Trump Goes from Obliteration to Negotiation on Iran

but it can help you with your performance in bed. Take control of ED with personalized treatments made with Dr. trusted ingredients prescribed by licensed providers 100% online. HIMS offers access to ED treatment options ranging from personalized products to trusted genetics to cost 95% less than brand names if prescribed. You shouldn't have to go out of your way to feel like yourself. HIMS brings expert care straight to you with 100% online access to personalized treatments that put your

goals first. This isn't one size fits all care that forgets you in the waiting room. It's your

“health and goals but first with real medical providers making sure you get what you need to get results.”

Think of HIMS as your digital front door that gets you back to your old self with simple 100% online access for trusted treatments for ED and more all in one place. To get simple online access to personalized affordable care for ED, hair loss, weight loss and more visit HIMS.com/world. That's HIMS.com/world for your free online visit HIMS.com/world. Feature products include compound to drug products which the FDA does not approve or verify for safety effectiveness or quality,

prescription required to see website for details, restrictions and important safety information, actual price will depend on product and subscription plan. This is Special Agent Regal, Special Agent Bradley Hall. In 2018, the FBI took down a ring of spies working for

“China's Ministry of State Security. One of the most mysterious intelligence agencies in the world.”

The Sixth Bureau podcast is a story of the inner workings of the MSS and how one man's ambition and mistakes opened its fault of secrets. Listen to the Sixth Bureau on the iHeart Radio App, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. The country feels like it's falling apart right before our eyes and the people inside it are being silenced. So we're going to ease 26th Street and Nicolet Avenue, which is where Alex Pretty was executed by ICE and Border Patrol.

That is not a headline, that is a human life and it is all happening right now. Do you worry about your own safety being involved in all this? Yes, but it doesn't really feel like there's another option, you know? And of course they use a five-year-old child as bait. And of course they're doing all these horrible bad things because they don't know what they're doing. They've been told that they're going to get rid of the worst of the worst than they have absolute immunity and they've

been told that nothing they do will they ever be held accountable for. On my show runaway country, we go where the headlines hit home from communities under threat to the people fighting to be heard. New episodes of runaway country drop every Thursday, subscribe wherever you get your podcasts or watch on YouTube. Video is also released on vendors, with Shopify, can't sit to an important hit be heard.

Start it and test it again for no one in EuroPromonet, of Shopify.de/recorder. Welcome back to part two of the world and Tommy Vitor. I'm Ben Rout. Ben, today we wanted to debut a new segment with you called "Great Moments in Oval Office History." Here's today's entrance from President Trump. Let's watch.

“Who knows better about surprise than Japan? Why didn't you tell me about Pearl Harbor, okay?”

Right? Right? Is well we're too sensitive to subjects in Japan. I cannot think of a more cringe moment and who

are the people guffying at first and then when he actually dropped the Pearl Harbor reference,

like he couldn't even just be settle who knows more about secrecy than Japan, there's some in my groaned book for all of us, I think. I'll be honest, I watched that and I laughed out loud, I was like, that is just shit. Well, because he did, of course he did that. Of course he did that, you know? But Takiichi was like, she literally gased, she's like, her eyes look like they're going to pop

out of her head. It is a wild. Anyway, that was, yeah, a real winner from our president, you know, just kind of like pinballing through the world, just kind of thrown his elbows at

everybody, even like she says ally. One year and three months into a Tommy of the second term,

but yeah, like she later in the day to had this bizarre thing where she,

Donald's. Yeah, it's a little creepy. That's weird. Yeah, I mean, it's a funny

“he's like, all the reporting on her trip were like, it was like great success because she avoided”

a blow up. It's like, what? I feel like the relationship should be about a little more than that. But it's a high bar. Yeah, whatever. What are you going to do? By the way, then I did a bonus episode last

Friday for the positive of the world, YouTube, where we dug it to the first three weeks of the

war with Iran. So please subscribe to the world of YouTube. If you want more bonus episodes like that, but it's also the venue where we find like the dumbest clips we possibly can of Pete Hexath or Trump or whatever. And we laugh at them so that we don't cry because otherwise we didn't lot of crying. So when you subscribe to the positive world on YouTube, when you're ready, when you review it, when you share the episodes, it really helps us grow the show. It helps us get

good factual information into the YouTube algorithm and displays the pro-war propaganda from Fox News in the Daily Wire. Speaking of which, Ben, if you are sick of that shit in the credulous coverage of this war and you want to hear it discussed by people who were not a coma for the last 20 years who were remembered the Iraq War and that it didn't go so well, please consider joining Kirk and Media's friend of the pod subscription community. It is the number one thing you could

do to help us grow as a company. You can sign up at crooked.com/friends or right here on YouTube

by pressing the join button. But our solemn pledge to you is it will never book Senator Lindsey

“Graham on the show unless he passes a breathalyzer test first. Does that work for you?”

That works for me, Tommy. Or do we want him drunk? Do we want him to fail or pass? We may be just want him passed out and you're silent. Not good to hesitate, okay. Yeah. I have a quick plug here. So listeners may know my book, all we say, the Battle for American Identity is out in light may be available for preorder now and for Wednesday and Thursday, the 25th and 26th, there is a special discount for

preorders on Barnes and Noble. If you're Barnes and Noble member, which you may be, if you listen to this podcast, you get 25% off. I think everybody else gets 10% off. So check it out. Hell yeah, also Ben Rhodes on Substack notes on the stories we tell. Okay, enough plugs subscribe to all that shit. We're going to talk today. We're going to try to explain Trump's crazy 180 degree turn on Iran policy in the span of the last 48 hours. So he went from

promising basically a series of war crime, air strikes on energy infrastructure to saying talks with Iran. We're so far along that the war was effectively over. We'll try to explain what happened, why it happened. And then we're going to dig into the details of the US and Iranian demands and why getting a deal done feels quite difficult right now. We'll also cover what other countries in the Gulf are reportedly telling Trump some recent US troop deployments that seem

“ominous but important to watch. Then we're going to explain why Iran firing a missile at a joint”

USUK base raised a lot of eyebrows. We'll talk about the growing cost of war and then update on the conflict in Lebanon. Then we're going to look at some recent elections in Europe and explain what they tell you about the strength of far right parties in Europe and how Trump might be impacting those parties, spoiler alert, not well. And then finally there's a little fun story at the end about how a fitness app exposed the location of a nuclear powered aircraft carrier

in the middle of the war. Fun is always an air quotes on this show. And then you're going to hear

my conversation with Edward Fishman, author of choke points, American power and the age of economic warfare. Then we get into all the economic costs of the war, the ways it is exposed economic vulnerabilities as he calls them choke points. It's a very up your alley this conversation. Yeah, I'm appreciated piece of how Trump is messing up things. So I'm excited to hear that. Yeah, just exposing our enormous weaknesses to the entire world. All right. So let's let's try

to understand the last 40 hours. So it has been truly had spinning on Saturday Trump posted quote, "If Iran doesn't fully open without threat the straight-of-form moves within 48 hours from this exact point in time, the United States of America will hit and obliterate their various power plants, starting with the biggest one first." So again, that would be a war crime but details details. So this went over about as well as you'd expect in Iran,

the speaker of Iran's Parliament, Mohammed Booker, Gali Bough, responded with quote, immediately after our country's electricity and infrastructure, our struck, we will consider vital infrastructure as well as energy and oil facilities throughout the region to be legitimate targets and will destroy them in an irreversible manner. So escalation ladder goes up and up. But then on Monday morning, just 12 hours before Trump's self-imposed deadline

Trump announced that Iran was getting a five-day reprieve from attacks on their power supply or oil infrastructure, a power infrastructure, because the two sides were having very good and productive conversations. Now everyone, especially the Iranians, seems surprised by this claim, but our president elaborated on the talks in much more during press events on Monday and Tuesday, here is some of what he said. "They call, I didn't call, they call, they want to make a deal."

involved, very smart guy and Steve Woodcoff's smart guy is involved and I'm involved."

“"We're dealing with the man who I believe is the most respected and the leader”

and if it goes well, we're going to end up with the settling this otherwise we'll just keep

bombing our little hearts out." "They did something yesterday that was amazing actually.

They gave us a present and the president arrived today and it was a very big present worth a tremendous amount of money. You know, this is a change in the regime because the leaders are all very different than the ones that we started off with that created all those problems. So this was, I think we can say, Jason, this is regime change, right? We've won this. This war has been won. "We're going to have a second or more moves that may be in control of

that." "Maybe me." "Maybe me." "Me and the ayatollah, whoever the ayatollah is, they said, "Peat and general raising can, I think this thing's going to be settled very soon. Here they go." "Oh, that's too bad." "Peat didn't want it to be settled." "Beat, I think you were the first one to speak up and you said let's do it." "We see ourselves as part of this negotiation as well. We negotiate with bombs."

"It gives you a little bonus headset at the end of your business." "Yeah." Setting him up to be blamed for the whole thing. So listeners are probably asking what happened. Ben, do you want to take first crack at it? You want me to take first crack at it and then

“how do you want to go here? I mean, here's what I will tell you what I think happened, right?”

Which is Trump threatens to start hitting power plants, civilian and energy infrastructure. That's a war crime we should just say. When Vladimir Putin does that, we get very upset as we should. Then I think over the weekend, people got to him and there's been some reporting on this that the Gulf countries whose energy infrastructure would be destroyed by Iran if they made good on their threat to hit energy infrastructure. Got to him the markets got to him because they could see

the price of world skyrocketing. You could see futures. You could see the bond markets going in very dark direction. So I think he was spooked. I don't think there was any negotiation whatsoever of the Iranians. The Iranians came out and denied it. It's a sad state of affairs that I believe the Iranians were credible than Trump. Now, I do think that there's probably a lot of frenetic diplomacy and it's probably all intermediaries where Qatar, Oman, countries that are traditionally

negotiators and are also being walloped economically and sometimes physically in this war are probably trying to go back and forth and get messages from the Americans and Iranians. But I don't think there's

“some evolved negotiation here. I think Trump climbed down because of the markets and because of what”

he was hearing from the Gulf. But he had to somehow make it seem like he was about to get a deal. We can get into also the potential market manipulation that went on here. But that statement was for the markets and his pullback was because people got to him finally and said this would be madness to continue up the energy escalation layer at the precise time that the global economy is being completely destroyed by this war in what's happening with respect to energy. I hear that

and I hear a man who has no idea what's going on, who has no idea what he started. He can talk about JD and Marco and Jared and Steve and the gang. Those guys have no idea what the hell is going

on. The IRGC, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, controls the straight form boost. Not even the

Iranian government. The IRGC controls it. Their stuff is getting out. Other people says not. That is how bad this war. Donald Trump is losing this war. Not only is he not wanted, he is actively losing the war and so he's just trying to kind of calm markets as if there's not a reality out there that is not going to bend to whatever his fiction is. In the end state, he describes there as co-ownership with the Iranians at the straight-over moves. With the IOTOLs, he's talking

about the spring leaders, the ex-separate leader's son who he was disparaging is almost sexual and some bizarre theater in the New York Post yesterday. Which I told is he talking to you? Yeah, it's like the time I joint custody of Eric. Yeah. My, my, my, my, my, I saw him do this morning morning. I thought this is entirely market manipulation. Like this is about oil and stock markets. And he woke up on a morning Trump saw the European markets. We're way off Asian stock

markets. We're getting crushed. And he wanted to punt that ball down the road. And so, you know,

oh, low and behold, the answer is like a five-day reprieve, which is right until markets close on Friday.

There are some, as you mentioned, like there's some talks are happening. A bunch of news outlets have reported that Egypt, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan, net to try to find some sort of off ramp to end the war. Apparently, Egyptian intelligence kind of led the outreach to the Iran's IOTC. But the, apparently, the new interlocutor on the Iranian side is the guy I mentioned earlier,

which means like like in Venezuela, a leader that the US can install and control.

“But that is a hell of lot easier said than done in Iran. And again, of the talks, Gauly Buff said,”

our people demand the complete and humiliating punishment of the aggressors, no negotiations with America have taken place. Fake news is intended to manipulate financial oil markets and to escape the quagmire in which America in Israel are trapped. That doesn't sound all that hopeful. And again, like the Iran is talking about hitting infrastructure like oil and gas, but also maybe decalination plants, which we've discussed before,

like Kuwait gets 90% of its water from the sea, Saudi Arabia gets 70% to that would be a huge crisis. And then just, quickly, on the corruption thing. So the financial times reported that traders

made a half a billion dollars worth of bets in the oil markets, 15 minutes before Trump's

tweet announcing these talks. So a 6,200 brand or WTI futures contracts, those are oil, oil futures. We're bought and sold between 6.49 and 6.50 a.m. on Monday, 15 minutes before the

“truth social post, the notional value of the trade was $580 million dollars. There was also a”

spike rate at that time in the trading of S&P futures. And then maybe some sort of like European energy commodities too. I'm sure it was all just a coincidence Ben, but someone made a lot of money. Yeah, and we saw this by the way before with the tariffs when he did his climb down after liberation day, there was a lot of suspicious trading before that that made a lot of people a lot of money. And again, like we need to need to spell this out because this is very plain what is happening.

Donald Trump knows if he goes out and says on two social, which is clearly a planned thing, right? It's not even like a kind of stand-up at a in front of the microphones, you know, with the Air Force one blasting away. He knows he's going to post at a certain time. And he knows that that's going to bring down the price of world futures and calm markets. If somebody has four knowledge of that and trades, they can make an extraordinary amount of money. And again, either this is like the

biggest coincidence in the world that someone had a premonition that there was going to be a post just like this or somebody knew or got tipped off and did this. And I'm sorry, like we don't know, I'm not suggesting I know for a fact what happened. I am saying this is incredibly suspicious. And I can't think of anything more disgusting than somebody profiting on a war. Yeah. Trading off a war because Donald Trump is like turning the dial on the world prices up and down

with his, you know, false claims about negotiations. I also say like to the markets, like, would we talk about, like, as if it's a person, not the best day for them, too. Like, that they somehow are credulous of Donald Trump's claims. You know, like, I know people are eager for this to end, but just because he puts something on two social doesn't mean it's true. Well, the Iranians, you know, if it holds into this preexisting narrative, the, the taco thing,

right? Trump always checks it out. And that works with tariffs and things he can turn on and off

and controls. It doesn't work in the context of a war over Iran gets actually back, you know. So Ben, before we dig into the substance of the negotiations themselves and why getting a deal will be really difficult. I did want to play you a clip from an expert that gave me some hope and some faith in President Trump's abilities. So this is an infamous perugulator in friend of Jeffrey Epstein, Alan Dershowitz. Let's watch.

“Had President Trump been in charge in 1935, 1936, I think the Holocaust would have been prevented.”

I think he would have gone in after not just Germany. He would have destroyed it the way he is destroying Nazi Iran. And the Holocaust would have been prevented. It's about the lie. I mean, the Alan Dershowitz' capacity, I know it's Newsmax, but to get himself on television is pretty remarkable to me. I mean, all these Trump supporters, they can't even really like defend what's happening. They can't even give a plausible argument

for why this goes good idea. So it's all this kind of insanity. Like the Holocaust. Yeah, the next thing he would have prevented the civil war in this country here, like this is we are just living with the stupidest people in the world blowing smoke up this guy's ass when the Emperor has been revealed before the entire world to have no clothes. You know? I should also add as a negotiating strategist want to say to embrace the speaker of the

Iranian Parliament. If you think that's a good way to get that guy killed, either by the Israeli, as you seem to want to kill anybody that could bring an end to this war as they did with Ali LaRajani or by the Rings themselves. The IRGC is not going to go along with the Delsea Rodriguez Fund. They're just not. Like that is not an option here. There may be there's some cold peace that can be arrived at. We can talk about that. But the idea that this Delsea Rodriguez

that you think that's possible? Yeah. Pazipurola is brought to you by Helix. Helix is the most awarded mattress brand. It's tested and reviewed by experts like Forbes and Wired. Helix makes buying and mattress easy. You take the Helix sleep quiz and it'll match you with the perfect mattress based on your personal preferences and sleep needs. Get free shipping and seamless delivery. Helix delivers

your mattress right to your door with free shipping in the U.S. The happy with Helix's

guarantee offers a risk-free customer first experience designed to ensure you're completely

satisfied with your new mattress. So you can rest easy with seamless returns and exchanges. Helix offers a hundred twenty-night sleep trial and limited lifetime guarantee. Helix mattresses are excellent. They are super comfortable. They ship right to your house. You take little quiz. Tell us what kind of mattress you want and you need. It's easy to upgrade. Super convenient

“and I don't know what else you need to know. You won't want to get out of them. You won't want”

to get out of that Helix mattress. We've been sitting in that Helix mattress all day long. Sleep all day. Go to HelixSleep.com/World for twenty percent off site wide. That HelixSleep.com/World for twenty percent off site wide. The software is exclusive to our listeners. Make sure you enter our show name after checkups. They know we sent you Helix.com/World. Pazipurola is brought to you by factor as a weatherworms up in short season approaches eating well shouldn't feel like a chore.

Don't let a package schedule get in the way of your goals. With factor you can get dietitian designed, chef-crafted meals that are ready in just two minutes. It's a nutrition you need without the planning or the cleanup. Factor meals are made with quality, functional ingredients, including lean proteins, colorful veggies, whole-food ingredients, and healthy fats. No refined sugars, no artificial sweeteners, no refined sea doils. Meals that fit your goals

in schedule, healthier eating, calorie management, and more protein. Choose from a menu of

“100 rotating weekly meals to keep fresh and delicious through winter. Option include high protein,”

calorie smart, Mediterranean diet, GLP1 support, and ready to eat salads. Plus, the new muscle

pro-collection supports strength and recovery. Factor meals are always fresh, never frozen,

ready in about two minutes, no prep, no mess. I've gotten some great stuff from factor. It was a delicious barbecue chicken breast with potato masch, cream corn, and peppers. There was a bison pork sausage that was really good. They're like cornbread on the side in barbecue cauliflower and salsa. They'd a really good short rib, sweet potatoes, and Brussels. The tons and tons of great options way more than you can ever get through.

Head to factormeals.com/PSTW50Off and use the code PSTW50Off to get 50% off and free breakfast for a year. Offer only valid for new factor customers with code and qualifying auto-renewing subscription purchase. Make healthier eating easier with factor. Okay. So Mr. Dursher with this side, Ben. So here's why getting a deal

done will be very hard. So first of all, Iran does trust the United States. And that's

clear, right? The Trump pulled out of the JCPOA when Iran was complying with the back of 2018. Last June, the White House was bragging about using talks with Iran as like subterfuge to help

“the Israelis plan their bombing raid. Remember that whole thing. And then in this most recent bombing”

raid, the US and before this most recent conflict, the US and Iran came out of those talks saying like these were the most productive sessions yet. And then again, the US and Israel started bombing. So they don't trust us to say the least. Second, Iran now thinks it has a lot of leverage, right? Like the Iranians decided that they screwed up before by being measured in response to the 12th day war or US bombing raids or whatever. Now they've decided and seen that they can

fire missiles everywhere cause regional chaos and like truly global economic damage. And that gives them a lot of leverage. And then third, I think Iran knows that if they reach just a temporary ceasefire, there's a good chance the US in Israel are bombing them again in six months, 12 months, 18 months, right? So they want a long-term resolution. And so their list of demands is going to be extensive. Some of it has been floated in the press. I don't know how much of this is positioning

or people who know what they're talking about versus don't, but just to summarize what I've seen. I've seen them call for simultaneous ceasefires in Iran, Lebanon, and Iraq. The US closing its military bases in the region, reparations for damage done during the war, sanctions relief, recognition of Iran's right to enrich nuclear materials, recognition of their rights to develop ballistic missiles. Iran wants to treat a straight

home moves like a toll road and a charge ships that go through it a fee. So all of those are going to be non-starters for Trump, for Gulf countries, for these railways, et cetera. And then you're also seeing like Crown Prince that, we're all these reports now that the Saudis are saying to Trump finish the job, decapitate the regime. There's also reports the UAE is making the same case, and even considering getting directly involved in the fighting. And at the same time, Ben,

about the markets being stupid, that to me kind of gives up the whole game, because like what

“are the Iranians going to agree to now in this sort of like maximalist set of US and Israeli”

demands that they didn't agree to before, now that they feel like they ever got leverage? Well, what am I missing here? I agree with everything you said, and what I would add to it is, we've made this point that the Iranian response, because of what you said, right? Because of the feeling that they did not hit back hard enough in the 12-day war that that invited this kind of existential regime change were on them by the US and Israel. They have a clear theory of the case that they

need to make this war so painful, but the United States and the global economy, that the United States won't do it again. And in Israel is a different story because like they have their own fixation on on regime change, but everything the Iranians have done has suggested that this war has made the Iranian regime much more radical, like much more dug in, because that's their only path to survival.

“They see diplomacy with Trump as something that they can't trust, because they've been bombed twice”

during diplomacy. So they need to achieve their objectives in part through the war. The cost has to be prohibited to the United States and global economy. We'll see if they can do that thus far they're demonstrating that they can, and we'll see if they can hang on. And so to that end, anything they may not want that whole list, reparations and all that rest. But whatever the end state is that they agree to, probably has to be something that gives them the maximum assurance

that they're not going to be bombed again. So things like actual sanctions relief, right? The sanctions are gone. That would be a signal from the United States said this kind of conflict between the US and Iran is over. Like you're back in the global economy, like a security range means maybe between Iran and the Gulf may have to be negotiated. So anything that the Iranians agree to is going to have to be in that kind of space, the US doesn't even really know what it's

prioritizing here. They want a nuclear deal. They can get one. There was one on the table before this war. As long as Iranians can say they sell a nuclear program, they're just not going to pursue a weapon. By the way, that was the nuclear deal under Obama. That's something Trump could get. But that's about it. I don't really know. But the Iranians don't seem to succeed. So he may have to talk about Taka. Like he may have to accept a much more radical government in some ways more empowered

because they've shown what they can do and make concessions to them for the kind of same nuclear

deal he could have with that launching this war in the first place. It's crazy. Yeah, it's crazy.

I was talking to someone who an Iran expert today who has been involved in what are called Tracto Negotiations. Those conversations with people who have ties to the Iranian government, but aren't a part of government. But are kind of clued in enough that you can float diplomatic possibilities. And this person said that the Europeans seemed really excited about the talks, but the Iranian officials, this person talked to were dug in and way more so than usual. This

person also said that the Gulf countries, like the stuff you're seeing reported about some of the various Gulf countries, like the UAE, saying, "Finish the job." That is 100% true. They are pissed and they are angry. Yeah, I wanted to say one thing about that. The UAE in particular, if you look at this rate of war moves, what you see is these small countries like the UAE in Qatar. They're the ones that just cannot get their energy, the oil and gas out without the

“straight being opened. And so the reason why I think it may be true that the UAE once is finished,”

in some fashion is they know that if it stops now, the IRGC runs the straight for moves like a toll road. And so whether they wanted to war or not, they need the straight opened and they don't trust that the IRGC is going to let their stuff through. The Saudis, I'm still, maybe that's true, maybe it's not because the Saudis have a lot to lose if this war goes on. But that definitely strikes me as true. But I think they don't even know what does it mean for the war to end. And it's probably

a version of a frozen conflict. This war is not unlike the war in Ukraine. The US thought it

would be cakewalk, the US thought that the regime would collapse and the first blitz greed happened

and it didn't. And Pete Hexeth can like talk all he wants about bombs. Bombing gets less effective not more. I mean, we've hit a lot of these targets. They know that they can weather it. And so then the question becomes does this kind of just continue until it kind of freezes in place at some point. And you deal with bits and pieces of this like the straighted form moves or does US put boots

Let's get to the boots and the second. So this person, this who has involved these track to

“negotiations also pointed out that like Gallyboth actually is a credible messenger and someone who”

you could maybe do business with. But Trump is probably necapping the guy by talking about them all the time. Like it seems like the worst strategy. A lot of folks I've talked to did take a little hope or see a little hope in the fact that there's reports that J.D. Vance might get involved in the talks. It would be a good thing because for first of all, it would take out of the hands of like Jared Kushner and Steve Wikoff who approved themselves to be bumbling fucking idiots. But also,

J.D. Vance would probably only get involved if it was ready to get over the finish line and seems like someone who at least has told us in the past that he wouldn't want this word to be over. But it doesn't seem like he's really involved yet. You heard that quote from Trump and then it'd go where he's like J.D. Vance involved. Marko's involved, right? So that he's just like name and everybody while blaming Pete for the war happening. And then Ben again, this person said

the best case scenario might be an outcome where Trump essentially has to bribe Iran to reopen the street of foremooze and get us back to the status quo anti-fremble for the war. Exactly.

We basically saw that process start last week when the US let Iran make about $14 billion

by selling 140 million barrels of Iranian oil. So real quick, here's a clip of Treasury Secretary Scott Besin from over the weekend on Meet the Press talking about this decision. And then I want to get your reaction to it because this is a touchy subject in Obama world. Let's watch. Is the President in the process of winding down this war or escalating? I like it. Again,

“they're not mutually exclusive. Sometimes you have to escalate to D. S. Goly.”

On Friday, the Treasury Department lifted sanctions on Iranian oil stored on tankers, a move that would effectively allow Iran to get more than $14 billion of oil revenue. Why is the US helping to fund a country that it's currently at war with?

I think again, Chris, why don't we have good facts here? That Iranian oil was always going to be

sold to the Chinese. It was going to be sold at a discount. So which is better, Chris? The seven, which is better? If oil prices spike to $150, and they were getting 70% of that or oil prices below 100, it's better to have them where they are now. And to be clear, we had always planned for this contingency. About 140 million barrels are out on the water. In essence, we are jujitsuing the Iranians. We are using their own oil against them. It's a jujitsu move to let the Iranians

“make billions of dollars to help them fund a war that they're fighting against you. By the way,”

speaking to jujitsu and planning, then I read a camera, but maybe the times of the journal over the weekend, that the strategic petroleum reserve, the US one, was only 60% full at the start of this war. So clearly, no one had done any planning for this thing. What do you make of that decision to relieve sanctions on Iran during a war with Iran? I've been practicing mindfulness, Tommy. How's it going? I don't know if you knew this about me. I got some of those meditations.

You're listening to as or too much. I've done some hot yoga just so people know because I'm just trying to get more in touch with my body. I'm going to incorporate these practices now, but I'm going to do a little history here. The first piece of history is that in the Obama administration, you may recall that as part of the Iran nuclear deal coming into effect and also a prisoner release from Iran, including our friend, Jason Resign, that the United States allowed Iran to receive

$400 million dollars that they were owed. And it's a long story that had to do with the fact that

the Iranians paid for some weapons back when the Shah was there. The weapons were never delivered

at court decided to carry the money. Yes, exactly. Anyway, they got $400 million dollars. And the mega world and the APAC world and all the BB lovers out there online have spent 10 years. I cannot post something online with that somebody posting a meme about like pallets of cash because some of the $400 million was delivered in pallets of cash. Now, you can argue about whether you like that deal or not, but the reality was it was $400 million of money that Iran was owed

under international law. This is $14 billion. This is like, I mean, I'm not a math expert. This is like leaps and bounds more than the $400 million. It is in the middle of a war. It is being given to the Iranians because of the rank and competence of the Trump administration

a buzzsaw instead, even though everybody could have predicted this. All of the people that spent 10 years, like clutching their pearls about the $400 million in pallets of cash, I guarantee you every single one of those fucking people support this idiocy, support this war, will not trash Trump for giving around $14 billion. Literal tankers full of cash. And Scott Besson like has had this sticky pulls where he's the grown up in the smart one who talks to the

quote unquote markets. He has no what you can listen to him there. He doesn't even know what he's talking about. And when he talks about how we've been planning for this, we've been playing. So, okay,

“two things could be true here. One is that these people are so incompetent that the only way they”

can bring world prices down is to let the Iranians make $14 billion as a starter. Who knows

where it's going to go from there. Never mind that the Russian Iraq also have from under sanctions.

But let's like, the good scenario, the best in says is that they actually planned this all long, that it was part of the war plan. And like, it's like pissy about it. He's like, this is like, he gets pissy. We put a cover on TV, like getting all mad at it, Kristen Walker asking basic normal questions. Like, well, it's it's because if they planned for it, you're telling me that you knew where was going to go so bad that you were going to have to start waving sanctions on the

ratings and the rate. So, it's either the dumbest fucking plan ever or the dumbest fucking wherever. Okay, and there's not another option here. Yeah, no, there is not. Sorry, get the pallets of cash off my chest. Hey, that's why I brought it up, brother. Also, the hoothy still haven't come into this conflict. Yeah, so things get worse. One thing we're really watching closely then is it's just worth noting that a bunch of US ships and Marines are heading to the Middle East. In some will be there by Friday

when this sort of five-day pause. And right now, you know, like the USS Tripoli, it's an amphibious assault ship is on its way from, I think, Asia with 2200 Marines. There's a similar ship called the USS Boxer that's en route from San Diego with another 2200 Marines. I just saw reports of the Pentagon as ordered members of the 82nd Airborne, the immediate response force to deploy to the Middle East. That's a reaction force about 3,000 troops who could be basically anywhere they need to be

in 18 hours. So, these amphibious assault ships, they are like aircraft carriers, but not aircraft carriers, and that they don't have catapults to like launch planes off. But the the the the Harry or style jets can take off from them, the F-35Bs, they can do the vertical takeoff and landing, and then major helicopters, like Ospreys, work off of them, and more importantly though,

“they have a lower deck where you can launch ships assault ships. So, like if you want to send”

a bunch of Marines a cargile in, for example, you would probably use an amphibious assault ship,

like the USS Boxer or the Tripoli. So, it's always saying there's just a lot of military assets

steaming to a location. And then the past year or so, when that has happened to Donald Trump has used those military assets to further a war. Yeah, we said on this podcast for months, pay attention to the military force gathered off the coast of Venezuela, it was going to be used. And in this as eerie reminders to have the ramp to the war in Iran, because while Trump was saying you wanted to deal, they were building up this massive, you know, Armada to strike Iran, the largest

massive and military force in the Middle East since Iraq War. Now, whatever Trump is saying about, you know, we're negotiating, and it looks great, and the Iranians are calling me, there is a methodical deployment that is going forward that could only have the purpose of supporting a ground operation in Iran. Now, whether that's to seize nuclear materials at Ispahan and Central Iran, whether that's to try to seize cargo island as some kind of leverage on the

“Iranians we don't know, what we do know is that's what these troops do, and that's what this”

hardware does. And so that's very disconcerting. And one of the things I want to say is that I don't get the sense, do you get the sense that he's listening to any Iran experts? All he ever, he doesn't seem to understand the mechanics of this. Yeah. And the reason this matters is that the mentality Iranians is they're going to fight. You take Carg Island, they'll keep fight, they're not going to surrender. Like it's like Afghanistan. It's like what we dealt with in rock. Like these are

people that are pissed. You know, they were chatting death through America before we bomb their country and kill thousands of them. Can you imagine what their mentality is now? And so the idea that one lightning special operation, like Hollywood thing that Trump likes is going to solve this problem, it's not. I hope I really hope this doesn't go forward. Or if you, yeah, like early on, Trump was talking about regime change. There's a bunch of reporting over the weekend and the

times that these rallies and the massade had basically sold Trump on this idea that they could

ferment regime change or maybe use the Kurds to begin a regime change operation. Obviously, that didn't happen. But yeah, to your point, I mean, now I think 1,500 people are dead in Iran.

going to lead to an uprising in a way that's positive. One of the things that just was worth mentioning

“Ben, because I think this incident blew up in the kind of wonky, arms control around nerd circles”

that we trafficking over the weekend was Iran fired two missiles, a place called Diego Garcia, which is this joint USUK military base in the Indian Ocean. Neither missile hit its target. One seems to have failed and rude. The other might have been taken up by US missile defense systems. But Iran, seeming to be able to target something 2500 miles away, surprised a lot of people, because the previous sort of conventional wisdom was that Iran's missiles only had a 2000

kilometer range. But Diego Garcia is 4,000 kilometers away. And so that led a lot of people,

especially war supporters to say, see Iran is lying. They always lie. Like it is an imminent threat

to the US. This is why we had to go to war. And I think it's worth just offering some context on that. So like, first of all, the 2000 kilometer limit on Iran's ballistic missiles was one voluntarily put in place by the Iranians. But I think every real like Iran expert questioned it first of all, and whether they were telling the truth, but also knew that Iran could take some simple steps to increase the range of those missiles, like reducing the size of the warhead.

If you make the thing lighter, it can go further. They also knew that Iran has been researching space launch technology, which is essentially ICBM technology, and maybe they could use that as a dual purpose. And then finally, if you bomb a country, if you go to war with Iran,

they're probably going to do away with some of the previous self-imposed limits on their military

technology. So again, not really surprising in any way, but then I mean, how big a deal did you think this was? I thought it was notable. Not necessarily huge deal. They're trying to fire at everything they possibly can. They're trying to make it feel like the reach of their weaponry puts at risk all US military facilities within range of any weapon they have. And so this is just one more example, then kind of trying to empty the kit to make the US feel vulnerable everywhere.

Now, we don't know that this signifies a substantial additional capability in terms of the range of their ballistic missiles. It didn't like, you know, make contact with the target either. So to me, it's just the Iranians messaging again. And yeah, you're right, like they're innovating on the fly. One thing that happens in wartime, we've seen this in Russian Ukraine, is that when you're under the immense pressure of an existential war, you just start innovating, you just start trying

new things. And that could be what's happening here. It's also the case that I just don't trust at all the briefings from the United States and Israel, including the US military, right? Because

“like they've told us that I think 90% of Iranian ballistic missiles are destroyed in launchers.”

Meanwhile, they keep firing them every day. I was talking to someone who's an expert in this stuff, who's it, by the way, like more maga than not. And this person was saying, this stat from DOD in these realies that Iran is like, there's been a 90% reduction in launch since they want is total bullshit. Iran is still firing ballistic missiles. More of them are getting through they're having more devastating consequences. They have clearly figured out how to adapt,

to hide them, to husband resources, and stats relative to day one are just, it's meaningless, because Iran is playing a long game, right? And like that is what's frustrating about the bullshit you hear from Hegseth. And even from Dan Kane, who I think is much more like honest and honorable in those briefings, but still is falling still a short of where a previous chairman would be. Way short. And we have to name this, right? Because the people in the military, you know,

don't have to go along with this, and they don't have to put out bullshit information because it makes Hegseth feel like he has a more macho fox and friends briefing that he can give. This, it's disappointing to me, because I don't know how to trust it anymore. How do you trust people? I mean Trump said that all of Iran's military capabilities destroyed, we know that's BS, but this 90% figure we've heard for a while, like what we're seeing with our own eyes in terms

of Iranian ballistic missile launches, including against Israel, suggests that that's just not true. Yeah, I mean, like on Tuesday, an Iranian ballistic missile hit Tel Aviv caused a bunch of damage in your poor people. Over the weekend, an Iranian ballistic missile hit a town near Israel's nuclear research facility, Iran seems to be doing a lot of kind of like tit for tat strikes, like if you hit

“near one of our nuclear sites, will hit yours. Like I said, you know, 1500 people, I believe,”

to be dead in Iran, the straight-of-form moves is basically closed. Like a huge chunk of the world

doesn't have access to energy, fertilizer, there could be a global, you know, food shortage, political instability and starvation. So everything is getting worse. Donald Trump keeps saying,

the Taliban for 20 years, didn't have a navy there and what happened in that war. Let's turn to Lebanon, because you did an excellent interview last week with Kim Gattis about Israel's military

“campaign in Lebanon. I think folks should listen to it in full. But unfortunately, a lot of”

what she talked about in that conversation is coming to pass. Because it looks like Israel is planning to occupy parts of Lebanon. These really defense ministry Israel cats that on Tuesday that Israel is going to control the territory in southern Lebanon up to the Latani River, which is about 15 or 20 miles from the border between the two countries. So hundreds of thousands of people have

had to flee their homes already from the south. Overall, there's more than a million people

displaced in Lebanon, which is about a fifth of the population. And Israel is now bombing bridges that cross the Latani River. I think there's been five of them total that have been blown up. I thought, did you see one of the bridges? I mean, there was a RT correspondent doing a stand-up really nice to do it as it was bombed. The guy was almost killed. So the idea says they're bombing these bridges because they're preventing the flow of Hezbollah fighters into southern Lebanon.

But obviously bombing these bridges is going to cut off any remaining civilians in the area. And then potentially cut them off from food, water, like any humanitarian access. So it will lead to a crisis. And stepping back and remember Lebanon, Hezbollah entered this most recent iteration of the war by firing rockets at Israel after Israel killed the spring

“leader of Iran. As you discussed with Kim, I think, then the Lebanese government and a lot of”

citizens of Lebanon are furious at Hezbollah, including Shea for dragging them back into this war. But they can't do anything about it because Hezbollah has the guns. So I imagine it's hard for our listeners to imagine like wrap your heads around the scale of this evacuation order. These are talking about like 800,000 people to a million people getting displaced in a country of like, like, I think, five, six million people. And I was talking to a friend with family and

Bay Route, who said that one thing compounding the problem is that everyone is afraid of strangers

right now because you don't want to rent a room in your building to someone you don't know who is displaced from southern Lebanon. Because what if that person has a connection to Hezbollah, or is perceived to have one from the Assad? And your building gets bombed by the idea, right? Like, and so that is going to further exacerbate sectarian tensions and it is all very bad and it's likely to get worse because these realities are talking about the Lebanon conflict as one

that would extend beyond the Iran conflict. And also, Ben, the press keeps talking about Israel creating a buffer zone. It's like, what they're sexy and occupying territory. Like,

“call it what it is. Absolutely. I mean, you covered it well. I think what I would focus on is”

what is Israel's objective here, right? Because there's something in the Diego García piece

ties into this. Israel and, you know, Netanyahu and then all the kind of a pack adjacent thinktinkers. If the enemy is strong, it's a reason to go to war with them. And if the enemy is weak, it's a reason to go to war with them. Really good point. And so let's just look at Israel's track record since October 7. Because what they've done is destroy a lot of things. But let's think about what they have actually accomplished strategically, right? We heard that they were going to destroy

Hamas. They didn't destroy Hamas. Hamas is still in Gaza. They destroyed Gaza. They killed tens of thousands of children. Hamas is still there. Then all these, you know, a pack types, you know, they can't stop talking about the page operation. Remember the operation where they blew up a bunch of Hezbollah guys and some other people by infiltrating their pages? Well, guess what? Hezbollah's still there. Hezbollah's still in Lebanon. You know, did they solve that problem? No. The 12-day war,

that we obliterate the Iranian nuclear program, they keep destroying things and coming back and destroying more things. And so if we just take Lebanon, what is the objective here? Because they are destroying Lebanon where they've got to fit to the population displaced. They're turning people against each other. The politics are becoming more toxic. They are blowing up apartment buildings just to kill a few Hezbollah targets in them. So they're killing a lot of people there

to what end. And in this area that they're occupying, you know, you've got Ben Givier talking about, you know, in a pretty senior minister in these really government, annexing southern Lebanon. In meanwhile, the American media credulously describes it as a buffer zone. They're blowing up bridges buffer to what? Like, it wouldn't be describing if there's just any other place on Earth, you know, if Mexico took, you know, 15 to 20 miles into Texas. Yeah. Or we had to catch it, yeah.

Because they said, you know, yeah, if we did that to Canada, I don't think we would

Like, this isn't even the West Bank. Like, Lebanon has had a border. It's been internationally

recognized for a very long time. And they're basically just destroying that core tenant of the

international law. Yeah. It's a, it's a really bad situation that it's going to get worse before it gets better. And by the way, we have not, like, Iran has kind of blotted out the sun on the show. But we have not a time to talk about what's happening in the West Bank with this wave of settler violence. It's kicked off since the worst started. But it's something we should get back to because it is truly awful and worth highlighting.

This podcast is sponsored by Squarespace. Squarespace is the All-in-One website platform designed to elevate your online presence and drive your success. Squarespace provides all the necessary tools to claim your domain, build a professional website, expand your brand and facilitate payments, making it the ideal solution for businesses of all sizes. Squarespace gives you

“everything you need to offer services and get paid, all in one place, from consultations to events and”

experiences, showcase your offerings with the customizable website, design to attract clients and grow your business. With Squarespace's collection of cutting-edge design tools, anyone can build a bespoke online presence that perfectly fits their brand or business. Start with Blueprint AI, Squarespace AI and Hans website builder to get a fully custom website in just a few steps, using basic information by your industry goals and personality to generate premium quality content

and personalized design recommendations. Every dream needs a domain, Squarespace domains make it easy to find the best name for your business at one fair, all-inclusive price, no hidden fees or add-ons required. Plus, Squarespace provides everything you need to bring more of your dream to life, whether that means building a website or adding a professional email service, don't wait to claim your name, invest in your dream domain today. Head to Squarespace.com for a

free trial and when you're ready to launch, go to squarespace.com/World, save 10% off your first

purchase of a website or domain that's squarespace.com/World. This podcast is brought to you by wise, the app for international people using money around the globe. When it comes to sending money abroad, many providers claim to offer free fees and competitive rates, but don't be fooled, this can be code for inflated exchange rates. With the wise account, you can send, spend, and receive money over 40 currencies without ever having to worry about hidden fees, sending pounds across the

pond, most transfers arrive in 20 seconds or less. Spending reales in Rio, the wise travel card gives you the mid-market rate on every purchase, no costly markups on your bill. Getting paid in dollars for your side gig, avoid hidden fees, and get the real exchange rate every time. With 24/7 access to live support, your international transactions with wise are quick, transparent, and safe. Plus, wise runs over 7 million daily checks to catch and prevent fraud.

Fifty million people already trust wise to manage their money internationally, be smart, get wise. If you travel, wise is a really easy way to send or spend money abroad.

You can use it to charge things directly. You always get the best exchange rate. You don't have

to worry about getting just take it to the cleaners at one of those little kiosks where you exchange money. It's a great service. It's super easy to use. You just download the wise app today or visit wise.com terms and conditions apply. Let's switch gears up into Europe because we've been watching closely for years now like the rise

“of far-right political parties in Europe. The trajectory is felt quite bad for a while. I think”

we were speculating on the show earlier this year that we could be heading towards far-right parties controlling big swath of Germany in 2026 and then even the French presidency in 2027. That obviously could still happen, but there have been some bumps in the road thanks to our president Donald Trump because it turns out that trying to annex Greenland is not that popular. It turns out that starting an idiotic war with Iran is not that popular. Here's some evidence

for you guys. The most obvious impact to Trump's policies come to us from Denmark. Folks probably remember Denmark governs Greenland. The Danish Prime Minister met the Frederickson called early elections to capitalize on her popularity after she got in this big fight with Trump over Greenland. We don't have results as of this recording but going into the race she was seen as the frontrunner and there was a great piece in the Atlantic this week about how

the far-right nationalist populist Danish people's party in Denmark went from super-protehrum to one of its members saying quote, "let me put it in words you might understand Mr. Trump fuck off." So that's a bit of a change. In Italy, Prime Minister Georgian Maloney's right-wing government just lost a judicial reform referendum pretty badly. It was 54 to 46. The underlying issues are pretty technical and wonky so we're just going to skip past them because

“they don't really matter for this. But what you should know is it became seen as a referendum on”

Georgian Maloney and she lost and now she's seeing headlines like this one from political quote, "Referendum defeat brings Italy's Maloney crashing down to Earth." So that's just again, the mood music is bad for her. In Slovenia, there was a parliamentary election over the weekend

but this race has interesting ties to Victor Orvon and Hungary and an organization called Black Cube that is near and dear to our hearts, your possible friends and mine. Yes, so let's put a pin

in that one and come back to it. And then finally Ben, in France, there were a bunch of

municipal municipal elections. The results were a mix bag. The far-right national rally party had some successes but like every party had some successes. The center has had some successes. The left had some, but national rally one seats in smaller towns and smaller cities but failed to win its biggest target, which is Marseille, which is France's second biggest city. And it's also in a region that is a stronghold for the national rally and has been for a while. A manual Greg Warr, the

center left socialist, he won the World On Off election in Paris. National rally continues to do terribly in Paris. But then, you know, interestingly, Ben in previous elections, like the heated defeating the far-right was getting all the parties from the center to the left

“united in opposition. But I was listening to, I think, this BBC political analyst talking about”

how in this past election, a lot of the socialist parties feared better if they rejected the far-left because the far-left has become so toxic under Michel. So it's a bit of a mess. I guess I'm going to choose to take a little bit of hope away from these results while also stealing myself for the reality that, you know, an economic crisis or a migration crisis because of the Iran war is the kind of thing that will fuel the far-right in Europe and also, like, you know, these are very

low turnout elections while the presidential elections see close for the 75-85%. But any takeaways from you, based on what you watched? So a couple of small things and then the big thing, right? So on Slovenia, there are a lot of converging threads here for parts of the world listeners because one thing is black cube is this group of former massade agents that spy on me back in, you know,

the good old days of the first Trump term. And you know, I think widely, they traffic in these

“kind of far-right circles. So they also notably have done some work and hungry over the years”

to discredit Victor Orbans opponents. And so shortly before the election, a few days, a group of journalists and activists in Slovenia did their own investigation and it exposed these black cube ties to the far-right candidate who was way up in the polls in Slovenia. One of them was Nika Kovac, who's a friend of mine, who's been on this podcast before talking about her advocacy on me, productive rights in Europe. And that did not go over well in Slovenia because people saw

it as far-nelection interference. A group of much former massade people make in contact with the far-right there to help him come to power. And so you had this surge at the end for the very progressive prime minister of Slovenia. And you essentially had a photo finish and actually slightly for the progressive. Now, we'll see what happens in government information, et cetera. But a significant underperformance in Slovenia, for the far-right in Slovenia, which is often seen as kind of a bell weather,

you know, of where politics are going in central Europe, particularly head of the Hungarian election in April. So that's good. And Italy, Maloney, you know, these constitutional referendums have often been bellwethers. So material Renzi, for instance, was the more progressive prime minister of Italy at the end of the Obama years. He state a lot on a constitutional referendum to men, you know, the, the, the electoral laws in Italy. He lost. And that was seen

is kind of, you know, letting the air out of the boon for Renzi. He lost the next general election. Now Maloney, you know, kept, she had to kind of odd political strategy with his referendum.

At first, she kind of didn't campaign that hard for it, but then she got involved. She definitely

lost. She lost significantly. And so this kind of or invincibility around her has been punctured. And she's the most talented far-right politician in my area. So by far, and I talked to some friends there who said that in the later last days of the campaign, all the energy, right, in the streets and online was with the opposition. Some of the young people are getting motivated to, you know,

“oppose Maloney. That's a big deal. And so then that leads me to kind of where are we big picture?”

Well, look, this could still go horribly wrong. Like they could still in the French presidential election. They could still make gains in Germany the far-right over time. But we're not seeing that kind of groundswell. Like even in mixed results in France, people were worried there was going to be like this wave of national rally candidates getting elected. That didn't happen. And I think Trump's recklessness and his interventions in European politics are not helping these far-right parties.

Yeah. And that to me is the headline. You know, people can see this is what far-right leadership looks like. And I don't know if I want that. And I certainly don't want Donald Trump and JDans coming over here and trying to mess around on my politics or for that matter, BB Netanyahu and Bat Block U. Yeah, lecturing me and trying to write her and tell us what to do. Ben, did you see who won the mayoral race in the little French town of R.C. Serob? I missed it. Hitler.

Yeah, independent candidate who won his reelection over Zelensky. Antoine Zelensky. This is a real thing that happened in France. Did you find the Charles Hitler? Yeah, I was watching some. What's like French 24? Like some, you do thing and they did a big piece on Chuck E. Hitler. You look like, what that tells me is dream big dreams kids. Because most of you would probably think if your last name is Hitler, you can't run for office.

“But Charles showed the naysayers wrong. Wouldn't you explore a name change if it's there?”

Oh, God. Yeah. If you're a politician, there's a silent age or something. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Anything. Yeah, they're hither, hither. There's much in there in May. Yeah, there's a nice. Yeah, Hank Charles, like flip them around, I don't know anything else.

Finally Ben. So we got a lot of stories, a lot of wars lately like information leaks.

They're flying at us from every direction. Get poor Moestab Bahamane having a sexuality question, as you mentioned earlier, because Wiki leaks publish a report that he saw ED treatment in the UK, the Mossad reported, including that hymns, which is, you know, sponsored this podcast in the Hey, Shaba. We got you covered. We got we got a code for you, buddy. The Mossad was hackin' Iran's traffic camera to track like the springleater through Tehran. The White House had the

infamous signal gate fiasco. But today's up-sex story comes to us via a familiar name to long-time positive of the world listeners. Strava, uh, according to Strava Ben, I do log in drugs. Okay, well, you may make sure it's set on a private, because according to Le Monde, a semen that they're referring to as Arthur went for a jog on the deck of a French nuclear powered aircraft carrier the Charles de Gaulle, uh, and logged his very respectable 4.5 miles and 35 minutes on his smartwatch,

which, unfortunately, was linked to Strava, which was set to public. So anyone who looked could see these little curly cues through the minutes of Iranian, and thus locate the ship, which is a bit of a no-no. Um, when you have the Iranians firing missiles, um, at Diego Garcia or other bases,

you know, 1,000, 1,000 miles away. Um, this was not the first Strava incident. I'm sure you remember

this. We've covered this on the show before. It's been used to pinpoint Joe Biden's travel. Thanks to secret service agents working out, um, uh, so-called Strava heat maps identified the locations of secret U.S. military bases and CIA facilities all over Africa in the Middle East. They've, like, the running routes have been used to identify the exact perimeter of CIA bases in Syria and Afghanistan and the list goes on and on. So just a little advice to Arthur and all the other

Strava fans deployed overseas via stopwatch. So this lit up my Strava group chat talk nice. I was actually on this right away because I am a big deviatee of Strava. I'm actually here on my kid's spring break. You know, you can track your skiing on Strava too. I will show you. All my skiing has been logged. I got vertical feed. I've got a heat map of very large skiing. Um, thankfully, I'm not in a sensitive military theater. I will tell you also that I know some people,

including some friends we have in common who told me that when you go to these deployments,

you know, like in eastern Syria or something where you're like on an air strip basically,

“living in a trailer, the only thing to do is to run. It's not like a mall, you know. So,”

so like these guys get in really good shape because they're just like jogging around this air strip and the Strava thing is probably the only thing interesting for them, like, you know, tracking their times. Yeah. We need to have an encrypted, uh, a Strava app or something. Yeah, listen, I get it. Also, I recently became a Fitbit guy at my proud of it. No, there's a look cool. Absolutely not. Um, do I find it useful? Yes. So here we are.

But yeah, I mean, if I were, um, well, it means like, there's still an underlying problem of if you're jogging with your phone, like someone can track your GPS, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. God only knows what the Russians did. But also, I mean, actually Strava has got, uh, some Russian soldiers got got fucking around and you crane back in the day before anyone knew about it because they were using Strava to, to, you know, I think the messade got got to. So,

I don't know. It's um, Ravenu World out there, buddy. These, these apps are all petting, you know,

“like, I've heard from people in the business set, like, you know, if you want to have a, like,”

people use a grinder to, like, have, like, private chats. You know, like, like, it's just all these ways to penetrate apps and to communicate, to locate, to disparage, you know, all these, all these, all these things, it's a dystopia we live in. Right, or is one good way to penetrate? Uh, okay, we are going to take a quick break. When we come back, we're going to listen to, my conversation with Edward Fisherman, he's the author of choke points, American Power and the

Age of Economic Warfare. We're going to talk about all the economic costs of the war, uh, with a run, the closure of the strait or hummus, all the ways it's exposed, massive economic vulnerabilities for the United States. So stick around for that.

state of your career? Or are you waking up every day wanting to make a move, but not sure how to get

their meeting to talk to you about the success doesn't just happen. The most successful people in the world don't figure out alone. They have mentors, coaches and people guiding them every step of the way. That's where Stravavery.me. Career coaching comes in. Career coaching gives you the clarity, the strategy and the accountability needed to turn your goals into reality, whether it's landing a new job, advancing a new current role or transitioning into a field that you love. With expert guidance,

you'll identify obstacles holding you back, develop a step-by-step plan, and take action with confidence knowing you have a dedicated coach supporting you every step of the way. Instead of relying on guesswork or waiting for the right time, professional coaching helps you take control of your career trajectory, ensuring you make intentional strategic moves towards success. Listen, whether or not you've had a coach, everybody's got a great mentor at work who's helped you grow.

“See the next path forward, the next career step for you. Wouldn't you love that back in your life?”

Go to strawberry.me/world and get 50% off your first coaching session that's strawberry.me/world.

It's like therapy for your career. The country feels like it's falling apart right before our eyes and the people inside it are being silenced. So we're going to East 26th Street and Nicolette Avenue, which is where Alex Pretty was executed by Ice and Border Patrol. That is not a headline. That is a human life and it is all happening right now. Do you worry about your own safety being involved in all this? Yes, but it doesn't really feel like there's another option, you know.

And of course they use a five-year-old child as bait and of course they're doing all these horrible bad things because they don't know what they're doing. They've been told that they're going to get rid of the worst of the worst than they have absolute immunity and they've been told that nothing they do will they ever be held accountable for? On my show runaway country we go where the headlines hit home from communities under threat to the people fighting to be heard.

New episodes of runaway country drop every Thursday, subscribe wherever you get your podcasts or watch on YouTube. On sanctions he's the director of the Center for Geo Economics of the Council on Foreign Relations and the author of choke points American power in the age of economic warfare Edward Fishman, welcome to the show. Thanks for having me on today Tommy. Thank you for doing this. So

we're talking about Iran here in the ongoing closure of the Straitor Homu's and the economic cost of it. The head of the IEA, the International Energy Agency said that this closure of the Straitor Homu's is the greatest threat to global energy quote in history. That sounds bad. Can you help us understand what does that mean exactly and how alarmed we should be about the outlook for the global economy because of this energy supply shortage? Sure. Well I'd say alarmed

“is probably the short answer. The Straitor Homu's is the world's most important maritime choke point.”

Before this war, about 20 percent of global oil and 20 percent of liquified natural gas flowed through the Straitor Homu's on any given day. So that's, you know, two out of every 10 barrels of oil,

two very substantial percentage of global oil supplies. And frankly, we never have had this much

oil come off the global marketplace. You go back to 2022 the last time we had a big oil price bike in the wake of Russia's invasion of Ukraine. We actually didn't even have any supply disruption, but let's say we did. Russia only sells five million barrels of crude oil on another two and a half million barrels of petroleum products each day. So it's less than half of what's being disrupted right now at the Straitor Homu's. So we are dealing with a monumental shock to the global energy system

and there's really not an end in sight so far. Yeah. And then I know that Iran's hit oil refineries and gas facilities in Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Qatar says 17 percent of its export capacity has been damaged, maybe for three to five years to get it all fixed. There's also, you know, some oil fields are calling in force, measure on their contracts. If the war ended tomorrow in the Straitor was fully opened, how long do you think it would take to kind of fix the damage that has

been done already and to kind of get us back to where we were? I mean, to get to a status quo anti, it would take years. I mean, Rosalophone, the LNG facility, you just mentioned in Qatar, is the world's largest LNG facility. And just so to understand, I mean,

“liquified natural gas has become increasingly important since 2022, because Russia, which had been”

exporting a lot of the pipeline gas that went to Europe, has no longer a reliable supplier. And so

into a, you know, to a cool liquid and sent on tankers. Well, a lot of that is coming from Qatar.

And to your point, the Qataris have said that that facility is not going to be back to a hundred percent for several years. But setting that aside, I mean, even just to unwind the snarles and supply chains, it's going to take several months. Iraq has shut in oil, refineries have cut back their runs. And these are really exquisite complicated systems that once you turn them off, they can take quite a long time to turn back on. No, yeah, I've read that, you know, if you

firmly shut a well, it can get clogged, like, pair of in wax can build up. You can, you could take, like, get the blast right hot oil in there to try to free it up. I don't know what the hell I'm talking about. I encourage saving things I've read in the F.T. Has any of that happened yet? Have they,

“have they permanently shut down any wells yet? Or are we still going to get to that point?”

Oh, yeah. Yeah. I mean, Iraq had to shut in wells within a few days. They caught in, of the conflict starting. I mean, it's because a lot of these oil producers, they had already filled up their storage. And if you think about it, you had all of these tankers that are stranded in the Gulf and they have nowhere to go. And so, yes, you've already had a significant percentage of oil shut in. Oh, not good. So, you know, in the U.S. this conversation kind of manifests,

it's often about higher gas prices, right? The gas prices are up a buck nationally or something like that. But internationally, in other parts of the world, it's much worse. Like, there's reporting at about Bangladesh closing universities to conserve electricity. Nepal is rationing, cooking gas, schools are going remote in Pakistan. I think I heard louse has closed down 40% of its gas stations due to just lack of supply. What other things are you hearing about extreme measures?

The countries are having to take. And what do you think happens to these countries if this war drags on for months? Like, they have any other options? So, look, the commonality of a lot of

“those countries you mentioned is they're developing countries. And I think what that shows is that”

even in a scenario where you have a significant shortage of crude oil on the marketplace, rich countries are going to get their oil. They're going to pay higher prices for it in the United States. We're going to feel it in the form of inflation. We could feel it in the form of slowing economic growth as well, depending on how long it lasts. But in developing countries, you actually already have acute shortages. To add to your list, I mean, the Philippines has gone to four day work weeks.

You know, you have government officials being told that they should take the stairs instead of taking elevators. You have already significant, you know, rationing that's going on in other parts of the world. And you can just imagine how much worse this will get. The other thing

just to mention here is the straight-of-war moves is the world's most important maritime

choke point for the energy sector. But it's critical for other industries, too. You know, one-third of fertilizer goes through the straight-of-war moves on a daily basis. So if this last for a long time, it could also create shortages in food supplies. You could see significant humanitarian concerns as well. Yeah, I want to get to that in a second. But your, you were a sanctions expert in the past life. What did you make of the United States, like temporarily removing sanctions on

Iran and allowing them to sell was 140 million barrels of oil? Is that seems a little touch on precedent enough? Yeah, it's a pretty remarkable development. I think just, I'm always hesitant to quantify sanctions relief because, you know, what we control is what's permitted and then the

“market decides what the actual economic relief is. So the only way to compare this apples to apples”

to previous examples of sanctions relief is to look at what was permitted this time versus, for instance, what was permitted under the Iran nuclear deal in 2015. Well, in the Iran nuclear deal in 2015, the United States is nuclear-related secondary sanctions. So we didn't actually relieve any of the primary embargo. The United States wasn't buying oil from Iran. We weren't allowing payments for Iranian oil to go through the U.S. financial system. This license that Trump issued last week

does allow the United States to buy oil from Iran and it does allow Iran to collect payment using the U.S. financial system. So in really important respects, it actually goes beyond the relief that was offered in the 2015 nuclear deal. So if you just consider what kind of an incentive that provides to Iran, you know, a previous generation of Iranian leaders, negotiated away, large parts of their nuclear program and exchanged for sanctions relief. Well, this current group of Iranian

leaders close the state of our moves for three weeks and got just as much, if not more, sanctions relief. So I worry that that has really negative ramifications for whether Iran or frankly other countries are ready to come to the negotiating table with the United States to try to obtain relief from sanctions or other pressure. Yeah, it's not hard to draw the lesson from that example. As you just imagine, I mean, the conversation around the state of our moves is often about oil

and gas shipments and rightly so because it's like what 20% of the, you know, petroleum products

flow through it. But it's also a critical transit point for helium, for a bunch of types of fertilizer,

like why should people care about helium and then talk about the food crisis element of this?

“Yeah, I think those are probably two good ones to focus on helium and fertilizer because they”

kind of affect different parts of the world. So helium is essential for the production of microchips.

You know, these semi-conductors that were relying on to fuel data centers and ultimately help us win the AI race in the United States. Well, if we are short on those microchips because we don't have access to helium, that's going to have significant ramifications for the plans of big tech companies to build out these data centers. And on the stock market, Americans wealth right now is largely tied up in the performance of big tech. And so if this lasts for a long period of time

and prevents data centers for being built because of helium shortages and also, frankly, because a lot of those data centers were scheduled to be built in the Gulf region, a region that's now in the middle of a massive war where you've had a number of data centers

actually attacked by Iran in the last few weeks in countries like the UAE. I mean, that could

have substantial ramifications for the whole AI boom. It could burst AI bubble and have untoward consequences for all of our stock market portfolios in the US and the rest of the

“developed world. I think fertilizer and ramifications for food, I mean, that has really, really”

substantial problems for the developing world because developing countries rely on fertilizer, coming through the straight-of-war moves even more frankly than the developed world. I think Sudan, you know, which is obviously in the midst of a terrible humanitarian crisis right now relies on the straight-of-war moves for over half of its fertilizer needs. So you can just imagine that if this plays out for a long period of time, there could be significant famines that occurs around

the world. Yeah, I'm horribly worried about the food supply shortages and it's just the, of course,

the poorest places on the planet will get hurt the most in the fastest. I mean, on this sort of duality of the point there, you're also seeing, you know, these cities in the Gulf countries in the Gulf take this massive economic hit. Like a place like Dubai, right? It's this economic miracle over the past 50 years. All of a sudden this is a center for banking, for investment, for all these expats. And now people are terrified, right? They're living under assault. There's

“drone strikes on buildings. There's, there's scared shitless. I think the UAE is knocked down”

like something like 2,000 projectiles from Iran. Do you have any sense of, like, what the long-term economic impact could be on a place like Dubai going forward? I mean, maybe it's unknowable, but it does seem like it's been a wake-up call for a lot of people. Yeah, I think this is a real tragedy of this war, because all of those countries you mentioned in the Gulf, including the UAE, I mean, for decades, they have been trying to get out of this situation where they're just

commodities exporters. They're just selling oil and gas, and that's really their entire economic model. And look, many of these countries have had success in recent years, including the UAE in terms of diversifying their economy, you know, moving into higher-value added industries, becoming capital providers, including for, again, the AI race. I worry that this war is going to have lingering consequences for the Gulf region. I think for starters, assuming that the Iranian

regime remains in place, which does feel like the base case scenario right now, absent a massive escalation in the military campaign by the Trump administration, there's going to be some level of arms race that occurs in the Gulf region. There's going to be concern on an ongoing basis about the risk of drone strikes from Iran and missile strikes from Iran. And I worry that companies are going to be reluctant to invest billions of dollars to build things like data centers or

to open, you know, novel industries in the Gulf. So I do worry that a lot of the progress that has been made in cities like Dubai really does hang in the balance right now. So look, the U.S. is real and Iran have been engaged in, you know, some level of warfare for a very long time. Some of it was covert action, but then there's more overt stuff, right? Like the Cosms Old Monty Strike in 2020 was a pretty severe moment. It led to a ballistic missile response from the Iranians,

but at no point did Iran ever close the straight of foreign moves until now. And I'm wondering why you think that is, you know, sort of where maybe they got that idea and whether you think they might now feel like, oh, you know, this is a lever we can pull. And we might pull again going forward, you know, short of the supreme leader being, you know, killed. Yeah, I think one of the puzzles of this war so far, Tommy, is why is it that United States

seems surprised by Iran's closure of the straight of foreign moves? And it's clear that there's probably some shoddy planning that went in. But to give folks a little bit of credit, I think the

lay thousands of sea mines and make the straight physically impossible. Make it difficult for any ship to get through, less they're, you know, potentially blow up by virtue of, you know, stumbling upon a sea mine. Well, the thing is that the U.S. didn't think Iran would take that step because, of course, if you had thousands of mines in the straight of foreign moves, Iran wouldn't

“be able to sell its oil, you know, so I think the assumption was Iran's not going to commit”

economic suicide in order to mine the straight of foreign moves. Well, guess what? They found a different way to do it. Just by using these cheap drones and missiles and attacking about a dozen or so ships, they really haven't actually attacked that many vessels. Right. They've been able to change the risk calculus of the entire global shipping industry. They've effectively established themselves as this psychological gatekeeper over the straight of foreign moves. And it's interesting because in

some ways they learn the lesson from America's own sanctions. If you think about how the United States bent the financial system to its will over the last two decades, it wasn't through sanctioning every single bank doing business with Iran. It was only sanctioning a handful of them. I remember when I was working on this issue in the Obama administration and we were trying to persuade China to reduce their purchases of Iranian oil, we only sanctioned one small Chinese bank,

Bank of Kundland in 2012. And that was enough to get all the other banks in China to fall in line, to shape the risk calculus of the financial sector. Iran has now pulled off something similar with the global energy industry, with the global shipping industry. And I think that so long

“is this regime stays in place. That threat is going to be there. And that's why right now they're”

going so far as to demand payment, demand toll, basically, for ships going through the straight

of foreign moves. It's really remarkable. And so look, the final question for you. I mean, Iran is debatably winning a war against the United States in Israel, simply by closing the straight of foreign moves. China won a trade war with the United States, simply by blocking the export of rare earth minerals that we in the U.S. need for electronics of all kinds from cell phones to drones. Is this the future of warfare? And if so, like there are other like Achilles

heels, you're seeing out there for the U.S. that you think we should be talking about? Short answer is yes. I mean, this is why I saw fit to write a book called "Choke Points" about economic warfare. Living in a hyperglobalized economy with all of these sort of single points of failure, you are really handing over a whole lot of economic leverage to all different kinds of countries around the world. We saw last year what China can do when it throttles the

global supply of rare earth minerals. It got the Trump administration to completely reverse its China policy. I mean, this pivot on China that was ushered in during the first Trump term to be more hawkish to cut off their supplies of semiconductors to impose tariffs. All of that right now is in the process of being walked back because China weaponized a choke point against the United States. Well, now Iran has pulled off something similar by weaponizing the air control of the world's

most important maritime choke point, the straight-of-war moves. They've completely changed the

Trump administration's war aims. You know, they've escalated between regime change, denuclearization, military degradation. Well, now they have one arboral arching aim. That's re-opening the straight, which is fighting on Iran's terms. There are many other choke points in the global economy.

“I think one that worries me especially now, if you look at kind of the longer term consequences of”

this war, to me, one of the easiest bets right now is to think that many, many countries around the world are going to trip down on efforts to electrify their economies. To go solar, to adopt electric vehicles, battery technologies. Well, guess what? China dominates all of those industries. Yeah. Every single one. So even if we're okay at home, living on fossil fuels till the end of time, if all of our allies in Europe and Asia completely embrace electric technologies and China dominates

90 percent of most of those industries, that hands China heck of a whole lot of choke points, that it will be able to use to leverage against American allies. That's not to say they shouldn't electrify. It's to say that here in the United States, we really need to wake up and start competing

with China in these industries of the future. Yeah. Never mind if they take Taiwan and TSMC and all of a sudden,

there's no chips. There you go. That's another choke point for you. Two many choke points. The book is choke points American power in the age of economic warfare. Edward Fishman, thank you so much for doing the show. Really important stuff, and I appreciate it. Yeah, my pleasure. Good to see you. Thanks again to Edward Fishman for joining the show, and I will be gone next week. I'm like Ben. I'm too lazy to work on my kid's spring break. So, but I'll see you guys a week after

that. So I'll miss you. I'll be here with Elona. Oh, yeah. Hold him down before. We're going to crash. Yeah. Pot-Safe World is a crooked media production. Our senior producer is Elona Minkowski. Our producer is Michael Goldsmith. Our associate producer is Enisha Bonnergy. We get production support from Saul Rubin,

mixed and edited by Jordan Canterr. Audio support by Kyle Segland and Charlotte Landis.

Thank you to our digital team, Ben Hethcote, Mia Kalman, William Jones, David Tolls, Ryan Young, Matt DeGroat is our head of production. Adrian Hills are senior vice president of Dues and Politics.

“If you want to listen to Pot-Safe World, add free and get access to exclusive podcast,”

go to crooked.com/friends to subscribe, and supercast, sub-stack, YouTube, or Apple Podcasts.

Don't forget to follow us at crookedmedia on Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter for more original content, host takeovers and other community events. Please subscribe to Pot-Safe World on YouTube,

“for access to full episode, bonus content, and much more. If you're opinionated to like us,”

leave a review. A production staff is probably unionized by the writer's guild of America East.

The country feels like it's falling apart right before our eyes and the people inside it are being silenced. So we're going to East 26th Street and Nicolet Avenue, which is where Alex Freddy was executed by Ice and Border Patrol. That is not a headline. That is a human life,

“and it is all happening right now. Do you worry about your own safety being involved in all this?”

Yes, but it doesn't really feel like there's another option, you know. And of course they use a five-year-old child as bait. And of course they're doing all these horrible bad things because they don't know what they're doing. They've been told that they're going to get rid of the worst of the worst, then they have absolute immunity, and they've been told that nothing they do will they ever be held accountable for. On my show runaway country, we go where

the headlines hit home from communities under threat to the people fighting to be heard. New episodes of runaway country drop every Thursday, subscribe wherever you get your podcasts, or watch on YouTube.