transcript

Speaker 1:
[00:14] You're listening to American Power, I'm Nat Towsen. I am your host, a stand up comedian, speechwriter, many other kinds of writer, and again, most importantly, and most nobly, podcast host. I am joined as always by my panel of experts. Up first, our military expert, Chad Scott. Chad, say hello.

Speaker 2:
[00:31] Hey, everyone. Former US. Army officer with more than 16 years of experience, 11, which was active duty in combat, command, multinational military planning with deployments to Iraq, Korea, Europe. And I have two master's degrees from Maryland, one from Hopkins. Super glad to be here.

Speaker 1:
[00:46] That's two more than I have. Also with me is our energy expert. You know him as Mr. Global. Please welcome Matt Randolph.

Speaker 2:
[00:53] Hey, Nat.

Speaker 3:
[00:54] Yeah, I am the energy expert and Forbes contributor. That's that's me, Mr. Global.

Speaker 2:
[00:59] Everyone knows him. We don't have to without mention, he knows.

Speaker 1:
[01:04] No, I just kind of forgot who you were. And I was doing that thing where I was trying to introduce you guys to each other. So you'd say each other's names.

Speaker 3:
[01:09] Have you met my wife?

Speaker 1:
[01:10] Yeah, exactly. You're not picking up on the cue. I'm like trying to make eye contact with Chad, but over the Zoom, it's not quite working.

Speaker 2:
[01:16] Yeah. Oh my gosh. I get confused with Mr. Worldwide. So.

Speaker 1:
[01:20] I follow them both on TikTok. It's confusing.

Speaker 3:
[01:23] Who is that?

Speaker 1:
[01:24] Mr. Pitbull?

Speaker 2:
[01:26] Pitbull.

Speaker 3:
[01:26] Oh, that's Pitbull.

Speaker 1:
[01:27] Yeah, he's kind of like your alter ego.

Speaker 3:
[01:28] I've had a lot of people ask me if I knew who Mr. Worldwide was, and I have no idea who he, I didn't know it was Pitbull. I don't know Pitbull either, or Mr. Worldwide.

Speaker 1:
[01:35] Okay, well, I feel like we haven't helped then. Me singing in Spanish isn't going to help, I don't think either, but you have an exciting Google ahead of you.

Speaker 3:
[01:45] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[01:46] To know who you've been compared to these many years.

Speaker 3:
[01:48] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[01:49] So we are recording this in the evening of April 6th. We are recording this in the evening of April 6th. A lot has happened since we recorded our last episode. And by that, I mean, we appeared on the Find Out podcast and everyone in America is talking about it. But also, a lot has happened in global news and in American political news. And I want to start with you, Chad, if we could talk a little bit about what's going on in Iran and with the Trump administration right now.

Speaker 2:
[02:17] Yeah. So one of the biggest things that came out was his speech that he had on Wednesday and the subsequent tweets. I don't know if you saw on True Social, just an unhinged post where he's threatening Iran with what is essentially war crimes. And to be absolutely clear, Trump's statements that he's going to order strikes on civilian infrastructure, including power plants, if he actually carries it out, those are considered war crimes, period. End of story. Now there's this question as to whether he would actually go through with it since he's kicked the can down the road a couple of times before. And Trump's deadline being Tuesday and it's not coming on to Wednesday. Who knows? Maybe he will. I mean, it's going to be Tuesday, so maybe we'll get that taco Tuesday and he won't actually won't actually do it. But if he does, Trump is violating the law, period.

Speaker 3:
[03:09] I thought we were going to talk about new stuff.

Speaker 2:
[03:11] No, and it's just kind of funny because well, it's not funny at all because there's a lot of confusion surrounding this because we signed and ratified treaties pertaining to the Geneva Conventions, which designate what is allowed under the law of armed conflict. Now, the Supremacy Clause in the United States says that when a treaty is ratified, as we ratified those, it becomes federal law. So not only would this be an international crime, it would also be a US federal crime. And I'm not just talking about Trump here.

Speaker 1:
[03:40] One of his favorite things.

Speaker 2:
[03:41] Well, yeah, and that's the thing is, thanks to the Supreme Court, it might not matter. But the crux of what I'm talking about isn't necessarily for Trump because we know he can find a way to finagle out of this. It's those that would be carrying out the orders. They are subject to the same scrutiny. And the I was just following orders bit does not work. Now, there's been some claims that striking things like power plants is considered dual use, meaning they support military efforts, also being used by civilians. But there's a constant or there's a big constraint here that is called proportionality within the law of armed conflict proportionality. It's used to determine the civilian if the civilian harm is excessive compared to the military gain from that strike. And if that harm is excessive, the strike is not legal. And so an argument I keep seeing is, well, these are dual use. Yes, power plants are dual use. Fuel systems are dual use. Transportation. But while the military uses them, so do millions of civilians. Meaning you don't get broad carte blanche blank check to just destroy them because there's some military benefit. By that logic, we would be firebombing farms because they feed troops or destroying hospitals because troops can be rehabilitated and sent back to the front line by them. So pretty much anything becomes a target in that logic, and it overrides why we prevent what we're trying to prevent here, which is unnecessary cruelty to civilians.

Speaker 1:
[05:06] I think unfortunately you've seen so much of what paved the way for that in terms of consent manufacturing is backing Israel's actions in Gaza. Both sides of the political aisle, if you want to look at it as two sides, both major political parties in America fully supported that. And whether or not you agree with every country in the world, other than the US and Israel, that that was a genocide and is a genocide, or you agree with the US and Israel, that it isn't. And I personally tend to agree with the rest of the world. And my knowledge from history, what a genocide is. But I think when you look at the way that we built a mechanism there, whether or not you agree with them, it is very clear that our opposition party drew the line as to, you know, we will not be, we will be resisting the protesters more strongly than we will be resisting this policy. In fact, any dissent towards this policy, any suggestion that these are war crimes, that bombing hospitals, executing doctors with their arms tied behind their back, that anything like that could be considered a war crime was completely squashed. I mean, we had all citizen protest against that, you know, had the military turns against them for that matter. So I feel like it's, you know, I hate to say like, oh, what does Trump care about federal crimes? But what do the American people care about war crimes? Is the question I find myself asking.

Speaker 2:
[06:24] Yeah, and that's the thing is, is you're not supposed to be able to inflict suffering for suffering sake. That's something that was a core value of the United States. We are supposed to be one of the pinnacles of human rights. And I'm worried that we're going down a rabbit hole that is very bad because we're allowing things like Trump to say we're going to bomb them back to the Stone Age or send them to hell. So these are admissions.

Speaker 1:
[06:47] I think today he said it wasn't a war crime because they were animals. That was the most recent rhetoric.

Speaker 2:
[06:52] And yeah. So and I just, it's just something that is we, we are facing down essentially kind of a ghost of our future. If we start going down this route, we are going to be much worse off. And I'm not just talking from a standpoint of our own morals and values. Obviously this is going to have implications for other things, economics, et cetera.

Speaker 3:
[07:17] What about impeachment?

Speaker 1:
[07:19] Did we try that already?

Speaker 3:
[07:20] No, I mean, you know, midterms coming up. If war crimes are committed, impeachment, that would be extraordinarily difficult.

Speaker 2:
[07:30] And I've heard the 25th Amendment situation come up where it's just because it requires two thirds of both the House and two thirds of the Senate. I just don't think we'll get there. Yeah, there's a good shot. There's almost a definitive shot. We win the House as Democrats. But and there's a better than a slightly better 50 percent chance we win the Senate, but that's not two thirds.

Speaker 3:
[07:52] And I don't think I don't they're never going to remove them.

Speaker 2:
[07:54] I just they'll beat them again.

Speaker 3:
[07:56] Another another feather in their hat when they're going after them for impeachment, even though it's not going to work.

Speaker 1:
[08:01] You know, I mean, I think the thing that I keep coming back to is not to be conspiratorial. I mean, I don't think it's conspiratorial to say that, you know, a lot of the Democrats who would have to be involved in impeachment hearing are still taking money from APEC, still need those things to not be categorized, you know, attacking aid workers, things like that, to not be categorized as war crimes because they've propped up their entire political identity on that narrative over the past two, two and a half years. And for them to turn and say, hey, you know, that double tap, that attacking the aid workers, that, you know, attacking food supplies to civilians, you know, evacuate bombing the place that you evacuated, you told civilians to evacuate to. That getting publicly drawn out and categorized as war crimes is going to force a lot of these Democrats into the light to say, well, yeah, of course, I knew that was happening in Gaza. You know, teenagers with a cell phone, I could see that that was happening in Gaza, you know, like, and they lost the information war on like, you know, we would never bomb a hospital, all these things that turned out to not be true. And now they kind of have to maintain this narrative of, well, ultimately, all these things are justified, inflicting harm is justified, you know, if you are, if you're a perceived threat, I suppose, which is like, you know, a completely illogical argument. But I don't see them, you know, I don't, I don't see them publicly airing the definition of war crimes anytime soon when that's still still whether what's funding their campaigns.

Speaker 2:
[09:26] They wouldn't even care. But that's the thing. And I wanted to ask Matt, this is does I mean, is any of this going to matter for Trump? Because he's so hyper focused on the markets and stuff. I think he's trying to do this to inflate, to kind of create some impact on the markets positively. Does this actually stabilize the energy markets? It seems like things are getting crazier and crazier. I mean, what do you think on that?

Speaker 1:
[09:49] Before we get predictive, can we talk about where we are at the energy markets right now?

Speaker 2:
[09:52] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[09:55] Not good, not good.

Speaker 2:
[09:57] Period. End of podcast. Thanks.

Speaker 3:
[09:59] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[10:00] Short episode, folks.

Speaker 2:
[10:02] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[10:03] To catch some of the folks up that may not have heard me talk about this before, oil is traded on two different markets. When you look at oil prices on your phone, that's the future market. That's the paper market, what we call it. There's also a physical market. What did it actually cost to purchase the actual oil? And like I said, when you look up oil prices on your phone, you're looking at the paper market, the futures market. And that's why it's so easy to be manipulated by the administration or anyone else trying to profit off of this war. Typically the physical market is within a dollar or two of the paper market. So if oil is $100, typically physical oil is $101 or $102. Well today, West Texas Intermediate, which is US oil, was trading $40 above the futures market. And what that means is that buyers mostly in the Middle East, because a lot of people may not realize this, but the Middle East does produce a lot of Arab light oil, which is very similar and comparable to West Texas Intermediate. A lot of people think they just produce heavy crude. That's not true. They produce a lot of light crude that's just like ours. So today it was trading on the physical market at $40 above the futures market, which means US oil was selling for around $150 a barrel. The physical market is what actually sets gas prices. Now, we normally just use the futures market one because it's free access on all of our phones. You have to actually pay to see the, you know, you got to pay like Platts or SPC Global to see the physical markets. But if this continues, because last week we saw that happen with Brent, and it came back down this week, but now US oil is trading over $140, $150 a barrel physically. If that sustains for any amount of time, gas prices in the United States are going to easily surpass the record that was set in 2022. This is all about time, just like everything else with this war. If this is a really quick little blip on the radar, it'll give us some bump in gas prices. But if this lasts for like two, three, four weeks, gas prices are going to go nuts. They're going to go bonkers. So I'm not predicting a top, but I will predict if it stays here, we'll surpass the national average record in 2022 easily.

Speaker 1:
[12:26] And what does that do with US oil producers? Are they going to start exporting more rapidly or like?

Speaker 3:
[12:31] They're going that, yeah. So they saw this coming actually, and it was starting to happen a little bit last week, but it wasn't enough to really talk about. So in March, we exported a record amount of oil that we've ever exported out of the country, mostly because there's a lot of shortages around the world. In April, we will beat that, because the first thing producers are going to do, any oil they have in storage, any oil they have anywhere, they're going to try to get it out to the international market as quick as possible. And that's going to drastically reduce our inventories in the United States. So this is kind of a double-edged sword, because our oil is going to be trading at 150, the physical oil, not the futures, but the physical, plus our inventories are going to be rapidly shrinking, because these oil companies are setting on millions of barrels of oil that was worth, you know, $100 a couple of weeks ago, and now it's worth $150. So the only constraint to that will be logistics. How many tankers can they get there? It wouldn't surprise me at all if in the next two, three, four days, there's a headline, record number of tankers headed to the United States. We saw this in 2022. So that's what I would be looking out for. That's my gas price warning for the week.

Speaker 1:
[13:45] So spell it out for me a little bit. What does that mean then? What's the potential consequence of US oil stores getting depleted? Like our local supplies as exporters or as producers hustle to export this now more valuable to them oil. What if suddenly our oil, our oil supplies or our oil, you know, backup is suddenly depleted or suddenly significantly less than it was before? What what potential consequences do we have there?

Speaker 3:
[14:13] So this is just going to be a gas price thing. We won't get ourselves into a situation where we're having shortages. They're not going to sell all of our oil. Like they'll leave some like we're not going to experience because shortages would be devastating even for them, right? So but there will be a big uptick in exports. They're going to capture as much of that profit as possible. That's why companies exist, to pay those shareholders. And we're going to pay for it. And it's yet to be seen how we're going to pay for it. But we are going to pay for it. I mean, we're already paying for it, but we're about to pay even more.

Speaker 1:
[14:53] At the pump, you're saying.

Speaker 3:
[14:55] At the pump, yeah.

Speaker 1:
[14:57] Speaking of profiteering off of the global oil shortage and the war in Iran now, I'm curious, Chad, given the situation that we've created around the Strait of Hormuz and given that the US is potentially overextended militarily right now, is there a profit motive to extending this war for other world powers? Now that the US is less stable or for other reasons, is there a strategic advantage for, say, China to hope that this war or help this war continue?

Speaker 2:
[15:32] Absolutely, there's outside of the Russia making money from high gas prices, China has insulated themselves very well on the oil front. They have a massive reserve. So they are going to, and Matt probably knows better than I do, but they have well over 100, 120 days of reserves that they can survive this for the long term, well past what is probably going to be politically viable for Trump to survive it because of the pain that's going to be felt here in the United States, as Matt was just talking about. The incentives for them to keep going though, are encouraging Iran to keep going or go beyond that though. What they're seeing now is a complete undermining of the US led world order. The US is spending a bunch of money. They're distracted from what is things that are important to China and Russia, such as Ukraine specifically. We are having to prioritize equipment that may have gone to Ukraine. Now it's going to be used by us. We are redeploying assets from the South China Sea and the East China Sea that traditionally would have been our, like, find out, like, come on, China, let's see what you got. Now we don't have those assets. They're being moved to deal with this Iran situation that was self-inflicted. But a broader point is Iran itself has an incentive to keep this going. This is what the leadership of Iran is thinking right now. Time is really no longer an enemy to Iran. They see it as a weapon that they can use against the United States. The regime survived this opening shock. Sure, the Ayatollah was killed, but the IRGC replaced them relatively quickly. The regime did not collapse. And by IRGC, I mean the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. They're still intact. Their oil is moving, especially to China. Both the public reporting out of places like Reuters and stuff, and the US government is saying that Iran likely still retains meaningful missile and drone capabilities even after taking heavy losses from the United States. And that means Iran has every reason to believe that the longer this drags on, the more pressure of this war will shift onto the Trump administration, onto Washington. And that economic pain is going to spread, which is going to build that political pressure. And I've been thinking about this. It's almost like an uno reverse situation where the Iranian regime may actually end up outlasting the Trump administration because of how much of a quagmire this is becoming. And Iran correctly calculated that they don't need to beat the US militarily. They just need to stay standing long enough that the costs start mounting and they outweigh the gains for the US. Plus Iran now has a change in their equation. If the Strait is at risk, if they can keep the Strait of Hormuz at risk, all of those global markets are going to stay nervous. And it shows that the United States is not powerful enough. They're no longer strong enough to fully restore the old status quo. And that means they realize that we have a lot more leverage than we thought. So this is benefiting Tehran. It's benefiting Russia because of the distractions, because the US is spending a lot of money focused on Iran. And all of that exquisite weaponry that we would have, all of the high-end missiles, the JASMs, which is the joint airstrike missile or something, I can't remember off the top of my head, but the JASMs, the Tomahawks, all of those high-end missiles, China's really loving that we're using all those up, because those were supposed to be for them. So those three, what we would have traditionally called this part of this axis of evil, they're really loving this. And unfortunately, it's leaving us strategically weakened over the long term.

Speaker 1:
[19:03] And that is why we don't have universal single-payer health care. So every one of those missiles, a lifetime of health care. Okay, let me ask you this. When you say that the Iranian regime could outlast the Trump administration, are you saying that American democracy entirely will collapse, or are you saying that you think that Trump will be voted out before the Iranian regime has an actual regime change? And if so, are you going on record saying that you believe we will have another presidential election?

Speaker 2:
[19:39] Yeah, so I am...

Speaker 1:
[19:43] I remain neutral on this prediction.

Speaker 2:
[19:45] I'm just asking. Yeah, no, I am eminently optimistic about the United States. I have always been optimistic about the United States. We are at a dark period. I truly believe we've been in darker periods before. We've fought a civil war. We've had college kids shot on campuses. We've been in places. This is not great. But I think we are still somewhat resilient in that. When I talk about the regime outlasting the Trump administration, it likely... Whether it's from an impeachment, as we were talking about earlier, which is not out of the question, quite frankly. It could happen. We could see so much pain being applied to the United States because of how foolish not just this is, but everything, the tariffs, whatever, all compounding, that Republicans start going, okay, we need to shift this and fix this. After the midterms, that's possible, but absolutely after 2028, there will be a changing of the guard that I believe the Trump administration will be removed through our normal processes. That being said, the Iranian regime is going to stay and they're going to be in a better, more powerful place as a regime. The country of Iran will not, unfortunately. They're going to suffer a lot over the next few years. But the regime and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the besiege, all of them will rebound from this. And it's likely we're going to have to be dealing with this for quite a long time. And it's because we just are not willing to take the full measure of what would be required to destroy them. Thankfully, because I believe that would end up being a full invasion, which would be quite a different scenario, that I just, I don't think as we discussed on the previous episode, if you haven't listened to it. Yeah, for sure.

Speaker 1:
[21:26] Yeah. Well, I hope that you're correct and that this is a dark period in America and not the end result of everything that America has always been boiling to the surface and coming to fruition. And I certainly hope that it's something, I think something that gives me hope and the idea that some degree of that ideal does still exist and that this is aberration versus again, the end result of things we chose to ignore for a long time. You know, in many ways, the ugly manifestation of the original sin of America has come to fruition and are allowing someone like Trump to hold power, being a pure spite of anti-equality, and that's something that we never manage as a country to fully put together. But I would say that one of the things that are fully balanced is these beliefs. But I think one thing that does give me hope towards that is that a lot of Americans in ways that you didn't see in recent years seem to be, if not going across party lines, becoming increasingly aware of, I'm not joking when I say this could be universal health care. I think a lot of Americans are becoming increasingly aware of where is this money being spent? How are other countries receiving funding that we're not receiving? Well, hold on, hold on, why is all my money going to Israel?

Speaker 2:
[22:44] Hell, look at MTG.

Speaker 1:
[22:45] Yeah, and don't get me wrong, I think that it is an absolute failure of the Democratic Party that they're getting scooped on criticism of Israel by anti-Semitic far-right conspiracy theorists. That is a very dangerous territory to be in, and I don't think MTG is coming after Israel in good faith, but it's also a failure of the inability to criticize that. That's why right-wingers are able to slip in there, but I'm not speaking specifically with Israel. I think even you're seeing, you're talking about results that people are going to have in the midterm. I think prices going up, the groceries didn't get cheaper, all these things. I don't want to be overly optimistic, but I think Americans are finally figuring out that corporatism doesn't have their best interests in mind. And I'm curious what you think, Mr. Global, about what's the impact on the American consumer going to be if this war continues? And truly, how much can the American consumer tolerate beyond what's already happening?

Speaker 2:
[23:44] Yeah, I'm actually curious as Gen X perspective on that same question you just asked me, too. Is he as optimistic? Because millennials, we are generally more optimistic. What is the Gen X-er thing? Is it just, am I too flowery?

Speaker 3:
[23:57] No, look, Americans are a rebellious bunch of people, and we like to really test our boundaries. And during this time in our history, we decided to test the boundaries of democracy. It's just another thing, quirky thing that Americans do. But as far as prices, it's going to be bad. I mean, we've lost 30% of our fertilizer. Food prices are going to go up. We have inflation predictions that are just through the roof. People are already getting $1,000 electric bills. Their health insurance. I mean, I don't know about you guys, but mine's like two grand a month now. Like, it is insane how people are expected to survive. And all of this is just going to exacerbate that even more. And to your point, Chad, about China having 120 days worth of oil, that would be if they got zero imports.

Speaker 2:
[24:54] Yeah, correct.

Speaker 3:
[24:55] So it's important to note that they really have likely over a year, they have over a billion barrels. And the only reason we know that is because we can see it with satellite imagery, because they won't tell us. Like, they don't like telling us stuff because we tend to use it against them. But the whole move for China to stop their exports wasn't necessary. That's China playing their role in this war. That's China, you know, pressing their thumb down on this war and saying, we can make this even worse by cutting off our exports to, you know, Southeast Asia and Australia and causing gas shortages across that part of the world. So China is heavily involved in the war. We don't talk about it much, but it's absolutely true because they don't need to stop their exports. They're still getting their oil from Iran. They're still getting their oil from Russia and other places. They're still getting oil from Venezuela. I know all the mega crowd thinks that we took Venezuela's oil and it's ours, but big shocker. They're still selling oil to China. They're just doing it through Donald Trump. So it's going to be bad, Nat. It's going to get worse.

Speaker 2:
[26:01] And it's frustrating because Russia's taking advantage of us too. It's almost like a double edged, where we're being hit from both sides. So whereas China's able to economically thumb their nose at us, Russia is providing that intelligence directly to the Iranians. They're taking Iranian Shaheed drones and they're configuring them in a better way so that they are more effective and then giving them back to Iran to use against us. And I fully believe, and now there's more intelligence reporting coming out, that that shoot down of that F-15, where we got back the pilot and the weapons, the weapon system officer, that was based on Russian intelligence. And the frustrating things were doing nothing about it still.

Speaker 1:
[26:44] Can you elaborate a little bit? Because we haven't actually talked about that. It happened since the last episode.

Speaker 2:
[26:48] Yeah, so Trump is doing nothing to counter Russia's, and frankly, China's, China's economic efforts to undermine our efforts in Iran. He's not doing anything to counter Russia's efforts to undermine our military efforts, because Russia is sharing not only equipment, but also upgraded Iranian equipment back to them, also sharing intelligence. And all of it is specifically designed to kill Americans. And I get the fact that this war was started by the United States. This is our war to own. But when Russia is seen as being complicit in providing the assets and the ability to kill Americans, traditionally, the Americans would move against them. The administration would move against them, whether it was in Vietnam when it was the Soviets and the Chinese, whether it was when we saw during Iraq, when the Iranians were providing those explosively formed projectiles. We did something, sanctions, anything. We are not doing anything. And it's like Donald Trump, for whatever reason, has such an infatuation with Vladimir Putin that he is unwilling to punish the Russians at all, even though their direct action likely got a pilot shot down over enemy territory.

Speaker 3:
[28:12] I have a stat on this, Matt.

Speaker 2:
[28:14] Yeah, go for it.

Speaker 3:
[28:15] Can we call this the stat of the week? Yeah, can you do that voice you do where you sound like the guy from EA Sports and do stat of the week?

Speaker 1:
[28:22] Stat of the week.

Speaker 3:
[28:24] Stat of the week.

Speaker 1:
[28:26] Stat of the week, sorry. Go ahead.

Speaker 2:
[28:29] I'll try to give them a couple of options.

Speaker 3:
[28:31] Okay, Iran's success rate launching missiles was 3%. Right? At the beginning of the war, they're launching all these missiles, 3%. Since they started getting intelligence from Russia, it's up to 27%. That's the stat of the week.

Speaker 2:
[28:47] Yep.

Speaker 3:
[28:48] And we're doing that. It puts a little bow on what Chad just said.

Speaker 1:
[28:52] It has, now I'm no mathematician, but I would say it has cubed in a week. Yes, that's the percentage.

Speaker 3:
[28:58] You can't say cubed.

Speaker 1:
[29:00] You can't say cubed? No.

Speaker 3:
[29:04] Just say it went up a lot.

Speaker 1:
[29:08] I guess it's a percentage.

Speaker 2:
[29:10] And what happens when we decide we are actually gonna start doing something in the Suez more kinetic, and Russian intelligence has not been addressed by the US administration. It baffles me why we are not only removing sanctions from Iran, but also assisting the, just ignoring the fact that Russia is providing intelligence and weaponry that's gonna end up killing Americans.

Speaker 1:
[29:39] And what would this war have been like if Iran had a charismatic dictator rather than a religious autocrat who Trump doesn't really get along with? So much of this seems to be, as you mentioned, emotionally motivated by his admiration for Vladimir Putin. I think it's really surreal, the degree to which I wonder, oh yeah, what if this country had a white dictator who Trump liked? What if this country had a leader who was just wacky enough to be Trump's kind of strongman? Unfortunately, they do not.

Speaker 3:
[30:12] I don't think Iran needs a charismatic leader, because that, you know, Lego movie propaganda game they got going on is some next level shit right there. Like I watched one of those videos. Oh, that rap video was insane.

Speaker 2:
[30:26] The Hegseth one? That was wild.

Speaker 3:
[30:28] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[30:29] Okay, I know what you're talking about, but you sound insane. Tell the, you sound like you, and then this is with respect to the schizophrenic community are having an episode. What are you talking about? Tell the people at home, because I've seen this, but I'd love to hear a human being articulated.

Speaker 3:
[30:47] Have you not seen it?

Speaker 1:
[30:48] No, I have, but you're talking to the listener now.

Speaker 3:
[30:51] Yeah, it's Iranian propaganda, and I've seen multiple videos and they look like the Lego movie, you know? And the last one I saw was the one Chad brought up. It's this rap. I don't know who that is rapping, but is that AI?

Speaker 1:
[31:03] I would not be shocked if it was all AI generated. It looks to be.

Speaker 3:
[31:08] But I don't know if the voice is. I mean, I can't even hardly describe it. Like, they are dropping, for lack of a better word, bombs with their propaganda. Like, I've never seen it. Imagine propaganda that's designed to entertain young people. That is exactly what it is. These the kids and the younger folks in this country will watch that and they'll get a kick out of it. Because they don't absorb a lot of the language and the words, but just the music it's put to and the storytelling they do. Like, it's literally like entertainment.

Speaker 1:
[31:41] This is like a four minute rap video, Pete, Eddick, Seth diss track we're talking about. It's so long. It just goes on and on.

Speaker 2:
[31:51] Like, it puts Kendrick Lamar and Drake to shame. Like, that was...

Speaker 3:
[31:55] If they get Eminem, we're.

Speaker 1:
[31:57] Well, real quick, let's not put Kendrick Lamar and Drake on the same pedestal. It puts Drake to shame. But okay, I'm not gonna sign off on that. First of all, that was a one-sided fight from the beginning. So yeah, it puts Biggie Smalls and my nephew who raps to shame, you know?

Speaker 2:
[32:17] But then we got our guy on our side tweeting out swearing and threatening to bring hell and destroy energy and stuff and that's not gonna resonate with anyone.

Speaker 1:
[32:28] Did he also say praise Allah in a recent social post?

Speaker 2:
[32:32] On Easter. On Easter.

Speaker 1:
[32:35] I don't normally entertain to imagine if Barack Obama had done the thing that Trump did because who cares? And there's nothing, no, yeah, we have double standards, big, big, but that was one that truly I had to just... Well, any other president saying praise Allah on Easter would have been a story.

Speaker 3:
[32:51] I came up with the perfect excuse for Donald Trump saying, do you know what Jesus called God?

Speaker 1:
[33:00] Tell me.

Speaker 3:
[33:01] What language did he speak?

Speaker 1:
[33:04] Well, it depends on whether you trust Jim Cavisio.

Speaker 3:
[33:07] Well, I mean, a lot of historians say that when Jesus said the word God, he would have said Allah.

Speaker 1:
[33:12] Right, because he's speaking...

Speaker 2:
[33:13] That's what a lot of the Americans think.

Speaker 3:
[33:14] That pisses off a lot of people. But Donald Trump could have used that as an excuse. Like, hey, this is what Jesus said.

Speaker 2:
[33:21] A lot of it, people were saying he was trolling too. I'm like, that's such a level of cope.

Speaker 1:
[33:25] I mean, he's always trolling, but he's not like, oh, let me think about what... Like, it's just sort of he's got a sociopathic personality designed to... has been engineered to get attention for 70 years. Like, it's not like he's like, oh, I know what's going to get under there, get their skin. It's just all attention to him.

Speaker 2:
[33:42] Well, and the thing is, is like what he's saying...

Speaker 1:
[33:44] But you're right, he was Christ-like in that moment.

Speaker 2:
[33:46] Yeah, you are totally...

Speaker 1:
[33:49] Technically...

Speaker 2:
[33:50] What do you say? Cancelled episode two.

Speaker 1:
[33:53] Only technically, literally, I'm just saying in that one way.

Speaker 2:
[33:57] So on top of this whole thing, though, what he's suggesting is it doesn't work strategically. There's just, it doesn't work, inflicting civilian suffering by a means of forcing the regime capitulation. It just doesn't work, it hasn't worked throughout history. Authoritarian regimes, especially Iran, are built to absorb this type of pain and redirect the blame. So when we go in and we start knocking out power and water, people are not going to sit there and just do the mental math on the political theory of why this is happening. They're going to be like, they bombed my power plant. I now hate them. I have no water because of the Americans. And this creates that rally around the flag effect, even among people who already didn't like the regime, which there are many, but they're going to sit there and go, well, who can best fix this in the immediate? And they're going to say, well, I guess the, the new Ayatollah and the Islamic Republic. So when we hit nuclear sites and when we hit military targets, those people, they may still have some support as anti-regime pockets. They might still support the United States, but if you start making them suffer, they're going to focus on whoever can normalize the situation. And this means that you're not weakening the Islamic Republic. You're actually hardening it, and you're handing them exactly what is they need to unify. They're going to leverage the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, consolidate control, can crush any pro-Western descent, and justify all of that and the internal crackdowns because they're like, hey, we're not the ones making it so you can't don't have water and power and cook your food. Historically, this hasn't worked. I mean, when you look at the Blitz, not the Blitzkrieg, there's a difference. The Blitz, where Nazi Germany went and started a bombing campaign against the British, the intent by the Nazis was they were going to be like, we're going to cause so much pain and suffering that they're not going to support Winston Churchill, and they're going to back down and let's do whatever we want. The opposite happened. Operation Rolling Thunder was supposed to force North Vietnam to submit. Instead, it strengthened the narrative that Ho Chi Minh was saying, where he was like, we're resisting foreign aggression. And then obviously one of the most pointed examples we have right now is Russia. Russia is doing this. They're striking infrastructure, power, water in Ukraine. But the Ukrainians have shown that they're extraordinarily resilient and they've rallied around Kiev. And if we think that Iran's going to be any different, if the history is going to be any different on that, we are sadly mistaken. And I hate the fact that I have to say the Russians are doing this and we're considering it. Never do we really want to be the type that are like, hey, if the Russians are doing it, maybe that'll work for us.

Speaker 1:
[36:34] I mean, also not only that, but our history in the Middle East over the past 30 years has been, you know, why are all these terrorists getting radicalized just because we blew up their homes? Why isn't that an eight year old who watched his brother die in front of him on the street from an American bomb understand that that was actually freeing him from a greater global circumstance? You know, we wonder why there's destabilization and anti-American sentiment in these pockets when our response to 9-11 was to be like, oh, let's kill more of them. Let's just like, just for a couple of decades, we'll just constantly be, you'll just see the American flag and our military uniforms just near death all the time for the span of an entire person's life from zero to 18. Why does that guy hate America? I can't think, doesn't he understand that this was because of something that happened before he was born? And it's good. And so we're creating these circumstances where it's like, like you're saying, it's completely not only in terms of radicalizing terrorists, but just in terms of fomenting anti-American sentiment. Why would you be, you know, this Donald Trump is, if we can tell that he's emotionally motivated, it's not hard for other people. But why would you even bother to consider context if your entire home or access to food and water is being destabilized? Of course we're creating enemies.

Speaker 3:
[37:47] You don't ever want to fight. Like, if I got into a fight with someone, I wouldn't want to get into a fight with someone whose dream it was to, like, die in a fight against me. Like, that's, like, we're going to war against countries. And the people who live in those countries believe that they get to heaven by dying in war against us. Like, that's literally the worst people to go fight.

Speaker 1:
[38:10] Well, you have to understand that the war crimes are just one of those quirky things that Americans do, man. Yeah, much like trying to overthrow a democracy. They don't understand our quarks abroad is the thing. We may have surrendered to an authoritarian regime temporarily, but you all need to get over it. Let us work it out.

Speaker 3:
[38:27] Yeah, but this idea that hitting power plants, it's like these people literally want to die in a war with us so they can go be with their God. Like, they're probably over there like, the power plants, why don't you hit a subdivision? Like we're trying to make this happen. You know what I mean? Like, these people in the Middle East, this is part of their religion and we get caught up in these religious wars and we can't figure out why we can't beat them. It's because there's nothing they won't sacrifice to win.

Speaker 1:
[38:54] I mean, even if that's not true, again, like if the American oppression is always the presence in your life, you don't need to be religious to see that as an enemy.

Speaker 3:
[39:03] Yeah, but I mean, this is the toughest opponent. Like you cannot beat someone who's willing to die beating you.

Speaker 2:
[39:10] Yeah, during the, I mean, and this is the same, they have the same mentality after the 1979 Revolution. I mean, you have the Iran-Iraq War. They were 14 year olds were being brought up, given a weapon and told to fight. And that's this is the level that's going to happen. There's a, if you ever get a chance, and I don't know, foresee anybody ever doing this, but if you ever get a chance to go to Baghdad, one of the palaces that, yeah.

Speaker 1:
[39:39] If you're in the neighborhood, think about it. Don't make it a whole trip, but if you're nearby.

Speaker 3:
[39:46] I'm looking up on Travelocity here, see what we got. Do we got any specials?

Speaker 1:
[39:49] No, they banned Airbnb. It's a lot harder to stay there. They realized that Airbnb was bad for the local renter economy, and people were hoarding housing, and they had to, yeah. So all of a sudden, it's like, it's hotels or nothing.

Speaker 2:
[40:01] But yeah, I like, it's funny, we're joking. I'm about to tell a really gory, terrible stat right after this. But so they have, if you ever look at the arches, ain't that America, but go on. You ever see the, you ever see the arches where the sword and it's supposed to be cast out of Saddam Hussein's hand underneath that is a path. And when you walk that path, you're like, oh, is this cobblestone? No, it is the helmets of Iranian fighters that died in this war. And under some of those helmets, they're skulls. This is the type of people we are dealing with in this fundamental realm. They the Iranian regime doesn't care what happens to anyone so long as the Iranian regime survives. And that means we are going to be if we want to inflict the type of pain on Iran that is necessary to get them to capitulate. I think it's a situation where we have to and I don't want to do this. We have to compromise ourselves and we don't want to do that. We have to do things. It's almost like in Vietnam, when we started agent origin jungles and firebombing. It's the whole firebombing Dresden thing. Are we willing to do that? And if not, we need to, Trump needs to take a step back and find a diplomatic way out of this with our allies. And that's the only way I think this is going to become some sort of endgame is either we become evil and terrible as Americans, more so than what we have previously done in some of the other situations, or we do what we've always done and say, hey, allies, come with us and work with us to, and maybe we can work this out with Iran, give and take. Some of them, they get something, we get something and open this up. The thing is, I don't think that's in Trump's lexicon. I don't think that is in, he is a win at all costs, and I don't care. And I'm worried that it's going to fundamentally change the structure of our fabric within the United States.

Speaker 1:
[41:57] Well, let's go back for a moment on that note and talk about the speech last week, because I think last we talked, we were speculating, what's he going to come out and say? Because at the time, they were claiming that we talked a little bit on our own podcast, but then on the Find Out podcast, it was even closer to the event, and we were talking about, would he claim victory? And I think you guys successfully predicted that he would have some kind of mission accomplished, some sort of success report, or would he claim, or would he announce an all-out invasion? And I'm curious what you think of what he actually chose to talk about, and how that affects what you were just talking about, which is our standing in the world, our perception of will potential allies help us see an end to this? Or is he taking steps in the complete opposite direction? Starting with that speech, I feel like that's the most recent very public statement he's made about it.

Speaker 3:
[42:58] Well, the speech was basically a collage of his tweets for the last two weeks. Like, there was absolutely nothing in that speech that was of any substance or value. And that was reflected in markets, because oil went to like $115 a barrel as soon as the speech was over. Like, he didn't say anything. I don't even know why he gave a speech. I still don't understand that. But it was just a repeat of everything he's already said. Most of it lies. And really nothing new. Like, no forward-looking, you know, all the same old stuff.

Speaker 2:
[43:38] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[43:39] Sorry, go on.

Speaker 2:
[43:40] Oh, I was gonna say, I agree. I think we kind of nailed it. When we talked about what it was gonna be, it was gonna be a hodgepodge of, I'm awesome, I won this war. Maybe kicking the can down, he said, two to three weeks. I mean, he talked about what he was going to do when it comes to the future destruction. But interestingly, he's becoming more and more contradictory. First and foremost, this speech should have happened at the beginning of the war. Maybe it's not a requirement, but it has traditionally been the president that comes out and says, this is why, lays out the case to the American people, this is why, this is what is of immediate need for us to send our sons and daughters to spend our treasure and potentially our blood fighting this war. And he didn't do that. And so he kind of tried to come in and say, well, everything's working out great and everything's awesome, as kind of a making up for the fact that he didn't come out and make the case. Because I don't think anyone was going to look at the case he was going to make and buy it. And so because of that, he is now trying to sell this war backwards, when we're all feeling the pain. And it's not working. So he has this rhetoric where he's talking about how during the speech, he's like, the Strait is going to naturally open. It's going to be when this is over, the fighting is over, the Strait is going to naturally open. And I'm like, well, then what the fuck are we doing here? Like what are we doing? Why are we even doing this? Let's just finish the bombing campaign on the missiles and the drones and whatever. We know we're not going to get the regime overthrown. So let's just high five and move on. And then the Strait will naturally open. Well, the reason is that's not how the real world works. The Strait is not going to just naturally open. Iran has made some pretty significant realizations understanding that even if the US just up and leaves, they now, the toll system, and Matt, maybe you can talk about this, is they have a toll system now and they're charging boats, something like $2 million a boat or something. That's not going away, in my opinion. But yeah, I saw that part of the speech and I'm like, what a bunch of nonsense, where it's like, the whole speech was pretty much nonsense, but what a bunch of nonsense to say that the Strait is naturally like, all right, cool, bro. We just killed your Ayatollah. We bombed a bunch of your people, destroyed your military, your Navy, your Air Force. We cool, all right, later. And that's, everything's going back. Yeah, so.

Speaker 1:
[46:10] No, we're good. Best case scenario, we get Ticketmaster to take over the toll booth there. We get a cut. I don't think America's going to benefit too much otherwise.

Speaker 2:
[46:19] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[46:19] So, you know, Matt, let me ask you this. Is now, would now be a good time to have invested massively in renewable energy 15 to 25 years ago? Would now be a good time to have done that? Or would it?

Speaker 3:
[46:34] I mean, we really did. Not enough, but we have. We've spent a lot of money on renewable energy. It no matter how much we would have invested, you know, we would still need a lot of oil and this would still be impacting us, but it would likely be a lot less. I would certainly agree that the impact would be less. The impact on the global economy, though, would probably still be the same. But yeah, the I get asked this question all the time.

Speaker 1:
[47:03] People purchasing oil from Iran.

Speaker 3:
[47:05] Yeah. You know, does this mean we're going to speed up renewables? And unfortunately, it doesn't feel like to me that it will. You know what I mean? Like people were already going to invest in that, regardless of this. And I just, now you, the one thing I would suspect to see an increase in is purchase of EVs. But when you talk about renewable energy in general, you know, wind, solar, I don't see that trajectory changing any. But I wouldn't be shocked at all.

Speaker 1:
[47:37] Especially as we've discussed already, that the administration is actively fighting it. So the people who are going to invest are going to invest, making the calculation that they've made, not like, oh my God, all of a sudden, this stuff is valuable. It's more that those investors are already there. And in the past two years, I've had that business sort of reshuffled. Since, I mean, since Trump removed all those regulations for oil. When you say EVs, though, are we looking at, I mean, obviously, the price at the pump, but also just, do you think that we'll see more people in general looking at their energy consumption as a way of cutting costs at home, or close to the consumer rather than at the source? In addition to EVs, there's a big balcony solar bill in, I think 32 states have balcony solar now, and New York's trying to pass it right now. And you know, balcony solar, I think, is, I think could offset 15 or so percent of the, I got to get the actual statistics there, so don't quote me on that, but that's somewhere between 10 and 20 percent of the energy for home. But the point being like, I think you're seeing these little things cropped up. I'm curious, what do you think about, like, are we going to see more consumers finding consumer level ways of cutting those energy costs or oil costs?

Speaker 3:
[48:51] Oh, yeah, but I mean, that's not really going to be related to Iran. That's related to the fact that our utility bills are insane in the United States. So like the balcony solar things you were talking about, that was already occurring and I expect that to grow significantly.

Speaker 1:
[49:06] Oh, that predates this past month, obviously, by a long shot. I'm just curious, as we are now starting to look at like, oh, no, the cost of driving a car might suddenly skyrocket. That's an overall increase in cost of living.

Speaker 3:
[49:17] Yeah, if I had a man, if I had a dollar for everyone that asked me if they should get solar, like I wouldn't even know who I am. I'd be on an island somewhere.

Speaker 1:
[49:25] But I feel like there's a button you can set up on TikTok for that. Matt, you're saying that like it's fantastical. Like if someone would pay me for energy advice, like that's kind of your whole thing, man. I'm pretty sure we could work that out. I mean, I'm trying to get rid of you.

Speaker 3:
[49:39] But the thing is, I can't tell someone if they should get solar or not. I guess.

Speaker 1:
[49:45] They're going to fall for the con.

Speaker 3:
[49:46] I can tell them to look at, because everyone's situation is different. Your home, do you have an efficient home? What are the utilities like where you live? Like everyone has 50 things that they have to consider when making a purchase like solar, because it's still very expensive. Now, I believe in the future, solar is going to be built into everything. Your landscaping is going to have, you're going to have fake trees that are giant tree looking solar panels in the future, that's just going to power everything. You're not even going to see the solar. You know, we already have solar roofs where you have normal looking shingles that are actually solar panels. So like solar is going to take over everything eventually. But I think with EVs, there's a lot of fatigue. You know, if you go back, you know, Bush, Obama, and then we had, you know, Trump and Biden, like it seems like every president we've had for the last, I don't know, 20 years, we've had periods of extremely high gas prices. And those tend to last a long time. And then, you know, occasionally we get a year or two of fairly comfortable gas prices. And then here comes the fatigue again for $4.55 gas. I think that wears people down. And I do think a lot of people will really get this fatigue and just start looking at EVs, you know, a little more seriously now.

Speaker 1:
[51:01] And we're talking about full EVs, not just like a hybrid Honda situation. You're talking fully chargeable EVs.

Speaker 3:
[51:09] It could be. You know, a lot of people that have anxiety about EVs buy the hybrids as sort of a first step, like a baby step. And then sometimes after that, you know, their next purchase is the full EVs. So that's all a matter of personal choice.

Speaker 2:
[51:23] Do you think Elon Musk drives fatigue? Like, do you think his policies and his efforts have kind of backlash EVs a bit? It used to be kind of the lefty stance. Oh, we all drive EVs. And then suddenly there was this, and a lot of Tesla owners, and I've seen the stickers where it's like, I don't support Elon Musk. I bought this before he went crazy type stuff. So are we, is that part of the fatigue you think is?

Speaker 1:
[51:48] That's the boom industry right now, is ironic Tesla bumper stickers. That might be the thing to save our economy if we can get those printed in America, because the paper tariffs are going to kill us otherwise.

Speaker 3:
[51:58] Well, they're taking their Tesla emblems off their Teslas as if people won't know it's still a Tesla. It's a cyber car.

Speaker 1:
[52:04] I mean, they're pretty easy to spot.

Speaker 2:
[52:06] This isn't a cyber car. It's just a dumpster.

Speaker 1:
[52:07] Who's big rectangle is that? It's probably like a... Is that a Golf? Is that a Volkswagen Golf? I don't remember. What's that called?

Speaker 3:
[52:15] A lot of them are replacing them with emblems that are the university they went to. So where you see a Tesla emblem on the back of a Tesla, it'll be like an Arizona State emblem instead.

Speaker 1:
[52:25] Oh, like I think you're smart. Nice try, buddy. Oh, you wasted money on a private college and a Tesla? That's already falling apart?

Speaker 2:
[52:36] GIB.?

Speaker 3:
[52:37] You got a Tesla, Chad?

Speaker 2:
[52:39] No.

Speaker 3:
[52:39] You got a Tesla?

Speaker 2:
[52:40] I drive a Nissan Frontier. A nice one, though, a new one. It's not like... There's no nice Nissan Frontiers. I say that just to make myself feel good.

Speaker 1:
[52:51] I'm not less impressed with you as a person. It goes from point A to point B. I think... Yeah, I mean, it is funny that Musk was this kind of like enigma that liberals really embraced for a long time. And, you know, that was, especially with sort of 90s into early 2000s, liberal environmentalist, you know, imagination. That was, you know, the climate movement would... Or, you know, environmentalism, as it probably would have been called at the time, that would have been more similar umbrella, was looking at, yeah, Evie's is being this big, and, you know, him being a guy who was making it cool, which is, in retrospect, so funny to me, because I can't... I struggle to think of a less cool person in 2026 than Elon Musk. A person whose, like, personality is less toxic to a brand than him. I like to single-handedly be so adolescent and overwhelmingly repugnant that you can actually harm the cause of climate change is almost impressive. To have a personality that bad.

Speaker 3:
[53:51] A lot of people don't connect the dots of what Donald Trump did for Elon Musk. How many American car makers have quit building EVs since Trump took office? And who's left?

Speaker 1:
[54:03] Yeah, they gave them massive breaks in subsidies when he was dealing with all that inefficiency over at Doge. We saved us 50 grand or something over at Doge. Meanwhile, how many cuts did he get the same week?

Speaker 3:
[54:16] But I mean, Elon Musk has said for years, get rid of the subsidies because he knew that, you know, US automakers were still in their developmental years of EVs and they needed the subsidies and he had passed that. And if they got rid of the subsidies, he didn't need them to sell his cars. They needed them to sell theirs. Well, now they're gone. And most US automakers have completely abandoned EVs, which means the soon to be trillionaire is going to make even more money because of Donald Trump.

Speaker 1:
[54:46] Well, it's not like he's already gotten like a full order of magnitude richer in the past 10 to 15 years, is it?

Speaker 2:
[54:53] They all have.

Speaker 1:
[54:53] Wait, hold on. Come again. I'm just getting this. I'm just getting this. What happened in the 18 months before the pandemic until mid 2021? I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm actually getting a largest upwards transfer of wealth in the history of America or money as a concept. Oh, no. Oh, that's terrible. Oh, that's the most money that's ever been transferred to the wealthy ever. OK, sorry, I was mistaken about that. Turns out things are very bad. We're in trouble. I hope that this war ends soon and that this increase in the price of physical oil lasts no longer than two days. Otherwise, we could be seeing a pretty severe impact on American life as we know it. But again, completely falling into disarray and changing the foundational structure of our world and enduring pain that we never thought we could endure is just one of those quirky American things that we do.

Speaker 2:
[55:48] You're going to fit these in that word, that quirky word.

Speaker 1:
[55:51] I think Americans are quirky, though. I think you hit on something there. We'll be like, well, yeah, I woke up today and the president said, praise Allah. And then he sent more people to concentration camps. And we're just like, all right, here we go.

Speaker 3:
[56:05] If we hit their infrastructure, like Trump says, and they close Bab el-Mandeb, that physical price for US oil is going to go parabolic above where it is now, because the reason it's high is because the Saudi Arab light oil is hard to get out. And the only way it's getting out right now is through the Red Sea. And if they close Bab el-Mandeb in response to hitting that infrastructure, that physical price in the United States is going to go to places I've never seen or heard of before. So we'll just see what happens.

Speaker 2:
[56:35] Well, and you want to have your next episode podcast just wait until Iran retaliates against the energy, oil and desalinization infrastructure in other countries. It would be absolute unadulterated chaos, unbelievable amount of just economic human suffering. And that's like a whole 30-minute diatribe, so I'll avoid that. I was actually going to say, leaning into your suggestion from last week, Nat, maybe after all this doom and gloom, I liked the least worst story of the week.

Speaker 1:
[57:07] All right, let's do it. What's the least, is it our upshot? Like what's the least least bad this can end up? Is that the idea?

Speaker 2:
[57:13] Yeah, no, it's the least worst story of the week.

Speaker 1:
[57:15] Okay, so I'm going to launch into our, what did we say? Least worst story of the week?

Speaker 2:
[57:20] It's the least worst story of the week.

Speaker 1:
[57:22] Yeah, least worst part of the week, least worst story of the week. Matt, do you feel ready to jump in on this one too, if you want?

Speaker 3:
[57:29] Sure. I mean, I hadn't thought of one, but I-

Speaker 1:
[57:31] I know, I didn't either.

Speaker 3:
[57:32] Chad might have seen something I put on X about Iran's strategy of allowing Iraq to give them passage through the Strait of Hormuz. So this will allow Iraq to, and everyone's focusing on the oil prices. So Iraq's gonna get to start exporting oil again. Last month, their exports were down by 99%. Everyone's focused on the oil. I think this is military strategy in case there's a ground war. Iran is establishing diplomacy, relationship and influence with Iraq by allowing them passage through the Strait. It's gonna give them some influence over what Iraq does if the US request passageway or use of bases, and it'll also help them with the militias in Iraq. I saw that whole move as a really good military strategy while everyone else was looking at oil prices, but Chad's the military guy. And I posted that on X. I was like, man, I hope Chad sees this. I don't know how to tag people on X. I barely use it, so I don't really know how it works. But what do you think, Chad? Do you think that that's a really good military strategy, or do you think it's just about the oil? Because I don't think it's about the oil at all.

Speaker 2:
[58:42] Everything we do in the Middle East at this point has to deal with influence, which is always a military strategy. So, if we are definitely giving contracts or allowing something to happen because we have this vast power and influence, it is always going to be quid pro quo. We are always going to look at Iraq and be like, all right, we were super cool in allowing you guys to do this thing. Now let us build up up along the border, up near where what used to be Fob Cobra up there back when I was deployed to Iraq. And we can, and Fob is forward operating base for those that don't know. But yeah, so they'll build up on there and it probably is so, but it is, I think it is good that, because that does help the Iraqi economy and they desperately need it for sure.

Speaker 1:
[59:35] Yeah. All right, Matt, that story does officially qualify as not the worst story I've heard all week, according to Chad. So that passes. Chad, what is your least worst part of this week?

Speaker 2:
[59:49] Well, outside of Artemis II, I'm a huge space nerd. So that was so cool, just to see that we're going back to the moon. I just saw today, we broke the record.

Speaker 1:
[59:58] The farthest any human's ever been from Earth, right?

Speaker 2:
[60:00] Yeah, farthest any human, so that was cool. But I will say, and this is because I am a huge supporter of Ukraine, Ukraine has emerged as a global drone superpower. They have become so proficient and good at developing drones that they are now being sought after by other countries, including Saudi Arabia, other Middle Eastern countries, because of their capability to defend against and also deploy forward offensive drones and be so effective against the Russians that they're finding ways to do trade deals with other countries, and they're not necessarily having to rely on the United States as much. And I think that's going to be such a huge boon for them in the future, where they are seen as this specific expert in this highly, highly sought after future technology. And even the United States has somewhat woken up, and we've requested some of their assistance in countering Iranian drones. And I think it's going to end up being mutually beneficial. I think what we're going to see is, if not, the Trump administration, certainly Congress, is going to recognize the benefit that Ukraine provides in this realm. And it's going to allow us to, hey, let's, all right, let's work this out. We'll give you guys some of those interceptors and stuff that you need to protect your cities. You teach us how you've been doing this with these drones, because they've created standoff distances that have been unheard of. They're using these drones where they're killing. One of the Ukrainian commanders said he had one guy who has killed 100 separate Russian troops. So we're seeing anywhere between 100 to 400 to 1 casualty ratios from their drone units, and it's unheard of. And that is something that, you know, me, I'm a big proponent of Ukraine. I think not only from the fact that they are doing well on the battlefield with these drones, but also the international implications for them joining the Western Order as a beneficial player in drone technology and drone tactics. I think that's going to be such a huge development for all of us who want to counter what is going to be a very deadly weapon in the future.

Speaker 1:
[62:13] And while I wish a as rapid as possible cessation to the Russian hostilities in Ukraine, of course, I will agree that that is not the worst thing that I've heard all week. So Chad, thank you for the other least worst thing that I've heard this week. You both succeeded in the challenge. And I thank you for bringing up Artemis, because I do think it's, I don't want to brush past it. There's a nerd inside of me and outside of me, and is the current me who's very excited about space travel. And I think it is important that we take a moment to have that amount of wonder. And I like to imagine that if the astronauts on Artemis, farther away from Earth than anyone ever has been before, any human being in the history of our species ever has been, we're able to look down and look at Earth and maybe realize that in spite of all these conflicts that we're experiencing right now, you know, just how insignificant we really are, but that America is a little less insignificant than everyone else. For Chad Scott and Matt Randolph, Mr. Global, I'm Nat Towsen. And this has been American Power from Find Out Media.