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David Rutherford Show: Iran War Day 8 - Is This Becoming World War III?
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Public Investing Representative
Support for the show comes from Public, the investing platform for those who take it seriously. On Public, you can build a multi asset portfolio of stocks, bonds, options, crypto and now generated assets which allow you to turn any idea into an investable index. With AI. It all starts with your prompt. From renewable energy companies with high free cash flow to semiconductor suppliers growing revenue over 20% year over year, you can literally type any prompt and put the AI to work. It screens thousands of stocks, builds a one of a kind index and lets you back test it against the S&P 500. Then you can invest in a few clicks. Generated assets are like ETFs with infinite possibilities, completely customizable and based on your thesis, not someone else's. Go to public.com podcast and earn an uncapped 1% bonus when you transfer your portfolio. That's public.com podcast paid for by Public Investing Brokerage Services by Open to the Public Investing Inc. Member FINRA and SIPC Advisory Services by Public Advisors, llc. SEC Registered Advisor Generated Assets is an interactive analysis tool. Output is for information purposes only and is not an investment recommendation or advice. Complete disclosures available at public.com disclosures there's
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- [03:07]
David Rutherford
Day 8 of the Iran War Trump declares he wants unconditional surrender. The Gulf states are getting pissed. The Iranian president apologizes to the Gulf states, Israel launches attacks into Lebanon, and the MAGA base continues to fracture. Today on the David Rutherford Show. Welcome back, friends. The only thing I have to say is I'm every bit as worried as you are. I don't think anybody in the United States right now or around the world isn't worried in some capacity. And I'll tell you what, you have every right to feel worried. I mean, even me, with my limited experience in the SEAL teams, working for the military industrial complex and working for the Central Intelligence Agency, all and very short periods during the early part of the g wat, you know, I, I too am concerned as to what the outcome is going to be. We all are. That's a natural feeling that you should have. It's a feeling that requires, in my opinion, a deeper understanding of what the outcome potentially is going to be. And that's relative to what are key leaders, what are allies, and most especially what Iranian officials and the country of 93 million people, how they're going to react to all of this. So today what I thought I would do is I would just break it down as best as possible just to get you up to speed with the things that I'm focusing on to keep me up to speed as well too, so I can have better insights. So the three areas I'll focus on are militarily, what's taking place, what's happening, what's going on economically, what's taking place, what some for our forecasting, what are some of the current situations and challenges, and then finally politically what I think is taking place and what we should be thinking about in terms of what we want our leaders to do and how to act moving forward. So Jordy, or what about you, man? How Are you doing with what. How you're interpreting what's going on? It's a tragic situation. You know, I've never been to war, only read about it or watched it. Regardless of what you think about it, I just go back to what I hear. People say there's no winners in war. Right. And so I know that however this works out, and it's already been happening, it's going to be rough. It's going to be rough no matter what happens. So that's just. It's just hard to swallow. Like you said, it is, man. And I'll never forget the first time that I was ever exposed to it was I was up at doing a postgraduate year in high school up in Connecticut when the first Gulf War broke out. And I remember watching CNN for 24 hours straight thinking to myself, well, I can cancel going to play football or across in college because it appears I'm going to get drafted. I'm going to go fight in the Middle east, you know, and at that point, I really didn't understand much. As it turns out, I ended up making my way there anyways. And like you said, there are no winners in war regardless of what you want to believe or what you want to think of. And I'm by, also, by no measure am I condemning anybody who adheres to the orders they're given and carries out their duties as they, you know, commit to our nation or other nations. Right. Because that's ultimately who takes the biggest brunt, Right. Are the unsuspecting civilians, women and children and the elderly, and then the young men, mostly young men, and the few women that have to engage in this conflict and have to suffer from the catastrophic results of it going sideways. So that's just, It's. It's good to always keep that in your mind when you're, you know, you're. You're evaluating the full context of what's going on. All right, so let's bring some context to you, if you're listening. All right, so kind of a chronological events that started on February 28th. We had a really amazing initial strikes taking place. Approximately five to six hundred targets were hit. And, you know, the interesting thing is, you know that that's a massive variation when you're talking about ballistic missile systems. The difference between 500 and 600 is huge. So really trying to drill down on those specifics. I know the CENTCOM commander has been given some real good sit reps, so that's a place I recommend people go and listen. Because if you think from a Military tactical perspective, we are succeeding in, in our precision strikes and objectives. And so there, there is a positive aspect of that. Right. And so, you know, and we're using B2 stealth bombers, F35s, where, you know, we're, we even launched a torpedo to sink. The first time in a long time we've done that. You know, day two, you know, they talked about over 400 target strike. Day two and three, you know, another thousand targets were struck. And then there were some Iranian counterattacks that really began on US Bases in the Gulf and impromptu defensive intercepts and retaliatory strikes. March four, five days 56. Right. We shifted to targeting Iran's defense industrial base. Conducted over 1700 sorties, hitting about 1250 targets. And these strikes included electronic warfare to disrupt the Iranian command, a surge in operations, along with the heavier use of gravity based munitions. Right. These are not the laser guided precision strikes because one of the great things as a tactical commander, you want to make sure you don't blow your load, so to speak. And now all of a sudden those strategic munitions, you're empty. And so it's critical to understand that if we can just drop gravity based munitions and have similar effects, then we've got much greater stockpiles of those types of munitions. Now, day seven and eight, ongoing strikes against missile launchers, naval assets and internal security sites. Cumulative targets roughly around 3,000. And one of the interesting things which I confirm and agree with with the Secretary War Pete Hagseff, is that we have achieved air dominance, right. Enabling deeper strikes against infrastructure as well as Iranian naval capabilities are outright destroyed. So that's pretty awesome. Now, the thing that I think about in terms of just strategic strikes, right, there's never been a war won by simply using strategic strikes. Right. And in particular as it relates to when unconditional surrender is the expectation. And we do know Trump said that. And we'll have Jordy bring that, that clip up right now and show you what Trump said. Can you give us an idea of
- [11:09]
Public Investing Representative
what unconditional surrender looks like to you?
- [11:12]
David Rutherford
I mean, what do you want from Iran? I said unconditioned, not conditioned. I said unconditioned. It's where they cry uncle or when they can't fight any long longer, there's nobody. Cryopo that could happen too is, you know, we've wiped out their leadership numerous times already. So it's if they surrender or if there is nobody around to surrender, but they're rendered useless in terms of military. Now after listening to Trump, you know, say that it's really pretty amazing on what that means. And a lot, there's a lot of different pundits out there saying what that means in different capacities. But if you look at historically when that comes out, what that means, that always leads to boots on the ground and not just a few. It means hundreds of thousands potentially and also hundreds of thousands of, of more civilians and, and women and children being annihilated as well too. Right? The, the most famous unconditional surrender that was not adhered to, I believe was the Japanese Imperial military back in World War II, which cost them two atomic bombs, which we were willing to do. You know, roughly 200,000 civilians were, were vaporized in that. Now the response to that is it saved a million plus GIs. All right? And by four years in, right. A conditioned population will say, all right, we don't care, whatever it takes to bring this thing to the end. You know, the other aspect of unconditional surrender is the deeper impacts that it has on our military industrial complex, right? And what that taxes. Now, it's critical for you to understand. We have already been waging a four year proxy war in Ukraine, right. And we have supplied a tremendous amount of munitions, intelligence support, training support, just a tremendous amount of resources has been during the Biden administration in order to support the Ukrainian effort against Russia. So we definitely have some strategic challenges mostly I believe within our, our precision guided munitions. Now we did see Trump bring in the military industrial complex to the White House this week and basically said, you know, you guys gotta start maintaining production. Jordy's gonna put up a quote that came out a result of that from Lockheed Martin and they're gonna quadruple output. Now hopefully what this will do is it'll also open up for all these other smaller defense contractors that want to get in the game to help us build what, disposable drones, right? Because when you take a step back and I'm just going to go through some more statistics in terms of munitions here in a second, those are the ones that really become the high threat. And we've seen that both in Ukraine and we're starting to see the remnants of it in Iran as well too. So here's some of the estimated US munitions, right? Missiles anywhere from 500 to a thousand launched again, a massive guess. And by the way, when I use GROK to prompt to get these types of numbers and these back as understanding, right? And these are Tomahawk cruise missiles, they say up to 400 deployed air launch variation interceptors, right? The Patriot and the Thad those interceptors are incredibly expensive defensive Iranian used defensively against Iranian retaliation. A thousand to fifteen hundred have been expended expected costing anywhere from five to ten billion dollars. Okay. Sorties over two thousand combat sorties conducted with seventeen hundred in the first 72 to 96 hours long. That involves two hundred aircraft. Now when you think about that, you have to think about aircraft parts, you have to think about fuel, you have to think about munitions dropped. Right. And the cost hours on the engines, maintenance, all of this, all of these things have to be. We, we lost three F15s over Kuwait on like day two or day three it was. And Jordy will, will show one of those falling out of the sky and some of the imagery of of those pilots on the ground in Kuwait. So how much does an F15 cost? Right. Luckily we haven't lost any any other major aircraft or, or ships whatsoever. All right, bombs drop somewhere between 2 and 4000 including JDAM precision guided missions, 500 to 2000 palm variants. Right. And we're gonna, as I said before, we're going to shift towards gravity based bombs to save on our precision guided missiles. At least one confirmed torpedo. That was awesome. Drones we've launched again 200 to 500 one way attack drones, the MQ9 Reapers used for strikes. You know, defensive intercepts have gone against Iranian droids some 1300-2000 now total cost of this right now. And, and it was funny, I made a post, all right, someone needs to start a debt tracker for this war. And the next thing I know I saw one pop up and that was yesterday and it had us at $9 billion already. So rough estimates this is going to cost somewhere between 7 to 10 billion per day initially with tapering off to a billion. With a cumulative 50 to 70 billion dollars in expenditure by March 7 anywhere by by end of March. Okay, so why is it critical? Well guess what, if we don't have the precision guided munitions to support our own efforts, right. And we get depleted. How does that help us in potential if China decides to take down Taiwan because we're preoccupied by this. What if Russia launched a more aggravated assault against Kiev Kiev or starts upping their precision missile or really starts to take out Ukrainian forces or Iran continues to launch its drone attacks against further Gulf states which again as I said in the beginning, the President just came out today, I saw someone post that the President of Iran has said we apologize for Gulf states getting hit. I think he's probably trying to hedge his bet right now because he knows that the Gulf states are frustrated there. And one of the ones that really popped for me was recently a, a billionaire from the region got up and said hey listen, this is bad. And so Jordy's going to post that right now for us. And then also the, the president of UAE got up and made a statement that was pretty, pretty enlightening as to hey listen, this is not what we intended we asked for. We need to really come together as a group of Gulf states and say hey, what's the plan here? What are our vulnerabilities? Because just today early morning when I got up from last night's strikes, they're really, Israel's really starting to target Iran's oil production facilities and their refinement capabilities and all that. And I'll get into the political ramifications here in a second. So you also got to understand are the targets in Saudi Arabia, are they vulnerable? They have major production facilities all over. There's all the other Gulf states are vulnerable as well too. You've got desalinization plants along the coast which most of the Gulf coast states use desalinization to be able to bring fresh water to their populations. What if those get attacked and now all of a sudden you have these populations that are vulnerable. And so I would imagine right now that many of the Gulf state ambassadors or Gulf state leaders are, are trying to get into Trump to have sit downs and say hey listen, we just committed a profound amount of money to you and your efforts to re industrialize America to produce new chip manufacturers which ultimately go where? In these missile systems, in these one way drone systems. Right. So if the Middle east is going to finance our re industrialization of our chip development and then all of a sudden they pull their money and then we can't enhance or deliver on chip production to fulfill the munitions depletion. You know, you have to think about the ramifications on our operational abilities in there. Right. All right. Obviously damage to Iranian targets has been overwhelming. You can just like I said, go and listen to some of the CENTCOMs. There's an admiral's been getting up and, and given some pretty outstanding brief sit rep briefings on, on damage and what's taken place. You know, I looked up and saw what the Israel Israel productive strikes were. You know, on February 28th they were claiming their strike was the one who killed the Ayatollah Ko Mami and then other infrastructure. With 26 waves of attacks in 24 hours. They've also had hundreds of missiles launch and struck about 1200 munitions dropped. Day 2 Day 3 March 4 Five strikes on industrial and security bases. 4000 Total munitions March 6 Seven continued waves of missile strikes against IRGC bases estimates total estimates anywhere between 180 and 100 aircraft were used. Hundreds of targets per day to really focus on missile degradation. Right. Because what happens if they don't focus there? Iranian missiles which we've seen have, have launched extensive strikes into Israel in many cases overwhelming some of the Israeli dome abilities. Right. I saw one Jordy show the one image. There was an Iranian missile that came over and then split into these cluster distribution missiles. And when you look at that, it's like oh my God, that's pretty, pretty intense with what's going on there. Saying all that to say this about military. Again, I have to reaffirm when you look at a strategic concept and don't get me wrong, there are plenty of people in the Trump administration, at the Pentagon, at the Agency that you know, are still veterans of the G. What? Right. There's plenty of guys that understand the complexities of waging a long term war on the ground against even a, a non militarily superior adversary. Right. Just with insurgent insurgencies, guerrilla warfare, fighting, all that. But if you're going to get a comprehensive regime change which is to topple the government and instill someone else, you know, you, you most likely you're going to have to grab hold of certain large populations or population cities and be able to install or allow someone to go in. My funniest one again, the 60 minute interview with the son of the Shah who's been sitting in, in England and D.C. for the last 40 years, who's never run anything in your life. He said I'll accept the call from the Iranian people. I want to know which people have called them into action. Are you saying in this interview that
- [23:58]
Public Investing Representative
you wouldn't lead Iran?
- [24:00]
David Rutherford
That's a different thing. They trust me as a transitional leader, not as the future king or future president or future whatever. I'm totally focused on my mission in life which is let me bring the country to a point that they can make that free choice. That will be enough for me having submission, accomplishments accomplished. I, I don't know anybody that would want that guy to run, to take over. So again we come back to the fact of what is going to happen. How are we going to get in and maintain control so someone, preferably some anti government Iranian person that has some underground resistance or whatever that can move in and what we seem to be hearing from BB and and other political leaders around the world is that or not around the world, but in Israel specifically as well as as some in America. They want the supposed uprising that we saw several months ago to facilitate into the ability to take over the country. But if you know anything about civil wars, they're, they're, they're very messy, they're very difficult. So it requires getting weapons, systems, intelligence, A whole slew of tactical realities need to be integrated into this shift in the power dynamic that's taking place internally in Iran.
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- [25:57]
Public Investing Representative
Support for the show comes from Public, the investing platform for those who take it seriously. On Public, you can build a multi asset portfolio of stocks, bonds, options, crypto and now generated assets which allow you to turn any idea into an investable index. It all starts with your prompt. From renewable energy companies with high free cash flow to semiconductor suppliers growing revenue over 20% year over year, you can literally type any prompt and put the AI to work. It screens thousands of stocks, builds a one of a kind index and lets you back test it against the S&P 500. Then you can invest in a few clicks. Generated assets are like ETFs with infinite possibilities, completely customizable and based on your thesis, not someone else's. Go to public.com podcast and earn an uncapped 1% bonus when you transfer your portfolio. That's public.com podcast paid for by Public Investing Brokerage Services by Open to the Public Investing Inc. Member FINRA and SIPC Advisory Services by Public Advisors llc. SEC Registered Advisor Generated Assets is an interactive analysis tool. Output is for informational purposes only and is not an investment recommendation or advice. Complete disclosures available at public.com disclosures there's
- [26:58]
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- [27:28]
David Rutherford
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- [29:31]
David Rutherford
that broke in the news is that there's talk of using Kurdish fighters to help facilitate the overthrow or the uprising or whatever it might be. And then they could go in, initiate, you know, start probing Iranian defenses, see what's going on. And then somehow we could support them either using CIA assets or using military assets or whatever it might be. We can help facilitate their ground game. All right, there's A couple different of these groups, all right, the CIA is reportedly working and providing weapons, including small arms to Iranian Kurdish factions such as the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan, the kdpi, the Kurdistan Freedom Party, the pak, and underneath the coalition of political forces of Iranian Kurdistan, the cpfik. Again, that's three factions of Kurds. Now I'm sure each faction wants to be the man and so they're going to start to jockey to see who gets the rain control. So when you use these types of external forces, a lot of times it doesn't always go the way you want it. Trust me from personal experience. All right, operational objectives. Right. Again like I said, we're going to use these forces. They're going to go begin to probe, disrupt, and then our satellite imagery, our ability to collect intelligence on the ground, we can get a better of assessment of what might come next in terms of upgrading to where we have to use American troops on the ground to help facilitate this. And obviously Israeli troops would have to support us as well too. Now, timeline and scale, again, this is the hardest part about the whole thing is our battle damage assessments. We really, we don't generally know what's going on. Have we seen a reduction in Iranian capabilities? 100%. But we also know that Iran has been in production of somewhere between 500 and 1,000 of these, you know, $50,000 drones. They make one way drones that are pretty good tactical in terms of their ability to execute on targets. We have no idea what the, the total counts on are. Those are, now there's estimates and again you're going to get an estimate. They've got between 13,000 and 18,000. Well that's a big range, a big difference. So until we get that hard intel, it's very difficult how to direct these ground forces, these guerrilla ground forces against or even if we step up and we start, because I'm sure there's some people both at the Pentagon, JSOC and other places like let's put in J SOC units, let's put in ground branch units, let's put in, let's start getting on the ground to get a better assessment. Because listen, if you're an operator, you want to, you want to go operate, you want to see what you can do. And this is one of the most complex scenarios that I've ever seen us have to face since, geez, I would even say going back to Korea because the sheer magnitude of Chinese forces they fed, they had these endless waves of people. All right, now here's the other problem that you have to be understand. Right. There is a historical reality to our relationship with the Kurds, you know, and we've supported them in different things. Right. The US Alongside Iran and Israel covertly arm Iraqi Kurds back in the 1970s led by Mustafa Bazini with Soviet weapons via the CIA to weaken Saddam Hussein's regime to counter Soviet influence. All right, you heard what I said. In the 70s, we worked with Iran and the Kurds to go after Saddam Hussein in the night. In 1991, the Gulf War aftermath we encouraged Iraqi Kurds and Shia to rise against Saddam Hussein post Desert Storm. However, the initial action allowed Iraqi forces to crush uprising killing tens of thousands of Kurds. U. S Special forces later provided humanitarian aid to the decimated Kurdish forces. 2003 Iraqi invasion CIA and US Special Forces collaborated with Iraqi Kurdish regimes the Kurdish peshmerga northern Iraq to open up a second front against Saddam. And they provided US Intelligence ground support help key cities like Kirk and Mosul. Fast forward. In the 2014-19 campaign against ISIS, which is just go down the rabbit hole of how ISIS got its start. The US Partnered with Iraqi Peshmerga and Syrian Kurdish YPG as part of the Syrian Democratic Forces, the SDF to combat isis receive arms training and support. Wait, well, guess What? Well, over 11,000 Kurdish forces died. And the withdrawal from the US and northeastern Syria allowed Turkish incursions Seen all other because the Turks hate the Kurds and have been fighting the Kurds as well too. The Turks fight the Kurds, the Iraqis fight the Kurds, the Iranian fight the Kurds, the Syrians fight the Kurds. And we always partner with them to help facilitate our little covert clandestine operations. And at the outcome, the Kurds end up usually taking heavies. So do I have a lot of hopes that the Kurds are gonna get on board with us? No, I don't. So do I really believe that's possible? I don't know. I also know that if you give people gigantic pallets of cash or big gigantic bags of cash and weapons and munitions, you might get a couple thousand that'll go wreak a little havoc for you. But then again, they'll also go bomb some innocent people and say, hey, look, we just bombed. Give us another $10 million, we'll go bomb the next city and the next city, and next thing you know, we're spending ungodly amounts of money with these rebel forces that really aren't having any effect. We're just draining our accounts and burning other Brit political bridges. All right, we do know that Iran has, from their military perspectives, have been successful. Right. They have been disrupting many different things. All right, the number one thing, they have been killing people in Israel. We know that's a fact. But they've also been striking all a bunch of other places. Right. And I just want to go down the list of all the different places. So Azerbaijan was struck. Two drones struck. Azeri military position. Bahrain. Right. Homeland of the US fifth Fleet, the US Naval headquarters, Airports, military airfields. Iraq. Right. Strikes on US bases near Erbil, causing explosions. Kurdish forces drone and missile hits on pro Kurdish positions, killing several fighters, damaging more. Israel, as I said, ballistic missile strike near Jerusalem damage an Iron Dome battery. Nine. Eleven Israelis are killed. Command centers hit in Tel Aviv and Haifa, Jordan. Jordan was hit. Missile debris struck near Muafak. Muafak. Well, I don't know how to say that. Salt salty air base. Kuwait was struck. Oman was struck. Qatar was struck. Saudi Arabia was struck. Syria was struck. The UAE was struck. All right, overall impacts of Iranian strikes. Now again, here's rough numbers. Roughly between 100 and 200 casualties, mostly civilians from debris and proximity, far less than US Israel operations, which we estimate somewhere around 12,000 or 1200 Iranian deaths. So, yes. Has there been collateral damage on the ground? 100%. There has. Is there potential for increased collateral damage? Yeah, there is. Because again, I go back to the fact, yeah, we've seen a massive degradation in Iranian capability. But if you were preparing with the inevitable reality that after the strike this past summer, would you just get all your stuff and get out in the open and be susceptible to strikes now. Right. Everything that all of our enemy have learned over the last 70 years is that you take the first wave, sit back, let America gain confidence, let us gain confidence, let us make some moves, think about what we're going to do and then you start, you know, random strikes, you start probing hard and soft targets. That's what I believe is taking place. Now again, I go back, how many of these unmanned kamikaze drones does Iran have? And they're pretty easy. We've seen them deployed in many different war zones in Ukraine and now in the Middle east on how this works. And so I believe we've only yet begun to see. There was recently a post, I saw a video of the Doha airport being struck, or was it, I think it was in the Dubai International Airport was struck. Now when Dubai's getting struck, you know, that's gonna again piss off these Gulf states who said we didn't agree to this thing. Like you just went ahead and did it. And so I would imagine the people who, who are in power in the White House and in that inner circle, they're starting to put pressure on, I would imagine, on, on the President and some of his cabinet saying, okay, what are the next steps? Because what we don't want to lose is that all the work that we had conducted from the original, what, Abrahamic Accords in his first term, remember that was the defining political victory of Trump's first term, was the Abrahamic Accords, and that was destabilizing the conflict between Israel and those Gulf states to what? To open up investment and trade? Right, to restructure those dynamics. Well, if that fractures, we're going to see it and it's going to happen quickly. Why? Well, obviously, vulnerabilities to their populations. Right. Populations will only take so much. And trust me when I tell you, it's not like these populations in the Gulf states have a profound love for America, for Americans. Right? As we, I rightfully agree that Iran has no love, loss for America. Death to America. For, for. Since the Islamic Revolution. I get it. And yes, there have been plenty of Americans that have suffered, including my comrades during the GWAT, roughly some 600 plus people were killed by Iranian, Kurdish IEDs and VBIDs and, and, and that type of thing in Iraq. So, yeah, we also had the bombing in Lebanon through proxies and proxies, waging that constant war against American presence in the Middle East. Again, you have to put this in reality, in context, all right? Don't be naive. If someone were to come and camp out in your backyard, you're gonna get pissed. So we essentially have been camped out in the Middle east not just since the 2000s, not just since the 1990s or the 1970s or the 1960s, but all the way back from when we first discovered the massive quantities of what, crude oil that exists in the Middle east, and then liquid natural, natural gas. So we have a significant presence. And even, you know, before us, it was the British, the French, and they had carved up the region and occupied that region for very long period of time. So think about that. Think about if we had had other countries, more like let's call it Russia back in the day, you know, during the Soviet Union, had somehow finagled away, split up, and been able to come into the United States, camp out and pull out our, our natural resources, you'd be pissed. So you have to understand that's a reality. You also have to understand that these people's culture is not some new culture right out of the gate, right? These are cultures. If you think about, if you think about the Persian culture, right, this is the longest continuous culture in the world. Some people might argue that Chinese culture is older, but certainly we know, you know, Persia and Persians have been a consolidated functioning society for what, 7,000, 8,000 years, something crazy like that. So to imagine somehow, miraculously, because of the Internet, they want to become Western societies. You're lying to yourself. Now, what the. A big argument I'm hearing is that, hey, this is worth it because they're an existential threat. We've got to get them rid of them. We've got to do that. Okay, great. If you believe that, you can prove it to me and show me what they're doing other than these proxy limited attacks. And you want to say limited because it's not like they have killed 500,000 people like fentanyl has in the United States, right? Then you have to start to gauge the reality of, of your estimations, right? These people do not want to be democratic. They do not want to be Americans. They certainly want. Don't want to be Israeli, and they certainly don't want to be Jewish, right, Or Christian. And again, there is a framework of this in certain people's eyes that this for most is a religious war in nature. All right? And if you look at. All you got to do is just spend some time looking at what, what the. The ayatollahs are talking about, the Shias look about what the mullahs are talking about, look at what the rabbis are talking about, look at what the pastors and the preachers are saying. And there is a ton of that talk going on, right? I'm not going to go down that game because I'm just trying to. I'm trying to stay in something that's palatable and contextual for you to get a better understanding. All right, so this is a numbers game with munition, right? It's. Don't forget the expenditures from Ukraine, right? It's a numbers game for what the military industrial complex can start producing, right? It's a numbers game with cost, right? It's a numbers game with friendly assets getting attacked in the Gulf States, right? How many will happen before they completely turn against us. It's a numbers game with world opinion of us in other countries. There's already multiple countries that have, have chastised the United States. Now, here's the other little tidbit in terms of numbers game, too. You want to assess militarily, and then I'm going to move on to economics. And I've been going for a long time, but so economic. The last big thing is do you believe that Russia and China are going to get involved as they see an opportunity to do what we've been doing in Ukraine to us in Iran? It's a simple question. If you answer no, then I think you should just go back to scrolling your, your feedback and liking, you know, the latest, you know, new band or supplement or whatever is out there. All right? You know, keeping your feet and keep your head down because that's exactly what going on. Obviously, you know, there's been a bunch of reports about Russia and China helping with intelligence and targeting systems to be more strategic on vulnerabilities that we have in the region. So now you've got what all these different countries that have been struck, all their infrastructure at, at jeopardy, right? You've got now all three of the major superpowers, right, integrating. Oh, and the other thing militarily that I just want to say is now you've got Israel striking Lebanon as well, too. So now you've got Syria in that area that's getting fired up. And guess who runs Syria, a former Al Qaeda member. Right. They're itching to get in this fight, I bet as well too. And all you got to do is listen to some of the things that are coming out of their post online. Right? So now what do you have, you have a regional, multinational, multi superpower potential war that is brewing. Okay, so that's, that's a reality. I'm not making that up. That's pretty. All it is is taking a look at the 40, 000 foot of what the ramifications might be. All right, I'm going to go through, you know, obviously I didn't talk a lot about the European Union and what's going on. I think they have a major stake in this for economic reasons, for sure. In terms of oil, we know they're all struggling with energy costs. The head of NATO, Mark Root, came out and said he condemns Iran's escalation, which I thought was funny. What else are they supposed to do? What'd you think they were going to do? Type of, of thing. But then again, remember, he wants, he's going to support us because he wants to keep waging war, proxy war against Russia that'll benefit the European Union. All right. But we really haven't seen any significant commitments from or countries that have legitimate military support other than they're going to help let us use some of their bases. There is some talk about some British fleet helping us escort oil ships in and around the Straits of Hormuz. But. But not much else. The other thing that I found really fascinating is there's been several countries who've now come out and said we're going to increase our nuclear development capabilities. And then new countries have said we are going to begin a nuclear program. So the irony of this whole thing that this was all sold to the American populace in the world. We are going to destroy Iranians nuclear capability is actually intensifying nuclear requirements for other people. Right. They're, they're saying hey no this is now we're in another level. We need to protect ourselves. We're going to start nuclear programs right. Taking the caps off development. We need more bombs. So that's, that's also all right. That's lasting economic impacts. So the, the overwhelming economic reality that we have to pay attention to is crude oil and LNG distribution around the world. Now the. All passage of the Straits of Hormuz has been reduced to almost nothing. Right. I saw one ship made the run through it the other day. They were tracking it and there was someone had see if you can find that the one ship they. They lace whoever labeled it gave it some hilarious label that, that was kind of interesting that they went Leroy Jenkins on on getting through the Straits of Hormuz which I Leroy Jake. And if you don't know that's an obscure comment from the G wat which is hilarious. We used to say that on targets when there was no plan. We're just gonna go Leroy Jenkins. So. Oh my God. He just ran in anyways that was an inside joke. You didn't understand. So think about this right. It's going to affect energy markets and control the Straits Hormuz which through which about 20% of global oil in 15 to 20% of liquefied national gas transits. All right. What we're going to see is energy markets are going to be affected first right. Bent crude surged 10 to 15% from around 70 to $75 per barrel pre war to 82 to 93 by March 7 with peaks over 90. The Straits has disruption has removed 20 million barrels per day equivalent to 20% of global supply. The closure persists beyond 30 days. Prices could hit and again these are all guesses 100 which would be we'd be creeping into a recession to $200 per barrel which is a guaranteed recession. Now let me get to that recession component. Now when you think about the reduction and you think about what this means you really have to Begin to understand all the Gulf states and how their economies work based on that ability to get through the Straits of Hormuz. Right, all those Gulf states and they supply India, they supply Pakistan, they supply China, they supply Japan, all international Korea. Right. South Korea, Taiwan, Seoul, all these trading partners with us, Australia, all these manufacturing billies, their energy output that's going to impact their global, their gdp, their globe, the global economy. Right Now, America, we're doing good because we've got our own natural productions, but certainly eu, India, China and a lot of other people. So what happens if China starts paying more costs to be able to put our goods that we have an insatiable appetite for on ships to drive them over to the United States? Guess what? Your costs are going up, right? Which probably has a direct correlation to inflation, probably going up. Less goods in service because there's less oil flow. It's harder to get stuff over out of transport. And then cost of transport goes up. And then guess what? The companies are not going to tran. They're not going to eat those costs. They're going to put them on you. All right, as I said, higher energy costs are increasing transportation and manufacturing expenses, potentially adding, it says, 0.6, 0.7 percentage points to global inflation for every sustained 10 to $20 rise in oil prices. All right, so let's say we get to $180 per barrel from where we're at today, which is 8, let's call it 80. Right. That's a pretty significant increase to inflationary and GDP spending. Right. All right. How does it affect global markets? All right. And investor sentiment? All right. Stock market, Global equities lost $3.2 trillion in value in the first four days. Now, again, you know, we're not seeing a lot of challenges. We're not seeing a lot of companies collapse or lose, but 3.2 trillion in market valuation, that's significant. That's significant. Right. And so what happens when people start to realize that there's a potential negative outcome on their portfolios? What they're going to look to liquefy, right? They're going to look to get cash. Right? Now, a lot of people will try and put money in currencies and definitely this will strengthen the dollar. Right. The positive in any of these types of things is that our currency strengthens in terms of also having as the, the benchmark currency of the world. That's good. That's positive for us. And then on the other side of that, the Federal Reserve is probably going to delay those rate cuts that were planned up here in a little bit, right? Leading to higher borrowing costs and $100 oil price could drag US GDP by 0.3 percentage points. Now you hear 0.3 and like whatever, no big deal. But remember this is accumulating effect and it doesn't, doesn't stay the aggregate doesn't stay at one singular. It intensifies and exponentially grows as all the other probe problems start impacting it. Right? Inflation, growth, recession, risk. All right. Inflation global projections now include a 0.5 to 1% uptick of energy. Prices stay elevated with foods and good prices raising due to higher transport costs. US gasoline hit 332 per gallon up from 299 and diesel exceeded $4. You know growth is already slow but this is definitely going to slow it down more. And then also if, if this becomes somewhere between a fifty and a hundred billion dollar cost to expenditure for this, this it's also going to put deeper fears into global markets. Right, and into our market as well too. Obviously shipping costs are going to go through the roof. Aviation, tourism is going to decline in all these places. Manufacturing and supply chains are going to be affected dramatically which all have what cascading impacts on the global economy. Me now in terms of our own oil production, you know we still are producing a tremendous amount. We also have our new relationships with Venezuela so we seem to be somewhat insulated. Now Europe is going to have definitely higher energy costs, right? And probably going to have to start purchasing openly purchasing oil from who again you guessed it, Russia. Thereby intensifying and supporting Russia's efforts to bring down the Ukrainian efforts against it. Obviously the Asian markets are completely dependent upon on this oil. So their economies are going to be affected as well too. All right. The one thing I thought was interesting and I don't know if you saw this Jordy, but there was another little thing that came out in terms of private equity last week. As of March 26, the war the private credit sector. BlackRock, the world's largest asset manager announced restrictions on withdrawals from one of its flagship funds. Right. And this was it, right? This is limiting withdrawals from the HPS corporate lending fund. The fund is H L E N D if you look at on the index right out there. So this was announced March 6th. Now BlackRock disclosed that 26 billion in HPS corporate lending fire acquired as part of its push to private credit received redemption requests. That means people wanted to pull money out of it. At 1.2 billion in 1Q26 represented about 9.3 of the fund's net asset value. However, the info the fund enforced its standard 5% quarterly redemption cap paying out only 620 million to investments. This left some requests unmet. All right, now their rationale of this the decision was framed as a protective measure to maintain the fund's stability as private credit funds are designed as semi liquid vehicles with built in limits to avoid fire sales of assets during stress periods. Brocklock emphasized that this, this was a feature of a product and not as a flex to freak out from people hey, we're shutting down your ability to withdraw your investment. This also affected Blackstone. They put some restrictions on some of theirs as well too. You know their shares took a pretty significant beating as a result of this at 7.2% on March 6, closing at 955 per dollars and 45 cents per share. So they're, they're sitting pretty good because of their net assets. But I found right it was interesting because if private equity is hit right in a very significant chance, right because under these high stress periods banks really shut down lending because they want to make sure they protect their assets. As you know, all the chaos has taken place in the market volatility increases. So if that private equity frees up which supplies what most of our small businesses out there, new development, new venture, a lot of that comes from private equity people being able to sell their companies and retire whatever it might be. So if there's a scare in private equity that also can have profound long term ramifications and maybe we'll go find Bryce Jordy and bring him on to see his thoughts on what the ramifications for this bring them back. We need them. Yeah, for sure. All right. So you know one of the things that from an economic perspective is obviously it'd be a good time to maybe shift some efforts out of some of the tech Top Tech 7, the Magnificent 7 which is on you know have a really bizarre weight in, in, in, in in the the markets right now. Maybe shift those over to some energy companies right now. Especially American energy companies, American industrialization companies building manufactured the defense industry obviously. So just be heads up that you know this is going to disrupt some of the things out there in particular gas prices at the most now does it lead to a recession? I don't know. It sure feels like that's a potential. I know there's the head economist who works with Bryce has been calling for bear markets in a recession for quite a few quarters now. This could be the thing that definitely tips us into that and recessions under these contexts have a tendency to last a little bit longer than typical recessions. Right? All right, last one. And I'll go quick on this because you're probably burnt out from all of that information. I just again, I want you to realize that it's key to under understand information. All right. Before I get into politics, I just really want to give one of our new sponsors a shout out. And we'll do that. Sorry about the interruption, team, but we got to pay our bills. And I am stoked to introduce you to one of the new awesome supplement companies out there, Revival Nutrition. I know you've been listening to a while and if you're paying attention to what I'm, I'm talking about, then you realize that performance, resilience and your health are all huge parts of your ability to succeed in life against the negative insurgency. If you can't perform at a high level, your body isn't operating in its best capacity. Energy, resilience, recovery, mental clarity, all of it starts with how you fuel your body. That's why I want to truly introduce you to what I believe is the next great supplement company. 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David Rutherford
let's
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- [69:21]
David Rutherford
I'm stoked you enjoyed that. But let's get back to the political ramifications for Trump and the political benefits for the Democratic Party. All right, so unless you live under a rock, you are not familiar with the massive challenges going within the MAGA movement. There seems to be a split. Some, some are calling MAGA dead. There's a lot of people are saying it's mega. You know, people are now kind of describing themselves as, as, as America first as opposed to maga, which is interesting. And a lot of that is a derivative of what the promises that the Trump party made or Trump himself very much made, you know, along the lines. Now I have gone back and seen some ideas. There was a, a video from Trump way back in the day giving his thoughts on Iran and maybe Jordy, we could, we could play that for you.
- [70:28]
Donald Trump
The Iranian situation is a case in point. That they hold our hostages is just absolutely and totally ridiculous. That this country sits back and allows a country such as Iran to hold our hostages, to my way of thinking, is a horror. And I don't think they'd do it with other countries. I honestly don't think they'd do it with other countries. Obviously you're advocating that we should have gone in there with troops, et cetera,
- [70:57]
David Rutherford
and brought our boys out.
- [70:58]
Donald Trump
I absolutely feel that, yes. I don't think there's any question, there's no question in my mind. I think right now we'd be an oil rich nation and I believe that we should have done it. And I'm very disappointed that we didn't do it. And I don't think anybody would have held us in abeyance. I don't think anybody would have been angry with us. And we had every right to do it at the time.
- [71:19]
David Rutherford
Okay. So obviously, you know, Trump has, has had opinions about Iran for long periods of time and maybe those have shifted based on intelligence he's known. But what we do know is that he was going to profess as the no new wars president. Now he likes to say he stopped eight wars. But the, the war we really wanted him to stop obviously was the war in Ukraine, which has not happened. So if it were me, I'd be analyzing how what went wrong there and then now after, you know, he's had multiple series of negotiations with Iran that have not brought anything to fruition. And now we're in the second campaign against Iran with some people, including Trump, calling for unconditional surrender on what the ramifications that means. So obviously there are going to be many people, mostly people who feel slighted on the Iraq war as it, the lie that was told, the, the ridiculous extension of Afghanistan and the pull out there, obviously the clandestine war we waged in Syria as well as some of these other places around that area and region of the world. So he has to start figuring out what his narrative is going to be. Because if you look at this quote from Rubio about why we struck first and how I think it's pretty telling there that there is a distinct coordination with our Israeli allies as to the effects of this. And so the President made the very wise decision. We knew that there was going to be an Israeli action. We knew that that would precipitate an attack against American forces. And we knew that if we didn't preemptively go after them before they launched those attacks, we would suffer higher casualties and perhaps even higher those killed. And then we would all be here answering questions about why we knew that and didn't act. Now, I would haven't really gone through enough, I haven't gone through enough analysis of people who really understand Israel's current position and what their intentions are in this. Obviously, we know they believe that Iran is an existential threat. And I believe that too. If I were Israel and lived in Israel, man, if I had the opportunity to engage this, I sure would as well too. But it's, it's, it's, I don't think it's, it's, there's any illusion that Israel can, can successfully complete the task of, of wiping out the complete Iranian regime and its effort and its hatred towards Israel. So they definitely need us. What I would like to see is a better description of what's going on. I'd like to see a consolidated messaging coming out of the Trump cabinet and what's going on now. It certainly didn't help that, that Kristi Noem was fired recently for some of her boondoggles. That basically destabilize it as well too. It also doesn't help that a lot of these negotiations are not going according to plan. And it doesn't help that the Gulf states are becoming very vocal about their desire to end this immediately in their, the rumblings that they're going to pull out any economic support for the re industrialization of America. So there's some massive political ramifications internationally, as we already know. But internally, what I think it does for sure, after the challenge that the Trump administration faced in Minnesota with the ICE raids and the ICE things and the two Americans getting shot, you know, there was a backlash of all of this. And so people were getting upset and so he tapered down about it and Tom Holden started working with Minnesota government officials. Obviously, you know, Tim Waltz is getting pounded. If you saw him recently in Congress in his deposition, I mean, it was pathetic, you know, fraud everywhere around. He had no answers. Yeah, for sure. But there's also seems to be some fracture internal in the Trump Organization as well. So what could benefit The Democrats, obviously, you know, there is a massive challenge obviously in the upcoming midterms. Right. And the midterms, you have to understand it like this, right? So in the November midterms, Republicans already, we maintain a narrow control, both the chamber of Congress, right, That's the House and the Senate. Because of our gains in 24, with a 53, 45 majority in the Senate, two independents causing, usually caucusing with Democrats, effectively giving Democrats 47 votes. Right. And a slim majority, 218 to 214 in the House. Now this gives us some leverage, not great leverage, because obviously when we think about a lot of the codification of Doge, we think about a lot of the things to be able to secure our elections. The SAVE act, there's a stalemate going on, there's a pushback, you know, and that, I think that's coming from the Republican side and the rhinos that are entrenched who have a true disdain for Trump anyways, like Mitch McConnell, Corrin from Texas, who's in the fight of his life with Paxton right now. And hopefully Paxton ekes that out. Now in the House, you gotta realize that there is, you know, the midterms where all 435 House seats and 35 Senate seats are up for grabs. All right. Three Democrats aim to flip at least three House districts and four Senate seats to regain majorities, potentially creating a check on Trump's power. What happens if that happens? We go into the ultimate lame duck, right? And what begins, certainly they're going to impeach him. Certainly they're going to disrupt all investigations because they'll gain control of these committees, right? So that no more, no more investigations. So to get to the bottom of Russia Gate, to get to the bottom of COVID to get to the bottom of all these things that basically grinds to a halt, thereby attacking once again one other more giant strategic act of draining the swamp that Trump ran on. So the midterms are in play at a substantial way. All right, so how does that affect Trump in the MAGA base, all these congressmen and senators that need Trump's support? Well, if he's in a political quagmire himself, well, there's. Will his support have any meaning to these people who are running in these very contested races? And so we have to start, we've been trying to bring some lower level political people running on just to get a sense of what they're seeing on the local level and these, these state runs and what's going on. And there's definitely some consternation in their campaigns based on what's going on around in the system right now. Now, the Democratic Party, if I were you, I would just sit back and let this thing unfold. Right? Yeah. Make your little comments here and there, do your little pull, push those punches. You know, you're going to hear a tremendous amount from the Democrats. He has no plan. They have no plan. They don't know what they're doing. This is causing havoc. They. But then you're also, where you're going to see is you're going to see all those NGOs that we've discovered that are funding these other campaigns, the anti ICE raids, the anti war movement, the anti Wall street, all this stuff. They're going to flood those people starting here probably this month, the end of the month and the next, you will see a political firestorm to the likes, which you will have never seen domestically in this country, mark my words. Why? Because if you can prove that Trump doesn't have control of the Middle east situation and Trump doesn't have control of the domestic situation, that pretty much solidifies the MAGA split. Who's ever in the maga, obviously you're going to have the die hard Trump people that are going to go there, right? And then you're going to have the coalition folks, the Libertarians, the America first people, maybe some Blue dog Democrats that got on board against all this DEI stuff or whatever. They're going to probably sit on the sidelines, right? And just on the sidelines now, all of a sudden you have sway. And if we don't have control of who's voting, how they're voting, because none, no rules have been changed, mail and balloting hasn't been changed, election IDs haven't been changed. All this. So we're right back where we were, you know, and then the, the real reality is that, you know, is Elon Musk and all of the other people that have vast audiences going to come in and support the political campaigns of all these MAGA Republicans. And we're already see that start to look like it's not going to happen. So what does that mean? Does that mean we lose the House and the Senate? All right, a lot of that is going to unfold here in the next, I think 15 to 30 days. We'll see. This is my recommendation and this goes to you, President Trump, in, in your cabinet. Come out tomorrow or this week, maybe one more week of pounding them and declare victory, right? Say, yep, we accomplished missing task, the Ayatollah is dead. The whole upper echelon of the IRGC is gone. We've completely destroyed all and 90% of their military capabilities. And we, we won. And then pull back, stop striking them. And then this gives you what, gives you time to reassess, reestablish and, and get back to your Gulf states. Bring a heightened protection to your Gulf states. Increase your missiles, anti or your defensive missile systems in all of these Gulf states. Start escorting the oil ships through the Straits of Humidity Hormuz. But come out there and be strong and declare victory. And then have all your other personnel say the same thing. We did it, we won. Then what I would do is I would have J.D. vance, Mark Rubio fly over with the Gulf states, have a big meeting, say this, what do you guys want? What do you need? Can you help us broker, you know, move forward with peaceful resolution? I'd have J.D. vance fly over to Turkey and meet with Aragon and some maybe in Pakistan and say, hey, can you help us bring Iran then? Whoever's going to be in the Iran? And you wait two weeks, four weeks, a month, whatever it is, can you help us make contact with the new people in charge to begin to broker what their future is going to look like in terms of letting them get it back on their feet, you know, letting them start selling their oil, oil production so they can stabilize their economy so that their, their people aren't pissed at. At which pretty much I'm sure many of them already are. And you start to get this thing under control diplomatically, politically and economically. And then unfortunately, in the other part of that, Trump needs to get on the phone with Bibi and say, enough. That's it. You got what you wanted. You're done. No more. Right? That's it. And if you do it again, you're on your own. And if he can say that publicly, I think what you do is you have that says finger in the dike, and he stops the outflow of the dam that's cracking right now for him and for the Republican Party and the MAGA movement. Right? Because what you're going to do if this thing prolongs through the midterms and keeps going and we go into 27 and into 28, you can forget the presidency in 28. There's no doubt in my military mind, my political mind, and my mind as a US citizen that conservatives can keep the White House in 28 if we are still engaged in a war with Iran by then. All right, all right. What do you think, Jory? That was a ton. That was a Ton. But it was good. There's a. Well, there is a ton. That's the thing. Yeah. There's a lot to think about with this. This is. That's why the Middle east is as complex as it is. That's why it's always been as complex as it is. But again, what can you do? You can stay informed. The other aspect of that you can do is if you've got a. A desire to want to know more, then bombard the White House, bombard your state senators, bombard your congressman. Bombardment. The people who are in the know and demand real answers. What is God, what is the tactics? What is the plan? How are we going to end this? How are we going to stabilize the Middle East? Right. Because that's what quells people's worries. And right now people are worried. I'm worried. I know you're worried. I know you're worried for your family, you're worried for your Future. I've had three people just in the last 24 hours asked me, hey, David, is it safe to travel? Can I try? And that was domestically. They're not going over to Europe or Africa or Eastern Europe. They're going or to the Middle East. Right. Although I just definitely had a. I'm in this big group text from my lacrosse teammates from Penn State and one of my guy in there got stranded over in the Middle east for 10 days. He could not get out. And. And so that's a reality. All right. We are in a destabilized world right now. And so we need to be able to reassure the American population that we know what we're doing. We're not going to repeat in Iraq. We're not going to repeat in Afghanistan or Vietnam or whatever it is. And that this is a new dawn of American military prowess and power, which we already know, but also a new dawn for American diplomacy. All right, I hope you enjoyed today. Please, like, share and follow. You can follow me. I'm commenting pretty regular on X at Team Frog Logic and on Instagram at Team Frog Logic. You can follow the show on all social media. I'm planning to get back on Facebook. I might even start a Tic Tac account here. Jordy's been pushing me to do that. I'm also on LinkedIn. I'm going to start posting there maybe, but primarily I'm on X. That's what I think is the number one news site in the world. So you can follow me if you want to follow the show there. It's at D. Rutherford show. All other social media is at David Rutherford show. Most importantly on YouTube. We would really love you to go to YouTube and subscribe to our channel. Obviously from a revenue perspective that's massive for us as well as also to get us in the algorithms so that more people can hear my commentary and and get a little bit of a little bit of flashbang of truth and trying to consolidate the tsunami of information into a contextual way so you can have a better understanding of what decisions you can make for the future. All right, huya. God bless you. God bless Christ Almighty.
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