The Strait Illusion: Why This Strategy Fails

state of comedian, speechwriter, many other kinds of writer, and most politically relevantly

podcast host. I'm here with my favorite panel of experts up the first hour military expert,

Chad Scott. Hey, everyone. Yeah, former U.S. Army officer, many years of experience there, graduate of Hopkins, glad to be here. And up second, but certainly not second in our hearts, you know him as Mr. Global himself Matt Randolph, our energy expert. Hey, everybody, Mr. Global here, Forbes contributor, energy expert. So obviously a lot has happened in the last week. We are currently recording this in the evening of Monday, April 13th and as of now, probably the top of lying news

item is that the U.S. is now blocking the straight-of-war moves. I want to go to Matt, Mr. Global first and talk about how did oil markets respond to this announcement originally and now that it's

“in practice, how is this affecting oil globally and how is it going to impact us?”

Yeah, it's been pretty interesting. So upon the initial announcement by the Trump administration, oil jumped eight to nine percent overnight and opened up this morning around 105 dollars. But then China's defense minister came out and said, you know, bet you're not going to stop our oil. We're going to we have an agreement with Iran and we're going to honor our agreements and we're going to continue buying oil. So, you know, China is basically defying Donald Trump at this point saying they're still

going to carry on businesses usual. There are three tankers currently docked at Carg Island getting loaded in Iran and those are Chinese tankers. So I guess we'll see what happens when they leave the straight, but China said, no, we're still going to conduct businesses normal and on that message,

“oil prices actually fell by a few dollars. So they're still up a little bit today, but I think they're”

around ninety nine dollars somewhere around there at the time of this recording, but it's been an interesting day to see China come out and say, yeah, we're not we're not doing that. It's not a fine find out. Yeah, basically, yeah. Go see what the consequences was going to be. So what is, who does this benefit right now? I've been China? Is this a tactical move that's financially helping us in any way? You know, I think the idea initially from the administration was, you know, Iran has the straight

closed. They're only allowing oil out that they want ninety five percent of that is their own. We can starve them out. You know, that's basically what they're trying to do. They're trying to starve out Iran. But I think what they didn't consider is almost all of that oil that comes out of the straight for Iran is going to two very large nuclear powers. And, you know, Chad can talk about the implications of that. But you're basically saying the number two economy in the world, China

doesn't get their oil anymore. And also, oh, by the way, Pakistan, which is China's

“likely closest ally, I believe, also a nuclear power. No, you can't have your oil. So it's going to be”

very interesting to see how this actually works because he sort of inadvertently pulled these other two very, you know, just to be clear, Pakistan hasn't made an official announcement on this yet to my knowledge. But he inadvertently pulled these two nuclear powers into this conflict by doing this. So it remains to be seen what will happen. I cannot imagine US military

seizing and capturing Chinese oil tanker. But this is the Trump administration. You never know what's

going to happen. So I guess we'll see what happens. We are in sort of uncharted territory in terms of what would, what would be too stupid for the federal government for the US to do. Uh, Chad, let's, Chad Scott, let's talk about this for a second. Oh, and I want to go back to the in a moment to the economic realities of this. But, um, Chad, what's, what happens when we suddenly threaten two nuclear powers to drastically cut off their energy sources and disrupt their economy?

How's this looking for us? And what do you think of this strategic move? Well, I think there's just a lot of problems that the US military is going to run into when it comes to blockating this specific area. And if there's any country on Earth that can do it, possibly it is the United States. But we're, like you said, in uncharted territory,

this is something that the Navy has never had to actually do on a scale like this. I mean,

what they're doing right now is called a blockade at distance. And that is very hard to execute,

police an area the size of the state of Arizona, or if you are in Europe, a country the size of Italy.

“So even if you, even if the US was able just to narrow that down to the Gulf of Oman as a choke”

point, it's still a very large area. It's still about the same size as Washington State. So we're talking about two carriers. As of right now, the US is Abraham Lincoln is the one carrier. You're talking about one carriers of right now, trying to police an area the size of Arizona. And when that happens, you start to run into a manpower and surveillance problem. And a blockade really only works if you can find the ships, then identify the ships, then classify where they are coming from and where they're

going, you can hail them, you can stop them, you can board them, you can expect them, and then you

release them divert them or seize them. There's a lot of steps that go with this. So, and I'm sorry,

just to jump to reiterate one thing, did you say one, one right now? Well, as of right now, well, there's 15 ships, one carrier, one carrier, one carrier, one carrier, okay, there's two ships for an area the size of the state of Arizona. Yep. And so the thing is, I just don't think that's enough assets to do that. So I don't think this is going to be a true complete blockade. It's probably going to be more like a partial blockade or really a, hey, if you find a ship and can get to it and grab

it, do it. But if you can't, it's just the threat of the US military's reach. That's where we're at. And at this point, this is assuming that ships are kind of abide by what the US military wants them to do. Because you know that, I mean, our ships are slow, their ships are slow. So if you see a ship off in the distance or pick it up on some sort of surveillance mechanism, a drone or whatever, you still got to get there. And they can alter their course. They can spoof their destination data.

They can manipulate their transponders. Hell, if they're at, it's at night, they can just go dark, turn off the transponders, turn off the lights, and then operate at night. And it just becomes very difficult to try to try to blockade at distance when, when you have just this one group. And just from a military standpoint, the US Navy's four structure has not built around conducting a blockade. We didn't really think about having to conduct blockades over the last few decades.

“So we don't have a deep bench of small, fast surface combat ships for inspections. That's what”

the coast was considered building a wall. It just seems like a popular strategy. You have to

dig down a little bit. What about like in the revolutionary war across the Hudson River? We just do a

big change. Just, just put the stronger. Put the president on the front of a boat, pointing, it'll be a big painting that they can put up in the Smithsonian. Oh, sort of like a, like have him be like the mermaid or like like pointing across the devil. It would be like he'd be like the Washington. Well, I mean, he's posted, I mean, he's already posted a picture of himself as Jesus. He might as well just do George Washington at this point, too. So, but I don't know if he's

like I have to imagine. He's got one of those at least in the private collection. Well, no, he posted, I mean, I said, we'll go now. Oh, no, I saw the next one. The Jesus Ragnarok healed Jeffrey Epstein, suspiciously demonic character behind him, USA dinner plate, novelty, gas station graphic that he posted. Yeah. I mean, the thing is, when you look at the equipment we have, we have the best destroyers in the world. They're what's called Arlie Burke class guided missile destroyers. They're

designed for massive area operations. They're not designed to chase down ships and boats all over the, all over a specific area. They can do it, but it's a very expensive endeavor. And if they're pulling destroyers away from the traditional mission of trying to conduct air defense or missile defense or land attack when in like 12 days, this ceasefire is supposed to end, that mission is going to be split. So, the Navy is going to be in the trying to do this blockade. Those destroyers

are going to be chasing down tankers as Trump wants, whereas they should have been dealing with an Iranian threat, and that could be a potential problem. Well, let me ask an obvious question, or maybe it seems obvious to me. Don't now, or allies also use the straight of Hormuz. Are we,

“let's say there were potentially successful blockade? Are we not harming our allies as well?”

I mean, the US says there are only targeting ships that stop at Iranian ports. Right. And that statement in itself really shows how little they understand the situation. Mm-hmm. If you think back to the movie casino towards the end of the movie, Joe Peshie swaps cars like 20 times in parking garages trying to avoid the FBI, right? That's exactly what can happen in the straight of Hormuz. There's hundreds of tankers there, and they can do ship to ship transfers. So, a ship can load up an

never touched an Iranian port and sail right out of the straight. Now, they should be able to tell

which tankers are loaded by how deep they set in the water. Like, that's pretty simple. You know, I'm sure those destroyers that Chad's talking about has that technology. But there's a very slim chance that a ship that actually loads at an Iranian port is going to be the ship that has the oil on

“it when it leaves the straight. And that's what I'm wondering. Like, how are you going to do that?”

How are you going to manage the ship to ship transfers? Because this is how these dark fleets get the sanctioned oil all over the world. They do ship to ship transfers and they swap the ships. And they also do the spoofing and the other stuff Chad talked about. So, I don't even know set aside just the massive amount of square miles they're talking about that, you know, Chad says they have to cover. But how do you even know what ships have the oil like that were

at an Iranian port? Like, there may not be a ship that was sitting at an Iranian port even leave the straight and they'll think they did something great. So, you know, it's it's like that it's like a giant game of whack-a-mo is what it's going to be. It's going to be an international whack-a-mo game. The international whack-a-mo world championships is what we're looking at right here. I mean, I feel like you're describing a whack-a-mo machine that's the size of the entire

“David Buster's though. You're running around with like two mallets. Oh my god, this one's miles away.”

We'd love to hear the term blockade because it seems clean and easy, but first and foremost,

I'm imagining a bit wall, a fence, you know, they're chained across the straight. Like, well, it's visually appealing. You think about it. And when we think of historically, we think about the blockade or the quarantine that we put around Cuba in the Kennedy, well, Iran is not Cuba, not even remotely close. First and foremost, I mean, first of all, I mean, Iran is not nylon. Yeah, it's bordered by seven countries. And then it has access to Russia and Kazakhstan

by the Caspian Sea, which the United States does not have access to because it's landlocked, but it is enormous body of water. And that is why Tehran actually sits on the Caspian Sea, so it can trade with those those different countries that are tied to it. When you look at it

from, and I just don't think that they really thought about this, it just sounded like the

blockade was just a good idea. I called the Good Idea Fairy in the military. Just came along and said, well, just throw a blockade out there. It sounds good. But six of Iran's top 10 trading partners are going to be completely unaffected by this blockade due to the fact that they share a border with them. For instance, Turkey is a major trade partner. You have Pakistan, they border it. You have all these countries. And then, as Matt talked about China,

who's their number one trade partner is now daring the United States. Hey, go ahead and stop us,

“Russia's in there. And one of the key partners, as you were looting to, is Germany. Germany”

has a lot of trade with Iran, probably their cars. Are we really going to stop a NATO ally? Are we really going to interdict? And if they decide and say, as the UK has already said, the UK said, we will not stop this, we are a sovereign nation conducting, not that the UK has a lot of trade with Iran anyways, but they're just kind of making a point. If Germany says the same thing, says, we're not stopping. Are we really going to try to interdict? Are we really going to start

shooting rounds over the bow of a German ship, try to board it with weapons? What an international incident that would cause? What a complete breakdown of the international order, Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping, the whole gamut of authoritarian leaders would just, that would be there. It's like their birthday. They would love that because the Iranians really aren't going to be affected when it comes to this oil situation, when it comes to trade, because when you look at the

broader impact of their totally economy, only 14% of Iran's totally economy runs through the straight of Formus. And I'm talking more than just oil. Obviously, Iran has agriculture, things like that. 90% of people are talking about these bordering countries. Are you saying that there are like land shipping routes? Yeah, absolutely. So a lot of their trade is overland, that's a series. So it's not interrupting. We're not putting a massive economic no sanction on them

or not sanction, but you know what I'm saying? We're not dealing the massive economic damage because most of their trade is above ground or on, you know, and to sympathetic bordering nations. Yeah, and the conspiracy, as you mentioned. And the thing is, is like not even the Persian Gulf to the west is being blockated. So Iran can run their oil tankers or ships, not that they would, but their trade ships across to, say Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, the United

Emirates, who's their number three trading partner, they still can do that because the US is not blockading within the Persian Gulf. So where this is going to hurt Iran is in immediate access to oil cash, which it would impact them. But this is the country that wrote the book on

getting around blockades to the point where Russia in the initial stages of their war with Ukraine

went to Iran and said, "Hey, how do you do this? How do you get around sanctions? How do you get around other ships introducing you?" And Iran taught Russia how to do it. So this is a country that is going to be resilient. And I just don't think that the clock is in favor of the United States

“when it comes to this, this type of action. I believe we have set ourselves up to either be”

escalate to a point where we are in a situation where that is very bad, we're escalating with China, Russia, or worse case scenario escalating with our own allies over them wanting to get through our blockade, or in a few days, maybe when this podcast comes out in two days or a few days after that, we see a rollback of this because they just don't want to deal with the geopolitical fallout.

I mean, it puts Trump in an interesting, I mean, interesting as a bad physician,

interesting as in self-created and bad. Yeah, absolutely. I don't understand how he, it feels like his options are to back down very publicly and accept to deal with Iran that at least his base doesn't want, or to escalate into and allow, like I don't understand what this particular move can be beyond escalation because he does seem like you're drawing in other major powers, you're attempting to extract this out of Iran, and then effectively, it doesn't seem like this

is going to accomplish what he wants, so it feels like his options, he's bluffed, his options are to back down and haven't used against him, or effectively to escalate to maybe ground troops. I mean, I'm speculating here, but I'm curious, like, what do you think about this? Like, what are next steps here? Like, what can we do? Because it feels like he's really wedged himself into a no way out situation. One thing that this administration, a lot of people in the media,

honestly, continue to miss every single day is a thing called time and distance, right? So time and distance are very important in our universe, right? So listen, Iran is still going to be getting money for another eight weeks from the oil they have sitting in the oceans that haven't reached

“their destination yet. So when you form a block eight, you should understand that for eight, the next”

eight weeks, which is why twice as long as this has already lasted, they're still going to be getting money. So if your goal is to starve them out, that doesn't even begin for two months. So that oil is already on its way, they're going to improv it for like that. That's a lot. It takes for oil to get around the world, people don't realize, like, there are countries that are just now getting the last shipments of oil that left the strait of harm moves the day before it was

closed, and it's what April the what 1340. And they're just now getting it, that happened February the 28th. And these countries are just now getting their oil. So anything that Iran has sent out of the strait hasn't even reached its destination yet. And that's when they get paid, they get paid on delivery. So for eight more weeks, Iran's getting paid, not only are they getting paid, but they're getting paid hundreds and hundreds of millions of more dollars because we lifted their sanctions.

So they weren't selling that oil for 60. They were selling it for 110. So they're getting nearly twice as much money as they were. So this entire blockade, I unless they're considering that, is useless for a couple of months. It is completely useless for a couple of months. But meanwhile, all of the other effects will be felt for those two months that affect us negatively. Like, we're waiting to start them out, but it won't even, it hasn't started yet.

Like, it definitely has not started yet for them. Plus, like you said, they lifted the sanctions. So like now, this is almost an enviable situation for them because now they're selling it a higher profit. And they're the first ship that we stopped. Yeah. The Bob-L-Man-Deb strait is close. Like, there hasn't come anything. Nothing has come out today about the Bob-L-Man-Deb strait. But I guarantee you the first ship that gets stopped coming out

of the strait of hormones. The Bob-L-Man-Deb strait will be closed immediately by the Houthis. It's just going to happen. Like, they've, the Houthis said they were going to do it. A wrong came back later and said, "Yes, we're going to help them do it." So that strait will be closed.

“So, explain that to the listeners, though. Like, what's the political calculation there?”

Like, why is that what triggers the Houthis to close the Bob-L-Man-Deb strait?

Because it inflicts more economic pain on the world, like 10-12 percent of all global trade

goes through that strait. A significant amount of oil, but I'm talking that oil trade. Grane, fertilizer, just anything in the world that can be shipped. Now when most people, yeah, most people think of stuff coming out of it, but most of the stuff goes through it. It's a huge

into the Red Sea, go through the Suez Canal, and that's how they get to Europe and the East

Coast of the United States. When you close that off, you add two weeks to every delivery of cargo that heads in that direction in the entire world. And that causes shortages on shelves, that causes price spikes. So, it'll be a huge pain point and choke point when they close that. So, almost every arrow points towards more escalation by this blockade that literally doesn't do anything to Iran for two more months. That this is what doesn't make any sense to me

at all about the blockade. Because unless you're willing to have the straight-of-war moves close for two more months, and the Bob-Human Deb straight-closed, like that is a huge impact on the

“global economy. That's when you're looking at global recessions. And that's how--”

Well when they say Trump is playing 5D chess, what they mean is that time in distance being

nothing to him. He's tesser acting to the moment of impact. Yeah, plus there's not even 5Ds. I don't know where they come up with 5D chess. Like there's only 4Ds. They're theoretical dimensions. And then when they say he's playing 3D chess, I'm like, dude, that's just regular chess. That's the chess we all play. Right, it's kind of 2D, but he's also not even good at 2D chess. Let's not pretend for a moment

that there's another dimension to go through. Is that your MacBook chess, where you're just looking at the MacBook? Yeah, if you're playing online, go leachess.com, or your internet chess. I don't think he has a class on podcast, leachess. All right, no, leachess is open source. We're not-- They're not a proper video. It was a way that they're playing streams. There's no way,

“Donald Trump plays chess. So it's not a thing. It can't be a thing.”

No, even, I mean, he doesn't-- he doesn't play any game he can't win by cheating first of all. So golf, and that's about it. So-- Well, and the funny thing is, you both brought up time, and that's-- it makes-- it makes this really complex for the United States because the military authorization for use of-- the authorization for use of the military forces, which is vaguely what Trump is using to to conduct operations, not only in Iran, but also Venezuela, by just declaring a matter of

organization, that doesn't cover a blockade period and of story. So a blockade, the authorization for use of military forces was supposed to be to go after the perpetrators of 9/11, et cetera,

et cetera. They were never a nation state. So you can't blockade a terrorist group.

But right now, we're running into the ceiling of the war powers act. About 16 days from now, we'll run into the 60-day mandated war powers act, ceiling where Trump has to actually physically request to continue this war from Congress. He gets a-- That matter? That's a thing to say, but it does seem like presidents don't have to respect that. And that's the thing. It's like, "Will Congress do anything about it?" We don't know. He gets an extra 30 days for withdrawal time,

quote-unquote, but it's-- We use that for some-- We use that for some life, Johnson, to introduce something that's like, what are the odds that that happens? Yeah, exactly. There's virtually zero,

“and so that it's funny because I think Iran keeps seeing these time gates that we used to hold”

ourselves to, and Trump just keeps blowing through as if the rule of law, the constitution, et cetera, don't matter. And they still keep applying pressure, and it keeps working. But I do have a question from math though. When it comes to the oil futures, I'm not a-- I don't know what I'm looking at, but it seems like every time Trump tweets something, they go wild, or something. And I'm like, you think that they would have already kind of figured that into the system?

Like, why is it that oil futures are just wildly changing based on the comments of someone who clearly is struggling to understand how the world works? Is it not matter because the real prices of oil stay stable? Or is it-- Or am I just watching and curious? We don't have any evidence, or we don't have any hard evidence, but a lot of people believe that the U.S. Treasury got the sent is manipulating oil futures and using taxpayer dollars to do that.

And if that's true, taxpayers are going to lose a fortune. But people that run in my circles and do what I do, we don't even really look at the oil futures anymore. Now we just look at the physical market because they're so detached from one another that when you're looking at oil futures, you know, that's when you Google the price of oil, it what it says does not matter because it's nothing to drink more, though, right? Like, it used to be a better indicator and now it's

market. So like historically, physical oil and oil futures stay within a dollar of each other. Historically, you can go back how many years, 50 years, within a dollar, sometimes a dollar, 50, if they get to $2 a part, that's crazy, they're over $30 a part right now. And that's because

betting on longs, just betting on whatever they can bet at the time to keep that psychological

“number under $100, because people lose their shit when oil hits that $100, right? It's just”

like the difference between $399 and $409. Yes, people lose it when they see that for. How would that over the Federal Reserve, like specifically, you're saying he's using taxpayer dollars hypothetically to manipulate the futures prices? Like, what's the practice there? How does that work? It's not supposed to happen. It's not supposed to work, but we have an administration. It's the U.S. Treasury. Like, that's where all the money is. I mean, Scott Besson can literally

go right at check like out of the U.S. Treasury. So, you know, they have a count set up and they have authorization. It's just something they're not supposed to do. And with that simple, when you don't have anyone to stop you from doing anything you want, I mean, they just go do it. And

that's the problem is we have no way to track this to see if it's actually happening. But there's

never been a time in history where the futures market, the paper oil market didn't track with the

“physical oil market. The physical oil market is the only thing that matters. And so, if people are”

spending $140 a barrel for physical oil delivery, it does not matter one bit what you can trade oil for in a paper market. It matters what it's being bought for physically because that's what refiner's pay. And that translates back down to reiterate, the physical price is the actual price at point of sale of purchasing oil. It has been shipped. Yeah, not if you want to go buy a million barrels of oil. It's $140 a barrel. If you want to buy contract futures on the paper market,

it's like $99 a barrel. That don't mean nothing. That's just pieces of paper. Like, it's full gas. 99 sounds a lot less than 100. It's full gas, you know, you've heard full gas. He read it's full gas. But the physical oil, that's the real actual oil that impacts it. So it also has, I've concerns about the strategic petroleum reserve here because it's down to something like 55% of what it was. I know that the United States doesn't necessarily have to worry about it as much because

we produce quite a bit of oil. But this, this one of those freak me out numbers kind of like the $399 to $4 or $9.00. When I start seeing from a military logistics perspective, our oil reserves, I start really under, I start thinking about all the, the POL, the petroleum oil and lubricants that all of our military equipment rely on. And so when I see that we're in order to stabilize a market, trying to create, or trying to pull from the strategic reserve to loan, quote, unquote,

loan, we'll see if it's really a loan to these oil companies. I get concerned. So I just, I don't maybe you could alleviate my fears there or more likely probably just validate them. So the good thing is about that is, and look, I was, I was very critical of this loan. You know, it's called an exchange, you know, typically when you release oil out of the strategic reserve for a global disruption,

“you sell the oil. That's how you get it out. The fastest, that's how you have the biggest impact”

on oil prices. And exchange, which is what we're doing here, is typically what happens. Let's say a hurricane hits a single refinery on the Gulf Coast, and they're having a hard time getting oil, and the SPR gives them 3 million barrels. And, and then that refinery gives them back, you know,

the 3 million barrels plus a premium of barrels, usually 15% or whatever. We've never done an

exchange on a global scale. And I was very critical of it, and for a very good reason, the oil companies aren't even wanting to take this oil. We haven't been able, we haven't been able to give away, just a fraction of what we've been trying to give away. We just offered 30 million, and I think we got rid of 7 or 8. And that's because oil is really high. And if we loan a oil company a million barrels, and they put a 20% premium on it, right? So they have to give us back 20%

more barrels than we give them. Well, when oil is really high, and there's no forward looking, there's nothing looking forward that makes them believe that oil is going to be really cheap in the future, which is how they would offset that premium. They don't want the oil, because they're taking oil that's worth $100. And as far as they're concerned, if it's still at $100, when they have to give it back, they've just lost a fortune. Right. So why wouldn't you accept

that at this current rate when you're essentially going to be paying interest? Yeah. They're not if it's going to stay at the prices, they're going to stay high instead of dropping. You're just going to be paying more when you eventually have the transaction, right? Yeah. They have to believe that oil will fall by more than the premium, right? So if the premiums 20% then oil prices have to fall by more than 20% by the time they have to give it back. They don't see that happening.

given the stuff away, because they don't want to have to give it back to us. How does Israel feel about all this? Is this affecting them? Is this helping them? Well, largely they, so it's kind of this interesting relationship where originally when it came to the ceasefire deal, they were they were extraordinarily upset. They have a completely different set of goals than the United States does. They want a complete regime, change. They want a fracturing of Iran. They want to see

Iran completely decimated to the point where they're not even a player in the Middle East. That for the rest of the world is enormously problematic, because it becomes, if we remember, we had civil wars in Syria, civil war in Iraq, and those led to massive amounts of terrorist

growth, terror cells. It was basically the formation of ISIS, the Islamic State.

“You mean to tell me that trying to institute regime change in the Middle East has not gone well?”

No, yeah, and so yeah, it's kind of fun. It's the first time hearing this, it's just a time. I'm just playing on the last 25 years of farce policy, if I can think of any examples. Yeah, yeah, who would have thought that we do terrible things in the Middle East and the Taliban would once again be in power? Yeah, and the five year old sees someone die and somehow he's not rational about the geopolitical circumstances of it. He just wants to get back at the person who did it.

That's crazy. I can't believe that didn't work out. And the thing is, is real, because of the pivot, because of the failure of the talks, the failure

of so far this ceasefire, which was never, let's be honest, it was never ceasefire. Everyone was

still shooting at each other. The only one that was not shooting at anyone was the United States. Also, Israel historically does not respect ceasefire. No, in the United States.

“No, in the United States, in Gaza, a civilian population after they decided to ceasefire.”

Within 90 minutes, both Israel and Iran had attacked someone else. It was Israel had attacked Lebanon and Iran had attacked Oman and Bahrain. So it was within 90 minutes of the tweet from Donald Trump, the ceasefire, was effectively broken. But also, I don't want to brush past that attack on Lebanon. That was horrific. It was massive. Yeah, it's a revolution over this like it's a retaliation. I mean, this is a major, you know, this is an event, a historic event in Lebanon. And it's like,

oh, this is just like an exchange, you know, I don't want to compare it to, you know, a different tragedy. I hate when people play tragedy currency. But I, you know, I feel like the way the media has been handling that. I was like, oh, and the other mishap and Trump's oopsies. And like this is a moment in history now. No, yeah, the Israel strike on Lebanon right after the ceasefire went into existence. Was the largest Israel had ever conducted against Lebanon in history. And it was almost like a

“middle finger to Trump. Like this is what we think of your ceasefire. We're going to just deal with it.”

And so Israel, once again, is happy with the Trump administration because they know that this block aid is going to exert pressure on the regime. And so they want regime collapse. They want the entire country to collapse. And so Israel is very pleased right now. We'll see what happens in four days because the the Trump administration, EBS and flows kind of indifferent to Israel for the most part. But Israel is still in his ear. They're still chirping like, hey, this is probably a better idea than

a deal. And even if a deal starts to get made, they undermine that deal by starting war. And so yeah, it's just a very, and it frustrates all of them that we won't change anything. I mean, when we're directly funding them in Gaza, even then they violated the ceasefire or any, you know, any stepping over, oh, we're not going to bomb the, okay, well, then they bomb that air, you know, any agreement like that, whether or not it was a literal ceasefire, the U.S. has very explicit late, not only

over Trump, but under Biden taught them that we will write the blank, you know, that we will not stop them. Well, not just what we write, the blank check, but we won't stop them from crossing a line. Any parameters we put up. Israel just steps right over. And you know, I mean, even even though the, you know, the thing that I feel like legacy media gets wrong a lot. I'm not anti-mainstream media, but I've seen so much coverage of that. And you know, you'll see coverage like Israel tests ceasefire

by bombing hospital or something like that. That's not a test. That's a violation, but the global community. I mean, the U.S. media doesn't even treat it. You know, of course, if you know, filming from Gaza throws a rocket someone, it's like, you know, terrorists attacks Israeli, brave Israeli soldiers. But of course, if Israel kills, you know, a civilian population, they'll be like, you know, Israel tests technical limit of ceasefire in, you know, in targeted attack. And so

I feel like we've both culturally and and geopolitically taught them. I mean, not the whole world's not doing this, but we've kind of taught them that there's no, there's no consequences to that. So I'm curious, like, how does, how does this affect NATO? I've really worked, we're challenging so many of our allies right now. We're causing chaos in the region, which may benefit Israel, but it's got to be chaotic for like we mentioned Germany. How does this affect our relationship with

NATO? Well, I would say the NATO relationship is strained first and foremost, because we keep doing

the Russian energy at the same time. And I get that they were trying to do it for market reasons,

but that right there, that is us laughing the face of our NATO partners along with all the other slaps in the face we've had over the Trump administration recently. But I meant, I was wanting to ask, Matt, is that actually even doing anything? Is, is us taking sanctions off Russian oil? Is that actually we feel? I was like, would we really have like $5 a gallon oil if it wasn't for these Trump capitulating to Putin? I'm just curious what your thoughts on that are. So really all it is, and listen,

I was like today, years old, when I learned that they didn't have group texts in the Middle East, because when everyone kept bombing each other, the excuses were like, well, it takes time for the orders to get down to the field level. And I'm like, you don't have a fucking group text, like, seriously, like, because it's been eight hours in your still bombing each other. But as far as the

“Russian sanctions, the only thing that does is it allows countries that might need that oil really”

badly to go ahead and buy it in American dollars. It doesn't add any oil to the market. It doesn't do anything to oil prices. But if you look at, you know, countries like Ireland and different countries in Europe and Asia that are currently running really low on oil, and it gives them the opportunity to bid. It doesn't mean they're going to get it because Russia's going to get the highest price. So what you're trading for that is, you know, some country that's starving for oil gets to bid on

it now, but Russia's making a fortune off of that. So I was really happy to see Ukraine step up and say, all right, and just knock out 40% of their expert capacity, literally overnight after the US did that, like, you know, literally decimated Trump's lifting of sanctions. Like Ukraine said, we're not doing that. And they just sent the drones and whatever they sent. But they

“can actually explain what actually happened there because I think those are details that are not”

as common in the coverage. Well, so, more importantly, how is that affected? The Russia lifted the sanctions on Trump lifted the sanctions on Russia and that night, Ukraine struck every Russian

export facility and reduced their exports by 40%. So basically, Trump allowed Russia to do something

in Ukraine said, no, we're not going to let Russia do that. And they took out their capability of doing it. So it's, unfortunately, decreased their capacity at least temporarily to export that oil. First of all, offsetting the discount or lack of sanction, but yeah, lack of people. Yeah, they gave him a big ol' black eye. I thought it was funny. I thought it was so, so it's got, they can profit more, but only on 60% as many as for, as effectively or roughly,

because we've, because Ukraine has gone, taken out 40% of their ability to export, but that's not

“permanent, right? I mean, Russia will, will adapt and rebuild. I'm sure, yeah. So Ukraine can”

continue to remain involved. But is that, so, so even, so even if Ukraine is effectively offset the impact of that, does it just remain? So now, so now we don't even have the, you know, the results of it. Does that just look like a big middle finger to NATO? I mean, not that, we have, they have any reason to trust Trump at this point, but that feels like a move that solved nothing and violated our agreement. It's really a big middle finger to Donald Trump.

Yeah. And what I'm saying, I'm saying Trump, I'm sorry, I'm saying Trump lifting the sanctions on Russia was a sort of like ineffective, like a needless insult to NATO because it didn't even work. Yeah, no, 100%. I mean, it just, it's, it's, you have another step in this long history of Trump kind of undermining NATO. I mean, we, we saw it in between the, the fighting and the failed talks. He kind of ramped up the rhetoric against NATO because NATO is not helping

Trump at all. And, and there's a reason for it. They're not required to. The NATO alliance is defensive alliance. The article six states that the focus on the defensive aspects of it have to do with a specific geographic region, which is the North Atlantic and the countries involved in those. And there's a historical precedent to where other countries are not supporting other NATO countries in their foolish or, you often sometimes necessary endeavors. For, for instance,

when you look at the Suez Canal, the Suez Crisis, when the United Kingdom and France went after the head of Egypt for trying to nationalize the Suez Canal, it was a nasser at the time. The United States said, we're not going to involve in that whatsoever. In fact, went to the United Nations and rallied against the United Kingdom and France. And it was eerily similar to what is happening

now. We're seeing a critical trade trade, a trade point, a trade access route being held up or being

it by force. And other countries are like, we're not doing that. So when Trump sits there and says and complains that other NATO allies aren't helping us in the State of Hormuz, there is a historical precedent that that's not why how NATO was designed. So Trump is trying to use the notion that the United States is the preeminent power and therefore should control everyone in NATO as an excuse. And it's making him really upset. He's getting really poopy-faced about all of this

NATO kind of backing away kind of keeping out of this fight, but it's necessary. And it's it keeps the credibility within the alliance. And if we don't have a friend to quit NATO before, to exit NATO, is that a, you know, at this point I understand what it would mean to pull out versus

“just not participating. But is that something that you think would ever really happen?”

Or is that not for you to be involved in NATO and just misbehaved?

So there's a couple of schools of thought here. First of all, it's not, he can't pull out of NATO

and you know, latterly. There are, first of all, it's a treaty that was ratified by the Senate, second of all, in the 2023, there's a bill that passed and was signed by the President stating that it requires two thirds of the Senate or the totality of Congress to pull out of NATO. He can't pull out of NATO unilaterally as the President by executive order. That does not mean he can't do some extraordinarily dangerous damage to the alliance. He can do things like

cut funding. He can pull out of exercises. He can stop intelligent sharing. He can pull troops to an extent. There is a floor. He can't pull troops below 76,000 in Europe. Otherwise, he has to go to Congress and explain why it is necessary to do so. Again, that's a reliance on a Congress that is generally supportive of him right now. But when you look at it on paper,

“he can't pull out of NATO. I think we're safe in that regard, but he can do extraordinarily,”

extraordinary damage within the alliance. When it comes to funding, training, any kind of sharing, he can move troops around Europe. Like, he can punish specific countries,

such as Germany. That was kind of a thing that was taking place in the first Trump administration

where Germany upset him. So he started moving troops to Poland. He can do those things. And the alternate school coming out of Europe is, well, if he's just going to continue to damage in Bolias, maybe it's for the best if he does just leave. But there's no mechanism to eject a country. We've looked into it for countries like Turkey when they attacked Greece. We've looked at it for Hungary because of their support of Russia. There's no mechanism to

eject a country from NATO. So because of that, we're kind of at this impasse where Trump is in NATO. We're not leaving. They can't get rid of us. So it's just trying to mitigate as much damage. And the NATO Secretary General Mark Ruda has done an extraordinary job of ego stroking of Trump so that he can Trump feels good about everything. It's almost like the when Tim Cook brings him a fancy new thing. The NATO Secretary General does a great job on

the money brings him a fake newspaper. And that's the thing. And it's like, I hate that word. Yeah, it's like Tim Apple. Yeah, Tim Apple. Yeah, yeah, Tim Apple. Yeah, Zor on Mayer and Tim Apple bring him some toys. But yeah, so it's like, so we see it and it's Mark Ruda is a brilliant tactician and strategic leader having to debase himself and the European leaders debase himself just so that the United States should do something that is strategically

good for us. It is good for us to be in NATO. It's just very frustrating. Just another piece of legislation that was passed, just in case Donald Trump was ever president again. I wonder how many pieces of legislation, the piece of legislation that says that we need two thirds of the Senate in order. Yeah, like that. Yes, that's just because Trump could possibly be the president again. And he would try to get out of NATO just like they passed the whole January six legislation to where that couldn't

happen again. It makes me wonder how many it's illegal to start in the capital now.

Well, yeah, yeah, I mean, what does that say about you if on your time off basically Congress is

“just passing legislation in case you come back? Like honestly, I wish we had done more of that.”

A lot of things that I wish for future proved right now. It's actually illegal to roll back climate, uh, stipends. It's also illegal to, um, talk for more than 18 minutes a day on television. It's also, yeah, why can't I pass that you can't be a felon and be president like this. Why didn't pass that? And like I said, it will be another episode. But I could go down to your question. I could go down the whole rabbit hole of how stupid it is for the United States to to leave

NATO. I don't want to do it here because like I said, that's a that's a whole other conversation,

we effectively are going to stay in and cause damage. Yeah, and that's that's unfortunately that damage is real. It will be a very damaging effect. And again, Putin loves that. That's what Putin wants. He wants that to be, um, shattered that whole lines to be degraded. So he can have more carte blanche to do whatever he wants around the world because we're the only counter to him. And on that cheerful note, I'd like to go to a segment that we call the least worst part of the week.

“Chad, what was the least worst story you heard all week? Well, actually, I think this is more”

than the least worth. I think this is an amazing story. The Hungarian people have stood up and they

they voted out Victor Orvin who has been astuge to Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump. He's been a part of that that blockade of policy to help Ukraine, but also he's just generally has this illiberal sense about him. And he talks about it himself where he's like, I want an illiberal democracy. I, he, he borderlines on a pseudo autocracy. He has fed intelligence to Putin. He had his, his whole political existence was on trying to stay in power through gerrymandering, through control of the

courts, control the media. Basically things that we're seeing Donald Trump do and the Hungarian people stood up and crushed him. They won something like 135 or 136. I can't remember what the final number was out of 199 seats, which means he has a super majority and he can effectively start to

change and undo things that Victor Orvin did and the people of Hungary are going to see amazing

gains here. And more importantly, for the American people, we watched once again, Jady Vans fly to a country and try to stump, try to campaign for the potential autocrat. We saw this in Germany and it blew up in his face. He did that again here in Hungary and it failed. Jady Vans campaign for Orvin and Orvin lost in a landslide. And I'm really happy because I feel like this, there's this fatigue of corruption. People are just tired of corrupt autocracies for a while there. It was going the wrong

direction, but now we see small uprisings in Russia. We saw Canada push back against Trump with their election. And it's only a matter of time before we start to see other pseudo autocratic leaders such as Robert Fiko in Slovakia or race up Erdogan in Turkey. They may start to follow as well. And that hungry thing might have been one of the dominoes that fell that could tilt us more into

a better, more democratic society and it's an amazing story. Yeah, Orvin, I mean, he was in power

for what 15, 16 years. 16 years. So in a lot of it, you know, doesn't predate, you know, Erdogan's political career. In some cases, you know, some of these autocrates. But he's in many ways a blueprint for a lot of this like new far right, a liberal autocracy, you know, this sort of 1984, Trump, Trump pivoting

“on facts and they sort of like constant emotionalization of the political process. And I think a”

lot of people, you know, he's been in power long enough. It hasn't been that long, but he's been in power long enough to be a blueprint for some of those other leaders. So I think what you're saying is really relevant that like not only is this good for the people of Hungary, but it is also something of a mirror to other countries of the, you know, not only can these people be defeated, but hopefully like you said in the next year, we'll also see, hey, here's the actual improvements

that can be made to a society when someone who's not, you know, openly autocratic is at the range. And I think, you know, ultimately people do respond to good news, you know, in terms of like this is possible, but also, you know, the, obviously the improvement of material conditions. A lot of the reason that these autocrates stay in power is because they claim that they're better for people. And if, you know, Hungary is doing far better economically and quality of life in a year after

Orbenzada office, that go, that's, you know, that blueprint shows for other parts of Europe and other

“countries around the world, not just Hungary. I think that, I think you're right, that's a really”

important step forward. Well, congratulations to the people of Hungary and Victor Orben, no congratulations to you. I hope you disappear forever. Mr. Global, you got at least worth story of the week for us. I've got two, actually. Oh, wow. Yeah. I think they're huge. Hit me. So the first one for unapologetic independence like myself, Dave Shipel, considering returning to the Shipel show, which would be nice to actually have a comedian back in the spotlight that's

not afraid of being canceled. But an even bigger story. I don't know if you guys heard this, but they're going to track down and get rid of Pablo Escobar's killer hippopotamuses. So I don't know if you guys knew this, but Pablo Escobar apparently had a bunch of killer hippopotamuses that roamed the country and heard a lot of people. I don't know if they had lasers attached to

about these hippos. Like they're still hurting people. There's somewhere between 80 and 100 of them

roaming the country. They're very aggressive. I don't know if they were on the stuff. You know, I don't know how they got to know their hippo is dangerous. I don't know. I don't know who's training them, but it's like a dogfight's kind of situate. If they're raised to be raised, but hippos are dangerous.

They're just because they're cosmical looking animals. We assume that they're because they're

so round. No, they're vicious. They're very fast too. Like you know you have a melon or something to throw in their mouth when they come at you. But congratulations, you know, to the people, the fine people of Columbia, who will no longer have to worry about the killer hippos that are

“roaming in the country. So what is it? Is it hippopotamuses or are we hippopotamite? Is it what is it?”

What is the pluroo? I don't think hippopotamuses actually comes through Latin. I think it's hippopotamuses.

You know how people say "Octopi"? It's not supposed to come from Latin. It just ends with us. It comes through Greek. So it should be octopus. Oh, it is. There's something like that. I think we called them "i" hippos. I think he called them "i" hippos. Well, I'm very happy to hear that they exist and also are going to be reigned in. I will say Matt, there's a lot of comedians out there who are not afraid to be canceled. Matt, Towson included.

I'm going to teach Shelfan due to his virulent transphobia, but he is great on civil rights. I

“wish he could apply it to queer people. But I think that if you looked out there and you want to find”

comedians who are unaffraid of being canceled, that's pretty much all of them. You'll find some guys of the right wing who are constantly saying "Don't cancel me, don't cancel me." But I think you can find a lot of stand-up comedians out there who are saying what they mean. So if you want, I'll send you a few links. And if you're listening to this podcast, I probably won't send you a few links, but you know, do some Google. I've been canceled by everybody so. I can't

think it's not a thing. Only consequences. I don't know. This is what has come down to you. Canceling is a thing the comedians say when they said something bigoted without a punch line and then got mad the people were upset about it. This has been American power from find out media.

“I'm Nat Towson for Shads Scott and Matt Randolph. We'll see you next week. And remember,”

Power corrupts, but American power corrupts, Americanly.