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behalf of our allies that has softened their position about going through the Strait of Hormuz?

White House Press Secretary (5:59)

Not overnight, but the President and his team, especially Secretary Hegseth and Secretary Rubio, continue to be in touch with their counterparts in Europe and of course our allies in the Arab engulfed region to step up and do more to help the United States in securing the Strait of Hormuz. This is to their benefit, more so than it is to the benefit of the United States. Thanks to President Trump, we are a net exporter of energy. We don't need the Strait of Hormuz for our energy here at home. For the American people. Of course, we want the strait to be open for the global oil market and to stabilize prices and bring them down again. And we have options at the military has options to continue doing that. But the president is right to call on our allies to step up to do more.

Political Commentator (6:45)

You know, and then Caroline Levitt says NATO is being very unfair to us right now, very unfair. NATO. This, this is the messaging from the White House right now during this massive escalation as oil's what, it's going to hit $150 a barrel soon. And you're attacking, you're attacking NATO. Here, play this clip.

White House Press Secretary (7:04)

You know, one of President Trump's guiding principles is fairness. And he has long called out NATO for being what he believes an unfair alliance for the American people, the American taxpayer, and our U.S. armed forces. You look at some of the trade deals with our NATO allies. The president has worked to renegotiate and reset those to make them more fair for the American people and American workers. You look at the fact that the United States has thousands of troops on our allies in NATO's soil. We're paying these countries billions of dollars, and our troops on their soil serves as a deterrent for them. And the president wants the American taxpayer and our American military to be treated fairly. He feels sometimes with NATO, they are not. And he's right to call that out. And he's right to call on them to step up and do more, especially when reopening the strait benefits them even more than it does the United States of America.

News Anchor (7:55)

There are troubles here at home as well.

Financial Reporter (7:56)

The Department of Homeland Security remains shut down. And Mark Wayne Mullen has his hearing. We're going to hear from him.

Political Commentator (8:01)

More from Caroline Levitt right here. She says, rest assured, everybod there is a plan here. Play this clip. What is the plan to reopen?

White House Press Secretary (8:12)

The president is going to continue to talk to our allies, both in Europe and also in the Gulf and Arab region. The United States military has a lot of capabilities, as you have seen play out over the last 18 days. They still do have tricks up their sleeve. I won't broadcast them for the media, but rest assured, there is a plan. They're working on it. We have seen some progress with respect to that, but of course, of course, the president again continues to call on our allies to step up and do more.

Political Commentator (8:38)

Nancy, now we're hearing from Commodore Eli Raza Tang Siri, the commander of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy. He just put out the following statement and he says, your presence on the streets has become our trump card. And from now on, it will lead to new equations in the region with the target bank updated hashtag. Oil facilities associated with America are now on par with American bases and will come under fire with full force. We warn citizens and workers, stay away from these facilities. There's a Senate hearing taking place right now with Tulsi Gabbard, the Director of National Intelligence. You'll recall Joe Kent, who is her number two, resigned based on his objection to the war in Iran. He resigned yesterday. Senator Warner just cross examined Tulsi Gabbard about Donald Trump, saying that he was shocked and surprised that Iran has been retaliating against its neighbors and shutting down the Strait of Hormuz, which everybody knew was going to happen. It should also be noted that the Trump regime, based on the advice, if you want to call it that, of Laura Loomer, also got rid of one of their top Iranian advisers as well in the past, in the past few weeks. But here's what Warner says to Gabbard. So do you not tell Donald Trump these things? Because it's pretty obvious to everybody that what's going to happen with the Strait of Hormuz, what's going to happen with the neighboring Arab nations? And Tulsi Gabbard has just been having one of the worst hearings imaginable. I mean, because she's just a liar with everything here. Here's what she says here. Play this clip.

Senator Warner (10:24)

She chose to omit the parts that contradict the President. The president continues to say as well that, you know, he had no idea, was shocked that the Iranians would move to take over the Strait of Hormuz. Did you provide any intelligence that would say that it would be that it was not likely that the Iranians would try to move on the Strait?

Tulsi Gabbard (10:47)

I'm not aware of those remarks. And I think those of us here at the table can point to the fact that historically, the Iranians have always threatened to leverage their control over.

Senator Warner (10:58)

Why would the President say he was amazed?

Tulsi Gabbard (11:00)

I'm not aware of those remarks.

Senator Warner (11:01)

What about the comments the President made that sought that he was surprised? Again, reports that Iran struck the adjacent Gulf states?

Tulsi Gabbard (11:09)

Again, I'm not aware of those remarks.

Financial Reporter (11:11)

We have.

Senator Warner (11:11)

Let me ask you this. Did you brief the President? Did you brief the president? Did you brief the president, if he starts a war of choice, that the likely result would be that Iran would strike adjacent Gulf nations and close the Strait of Hormuz. Did you brief him on those two facts that I think have been consistently assumptions of the intelligence community?

Tulsi Gabbard (11:39)

I have not and won't divulge internal conversations. I will say that those of us within the intelligence community continue to provide the President with all of the best objective intelligence available to inform his decisions.

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Political Commentator (13:12)

economic data that's coming in is really bad as well. We got a really bad producer price index readout coming hotter than anybody expected. And that was the pre war producer Price index. So if this war wasn't going on and we got this PPI readout, we would be like, holy sh. You know what I'm going to say next? This is bad, bad. Now you layer it on top of the war. When we get those PPI readouts and those inflation readouts, folks, I don't think it's an exaggeration that inflation will soon be going above 5%. And you can be like, oh Ben, you're saying you're being hyperbolic again. Watch. Inflation will be above 5% I think clearly by the end of this year, perhaps even higher. Where Things are going right now, but here's how they reported on CNBC the new horrible inflation data. Here, play this clip.

Financial Reporter (14:11)

What does that tell you? I mean I understand the short term. We're taking the Fed activity out from the two year and that's why you see those spreads kind of get compressed. The long end. Does that tell you anything about how people are seeing the health of the economy down the road or is it something else?

Economic Analyst (14:28)

I do think that there is part of that reflected in this as well. It's almost the worst of both worlds. I guess stagflation would come close to describing the situation. We're probably not going to see Fed easing and the long end. Well, part of it is weakness. We've had a spat of some fairly weak numbers. And then you put in the fact that we are on the PCE, you know, 3% handle on some of the Fed's favorite metrics. As the Wall Street Journal pointed out today, it would be very difficult even for some of the recent appointees to think that easing could even be on the menu at this or even very close subsequent meetings down the road.

Political Commentator (15:08)

Here's what they were talking about on Fox here. Play this clip.

News Anchor (15:12)

The Dow industrials down about 16 points. Again we are waiting on the producer price index out any second here. Cheryl Cassoni with the numbers.

Financial Reporter (15:19)

Cheryl, these numbers are much hotter than expected guys. For February PPI month over month, a 7, 10 of a percent jump. Street was looking for a gain of 3. 10 of a percent year over year. We came in 3.4% annualized basis. The street was looking for 2.9%. That's the reading that we got the month prior. So again hotter than expected. We got 5. 10 of a percent for core month over month. The street was looking for 3. 10 of a percent to the upside. And then we came in core year over year, 3.9%. The street was looking for 3.7%. And there's the markets are reflecting what we're seeing here as far as these numbers. I'm going to get to the report. I want to see what the government is saying here about where this rise was because it wasn't energy last month. I can tell you that from, from memory. What they're saying here is okay, so for final demand goods we saw an increase of 1.1%. Biggest rise we've seen since August of 23. 40% of that is final demand goods. 2.4% energy. In final demand goods, less food and energy also increased. So that's where the story is here. As far as these, these numbers also, they're talking about final demand services. There was a 5.7% drop in prices for travel or accommodation services, food, alcohol, wholesaling, dealing, investment advice, all in this report. I'm getting the rap sigma, Maria, but there's a lot to go through, a lot to talk about in this.

News Anchor (16:45)

I think you're spot on there, Cheryl, because remember in the month of February, services prices were going higher and we've talked about that. Services prices were going higher. There were a handful of commodities like what we were talking about gold, we were talking about silver. All of those things were going higher in February as well. Putting oil aside, related to the weather, war on Iran. Joel Schulman, your reaction to these numbers. I should point out we haven't seen such a significant impact on markets. Industrials were negative going into it. Still negative.

Market Expert (17:15)

Yeah, this is not good. We're going to see the markets off today. You know, your guest mentioned that he thought the rates would be dropped in December. I thought they'd be earlier. This is pushing things back at least a couple of months. So this is going to be negative for the markets and we're going to see, we're going to probably see the markets ticking down even further, you know, next couple of days. So this is not good news. And we know that the next couple of months we're going to see elevated prices because of energy.

News Anchor (17:42)

All right, we are an hour away from the opening bell and the Dow industrials now down 105. Joel, good to see you. We'll be back with the now folks.

Political Commentator (17:48)

During the St. Patrick's Day parade over in Ireland, they rolled out their Epstein float. You can see the Epstein float right there. The entire world mocking the United States for covering up a child sex trafficking ring here in the United States, which is what the Trump regime continues to do. And more news about that cover up coming from Jason Leopold who is on the front lines frankly of reporting on Epstein files. Jason's been incredible reporter over at Bloomberg. And he says a document, a 69 page target profile prepared for the DEA by the Department of Justice's now defunct Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force was released in January and it talks about the money laundering and drug trafficking schemes that Epstein used. It was a target profile. And this target profile has been blocked by Todd Blanch from the Department of Justice. Donald Trump's former criminal defense attorney is not allowing a 69 page target profile regarding the money laundering scheme and the people who were helping Epstein with the money laundering alongside the sex trafficking and the drug cartels that they were involved in as well. There's a heavily redacted document and blanch thing. That document doesn't get released. I'm gonna do a whole other report on that folks. The COVID up continues. The COVID up of child sex trafficking ring continues here in the United States and Donald Trump escalating things in Iran. The price of oil is surging and you see what's happening right now with our economy. We'll keep reporting throughout the day. Now hit subscribe Help us get to 7 million subscribers and thank you all so much for watching the Midas Touch Network. You may think you're subscribed, just double check and turn your notifications on. Thanks for watching everybody.

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