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- [00:05]
Jeff Snyder
Did you ever think you were making.
- [00:13]
Pat
Adam, what's your point? The future looks bright. My handshake is better than anything I ever saw. It's right here.
- [00:22]
Rob
My son's right.
- [00:23]
Jeff Snyder
I don't think I said this before.
- [00:31]
Pat
All right. Business Wednesdays with lots going on. Bob Iger today apparently resigned. Today's his last day. I don't know if you guys heard or not. We got Snyder in the house. Aceto and Ellsworth. We're all going to get smarter today. And gas hits diesel. What was the time diesel hit five?
- [00:45]
Tom
Was it gas hit five dollar national average.
- [00:48]
Pat
Five dollar U.S. diesel prices soared to five dollars national average. We're going to look at the numbers to date. The numbers are high as we're going through what people are, how people are being affected by these gas prices. I think today the number is what, $96? Is that what it is? $96.
- [01:06]
Jeff Snyder
Oil.
- [01:06]
Pat
Oil. Right now? As of right now. Right.
- [01:09]
Tom
10 bucks more in Europe.
- [01:10]
Pat
So that's that. So we'll talk Disney with Bob Iger. We'll talk about gas prices. We'll talk about how NATO kind of pushed back and said we're not going to get involved. And even Starmer came out and is like, we're not going to get involved in your war. We have to react to that. Joe. Kentucky, not the great Jeff Kent from the Giants. We don't want to undermine Jeff Kent. Jeff, you were great when you played. We watched you hall of Fame. Finally, Joe Kent comes out and calls out the President and the White House on the decisions that were made. And he worked directly with head of dni, which is Tulsi Gabbard. And then Tulsi Gabbard had to come out and post a tweet about it. This video, this tweet. Tweet, if I'm not mistaken. I don't know how many views I got, but it's got nearly 800,000 likes on X alone and we haven't talked about it yet. Let me go to it. Yeah, 800,000 likes on X and still going. 86 million views is what this one tweet got. And a letter which we will read. And Speaker Johnson reacted to it. The President reacted to it. The market reacted to it left, right and center. Even some baseball players thought he was Jeff Kent. They're like, wait a minute, is he back running? We had no idea. But it's not Jeff Kent, it's Joe Kent. I want to make sure we qualify those two very clearly. Then US economy, we have to talk about McDonald's how closely they're paying attention to the affordability as well as coal as well as dollar store. They're making moves. Everyone's trying to find a way because this affordability conversation is no longer just the thing people are talking about. They're starting to realize there is something here and we have to definitely talk about it. And then you have the chief of intel in Iran was taken out. You know, it's like the more you talk, it's like you're next. And he's the guy that said to Trump, you better watch your life because we're coming after you. And then next thing you know, there's this thing called karma. It's happening to a lot of Iranians with the threats that's coming back now. We'll see if any of that's going to come back to us as well or not. Post came out WaPo and CNN poll of where Americans are for the Iranian war. Where they support and they don't. We'll talk about that. I think it's 53 to 59 that don't as of today. So we'll address that as well. Aside from that, we got a bunch of other stories to get into. Billionaire Uber co founder Travis Kalanick admits strategically moving to Texas before California's wealth tax goes into effect. Washington actually passes millionaire tax despite concerns of the wealth flight. And they're not worried about it. Even Forbes came out and did an article. It's an interesting way. The article is written saying only six billionaires left the state of California. But of the six that left, they generate $27 billion of revenue in taxes for the state, allegedly. We're going to look at that on what that number is. And then aside from that, we got a few other things we'll get into as well as it's going on. We got if we're able to make these stories, if we're able to make these stories time forward, we'll get into it. I do want to talk to you guys about something. A lot of you guys with deal DM me and message me and say, hey, you know, how do I become a member of the cigar lounge, the boardroom that you have here last night. I can't tell you how many people were here watching the great game of Venezuela against us when Bryce Harper hit the home run. I mean it was beautiful. And I was, I'm like, this is the moment my son Dylan called it that he was going to hit the home run. He hit the home run. But then we fell one short and the score ended up being 3, 2. Congratulations to Venezuela. I know how much this means to Venezuela. Venezuela's had a great 20, 26. Some may call it the greatest year. 90 days Venezuela's had in 20, 30, 40 years is what people are talking about, the way they're celebrating. So congrats to the Venezuelan team. As much as I'm was rooting for America, I want a judge to hit that home run and have that victory. But you got to recognize them. A ton of people were here watching it. You know, just yesterday I did a podcast with Joey Merlino here. The, the allegedly Rob, we have to say this correctly, the allegedly boss of the Philadelphia crime family. That podcast will come out. We had the Eric Trump here, we've had Stephen A. Smith here, we had Tati. We have a lot of people here that come to the club, the boardroom. So if you want to be a member, it's by invitation only. Everybody goes through background checks. You can't bring a cell phone inside. If you want to learn more to come in here and network with others in South Florida at Fort Lauderdale at a high end premier cigar lounge, we'll do Louis, you know, the 13th events, we'll do different kind of events here that you'll come in and be involved. Go to boardroomcigarlounge.com boardroomcigarlounge.com Rob, if you want to put the link below, click on become a member and one of our representative will reach out to you. With that being said, let's get right into it. I think the first story I want to get into, Rob, if you want to pull up the NATO story, I think the Naito story kind of goes with everything that's going on in Iran. The President went up to them and said, hey, listen, we need your, we need you guys to be with us. Are you with us or not? I'm just paraphrasing. And it was a very different approach. I think Keir Starmer came out. If you have that clip. Rob, if you want to play the clip with Starmer, here's what he had to say about their involvement in a war with Iran. Go for it. Our priority is always the national interest. And so we have been clear and consistent in our objectives throughout this conflict. First, we will protect our people in the region. Second, while taking the necessary action to defend ourselves and our allies, we will not be drawn into the wider war. And third, we will keep working towards a swift resolution that brings security and stability back to the region and stops the Iranian threat to its neighbours. I want to see an end to
- [07:34]
Tom
this war as quickly as possible, because
- [07:38]
Pat
the longer it goes on, the more dangerous the situation becomes and the worse
- [07:45]
Jeff Snyder
it is for the cost of living
- [07:47]
Pat
back here at home. Okay, so that's Keir Starmer saying that the president, I think, responds to it as well. Rob, you got to maybe a clip on that. There's an article from Wall Street Journal saying US Allies rebuff Trump's demand for help opening Strait of Hormuz. President Trump is pressuring allies to help open the Strait of Hormuz and relive pressure of the global economy and relieve. So far, most of them aren't biting. Germany has rejected, taken apart, taking part, while Japan and Australia have indicated they are unlikely to send vessels to help. Britain and France said they are assessing possible action but haven't committed to doing anything before fighting halts. All are close US Allies. On Monday, German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius dismissed Trump's call for help, asking rhetorically what Trump expects a handful or two handful of European frigates to accomplish in the Strait of Hormuz that the powerful U.S. navy there cannot achieve on its own. This is not our war. We did not start it. Trump sent a pointed message to allies over the weekend. Rob, is that the clip that you have? This is, yes. Boris, you want to go to the president first? Because I already read this. Just go to the clip you have with the president. Here's the president. Go forward.
- [09:01]
Rob
Very surprised with the United Kingdom, because the United Kingdom two weeks ago, I said, why don't you send some ships over? And he really didn't want to do it. I said, you don't want to do it. We've been with you. You're our oldest ally, and we spend a lot of money on, you know, NATO and all of these things to protect you. I mean, we're protecting them. We're working with them on Ukraine. Ukraine's thousands of miles away, separated by a vast ocean. We don't have to do that, but we did it. Well, Biden did it. I mean, I have to be honest with you. Biden got taken to the cleaners, but we worked with them in Ukraine. We don't need to work with them in Ukraine. And then they tell us that we have a mind chip around and they don't want to do it. I think it's. I think it's terrible. No, I would. I was very surprised. I told him, you know, he. We requested two aircraft carriers, which they had, and he didn't really want to do it. And then right after the war, Essentially ended, you know, meaning they were obliterated. He said, I would like to send the aircraft carriers. I said, I don't need them after the war has ended and won. I need it before the war. So I was very upset with. Not upset. I was. I was not happy with the uk.
- [10:21]
Jeff Snyder
I think they'll be involved.
- [10:22]
Rob
Yeah, maybe, but they should be involved enthusiastically. We've been protecting these countries for years with NATO.
- [10:29]
Pat
Jeff, your thoughts?
- [10:30]
Jeff Snyder
Yeah. I mean, what is the reason that they can really come up with to say we don't want to participate in this? I mean, why is the uk. What is really going on here with the uk? Is it really a political thing here? Because that's the media thought.
- [10:41]
Pat
I have on why they're not wanting to get involved.
- [10:44]
Jeff Snyder
Yeah. Is it really partisan politics? Are they really looking to say if we drag this out a little bit more than Trump will relinquish?
- [10:51]
Pat
That will be speculate. What do you think it could be?
- [10:54]
Jeff Snyder
I think that's what it is, honestly.
- [10:55]
Pat
Purely pure, purely politics. Tom, where are you at?
- [10:58]
Tom
I'm on the same page. I think that the Europeans are playing very careful. You know, I parse the words out what Stramer said and at the very open. It says, we are interested in our national interest, protecting our people. He sounds very, very noble. And all of a sudden he's of the uk, by the uk, for the uk. Wait a minute. He's a globalist that was caught on a train with Macron hiding a coke spoon and they were talking all about we and all these globalist agenda. Suddenly he's the noble statesman, you know, hearkening back to Neville Chamberlain of the uk. I think that the, the European leadership actually is enjoying the fact that Trump is in what looks like an extended war. I think they are enjoying it, Brandon.
- [11:45]
Brandon
Yeah, they don't want a swift ending or to help Trump save face here. I mean, the audacity after all that we've done for them. I mean, not once, not twice, but three times we've. We've been there for Europe in major ways. I mean, World War I, we saved UK. UK would be decimated if it wasn't for us in World War I. They would be decimated if it wasn't for us in World War II. Then with NATO, we didn't have to do NATO, but I mean, part of it was just to like revamp the military industrial complex. So, I mean, like, we recreated this fake thing that we didn't even need, like under the guise of protecting Europe from Russia when Russia wanted to be part of NATO. So, yeah, no, I think. I think we have plenty of leverage over the UK and the rest of Europe. They get 50% of their liquid natural gas from America since 2022. Before that, it was only 10%. So, you know, we could cut that right off if we want.
- [12:32]
Pat
What's giving them this. This much of a backing? Yeah. Where is the confidence from?
- [12:38]
Brandon
That's the interesting part, because they get half of their weapons from us and half their liquid natural gas from us.
- [12:42]
Pat
I mean, either you are double dumb, or someone behind closed doors is saying, don't worry about it. We have your back. Because while this is going on, Trump was supposed to go visit Xi March 31st. Right. And he said, we'll see, based on how the calls go. Well, guess what? The calls apparently didn't go as planned because Trump says US Asked China to delay Xi meeting a month or so due to Iran war. So why are we delaying it? Rob, you want to play that clip? Is this him? Yep. Go for it.
- [13:13]
Rob
I don't know. We're working on that right now. We're speaking to China. I'd love to, but because of the war, I want to be here. I have to be here. I feel. And so we've requested that we delay it a month or so. And I'm looking forward to being with them. We have a very good relationship.
- [13:32]
Pat
So. So to me, is this. Is this Naito, and those guys are sitting around saying, hey, we got to be careful with China. Maybe China's got our back. You know, let's kind of sit this one out. NATO. If you look up who gives the most money to NATO, we know who it is. This is something that everybody knows. The US Gives the most money. I don't know how many billions of dollars we help them out with. He made the point with Ukraine. We gave how much money under Biden to Ukraine?
- [14:01]
Brandon
300 billion.
- [14:02]
Pat
How much?
- [14:02]
Brandon
I think 300 billion.
- [14:03]
Pat
I think it's 160 to 200 billion. It could be $300 billion at this point.
- [14:07]
Jeff Snyder
Under the table, too, of.
- [14:09]
Pat
Of comeback weapons, all this stuff. Yeah, we've seen the numbers. At this point, the numbers are. So we are willing to help, but you don't want to give the two ships until after the war is over with. That's when you want to give. You know, it's like a bank. The bank wants to lend you money once they're a Deca millionaire, but you needed the money to start the business. They don't want to give you any money. We'll Give you the money when you're no longer a risk. So. But I don't know, Pat. You know, the question is, where's the audacity coming from?
- [14:36]
Jeff Snyder
The thing Starmer said it, he said, look, we want this over to me as quickly as possible. What would be the easiest way to get this over as quickly as possible? Help everybody get involved and get it done. Right? I mean, because Trump has said we're
- [14:47]
Tom
in weight of the west, right?
- [14:48]
Pat
Oh, but this is. Here's what's going to happen.
- [14:50]
Jeff Snyder
So why are they. Why are they. Why. Why would they not do that? If your interest is to end this as quickly as possible, then join, get it done, get it over with and move on.
- [14:58]
Pat
Let me read a quote. Let me read a quote to you, okay? Which maybe they need to hear. Here's a quote. Okay, you ready? And a part of this quote I love. Okay. I love when I read this quote. No friend ever served me, no enemy ever wronged me who I have not repaid in full. Lucius Cornelius Sula. Let me read this one more time. No friend ever served me and no enemy ever wronged me whom I have not repaid the in full. A ruthless Roman dictator in general. Right. Is who he was back in the days uncompromising. An element of Trump is he's an uncompromising guy that is going to remember these moments. So what does this mean? If you're an ally, we have your back. If you're an enemy, we will never forget, and we know Trump's never going to forget. I think this is a dumb move because a part of this that they can use as leverage is the following way. Here's how I would do it. Let's just say you're part of these Naito countries. What if you come out and say, Mr. President, we are absolutely with you. We all have your back. With one reasoning. What's that? We want to make one ask. You cannot raise tariffs above 10% the next 24 months. Go back to these following levels if you do this, because this is going to be a cost to us. If you're willing to do this, we're all in. What would you like to do? This is an opportunity for them to negotiate. I don't know if you understand.
- [16:31]
Tom
Like a deal maker. Yeah.
- [16:33]
Pat
Guess what? Instead of just being like, I'm out, listen, maybe the President is, like, wanting to make a deal with you right now. Propose something. What if we do this? And by the way, how do you know that's not been talked about if it's been talked about maybe somebody could leak it to the market and say, hey, you know, what if, what if in this moment where you're coming to us for help? Great, give us a two year commitment. The real number you want to negotiate for not raising tariffs is what, how many years? It's not two years, it's three years. Exactly. Why do you want three years? Cuz he's out in three years.
- [17:06]
Rob
Yeah.
- [17:06]
Pat
And you're hoping the guy that comes after him. So I don't know. I think a part of this is Trump's not going to forget. Yes. And in two years, when you guys desperately need him, he will not forget how you handle this and he's going to delay the support for you. Then what's going to happen? You don't think you're going to need the help? On the other way around, who do you think needs, who's helped more often? You know what it's like? It's like when a guy comes to you for help 19 times, you go to help for one time, but the one time you go to help for him, he holds it over your head and you're like, I'm sorry, what did you just do?
- [17:38]
Tom
Right.
- [17:38]
Pat
I helped you 19 times. And the one time I need you, you are, you're using this as a wow. Okay, no problem. Let me get back to it. No friend ever served me and no ever. No enemy ever wronged me whom I have not repaid in full. You're going to get paid.
- [17:57]
Jeff Snyder
And that's, I think, is what's really bad about this, is what I think the calculation from the Europeans is that they're betting that gasoline prices and diesel prices, which we're going to talk about, they're betting that gasoline prices and diesel prices inflict enough pain on the American voter that they get Trump to relent, to call a quick, you know, call a victory, then just, you know, go back to the way it was. And I think that's a, it's a political calculation in both directions. First of all, from their, from their own perspective, but also from the Trump perspective. So go ahead.
- [18:28]
Tom
I agree with that 100%. I'm sorry to cut you off. Right then there are two types of leadership. There is clear vision leadership, and then you go all the way downhill from that to pure political leadership. There's pat. The Europeans have always been political leadership, political leadership, conversations, muddy visions. We'll consider it, we'll think it over. Whereas clear vision leadership. Does Mr. Gorbachev take down this wall. It's very clear, very defined, the Europeans think they have allies right now. They think the midterm election in the United States is an ally. They think the Democrats in the United States is an ally. They think an upset consumer is an ally. They don't have to have clear leadership, Pat. They're waiting for everything else to pinch Trump. They would rather than go out and stating what they want the future world to be, where they want to go, what they want to do, how they want to get there, how they want to provide for their people in the future, rather than that they'd rather let other things happen. You know, it's, it's, it's astonishing to me to see this. But you know what it is? It's UN Leadership because they are still globalist. They are still UN leadership. And I'm not surprised. I'm really not surprised.
- [19:34]
Jeff Snyder
Tom, do you think they're underestimating Trump here? Because, I mean, we've talked about this many times.
- [19:39]
Tom
I take Trump has people say, you won't see anything negative about Trump. But I'll tell you, they are underestimating a true leader. When you come up against a true leader like this, you were underestimating him. It's not only the, it's not only the legend of Lucius Sulla, which is correct. It's also dealing with someone who is a dealmaker and is going to come back and go, wait a minute, you did. Wait a minute, you did what? And he's got levers to pull. You don't think Starmer is going to need it? Look at what's starting to happen right now in the UK he's got his own issues in his backyard as the,
- [20:11]
Jeff Snyder
he's the most unpopular prime minister in
- [20:13]
Tom
UK history, in UK history. And the people are starting to erupt about the rape gangs and about things that are going on. And he's up there. We're interested in the people.
- [20:24]
Pat
He was about to resign anyways, guys. I mean, at any p. Was about to resign. So I think at any point in the next few months, we could be like, it's the end of it. Rob ran a poll here. Should NATO support the US in helping keeping the Strait of Hormuz? It's an 8020 issue, okay? Even with our audience, our audience is a reasonable audience that watches and gets gets involved. So 80 saying yes. 20% is saying no to the 20% saying no. Can you put in the comment section? Why not? And can all of you guys debate it out, the reasonable players? Can you guys debate it out on why you say no? So that's that part now this leads to oil gas prices. US diesel prices soar to almost $5 as Iran war pinches global supply. Rob, if you can pull up the AAA gas prices for the last 30 days while I'm reading this article, that'd be great. US diesel prices have jumped to more than a third, more than a third over the past month to almost $5 a gallon as the war in Iran ventures. Going average diesel prices at the pump 499 on Monday. A 30%, 37% increase a month ago as the blockage of Strait of Hormuz chokes energy supplies. It marks the highest price for diesel, a fuel that is vital for industry since the aftermath of Russia full scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Diesel costs rocket up and float back down, said Ed hers, an energy economist at the University of Houston. The only thing that Donald Trump's administration can do is finish this war. The diesel surges, pushing up costs for motorists and farmers, threatening to trigger spiraling costs for consumers across the world's largest economy at a time when the President is battling an affordability crisis.
- [22:03]
Tom
Tom so right now diesel's $5 a gallon and gas is about gasoline. Regular automotive gas is creeping up. Now it's crossed $3.80 a gallon. This is going to start having a pinch on the consumer. For everybody that says it's going to be runaway inflation. That's not correct. This will be a short term inflationary catalyst. However, frequently when this is short term, people that are paying for transport, product makers, produce makers, they'll eat a short term increase because they don't actually don't want to raise prices on the consumer right away because that's how you lose market share. You know what I mean? Pat, you and I are making products at a company, oh, diesel is up for a week. Let's raise the price. You go, wait a minute, wait a minute. That's what if our competitor doesn't, we could lose market share. Let's be more careful. So for the short run, you know, producers that are selling into retail are a little bit conservative but not, not forever. But right now five dollar diesel is not good. That's increasing the cost on producers and $3 in 80 gas which is pushes it up to 550 because the people that live in California have almost $2 of localized taxes. This is not good. We need this war to be over so that this can settle back down.
- [23:15]
Jeff Snyder
Jeff Snyder thought yeah, again, it's, it goes, you know what Starmer said, we want to help people's cost of living what's the best way to do it is to end this conflict as quickly as possible. Because Trump is correct. If the Straits of Hormuz get open tomorrow, oil prices are going to go down. They're going to go right back to where they were immediately, like the guy that you just overnight. But the oil prices, we saw this last summer and when there was a brief 12 day war in the conflict, oil prices shot up. Didn't go as high as they are now, but they shot up and then they went right back down again. In Thomas, you're absolutely correct here. It's a, it's a time issue. If oil prices go back down and energy prices can go back down quickly, there'll be limited, limited downside in the economy because in the initial stage people do absorb the pressure. However, the longer it goes, the more it does erode consumer spending, erodes a business's ability to maintain employment. That's the true downside here. Any oil shock case, the real issue is not really inflation so much as it is unemployment. When you have energy prices that skyrocket this much and stay there for even just a couple months. Think back to the 1990 example. It only took a three month oil shock to produce the 1990-91 recession. So that's the downside case. But if you're on this, I mean, I can't get over this thing with the uk. I mean, if you, you want to avoid that, that scenario, then why not contribute? Why not just sit there and wait for it, even root for it? Because you're politically opposed, opposed to Trump. If you want to help out the economy, you want to help out the Middle east, the thing to do would be to participate at the absolute maximum level.
- [24:47]
Brandon
They don't like oil though, you know, the UK doesn't. They like expensive oil. And then instead of them getting blamed for it, they could blame it on Trump. So I think that's a part of why they like this.
- [24:56]
Jeff Snyder
It's politics. It's disgusting politics.
- [24:58]
Brandon
But the thing that's bugging me though is that everybody's saying, oh, the good thing is at least China's being hurt more than America's being hurt. But it's widely acknowledged that the Iran's letting Chinese ships with Chinese oil go through the Strait of Hormuz right now to China. So their China's actually not being hurt by this in the way that we are. And then Trump is saying, it's okay, we produce more than enough oil domestically to supply ourselves for years and years and years, but not exactly the Case because we built refineries to handle the heavy, the heavy crude oil, you know, because we didn't know that we had all this light crude oil that we found in 2008. So we produce, we do produce the most oil in the world by far, but we can only refine like 10% of it because we don't have refineries that could refine the light crude that we have. Does it make sense?
- [25:42]
Pat
I do, but did you see the subtle support that friend France gave to Trump with Macron? Did you see what Trump said about Macron? Did you guys see this or no? I think there was something there.
- [25:53]
Brandon
Were they sending something?
- [25:55]
Pat
He says, you know, there's a micro.
- [25:59]
Rob
No,
- [26:01]
Pat
he'll never help in the Strait of Hormuz. Yeah, he said it's, it's an eight call, eight and a half call. He'll be out of office very soon, so we'll have to see. What is this? This is about there's two clips. Which one is this one? Play this one. Let's see this one. Because this, this looks like a traditional trumpet. He's got the green tie on. So it's yesterday. Go for it.
- [26:22]
Brandon
He will never join a, a task
- [26:24]
Pat
force in the straight report moves until
- [26:26]
Brandon
hostilities finish yet yesterday you said.
- [26:28]
Rob
Who said that? Who said?
- [26:29]
Pat
President Macron of France. What's your reaction to that, sir?
- [26:32]
Rob
Well, he'll be out of office very soon, so we'll have to see. You know, I don't know,
- [26:39]
Tom
I like the, the trail off comments. Right. Well, he'll be on.
- [26:42]
Pat
Yeah, he'll be out of office. Look, I mean, what, what this is doing, what the, what the straight of Hormu conversation is doing is it's making you wonder if, how, how many other choke points are there in the world that can impact the economy. Okay. And what leverage different people have? So we, we got a history lesson the last two weeks about straight of hormones. Right. The world did. Sometimes when this stuff happens, you're like, oh, I didn't know that. Oh, I didn't. We, everybody's learning collectively, right? So what do we learn? We learned the power. We learned who goes through it. We learned who really has control at the choke, which Iran has a lot of influence in a country like Iran, people are scared of that they could attack. And we learned about Carrick island on what could happen with Karak island. And the influence that we learned about the mines. We learned about all this stuff, right? Yeah, but what other choke points are there out there that China may be afraid of? You know, that Other people, we hear about Suez Canal, right? You hear what Suez Canal does. And by the way, with the choke point of can you go to the, can you go to the Strait of Hormuz? Did you guys hear about what Saudi Arabia just announced yesterday that they've been working on last 40 years that almost got done, the pipeline. Can you type in the Saudi Arabia straight pipeline, go to bypass or moves as Iran locks? Yeah, go to the east west pipeline, Right. They see it to the left. Okay, can you do me a favor and go type in Saudi east west pipeline and go to images. Saudi it. Out of nowhere they announced this. So check this out. Go to right there. That's a good one. So the Strait of Hormuz is that choke point to the right. Do you see top right? All the way to the top right. Now go even further right and Iran is right above it. That's Iran right above. So if you look at this image, there's better ones. Okay, perfect. So Strait of Hormuz is to the right. Okay. Kuwait. To the, to the right of Kuwait is Iran. Well, quietly, Saudi's been working on this east west pipeline that's able to do five to six and a half million barrels of oil through not having to go through straight up horror moose. And they're claiming it is ready so they don't have to deal with this. So they're playing prevent offense. Right. Hey, if you're going to do this to us and put the threat we're going to protect ourselves. So everybody's paying attention to the different choke points. The other one was Panama Canal. We talked about it extensively that now, you know, Panama came out Supreme Court saying, hey, you guys can't have control over China. So somewhat Panama Canal, Panama has control with the influence of America. Right. Then the other one we have to look at is what Israel is doing that they're talking about. They proposed this in the 60s quietly. Rob, if you can go to the Ben Gurion pipeline. Type in Ben Gurion pipeline and go to images. They proposed this quietly internally in the 60s. They named it after their first prime minister. And this is what the Ben Gurion pipeline looks like. Can you go to images, Rob? So it's just immediately people will see it. Let me see which one to go through. Go to. None of them are good. I mean, go to the, go to the second row. Keep going, keep going, keep going. The fourth one, second row, fourth one right there. So currently the Suez Canal is to the left, which is roughly 193km. Okay, you see that to the Left, right there, the red line, that's 193km, which by the way, we know who controls that. That's Egypt. Yeah. So now Egypt, for the most part, they're making a lot of money off of that. I don't know what the number is, but they make 4 1/2 to 7 billion ish off of that. You guys can fact check me on this. If you look to the right, you see Israel. Israel came up with this idea of building their own canal. We know straight is God made, canal is man made. To build that through, it's going to be around 250-300km to not be reliant on Suez Canal. And by doing so It'll cost them $55 billion. They'll need 300,000 employees to build it. Some claim this may go through Gaza and that was part of the war. It'll save them a few kilometers if they're able to go through Gaza. If not, it'll be 290km and they're proposing to do that. So everybody right now is kind of sitting around saying, what do we do next? But you know, what's the other two? That. One of them we don't talk about a lot. One of them we know is the choke point is What? Taiwan. With 90% of semiconductors, we all know how much control they have and how everybody has ships around that area to protect. Taiwan, Japan, us, you know, and then China's flying jets constantly to make sure no one's messing with that because they eventually want to find a way to have control over it. This is, this is the last one that we have to talk about. And it's the Strait of Malacca. Rob, can you tap in? Straight of Malacca. Strait of Malacca is by far the most important. Straight to China. Nothing is more important than the Strait of Malacca. If you go to map, I'm trying to see which map to use that shows it. Just, just go to the. Yeah, that's a good one. Rob, click on that and go to the site. Yeah, Straight of Malacca is probably the one no one is talking about. Look at mainland China. To the right. Okay. Up top. Okay, right there. Straight of Malacca is right there on the bottom. If you go to Malaysia and they don't have it too zoomed in all the way. That small little island at the tail end between Indonesia. Indonesia is the bottom one. Okay, go to the, go to south of Malaysia. Rob, go to south of Malaysia. Go to Malaysia. You see where Malaysia's at right there? No, you're right there. Just put the Arrow on south on Malaysia. See that land to the left right there? That's Indonesia. That's Indonesia. So Malaysia gets 7 billion a year from that straight in revenue. Indonesia only gets 3 billion a year. But that small little island, Singapore, that you can barely see gets $15 billion of revenue. And they know if anybody wanted to make China's life a living hell, that's the one you mess with. And China knows that. So to me, in the negotiation where Trump's talking to China, you don't think Trump knows that Strait of Malacca is the. China probably doesn't want any attention on Strait of Malacca. Yeah, any. So if I'm talking and Trump's talking, the way he's talking, I don't know, but I would kind of drop it in there and I would kind of give a hint and say, hey, let's not. By the way, you know how much money goes through every year? You know what the number is? Three and a half trillion dollars. 94,000 vessels a year go through this area. $3.5 trillion. So it's not like I don't know what the number is. Some 30, 35% goes through this area. 35%. Go, go back to the number you had right there, Rob. What did it say? Third in 2024, 35 of oil transported by sea and 20% of gas flow through the Strait. 35. More than a third goes through this. So to me, if they're talking threats behind closed doors, and I trust Trump's team has talked about this, probably immensely with them, but we haven't heard this name a lot. We haven't heard this name a lot. This is something China wants nobody to pay attention to. This is a place China wants nobody to be talking about. So to me, while all this negotiation behind closed doors are going on, I wonder how much if this thing gets a little bit deeper and China plays a little bit of an asshole move and tries to come and help Iran with the Strait of Horror. Moose, I wouldn't be surprised if America goes out there and does something, not anything to this area, but dangling something saying, hey, don't forget, we know how much important this area to you is. You better not be acting too crazy. Knowing Trump behind closed doors, in his own way, he may do that. I don't know. So we'll see. We'll.
- [34:18]
Jeff Snyder
Don't you think that one of the reasons they Trump delayed the meeting with Xi was to get this Iran conflict resolved? He wanted to go over there in a position of strength and power and say, look. Look at what we did with Iran. Iran was supposed to be this major country, major ally. You know, we've heard endlessly about their ability to inflict harm all across the region, all across, everywhere. We took care of them in about a month. We can do that to Iran. Don't mess with us in all these other different places. I think that's what Trump was.
- [34:46]
Pat
But let me tell you in Besson says it's got nothing to do with any of this stuff. Like, it didn't get delayed because they're not willing to play ball. That's what Scott Besson said. He's supposed to say that. Rob, you want to play this clip? You know, we will see whether the visit takes place as scheduled. But what I do want to parse, and there's a false narrative out there that if the meetings are delayed, it wouldn't be delayed because the president demanded that China police the Straits of Hormuz. It would be because it was a
- [35:16]
Jeff Snyder
report out to that.
- [35:19]
Pat
That's completely false. So if the meeting for some reason is rescheduled, it would be rescheduled because of logistics. The president wants to remain the NDC to coordinate the war effort and
- [35:34]
Jeff Snyder
that,
- [35:35]
Pat
you know, traveling abroad at a time like this, maybe they're talking right now,
- [35:39]
Brandon
to be honest, like.
- [35:40]
Pat
But do you agree? Do you agree with Scott? Do you agree 50. 50 with Scott?
- [35:43]
Jeff Snyder
What?
- [35:44]
Brandon
That. That this isn't the reason.
- [35:45]
Pat
Do you agree 50 that the reason to not go is because the calls didn't go well as plan and, hey, let's delay it. And do you agree the other 50, this is not the time to travel? Do you give both sides a little bit of credit? That's probably happening.
- [35:57]
Brandon
I do.
- [35:57]
Jeff Snyder
Yeah.
- [35:57]
Pat
What do you think?
- [35:59]
Jeff Snyder
No, I think this is Trump playing power politics again. My whole framework is this is Cold War 2. You go to Cold War II, you go to Xi Jinping in a position of strength, you go to them after you got the Iran thing bottled up and say, look, we took out Venezuela, Cuba's next Panama Canal. We've done all of these things. Now Iran, we're negotiating on our terms. Even though I'm in your country visiting you, we're negotiating on our terms. I think that's the overriding.
- [36:26]
Tom
And Taiwan's a friend.
- [36:27]
Pat
And keep in mind, keep in mind one thing, that the Strait of Hormuz in a war with Iran has almost taken off the table as a topic that no one's talking about right now. Taiwan, no tariffs, you know, and the court saying you got to pay back the $193 billion in tariffs and said, oh, it's going to take years. Not really. We want the money back now. And they're kind of pushing. The judges say, no, you guys got to. So. So to me, he's going there to China at a time that tariffs didn't rule for him, it ruled against him.
- [36:57]
Brandon
So you need to get a position of strength to go there.
- [36:59]
Pat
I agree with Jeff. I think, I think there's. I think there's a part of it that. And by the way, I would do the same thing. Like, yeah, no, not right now, guys. You don't want to. But again, to me, straight up, Malacca is very important to China.
- [37:13]
Brandon
Yeah.
- [37:13]
Pat
I want to know what hurts you. Okay. And I'm going to remember, I'm going to go back to our nice quote from our friendly general back in the days, no friend ever served me, no enemy ever wronged me whom I have not repaid in full. Trump right now is watching to see who's an enemy, who's a friend, or you don't want to help us? Nope. Either way, we're going to repay you in full, whatever it is, good or bad. You choose whether you want to be a friend and an enemy. We're not going to forget. Okay. We're not going to forget. So anyways, we'll see what's going to happen here. I don't think it's going away. This, you know, Iran, Strait of Hormuz, all this stuff that we're talking about. At the same time, while this is going on, Israel says Iran's security chief, Ali. Larry Gianni has been killed. Larry Gianni, no relation to Larry Bird, but. So Ali Larigiani has been killed in a strike, according to cnbc. Rob, is this, is this Adam's best friend? Go for it. Go for it. This morning, we eliminated Ali Larijani. Ali Larijani is the boss of the Revolutionary Guards, that group of gangsters that effectively runs Iran. Alongside him, we also eliminated the commander of the Basij. They are the gangsters assistants who are terrorizing the population in the streets of Tehran and other Iranian cities. We are operating there as well, operating from the air with air force jets and UAVs. We are undermining this regime in the hope of giving the Iranian people an opportunity to remove it. It will not happen all at once, and it will not happen easily. But if we persist, we will give them the chance to take their destiny into their own hands. At the same time, we are helping our American friends in the Gulf. I spoke at length with President Trump on this matter yesterday. There is cooperation between our air forces and navies, between myself and President Trump and his staff. We will assist both through indirect attacks, which create immense pressure on the Iranian regime. And through direct actions, there are many more surprises. By stratagems, you shall make war. We will not reveal all the stratagems here, but as I told you, there are many. Now, regarding another matter, let me pause it right there. So, by the way, this Ali guy that they killed, the way to put it, he is like, to make a comparison is like the director of CIA type of thing. It's a heavyweight to take out. Right. Tom, your thoughts? You think this is the end of it with leaders getting killed, or you think there's more of this that's going to be coming every other day?
- [39:43]
Tom
Well, it feels like the war is methodically moving along, and Israel is doing exactly what we've been watching for two weeks. They are knocking down leaders and they are tightening the noose. They want no leadership in there. You can, you know what the stratagem is for Israel right now, right? Is, you know, take down the leaders. It's. It's a bingo card. And they're just another one, another one, another one, another one. That's what I see. And I see Israel kind of, kind of on their own strategy here. I don't know. I don't know how aligned we really are, and I don't know how much I trust, but, you know, that's their strategy. And, you know, he's making a speech. He's also showing he was. There was 72 hours. He didn't make any comments publicly. And then we had a bunch of, you know, BS about, oh, you know, BB's been hurt or worse. Right? There was that going on for 72 hours. And now he's up there speaking. It's not AI. He's very, very clear, talking about, you know, that's what we're doing. So this is their plan. Their plan is leader.
- [40:47]
Pat
And by the way, Bibi had five fingers in that video. I don't know if you saw that. It wasn't seven. And so.
- [40:51]
Tom
So Bunny in the Superman costume sitting on the shelf, which I'm trying to
- [40:55]
Pat
figure out to, to. To say who he was, he was like the. Go back to his title, Rob. Go back so we can say it correctly. He's like the Speaker Johnson, right? Speaker of the Parliament of Iran for 12 years. So he's like the speaker of the House. And he was a media personality, educated guy, PhD in philosophy, Iranians saw this guy on TV and he had a lot of weight. Jeff, where are you at with this?
- [41:27]
Jeff Snyder
I think the strategy here has been pretty consistent from the beginning. Israel has said their goal is regime collapse, not regime change, but regime collapse. And that means not just taking out one or two guys, but taking out the ability of the regime to sustain itself. So what they're really hoping for is if by continuing to pressure the top leadership, it splinters what's remaining, what's left there, and it opens the door for the Iranian people to rise up and remove the regime, or at least for somebody within the regime to say, we're no longer part of the regime, we'll start moving in a different direction. And I think the US Goal is similar, but then to contain the fallout, first of all, the economic fallout, but also the, the long standing goals of the US Foreign policy, which have been to eliminate Iran as a threat. So there's a bit of symbiosis here, even though I think there are different tactics and different strategies going on. But overall, this is why I think it's underestimating Trump from the European perspective and other perspective, that they're not going to stop until they accomplish their goal. Everybody thinks they can wait out Trump in Europe. We'll just wait till gas prices go high enough and the midterm election goes wrong and Trump will say, okay, we'll just declare victory, you know, and go home. That's, they've, they've crossed the Rubicon here. They've gone way too far. And I think Trump has shown, and Israel certainly has shown ever since October 7, that they're willing to go to extreme lengths to accomplish their goals. And what they've said is our goal in Iran is regime collapse and we're not going to stop until we actually get it. And I think that's, that's both the, the, the aim here as well as the resolve.
- [43:04]
Pat
Brandon?
- [43:04]
Brandon
Yeah. I'm curious what happens once we do say we do take out all the leaders? I mean, what does that look like in terms of how involved do we get in the regime change, the transitionary period? How do we make sure it doesn't become even more volatile and lethal and deadly place that continues to execute terror attacks? Because, I mean, what does it typically look like when you create a power vacuum like that? And I'm not saying it's a bad thing that we're doing that. I think it'd be great if we methodically took out all the leaders. I'm just saying what degree do we have to be involved in that transition. And I mean, does. Does Israel have any plan or vision for being involved in that leadership transition? Do we have a person in mind to be the leader? Because that's the weird thing, and that's the unfortunate thing about Reza Pahlavi, that he has no interest in being the leader because, like, what else? Who else is there? That that's a name that could be.
- [43:50]
Pat
It's not Reza Pahlavi has no interest in being the leader. It's President Trump has no interest in him being the leader.
- [43:56]
Brandon
Has he said that?
- [43:58]
Pat
No. President. Him or Reza.
- [43:59]
Brandon
Reza. I thought Reza said he didn't want to be.
- [44:01]
Pat
Yeah, he said that on the podc. Now he's saying, the moment the regime collapses, I'm coming back to Iran to help being a transitional leader. And we don't fully know what that means, but he can't do that without Trump. Without Trump.
- [44:15]
Brandon
Yeah.
- [44:15]
Pat
And so Trump said, he seems like a nice guy, but he's been out for 47 years. I think we need somebody on the inside, not somebody from the outside. Do I think the president will work with him? Meaning could he play a role in helping in the transition? I think yes. Do I think he's going to be the guy they're going to look at the president saying, no, he doesn't believe. He says he's a nice guy, but he's working.
- [44:39]
Brandon
We need, like, potentially boots on the ground even more so than taking people out, because, like, how do we even protect the person that, like, whoever he does decide to make that person, how's that person safe from the people who are upset about that turnover?
- [44:51]
Jeff Snyder
That's always the gamble, right? That's the one reason that nobody has ever acted in Iran and other places is that you don't know what comes next. That's always the question. Okay, we want to. We want. Everybody agrees, we got to take out the leadership in Iran. This is bad. We don't need to keep going for 50 years. But what has sustained them for 47 years is this question, what comes next? And I see Trump as not some crazed bad man who's just going around the map and just randomly blowing things up. He's a gambler. He's a dealmaker. You guys say it all the time. He is a deal maker. A dealmaker doesn't start down a road toward a deal without having some idea how it's resolved. You don't just throw the dice. Throwing the dice is a loser's game. So I have to believe at some point or in some way I don't think, I don't, you know, Israel, I don't know if they're necessarily going to be involved, but I believe that the Trump administration has some roadmap. Whether they can execute or not, that's always the question. But they have some strategic roadmap that gets them to answer that question. What comes next? I don't think what comes next is, you know, the Marine Expeditionary Forces landing in Tehran. I think it is solidifying opposition leaders enough that once the regime collapse, the regime collapse becomes viable, that the opposition leaders can then for what you hope is a seamless transition. It probably won't be seamless, but it's
- [46:08]
Brandon
like a civil war type of situation, worst case.
- [46:11]
Jeff Snyder
But again, I don't see Trump as a gambler who's just going to throw the dice and say, well, like Iraq, we'll go in there, blow everything up and just hope that everybody's happy on the other side. I think they have at least some idea that this was going to go. There was a significantly positive outcome. That was a realistic one.
- [46:30]
Pat
Yeah. I mean, look, while this is going on, you got the concern when you hear the numbers from WaPo and CNN on what percentage of Americans are supportive of the war. You see the 53 to 59% are not. Are not. And there's different polls. You can pick and choose on what these.
- [46:47]
Jeff Snyder
And that's only gonna go up. The opposition to the war is only gonna go up.
- [46:49]
Pat
I think it's just gonna go up. And the reason why it's gonna go up is what they. You think you felt the impact of money, you know, and affordability hasn't happened yet. Right now it's kind of like, ah, maybe 350, 380. You know, I can deal with that. Yeah, that, that right there, disapproval. Which poll is that, Rob? Is that the CNN Wapo and Wapo and Wapo 52 to 59, where it's like, can you go search it for yourself as well on what some other polls are saying? So that's, that's what Americans are worried about, how bad this could turn into. The moment it's hitting their pockets, they're going to be reacting to it in a different way. This is why being swift and fast, if it becomes a lengthy thing. Oh, you're, you're going to have some issues with that. Let me read this. That came out yesterday, which, by the way, Tom predicted this last week, US warship believed to be carrying additional Marines to Middle east tracked off Singapore. Okay. Which kind of. We talked about a little bit Earlier. Singapore. Go ahead. Is this a rock? Go for it. Right there. Okay, so what is it doing there? Is the. Is there a good restaurant in Singapore? They're checking out. Are they there because there's good fishing,
- [47:58]
Jeff Snyder
lobsters, there's good lobsters.
- [47:59]
Pat
And maybe it's lobster we don't know about because we saw the numbers of lobster. They like to eat lobster before going to war, so we don't know why they're there. Maybe it's innocent. It's just lobster. You know, they're trying to catch it and have some food. But, Tom, why are they there? What is going on here? What's your guesstimation?
- [48:14]
Tom
That is the USS Tripoli. The US Tripoli is a ground invasion ship. It looks like a little baby aircraft carrier, but there is one purpose of that ship. It is not a hospital ship. It is not a floating barrack. It is a invasion ship. And what is ON There is 2,500 Marines from the Marine Corps Expeditionary Force, and now they've made it to Singapore. I and a lot of defense analysts are believing that the reason we loaded those guys up and sent them over there is Carg island, is to take possession of the island, shut off the valve, and say, okay, you get what you want to get through the new Saudi pipeline. That's not near the volume you're going to have here. We need to figure out the strait. And now, by the way, there's not a lot getting through the strait. I think the actual number, Pat, was 21 ships over 96 hours. I believe that's number of ship that have got through. So all this comment about, oh, we're only going to hold up the Americans and. And their. And their ally ships. There is not unfettered passage going on right now. So China is still being limited in its ability to get that. That oil. But that ship that is coming, and I believe it's gonna get a lot of support. And soon as you see it within 300 miles of the strait to Hormuz and turn north, you know where it's going? It's going to Kharg island. Because where else would it be going? They're not gonna take 2,500 Marines and come ashore in Iran.
- [49:46]
Pat
Rob, do you believe exactly where it's at right now as of this second? Jeff, your thoughts?
- [49:51]
Jeff Snyder
Yeah, I agree with Tom. I think this is more pressure on the Iranian regime. I mean, what better way to help bring about regime collapse than the cutting off Iranian oil? I mean, what is it? 90% of Iranian oil goes through Kharg Island. So if you take control of the island, you can effectively control what Iranian oil is doing, assuming they don't sabotage the pipeline going to the island, which is a whole set of other different circumstances. But it's another layer of pressure that's being applied to the Iranian regime as well as accomplishing the mission of trying to manage the energy fallout and the energy cost fallout. So it's. There really isn't any ambiguity here.
- [50:32]
Brandon
Brandon, just to play devil's advocate for fun, I mean, the whole, I think, philosophy of, like, Trump and the Art of War and the CIA and everything, it's like, all right, like, look over here, because I'm actually doing this. I mean, if, if we could see the ship going to the thing from, you know, miles and miles away, if the whole world sees it going there and is anticipating this, I mean, like, Iran obviously has plenty of time to see the threat coming and plan for what they want to do about that. So, I mean, like, yeah, you're right.
- [50:58]
Pat
Because if. For you to have the audacity to go through. What are you saying? You're not going to do shit. Yeah, that's what you're saying, right? If they go through the choke point and Iran's right there and they're just going to look at him, do something, go ahead. If they don't, that is the ultimate, you know, sign of.
- [51:18]
Jeff Snyder
Well, that's the resolution to this problem, right, is to prove, to prove that we can park something like that in the middle of Straits Hormuz and then that will operate as a platform to help protect shipping. The biggest problem right now with the shipping isn't Carg island, it's insurance costs. Even though, you know, London insurers say, yes, insurance is available, we aren't denying coverage to anybody. Yeah, their rates are ridiculous. I mean, I think I saw the report and I think you guys have it in here to talk about the insurance rates to cover vessels going to the Straits of Hormuz are like 5% of the vessel value. And that's just the prices that we can get. So to get oil moving and to get not just more than oil, but to get everything moving through Hormuz, you have to have a credible, a credible solution to the. The Iranian problem isn't even direct attacks. It's almost like the naval doctrine of fleet and being. When you have a lesser powerful adversary, all they need to have is a credible threat that they don't actually have to act on that causes the more powerful adversary to dedicate resources to trying to protect the threat. So if you drop a bunch of marines on this island, you eliminate even the idea of the threat of the fleet. And being that the threat that Iran poses just lobbing some missiles or some suicide drones at traffic passing through the strait, that's really, that's the goal here. The goal here is to remove the credibility of the threat from the Iranian side to restrict transit through that area.
- [52:43]
Pat
You said insurance. Here's what this fellow Gene Soroka had to say about the Hormuz insurance. Go forward, Rob.
- [52:49]
Tom
There are thousands of vessels that are
- [52:51]
Pat
stuck in the Arabian Gulf and just
- [52:54]
Tom
to the east outside of the Strait of Hormuz. The companies do not have an interest
- [53:01]
Pat
right now, nor is there enough money
- [53:03]
Tom
for insurance to transit those ships through the strait. Risking the life and limb of crew is just not an option for the private sector companies today.
- [53:13]
Jeff Snyder
So, Jeannie, you saying that for many they're just doing a hands off approach and have canceled a lot of transits?
- [53:19]
Tom
That's right.
- [53:21]
Pat
There you go. So that's what he had to send them. The president said this by Kerrick Island. Rob, is this it? Yes. By the way, real quick, Suzy Wells. I hope she recovers. I hope everything's going to be fine. Word came out that she may have breast cancer. We pray for a full recovery. She's played a very important role in this administration. So our prayers go out to her and her family. Go ahead, Rob.
- [53:42]
Rob
I know we attacked Carg island and knocked it, knocked it literally destroyed everything on the island except for the area where the oil is. I call it the pipes. We left the pipes. We didn't want to do that, but that we will do that. We can do that on five minutes notice. It'll be over. But for purposes of someday rebuilding that country, I guess we did the right thing. But it's. It may not stay that way. Just one simple word and the pipes will be gone too. But it'll take a long time to rebuild that. We are aggressively dismantling Iran's defense industrial base and ability to rebuild its missiles and drones.
- [54:27]
Tom
They are five days to the coast of Somalia. That's where the ship is now, according to five days. From five days from Singapore to Somalia. And if you look at the map, you see where Somalia is. And so when the USS Tripoli reaches the Somali coast and turns north, the discussion's over. You'll go take a look at where that is.
- [54:51]
Pat
Rob, you're trying to find a flight. It's like Rob wants to go to Somalia. It's interesting, man.
- [54:57]
Tom
Yeah, they are five days to Somalia. Which means they're five days to, to Oman. And so as soon as they show up down there, soon as they show up down there. So look at this. On Monday, Tuesday, the U.S. tripoli is going to be sitting right there. Everybody's saying, okay, are they going to turn toward Oman and go toward the straight? It's five days. So it's like a movie. Five days to decision.
- [55:23]
Pat
Let me ask you, from there, how many days is it to get past the choke point? Two.
- [55:28]
Jeff Snyder
Yeah.
- [55:29]
Tom
A day and a half. Two days to go all the way, all the way north.
- [55:31]
Pat
Got it. So that means next Wednesday they could be on that. Something's happening.
- [55:37]
Tom
Well, I think we'll hear it on Monday because we're going to know where the USS Tripoli is on Monday and everybody's going to know. Okay, if I hang a right turn here, we're not going back.
- [55:49]
Pat
On December 12th, Disney invites you to go behind the scenes with Taylor Swift in an exclusive six episode docu series. I wanted to give something to the fans that they didn't expect. The only thing left is to close the book. The end of an era and don't miss Taylor Swift. The Eras Tour, the final show featuring
- [56:10]
Tom
for the first time the Tortured poets department.
- [56:15]
Pat
Streaming December 12th only on Disney. This episode is brought to you by Palmolive. Family time isn't just the big moments. It's weeknight dinners, sitting around the table, everyone talking all at once. So when the plates are empty and the sink is full, use Palmolive Ultra. Palmolive's most powerful formula removes up to 99.99% of grease, leaving your dishes sparkling clean. And the new convenient pump makes cleaning even easier so you can spend less time tackling dishes and more time together. Shop now@palmolive.com yeah, I think our Marines are going to be. These are Marines. You're not talking about regular folks. I just see them just looking north, just looking at them, just looking at him. Because if it does get through, Listen, if Iran does something to the USS Tripoli, what does US do? If they do something, how do you think US reacts?
- [57:14]
Brandon
Violently. How bad they annihilate them.
- [57:17]
Pat
So what's the chances that Iran will do, will take a gamble, as Jeff is talking about earlier, and try to make a statement and do something to the Tripoli.
- [57:26]
Tom
If the USS Tripoli is coming through the Strait of Hormuz, we're basically saying it's on.
- [57:32]
Brandon
I think they, I think they would try to do something because they're tell, they're telegraphing it.
- [57:35]
Pat
I think so as well. So what do you think the chances
- [57:37]
Jeff Snyder
are they know it's 100? They're gonna try to.
- [57:40]
Pat
Oh, you think they're gonna try?
- [57:41]
Jeff Snyder
This is from Iran's perspective. This is a war of survival. Nothing is off the table.
- [57:47]
Pat
And I think this is the end of it. Like me. What I mean by end of it is check me if you don't. Yeah. You're saying you surrender, right?
- [57:55]
Brandon
Yeah.
- [57:55]
Pat
If you do, you're saying you still have a lifeline. You know, you're still.
- [57:59]
Jeff Snyder
That's why I think the pressure metaphor works, because they add more and more pressure. They're moving chess pieces around, getting closer and closer to checkmate, and enough of a checkmate that allows the Iranian opposition to start rising up and start exhibiting control. That's the positive outlook. That's if it works. Well, if they can execute this and it actually goes in the right direction,
- [58:19]
Tom
Check is the right word. Over the next five days, how many more leaders does Israel check off the list?
- [58:24]
Jeff Snyder
Yeah, that Check. Right.
- [58:27]
Tom
For the next five. So the next five days, does the noose get tighter? You know, all they have left is what, a drone swarm? That's all they have left. They have two options, a drone swarm or, you know, the unthinkable that, you know, right now Russia is helping them with satellite imaging. If Russia or China actually help them with a weapon, forget about it. That. I don't think that's going to happen.
- [58:54]
Pat
I don't.
- [58:55]
Tom
I don't think that's.
- [58:55]
Jeff Snyder
So.
- [58:56]
Brandon
Isn't that sort of a. This is the actual plan, though. If the Tripoli pulling up and deploying the troops in there, I'd be shocked if that's the actual plan with, like, how far ahead of the time we know about it. Like, think about it. Like, that'd be crazy from a military standpoint. Like, we're just telegraphing it for five days in advance. I think that something else is going to happen. This is supposed to be the decoy that we're looking at.
- [59:14]
Jeff Snyder
Well, they did that last year. Remember, they had the, the B2 bombers flying off. They made a big show that they were flying from the. From the east or from the west, and then the actual strike came in the other direction.
- [59:23]
Brandon
Yeah, the fact that the media is talking about it, I don't know, but I mean, it's a good idea if they're using that as a decoy.
- [59:28]
Jeff Snyder
But I think it's also, it's. It's also to China and Russia to say, look, if they actually go through with us, it's to say, look, we're going to do this. What are you going to do about it? Are you going to back the Iranians? It's, it's pressure from all over the board and all over the map.
- [59:42]
Pat
Yeah. You know, once, you know the USS Tripoli has ever been attacked, you know, it's been attacked once before. Rob, go pull it up.
- [59:49]
Brandon
Oh, wow.
- [59:50]
Pat
February 18, 1991, during Gulf War. Okay, location Persian Gulf damage. A massive explosion ripped a 20 by 30 foot hole in the hall. You can actually pull up the picture, Rob, and see it. Nearly 5,000 gallons of fuel was spilled. The ship could have been crippled or sunk. Four sailors injured, no debt, no one died. The crew was stabilized. The ship within two minutes of state operational and continued its mission. That's it right there. Look at that. That's not a.
- [60:20]
Tom
Took that shot. And within two minutes they were 20 minutes operationally.
- [60:24]
Pat
20 minutes later, they were operational, you know, back at it again. So to me, that's a mine. And we know where mines are right around Kerrick Island. There's a lot of them.
- [60:35]
Brandon
And drones.
- [60:35]
Pat
Yeah. So it'll be, It'll be, it'll be interesting. It'll be interesting. Let's. It'll be interesting. If you're saying, if they do so this NATO saying no, as of today, Israel's playing offense, taking out more people. China's doesn't want to meet because they don't want to say they're taking sides. The USS Tripoli is on its way there, not for food, but they're just going there because they want to make a statement. So that means the most intense moment of this entire war could be next Wednesday.
- [61:11]
Jeff Snyder
He's all in. Trump is all in. There's no going.
- [61:14]
Tom
All right, so I believe Monday, Tuesday is decision type. I think you're exactly right. And an intense moment is there.
- [61:20]
Pat
Yeah. And by the way, that, that mine was a mine laid by Iraq. That was not even a mine laid by. There was a mine laid by Iraq. So on this side, it's more mines laid by Iran. So we'll see. So let's go to something that happened yesterday. Okay. Joe Kent, not Jeff Kent. Joe Kent, yesterday, out of nowhere, puts out a tweet. And by the way, before we read this, Rob, can you do me this? A Director of National Intelligence, National Counterterrorism Center. Rob, can you do me a favor and first go to the tweet that he has pinned to the top of his Twitter account? At the top of his Twitter account, he has a tweet from the President. It's pinned thank you, President. It's an honor to serve our nation again. Time to keep our nation safe and strong. It is my pleasure to nominate Joe Kent as the Director of National Security National Counter Terrorism Center. As a soldier, Greenberry and CIA officer, Joe has hunted down terrorists and criminals his entire life. Above all, Joe knows the terrible cost of terrorism. Losing his wonderful wife, Shannon, a great American hero who was killed in the fight against isis. Joe continues to honor her legacy by staying in the fight. Joe will help to keep America safe by eradicating all terrorism from the jihadists around the world to the cartels in our backyard. Congratulations, Joe. It's February 3rd, 2025. Okay. Little over a year ago then yesterday he puts out this tweet. Rob, can we first show how many views this tweet got? He puts out this tweet. Zoom in. 784,000 likes. 234,000 retweets. 67,000 comments at 7 million views. Let's read the letter. Here's what the letter had to say. After much reflection, I have decided to resign from my position. I cannot in good conscience support ongoing war with Iran. Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation and it's clear that we stated this war started this war due to the pressure from Israel and its powerful American lobby. I support, and by the way, that quote right there is what's gone viral. I support the values and a foreign policy that you campaigned on in July 20, in 2016. 2020, 2024, which you enacted your first term until June of 2025. You understood that the wars in the Middle east were a trap that robbed America of the previous precious lives of our patriots and depleted the wealth and prosperity of our nation. In your first administration, you understood the better than any modern president how to decide decisively apply military power without getting us drawn into never ending wars. You demonstrated this by killing Hassan Soleimani and defeating isis. Early in this administration, high ranking Israeli officials and influential members of the American media deployed a misinformation campaign that wholly undermined your America first platform and sowed pro war sentiments to encourage a war against Iran. This echo chamber was used to deceive you into believing that Iran posed an eminent threat to the US and that should you, should you strike now, there was a clear pathway. Swift victory. This was a lie and is the same tactic that Israelis used to draw us into a disastrous Iraqi war that cost our nation the lives of thousands of men and women. We cannot make this mistake again. As a veteran who was deployed to 11 combat 11 times and a gold star husband who lost my beloved wife Shannon. A war manufactured by Israel. I cannot support sending the generation off to fight and die in a war that served no benefit to American people, nor justifies the cost of American lives. I pray that you will reflect upon what we are doing in Iran and who we are doing it for. The time for bold action is now you. You can reserve course and chart a new path for our nation and you can allow us to slip further into decline. You hold the cards. It's an honor to serve in your administration and to serve our great nation. Now, this is what he said. The response to it after this went out. Rob, can you go on the tweet and let's just read the top 20 comments and see who responded to it. Just to see what the market is saying under his tweet. Because the market's reacting to it. No, just go under his tweet. Yeah, there you go. So Cenk, make note of everyone's criticizing his patriot. It's a good way of separating who works for Israel and who doesn't. Every Israel First Neocon will now either call him a traitor or that Trump's fault. Okay, great. That's his position. Next. Interesting. What is that? Joe Kent's tweet. I personally think we should have crushed their ballistic and nuke capes, but Trump has a plan. He has definitely earned the confidence of any clear eyed observer. January 8, 2020 six years ago. Go a little bit lower now. The most toxic voices. Okay, keep going lower. That's the family, Dan. We got that. Just keep going. Just leaving this year. Okay, keep going. Well done. Keep going a little bit lower. Nothing else major. Okay, Boom. Keep going, keep going, keep going, keep going, keep going, Rob, keep going. Okay, so then if this, the stuff that we're seeing, I think right afterwards there was a lot of different people that responded. We have few of them. So let's go through a few of these things that he said. This is him 3 months ago on Sean Ryan. What does he talk about here on this one, Rob?
- [66:16]
Tom
This where he talks? I believe it's the threat to America that Iran poses.
- [66:20]
Pat
So this is just three months ago or this is like three years ago?
- [66:24]
Tom
I believe it was three months ago.
- [66:25]
Pat
Okay, let's, let's listen to this. Go forward.
- [66:27]
Jeff Snyder
They're still registering for the draft, aren't they? Like that's, that's the logical conclusion to
- [66:31]
Brandon
the direction that we're heading in right
- [66:33]
Jeff Snyder
now unless we make some serious changes.
- [66:35]
Pat
I mean, it's already, it's, I've already heard rumors that fifth group is going to be sending guys to Iraq because
- [66:43]
Brandon
of the escalated situation with Iran.
- [66:46]
Pat
Now.
- [66:46]
Tom
Yeah, I mean, most Americans aren't, aren't aware of it. We've, our troops in Iraq and Syria
- [66:51]
Jeff Snyder
have been attacked 150 plus times by Iranian proxies. And when we say Iranian proxies, we
- [66:56]
Tom
got to be clear on what that is.
- [66:58]
Pat
That's the Iraqi government that we pay. Because after the Iraqi military we spent
- [67:02]
Jeff Snyder
2 trillion on surrendered to ISIS, we had to go back in there in very short order and stand a military back up again. And guess who filled the breach? The Shia militias controlled by Iran did. And the Iraqi government's controlled by Iran.
- [67:14]
Pat
Okay, so in this part, he is saying that Iran is still a threat. How does, how does the President respond to it? Rob, do you have that clip?
- [67:21]
Jeff Snyder
I do.
- [67:21]
Pat
Okay, so let's go, guys. I'm going to come to you. We got a few other things. Speaker Johnson, there's a bunch of different guys that reacted to it and we can process it together. Go for it. Your Director of National Counterterrorism, Joe Kent, he just resigned today. He said he can't support your conflict with Iran.
- [67:36]
Jeff Snyder
What's your reaction to that?
- [67:38]
Pat
And did you.
- [67:38]
Rob
Well, I read his statement. I always thought he was a nice guy, but I always thought he was weak on security. Very weak on security. I didn't know him well, but I thought he seemed like a pretty nice guy. But when I read a statement, I realized that it's a good thing that he's out because he said that Iran was not a threat. Iran was a threat. Every country realized what a threat Iran was. The question is whether or not they wanted to do something about it. And many people, many of the greatest military scholars are saying for years that president should have taken out Iran because. Because they wanted a nuclear weapon. They were. If we didn't do the attack, or if I'll go a step further, if I didn't terminate the Iran nuclear deal given to us one of the worst deals ever made by Barack Hussein Obama. Remember when they sent Boeing 757s over there loaded with cash, Hundreds of millions of dollars. You would have been very happy. This was a wonderful. They said hundreds of millions. People forget that. Does anybody remember? Right, you remember hundreds of millions of dollars in a Boeing 757. I think they had two of them loaded. They took the seats out and they put cash. And it was so much that there wasn't a bank in Virginia, Maryland or D.C. that had any money. Left. They stripped them of all their money, put it into place, sent it to Iran almost as ransom. That's not going to happen with Trump. And nobody ever.
- [69:09]
Pat
You can pause it right there. You can pause it right there. So Joe Kent, with his letter, with what he said, Tom, where are you at with it?
- [69:20]
Tom
The guy changed. You see people, there's a lot of people in American media, American government appear to be shifting, and he is clearly shifted. You can't say Iran wasn't arming and funding Houthis, Hezbollah. You can't say that. How do you possibly say that? And he himself gave statistics about the number of attacks on our bases and our interest in the reason. Not just interest, not like an oil refinery. Oh, I'm interested in that. These were our men and women in arms that were attacked. How can you say Iran is not a threat? You can debate the nuclear. Was it four days, was it four months, or was it a year until they had nuclear weapon? Well, they were sure testing missiles. They were building larger. They were building ballistic missiles. So you can talk about that, even if you want to debate how close were they with centrifuges and refining the uranium. But to say that Iran wasn't a threat, after you go back and everything. I do know this. The guy's a patriot, he's a decorated soldier. He endured one of the most horrible losses you can endure. But I really. I don't understand what appears to be a radical change in position.
- [70:38]
Pat
Jeff?
- [70:38]
Jeff Snyder
Yeah, there's a couple things here that really stick out. One is to parse his statement, which, I mean, what else are we going to do, right? We're going to parse every last word. When he says imminent threat, I tend to agree with him because, you know, we talked about this a couple weeks ago. Mark Moss had that wonderful chart that showed missile production going faster than our ability to destroy it. So I think the idea this is. I don't want to say this is, you know, Iraq wmd, but I think that was. It's the same kind of idea here that the Trump administration said, yeah, there were. I don't believe that there was a plan by Iran to attack everybody overnight. It wasn't an imminent threat. I think the idea was if we're going to attack Iran and get rid of their leadership, we have to do it now. It was the imminent threat, maybe wasn't a, a, it wasn't an explicit threat, which, I mean, you can argue about that. But I. If you wanted to read his statement, charitably, there probably was not an imminent threat. Of course, I have no idea. I'm not a, not a security expert by any means. But just going off the language, what we've, what we've been talking about, I don't think there was an explicit imminent threat that said we need to go attack Iran, if that's your problem. Obviously, he was in favor of doing something about the Iranian leadership. Maybe he doesn't like the strategy that Trump has chosen to do something about it. You could give him the most charitable view. However, I have a problem with right there in the first quote or the first paragraph, bringing in the Israel and Israel lobby. That changes this entire character to something political. So if it was just an analytical statement where he left that part out, I would say, look, I mean, yeah, maybe he's probably right. There's, there's something to the statement. By bringing in this whole Israel, Israel lobby, it changes the character of what he's trying to say and it makes it.
- [72:22]
Pat
I have a lot of thoughts on this. So, Brent, I want to hear your, your thoughts.
- [72:26]
Brandon
Yeah, I mean, I could, I could totally see the side of people being upset about another foreign war. I mean, we're $30 trillion, 30 trillion in debt because of the last foreign war in the Middle east that we got stuck in. So, I mean, we see that. But also, Iran's been something that we've probably had to deal with for the last 47, 48, 49 years. Like, it's always something that we were going to have to face at some point. I don't think that they were. They have the enriched uranium that people are saying they do, but I do think that they're probably the biggest problem in terms of world instability, in terms of Middle east instability that we did have to address at some point. If any administration was going to address it, I'd want this one to be the one to do it because, you know, I think Trump actually listens to the military generals and let's, you know, choose the best plans to go forward with instead of kind of putting the handcuffs on the military the way that a lot of other presidents have. So I, I don't know if it's been executed perfectly. Yeah, I think a lot of his other military attacks or military missions have been done pretty perfectly, meticulously. But, yeah, if anybody was going to be doing this, I'm glad it's him. But, yeah, I could see the argument where it's not the best thing for America because it could cost a lot of money and lives. So I could see both sides of it.
- [73:32]
Pat
Yeah. Rob, do you want to pull up. Do you want to pull up the tweet by Tulsi? There you go. Donald Trump was overwhelmingly elected by the American people to be our President Commander in Chief. As our Commander in Chief, he is responsible for determining what is and is not an imminent threat and whether or not to take action he seems he deems necessary to protect the safety and security of our troops, the American people, and our country. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence is responsible for helping coordinate and integrate all intelligence to provide the President, Commander in Chief, with best information available to inform his decisions. After careful reviewing all the information before him, President Trump concluded that the terrorist Islamist regime in Iran posed an imminent threat, and he took action based on that conclusion. So the way I read this, I don't read this as supportive. I read this as he is responsible if he sees an eminent threat and whether or not to take action he deems necessary to protect the safety he.
- [74:35]
Brandon
She hates this.
- [74:36]
Pat
And the Office of the Director of National intel is responsible for helping coordinate and integrate all intelligence to provide the President, Commander in Chief with the best information available to inform his decisions. After carefully reviewing all the information before him, the President concluded that the terrorist Islamists were. So it's almost a neutral towards Trump statement. It's not fully towards Trump. It's. It's written so delicately to create possibly an opening in case she gets fired or she steps out.
- [75:09]
Jeff Snyder
She's saying, I'm on the team, but I didn't do this.
- [75:11]
Pat
That's kind of how I take it. Right. Because to me, you know, Tulsi's a independent center. Some people may even say she's a center leftist, but I think she's a center right today a little bit more. She's moved. This is. This is my. This is my challenge with. With all of the stuff that you're hearing with the. With the. What Joe Kent just said, there are a lot of things that came out with tweets that he's made about Iran. Okay. And about the President. That's very supportive. Rob, which clip is this?
- [75:44]
Tom
This is Caroline Levich.
- [75:45]
Jeff Snyder
He was just asked a few minutes ago.
- [75:47]
Pat
Okay, go for it. This is good if it's recent, because then I'll get into what I'm going to say. Go for it. Tulsi Gabbard's job in jeopardy right now, given the Joe Pen stuff. Not to my knowledge. I haven't heard the President's say that, nor have I heard him say that. So obviously that's a question for him, but I haven't heard him say that at all. What's that? She said what?
- [76:08]
Tom
That she hasn't heard President Trump say that Tulsi Gabbard's job is in jeopardy over Joe Kent's resignation.
- [76:13]
Pat
But it's also not a firm. Played one more time, Rob.
- [76:17]
Brandon
Her body language is weird, the way she answers that.
- [76:19]
Pat
Played one more time. Job in jeopardy right now, given the Joe Penn and stuff. Not to my knowledge. I haven't heard. The president doesn't say that, nor have I heard him say that. So obviously that's a question for him, but I haven't heard him say that at all. Okay. All right. So, Rob, can you pull up this one tweet? I don't know if you have it or not. This is a tweet from Joe. Okay. This is a tweet from Joe, if you want to pull it up. He said this a year and four months ago. Not this one, Rob. The one, the other one. I just send it to you, Rob. Just look at your phone. I just send it to you. He said this. Retweeting a tweet from the president. Iran has been after Trump since January of 2020 after he ordered the target killing of terrorists, Ghass Soleimani. This isn't a new threat. The Secret Service consistently failing to secure Trump is new. We need to figure out exactly why these failures are happening. So he said some stuff that he's making it clear that Iran is a threat. Now, here's my challenge. My challenge is you say that you've backed them up. Now you're saying you think people are buying him and, you know, not buying him. Israel is kind of getting involved and doing some things like that, and then you want to come out and say it publicly becomes the most viral tweet of the day. Who did that benefit? Who did that tweet benefit the most? While. While we're in war, who does that tweet benefit the most?
- [77:54]
Brandon
Kent.
- [77:55]
Pat
Kent? Yeah. Okay. So that tweet benefits Kent the most. Yeah. Who else does it benefit? I would have to say it benefits one other person as well.
- [78:03]
Brandon
Tucker.
- [78:04]
Pat
I think it also benefits Tucker. Guess who's the first podcast he's doing? Tucker with Tucker. And there's some rumors that while he was working there, he was sharing intel with Tucker. Okay. And that was passed down. Now, listen, say what you say about Laura Loomer. If you want to pull this up, Rob. Laura Loomer had a. Laura Loomer had this. This one thing that she said about the exchange between the two, and let Me see if I can find this. And as reported, you know, Reported, Trump hater inferno, Jew hater Max. I'm trying to see which one it was, because there was something that there was a communication saying that maybe allegedly some of the stories were being leaked from him to Tucker. So if there is a connection with how Tucker makes the video the other day saying, I don't know why the CIA is coming after me. And then now you're saying this. Okay, that you're stepping down the day after, then you're going on Tucker. There's an alignment there. Okay. Between the two. It's very obvious. Tucker just announced right now that he's gonna be going live with him tonight or something like that.
- [79:23]
Jeff Snyder
Yeah, his statement was political. It was obviously political.
- [79:27]
Pat
Yeah. And to me, again, but even above that, just go a little bit lower, Rob. Go a little bit lower. Even with the Israel stuff, Actually, I'm not, you know, with the Israel comments that he's making, you know, fine. If you have that, this is a bigger challenge for me. So we're in it. You decide to resign. All the timing of it is a little bit weird. Okay. You all of a sudden decide to resign, and after resigning, you go out and put the tweet and then you go do the podcast. You're definitely not making Trump look good. Okay. You're definitely not making him look good and where he's at. So I just have a hard time with that. I think the timing of it. You accepted the job, you went into the job. Now you're getting out to do this. Now, look, this kind of stuff happens. This a risk of hiring people, and it can get out. And it's not like, you know how typically there's a. What is the disparagement clause, Tom? Like, you know, if you're leaving, no defamation.
- [80:26]
Tom
No defamation, no social media.
- [80:28]
Pat
Obviously, that stuff doesn't apply to here. So I don't know. What's this, Rob? Which one is this?
- [80:34]
Tom
This is the tweet that Laura Loomer put out yesterday claiming Joe Kent was leaking information.
- [80:39]
Pat
According to many White House staffers leaking to John Hudson. Who is John Hudson? Can you go to Washington Post? So John Hudson is a WaPo, not a coincidence that Hudson chose to run to CNN during primetime tonight to attack President Trump for less than 12 hours after Ken resigned. Who told Hudson that WaPo that Joe Kent and Tulsi Gabbard met with JD Vance to show him the resignation letter ahead of time. Wow. Okay, so there you go, guys.
- [81:08]
Brandon
That's crazy.
- [81:09]
Pat
But we talked about this as well. Last week. I haven't seen this tweet. Did the Vice President agree with the blood libels in Joe Kent's letter in which he blamed Israel for his wife's death? Ken's wife was tragically killed by Islamic terrorists. Do you believe Joe Kent told Buckley Carson to tell his father he sent his regards when he met with J.D.
- [81:29]
Rob
wow.
- [81:29]
Pat
It's only one big family affair. Anything to blame the Jews and destroyed President Trump. Why was J.D. tulsi and Kent's first stop at the White House interesting choice? I don't know. I mean, look, one thing about Laura, you don't know what Laura is going to be saying, but a lot of people have gotten fired over Laura Loomer's tweets. And somehow, some way, she tends to get a lot of news from a lot of different people, but you're seeing
- [81:53]
Tom
the connections and gets it right a lot.
- [81:55]
Pat
And she gets it right a lot. She gets it right a lot. And then people can come back and say a lot of stuff about her. Just the pro and the con about X debated. I go to. But. But if there's a. If there's a connection, the person that gets negatively impacted the most by this is who? Trump. No, no. Not sure. Trump's going to move on. This is a 24 hour news cycle. Trump's. Trust me, Trump knows. 24 hours. You've moved on. Okay, Mike Waltz. How long did that last? You moved on. This is not that big of a deal. You move on. But guess who was negatively impacted by this a lot. Short term. Jd. JD Vance. JD Vance. If it's true, who. Which by the way, how are you as the vp meet with him if that's not hard to document and find out. Right. If there was a meeting with chant. With J.D. yeah, with Tulsi. Tulsi's tweet is already a safe tweet. Right. That's a bulletproof tweet. And I'm a fan of Tulsi. So even when I interact with Tulsi, she's always very calculating on what she's gonna be. She's brilliant. It's why she does so well. But Tulsi's tweet is a protection in case she does get fired, that, that helps her for 2028. Because you gotta also realize if I'm Tulsi, I'm sitting there saying I'm not being used. Yeah. How often do you see Tulsi being used? Never. How often do you see Trump using J.D. not a lot.
- [83:33]
Brandon
No more why not?
- [83:34]
Pat
Maybe he gave him the Minnesota thing or California fraud or some of that stuff that we're reading about. But this could lead to one thing. If this leads to, you know, JD being a top candidate in 2028 or Tucker, because Tucker went from 2 to 4% and he's now ahead of the Santis on the odds. But if, let's say JD runs, which the world now knows what JD's positions would be, he would need a VP. Like who? Believe it or not, a DeSantis. Because JD and Tucker is too much of the same thing. And so DeSantis would be the VP because you need the pro Israel. You need those guys. So DeSantis will play that role because we know how strong he is. You know, freedom of protecting. You can't comment anything on Israel. And then JD does to DeSantis what Trump did to JD. Trump hired JD for a very good position. You need a JD. Yeah, but he doesn't use JD that much. You think JD's in the inner circles? Of the inner circles? I don't believe so. So again, we're purely speculating. But while we're speculating, the 2028 Republican nomination for president on Calci, $22 million, Rubio is now at 29%. Look at third. Look at third. 5.3 out of nowhere. That's Tucker. But if you go on the bottom, the ones you have to look at that are critical VP positions. DeSantis is the one, DeSantis is the one. The Santos is a very, very, very safe, solid VP position that is useful not to Rubio, that is useful to JD and Tucker. Right. Again, if it gets to that point. But this is all purely speculation conversations that we're having. So which one of you guys has the thoughts on this? Cuz I'll come to any one of you guys if you have anything to
- [85:21]
Jeff Snyder
look, I think there's. Setting aside the politics of it, I think there is. The reason we're talking about this and the reason this is such a big issue is that there is a legitimate debate about all this. Let's face it, the Iran conflict makes us uncomfortable. As it should. We should not be happy about this.
- [85:35]
Pat
Yep.
- [85:36]
Jeff Snyder
So there is room for legitimate dissent, There is room for legitimate debate. Is the Trump administration executing and prosecuting the war with a correct strategy? Obviously, we don't know that because we don't know what their strategy actually is. Nor should we. He's right when he says, you know, every time they ask him, what are you going to do next? I'm not going to tell you. Why would I tell you?
- [85:54]
Pat
Yeah.
- [85:54]
Jeff Snyder
So we're sitting in the fog of war. It is understandable why people would be. Would vehemently object to the idea of something like this because we went through Iraq, we went through Afghanistan. We don't want to go through those things again. And there is very. There's every reason to believe that we shouldn't be doing those things. So the reason this is such a hot button issue is because there should be a legitimate debate about this entire thing. Yes, we should. You know, we should be positive and hopeful. But, you know, let's be honest here. The history here isn't great.
- [86:25]
Pat
The history isn't great whatsoever. But also, at the same time, alliances are being built, and right now, it's in the open.
- [86:33]
Brandon
Yeah.
- [86:33]
Pat
Everybody's watching the same.
- [86:34]
Jeff Snyder
That's the part that gets lost in this. There is opportunity here. I think that's what.
- [86:38]
Brandon
That's why I think Ken left.
- [86:39]
Pat
I say that again.
- [86:40]
Brandon
I said that's why I think Ken left. I mean, we're talking about Tucker being a candidate. I think Ken made himself vp. I know they're too similar in that regard, but I think there was an angle for why he left, only he
- [86:49]
Pat
just did a principle, I don't think, until yesterday's letter. Joe Kent, you know, I don't know if he has been that, you know, big of a name that, you know, if I ask you right now who Joe Kent was last week, I don't know, you're going to say, is he a second basement?
- [87:03]
Brandon
I was typing in Jeff Kent last year. I was looking this up, so.
- [87:06]
Tom
No, exactly. You would have brought it up and said, but you remember the guy that interfered with the FBI investigation, making comments after Charlie Kirk was assassinated. And you would have said, oh, that guy. Oh, okay. But there was nothing else.
- [87:18]
Pat
Good looking guy, solid guy. All of this leads to 2028. My opinion, AOC being the front runner. If this goes the way it's going, if AOC gets the right people around her, AOC could be the President of the United States in 2028. And when people. You're crazy. I know. I'm telling you, I'm not. You're out of your mind. Oh, the Republican Party. Can you imagine? Let's just say it's a Rubio and give me a good VP. Pick a VP for Rubio.
- [87:51]
Brandon
Not DeSantis.
- [87:54]
Pat
Give a VP for Rubio. Pick a VP for Rubio. Okay. A VP for Rubio would need to be. Who?
- [88:02]
Brandon
Tulsi.
- [88:03]
Pat
He. No way. That's not going to work. That won't work because Tulsi's telling you what camp she's a part of. Yeah, Tulsi's with JD With Tucker. Quietly. She is.
- [88:14]
Brandon
You think so in the Israel stuff.
- [88:16]
Pat
Oh, yeah. Not saying 100%. Yeah, I think she's there. Okay. She's definitely an anti, you know, non interventionalist.
- [88:24]
Brandon
Yeah.
- [88:25]
Pat
So she's definitely there. But to me, camps are being made and this 27, 28 election will be very different. There's going to be so much disruption that Trump knew how to handle it. We won't know if, you know, the Rubio's and all those guys will be able to handle the chaos and inside the tornado of media at that level. We don't know yet.
- [88:48]
Brandon
And the right split too.
- [88:49]
Pat
We don't know.
- [88:50]
Brandon
Weird dynamics.
- [88:50]
Pat
The right is split. Yeah. I mean, listen, even you know, it's.
- [88:54]
Jeff Snyder
But Rubio, Mark, Wayne, Mullen.
- [88:57]
Pat
Okay, so let's just say if that is okay. Say if that's who it is, huh, Paulie? Josh, if he does right.
- [89:05]
Tom
Holly, if the GOP gets her fingers in it, they'll be pushing for like Stefanik or Huckabee Sanders.
- [89:14]
Pat
Not going to happen.
- [89:15]
Tom
No, but they'll be the GOP money.
- [89:17]
Pat
Pat, you're saying Rhino. Rhino money.
- [89:19]
Tom
Yeah. They'll be pushing for a female.
- [89:21]
Pat
That's the most boring ticket in the world.
- [89:23]
Tom
I know.
- [89:23]
Pat
Zero chance.
- [89:24]
Tom
I don't disagree with you strategically.
- [89:26]
Pat
Zero chance.
- [89:26]
Tom
But I'm pointing out.
- [89:27]
Pat
Yeah.
- [89:28]
Tom
That the gop, a GOP money machine that's in the middle, that will dictate the conventions, the order of the primaries and buckets of money, will severely attempt to influence it. And they'll be saying, what about Stefanik? You know, you need a female. That's what you're gonna hear.
- [89:44]
Pat
Yeah, yeah, I agree with you. Strategically, issues vary every. Every four years. And we're gonna see, by the way, here's the reality of it. We also don't have a clue what the hell's gonna happen with this war. Is it gonna end good or bad for Trump? We don't know if it ends good. Guess what? You know, they have to eat their words if it ends bad. You know, Trump scams gotta eat their words. We're like, oh, shit. So we don't know anything yet right now. We don't fully know what's gonna be happening and how it's gonna be handled. All we know is NATO said no. China stepping out, playing quiet. We got USS Tripoli that's on its way to Somalia. We don't know what's gonna happen next Monday, Wednesday. It's gonna be very revealing how Iran's going to attack. We don't know what's going to be happening the next few weeks. And if it ends up being done less than three to six months, then the guys that said this is the next Iraq, the next this, the next that, they have to sit there and say, well, it's not, but they're still going to come back and say, yeah, but. Yeah, but there is no winning, you know, a certain 5% of people that no matter what you do, you're not going to win it. But you know, all along Rubio's coming up. Okay. And Tucker's coming up as well. Look at tucker here, you know, 7, 28% he is coming up. I called this three years ago when I said Tucker is either he's campaigning for 2028 and he wants to run Churchill type of thing. You know, a media all I call this three years ago, Rob. I don't know how many clips did I say this to Rob that we did this. We almost have to cut it eventually we'll do it when it becomes a reality. And I think he's playing that card and he's playing it well. He's constantly in the news now. If anything happens with CIA coming out and arresting changes the game a little bit.
- [91:25]
Brandon
Yeah.
- [91:26]
Pat
It may even help him 10 times more, by the way, make him a martyr. It may even increase the popularity.
- [91:30]
Tom
What happened when the Dems got mug shots of. Of Trump? It became the campaign.
- [91:35]
Pat
He may almost want the look that he gave. He may almost want it. So by the way. Okay, let's talk about Cuba. The president asked about Cuba, but I think by. What's his name? Rob Skull? No. What's the guy that. The father and son that were. Doocy. Peter Doocy. Yeah. Here's what. When he was asked about taking Cuba. Watch this. Go for it. Cuba, whatever you do with the military
- [92:00]
Brandon
there seems like something.
- [92:02]
Pat
Will that look more like Iran or Venezuela?
- [92:05]
Rob
Can't tell you that. I can tell you that they're talking to is it's a failed nation. They have no money, they have no oil, they have no nothing. They have nice land, they have nice landscape. You know, it's a beautiful island. I think Cuba, I don't know in its own way, if you know, tourism and everything else. It's a beautiful island, great weather. They're not in a hurricane zone, which is nice for a change. You know, they won't be asking us for Money for hurricanes every week. But. But I think Cuba sees the end. You know, all my life I've been hearing about the United States and Cuba. When will the United States do it? I do believe I'll be the honor of having the honor of taking Cuba. That'd be a good honor. That's a big honor.
- [92:51]
Pat
Taking Cuba.
- [92:52]
Rob
Taking Cuba in some form. Yeah, taking Cuba. I mean, whether I free it, take it. I think I could do anything I want with it. You want to know a very weakened nation right now.
- [93:05]
Brandon
When you think.
- [93:06]
Pat
Brandon, go ahead. You seem like you have some thoughts on this.
- [93:09]
Brandon
No, I love it. I mean, you know, when, if you were to think about it from terms of precedent and international law and everything. Yeah, sure, you could say like, oh, so we're talking about taking over our country. But no, like, I mean, let's be real. I don't think there's a Cuban in the world that exists that would be upset if the United States went in and took out the leader of Cuba the way we do with Venezuela. Like it. And talk about wasted potential. What Cuba could be Cuca. Cuba could be like a, like a Hawaii, like a Puerto Rico. I mean, what it used to be. Yeah, right. I mean, like it was a booming place before the freaking Castro took perfect, but, geez. No, but I mean, it has all the potential in the world. It's. It's what, like less than 100 miles away from us. It could be a crazy vacation place. You know, they have deep water ports, they have everything. So, yeah, I mean, I'm all for it. I think that every Cuban in existence would, would be in support of that.
- [93:56]
Jeff Snyder
It's, again, it's the same template, right? It's presidents, governments, people did not want to touch Cuba. Cuba's been festering there for 70 years. Nobody wanted to touch them. Even though they were relatively weak nation, relatively weak economy, relatively weak political, I mean, top heavy everything else. Nobody wanted to go that far. And here's Trump saying, I'm gonna do it, why wouldn't I do it? So you gotta take the guy at his word and you gotta understand he has the resolve to do it, whether you disagree with him or not. He's got, he says what he's going to do if he says, I'm gonna take Venezuela or I'm gonna take Maduro. He took Maduro. He says, I'm gonna attack Iran, which nobody, I mean, it was a third rail in geopolitical circles for a long time. He goes and does it, he says, I'm gonna take Cuba I gotta think that, you know, probably six months from now, we're gonna be sitting here talking about the new Cuban regime and what the opportunities are in Cuba. Cuba, I think, is probably much easier to crack than Iran.
- [94:52]
Pat
It's just a knock on the door.
- [94:53]
Jeff Snyder
Yeah.
- [94:53]
Pat
It's all it is.
- [94:54]
Jeff Snyder
Right.
- [94:55]
Tom
So it has to be a kn. Because you can't ring the doorbell because there's a nationwide power outage.
- [95:00]
Brandon
Right.
- [95:00]
Pat
Literally.
- [95:01]
Tom
Literally.
- [95:02]
Pat
The.
- [95:03]
Tom
The Westernized resorts, you know, owned by Europeans and Latin American interests, have generators, but the generators are low on power. It was a nationwide blackout that happened on Monday. They've been going 16 hours a day, Pat, without power. And the people there are literally suffering. The citizens are suffering. Look at that. You know, this. This supposedly was Monday night, Tuesday morning. There's no lights. Right. And that some of the hotels, of
- [95:31]
Pat
course, we had nothing to do with this. We would never do such a thing to show, like.
- [95:35]
Tom
No, it's Fred and Louie vacationing from Langley and then pulled the plug.
- [95:41]
Pat
Yeah.
- [95:41]
Tom
So I believe you're correct. It is a knock at the door. You know why it's a knock at the door? Look at the rich Cuban population that is in Miami. Look at what's going with Latin American World Baseball Classic and what's going on. It is culturally much different. Those people are clamoring for something better. They are waiting, and right now they can't. They are short on oil, they can't get fuel, they can't get energy, and the grid is collapsed. What side do you think the citizens are on? Right. Trump, all he has to do is walk over there and hold up an extension cord, and people are gonna say, I'm with him.
- [96:18]
Jeff Snyder
Well, the people were always there. They just never had anything to grab onto because nobody would support them. Right. They would always, oh, you guys are on your. You guys hate Castro. Well, maybe do something about it. So now Trump is giving them baseball games with them.
- [96:31]
Tom
I hate him, but don't say please.
- [96:33]
Brandon
This is the final piece of socialism in South America, too. I mean, you have some small ones like Colombia, but those. Like, this was the epicenter of South America's socialism spreading. So if you take this out after taking out Venezuela and getting the Argentina fixed, I mean, I think we eradicate socialism. South America after this.
- [96:50]
Rob
Yeah.
- [96:50]
Pat
I don't know. I. I think. I think if that power went out, then it's. It's one way of. The easiest way to say, hey, like, imagine visually there's a CIA officer that's there and saying, this is the switch.
- [97:01]
Rob
Yeah.
- [97:02]
Pat
Turn it off. Okay, boom. You want me turn it back on? Turn it back on. Okay, boom. And just kind of mess with them a little bit like strobe lights. And then for them to people to say, listen, let's, let's become part of America. Let's finish up, finish this off and figure something out and move. I don't know, but I think this will be the easiest thing for them to do. By the way, did you guys see the president saying he spoke to a previous president? And they asked him was it Bush? And he said no. He says, but I don't want to talk about which president I talked to. Like, yeah, yeah, you want to play have we played that clip yet or no? No, sir. Do you have that, Rob?
- [97:31]
Tom
Right here.
- [97:31]
Pat
So here it is. So you're saying he spoke to a president, go for it.
- [97:34]
Rob
But they never had the chance. I never gave him the chance to use it. And other presidents should have done. I spoke to one of the former presidents who I actually like.
- [97:44]
Pat
Can you move the arrow?
- [97:45]
Rob
Actually speak to some.
- [97:46]
Pat
I do.
- [97:46]
Rob
Like some people be shocking. And he said, I wish I did what you did. Could have done it. Other presidents, somebody should have done it. 47 years this went on. They call Iran the bully of the Middle East.
- [98:02]
Pat
Look what he has on his desk.
- [98:04]
Tom
He's got a B2 bomber sitting on his desk. The model is sitting there. You know, wait a minute, I need this. Okay, I'm ready.
- [98:14]
Pat
Can you go, Rob, to the one where he's being asked who the president was? Do you have that one? Because immediately somebody asked who was the president you spoke to? And he gave the, he gave the answer. It's very. He didn't give the answer. He says, maybe I'm gonna call him and ask him and see. You don't have it here. I'll find it.
- [98:34]
Brandon
He looks like he's having so much fun, by the way.
- [98:36]
Pat
He does look like he's. He looks, he looks like he's playing loose. A lot of other people are
- [98:43]
Jeff Snyder
in
- [98:43]
Tom
his favorite arena right now.
- [98:45]
Jeff Snyder
Yeah, well, like you said, love him or hate him, he's a leader. If you disagree with where he's going, that's fine. But he's a leader who's taking charge. And I think the reason people resonate with. He resonates with people is that we haven't seen something like that in so long. It's kind of like a, it seems like a brand new phenomena. He at least has clear eyed ideas and is, is not just has ideas. He's not just talking about them. He's executing them. Again, love him or hate him, disagree with him or not, he's executing a strategy and a plan on all the
- [99:14]
Brandon
problems that we've had and complained about for a long time, aside from the national debt, is what I said. He's checking the boxes on all the problems we've complained about for a long time, aside from things like the national debt.
- [99:23]
Pat
Yeah, Rob, that's the one. Go ahead.
- [99:25]
Jeff Snyder
Even Reagan never really got.
- [99:26]
Pat
Watch this. Yeah. I just want to ask you about something very interesting that you said twice today that you talked to another former president about the Iran strikes. Was it George W. Bush?
- [99:36]
Rob
No.
- [99:37]
Pat
Was it Bill Clinton?
- [99:38]
Rob
I don't want to say. Yeah, I don't want to say because
- [99:44]
Pat
Barack Obama, a member of a party,
- [99:46]
Rob
a member of a party, they have Trump derangements syndrome. But it's somebody that happens to like me. And I like that person who's a smart person, but that person said, I wish I did it. Okay, but I don't want to get into who. I don't want to get him into trouble. Maybe. Hey, you know what? I think you probably know. You know, it's interesting and maybe he'd be proud. I could even ask him that.
- [100:14]
Pat
Would you like me to reveal your
- [100:16]
Rob
name to Peter at Fox?
- [100:18]
Tom
Hi.
- [100:19]
Rob
Well, at least you have high ratings. Your ratings are through the roof, Peter. Congratulations.
- [100:24]
Pat
Thank you for noticing.
- [100:24]
Rob
Congratulations.
- [100:25]
Pat
Can I ask you another question? Wow. By the way, he is doing a million and one things and he says your ratings are by the. He says, thank you for noticing. Like, guy doesn't. Can you imagine, like, what this guy's paying attention to with the numbers? It's amazing. Interesting. So, you know, I noticed the picture for, you know, yesterday, the. The game. He's watching everything like a hawk. Your thoughts, Tom? Who do you think it is? Okay, I have an idea. Who.
- [100:50]
Tom
So it wasn't W. It certainly isn't going to be Biden. Is he going to call Biden?
- [100:55]
Pat
There is no conversation there.
- [100:57]
Tom
There's no conversation. And it's not going to be Obama. Obama would have wanted to prop up, you know, the ghost of Che. The ghost of Che. So the only one it could be is Bill Clinton. That's why he said, I don't want to say.
- [101:10]
Pat
And you know what else he did yesterday that validates that is that is him yesterday. He's talking about the Churchill statue. Okay, the Churchill statue. There was a statue behind him. He's turning around and taking shots at Keir Starmer. But he talks about how Obama got rid of the statue. Okay, I don't know if you have that Rob or not. Just send it to you as well. It may or may not be this clip. I haven't listened to it, but he says when Obama got elected, he got rid of this. But here's one thing we know for a fact. Who's not a Churchill? Go ahead Rob.
- [101:46]
Jeff Snyder
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Pat
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Pat
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- [104:14]
Rob
You see that man right there? You know who that is?
- [104:17]
Brandon
Churchill.
- [104:18]
Rob
Winston Churchill. The late, great Winston Churchill. And Barack Hussein Obama did not want his bust in this office. Did you know that? And Barack Hussein Obama sent that bus back to England. He didn't. They didn't want it. And when I came in, I was asked if I wanted it. I said absolutely, I want it. And I put it right there. Winston Churchill. And you know, unfortunately, Kir is not Winston Church.
- [104:44]
Pat
In 30 seconds he took shots at two people and validated that it's not Obama that he spoke to. So that means it's only one of two people.
- [104:52]
Tom
And paid homage to a wartime leader.
- [104:54]
Pat
It's either himself because he's a previous president. 45.
- [104:58]
Brandon
Right.
- [104:58]
Pat
Or it's Clinton. Okay, he's like I saw somebody he
- [105:02]
Jeff Snyder
was regretting in his first term not doing it.
- [105:05]
Pat
No, he wouldn't say that. It's only Clinton is who he is. So we know, we know it's only a Clinton situation here, but. Okay, there you have. Let's go to the next story. Rob, do you have the Bob Iger story? Bob Iger, okay. I believe he is stepping down today if I'm not mistaken. If we go to news, Bob Iger at Disney CEO, transformative leader. You know, look at his tenure as a dynamic transformative leader with an *or2.
- [105:31]
Rob
Yeah.
- [105:32]
Pat
And I don't know if the stories in, in the articles that we have, but I do know, I think today he is stepping. Now, Tom, thoughts on this?
- [105:40]
Tom
Well, look, as a deal maker, Bob Iger got high marks as building long term valuation. His report card didn't stand up to Michael Eisner and the transition. Pat, unless you're walked to the door or you have a heart attack at your desk, who is responsible for a CEO's transition? The CEO and their board. No question who has the ability to do that. And Bob Iger now has presided over not one, but two guys that come from the theme park side of it, which I believe is. Is the wrong way to focus. So my asterisk for Iger is. Look, you, Chapek was not the guy and you were the CEO and you could have helped influence that. The Board just didn't run it down your throat for absolutely nothing. There's too much respect. Could they have had a lot of influence? Yeah. I think Iger, you know, is. Will be known as a deal maker. Will be known as a guy that built a great big library of content, but he was also the guy that missed a couple spots on streaming, made a couple things on streaming. The way Disney went through step by step by step by step to acquire Hulu, which I think is a master class in sequential acquisition. I love how that turned out, and I think he gets credit for that. But the transition to theme park and then what's happened over the last eight years is this was just not handled well. But I got a lot of respect for the guy, and he's a guy. I think he'll look back and say, man, I wish I stayed retired the first time.
- [107:12]
Pat
Jeff.
- [107:12]
Jeff Snyder
Yeah, I think Disney is just struggling with the change, the evolution of the entertainment space and everything else. And they had an opportunity here to reset everything, which Tom's right. They should have done it years ago, but to really reset their strategy and their focus, and they didn't take it. So I think they're. They're another one of these big corporations that hasn't got the message yet that the landscape has completely changed and they need some kind of radical reset to, first of all, where are they doing things well, or at least they could be doing things well. Their content library, it definitely needs to be reset too. But also they need to get with the fact that, you know, the legacy media is no longer going to be a profitable center for the business. They should do something about that before it's too late, which they haven't. They just continue to drag that baggage ever forever forward. So I think Tom's right. Bob Iger, tons of missed opportunity, and I think an even bigger missed opportunity with Iger's retirement to go in a radically new direction and reinvent the business.
- [108:09]
Tom
And never known as a jerk CEO, always known as a genuinely good guy.
- [108:13]
Pat
Who's this Iger? Yeah. And you know, we were having dinner with somebody about a month ago who works for Iger. He's one of the guys that's got a massive nine figure contract with Iger. Super complimentary of him, defended him. He's a good guy. He's this. He's that. To me, there's a couple things you got to be thinking about here. He was involved in his replacement the first time, Chapek, that came in, and then he came back, and I'm sure he was involved with the new guy that they replaced him, Josh. What's his last name? I want to get d', Amaro, which I think both of them were from the parks. Right. If I'm not mistaken, Tom, both of
- [108:53]
Tom
these guys are from parks.
- [108:54]
Pat
Both of them are from the parks. If Josh d' Amaro fails, Bob Iger will be the first person that found two new replacements that both failed. And failure to me is if he steps down within 36 months, that to me is failure. Because 36 months is generally the shortest lifespan of hiring a CMO. The lowest lifespan of a C suite executive a company hires as a CMO, CFO, CEO a little bit longer. And CEOs definitely longer, you know, five, seven, 10 years. So. So we'll see how that's going to work out. But, you know, they say you're judged by, you know, to, to judge how great of a father you were. You don't judge it based on your kids, you judge it based on your grandkids. Well, let's see what happens there. Maybe they do it right, maybe they do it wrong. But, but in the business, economic side. Rob, can you pull up what is the difference in valuation between Disney and Netflix? Okay, what is Disney word valuation versus Netflix? So Disney is worth as of right now. What's the market cap as of right now? If you just go to their stock, let's just say $180 billion today. Perfect. What's, what's, what's Netflix? Let's look at Netflix, where it's at right now. Netflix valuation. So Netflix. Netflix is worth $400 billion.
- [110:10]
Tom
Just over 2.
- [110:11]
Pat
Disney is worth $185 billion. Netflix got started in 1997 selling DVDs, and they didn't get into streaming until 2007. 2000. I don't know what it was. Some, some, many, many years later, Disney got started. What year? 1923. Disney's been around for 103 years. Netflix has been around for roughly 29 years. Netflix valuation, two times them. Watch this. Netflix has never bought any major asset. Even recently when they re, when they moved away from Paramount, they're like, we're builders. We don't need to buy anybody. The philosophy with Disney was they went and bought companies. Now what companies did Disney buy? Let me give you some names here, Tom. We've talked about it many times. They bought Pixar, which was Steve Jobs's company, Toy Story. They bought Marvel. That came with Avengers, Iron Man, Spider man, all of that, right? They bought Star wars. They bought Indiana Jones. They bought X Men, they bought Avatar, they bought Simpsons, they bought Hulu. Okay, you got abc. Strategic buys espn, you got Miramax. I can give you so many list of things. Even though they bought all of those companies, there's still less than half the price of Netflix.
- [111:28]
Jeff Snyder
They bought brands they didn't buy creativity, they didn't buy business. They bought brands.
- [111:33]
Pat
That's the point.
- [111:33]
Jeff Snyder
That's.
- [111:34]
Pat
That's the point. And so the opportunity here lies to think about if you're just gonna go up and buy up everybody and you're gonna stop building, it's okay to buy up everybody while you're still building. Maybe critics could say you're a great deal maker, but Netflix beats you. And that's just the reality of it. What happened with Netflix, and Netflix did it without buying up everybody. They just said, hey, we're gonna buy shows, we're gonna buy this, we're gonna buy that. In my eyes, he's one of the better executives we've had last 40 years. I've studied his stuff many times. I'm actually a fan and I hope he enjoys his next ride, that he's gonna go on the actual final ride of a lifetime and gets involved. And he's probably going to get him off some charities and helping out with some presidents and sitting on certain boards. So we'll see what happens there.
- [112:23]
Tom
Owns a soccer team.
- [112:25]
Pat
Yeah, he's. He's not going to be. He's going to have time on his hand to do stuff, but I don't see him being a guy that's going to sit around. Brandon?
- [112:31]
Brandon
Yeah, I mean, they haven't had a. It makes me think of that video you made a long time ago called. I think it was how to Strategize as an Entrepreneur, and you spoke about how there's linear growth and exponential growth and, you know, makes me think of the next innovative campaign category with the exponential growth. I mean, when's the last time they've had a explosive innovative campaign? You can't think of anything with that. So, like, like I said, they no creativity, not building anything, just like trying to acquire things that are already built by others. So, yeah, I don't, I, I'm not too impressed with them as a CEO, but I think if they get hungry again, if they try to, like, get bold and take some risks, which they haven't taken risks in a while. They've been in, like, preserve in survival mode. If they take some risks, then they could do some things.
- [113:12]
Pat
That's a scary thing to do and
- [113:14]
Jeff Snyder
they need to Blow things up. You need to do it reset.
- [113:17]
Pat
I mean, Jeff talked about earlier risks and gambles. You got to take some of that, right? And if the president's doing it at the political level, at the highest job, sometimes some of these other companies, as big as they are, they have to sit there and realize America is a bigger company than you. Maybe you ought to be able to take some risks and not be too. And by the way, the affordability conversation with McDonald's numbers came in with McDonald's, the dollar menu and we saw the $5 gas prices and coal. Tom, what's going on with affordability right now?
- [113:45]
Tom
So affordability. And I love your perspective on this too. And also you were watching the news yesterday, Pat, a bunch of things happened yesterday that sounded individually like good news. McDonald's seeing continual traction on the value meal and the super value meals Dollar tree announces a really good quarter. Kohl's comes out and says no, things are picking up a bit and we're not going to do any further store closures at this time. Which was good for employees of Gold. But what does that tell you? Where are the consumers spending their money? Down low. This is down low, which means that discretionary spending is not happening up high. Furniture, clothing, a lot of categories that are kind of flat. And so it's both of that. Then AI is at a bubble or not? Nvidia comes out strong earnings, so Nvidia up on strong earnings. So AI, is it a bubble, is it not? Well, it still seems to be chunking along and then you've got a lot of success with low end businesses, which I don't think is a good sign for consumer spending over the summer when you see all the people catering to the lowest part, the lowest half of the economic society actually doing exceptionally well.
- [115:05]
Pat
Rob, is this the one? Is this the one with McDonald's? Because McDonald's now has a MC Value 2.0 menu with three dollar items. Four dollar meals. After years of post pandemic price hikes, they went the complete opposite way.
- [115:18]
Tom
There's a fight for the five dollar bill going on in five and fast food.
- [115:21]
Pat
Rob, this has three minutes.
- [115:23]
Tom
They get right to it.
- [115:24]
Pat
Okay, go for it, go for it. Fresh off the grill this morning, another serving of savings. As fast food companies. I'm hungry. With watchability from breakfast to late night.
- [115:34]
Tom
Make it a meal and save.
- [115:36]
Pat
McDonald's will reportedly launch a new $3
- [115:38]
Jeff Snyder
and less value menu that will include popular items like a sausage biscuit and
- [115:43]
Pat
four piece chicken McNuggets. According to the Wall Street Journal. The company is also reportedly set to unveil a $4 meal deal with a McMuffin hash brown and coffee, extending efforts to offer cheaper combos. Let me show you what I got for $5. While the days of the Dollar Menu are long gone, we give you lots
- [115:59]
Tom
of great choices to make your own meal.
- [116:02]
Pat
The golden arches now leaning into three dollar deals. As McDonald's CEO Chris Kamchinski said last month that traffic has been pressured with lower income consumers. $3 is the new $1 basically to give lower income and younger consumers something that they can get when they're, when they're going to McDonald's. It comes as price pinched consumers bulk at higher fast food prices as the cost of eating out has risen faster
- [116:29]
Jeff Snyder
than the cost of groceries over the last year.
- [116:31]
Pat
The fast food prices and the regular food prices and the price for fruits are all the same prices. In September, McDonald's relaunched Extra Value Meals after a six year hiatus. It's time for a reset. The McDonald's USA President telling us on today.
- [116:47]
Jeff Snyder
The fact that McDonald's is actually going
- [116:49]
Brandon
to be lowering prices I think is
- [116:50]
Jeff Snyder
really notable and shows that we're in
- [116:52]
Brandon
line lockstep with our consumers.
- [116:53]
Pat
Other fast food chains are delivering more deals too. This is still Domino's best deal with what's going on with this. Jeff, where are you at with this?
- [117:02]
Jeff Snyder
Look, McDonald's for years kept stubbornly raising prices and losing traffic. They did that year after year after year expecting that either they could, they could out price the lost traffic and therefore win on just a nominal level, or they were expecting that consumers would pay the higher prices and eventually come back, which they never did. So in many ways what McDonald's is doing and across the restaurant business too is admitting that they were wrong in pursuing higher prices because they sacrificed market share and traffic to lower values. And Tom is right, this is not a good sign when you know the joke we always had when Walmart is doing really well. You know the economy's bad because that means that people who shouldn't be shopping at Walmart, who don't really want to be shopping at Walmart, are shopping at Walmart. In fact, that's what Walmart has said over the last year or so. They have grown really well with people who make $100,000 or more. People who would rather shop at places like Target and boutique shops. So yeah, McDonald's, who else is it? That's PepsiCo recently said they're cutting prices. The same exact thing. For years they were raising prices on Doritos. And Mountain Dew and Gatorade and sacrificing volume in the process. Thinking that the economy was going to pick up at some point, therefore would justify the strategy, and it never did. So what we're seeing is these companies, especially consumer focused businesses, time and time again are admitting they pursued the wrong strategy and now going back to affordability because again, this is not a good sign for the state of the consumer. And by the way, this is before we get to the prospect of $5 gasoline extended out into the future. So it adds even more pressure on the economy to get this Iran thing done and get the Hormuz thing done to get oil prices back down before it actually does lead to a 1990 scenario where it really does break the economy.
- [118:44]
Pat
Economy, Brandon.
- [118:46]
Brandon
Yeah. I mean, man, I remember just when I was in high school, you could get like a bag of 30 cheeseburgers, 30 McDoubles for like less than 100 bucks. I mean, you know, it's crazy. And now that it's on the same level as a grocery store, buy 30 cheeseburgers like after a football game or something. Yeah.
- [119:03]
Pat
What was he talking about?
- [119:03]
Brandon
Me and my buddies, like, after a football game, we'd buy like a ridiculous amount of cheeseburgers and McDoubles.
- [119:08]
Jeff Snyder
Because it used to be cheap, right?
- [119:09]
Brandon
Yeah.
- [119:09]
Jeff Snyder
I remember Arby's used to have five for five. You get five roast beef sandwiches for five bucks. Yeah, I mean, that was 30 years ago.
- [119:15]
Tom
Setting a world record for cholesterol is not a good thing.
- [119:18]
Brandon
But like, after an exhaustive workout, though, you know, like that type of thing. But I mean, yeah, it doesn't even feel cheap anymore. I mean, I don't need fast food anymore. But it, like, it used to feel like, cheap compared to the grocery store, cheap compared to a restaurant. But now I don't even know what the argument is to eat fast food if it's like on the same level. Like, you can't go to McDonald's without spending 20 bucks on a basic meal.
- [119:35]
Jeff Snyder
It's not fast either, right? Yeah.
- [119:37]
Brandon
So it's not fast, not cheap, but definitely toxic and poisonous for you.
- [119:40]
Pat
So guy says dollar menu is now $3 menu. So fast we have to change fast food and call it, you know, modern, swift, overpriced, microwave, swift, swift food. Okay. On time, you know, maybe a little bit delayed, but it'll get to you food. Anyways, last one here before we wrap up. Last, I think it was on Monday. We talked about. And we did some math because, you know, we're numbers people, right? I'm a numbers guy. And one of the stories was Meta that Meta wants to let go of 20% their employees, 16,000. And what that math is going to look like. Well, guess what? And I said it's going to go with the stock's going to go up what, 3 to 12%. Did we do the calculation on the EBITDA or something, Tom? Yeah, and it came up to 6, $7 billion. And we did the math and you
- [120:27]
Tom
posted a post about it as well. Guess what happened.
- [120:30]
Pat
This is a New York Post story. Meta shares jump 3% as Zuckerberg reportedly mulls cutting 20% of the workforce. By the way, this is on reportedly this is on this. It goes up 3% just on he may hasn't even happened yet. Imagine when it says it does on what's going to happen with Facebook. So we'll be watching that closely as well and we'll talk about it. With that being said, gang, great being with everybody on the podcast. We're going to do it again on Friday. Rob, tomorrow is Joey Merlino.
- [121:04]
Tom
Yes, sir.
- [121:05]
Pat
Okay, you got questions for Jeff Menectum, you got Brandon and Tom here as well. And Jeff's also got a podcast if you guys want to go subscribe to it. Let's put the link below. We will do this again on Friday, but tomorrow me and Joey Merlino sat down and he and I used to be neighbors. So it's going to be a, it's going to be a very, very, very interesting. He may have broken the record for the most F bombs dropped in a two hour interview. I think he had a few hundred, by the way. You can track it. Anyways, having said that, that'll come out tomorrow. Take care, everybody. God bless. Bye bye, bye bye.