagine? Like, do you think it's possible, do you think this is Trump like, to do the following to bring Tucker in and drop some information for him to leave and go give it to Iran and Iranians think nothing's happening and then all of a sudden for them to attack him and kill them all. You don't think that's possible? There was an AI video going around. Did you see the AI video of. Let me, let me show it to you guys. Adam, I'll come to you and I'm going to show this AI video. Go ahead. Adam, your thoughts?

[Tom]

No, I'm fully on the same page with you, Tom.

[Pat]

I'm sorry, I haven't gone with Tom yet. Tom, your thoughts on this? I'll tell you what I think.

[Tom]

You know how I parse things that get stated. You know, I like, drive into the words when I know people are speaking carefully. I dive into the words. Over the weekend. I believe it was over the weekend. I think Rob has it somewhere. You know what J.D. vance says when they asked him about something he talked to Trump about Pat?

[Pat]

What?

[Tom]

He says, well, I don't have a comment on that. And he goes, I don't want to Go to prison. That's not what you say, you know, when you're talking about the President and you're the vp, to me, when I hear things like that, even if you're just off the cuff, even if you're just an open mic, even if it's just one, you know, like you're being. You're walking. And then the. The press guy, you know what I mean, Pat, comes up, puts a microphone in your face. One more thing, one more thing. And he says, well, I'm not gonna say anything about that. And he goes, why is that? Well, I don't want to go to prison. It's like, that's what J.D. vance said. This is 72, less than 72 hours ago. So it also. You know what that says to me when you hear that, Pat, what do you think? Maybe a little bit. Maybe a little frustrated. You're left out. You don't see that.

[Pat]

We've seen this. Is this the one Rob, he's talking about?

[Tom]

Yes, sir.

[Pat]

Can you get to the point of you're gonna go to. Is it right off the bat he goes to you going to prison?

[Tom]

Could I say something? That's a heavy thing to say because I got to give credit where credit is due. So. So Vance apparently raised concerns privately about the strikes in Iran for internal discussions, and then he was questioning the US's involvement, all that stuff. And then President Trump later confirmed that Vance said that. He said Vance was less enthusiastic about the strikes. And you said this last week. And I have to give credit where credit is due. JD is smart because he's quietly putting daylight between him, himself and this war, because he's not openly fighting Trump. He's not openly saying anything about the strikes, but he's making sure it's on record that he has concerns and he's less enthusiastic. You know why, Tom? Because if this gets drawn out, which it looks like it's going to go a couple of months, he can always say, hey, I was in the room.

[Pat]

You said this last week.

[Tom]

I warned them all. I warned them all. And by the way, in 2028, Marco Rubio was the main guy, and he's a hawk. I'm not. And that's going to be his separation. And it's going to be JD Vance and all that PayPal mafia time and all the. What's the other thing that's. I'm telling you, Adam, this is a very, very, very smart thing that he said last week. And yesterday as I was reading this, I was like, oh, wow, that's why he's doing it. He's distancing himself, but he's not trashing the president. Look carefully at his path. Is he the legislative path or is he the leader governor path? He's the leader governor path. Right, J.D. no, he's a legislative path. What do you mean? When the legislators fight each other in election, they said, excuse me, I did not vote for that. Yes, that's, you see that? That's a lot different from a governor who's got his butt on the line when there's a natural disaster and you have to show leadership and you have to make the call. Governors says are CEOs of states. The president, we have a leader right now that makes decisions. And JD sounds a little bit too much like a legislator politician. Now hang on a second. My voting record is clear on that and I didn't vote on that one. Smart.

[Pat]

Yeah. Is this it, Rob?

[Tom]

Yes.

[Pat]

Go for it.

[Tom]

But imagine the situation. We're, we're in the Situation Room where you can't even take your, you know, ipod in there or your, your AirPods I guess what they're called. You can't take your iPhone in there. You can't take anything in there because it is the most classified space anywhere in the world. And I sit there with Pete Hegseth and General and Marco Rubio and the entire White House team and the President and I and the entire senior team are talking about the options and about what we need to do and about how we must best protect the American people. I hate to disappoint you, but I'm not going to show up here and in front of God and everybody else tell you exactly what I said in that classified room. Partially because I don't want to go to prison, and partially because I think it's important for the President of the United States to be able to talk to his advisors without those advisors running their mouth to the American media.

[Pat]

I thought it was actually a good answer. No, I, I, I actually think that was a good answer. I listen on one end, I was just criticizing, you know, the how it's going to hurt him. I didn't think that was a bad answer. I think he gave the proper. See, that's the thing with jd. He is so good in giving the right answer in the right places. It's the reason why he's at 18.6%. 18.6 is still a lot, of course, to be that high. I just think right now with what's going on is this, what's this, Rob? Is this AI video Yes, sir. Okay. This is the AI. This is what they're claiming happened. Okay. I don't know if you've seen this video or not.

[Tom]

I have not.

[Pat]

This is an AI video saying that Trump played Tucker to take out the leaders of Iran. Now, again, keep in mind, guys, they're. They're making fun. So it's not like it's a. It's an AI video. Go ahead, Rob.

[Tom]

Tucker, I want you to come to the White House. Believe me, me, I mean, sure. Thank you, Mr. President. Qatar Airlines, they're so funny with a Ted Bear. I'm just bluffing with Iran. You know, it's the art of the deal, baby. Okay, yeah.

[Pat]

President Trump is just bluffing. You guys are totally safe.

[Tom]

I mean, is it. Is it possible? Is it possible?

[Pat]

Oh, by the way, it is not possible. Is it possible that Trump plays media guys and presidents have done this? It is the oldest. Oh, yeah, you have to do that. Especially when, you know, sometimes the people that agree with you are not as useful as those who don't agree with you. But I want to act like they agree with you, the people that act like they support you. But deep down inside, you know they don't. And it's not hard to do. So he knows that. Like, he has enough intel to know. Like, you don't think Trump is asking people and say, how are those guys doing? Not really. Too critical. They're fair. How are those guys doing? Yeah, how are those guys doing? How are those guys doing? No, he's been very critical. Really? Show me something. Boom, he said this. Okay, let's invite him to the White House. You invite critics to the White House. You don't invite supporters to the White House. You invite those guys to the White House and talk to them. Hey, Bill Maher. Bring Bill Maher to the White House. You know, bring this guy to the White House. Let's bring him in and talk to him. And then, boom, hey, here's what we're. So, to me, I think, bring Mom Donnie to the White House. Yeah, yeah.

[Tom]

Bring.

[Pat]

No, you can say that. Just say it. Just say that you. You still feel the same way about me. Just go. No, this. If again, less than 10% chance. I think Tucker did that. But if Tucker is going ahead, making a video like that, the only reason you make a video like that is to give your claim before there is legalities that you can't talk. So the last thing they hear from you is you saying this.

[Tom]

Yeah.

[Pat]

And by the way, for him, if his father was in the CIA, you don't think some of the guys in the CIA are pro Tucker. Of course they are.

[Tom]

Of course, of course.

[Pat]

And they're sitting there saying, let me get this over to you. And, and so, and by the way, there's other things going on as well with Megyn Kelly and Mark Levin. I don't know if you guys are following that or not.

[Tom]

So can I address the JD Thing real quick? Because you want to move on to that. I. I think J.D. vance is kind of screwed because. Let's look at the options of what J.D. vance can go. Let's look at. So in my opinion, J.D. vance is almost like Kamala Harris, like, no kings, no anointments. You're going to have to go through a primary, Mr. Vice President. You want to end up like Persona non grata Mike Pence. You want to go against Trump, you will be alienated and blackballed from the MAGA movement. Like, don't forget, Trump could have brought anybody in to be the vice President. He had a mandate. All seven swing states won the popular vote. How much did Vance affect the election? A little bit, but any other vice president could have done that. So your job is to defend the administration and defend the agenda. Now, because there's at least the perception that you're not doing that, it leaves the door open for the person that is uniquely qualified to do, do that, which is Marco Rubio. How many times have you seen any single escalation, any war? Marco Rubio sitting there in the, in the Oval Office, he's now the President of Venezuela. He's now the president potentially of Cuba. He's now the Ayatollah of Iran. How many other jobs is Marco Rubio gonna have? So momentum is a hell of a thing. Rubio has all the momentum. J.D. vance has very minimal momentum. And the fact that he's aligned with Tucker, Trump is looking at him and being like, I can't really trust you. You don't really deserve the job compared to Rubio, and your son is close with Tucker. I don't trust Tucker. Therefore, I don't really trust you, so you better prove yourself to me.

[Pat]

I will tell you, I thought he was a perfect VP pick for Trump. Perfect VP pick for Trump. I think if he doesn't pick him as a VP, chance of him winning goes down 50%. Rethinks 1 million percent. Because I'll tell you why, because you got the technocrats that were in because they. JD the MAGA 2.0, the Musk's, all these guys. Are you kidding me? You Know how important he was for them.

[Tom]

Sure.

[Pat]

Very huge. So I think JD was super important to be in, to help, and he crushed it in the VP debates. He did a very good job with media going around doing. I thought. I thought I was a great pick for that election. They needed him. Just like when they. When he first pens, I'm like, why are you picking Pence? And Pence was a very Christian and, you know, very much evangelical. And, you know, he is a good man. I've spent time with the president. He is a good man. You would look at it. So he got the older, concerned. Christians are like, this guy's crazy. He's talking about grab him by this. No, but he is not going to grab him hard. He grabs him soft because he's, you know, Pence was like that guy.

[Tom]

He was a bootlicker is what it's called.

[Pat]

I don't know what you call it.

[Tom]

The one thing about JD Is we're going to find out what his ceiling is. In my opinion, his ceiling as of today is vp. He has not proven to. To be that guy.

[Pat]

A part of it is because he's not been given big assignments. I don't know if his ceiling is that or not. I think DeSantis still has a possibility of competing for the next position. You know, markets change, campaigns change, you know, wars change, climate changes. A different president's needed for different climates. Trust me, wartime, peacetime, it's a very different thing. You're looking at resumes that you're looking at.

[Tom]

Yeah, Rubio's got the resume.

[Pat]

No, no, Rubio's next. Rubio's next on my list. He's next on my list. He is fully next on my list. Rob, if you want to pull up the Candace Tucker. Not Candace Tucker. The. What do you call it?

[Tom]

Mark Levin.

[Pat]

Mark Levin. And then who else is involved there? Pierce, Ben Shapiro. Is this it? But can you go back to the tweets? First of them at each other. Because I think Mark Levin was calling her a witch, calling her a pos, Calling her all this stuff. So Megan comes out and, you know, that's it right there. Yeah. Poor Megyn Kelly. An emotionally unhinged, lewd and petulant wreck. She's completely revealed and destroyed herself. She's everything people say she is, but much worse. Never an intelligent, thoughtful or substantive comment. Utterly toxic. And by the way, this is probably the nicest one. He's called her a witch. He's called her a lot of stuff. She comes out and she says, micropenis. Mark I don't know if Grok fact checked that, but micropenis. Mark Levin thinks he has the monopoly on lewd. He tweets about me obsessively in the crudest, nastiest terms possible. Literally more than some stalkers I've had arrested. He doesn't like it when women liked me. Fight back because of his micropenis. I think that's a little too much to go there. But look, you know, go to the comment section, Rob, just to see what the comment section do. Micro Mark, you just proved this point that you are emotionally unhinged, lewd and childish with this response. And then she responds back. Walk me through it, John. How many times should I allow him to attack me in the nastiest, most personal and vile way possible and say nothing? Did you condemn him for multiple personal attacks on me? Show me. I'll wait. Go to show replies. I want to see what that exchange looks like with that guy, John. By the way, who is John Root? Is he. Is he a. Can you go to him? Who is he with? He's with Outkick Christ Sports Culture. Okay, so he's. He's somewhat of a medium. Who follows him? Let's see who follows him? Mario Nefal? No, just right there by the. Followed by. Yeah, John Nelson. I don't know these people. These are people. Rob follows, John Cena follows. Listen, if John Cena follows somebody. Okay, go back, Rob. Go back. Okay, so go back to the follow up with the tweet. The exchange. No, no, Rob, the tweet between the two. Go back right there. Okay. Never said you should have said nothing, Megan. I'm saying the wise thing is to do to. Is not resorting to crude and emotionally unhinged responses. The wise thing is to not. It's not replying evil for evil. Repay no evil for evil, but give thought to honorable and so on if possible. So far as it depends on you, live peacefully. Peacefully with all Romans 12, 17, 18. Okay, by all means, defend yourself and make your case. But screaming that someone has a micropenis, ain't it? Does she respond back to that? Please show me where you lectured Mark Levin on this cruel personal attacks against me. Just want to make sure I'm dealing with someone who really does abhor these kinds of attacks, no matter from whom they originate. I'm sure that's you, right, John? Okay. And then there's no exchange. Okay, so fair. Both people said the same thing. Both people made their arguments. Now go back to President's tweet, Rob. Mark Levin A truly great patriot is someone under siege by other people. Far less intellect, capability and love for our country. Mark is tough, strong and brilliant, hence the nickname the Great One, conceived by our mega friend and wonderful Sean Hannity. After years of dealing with Mark in legal, media and other capacities, Mark would often do Sean's show speaking as a lawyer. And Sean realized then, as others did, that he was special. Mark Lemon was not looking forward to do a television, radio or anything else. But he was drafted by very smart people, understood that there are few like him. He's a true conservative and intellect far smarter than those who criticize him. But above all, he is a man of great wisdom and common sense who truly love our country. Anyways, he goes on saying great things about him.

[Tom]

All from Trump.

[Pat]

This is Trump tweeting, defending Mark.

[Tom]

How long is that tweet?

[Pat]

It's a very long.

[Tom]

So all about Mark Levante. Yeah, the end. He goes into Iran. Well, I mean, let's just, let's. What is hap. What has happened and what is happening is you have pro. Overly pro Israel and then you just have people that are criticizing Israel. Okay. Mark Levin is Israel first, in my opinion. And they're going to go back and forth because he doesn't feel that like people aren't supporting Israel the way that he wants to. I. And that, that, that's just this big fight is Candace. Candace is in a little bit different situation. But Candace Tucker, Megan, criticize Israel. Mark Levin, Ben Shapiro and a bunch of other people are Israel first. And that, that's what this fight is going to keep happening and it's going to keep going. This is a crazy long tweet for a guy. And we talked about this, Pat. That's. Mark Levin has a lot of access to the president. When he was grabbing him and putting

[Pat]

him like I think Megan is. If Mark Levin is Israel first, what's, what's Megan to you?

[Tom]

America first, not Israel first. For sure.

[Pat]

She's not.

[Tom]

Yeah, for sure.

[Pat]

Of course.

[Tom]

Yeah. But I just think, I just think here's the thing. My difference is this, Pat. I understand America first. I'm not America only. This is a messed up world and we have to get involved with wars and stuff. But if your brain automatically goes to everything is Israel, you lose everybody. You lose that argument and you give.

[Pat]

Maybe it's kind of flirting with that though right now everything is. She's saying it's Israel, Israel, Israel.

[Tom]

And, and that's where my thing is this. And mind you, I've been criticizing. How many times have we gone back and forth with, with Gaza on October 7th. Put that aside. I can be critical, but at the same time, I'm not blinded. I'm not completely blinded by this thing. I know who Mark Levin is. I know who Ben Shapiro is.

[Pat]

Trump is siding with Levin, not Megan Kelly, not Tucker.

[Tom]

Say it again.

[Pat]

Why do you think Trump is siding with Mark Levin, Not Meg Kelly, Will.

[Tom]

Well, hold on. I have to correct myself. Mark Levin has talked crap about the president. Mark Levin has told people not to vote for the president, but because of how, you know, when did he help?

[Pat]

2016. He did.

[Tom]

Mark Levin has.

[Pat]

Mark Levin said he's a Never Trumper in 2016? Yeah, yeah, that is true. And by the way, Megyn Kelly also said. Exactly. She had a crush on Mark Levin. So if you, if you. Is this it, Rob? Play this clip and you know, Levin's

[Tom]

another one like Mark. If Mark Levin, the godfather of the movie, he asked you to come on, you just do it, like, out of respect. You don't say, ah, Mark, hold on, I got a pizza down. You just do it. No, you show up and you showed no relationship with him. I just couldn't earlier. That was the only reason I have this crush from afar on Mark Levin. I, I've always loved him. I agree with Sean that he's the great one. I listen to everything he says. I read his books. But, like, he, he only really likes the true believers. And I've always been just more of a journalist who's like, let me, let me hear both sides. I mean, whatever. So I don't think I'm his number one favorite, but I secretly, from afar, am like a Mark. So here's my question. Shocker. What happened? What, what causes that huge divide from saying something like that to Mark Levin? And all of these, all of them, they're all attacking each other. I'm so curious to what happened, Adam. What do you think was the shift in this attitude? I'm going to ask you a question. So question back. You say somebody is Israel first. Define that for me. You're saying that Mark Levin is Israel first. Yes. What does that mean exactly? I mean, he absolutely loves Israel. And I think that they would put Israel's interest over the United States in a heartbeat. Because guess what? I'm not making it up. I see it. I see it with my face. Walk me through some things that a commentator would do to put Israel first over America. Go look at every single podcast they talk about since October 7th, Adam. And everything is Israel, and America has to do everything. And their power to help Israel. Which podcast? Mark Levin, Ben Shapiro. Are you being. Are you being facetious? Well, I actually have the opposite opinion of you. If you want to talk about who I think is Israel first, I think it's the people that can't stop talking about Israel. If you look at what Candace talks about or what Tucker talks about, that's all they talk about. If you ever watch Mark Levin, he's a constitutional conservative. I just started really watching him. He barely even talks about Israel. Are you serious? He talks about the geopolitics of what's going on from a constitutional conservative perspective. He talked about FDR and how he had to challenge the Nazis. He talked about what the Monroe Doctrine is. He talked about the Barbary Pirates. Talking about. Hold on. Talking about America's first war was against Muslim pirates off the Bibary Coast. Barbarians, as he would call them. So to me, just because Ben Shapiro wears a yarmulke, it's so easy to be like, well, freaking Jew, can't trust this guy. So at what point do we distinguish between America first and. And Israel first? Pat's born in Iran. I'm willing to guarantee you he really, really, really, really cares about Iran. Is he Iran first? In. In a joking fashion. Tom's from Canada. Do I think he's Canadian first? I'm not from. So to me, great grandparents, when you have interests that are aligned, that's where the rubber meets the road. So is America first doesn't mean that Israel needs to be the villain. So I'm getting kind of sick of the fact that, you know, who's the good guy in the situation with, with America and Iran? America. Right. Who is America choosing to be their closest ally in the region? Israel. So does that mean that America has bad judgment? Does that mean that Israel is convincing America to go to war or they strategic allies? So I'm of the belief that you can be America first, but also put faith in allies. We just talked about the. That NATO won't step up. If there's one thing I know about Israel, they're willing to step up and eliminate the bad guys all around them. So this, this the casting aside of Mark Levin, who everyone calls the Great One because he's Jewish, to me, is, is. Is shallow at best. And at the end of the day, at the end of the day with Megan and Mark Levin, it's all, who are you trying to win? It's pretty clear Mark Levin has won Trump. Trump trusts him. Our power players trust him. He's on Fox News. Who is Megan kellen winning the YouTube comment section? To me, just because Meghan is not defending Israel doesn't mean that she's right. In fact, Trump believes that Mark Levin is right and he's willing to put his mouth on the line. That's the evidence. So to me, it's, it's all bs. Other than what Trump. Trump's in power. But, Adam, I'm still trying to figure out what was this separation because people like Mark Levin had said to, to deplatform people that are criticizing Israel. Nobody looks at Ben Shapiro. I mean, there's probably people out there and go, oh, he's Jewish. And the. I think a lot of people. Okay, well, guess what, Adam. Those are stupid, bigoted people that don't have Jesus Christ in their life. But I think the thing, you can criticize anybody when it's off limits. That's where people have a problem. When is it off limits Today? Well, he, Mark Levin, I'm pretty sure, has said in the past to deplatform people that are, that are talking crap. Show me that. And that people don't like. My question still stands because if he's a conservative, he believes in freedom of speech in the First Amendment. But here's my question. Why the huge separate. It just, it just went.

[Pat]

Vinny, why do you think?

[Tom]

I don't, I don't know. I think, I think after, after.

[Pat]

Let me ask you, are you, are you in a setting like this, do you side more with Israel or do you side more with Iran? In the issue of Iran, if you have to choose between one of those,

[Tom]

obviously 1,000%, anybody saying death to everybody in your country and death to everybody over here as an ally.

[Pat]

Okay.

[Tom]

Never. It's not even a question.

[Pat]

When you, when you watch some of these shows and you single thing becoming Israel, Israel, Israel, I don't like it.

[Tom]

I'm, I'm, I, I.

[Pat]

But that's what they're doing, though.

[Tom]

Yeah.

[Pat]

No, but that's what they're doing. Like, literally everything Tucker is doing nowadays, something comes back to Israel. Everything.

[Tom]

Yeah, because I think it's, I think that's the, that's the audience that like, like with Candace, when Candace talks about. She's still talking about Erica. I remember being a man or something like that, because that audience wants, that they want to keep seeing that situation.

[Pat]

Yeah. So to me, the part for me here, that was, it was a missed opportunity. Right after Charlie Kirk was killed, I said, there's one person that can actually unify. And to me, you know, God, Knows we need the unification message, but it's not popular today to do that because, you know, unifying is boring. Unifying is like, oh, my God, stop. You're trying to bring people together. People want controversy, people want to change, people want conflict. The three Cs is what gets eyeballs, right? Unification doesn't bring eyeballs. It's not what brings eyeballs. No. I got to make money. So change, conflict, controversy. That's what I need to make money. Okay, so who was trying to unify? Charlie was trying to unify. And I thought Megan could have played that role. I thought Megan could have played that role. The reason why I thought Megan could have played that role is because Megan went from mainstream left. Everybody said, big mistake leaving, made a movie. She's in the movie. You know, the movie. I don't know, with the whole. Everything that happened with Ales and Fox and I don't know if you remember that movie. Was Margot Robbie in that movie? I don't know who it was that played her. Anyways, there was a movie that. Her lawsuit, stuff that happened. Then she comes back, she starts podcasting Bombshell. Yeah. Then she comes back and she does her own podcast. Starts doing very well. And now, you know, she's crushing it with her podcast. And I think she had a chance to say, tucker, we can criticize Israel. It's a little too much. Hey, young guy, come here. What's your deal? Okay, Nick, maybe she invites him. Hey, she could have done that and played a role of you not doing all the other stuff that Charlie was doing. I saw. I nominated her as the number one candidate to be able to do that because of where she was at. I think she missed an opportunity. And by the way, you know, nobody, we're, we're. We're not in anyone's head to see what people's motives are. Right? We don't know what people's motives are. My, you know, our motive is simple. I think long term, this is going to get nastier, and I think there's going to be need to be many different media companies and consulting firms to engage that they're at least sharing values that are pro family, pro freedom of, pro freedom of speech, pro having kids, pro capitalism. My concern is I want to make sure that stays. That's my motive, long term. Never taking a penny off the table with valuetainment. Money comes in, gets reinvested into the company. That's our motive. Okay, I don't know what Ben's motive is. Maybe a part of it is Israel and He wants to make sure that's protected. I don't know what Tucker's motive is. I don't know what Candace's motive is. I don't know what a lot of people's motives are. But if you're choosing to live in America, we have to sit there and realize who's for us, who's against us. And if people are against us and they're literally telling you death upon you non stop, and you say no, the enemy is really Israel, who doesn't say that? Who will work with us on certain things? I don't trust Bibi 100%. I'm 50, 50 with Bibi. I think if Bibi has to choose what's best for Israel or America, guess what? He's going to choose 10 out of 10 times. Obviously it's going to be Israel. That's not. But that's not. To me, it's not being evil. That to me it's like what you're supposed to do. He's supposed to be Israel first. I don't think Mark Levin has a dual citizenship, by the way. You know how some of these guys have dual citizenship. I don't think he has that. So to say he is. I don't know if he is. I've never spent time with him. I've never talked to him. I don't know who the guy is. I don't like the way he put his arms around Trump any kind of a. And I even said that on live on video. So it's not like. So to me, the only thing is every time it comes to this topic, it's going this way. And if you voted for Trump and Trump from the top, who knows everyone's dirt better than anybody else? He is siding with this guy. Why is he siding with that guy? Why is it because. So now if you say, well, siding with him because you know who the real President of the United States is? It's really Bibi. Yeah, that's his boss. If you side with that, then you've been sold, you know, what do you call it? Series of lies. And you bought it for sale. And you deserve everything that's coming to you. You deserve all the manipulation. To me, I think he is strategic. I think he's making decisions. You don't think when Trump talks to Bibi, he knows what Bibi's gonna say before he asks Bibi for things? Of course. What do you think? Of course, you know, you don't think he's looking at everybody that he can also use for things that he wants.

[Tom]

Absolutely. Of course he is.

[Pat]

Of course he is. Of course he's thinking about that stuff. But I know for a fact when you're dealing with Bibi, Bibi is, you know, Israel first times, 10 times, a million, behind closed doors of where they're at. So I don't know. I think when I see some of the stuff that's happening, I'd like to see an opportunity to go back to normal. I'd like to see an opportunity to unify everybody. The reality of it is, as you're going into this next phase, guess what's about to happen. You just lost Boca. Boca. That's. You know, it's so funny. They think, well, you know, Jewish people, all this stuff. No, no, Boca is Jewish. A lot of Jewish people live in Boca. A Democrat one in Boca.

[Tom]

Okay.

[Pat]

And we were chops. Yeah. Holding signs. May Miami was who before it was Mayor Suarez. Who is it now complete. You know, the new girl that took over Democrat. They're saying she's like a female version of Mamdani, minus the Islamist stuff. This is just gonna go on. And you got guys that are now saying, vote Democrat.

[Tom]

Yep. Right.

[Pat]

So just so you know, just so you know, just so you know, it's headed in that direction. And you pick and choose what values you want to be from 28 to 2032. So in 2028 and 2032, when it's the complete opposite side, trans, LGBT, everything makes a comeback. Then you deserve everything you got. You deserve everything you get those four years because during these times, you were like, well. Well, because of it. Wow. Well, you fell for it. Congratulations. You got exactly what you were skeptical about. And so for multiple terms, you're like, I'm Trump. I'm Trump. I'm Trump. But not now, because I think he's this. Because he lied to me and because he did this. Okay, great. Congratulations to you. Going to help the left in 2028. And by far, the biggest supporters of a Democrat Winning in 2028 will be the Woke. Right? The number one. They won't need to hire a PR specialist. Don't worry about it. The Wolcrat's gonna help you out. Well, because who they gonna support for 2028? Go ahead.

[Tom]

Go ahead. Yeah, you're gonna vote for Gavin.

[Pat]

Tell me who the Wallcraft's gonna vote for.

[Tom]

They talk crap about Marco big time. And.

[Pat]

Hey, J.D. so, okay, so who are they gonna vote for?

[Tom]

Gavin Newsom. Which is.

[Pat]

So believe it or not, I think the woke. Right. Is actually gonna either sit it out or vote for a libertarian.

[Tom]

So I mean, the vote won't even matter.

[Pat]

Vote won't even count. Guess who that helps?

[Tom]

I'm on the page of apathy, so by the way.

[Pat]

But you have to realize if you truly. The part to me is simple. If you're pro family, if you're pro capitalism, if you're sick and tired of esg, LGBTQ transgenders, running the military, if you don't want any of that stuff and you're falling for the trap of walk right, you're going to get a Democrat president, not because they. They're going to run behind some kind of a libertarian and JD and not jd. What's the Kentucky Massey. Massey's going to run as a Republican. That's what he's going to run as. And say he gets primaried out. Okay, say he gets primaried out. You think Thomas is going to come out and support a Rubio? You think Massey is going to come out, be a supporter Rubio?

[Tom]

No.

[Pat]

You think he's going to. So then what do you have to do? So I wonder if the woke rights. If the woke right doesn't stay like this and they flip and they become supportive of a Republican candidate for 2028, then they're just doing it for money. I'm really watching to see if the woke right becomes woke stays woke in 2028. You know why? I don't know if you understand what I'm saying or not.

[Tom]

Yeah, of course.

[Pat]

If the woke right stays woke, then you truly believe in what you're talking about. If the woke right flips their positions In October of 2028, you were just doing it for adsense. So we'll see. I hope they stay because I'll actually respect them even more. I don't know if you understand what I'm saying or not. Let's see what you do. But if they stay that way, guess who gets elected? And Newsom and aoc. You know how the pendulum goes like this. Okay. Typically, here's how it goes. So the pendulum goes, all right, a reasonable Democrat. Okay, all right, we got a reasonable Democrat, John F. Kennedy. He's not a Democrat. He's. He's a Republican today. Okay, all right. Okay, we go here, this way. What's it. Who come. All right. Ford, Nixon. Okay. Bill Clinton. Good. Economy was fine. Okay. All right. Bush, Obama, Trump.

[Tom]

Yeah.

[Pat]

Aoc.

[Tom]

Oh, God.

[Pat]

No, no, don't say oh, God. That's what's gonna happen.

[Tom]

Yeah.

[Pat]

And that, that only. Hell, the only reason he goes AOC is because the woke ride. They're going to come at me.

[Tom]

Sure.

[Pat]

Who the fuck Iran you were. You're pro. This all you do, taking the money, all this stuff. You think I need $7,000?

[Tom]

You two. Bunch of.

[Pat]

But you're going to get AOC and you're the campaign managers. You know who you are. You're helping her out. You're helping. That'll never happen in America. Okay, yeah. Mamdani Islamist communist. You know who you know wife is liking post of the girl that was being raped and destroyed by Hamas, you're liking.

[Tom]

That's the white.

[Pat]

That's the first lady of the mayor of the financial capital of the world. Oh, yeah, yeah. But. But Pat, that's New York City. It'll never happen to America. Yeah, no. This is how pendulums work. If you're just going this far, it only comes back this far.

[Tom]

Yep.

[Pat]

But if you go all of a sudden, boom, you're going boom. So I could be wrong. And we'll come back and visit this November 8th of 2028. And make a note of this video, Rob. So remember some of these videos to remember. Mark this video as one of the videos to come back in the end of it. So. So to remind us. Go ahead, Adam.

[Tom]

I think you're right and I'll tell you why. And this is why I said that the far right, the Woke Reich, as they call them, is Israel first. Because if you put on a list of all the things that you believe in, if you're a conservative, if you're on the right, all right, traditional family values, patriotism, capitalism, you have all these things that you put on there, but because of Israel, you're willing to throw that all out the window and say, no, I don't like what Trump is doing with Iran. He's bought and paid for by Bibi. I'm throwing all my values, all my principles, everything I've always stood for, that's out the window because I don't like this Israel thing. So that means that the Israel first thing is your top priority. That means forget about family values, forget about having kids, forget about the economy, forget about the border, forget about every single issue that Trump won on your number one priority is, oh, I don't know, we're owned by Israel. That, to me, is the problem. And when you go that, you know, they say, don't go full R word, they're going full R word. And they're encouraging young conservative men on the right. Guys, I know what's best for you. Vote Democrat, by the way.

[Pat]

Vote Democrat, FYI, a part of this.

[Tom]

It's insane to me.

[Pat]

A part of this is also going to be, you know, who is the leading organization shaping a mindset of young kids.

[Tom]

Well, you could say turning point on the right.

[Pat]

We're going to see what TPUSA is going to be doing. We're going to be watching TP USA

[Tom]

is going to do.

[Pat]

I don't know, I'm not.

[Tom]

I mean, I, I mean I can speculate. Do you think Candace is ever going to be invited to TP usa?

[Pat]

I think JD Tucker. I think.

[Tom]

Do you think Tucker is going to be welcome back?

[Pat]

I think absolutely.

[Tom]

We'll see.

[Pat]

I think we'll see. Why wouldn't they?

[Tom]

We'll see. I don't know.

[Pat]

Why wouldn't they?

[Tom]

What are the chances Candace ever comes back?

[Pat]

I don't know about Candace because I'm

[Tom]

pretty sure I know about Candace. She'll never be welcome back.

[Pat]

But that's a different conversation. Candace won't because of Erica. Unless if they have a meeting together. It's a different place. But to me, all I'm saying is this next phase of youth. Anyways, let's go to the next story. Rob, can you pull up the story about the discount that the government gave? Guys, this may be some. Share this with some people you have that are not big fans of America because they just got a massive discount. And I really want to applaud the US government for doing this. Marco Rubio, you know, the State Department decided to reduce renouncing your citizenship by 80% from $2,350 to 450. A nineteen hundred dollar discount. Rob, if you can go on, this is like, listen, if there's ever been a moment to do a discount double check like this was it at the highest level. Can you go to Twitter? Rob, can you go to Twitter and go to my Twitter account please? I tweeted this, I don't know, sometime last year. Go a little bit lower right there. Okay. And, and you know the reduction I'm talking about how much of a savings they're getting. But go to the Twitter tweet on the bottom. October 20, 2025. I said, if you're in America, leave, but stop turning, trying to turn America into a place you escape from. And I suggested, I'd like to propose to the White House, if you can highlight that middle one, to waive the fee till 2028. They didn't listen. They did 80%. I would have loved to just say we're waiving the entire processing fee till 20, 28. Don't even pay the 450. Go full on free. Okay? Just get out. If you don't like what's going on over here, Tom, how do you process this for them to go from 2350 to 450? Things like a statement to those who knock America.

[Tom]

I'm very happy that the president is finally doing something about affordability.

[Pat]

There you go.

[Tom]

And disinflation prices are going down, not up, finally. That's what I think. No, I, you know, I like this. They're saying, hey, you know what? Tell you what, you know, you, you say 2350 is too much. Okay. For the price of a plane ticket, you know, for a price of plane ticket from Miami to LaGuardia, you know what? Leave. You can go. I love it. I love it. It says, you know, if, if you think there's a social, you, you don't have money to leave. Right. You don't have enough money to leave. And you think there's a socialist country out there that when you walk in, you can get all the services you want and you just can't afford to do it. Guess what? We just made it affordable. Yeah, but here's my question, Tom. How many of those countries are just going to let you walk in there? It's not. It's not like here four years ago. Oh, that's not my problem. Yeah, you know, yeah, but, you know, but you know what I'm saying, I'm just making. I'm just making. Doing what your big mouth threatens to do. Yeah. Affordable. Yeah. Well, think about a lot of those people, like Rosie O' Donnell and what's her name, Ellen DeGeneres. They left, but then they're coming back

[Pat]

because they know that it's horrible thoughts.

[Tom]

Look, if you don't love America, you feel free to leave America. But there's some nuance here, so let me pan out. There's three types of people that would possibly renounce their citizenship. Number one is a financial reason, tax reasons, you know, evading the system. You know, I didn't. The guy, one of the co founders of Facebook, I think he went down to Brazil. What was it? Where'd he go? Singapore. Singapore. Basically escaped, you know, tens of millions of dollars, if not more in tax. Got that one. Number two, you have the expats where, look, they always wanted to live someplace else or their families from someplace else. So for passport reasons, you know, they're going to go someplace else. The third is the ideological ones who hate Trump so much or hate America so much. That they end up developing TDS or ads America derangement syndrome. Those are the people that end up looking like Rosie o'. Donnell or these people that hate America so much that they. They want to leave now I actually respect those people because they put their money where their mouth is. The people that I have no respect for are the people that stay here, do not have the brass balls to put where their money where their mouth is. But they'll stay in America and stay hating on America and burn the American flag and call jihad or call America the Great Satan. But want to do that under the confines of America. That to me is weak and woke and wrong. And those people are the reason that America is so fractured right now. They should leave. Which category does psychotic episode or temper tantrum go? That's the third category. The third category? Yeah.

[Pat]

You know what the it is?

[Tom]

I feel like the people just have raw temper tantrums or a psychotic episode and they leave.

[Pat]

How many people you think renounced it, their citizenship last year?

[Tom]

They said it was like 4 or 5,000, right?

[Pat]

4 or 5,000. You know what the record is? 6,705 during COVID But outside of that, pre 2010, it was between 200 to 400. Okay. Pre 2010 was between 2 to 4. Between 2009. Before 2009 was 2 to 400 people per year. Now we're getting a couple thousand. Listen, if you allow 15 to 20 million people a year to come, not a year. 15 to 20 million illegals that came in during Biden. Let's just say those numbers are accurate. 10 to 20 million. You're probably not going to get rid of the ones that you want to get rid of. But some of the people may want to do it. The reality of it is those who do just got a Christmas present, I think. Listen, again, like Tom said, I like the idea of affordability being at the top of his mind and wanting to make sure people can save it. And Tom made a very, very good point there, Pat.

[Tom]

You might have just explained it. You might have not even caught what you just did. There's how many people leaving America renouncing their citizenship every year? Couple hundred, couple thousand. And there's tens of millions of people trying to sneak in the country illegally, much less doing it the right way. You said, how do you judge a great restaurant by the line outside the wait. America is still the greatest country because everyone's trying to get in. And we have a handful of idiots that are willing to pay to leave. And even then they need to reduce the fee in order to get them to leave because it's just too much.

[Pat]

Well, let's talk about the people that are working at Facebook. There's some bad news coming your way because Meta eyes massive 20% workforce cuts as AI infrastructure costs continue to soar across operations reports. Get your charts ready, please. I'm going to come to you first. So while you're looking at this story, let me read it to you. Meadows reportedly weighing. And by the way, that's around 16,000 people. Rob, can you pull up what 20% of Facebook meta looks like the cuts come as a technology company aims to offset the cost of AI infrastructure and prepare for greater efficiency brought about by AI assisted workers. AI assisted workers. AI assisted workers. What does that mean?

[Tom]

They're sitting there operating the AI and

[Pat]

telling chat GBT what to do. Yeah. Three sources familiar with the matter told Reuters. The outlet added that the timing and the size of the potential layoffs have not been finalized. When reached for a comment, Meta spokesperson told Fox Business this is a speculative report about theoretical approaches. According to Reuters, top Meta executives recently shared plan for the proposed layoff with senior leaders at the company. If the company were to slash 20% of its employees, the layoffs would amount to Meadow's largest restructuring since 2022 and early 2023. Metal laid off 11,000 workers. In November of 2022, the company cut another 10,000 jobs. Months later, Meta employs nearly 80,000 79,000 as of December 31, that's around 16,000 employees that'll be fired. Tom, thoughts on this?

[Tom]

So there's a couple thoughts I have. First of all, you know, people accuse foreign countries in the Middle east of sport washing. They're using sports to kind of COVID up other things they're doing. Right now. We've got a thing called AI washing going on. There is a little bit of changes in the economy. Some things are going on. And what people are doing right now is they're floating the, the benefits of AI as the reason for layoffs. You know, you had block with the Jack Dorsey company a week ago, Pat. Remember that? The big thing. And it turns out that they, they had acquired two companies, including a crypto company, and they had never optimized the administrative headcount. So part of the layoff was they had a bunch of duplicate administrative jobs. You know, it was a fact. Yet, oh my gosh, this is what's happening. So what is happening here is Facebook is floating to the market, what calling it restructuring and using AI as a reason to distract people from, you know, what is really happening with Facebook growth? And that's the answer is they're not down. But by the way, their stock is still up, I think 86% as of this morning going back to 2022. When those other. If you go back to 2022 or look at five years, I think it's up like 86% since 2022 and yeah, 300 and 116% if you go back over five full years. And what they've done in there over the last four years is they've announced layoffs just like so many other companies have done. Announcing layoffs. What, Vinnie, what does Wall street love almost as much as ebitda? Layoffs. That was more ebitda. Just say layoffs that make ebitda. Layoffs that make ebitda. Yeah, that's exactly right. Clip that. So it's basically what's going on is they are floating this out there, Pat, like many companies are doing. Will there be 20% laid off? Possibly. Very possibly. Or you know, look at the little headline there. Just read the Reuters headline, Vinnie. Just read out loud. Meta. Shares jump after Reuters report on plans for layoffs of 20% or more on plans. Is it happening? Is it happening on Tuesday? Yes. No. The shares jump after reports on plans. Plans. So this is exactly what's happening to oil. Depending on who speaks over the last week. Oil goes up and down and so that's what's going on.

[Pat]

Well, listen, Yahoo Finance came out this week and said oil could break its all time record and it hit $148 a barrel this week. Okay. I don't know if you saw that or not. You see that story time. It could. Yeah. So 140 this week.

[Tom]

I'm sorry, I was gonna add something to the Facebook thing before you move on.

[Pat]

Go ahead.

[Tom]

So I'm just gonna try to create an analogy here. Tell me if you agree with this. So they're cutting staff to make way for AI Is that what it is? Potentially. No. Because of AI? Because of it. Exactly. So let's use a sports analogy. Remember when they, the Miami Heat signed LeBron and we're all going to go to south beach, we're gonna, you know, take my talents to South Beach. We're going to win championships. So they had these stars because they believe that stars win championships. So Meta is looking at AI saying, that's our number one player, that's our max player, that's our LeBron. So what did the Heat have to do? Dude, they had to cut the dead weight on the roster. This guy ain't playing. We're gonna have to call somebody up from the G League. You know, these role players aren't really adding a lot of value. We need a LeBron. So to them, the AI is their max star player and they're willing to invest in him and they're willing to cut the, you know, quantity and in, in favor of the quality. So some. What did they say? 25. How much? 20% of their workforce. Those are role players. Those aren't the stars. So to me, AI is the star. They're investing in that and we'll see where these role players.

[Pat]

This becomes true that they're laying off 20%. You're going to see their a stock move up in a massive way.

[Tom]

You think it's going to go up?

[Pat]

The moment they announced 20 layoff, their stock's going to go up. My opinion, 3 to 10% the moment they make that announcement.

[Tom]

And why, why would it go up immediately?

[Pat]

You think that's profit going back into the pocket? So what is the average? What is the average. What is the average employee at meta make? 120 the average employee in Metama. Average employee at Meta. Meta pays. Meta's got engineers that make 5 million. So the average in the median employee compensation at Meta, what do you think it is?

[Tom]

250,000.

[Pat]

What do you think it is?

[Tom]

Yeah, I mean it's, it's high, especially in Silicon Valley.

[Pat]

$379,000.

[Tom]

At least a quarter million.

[Pat]

So if you go to this and you type in 400,000 times 20,000, how much is that? $8 billion a year added to EBITDA at a valuation. What is their PE ratio? Rob, what's the P ratio? Vinny, can you put. Do you know?

[Tom]

Let me.

[Pat]

What's the PE ratio of Meta? What is, what is the PE ratio of Meta stock? What is it? Is it 25, 22, 38, 41. It's not going to be low. It's take care of this pet.

[Tom]

I think it's, I messed up.

[Pat]

I put 31 and a half meats. Okay, so check this out. Their PE ratio is 311 and a half. If this saves 8 billion in salaries. What 8 bit. What's 8 billion times 31 and a half? This right here is a $240 billion increase to the valuation. It's a firing 20% of their workforce adds a quarter of a trillion dollars of valuation to Meta. So what's, what's Meta currently worth right now? What's Meta's current market cap today? Metas Current market cap today is what? It's $1.84 trillion. So what's one. Is that what it says? Is that what the market cap says right now? Trillion and a half is a trillion and a half. What's 240 divided by. What's 250 divided by a trillion and a half? 250 divided by a trillion and a Half.

[Tom]

What's the 250 number?

[Pat]

$250 billion is how much it's going to increase.

[Tom]

Gotcha.

[Pat]

So if you go to 250 divided by a trillion and a half is what, 16? Is that what it is?

[Tom]

Is it a sixth?

[Pat]

Is that. Is that what it is? So if it's a trillion and a half. Yeah. So you're looking at the stock, it says 16.6, 17. Stock going up. I don't think it's going to go that high because you have some other things you need to do, but I think it's going to go up 3 to 10 points. I wouldn't be surprised if it went up 10 or 12 points. Okay. I wouldn't. If they fired a 20. If they let go to 20.

[Tom]

Remember when Meta changed their name from Facebook to meta in 2022?

[Pat]

Yeah, but that was a whole different.

[Tom]

No, I know, but, but my point is that they're, they're long term strategists, are long term thinkers. You know, what's the thing we were saying last week? Short term pain for long term gain. Their stock plummeted in 2022. I don't know if you can. Was it Covid? Well, no one believed in the. So remember when they, when they changed their name to Meta, everyone's like, what are these guys doing? They were investing in the Metaverse. Mark went From a top 10 richest guy in the world to to out of the top 10. Now look at them now. It wasn't just a name change, Adam, but the name change was part of it. You're right, but what happened was they were also pouring money into a hole called the Metaverse. We're all going to put on glasses, we're going to live in the Metaverse and we're going to extend. That's when we do within our Facebook profiles. It didn't happen. What they're saying now is they're going to bet on the AI chips that's going to run their AI embedded platform. So people are saying, oh, see, as

[Pat]

pat, it's called the board of a trillion dollars evaluation.

[Tom]

That's right. A quarter of a trillion dollars evaluation. And you're going to save $8 billion a year that you're then going to turn around and spend on chips. We like chips. We don't like the Metaverse environment sounds like a video game, but we sure as hell like the fact. Oh, that's your play. Everyone has to have a Grok play. Grok is the X play. What is the Facebook play? Facebook needs an one last they're going to bet on chips and there you have it.

[Pat]

So look, is it going to be Lays? Is it going to be Ruffles? It's what kind of chips? Nobody knows. Maybe it's going to be Pringles. I mean Tom, we got to get it right if we're going to get this techn it.

[Tom]

We should announce our own chip and get our own black jackets. Get v get, get FLB black jackets.

[Pat]

Let me get to the last story here before Adam had to come in and give his analysis on this, which by the way led to a good conversation for once. But oil break. Oil could break its all time record and hit $148 a barrel this week. This is Yahoo. Finance story WTI crude oil futures are trading near 120 a barrel tonight. This is March 9th. This was a long time ago, by the way. But it's projecting that the record all time is 147. $147.27. That's July of 2028. July of 2008 we were at 123. June of 2022 and the third highest ever was March 8th of 2026 at $120 a barrel. Will it hit 148? Rob, this is Chris Wright.

[Tom]

Yes, he was about oil reaching $200 a barrel.

[Pat]

Go ahead.

[Tom]

Barrel of oil closed above $103 on Friday and the Iranians are warning of prices hitting $200 a barrel. Mr. Secretary, should Americans be bracing for, should they be worried that this war will actually drive the price of oil above $200 a barrel? Hide your enthusiasm, wench. So Iran for 47 years has called the United States the Great Satan. So because they call us the Great

[Pat]

Satan, I don't think we are the Great Satan.

[Tom]

In fact, clearly we're not. So I don't listen much to Iranian projections of what's going to happen. So that's a no. Are these disruptions of hormones very important waterway? I would pay no attention to what Iran says, but there is a lot of energy that flows through the Straits of Hormuz. And depending upon the timing and the manner in which this conflict comes to an end. We're going to see some elevated pricing until we get there where it's going to go. We have done many, many actions to mitigate that price rise. You saw the announcement of a coordinated

[Pat]

vinay. I would come to you first, but, Tom, your thoughts on this?

[Tom]

You know, I love the way the news media takes complete hyperbole and throws it in front of Chris Wright. Like, hey, the top analyst at JP Morgan said this. Look at this report, Mr. Wright. You know, that's just shocking to me. I, I don't understand how you can basically, you know, put the guy on the spot with some just piece of hyperbole. This, this, this, this, this crazy nonsense. And, you know, could oil be at 200? It could. Could it be 148? It could be. If somehow they get a hold of a Stinger and they sink a tanker. Wow. Now all hell really breaks loose and you can have the problem. So it could. But is the economic forces that are going on right now showing that. No, they're not, but the economic forces are showing is, could it be over 100? Sure could be somewhat over 100, but it doesn't look like it's going to be absolutely like 150. I don't see the 150. And I think Chris Wright was sitting there. It's like, why would I take Iran's analysis? Why would I be commenting on that? And there's Christian, Christian Welker trying not very hard to hide her enthusiasm that oil could be at a point that hurts the U.S. consumer that she doesn't care about because it's a game of media gotcha with a Cabinet member. It's Pat. That's what's frustrating. You look at West Texas Intermediate, it's went a little bit above 100, a little bit below 100 today. It's down three bucks at $95. And so it's floating at 100. Could there be.

[Pat]

Well, here's a question.

[Tom]

A big thing this week and it

[Pat]

goes 125, anything could happen. And by the way, if it, if it does, by the way, if it does go to 150, what does that mean? Here's what it means. If it goes to 150, Iran's about to be destroyed 10 times worse than what's already happened. If it goes to 150. Because, because the only reason, the only reason it goes to 150 is because they attack somebody in Hormuz. That' the only reason.

[Tom]

Right.

[Pat]

So, so, so for those people that are thinking it's going to go to 150. You're saying they're going to attack one of the ships that's not an Iran.

[Tom]

Correct.

[Pat]

Not a U. S. Israel ship. And it's going to get hit hard and it's going to be nasty and then the US Is going to have to retaliate if that happens. Yes, that could happen. Now if China comes out, China hasn't been, hasn't made too many comments about the Iran and this whole thing that's taking place. They've been very quiet about it. By the way. Real quick, can you guys do me a favor and put in the chat at how much gas prices are where you're at? You know, just for like an 87. How much are gas prices where you're at? Put city, state and gas prices. I was in Miami the other day.

[Tom]

You said 87. Me, regular gas. 87.

[Pat]

I did. 93. Was it 93 unleaded? I did. It was 06606 for 93 unleaded in Miami. I wonder how much gas prices are. How much are gas prices when you're filling up the tank?

[Tom]

It's about $4. It's like hovering around 4ish something. 4ish.

[Pat]

87.

[Tom]

No, no, I'm doing 93.

[Pat]

You're doing 90. High roller Tom Woods.

[Tom]

Are you doing the good stuff? No, I, I filled up. I filled up Bailey's car on Federal highway on Saturday morning. It was like 49, almost 5. Shell 93.

[Pat]

But how much was the gas?

[Tom]

489 almost 5.

[Pat]

How much is, how much is a gallon of Pepto Bismol right now? Adam with.

[Tom]

Well, I actually filled up my girlfriend's tank the other day at her. Oh, excuse me. Whoa. Yeah, take it easy. Locked.

[Pat]

It was a big deal.

[Tom]

A listen, I put my nozzle in there. I did the pump and I filled it up.

[Pat]

It was about 40 bucks, what they call it nowadays. But emptying the store.

[Tom]

40 bucks to fill. I sent you slightly below nationally right now in the BBD podcast, according to Fox News because we all trust them. The current price of gas on average is 370. And it was up from a week ago. 345amonth ago. 293.

[Pat]

70.

[Tom]

So in the last month it's been up 77 cents. That's triple in my opinion. Small price.

[Pat]

It's not fox. That's triple. A.

[Tom]

Okay. According to aaa, this was on Fox. Small price to pay for eliminating the greatest terror threat in the world.

[Pat]

Have you seen Uber prices go up a little bit.

[Tom]

Pat but small price to pay for nobody.

[Pat]

Are you actually seeing Uber prices?

[Tom]

Yeah, a little bit, but, you know, it's nothing crazy. So if it went from 50 bucks, that was 54 bucks. You know, we still got to get Adam.

[Pat]

Adam. With all the driving he's doing lately, he's actually seriously concerned for some of you guys that are realtors if you want to manact them. He is seriously considering moving to the Keys because he is, like, he's trying to find a way to make the driver as far as possible better because he's. He's having some interesting moments. And by the way, if you really want to know the Pepto Bismol story, I won't let him explain it. Manect and he'll tell you. Maybe even he'll share the video with you. The craziest thing that happened to him.

[Tom]

That guy's gonna go viral.

[Pat]

That I don't believe. Leave 50 on this, but maybe we

[Tom]

have a new Minec circle. Adam's Uber Adventures.

[Pat]

Anyways, at this point, guys, I can't

[Tom]

hear, so don't believe it. You're going crazy.

[Pat]

I can't hear. I've been stepping away from the podcast, doing the jump to get this water out of my head. But anyways, okay, if anyone out there

[Tom]

has a solution to help Pat get the water out of his ear, he

[Pat]

bought the drops for me right now. They're gonna bring it. I'm gonna go through it. Rob, what do we have tomorrow? Nothing tomorrow, but we do have Wednesday, right? Okay, sounds good, gang. Do your thing. Have a great next couple days. We'll see you guys on Wednesday. God bless. Bye bye. Bye. Bye.