Trump Buying Greenland? Venezuela's 50M Barrels, Newsom's Fraud Probed + Iran On The Brink | PBD 714
Patrick Bet-David, Tom Ellsworth, Vincent Oshana, and Adam Sosnick break down Trump’s controversial plan to buy Greenland amid global pushback, the U.S. securing up to 50 million barrels of Venezuelan oil, the looming fraud probe into Gavin Newsom’s administration, and escalating unrest in Iran.
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TIME STAMP:
00:00 - Show intro
01:19 - Topics coming up on the podcast.
07:16 - 👞 GET THE NEW FLB 1'S: https://bit.ly/4mXV9gd
09:16 - Trump takes on affordability crisis.
26:41 - Dollar faces biggest drop in decades.
37:05 - Trump takes 50M barrels of Venezuelan oil.
49:39 - Russian oil tanker seized by the U.S.
59:57 - Michael Burry predicts China takes Taiwan.
1:13:57 - Homeownership in NY the lowest in the country.
1:22:45 - Trump wants to buy Greenland.
1:30:08 - $10B in Minnesota funding frozen over fraud fears.
1:46:25 - Iranians protest Khamenei's regime.
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ABOUT US:
Patrick Bet-David is the founder and CEO of Valuetainment Media. He is the author of the #1 Wall Street Journal Bestseller “Your Next Five Moves” (Simon & Schuster) and a father of 2 boys and 2 girls. He currently resides in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida.
You want to push it on something second chase sweet with story?
No this life means the future looks bright.
Handshake is better than anything I ever saw.
It's right here.
You are a one of one.
I don't think I've ever said this before.
All right, folks.
It's as if every day you're looking at the news.
It's just getting thicker and thicker and thicker.
There's so many things to talk about right now.
Yesterday we had the best strategy kickoff meeting ever in the history of Bedevic Consulting.
It was all day.
It was a phenomenal, phenomenal meeting.
We ended up very, very late at night.
Those who were there, you know exactly what I'm talking about.
A lot coming out soon here.
But we got a lot of stories.
We got, again, three of the smartest brains out there in Florida.
Okay.
We were able to figure out a way to do it.
And then Robin and I decided to join him.
We got Brandon, Snyder, and Ellsworth here with us.
Brandon, you're like Madonna.
You just have a first name.
Thank you.
You're so big.
We don't even have to say Madonna's last name.
What is Madonna's last name?
Nobody knows.
You're like Prince.
You're like Madonna.
So just Brandon.
That's good territory.
Thank you.
Yes, it's a great place to be.
It's a great place to be with Madonna.
But maybe 30 years ago.
But okay, so this story here, a few things on what's going on, folks.
Trump just came out and said, look, Venezuela is going to give up 50 million barrels of oil to U.S.
Okay.
And China comes out and says, wait a minute, what are you talking about?
That's ours.
So there's this fight going on.
Remember the key word that Rubio used, Western hemisphere.
Very soon, Rubio could be the head of state of four different places.
He could be running Gaza, Venezuela, and Iran if it goes the way it is going right now with the decisions he has to make.
But that guy's got a very busy schedule.
But Trump says 50 million barrels is going to the U.S.
And Polymarket decides to refuse paying out bets that U.S. would invade Venezuela because the word invade.
So that's a very interesting.
Now it's getting a little bit technical on how they have to pay out, right?
The key word invade.
It wasn't an invasion.
They came and took him out, right?
Yeah, it's a question.
Let's talk about it.
Yeah, we'll definitely talk about it.
Rubio tells lawmakers Trump wants to buy Greenland.
We don't know if it's on sale or not.
I went on eBay the other day.
I didn't see Greenland for sale.
I went on realtor.com.
Zillow couldn't find it, but maybe they're on a different website we don't have access to.
John Harbaugh, for some of you guys that follow sports, did you ever think he was going to get fired from the Ravens?
I never thought it was going to happen, but this field goal kicker fired John Harbaugh.
If that field goal goes in, I don't know if the guy's getting fired.
So should they fire the kicker?
Should they fire him?
Who knows?
He says he's got eight job offers already.
And we'll get into that if we have a chance to get into it.
Yeah.
So what did I say?
Did I say it's a kicker, right?
No, no, but I'm saying, to be fair, it was a rookie kicker.
It doesn't matter what your first 43, Tom, it's 43 yards.
I could have gone.
Dylan would have kicked a 43 yard.
Now, listen, sometimes we talk like that, but that's part of fanning screaming and arguing.
And it's a different time.
Prediction markets show rising odds.
Trump seizes Panama Canal and moves on Greenland, which, by the way, that was the deal with Hutchinson that China came in and said, no, no, no, you can't get those 47, what's it, 47 ports?
And two of them were the main ones that they were going to get, right?
A couple of the ports were in Mexico, but the deal was stopped.
Trump administration, ready for this one?
A lot of people, Jeff, in Minnesota are not happy about this.
Devastated because small business owners are going to be impacted by this.
Trump administration is freezing $10 billion in child and family aid to five states over fraud concerns.
And by the way, you know what they said?
Fraud investigation of California has begun.
California.
What do you mean fraud investigation?
It just began.
And NVIDIA CEO says he doesn't care about California's proposal, billionaire tactics.
I'm okay with it.
Although Bill Ackman has some comments on it and some thoughts on it.
Iran on the brink as protesters move to take two cities, appeal to Trump.
You should see they have Trump's name stickers all over streets.
They're renaming streets after Trump in Farsi.
Just a very interesting spectacle.
Reza Palavi came out and gave a message to the Iranian people.
I've made so many new Iranian friends.
It's been incredible.
The amount of love I've gotten after I called that Reza Palavi.
The DMs are beautiful.
You guys are so beautiful, so respectful, this entire community.
It's been a great experience talking to them.
All I care about is for Iran to be free again.
So the people who live there, the people who live there, who live in Iran, my goal is to see them be free so one day we can go to Iran and visit the city, the beautiful history that it has.
Rob's been asking about going to Iran for a while.
And listen, I like to have people's dreams become a reality.
He's been begging for this for three years.
I'm like, Rob, I don't know if it's going to be tomorrow or the next day, but just wait patiently.
Maybe it'll happen.
God willing, it'll happen here some oil and Russia.
Something's going on over there, right?
Did you see the ships coming in and kind of like, hey, if you're going to come this far, we're going to come and protect.
They're worried about maybe the next Nord Stream pipeline.
They're being a little bit paranoid right now, which kind of makes sense because there's a lot on the line.
White House laser focused on affordability, which is probably the issue we'll start off with today as Trump softens tariff strategy.
The dollar, Snyder, I'm going to come to you on this one.
The U.S. dollar set for the biggest drop in a decade after trade war.
I know you've talked a lot about the Euro dollar, zero dollar.
So I kind of want to hear your thoughts on this as well.
Michael Burry from Big Short says markets are missing a trick as the Venezuela rate just changed the game.
What the hell is he talking about?
We'll address that.
Trump warns Iran that U.S. will rescue protesters.
What does that mean?
In an interview with Wall Street Journal, Reza Palavi was asked, are you for U.S. intervention to come and help out?
And he flat out says, we don't need a single boot of your military on the ground in Iran.
Okay.
Now, I don't know if Iranians agree with that.
I mean, that's what he's saying.
I don't know if Iranians are sitting there saying, wait a minute, for 47 years, we haven't gotten a single boot and it's not been free.
Do we want it?
Do we not want it?
Do Americans want it?
So it's a lot of topics there that we can address and hopefully we'll get into it.
And then India issues.
Trump warns of higher tariffs on India over Russian oil purchases.
U.S. dollars set for the biggest drop in a decade.
Ackman, we'll talk about that.
U.S. economy expected to grow faster in 2026, despite stagnant job market.
Goldman Sachs says nearly half of Americans feel financially behind as 2025 comes to a close.
Chili's trolls, fast food giants with 1099 burger.
Brandon is upset, so we'll talk about that.
And then we got a couple other things going on with Canada, open AI and reports, Netflix.
Tom wants to talk about this issue of 41% of Netflix's shows for kids have LGBTQ community within them.
Having said that, folks, since September 9th or 10th, even when we went to Aspen, I keep telling you this.
I have been wearing the same exact shoes.
I'm not kidding with you.
This sounds crazy, doesn't it?
It has to be.
It's the only thing that I wear every single day.
And I show you every single time.
This is on, right?
Future Looks Bright shoes.
We are now seeing this in 20.
I think we just hit 25 or 26 countries that it's been ordered in.
If you're somewhere in the world watching this, you haven't placed an order yet.
Go ahead.
But here's a Future Looks Bright shoes.
Rob, go ahead and play the clip.
When we set out to create a shoe that blends comfort, function, and luxury, we had the choice to make it fast.
We had the choice to make it cheap.
We chose neither.
Instead, we chose Tuscany Italy.
We chose true Italian craftsmanship, each pair touched by 50 skilled hands.
We chose patience, spending two years perfecting every detail, and we chose the finest quality at every step, introducing the Future Looks Bright collection.
Not rushed, not disposable, not ordinary.
Rather intentional, luxurious, timeless.
All right, so guys, it's officially on the fourth order.
This is how quickly this thing's going right now.
We were not expecting for a shoe, but it has become such a big hit.
And the biggest thing is people come to this page and they compare it to the Berluti, the Ferragamo, the Zenia, the Gucci, and you look at the FLB and what it offers with the superfoam technology at the bottom of it and the craftsmanship made in Tuscany, Italy, at five factories.
If you haven't placed an order for yourself or your husband or your son or somebody, go place an order.
They will fall in love with the shoes.
Go read the reviews on the website for yourself only from people who purchase the shoes and enjoy it.
They'll come back to you saying this is the most comfortable thing I've ever worn.
Go to vtmerch.com, place your order.
And having said that, let's get right into it.
First issue I want to get into.
White House laser focused on affordability as Trump softens tariff strategy.
Okay, so there's two stories like, well, you know, affordability is just a Democrat hoax.
It's not a real thing.
No one's really dealing with that.
It's just a bunch of BS.
But behind closed doors, apparently, guys, we got to get this affordability thing scored away as we're going through this next phase.
So the Trump administration is ramping down tariffs for even more goods as the White House zeroes in on its messaging around affordability.
The White House announces Wednesday that tariffs slated to kick in Thursday as furniture, kitchen cabinets, and vanities would be postponed for another year.
This indicates that on some level, the White House understands that President Trump's tariffs are driving up consumer prices and that Trump and the Republican Party are incurring substantial political damage from higher prices.
Michael Strain said the White House slapped a 25% tariff on furniture, kitchen cabinets and vanities.
And October tariffs on furniture were slated to increase to 30% in January and tariffs on the cabinets and vanities were set to increase to 50%.
But they're trying to figure out something going on here with affordability.
Tom, your thoughts on the story.
Well, first of all, we were correct.
We talked about this and we said that the tariffs, and we said at the beginning of the year, they would be tactics, not taxes.
And guess what?
All the economists come out and so surprised.
Oh, wow, you know, it really hasn't gone up.
It hasn't been as inflationary as we thought.
Even the Fed, Jerome Powell, you know, the short timer who's about to lose his job, has said that.
And what's happening this week is the president is talking more about affordability to kind of take the messaging back from the Democrats who keep saying, oh, it's inflationary, inflationary.
If you look at one of the things that was happening this week, it was a bunch of pre-made construction stuff.
These are things that, you know, average Americans buy every week, not vanities, kitchen cabinets, higher-end furniture.
Come on.
Those aren't the things that people are buying every week.
And that's not what tariffs are going to cause inflationary.
As a matter of fact, he moved on some agricultural tariffs that were in Italy.
And it took the tariffs down to 1.2% on certain Italian pastas.
So the pastas that are coming in, it was less than one seventh of our sales tax.
So what's happening right now, point one, the president hears these messages.
Democrats are trying to push on affordability.
So now he's fighting back saying, hey, it wasn't inflationary in the first place.
And I'll tell you what, let me suspend this tariff over here, this tariff here that was on kitchen vanities, cabinets, and things that you would use for remodels.
And Americans aren't really doing that right now, right?
There's not a lot of remodeling going on.
You see the quarterly reports from Home Depot and Lowe's.
But energy is down.
Heating oil is down for the winter.
And also, he just did like what he did on the imported Italian pasta.
They got like a 1% tariff coming over there.
So he's getting the joke that he can't just say to the microphone, oh, affordability is a headline issue that's being spun by the Democrats.
No, there's some reality to it because the prices haven't come back down from Biden inflation.
And so now the White House and the president are out there speaking to it to counter the message of the Democrats.
And yes, certain things, like Italian pastas, came down a little bit.
Jeff, your thoughts on this?
Yeah, this is not a messaging thing.
And the fact that they try to treat it as a messaging problem shows that they're still kind of out to lunch.
You're saying it's a real thing.
It is absolutely a real thing.
And, you know, the original problem here that Republicans had specifically is they came in last year or the year before, sorry, it's 2025 or 2026 now.
They came in the year before and said, we're going to bring prices down.
Well, in economics, prices don't go down.
That was a mistake to begin with.
When prices went up back in 21 and 22, that was a permanent change.
You can't go backwards.
Every supply shock in history, prices go up in a step fashion and then they level off where they are at a new step fashion or the new equilibrium and they stay there.
So what Republicans should have said is: you want to blame Biden for that?
Fine.
Biden made you poor.
Now we're going to try to fix it, not by getting prices to go down because they will not go down.
They should have been clear on that.
Prices will never go down again.
We are never going to see 2019 prices again.
So what we're going to try to do is our absolute best to make sure the jobs market is as strong and as resilient as matching the rhetoric coming from all these different economists in the Federal Reserve.
So that what happens is what should have happened if we had a strong economy, that you have prices that went up in 21 and 22 or back then, five years ago, and then incomes rise to, first of all, meet prices and then exceed them.
What happens first?
What happens first?
Income cost of goods goes up first, then income rises.
That is the typical thing.
In this case, because prices were forced higher by government action, it was a non-come has to be forced to increase.
Income should naturally go up.
If there was an actual recovery from the pandemic and the lockdowns, then incomes would naturally rise over enough time that it would equalize with the prices from 21 and 22 and then exceed them.
So even though the cost of a car is now $50,000 instead of $30,000, you have more than enough income to pay for it.
And so we all get used to the new higher prices, and it doesn't become a major problem.
But is that happening?
No, that's the problem.
What really happened was prices went up massively in 21 and 22, and incomes never caught up.
This is what people are talking about when they talk about inflation and affordability.
It's not about the price of a dryer or something that's gone up in the last year.
It's the price of everything that went up five years ago and incomes never went up enough for people to call back.
Whose fault is that too?
How do you address it?
Whose fault is that?
It's the government's fault.
They created the pandemic and the lockdowns.
And then because of the pandemic.
Mr. Biden one day did the pandemic and the lockdown.
You got to forget it was also Trump.
It was the spending was on both sides.
Spending was on both sides.
It was on both sides.
Yeah, it was both sides.
I mean, you got to blame both sides for this part.
On lockdown?
Sure.
And spending.
And the printing.
Who locked down on Trump?
2020?
Two weeks to flatten the curve?
That was in Trump's watch.
Right.
The lockdown.
But it wasn't a.
So you're not talking about the lockdown that happened under Biden?
No, the repeated, the repeated, you know, the repeated emergency pandemic measures, that was absolutely devastating.
That's where really the price changes came from.
Because what happened is you had the economy starting to come back from the lockdowns.
So there's more demand that was rising, but at the same time, supply, the supply side of the economy was hindered by all those emergency measures and logistics.
They printed more money.
Not money printing.
Not money printing.
What happened was it's called a supply shock, which is an imbalance between demand and supply.
So you have demand and supply that completely plummeted during lockdowns.
When they came back, demand started to come back, but supply couldn't.
It was restrained.
People were home.
They couldn't work.
We couldn't get stuff shipped from overseas.
So demand came back faster than supply.
This is basic economics.
What happens when demand is growing faster than supply is?
The only way to reconcile those is prices have to rise.
Think about it as an auction process.
If you have an auction where a ton of people show up and there's only a couple sellers, the sellers are going to get huge prices for it.
So because supply was restricted, that's why it's called supply shock, prices had to rise to meet for the rising demand.
Now, what should have happened, what the government said was going to happen, was that we are going to do all these stimulus plans.
We're going to give money to people.
And what that's going to do is that's going to temporarily stimulate the economy so that the process I talked about, where incomes would start to rise and then slowly over time, they would offset and exceed price changes.
But that never happened because stimulus never really actually stimulates.
How do you address it now?
How do you address it now is we've got to get the labor market back working again, which means the economy needs to hit some kind of equilibrium coming off of that three years ago, four years ago, where it was artificially stimulated in all the worst ways.
Now it has to clear out all the bad stuff, including the stuff we're going to talk about here with fraud.
I mean, fraud and government waste was a huge part of stimulating the economy, which is the worst way to try to create a sustainable economic growth pattern.
You don't create growth from waste and fraud and inefficiency and unproductivity.
So we've got to clean all that stuff out and let the economy start growing.
It's like the same reason why you cut back all your weeds in your garden, all the bad growth.
You got to get rid of that.
That's what a recession is for.
So there's a couple of things here.
First of all, I agree that there was this cataclysmic jump in prices that happened under Biden.
And you can argue whether it started at Trump, but you can certainly look at the charts and it went nuts under Biden.
And there's a lot of core products that probably aren't going to be able to come down.
Energy is one where the president can help it get down.
I mean, look what Biden did.
Biden depleted the SPR, Strategic Petroleum Reserve, to artificially drop gasoline prices.
Which never happened.
They used the SPR and it didn't actually get oil prices to go down.
Correct.
But it's what he said he was doing.
Instead, it just depleted it.
But again, that's all just, it's the messaging.
We need to do something to appear to be doing something.
Right.
He didn't do anything.
What Trump is doing something, and you can look at the price of gas outside of the blue states where it have the artificial cap taxes.
California's got $1.90 cap tax on the true price of gas.
So you take a look at what you'd pay, say, in Texas, Alabama, even New Jersey, and then put $1.90 on it, the California cap tax.
And that's why it's $5 in California and $2.99 in other states.
So the president can push down on energy, but this president needs to talk about affordability to blunt what's happening with the Democrats.
That's the messaging thing.
What you're saying, solution, I agree the solution isn't messaging, but in one year, you're not going to have a 30% increase in American income.
That is, by the way, we're going to say in the world it's hyperinflation, right?
If everybody's income goes up, then all the companies are going to be able to do it.
That's why it happens over time.
What I'm arguing for is that from the president and political perspective is that what they should do is be honest.
They should just be honest and say, look, we're not going to get prices to go back.
That's not how economics works.
So we're not even going to try.
That's not our goal here.
Do you think any president would say that the other thing is that the future is fancy and I can't fix it?
I'm not even going to try.
No, that's what I'm saying.
No, I'm saying is we need to go in another direction.
It's not your saying is we're officially in a new reality.
The new reality is.
The new reality is $50,000 a year cars instead of $30,000.
So then, but what do you do with that?
How do you address that?
You're not going to get the cars to go pricing.
I understand that.
That's what I'm saying to you.
So when you're saying, so is the solution to it?
The messaging, if you want to go to the messaging, the messaging needs to be.
And I'm not talking messaging.
I could care less about messaging.
What I care about is results.
I want to find out what do you do.
The strongest job market that we can possibly have.
That's the only way to get out of this is to make sure that incomes grow in a fashion that pays for all of those price changes from five years ago.
How do we get jobs growing again?
We need a lot of things to take place.
But among them is we need the banking sector to be more efficient and actually start making loans again instead of just lending to BlackRock and the most liquid most liquid borrowers out there.
We need a more efficient banking sector.
We need a more efficient monetary system.
We also need, like I said, we got to get the government out of the economy.
The government is the biggest impediment because the government is all fraud, waste, and inefficiency.
I agree with that, but you've just – can you hear me?
Yeah.
Yeah, I agree with that, but you can't fix every layer of the lasagna all at once.
I'm not arguing that we should.
What I'm saying is the government should come clean and say, look, we're not going to focus on prices because that's a lost cause.
They should be honest about that.
That's a lost.
Prices are never going to go backward.
Prices of what?
Prices of everything.
Just general prices.
Houses, houses.
Yes, you saw the article that came out saying with gas prices being where it's at right now, it's saving Americans a half a billion dollars.
I don't know if you saw that number or not.
Yeah, I mean, the wholesale price of gasoline at the CME is $1.70 a gallon.
That's where it is right now, which is the lowest it's been in five years.
What's actually not a good thing?
What about the deflationary innovation, though?
Like the way that a flat screen TV started off at $10,000 and now say it's $200.
So there's examples of things going down in price.
Yeah, there's always individual items that go down in price and tradable commodities can go up and down in price.
Sure.
But we're talking about goods that usually, the economists use the term sticky.
This is what sticky really applies to, which means that when prices go up, they tend to stay there.
But the things that are a killer, though, is like electricity, food, housing.
I think those are the core things that people really get upset about if those are unaffordable.
And I mean, I think the problem, too, is like, I think deficit spending in general is a bigger example of what happened during COVID.
Like that M2 money supply chart I sent you, Rob.
Like, so this is the amount of money in the economy.
And like, obviously, it went up a ton in 2020, but just the fact that we're spending like an extra trillion dollars per year than what we actually have, like, that's the creation of new money.
I know it's not money printing.
It's like the treasury issuing new debt, but that's adding new money into the economy.
That's artificially increasing demand.
So, you know, of course, things are going to be more expensive if we're putting more money in the economy every year.
And that's such a waste of capital too, by the way.
Like the Fed created an extra $9 trillion of money on its balance sheet.
So that went to banks.
So why aren't banks using those loans efficiently?
Are they just sitting on that money?
Yeah, what they've been doing is buying U.S. Treasuries because they're risk averse.
So we need risk-taking in the economy, which can't happen because of all this other stuff.
I think the one part that you talked about, which I agree with.
Rob, can you pull up the number of banks in the history of America over the years, how many we had and how many we are now?
Small banks.
That's exactly a small bank.
Just banks, total banks in America.
If you go to, yeah, while you're doing that, I'll look up the reports.
But the question becomes of prices, like you said, you know, flat screen TVs went from $10,000.
You can buy a TV right now for $400 or $500.
I can't believe how cheap it is right now to buy a, yeah, so what does it say?
It says 4,000 commercial banks in the U.S. 2023.
Okay, so let's just say around 3917, according to FDIC, the number of banks peaked in the 20th century with estimates typically around 29,400, 30,400.
That's before the Great Depression.
But even at 1980s, we had 14,000 banks to go from 14,000 banks to 3,917, no longer lending money to small business owners to start because the underwriting becomes tighter.
They want the bigger deals.
They want the bigger business.
I can see this happening.
I can see this happening.
But, you know, the other part is as well where the incentive comes about, let's develop cheaper cars, okay?
More cost-effective cars.
Let's develop housing.
that's going to be more cost-effective.
How do you do that?
Innovation, this is a time where innovation can really lead.
But go to that chart right there, Rob.
Go to that chart right there.
Look at that.
I mean, that tells a whole story right there.
Consolidation.
Look at that.
That's not good.
Yeah, it wasn't a contraction.
It was a roll-up.
Yeah, it was a roll-up.
That's exactly what it is.
It's all mergers.
It's all mergers.
And the consumer wins there.
Look how sudden it is from 1980.
So why, by the way, why is that sudden from 1980, though?
If you look at the number, it's 50, 60, 70, 80s, and then it drops.
Yeah, the reason why is because of international consolidation.
You have international competition.
So we internationalized the monetary system starting in the 50s, 60s, and 70s.
And by the 1980s, it became hyper-international, which meant that you don't have a small regional bank in a local U.S. location competing with other small regional banks in that same location.
Now you have large-scale banks in Switzerland and Japan and Asia competing with the large banks on Wall Street.
And those are the only banks that they suck up all the money and oxygen.
And it is a big bank.
What do you do?
You buy all the smaller ones.
It's the cheapest way to continue to grow and scale.
The average person watching this, what can they do?
What can they do?
What can the average person do?
As far as you're talking about prices, economy?
To fight against this, to fight against the business.
Last time I was here, you talked about is invest in yourself.
Make sure that you are individually doing everything you can to maximize your own talent.
So whatever prices are due and whatever the, you know, you're not affected by it.
You are affected by it, but you're better able to handle it.
If you're investing in yourself and raising your own income potential, then you can handle higher prices.
I agree.
I mean, this is terrible.
This is horrible stuff.
But I mean, it's the reality.
The reality is we can't change it.
We can't go backwards.
So let's be honest about it and deal with it moving forward.
To your point about wages, you've got a couple of things that are going to happen this year.
And that you're going to hear headlines that are more and more talking about like job retraining and displacement.
And you're going to hear going to the election, no, the labor market's actually better than people think.
But we have some people in the wrong places and robots are taking over the warehouse jobs.
So those people need different training and need to be other places.
You're going to hear about displacement, geographic labor shortage, and job retraining, which is all messages that's true, but they're going to be trying to say, hey, better paying jobs are available here, here, and here.
Because remember, it's election year.
Yeah, so let's go to this.
And Jeff, I'm going to come to you with this one here.
U.S. dollar set for the biggest drop in a decade after Trump's trade war.
Again, we're on the same topic, but it's now the dollar.
People are concerned.
Is there a real issue here or not?
Here's what it means for your wallet, folks that are listening.
Okay, so let's go through it.
Here's what it means for your wallet.
Jake, if you need to do your thing, do it now because I'm going to go to Jeff first.
Okay.
Yeah.
So here's since January, the dollar index, which measures the strength of the U.S. dollar against six major currencies, including the Euro yen, the pound is down about 10%.
That's the biggest tumble for the dollar since 2017.
Some everyday products are set to get more expensive.
At the same time, the dollar slump could help American companies sell more abroad and even support job growth.
Below are cover them in full economists point to two main drivers behind the slide.
Donald Trump, global trade war, and Federal Reserve three interest rate cuts, the tariffs, the highest since 1930s and averaging around 14 to 18% combined with lower interest rates have made the dollar less attractive to global investors, pushing its value down.
For U.S. shoppers, the most immediate downside shows up at the checkout counter when the dollar weakens.
It takes more cash to buy goods made overseas and reiterates usually pass those costs on to their consumers, retailers.
That means imported products like iPhones, laptops, TV, assembled abroad are more likely to see a price hike if the dollar decline continues.
Clothes, shoes, furniture, and even new cars and replacement auto parts can also become more expensive, particularly when they're sourced from Asia or Europe.
Jeff.
Oh, there's a lot there.
And you're right in my wheelhouse, too.
There's a lot of misconceptions there.
First of all, DXY-Dixie is not the dollar index.
It's the one that everybody knows and that's what everybody follows.
But as you said, it's basically the Euro.
It's 57% the Euro.
And the Euro has had a good year against the dollar.
But even the overall narrative misses a lot of context.
And a lot of context is the dollar had a major spike at the end of last year in the early part of this year.
So the base comparison's off to begin with.
The dollar isn't crashing.
This isn't even actually going lower.
The dollar is down from extreme levels earlier this year.
They matter in certain situations like the U.S. dollar versus the Canadian dollar.
But you look at, say, for example, the Japanese yen versus the U.S. dollar.
The Japanese, the Bank of Japan is raising rates.
JGB yields are going up.
At the same time, U.S. rates are going down and the yen is weakening.
The yen is weakening by a lot.
And there are actually a lot of currencies around the world that are actually weakening by a lot against the U.S. dollar.
What does that actually mean?
What does the U.S. dollar actually tell us?
It's not about interest rate differentials.
It's about monetary flows.
The U.S. dollar is a global financial bellwether.
It tells us when conditions in the monetary system globally are either good and improving or going in the wrong direction.
When the dollar goes up, not a good sign.
That means that money is becoming tighter and flows are being constrained and restricted.
The dollar surged earlier in 2025.
If you remember the chaotic marketplace, you know, they blamed it on tariffs for really a lot of different reasons.
But you had, you know, the stock market was down March and April.
You had commodities being liquidated.
What was the dollar doing during that liquidation, that deflationary period?
The dollar was spiking.
So the dollar was going up as we got extreme monetary conditions.
Now, after things calmed down after April into the summertime, the dollar backed off.
It wasn't crashing.
It wasn't signaling a new paradigm shift that everybody's moving away from the dollar.
This narrative of sell America came up.
That wasn't happening.
The dollar was coming back down off of a deflationary extreme.
And then it settled down.
And against most currencies, not the Euro, it has actually been moving higher again.
A couple of notable exceptions, the Euro as well as the Chinese Yuan.
But for most major currencies, the dollar is actually going higher and they're going lower, which again is not a good sign.
It means financing conditions are tightening all over again.
So there is a lot of misconceptions about what the dollar is actually signaling.
As far as its impact on the U.S. economy, you know, there's this old economics textbook narrative about beggar thy neighbor.
You cheapen your currency.
It makes your exports cheaper to sell overseas, right?
That doesn't actually happen.
When we see the dollar go up, that usually means that demand is weak overseas to begin with.
So even if it's cheaper to sell stuff overseas when the dollar goes down, it's not actually a good thing anyway.
It means that global economic circumstances in very broad terms are less than ideal and getting worse.
So there's a lot of misconceptions when it comes to the dollar.
Brandon, where are you at with this?
Yeah, no, I agree with a lot of that.
And I think a lot of it is like the fact that we're in like an international contraction, and that's a lot of it.
Like Europe has been raising their rates and we've been cutting our rates.
I don't think we should be cutting our rates.
And I think a lot of it goes back to the fact that, like, I don't think that we're in a real market-based system.
We're in, like, I would almost call it a socialist-based system where, like, we have this board of governors who're controlling the price of money and the amount of money that's in the economy.
And I think that's the fundamental problem with all of it.
Like, we don't have marketing conditions impacting what the price of money is.
We have a group of people deciding what the price of money is.
And until that changes, I don't think that we're going to get a real healthy functioning economy.
I think that's really not.
I mean, that's not the root of all, but that's not going to change.
I think it's the root of all of our problems, though.
Right.
You really trace all problems back to the fact that the price of money is the most important thing in the economy.
And right now, it's a socialist structure, how the price of money is determined.
But do you think that's going to change?
No, but I think that's the root problem of everything.
I totally get the root problem, but is it going to change?
Is the question.
Tom, your thoughts.
So there's a couple angles here.
To kind of just sort it all out.
For the average consumer, it is good when the dollar is stable, because the dollar is what everybody looks to as a when you hear the words reserve currency or you hear, as Jeff said, global bellwether.
A stable dollar stabilizes markets and that's good for consumers on both sides, meaning German consumers who are importing our stuff and Americans that are importing German stuff.
So a stable dollar is good.
There's a lot of factors that go into it right now, but there is a simple truth that when we lower interest rates, it does make the dollar relatively less attractive as an investable, because the U.S. Government is going to pay you that interest rate if you buy those t-bills.
But by the way, you have to remember we talk all about that the number one owner of t-bills is Japan and things like this.
But you know what the number one buyer is in the U.s.
I think 60 of it is bought by our states, if i'm correct, bought by the individual municipalities and states that have.
It's like Florida has excess money.
They buy t-bills at that, at that rate, and so I think the headline oh, the dollar is going to drop what Jeff said is very important.
It's like, was it bad when the headline said, inflation is dropping from eight percent down to to four.
No, that that was actually good news and it meant that inflation was getting back to, you know, historically uncon, you know controllable levels.
That's what happened with the dollars.
So in many ways pat, this is a big headline.
Oh, the dollar is dropping, dollar is tanking.
And who is talking about this Daily MAIL?
Oh right, the economic experts and the and the you know Chicken Littles of the Daily MAIL who apparently didn't have you know any new pictures of um, you know uh Prince, or what.
His name is now, Montbotton, Citizen Montbotton, and instead they talk about dollars up for a big drop.
Well, it's returning to where it was before.
We had what was that called april 2nd, Liberation day, Liberation Day, Liberation Day when the markets went bonkers and now everything's kind of coming back to normal.
That, you know, that's a big issue too, is that they want to make a politics out of this.
Right every time, the dollar.
If the dollar goes down by a little bit and you know it's, it's Oh, the president is ruining the dollar.
We need to get rid of Trump because he's done, you know, the treasury market is blowing up because Trump is doing this and doing it's you got to separate the politics.
And they like they like sensationalist headlines.
Like one day after a hurricane in Jamaica, tides to drop 15 feet today.
Well, of course, we had a storm surge from a hurricane.
It's literally the same.
We had an economic surge in the spring.
Well, that's good because you're reassuring that that is not a concern on top of everything else that Americans are dealing with affordability.
It's not going to add to the damage and pain that they're having right now.
Can I have one more thing?
The reason why this is a big issue, and the reason why it comes up is, you know, there's hysterics about the politics of it.
And people naturally are asking the question because you hear all the time, is the world going to ditch the dollar?
And if they do, what is that going to mean for me?
Because if the dollar is ditched, which by the way, it needs to be, it's not just a thing about flipping one currency.
You think the dollar needs to be ditched?
Yeah, the Euro dollar system needs to be replaced.
It needs to be replaced.
It absolutely needs to be replaced.
With what?
Something else, hopefully a private currency.
But that's way down the road.
The point I'm making is that most people don't understand what a reserve currency is and what it needs to do.
And understanding what a reserve currency needs to do and what it is, you understand why the dollar sticks around as long as it has.
It's not going to be replaced tomorrow.
And it can't be replaced tomorrow.
No matter how much many other people might want to try, it is not happening.
It's not going to happen anytime soon because a reserve currency has to do tremendous amounts of things.
And the way that it actually takes place is it would be like the analogy I always use is say you want to build a new internet that's better and faster, but you have to do it from scratch.
You have to put in new wires, new hardware, new software.
You have to do everything from scratch.
That is replacing a reserve currency.
You have to rebuild the internet.
It is literally impossible.
And one thing on that, too, the unfortunate thing about reserve currency is like it's literally designed for you to abuse the hell out of it.
Like the thing called Triffin's dilemma, it's like you basically are supplying the rest of the world with adequate money so that they could interact in the global economy.
So it's set up to fail within 100 years, pretty much.
Well, that's where the Euro dollar came from.
It solves Triffin's dilemma.
Interesting.
Yeah, I mean, this just went to a whole different direction, but I want to stay on topic with a few, you know, hitting eight more stories here.
God willing.
Okay, let's get to the next one.
Venezuela.
President Trump comes out and says that the U.S., Rob, do you have this story?
I think you got a video on this one as well, if I'm not mistaken.
President Trump comes out and says Venezuela to give up 50 million barrels of oil to the U.S.
I am pleased to announce that the interim authorities in Venezuela will be turning over around 30 to 50 million barrels of quality sanctioned oil to the U.S. to the U.S.
This oil will be sold at its market price and the money will be controlled by me as the president of the United States of America to ensure it is used to benefit the people of Venezuela and the U.S.
I asked Energy Secretary Chris Wright to execute this plan immediately.
It will be taken by storage ships and brought directly to unloading docks in the U.S. Thank you for your attention to this matter.
He is such an interesting guy.
Thank you for your attention to this matter.
We just got 50 million barrels, folks.
And Trump in a social media post, it will take sort of the U.S. crude oil crude features fell 1.3% to 56.39 per barrel on the heels of Trump's announcement.
The announcement came three days after U.S. captured Maduro.
Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday that Trump plans to meet with representatives from the major oil companies, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, ExxonMobil, along with other domestic producers at the White House on Friday to discuss making significant investments in Venezuela oil sector.
Now, watch this.
Here's what's interesting.
While this is going on, China's like, wait a minute, that's ours.
That's not yours.
Here's the Ministry of Foreign Affairs from China giving their message.
Go ahead, Rob.
The United States has brazenly resorted to the use of force against Venezuela and demanded that America first be applied when Venezuela disposes of its own oil resources.
This is a typical act of bullying, a serious violation of international law, and a grave infringement.
But you want to sovereignty that also severely undermines the rights of Venezuelan people.
We just wish they would have thought of it first.
I would like to stress that the legitimate rights and interests of China and other countries in Venezuela must be protected.
The United States has long imposed illegal unilateral sanctions on Venezuela's oil sector and has recently brazenly used force against Venezuela, dealing a severe blow to the country's economic and social order and also threatening the stability of global production and supply chains.
China has already issued strong condemnation in this regard.
I would like to reiterate that cooperation between China and Venezuela is a cooperation between sovereign states and is protected by international law and laws of both countries.
For sure.
Tom, how do you feel about this?
Oh, first of all, who is she from?
She was from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
And I thought the Ministry of Foreign Affairs was something that involved Eric Swawell.
So as well, pass on that.
Second, here's something.
Fun facts.
Fun facts.
Ready for numbers scream?
The total output right now during the naval semi-blockade from Venezuela is 600,000 barrels a day.
That is the output right now.
The nominal output when they were under this over the last couple years, when they've got electricity shortages and all the things that the problems they had in their economy was 8,000 to 900,000 barrels a day.
The logical limit based on every pipeline and the port, there's a port Jose and there's a second port.
There's two main ports is only 1.7 million barrels per day.
That means if everything was working perfectly right in Venezuela and the ports were operating at maximum efficiency and all the pipelines that go into this huge center geography that's in Venezuela and this big valley where all the oil is, we're all working maximum at 1.7.
So what Trump is basically saying right now, somewhere between 800, somewhere between 690 barrels a day, for the next 90 days, if he wanted to, he could step on the air hose to China and Iran and only send the oil here.
Now, there's also something very interesting.
Venezuelan oil, because you've heard people talk about light sweet crude and West WTI, West Texas Intermediate, which is the Permian Basin.
There's all different types of oil, and just like there's different types of gasoline and aviation gas.
Well, guess what?
Venezuelan crude is known as heavy crude.
And heavy crude needs special refineries who can handle the heavy crude.
And would you like to know where the most heavy crude refineries are?
And the answer is the United States Gulf Coast, particularly the Gulf of America, Houston-Galveston has the most facility in the world to refine Venezuelan oil, almost like the U.S. oil makers knew or were buying from Venezuela all along and had the facilities.
So when they got that type of crude, they could turn it into the big four: automobile gas, heating oil, aviation fuel, and then all the derivative products that come out of a barrel of oil, the plastics and plastic-like items.
So what's going on right now, there's only one U.S. Oil company operating at speed, not Chevron, and they're getting about 250 million barrels a day.
So, guess what?
So, if he's going to have a meeting in the White House, really, he's really asking Chevron, are you going to put up more money for infrastructure, number one, because they want to move that well beyond 1.7 million barrels a day?
They want to get up to two and a half, three million barrels a day.
That's going to take pipelines, and that's also, I won't get into the technology of it, but Venezuela pumps most of their oil cold, meaning they don't put steam or other things into the ground to pull it out, like what they do, like for the oil sands in Alberta and the shale that's in North Dakota.
They use a lot of heat to go down there, loosen up the oil so it can pull it up.
So, what the president is basically saying here is like, you know what?
China, you were skimming out the back door a couple hundred thousand barrels a day and they needed it.
So, Trump's going to put a stop to that.
So, China is going to have not have access to that.
That's the power move.
What a move.
And then, never mind Iran, what's going on over there?
And now he wants to take it, but he wants to pay the people.
He wants Chevron to pay the people of Venezuela.
He wants to get up to two and a half, three million barrels a day, but he wants the people of Venezuela to be paid for it.
You know why that's good?
Every time we try to rebuild the country, who pays for it?
We do.
We gave all those contracts to Halliburton when we were rebuilding the Middle East after wars, right?
Well, guess what?
They came out of American taxpayers.
Well, now this is: hey, we have regime change.
We have some government we like.
There's going to be some bumps in the road.
This is all going to go there.
And we want their country to get the money for their oil so they could rebuild themselves.
Now, sure, there'll probably be a lot of American contractors down there who want to get paid to do it, but it'll be money that comes that way.
And that is the story of Venezuelan oil.
How much of this do you think?
Like, I almost want to think about how much of Venezuela of what happened with Maduro was singular, and how much of it was a process of sequencing because of the ties Venezuela could have for America to get access back to the Panama Canal because the Panama Canal, if I was to write a priority, Tom, and this goes to all of you guys, question for you.
You're the president, Trump administration.
You're sitting there.
10 issues.
Rank importance of some of these issues.
Which one's more important than the other?
Ready?
Hang on.
Maduro being captured.
You got Iran regime changing, okay, because of how chaotic it is.
And you know how they call them the Middle East.
What do they call it?
There's a word for that they are the agency of terrorism in the Middle East.
You hear a comment like that.
Sponsor.
Sponsors of terrorism in Iran.
Okay.
All right.
So Iranian influence.
How about Panama Canal?
Let's just take those three.
Of those three, which one do you think is number one most important to U.S. Panama Canal, Iran?
Probably Panama.
Venezuela.
I would say the canal, because once you get the canal off of Chinese influence, so they needed the canal and they also needed the metal in Venezuela because that's how they get the oil.
Perfect.
So then China's the one that stopped the Panama Canal deal with Hutchinson, right?
Right.
They said when they told the guy he couldn't sell his shares.
So do you think this is their way of saying, no problem, you want to do that?
We've been allowing you to come and get all this oil from the Western Hemisphere, Venezuela.
Here's what we're going to do to you.
Go ahead.
Now what do you want to do?
So is he going to use this as a leverage on the tariffs with China?
Because I know they've set it off.
They're like, no, we'll renegotiate the China stuff in 90 days or a year or whatever.
They kind of put it off.
But do you think this is one way of getting the Panama?
Like if all of a sudden, because look what happened right there.
Look at the date and look at what happened with the percentage increases chances going up.
It went from 30 to 40 percent.
What caused that?
Venezuela.
Why does the Venezuela event increase the chance?
So there's some ties there between the two.
What do you think, Jeff?
I think these are all related.
I think these, you know, Trump has this image among, you know, certainly his detractors, he's some kind of buffoon, right?
They are playing strategic chess here.
Everything they're doing is not, it's not like we're going to get Maduro because we want a regime change in Venezuela.
They're getting Maduro because it's the most efficient use of resources, because it accomplishes four goals at once.
That's the first domino.
Well, yeah, I mean, if you look at what they're trying to do, Iran plays in this too.
How do you mess with the Chinese?
Well, you get them distracted over in the Middle East and having worried about all the stuff that's taking place over there.
Is Iran, which is an ally of China, are they solid enough?
Are they going to be a solid Chinese ally in a couple months, maybe?
And this goes back to why did the U.S. strike the Iranian nuclear facilities?
Yes, again, more than one goal was accomplished in that strike.
First of all, it set back the Iranian nuclear capacity, but also showed to the Iranian people that the Iranian military is toothless.
They had Israeli planes and U.S. planes loitering over the country for, was it weeks on end?
And they could do exactly, they were taking out Iranian leaders.
It was sending a message.
And it wasn't sending a message to just the Iranian people that says, look, these leaders aren't as powerful as you think it is.
It was a message to China.
Look at what we can do.
Look at what we can do in Venezuela.
And by the way, Venezuela is hyper-strategic.
And it's not just about Venezuela.
Venezuela, as you said, the next step toward reasserting dominance on Panama Canal and a whole bunch of other stuff that we probably don't even know about.
What I'm saying is I think the Trump administration doesn't act on simplistic impulses and an irrational emotion as people had this.
Carrier paints it out to be.
Yeah, it's not.
You can see there is definite strategic planning going on.
So let me ask you if they're saying Western hemisphere, right?
Look, this is the Western Hemisphere, the Monroe Doctrine, right?
1800s.
Monroe.
So Western Hemisphere, Western Hemisphere, Western Hemisphere.
Well, then somebody could say from China, well, then why do you care about Iran?
Or do they?
Are they leaving it out there?
It's interesting, right, when you think about it.
But what are your thoughts on the story here with Venezuela?
No, I think it's a huge opportunity for the world in general.
Because, I mean, there was a time where I believe Venezuela was number four in terms of overall GDP.
And it makes me think of when the Soviet Union collapsed, that if you handle this thing correctly, then you could open up that whole country back to the world as a new market.
And you have to be careful with managing it, too, because I think when the Soviet Union collapsed, we kind of mishandled it.
We let the CIA, let the oligarchs take over, and then the resentment from the country to that led to Putin being in control.
So I think if this is done correctly, it could be a beautiful thing.
It could kind of get that communist virus out of South America because the cold communists spread across South America started with Cuba, then it went over to Venezuela.
Now it's gone over to Colombia.
So they could start extracting that kind of spirit from South America.
That's a big thing, too.
Now, while we're on this, it's interesting because have you guys been following the whole Russian tanker that's been followed by U.S. the last week?
U.S. sees Venezuela linked to Russian-flagged oil tanker after weeks-long pursuit.
Rob, go a little bit lower to look at this because the timing, let's just look how beautiful the ship is first.
Take a look at that ship.
Okay, brand spanking new goal a little bit lower.
Great condition.
Great condition.
Just edit detail.
Yeah, how much oil was it leaking along the way?
U.S.C., well, climate change.
We got to take care of that.
So U.S. seized a Russian-flagged oil tanker that was being shadowed by Russian submarine on Wednesday after more than a two-week-long pursuit, crossed the Atlantic as part of the U.S. blockade of Venezuelan oil exports.
This appeared to be the first time in recent memory that the U.S. military has seized a Russian-flagged vessel.
The operation took place after the tanker originally named Bella One, great name, slipped through the U.S. marine time Blockade of sanctioned tankers in the Caribbean and rebuffed U.S. Coast Guard efforts to board it.
The seizure effort was first reported by Reuters.
It was on ex-Military European Command says that the Trump administration has seized the vessel for violating U.S. sanctions.
The blockade of sanctioned and illicit Venezuelan oil remains in full effect anywhere in the world.
The U.S. official who were speaking on the condition of anonymity said Wednesday operational near Iceland was being carried out by U.S. Coast Guard and U.S. military Coast Guard did not immediately respond to the request of a comment.
Go a little bit lower to see if the Russians have said anything about it.
There's no immediate comment from Russia as well.
Interesting.
Tom, your thoughts on this?
Well, first of all, my favorite line of the whole article there was being shadowed by a Russian submarine.
In other words, we knew that or we figured that out.
And I think it goes to the technology advantage that we had when we went in and got Maduro.
Remember, nobody, we didn't lose any equipment.
We didn't lose any guys.
We didn't have like a massive firefight on the ground that somehow involved also civilians accidentally.
We went in, we closed our eyes in and out.
And now they're saying, well, it was being shadowed by a submarine.
And can you see the Russians?
Wait, they know we're here.
Can you see if there's an image of it, Rob?
Can you see if there's an image of the submarine Russia, Venezuela?
I thought I saw one.
I thought I saw one on X as well.
Yeah.
If you type in submarine oil, Venezuela, shadow submarine, yeah.
I mean, it might have been a stock photo, but it could have been.
I mean, nowadays, anything is AI.
See if there's anything there with the submarine.
No.
Is there no, no?
Because if it was never really seen, but we knew it was there, then we leaked to the media to tell Putin, dude, we know you're following this thing.
Again, that's the point, right?
I mean, the reason why they took this tanker is actually about India.
This is really about India.
What's that right there?
Let me read the top of what it says.
Russia dispatched a nuclear submarine to escort a tanker attempted to reach Venezuela.
The tanker was already harassed by the U.S. Coast Guard.
Moscow is moving to guarantee its safe passage through the Atlantic in recent U.S. piracy.
And who's saying that?
Is that the submarine?
All the stuff I've seen has not said that it is the sub.
Yeah, I've not seen it.
If it's out there, I'd love to see it, but I didn't see anything that talks about, oh, here's the picture of them both pulling over for lunch.
Yeah.
I thought I saw something, but it could have been AI that I sent.
Jeff, where are you at with this?
I guess I think this is about India.
Again, multiple goals here.
They seize the tanker, say, you're violating sanctions.
We're going to enforce sanctions.
Who is the biggest buyer of Russian oil right now?
India.
India.
So they're saying, look, you guys are continuing to buy sanctioned Russian oil, and there is a ton of it floating around the world right now.
There is a massive amount of seaborne oil at sea inventories.
And so what they're saying to India is: look, we've tolerated it.
We've let it happen.
We've talked about it.
We've given you warnings.
Now we're actually going to act on it.
Rob, what's this?
This is President Trump aboard Air Force One, where he talked about sanctions against India for purchasing Russian oil.
Go for it.
They wanted to make me happy, basically.
He wanted to embodies America.
Yes, he's a good guy.
He knew I was not happy.
And it was important to make me happy.
They do trade.
We can raise tariffs on them very quickly.
People are afraid of that.
Is that Lindsay?
Who is that to the left?
It is.
Man, he looks like he looks different from a profile.
Like, it doesn't look like himself.
But there's a story here, Rob, if you want to go to from CNBC.
India state-owned refiners keep buying Russian oil even as New Delhi seeks U.S. tariff relief.
So let me get this straight.
You're coming to ask for relief, yet you're still buying.
If you want to go to that story, Rob, state-owned refiners in India are still buying Russian oil.
The U.S. imposed a secondary 25% tariff on Indian goods in August, citing New Delhi's continued imports of Russian crude.
Washington also sanctioned Russian oil companies, Luke Oil and Rosneft, in late November.
On Sunday, Lindsey Graham claimed that India's U.S. ambassador, Vinay Mohan Katara, had asked them to urge President Trump to lift these tariffs, arguing the New Delhi has reduced its purchase of Russian oil, while India's overall demand for Russian crude oil fell in December.
Analysts say the decline was largely driven by reduced buying from Mukesh Ambani-owned Reliance Industries, which had been a major importer before the U.S. sanctions on Luke Oil and Rosneft took effect in late November.
So there's, do you have a video on this, Rob?
I do.
It's just the president again talking about Modi.
Is it the same thing?
It's a different speech, but he just talks about Modi and the Apache helicopters that India purchased from him.
But he's not talking about oil.
No.
Okay, Brandon, your thoughts on this.
Yeah, so think about what could be done here.
So Russia, when you talk about going after the core, the nucleus of somebody's power, like 30 to 40% of Russia's GDP comes from selling oil.
So it's already hurting them that oil's down from $70 or $80 a barrel to like $56 now, which I almost think the market was anticipating this takeover of Venezuela with what oil prices have been doing.
So what could be done now where India buys like 30% of they represent like 30% of Russia's oil buyer.
So now could we start selling Venezuela's oil to India to offset that if we want them to stop buying Russia's oil?
Because if we chop away at Russia's oil demand, then that decimates them.
Their GDP is already going down because of the lower price in oil and the lack of buying pressure from countries.
Because it's really just China and India that buys Russian oil and Iran a little bit.
But if Iran falls, if we have Venezuela's oil, then really we have the biggest oil producing countries in the world, like at our mercy.
You know what I mean?
Yeah, but you know what this is doing?
Let me tell you what it's doing.
And this is the feeling I'm getting.
And I'm really curious to know how he's going to react.
I think he is fully suffocating Putin.
Yeah.
I think he is fully suffocating Putin to the point where you ever got into a fight and the guy is choking you and you're willing to do anything and everything to get out of it or else you're going to pass out and you do something really dumb and reckless.
What's Putin's next move?
Actually, think about it.
Another submarine?
No, but really, what do you do next?
So let me get this straight.
So it's like, okay, okay, all right.
So you're putting sanctions on, you know, EU and whatever.
I'll do business with India.
No, you can't.
All right.
Iran keeps sending me drones so I can attack Ukraine.
Nope.
Decimate Iran.
So now I can't buy drones from Iran to attack Ukraine.
No.
Okay.
So let me go to China.
China can't get the oil from Venezuela now.
So now he is so cornered right now, Pope Putin, in such a way that Putin is probably sitting there saying, man, I miss President Biden.
But you notice how he's doing it very slowly, incrementally.
It's almost like, you know, just tightening the noose a little bit at a time.
Yeah.
So you don't really realize it.
The right sequencing.
But I don't know about whether he's not realizing it.
Here's a question.
Well, I think that's the whole submarine story.
But Jeff, here's a question, Tom.
I'll come to you here.
Do you think he's doing, do you think he stops this aggressive, like what's more important to him?
Do you think he would allow all of this stuff to happen and get behind Putin and support him to open up business again if Putin flat out just comes out and gets it over with Zelensky?
Yeah.
Do you think that would put a stop to all of this, to a lot of this?
I think that's the carrot and the stick, right?
The carrot has always been stop the war in Ukraine and join us and let's do a lot of business.
We'll buy all your oil again.
The stick is we're going to slowly strangle you, and there's nothing you can do about it.
How much worse does it get than this?
I mean, of course, there's different levels of worse, but Putin can't breathe right now.
I think the goal here for Putin, what he really cares about is remaining president of Russia.
So if Trump can undermine his power base, he ends up like Maduro.
I mean, what else is he doing right now?
You know, Brandon, go ahead.
Yeah, no, I just think it still goes down to who's going to break first and kind of comply with us more first between Russia and China because we need one of them to be more friendly with us than they are.
You know, we need one of them to turn against the other.
And ideally, it'd be probably better and easier to get Russia to turn against China with us.
I wouldn't be surprised if they do something very reckless right now.
Like, I wouldn't be surprised if China all of a sudden does something to Taiwan.
I wouldn't be surprised.
Who said that?
Michael Burry.
He said, watch, we just pressed in for a playbook for what China can do to Taiwan.
Oh, I think if he said that, I think I wouldn't be surprised if that.
Big Short investor, can I read that?
He said that says markets are messentrick as Venezuela.
Is that part of the article?
Yeah, it's the one that we were going to do.
Okay, so let's go to it.
Let's go to that story.
What page is that on?
Last paragraph, Pat.
That's a summary statement at the end.
What page is that on?
I want to go to that story.
Michael Burry is page seven.
It's seven.
Okay, let me go with boom, boom, boom.
Okay.
So big short, Michael Burry says markets are missing a trick as the Venezuelan raid just changed the game.
Okay, and to me, it's not even the Venezuelan game.
Well, it's kind of geopolitics.
Yeah, that makes sense.
So Michael Burry says U.S. on Radio Venezuela is much bigger than the markets here.
The big short investor said, who recently pivoted from running a hedge fund to writing on Substack, publishing a post nearly early Monday saying the game just changed in the mid to long term and markets are not pricing in all that they may of this weekend's events.
This is a paradigm shift despite the markets yawning.
He later wrote on X, benchmark oil prices climbed less than 1% on Monday and U.S. took futures open higher after the U.S. captured President Nicolas Maduro over the weekend and President Trump, America run the oil-rich country.
The seizure was a shot across China's bow.
Burry wrote pointing to billions of dollars on loans that China has made to Venezuela under its belt and wrote initiatives which were collateralized using future oil output that is now in the U.S. hands.
The investor who shot the fame after the president bet in 2000 housing bubble was featuring a book, The Big Short, wrote that China may now have a blueprint for how to take control of Taiwan, but must be in awe of Trump being America's infuriating gull and decisive power.
Burry said that China stock strike him as somewhat riskier now in terms of running afoul of sanctions.
He wrote that Alibaba Baidu and other potential sanction targets could be in for some volatility if China escalates.
Yeah, I think something's going to happen.
I think one of these big things could potentially happen because you are literally suffocating these people right now.
Go ahead, Brandon.
Yeah, I mean, when it comes to what's more strategically important between Venezuela for us or Taiwan for China, I mean, it's probably Taiwan that's more strategically important.
Like it'd be a bigger blow to the U.S. if China successfully took Taiwan than the fact that we took Venezuela, right?
Was it 75% of our semi-conductors come from there?
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
So I think that's a bigger asset if they were able to take it.
I don't think they would be able to take it even if they used the full force of their military.
Like they're not capable of doing what we did just because of the way Taiwan is set up.
You know, we've done videos before in the past of like how harsh the conditions actually are for the Navy to go across and take it over.
It's like a mountain in the middle of the ocean.
So I don't think they'd be capable of that.
And if they did try to do it, I think we would try to get close with Russia really quick and stop selling China oil.
China's extremely dependent on oil from other countries.
So for that reason, I don't think they're just, I think they want to.
I don't think they're capable of doing it, though.
I think, you know what Burry said, it's not about oil here, at least in this one respect.
What he said was that, you know, through the Belt and Road Initiative, China has lent billions of dollars all over the world.
And with Venezuela, it was collateralized by Venezuelan oil.
Trump just took their collateral, which means those loans are worthless.
Because let's face it, Venezuela is not going to pay them back.
And China knew that when they extended the loans.
That's what China does.
It extends loans to these countries that they know that they can't pay back, intending to either take the oil as the collateral or some other form of collateral.
Usually it's facilities like a railroad or a dam or some kind of mine.
So what Trump said is, okay, I see your Belt and Road initiative, and I'm going to take the initiative and take the collateral right off the board, which makes that loan and your entire effort in Venezuela worthless.
Again, it's a piece on the chessboard that it's a pretty damn big one.
Yeah.
Yeah, the economic hitman principle, they took that away from, like, they took away the resources.
He has to want something.
Trump or Xi?
Trump, what does Trump want?
What does Trump want?
I think he realizes that this is Cold War II.
Let's be honest about this.
China is not a, what does it call it, strategic partner rival or whatever they call it?
No, this is Cold War II, and it has been.
You know, why did they leak that story from, what was it, New York a couple of months back where they had all of those SIM cards in a room that could just basically fry the communication grid in New York?
Why did they leak that?
To say that, look, we are kind of at war with, why have the Chinese been buying farmland next to air bases?
Yeah.
To do what the Ukrainians did in a first strike to launch a drone attack to take out the U.S. air power.
Is this one you're talking about?
So what I'm saying is that the Trump administration at least realizes, even though they don't want to say it explicitly, this is Cold War II.
And so we need to think Cold War II.
Where's the Dunrogue doctrine coming from?
It's the execution of that strategic realization.
We are in a Cold War with the Chinese.
And the worse it gets for the Chinese system, the more likely it turns into something that gets really bad.
Yeah.
I think what people need to look at is what you're talking about.
This is really 3D chess.
Venezuela is not about Venezuela.
It's not about Marxism in the Western Hemisphere, although they want to – That's sort of like a benefit, right?
Right.
Right.
You know, I think that there's a part of Marco Rubio, and Marco Rubio is the guy whose desk this whole thing really sits on.
This isn't the Department of Energy.
This is sitting on Marco Rubio's desk on 3D chess because it is the blow against Russia.
It is the blow against China and their collateral.
It is taking back the hemisphere.
It is a blow against Marxism.
And the U.S. mainstream media wants to talk about, oh, it was illegal to go in there.
And now the greedy, you know, all the greedy energy companies are going to get the oil.
Wait a minute.
Only Chevron's in there materially benefiting right now.
And Trump's inviting everybody else.
Would you like to invest in Venezuela?
Would you like to?
Yeah, would you like to spend billions of dollars?
With your money, not my money, with your money, and then pull the oil out and then pay the Venezuelans for the oil out of their country.
So when he stabilizes Venezuela, the phrase that we all want to look at here is very simple, on our terms.
And this is all related with the Cold War.
He wants China to be a trading partner on our terms and not manipulating Venezuela.
He wants Iran to be not in this hemisphere on our terms.
Is there something for them to trade on oil?
There's a deal to be made if they'll do it on our terms and only go over here and not over here.
And now he also has an impact on Russia, who is basically like the credit card in the middle of this.
They're the transaction guy in the middle of this.
And now he's like saying, no, no, no, transactions don't go through you.
And he said, wait, how am I going to make any money?
Well, that's kind of the point.
You got to ask me for permission.
And by the way, how important was it?
They sent one of their own subs to shadow one tanker.
We're not talking about a pipeline.
We're not talking about...
That was a tanker loosely.
Yeah.
Loose turn.
But yeah, an old jalopy tanker.
So this is all about the 3D chess game on our terms.
And I think history is going to look back on this and see just how big of a deal it was.
And I, you know, and I'm going to, I'm out and saying that this is Trump and Rubio.
And we're going to look back on this on one of the most amazing times, not just getting Maduro, but all the six months that are going to go around this, that it is going to be tremendous.
Yeah, for the folks that are watching out there, this place is 22 degrees in the podcast room.
And I think they do this on purpose for us.
We could use some oil and a heater right over here.
You have to be here to see what it feels like.
But I agree with what you're saying on how unique of a time we're living in for this many things to be moving.
We're going to look back on it.
Yeah.
You think about it.
Oh, the big if is if they can pull it off.
I think they could pull it off because they have so much leverage right now, Jeff.
The amount of we have not yet seen the Chinese and Russian.
Not retaliation, but them realizing.
It's sort of like, do they know what Trump knows, that they know that Trump knows?
think they're not paranoid do you think uh do you think i think that's why trump has had to establish these precedents let me ask you a question By nature, by DNA and nature, who do you think is naturally more paranoid?
American leaders politically, Russian or Chinese?
Chinese.
And then second is who?
By other Chinese.
So you don't think they're sitting there wondering, not knowing what he's doing?
I don't think they're delusional.
I do.
I think they are.
I think that the Chinese have been following the caricature that has been printed about Trump.
And I think that's a lot of intelligence is really just regurgitating all these mainstream ideas.
And I think what's happened is they have vastly underestimated, first of all, his resolve, but also his strategic planning, as well as the ability to execute on that strategic planning.
So I think the Chinese have yet to fully respond, to fully comprehend what's taking place.
There's no way they respond.
And they are without sitting there mapping out and saying these are the 22 things he could do.
You got to remember, this is a communist regime.
They're not exactly, I mean, the image of the Chinese as, you know, there's these long planners who are thinking a thousand years ahead.
No, these are communist bureaucrats.
They are thinking about tomorrow.
They're not thinking about a thousand years ahead.
I don't know about that.
I don't know if I agree.
They're a little bit more longer.
I don't know.
By the way, they think 10 when other people think 10 minutes.
Yeah, I don't know if they, you know, when they said the whole Made in China 2025, remember how by 2025 they wanted to be able to take over the world and they're going to be the biggest thing.
And when they announced it, you know, and then COVID happened.
So to me, if China is sitting there behind closed doors seeing what's going on, my concern is with the amount of suffocation where you cause people to see how much control they've lost, they make desperate moves.
Like COVID.
Like COVID.
And desperate moves could be massively retaliatory.
And all of a sudden, you're like, wait a minute, what just happened?
Or if you want to be positive, that's exactly what the Trump administration is counting on.
Why?
Because then they could use a desperate move on the part of China or Russia, whoever it is they think, as their next step.
Now we're justified in taking it up a notch because the Chinese did this.
Perfect.
So question for you.
What's up a notch?
I don't know.
I mean, that's in terms of pressure notch.
Yeah, yeah, what's next?
All right, so putting enough pressure on Russia.
They're distracted with Venezuela.
Let's get Taiwan now.
Let's make a desperate move.
Let's do a naval blockade.
Let's do an economic super sanction.
I mean, you see what I mean?
Would China, now, do I think they put boots on the ground and go on Taiwan?
No.
But would they maybe move three chess moves ahead, thinking that the rest of the world is distracted by Iran fall or not fall, and Venezuela and what we're doing, and Putin what he's doing.
Would China take advantage of that and make like three big chess moves on Taiwan?
I think so.
Well, what is it, the leverage the Chinese have?
What is it they have that they could use as leverage?
There's really manpower.
I think, you know, more of an economic thing.
Manufacturing.
Rare earth.
Yeah, rare earth.
So, okay, you need rare earth for basically anything that has to do with modern electronics.
So maybe they start restricting rare earths.
Well, it's just the refinements of rare earth.
So like we just don't have the refining capacity.
We have rare earth.
It's just not refinement.
It's not easily, easy to get right.
So Trump is already sort of like ahead on that part saying, okay, we're going to start building our capacity.
So we're going to take away the Chinese leverage before he can even use it.
And their biggest asset is getting the discounted oil from Russia and Iran.
So, you know, if Iran suddenly falls and Russia has enough pressure on them to stop being so friendly with the oil they give to China, then China's really in a stranglehold where they stop getting the cheap Russian and Iranian oil.
Because that's like China's nucleus is the ability to get cheap oil from Iran and Russia.
Yeah, I mean, you know, this is the other question as well.
We talked about it on the podcast on Monday.
It's very obvious that Trump is relying on Marco a lot more than he's relying on JD to get things done.
It seems as if the second most powerful person on his team is not Vance.
It's Rubio.
And by the way, if Rubio's in more of these meetings doing the deals, world leaders are now accustomed to who?
Rubio.
Rubio to be doing that, which means they're kind of sitting there saying, we either want this guy in 2028 or we don't.
But if Vance is not in those rooms building those relationships, and Rubio is, it may be Rubio's turn in 2028 and then Vance's turn may be in 2036.
You know, you bring something interesting up.
I was watching the weekend news shows and Rubio wasn't out there like a proxy just giving the administration his talking point.
He was processing points and responding to report reports.
Do you know what I mean?
Yeah, for sure.
Very different from the senator from Michigan.
I support what the administration has said about this, this, and this.
And I think he's doing a fine job and I think you're full of crap.
You know, that's a proxy out doing the talking point.
Rubio was going, no, no, no, you don't understand.
A, B, C, this is how we're going to be.
You know, and he was really there putting the processing down that impressed me.
Okay, let's go to the next story.
Bill Ackman slams California tax well, wealth tax as expropriation of private property.
Okay, is there a clip on this or is it a tweet?
It's a tweet.
Okay, let's go through.
Oh, we already talked about this from December 29th.
Why is the story on January 5th, though?
Why is it showing that the story is here?
Let me see this.
Boom, $1 billion, 5% tax.
California.
Yeah, we talked about that already, right?
I thought it was a newer story that he brought up.
I'll skip that story.
I'll skip that story because I thought it was a newer one.
And we covered that one right there.
We cover that one right there.
Here's how many half Americans, which one's going to be BYD?
Tesla, China, boom.
Okay, here we go.
Homeownership rate in New York is the absolute lowest in the U.S. Think about it.
Lowest in the U.S. New York?
Yes.
New York is the lowest in the U.S. When you look at this article, Rob, I don't know if there's a chart for the other ones because I'd want to know who is the highest, if New York is the lowest, if we can pull that up.
Homeownership, long viewed as a cornerstone of American economic security, remains stubbornly out of reach in New York State.
By the end of 2024, the Empire State posted the lowest homeownership rate in the country with just 51.3% of residents owning their homes.
The report places New York at the bottom of a national ranking and highlights how sharply the state diverges from much of the rest of the country where owning a home remains the norm rather than the exception.
The study conducted by stage properties brokers, LLC tracked quarterly ownership trends across 50 states throughout 2024 using the single most recent full-year available data.
The rankings were determined by the state share of each state's population that owned a home in the fourth quarter year, capturing not only where the state ended the year, but also how ownership levels shifted over time.
In New York's case, the trajectory was flat to down, reinforcing the state's long-standing reputation as a renter-heavy market dominated by high prices, limited inventory, and dense urban housing stock, particularly in New York City.
Who was at the top, Rob?
Does it show you who was at the top or no?
No, I can only find a chart that was from 2022.
Nothing for 2020.
Tom, where are you with this?
Why does the story matter?
So what I think it points out is that New York was already difficult for people to actually own a house.
And what's interesting, in blue states where the property tax is higher, people forget that there's a hidden cost of homeownership that people don't see, first-time homeowners don't see right off the bat.
And that is the property tax that you have to pay.
Usually December 20th, everybody gets a property tax bill.
It's usually due by January 20th or something like that.
And that is based on the price of the house.
So if the house is more expensive, not only do you need a bigger down payment, not only do you need a bigger mortgage, now you need you're paying more property tax.
And because the value of the house is up, now the insurance is more to insure that house if you have to rebuild it because of fire or loss or storm, whatever it is.
And so blue states where I have all those headwinds, it all adds up to being much more difficult to actually own the home.
And that's what we're seeing in the bluest of blue states, which is California.
But it used to be New York, but they're right there at the top too.
Now it's difficult.
So what do I make of it?
It's failed economic policies.
You could also take a look at all the blue states and the cost of electricity per kilowatt.
I found a chart yesterday that was talking about that.
And it was blue states were doing that too.
So now it's also the bigger your house is, the more expensive the electricity is, so more expensive to run the heaters and air conditioners.
And so I think this shows that when you've got more reasonable governors that are out there trying to set the stage to help people own homes, it starts with moderated enough supply so that the price is in line and then property taxes that are reasonable.
And then both of those things kind of contribute to insurance being more reasonable.
This basically takes it away from being just a verbal headline to being a fact-based allegation here where the evidence backs it up.
It is more expensive in a blue state to own a home and fewer.
I mean, that chart right there shows it.
All the blue to the left, all the red to the right.
And by the way, as I'm going closer to this list, here's what I noticed.
The lowest lowest is New York, then it's Massachusetts, then it's Rhode Island, then Hawaii, California, Nevada, Connecticut, Alaska, Jersey, Oregon, Massachusetts.
Now, if you go to highest, which is around 80, 80, 81%, West Virginia is the highest in Mississippi, Delaware, Vermont is blue, ish.
Maine, New Hampshire, Idaho, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Minnesota.
By the way, Florida ranks as 15th state for highest homeownership, 69.45%.
West Virginia is 80%.
New York is 50%, 51%, when you look at that list.
So Florida is still on that list for lifestyle over some of the other states.
Jeff, your thoughts on this?
Yeah, I mean, the reason why West Virginia is at the top is because the value of houses are much lower there, which is good and bad.
But, you know, New York, again, it reinforces the reason why we have Mandami now as mayor of New York City.
Because for most people, they believe that home ownership and just the basics of American and life are just out of reach.
And they have gotten further and further out of reach.
Now, you can have an argument about why that is and how to fix it.
But as far as most people's perceptions, it reinforces those perceptions that something isn't right here.
And I would actually argue that New York is two stories rolled into one because I grew up in upstate New York in the Rust Belt.
So in New York City, it's as Tom said, highly dense, very expensive to live.
So people who do have a job and are gainfully employed are still priced out of the marketplace.
Versus upstate, which is an economic wasteland, people don't have a job and are priced out of the market because they have no income.
They have basically state aid.
So you have a story.
It doesn't matter where you are in New York or what it is.
The end result is the same.
The question is, how much do people love the NFL team, the NHL team, the MLB team of West Virginia?
I mean, when you watch their NBA team in West Virginia, they crush it.
The beach in West Virginia is amazing.
So is it lifestyle?
Because what does New York have?
Everything.
What does California have?
Everything.
They got so many sports teams you can pick and choose from.
If you don't like the Lakers, go to the Clippers.
You don't like the Dodgers, go to the Angels.
You don't like the Rams, go to 49ers.
You can pick and choose, right?
At least they don't discriminate, right?
Those are symbols of past prosperity, right?
That's why they have so many past prosperity.
But then the question becomes for an individual that's watching this right now saying, well, if I'm 30 years old, guy asked me in Manek a question on Manek the other day.
He says, Pat, here's where I'm at.
I'm out of Toronto, okay?
I want to take my family out of Toronto.
It's 35 years old.
He says it's hard.
My family ties, my in-laws, my parents.
How do you overcome this challenge?
My wife doesn't want to move, but I know the right thing to do is to leave because that's better for me long term.
What do I do?
So it's going to be hard.
But I think people are starting to ask the question of where should I spend my lifetime raising my family, raising my kids in a safe place.
I can keep the taxes.
I can save more money.
Cost of living is going to be better.
People are asking those types of questions.
Brandon, what are your thoughts on this?
Yeah, I mean, since the time I turned 25 or 26, around when COVID happened, I was like dead sad on getting either to Texas or Florida.
And I started in Texas, ended up here.
Where did you go to in Texas?
What part?
Fort Worth, lived there for a year.
Really?
How was that?
I loved it.
Really?
Yeah, beautiful place.
Yeah, it is.
I like Florida more.
But yeah, no, Texas and Florida are both awesome.
Did you go to that Federal Reserve building in Fort Worth, the currencies, that you see that tower or not?
No, for sure you would have gone there to try to steal a machine.
I'll circle back.
But yeah, no, I mean, New York's a disaster because I think that a lot of these places that have wealth concentrate where there's a big tax base, you get these nasty swamp creatures who end up running for politics there.
And there's decades and years of them potentially maybe embezzling money or misallocating money, like where billions of dollars go disappearing.
You just get the wrong type of people in the positions of power.
And then it's just layers and layers and layers of bad policies.
It takes too much, it takes too long to get building permits in New York.
They do the rent control stuff.
So all that stuff compounds.
I think like 7% of the expensive apartments in New York are owned by foreign investors.
So like there's just empty million dollar buildings in New York that are million dollar apartments in New York that are owned by Chinese internationals.
So it's all kinds of toxic sludge that's piled up over the years with New York.
So are you saying you're not moving to New York?
Is that kind of what you're saying?
No, I wish I could, but no, not the way it's running.
Back in the Robert Moses days, maybe that's when it was really humming, but not Nai Moore.
There's a life cycle of states in the same way there's a life cycle of companies, right?
Yes.
It starts out, you do all the things that you need to do to become successful, then you get lazy, then you get corrupt, and it all falls apart.
We've seen that with New York, we've seen that with California.
Yeah, it's true.
By the way, Marco Rubio tells lawmakers Trump wants to buy Greenland.
Okay.
Now, the question is, you can't find it on sale on Realtor, Zillow, all these other sets.
We were talking about it earlier, but apparently they want to make an offer.
What does that mean?
Rubio, out of nowhere, makes that announcement, and people are reacting to it.
Buying up Greenland.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio told lawmakers Trump wants to buy Greenland rather than invade it.
While Mr. Trump has asked AIDS to give him an update on the plan for acquiring the territory, U.S. officials said on Tuesday.
Rob, is this a clip of Ruby or?
No, this is President Trump talking about the necessity of acquiring Greenland.
Go for it.
I will say this about Greenland.
We need Greenland from a national security situation.
It's so strategic.
Right now, Greenland is covered with Russian and Chinese ships all over the place.
We need Greenland from the standpoint of national security.
And Denmark is not going to be able to do it, I can tell you.
You know what Denmark did recently to boost up security in Greenland?
They added one more dog sled.
Because that was a great move.
I don't want to talk about Greenland now.
I don't want to talk about Greenland now.
After the dog slant.
Oh, my God.
The European Union needs us to have it.
And they know that.
That's amazing.
Listen to that last line.
The EU knows that it is strategic.
They know that there's a gateway up there for Russian naval forces come through.
They also know that Nuuk could be a base of operations for a fast response to the Northern Atlantic.
And what you just heard there, that is the story behind the story.
They'll have you believe that it's all rare earth minerals.
Well, there's a lot of rare earth stuff that's very valuable in Greenland that would help the West, all of the West, by the way, not just the USA.
But he's saying there needs to be more security.
Greenland is a strategic location, and the Dutch aren't going to get it done.
And the EU knows it.
So the EU may be posturing publicly, but privately, they know that if Russia gets more out of hand following the resolution of Ukraine, which we hope is in a short time, is that this is important.
And you just heard it there at the very, very end of it.
By the way, 54,000 population?
Yeah.
54,000?
How's the nightlife?
It's like it's got a good party time.
No, I think that's it.
I think it's 54,000.
I think it's just the same population as Boca Tone, Florida.
54,000.
By the way, while this is going on, on Tuesday, leaders of six NATO nations joined Mete Fredriksen, the prime minister of Denmark, to issue a remarkable joint statement pushing back against Trump's assertion that the U.S. should be taking over Greenland.
The nations that aligned with Denmark were Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Poland, all of which are close allies of the U.S.
So it's interesting, Jeff.
So they're just negotiating for a price.
That's what they're doing.
That's what they're doing.
Rob, can you pull up an overhead or an overhead map of the pole, the North Pole?
So you can really see, you really have to appreciate where Greenland is in its actual context to understand what Trump is talking about.
Again, you have to think about this from the perspective of Cold War II.
And if you see Greenland in there, look at where Russia is.
It's right in the middle of everything there.
It's basically, just from a military perspective, where the Russians have most of their military assets on the, what is it, the Kohler Peninsula or whatever it's called, it's basically a straight line across from Greenland.
So what Trump says about a strategic location of Greenland is absolutely correct.
And if you are thinking and acting as if we are in Cold War II, that is an essential, that is as essential to the United States as Taiwan is to China.
Because if you look at the strategic area of China, China is basically bottled in in the Pacific by Taiwan.
Right.
So you have all of these strategic bottlenecks.
So that's where this is coming from.
You're right.
It's not rare earth.
I mean, rare earths would be a bonus and a benefit, sure.
And who was it that came out?
There's somebody on social media came out with an idea.
As you said, there's only 50-some thousand people in Greenland.
Why not give them all a million dollars?
We're going to give every one of you a million dollars.
It's going to cost $50 billion.
Nothing for the U.S.
I mean, they borrow the money anyway.
We're going to give you $50 billion.
We're going to give Greenland $50 billion.
You guys vote to have the U.S. annex.
But the point I'm making, though, is that from the Trump administration's perspective, understanding Cold War II, Greenland is absolutely essential.
And by the way, Rob, can you put that map back up there?
There's an area called Murmansk.
And take a look at where Murmansk says.
It's very close to Finland.
It always makes Finland very nervous.
You see it right there?
We're on the northern trench by the red line.
That is where the Russian Navy and the nuclear sub-headquarters is.
And that is the, if you want to look at the Fort Knox of Russian Navy interests, that's it.
And so Greenland gives you an opportunity to monitor in the northern Atlantic, and Russia knows it, and they don't want it.
By the way, Boca Raton, Florida has 104,000 people.
Greenland has 56,000.
So I said it was about the same part.
But if Boca Raton had a war with Greenland, Boca would probably have to give up seven and a half points.
So Greenland's going to be like a Ukraine, pretty much, at the very least, at first.
What is more likely to happen?
Us getting Panama Canal, us getting Greenland.
I mean, what else would be on that list?
I think the canal is not a done deal, but I think there is an absolute path to do it.
This year, is this impossible or is this possible?
I think step one, like we're going to put assets in Greenland that make it like a satellite at the very least.
Like that's not a hard sell.
And I think the harder thing to do is the Panama Canal because we probably have to use force to do that if we don't do it the civil way than through BlackRock.
Yeah, I think they're just negotiating on price with Greenland.
This is what it is.
I mean, that's what Trump does.
He's negotiating through the public and through private means, and they're just trying to come up with a fair price that actually works for everybody.
This is the Prime Minister of Denmark?
Yes.
And she responds.
What'd you say?
Oh, boy.
Threats, pressure, and condescending remarks, even from our closest allies for a generation, about wanting to take over another country and another people as if it was something you could buy and own that has no place anywhere.
Except all of you.
We shoulder our responsibility in the world.
And it is not us who will seek out conflict.
But let there be no doubt.
No matter what happens, we will stand firm on what is right and what is wrong.
Right.
Okay.
All right.
So deal's coming your way here soon.
Good luck with the dog sled.
You know, you can see almost Trump in his godfather sense.
I'm going to make them an offer they can't refuse.
That's what he's working toward.
Well, there's this other offer he's about to make is one they don't have a choice but to refuse.
It's a demand.
Trump administration freezes $10 billion in child family aid to five states over fraud concerns.
CNBC story, Rob.
I think you got a clip on this one here if you want to go to it.
Let me read the story while you're looking for it.
So the Trump administration said Tuesday freezing $10 billion federal grants funds to certain child care and family assistance programs in five states because of serious concerns of fraud.
All five states targeted in the freeze are California, Colorado, Illinois, Minnesota, and New York, that are led by Democrats.
The action applies to three programs overseas by U.S. and Health and Human Services for Jones Alkeza.
The move comes after a day of Minnesota Governor Tim Waltz dropped his bid for third term amid political fallout from widespread fraud in social services programs in the states, including the child care services, with a federal prosecutor has estimated more than $9 billion.
Families who rely on child care and family assistance programs deserve confidence that these resources are used lawfully and for their intended purposes, says Deputy HHS Secretary Jim O'Neill.
More than $7.3 billion in TNF funds have been frozen, nearly $2.4 billion in CCDF funds have been frozen, nearly $840 million in social services block grant funding has been frozen.
Is this President Trump speaking on it?
Go forward.
From Minnesota and from the United States.
It's actually more from the United States because Minnesota puts in, and we're not going to pay it anymore.
We're going to have Waltz go pay.
We're not going to pay them.
And we're not going to pay California.
And we're not going to pay Illinois with that big slob of a governor that they have that doesn't want to.
You know, we brought down crime by 25%.
He didn't do anything.
He's not doing anything.
But they want us to leave.
He had a day where they had 17 murders not too long ago.
17 murders and 77 people shot.
But 17 died.
And then he talks about, oh, he can't handle it.
But we pull back and we'll go in at the appropriate time.
But we're the ones that brought the crime down.
We brought it down 20%.
They didn't bring it down.
Pritchard didn't bring it down.
Same thing with Gavin Newsom.
By the way, while this is going on, I'll come to you guys.
It's unclear which agency is investigating the California issue and what the probe email entails.
But Trump's announcement comes after California's Republican gubernatorial and control candidates claim they uncovered $250 billion in potential welfare fraud through a tip line investigation.
The New York Post reported on Monday.
Not $9 billion, $250 billion.
California or Gavin Newsom is more corrupt than Minnesota if that's possible.
The fraud investigation of California has begun.
Thank you for your attention to this matter, President Donald J. Trump.
Tom, your thoughts on this?
It's huge.
We said we were doing research here and we were adding things up, and we were seeing Governor Newsom getting a non-passing grade from his own nonpartisan state auditor and how he shut down an audit because he didn't want the spotlight to be on the results of it.
So he actually shut it down when Democrats were saying, hey, we're taking heat now.
Why are you shutting this down?
But what's going on here is I love one of the phrases I love that was in the story was this action, this action by the U.S. government will deprive families of resources they need.
Yes, you know what families?
The Schumer family, who's trying to keep their dad's job and they needed money from Minnesota on their thing.
So maybe the Chuck Schumer family will suffer if this spigot gets turned off to Minnesota.
Maybe the Elon Omar family will suffer as the backdoor skimming that they're allegedly doing gets stopped.
So, I always love it when they all talk about that there's these all these poor families are selling to get something.
No, that's not true.
They're not getting it now.
It's not supporting their diet now.
It's not supporting their lifestyle now.
This money is slushing.
The FBI watched a large restaurant that claimed it was feeding a bunch of school children.
They watched the thing for weeks for how many people came out.
And they put cameras up all around the place to basically say, here's a perfectly good example.
It was getting millions of dollars and not there.
So, what the federal government is doing here is exactly what the taxpayer wants, Pat.
The taxpayer wants, stop using my money for this crap.
Stop it.
This really pisses me off.
There's two levels of justice, one for them and one for me.
I mess up on my taxes by 50 bucks and I get a $300 fine from the IRS.
These guys steal it blind, and nothing ever happens to them.
There's two levels of justice here, and I want it stopped.
If you're going to tax me more, do things to me, first stop this crap.
And guess what?
The American people are going to be very, very pleased by this.
Number one.
And number two, we said that when you would see what's happening in California, it would be eye-watering numbers compared to Minnesota, that it would be nothing compared to what's there because of what they did and what they did on the Medicaid shortfall and how they took money from the feds on Medicaid, took money from the feds on placement services and destination support for the people that came across.
They were getting all kinds of checks from the federal government and from the Biden administration.
And now it's all coming home to Roost.
And people in California that were working with Gavin or even standing to the side, not throwing them in front of the under the bus, but they certainly are saying, well, you know, we did have this audit that we kind of wanted because there were Democrat candidates there, Pat, that wanted to prove they weren't part of this or that.
And so when the audit stops and they say you're all dirty, you know, that's what's going on.
And by the way, this is just the beginning.
I believe this is going to be half a trillion dollars in California.
I believe it's going to be $500 billion.
Do you think so?
Yes.
Over the course of the century?
Because all you have to do, no, and by the way, I'll give it a five-year look back.
On a five-year look back, I believe it's going to be half a trillion dollars.
That would be $100 billion a year over five years.
And all you'd have to do is add up the things that are there.
But that's the back of the cocktail napkin that I'm looking at.
And I'll put my name and my reputation out.
This is going to be half a trillion dollars over five past years, which is why Gavin Newsom stopped the audit and why these things were happening the way they are.
California is the motherload compared to Minnesota and the bagman Tim Walsh that helped allegedly bring all those dollars to the Kamala Harris campaign at a time where she didn't have full support from the DNC and its treasure test.
Yeah, four year with this.
I have three things here.
One, what Tom's saying, and I think you're right, Tom, but would anybody be surprised?
I think nobody would be.
If they found half a trillion dollars in fraud, nobody would be shocked by that.
That's the first thing.
Second thing is, I think you speak for most people, arrests or didn't happen.
People are tired of just talking about it and saying we're going to investigate.
Start putting people in jail.
Let's have some accountability.
Let's stop talking about and investigating.
Let's bring some cases forward, some big ones.
We don't want to just know about the individual daycare center operator.
Who was actually behind them?
Who are the politicians who are getting the backdoor benefits?
Because we know this is a machine.
I help you get government money.
You kick back some of that money to me when it's time for a campaign.
We know this is how this works.
We've gone through this throughout history.
The Democratic machine in New York, Tammany Hall.
It's exactly how it worked.
So most people want to see, yeah, this is great where you're starting to uncover this.
We all knew it was kind of taking place to begin with, but start freaking arresting people.
Start putting them in jail.
Start, you know, start having some convictions here.
We're tired of talking about it.
Let's see some real action.
And the third thing is, getting back to a major point, which is why did all this fraud really explode in the 2020s?
This is an aftershock or an after effect of COVID.
Government size ballooned.
And government employees, government people, government politicians, their eyes got huge.
They had money flowing in every single way that they possibly could.
So of course, the first thing they thought about is how can we steal our part of it?
So the bigger the government gets, the more you should expect this kind of thing to take place.
When the government completely exploded in 2020 and 2021, this is the necessary byproduct from it.
Nobody's surprised by it.
So the only way to correct it is to hold people accountable for having done it.
And that was the other kind of wink and nod behind all of that was that we're never going to do, you guys can steal all you want.
We'll never hold you accountable.
We're never going to tell anybody this is a gravy train forever.
So in order for this to stop, we need to actually have some kind of accountability.
Well, I mean, Newsom is number one right now on Calci, if you look at it right there.
And there's no bumps.
It's just going up and up and up.
Pat, that's the other side of this, right?
35%.
If you're a Democrat, you've been told your entire modern life that Trump is Hitler.
So if Trump is Hitler and Gavin Newsom's the guy who's saying, I'm going to take on Hitler, you won't care what Gavin Newsom does.
You'll let him get away with stealing and fraud and everything else because he's the guy who's taking on Hitler.
That's what it is.
Democrats invented that cover so that they would be able to do this.
If I demonize Trump as Hitler, then Democrats will vote for me no matter what I actually do.
And Republicans do it too to a lesser extent.
But it's if I'm the guy who's going after Trump, the people you hear criticizing Trump the most, calling him Hitler, are the probably the dirtiest ones out there because they know that they have the votes back.
All they have to do is.
That makes sense.
Rob, is midterm still the same?
Has anything, is it still 73, 74% on Calci for midterms?
I'm actually curious to know what Calci has for midterms, 2026 midterms.
Has anything changed at all?
No, it just went higher.
Jeez.
Okay.
It went higher.
So 77% is Democrats.
Republicans keep going lower and lower and lower chance of winning.
That's the economy.
That's the economy.
Brandon, thoughts.
Yeah, I mean, I think the only place that's more of a black hole for money that disappears.
We have no idea where it goes is Ukraine of California.
But it's pretty close.
That's a good analogy, really.
That's how I've always thought of California.
Like I hate waste of potential so much.
It's one of the saddest things out there.
And I've always been baffled why our own federal government seems to be at a deficit for money every year where they have to borrow more money at why the biggest states in the country are always out of money before they before the end of the year and have to ask the federal government for more money.
And then there's such a lack of results for it.
Like there's incomplete highway projects in California and New York.
There's homeless people.
There's inadequate shelters for the homeless people.
There's inadequate health care, et cetera, et cetera.
So, I mean, I think it's the most interesting thing ever to see the full picture of the fraud and if it's all connected.
I wonder if it's possible to create some sort of AI that creates a web of how these things all attach together.
Because it was disappointing how Doge kind of got quiet after they started getting too close to the dangerous things, like with Social Security and everything.
Because it's the biggest money pot in the entirety of human history.
If you think about it, like the U.S. federal budget, where all that money goes, like how much of it actually goes where it's supposed to go.
We have no comprehension of how much money actually gets wasted and gets like, you know, shimmied off into the pockets of people who are in on it.
Yeah.
I mean, Tom, your breakdown of saying California could end up being a half a trillion dollars by the end of the day.
And you saying, I want to see some accountability as your second point.
People got to get arrested.
Trump's doing a couple things here.
You know who he is helping out?
He's kind of helping out JD and Rubio.
I mean, he's managing 25 projects and one by one by one.
Here, we're going to take care of Newsome this way.
We're going to take care of China this way.
We're going to do this this way.
We're going to do Greenland.
We're going to do resources this way.
We're going to do Panama Canal this way.
And meanwhile, celebrating New Year's at Mar-a-Lago.
And meanwhile, you know, having parties, events, you know, doing what he's doing.
Got to respect the fact on how he's working.
He's at this point managing more projects in one year as a president than two, three, four presidents have done combined.
If you actually think about the amount of stuff that he's doing, you take one president, and in two terms, if they would have gone Greenland, that's a massive accomplishment, right?
You understand what I'm saying?
Like, if I was to ask you right now, what's Bill Clinton's biggest accomplishment aside from having a lot of interns that work along the way?
What's one of his biggest accomplishments?
I don't think we can go there.
He came closer than any president since to actually balancing the federal budget.
I agree.
He's a new Gingrich.
So that's his big.
I agree.
And I think there was a part of Clinton that really believed that you needed that stability because Clinton was not a Bernie.
Clinton was a Democrat model.
What would you say about Bush?
Not the father, the son.
The son.
What is his accomplishment?
He was, well, he responded to 9-11, but he spent a lot of money in a war that turns out did not turn up weapons of mass destruction, number one.
And number two, he actually presided over an expansion of government that was kind of reckless.
I think my history on George W. Bush is that he was, you know, not as tight as he needed to be and government side.
That's a victory, Tom.
Victory.
That's all I want to know.
What's his victory?
I don't have a pure victory.
That's my point.
So now watch this, Tom.
Stay with me.
Or signature legislation.
Go to senior.
Oh, the fall of the Soviet Union.
He oversaw it.
Oversaw it.
It's not to go for it.
Right?
Go to Reagan.
Oh, Reagan.
Tear down that wall.
He triggered through his tax and economic policies and David Stockman one of the biggest economic expansions, including job growth, job creation, and wealth creation for the American middle class.
Reagan, the Reagan revolution was true.
The Reagan economy was true.
So that's one end.
Hey, Mr. Gorbachev, Tear Down This Wall.
Exactly.
So that's probably going to be the bigger one that the people are going to know.
Economy people, you're probably going to think about what you said.
Okay, go to Kennedy.
Go to Carter.
Kenny's the moonshot.
Go to Obama.
Obama.
I'm going to care.
Right?
We're going to get coverage for 30 million people.
Now, at the fourth year, I'm going to let these folks raise it 27% and the next year, 35%.
Ignore that part.
Now, go to Trump if he's able to pull this off.
Do you understand what I'm asking?
Trump becomes like Reagan.
Trump has an international and an economic balance like Reagan did.
Reagan had those two signature things.
Reagan changed the world dynamic with freedom and democracy and tear down this wall and presided over the economic expansion.
You know what?
For the first Trump could be known for both.
He's being as disruptive as JFK was.
JFK was trying to mess with the Federal Reserve and mess with the CIA and everything.
He's poking around.
And the reason I like what he's doing, he'll mention it, then forget about it for a while and then do a shock and awe strike.
And JFK created the Peace Corps.
So again, what I'm saying is he's got a lot of stuff that's going on.
If he's able to succeed on all of these, this is a monumental presidency.
Yeah.
Monumental presidency, a case study that you'll look back and say, yeah, everyone's going to be compared to this.
Can you imagine like the next guy's being a president?
If he does one press conference every six months, like, dude, what happened?
Like, every day we're talking to this.
That's why Jamie Vance has kind of gotten quiet.
He doesn't want to follow that answer.
If I can do it.
But I think Rubio will.
Go ahead, Tom.
If I could have one thing.
Sure.
Remember, we're also going to need to give Trump credit for what he prevented.
It's not just what he did for policy and economy, but it's what he prevented from happening.
Because had Kamala Harris been elected.
If Kamala Harris got elected, Tom, it is a very different world we're living in today.
Anyways, let's go to the last story here.
Iran.
Iran on the brink as protesters move to take two cities, appeal to Trump.
Rob, if you want to go to that story first, Iranians are now changing street signs and putting Trump on there, folks.
Iranians are asking for help from America.
You'll see where I'm going with this.
Iranians are asking for help from America and Trump.
Iranians who live in Iran, who have Iranian license plates, like that one right there.
Do you see the license plate on the back?
That's an Iranian license plate.
Play this clip here, Rob, if you could.
Watch what they're doing.
Okay?
All right.
Trump.
T-R-A-M-E.
That's how you spell Trump in Farsi.
Is it like way on the street?
Yeah, President Trump way.
Zoom in a little bit to see is it way or avenue what that says?
It's a street.
Okay, street.
In Germany, they say Strasse, right?
Strasse, yeah.
Like Trump Strasse.
So they're doing that.
And then in the interim, Rob, if you got it, there's a bunch of different videos to go to.
I don't know which one we want to go with.
Watch this here.
Watch this here.
Is this the two cities, Rob?
This is Tehran.
And then I also have another one.
This is Tehran?
I like the way you say it, Rob.
Like, you've been there 20 times.
I can't wait for you to say when we're doing a podcast on Tehran.
Rob's going to call his wife, babe.
We just finished the podcast in Tehran.
Look at that.
They're not letting up.
Khamenei is not in a good place right now whatsoever.
Khamenei is not on a place where, you know, his people are not letting up.
This is just Tehran, Iran.
Is that a fire there, like on a shop or something?
Yeah, all the way in the back, if you look closely.
But Rob, the two cities, so that we're on page eight, oh, page eight.
I keep looking at page six.
I'm like, where is this thing?
So let me go to page eight.
Iran on the brink.
Okay, here we go.
Iranian protesters issued a direct appeal to help from Donald Trump on Tuesday.
Again, Iranian people appeal for help from Trump.
The appeal shared on X showed a woman holding up a sign with words, Trump, a symbol of peace.
Don't let them kill us.
On it, the woman's cry for help amid reports of at least 29 deaths.
Apparently, the number right now is 36.
Just about two hours ago, it's 36.
Could be even higher right now.
More than 1,200 arrests, according to human rights activist new agency, HRANA.
They also report an escalation enforcement by security units, including the use of pellet guns, tear gas, and direct assaults on demonstrators.
The National Council Resistance of Iran also claimed the cities of Abdanan, not Abadan.
Abadan is a big city, Abdanan, and Melachoshi, Melachoshi, Melek Shahi, were effectively taken over by protesters.
Today, there were a major development in two cities in western Iran that have effectively taken over and people are actually celebrating in the streets.
They are chanting death to Khamenei despite everything the regime has done.
The fear factor seems to have shifted because people have made the suppressive forces flee.
Rob, which clip is this one here?
That's the city that you mentioned.
Abdanan.
Yep.
Okay.
Why don't you try to pronounce it?
This is Abdanan.
Okay?
Celebrating.
Gotta love it, man.
I was born in this era, the biggest revolution in the history of mankind in Iran.
9 million people, they say, revolted.
49 million people revolted.
The numbers vary.
Here's what Trump had to say.
Trump said, he came out and said, if you do anything to Iran, I want to see what that page is on, Rob.
Trump specifically told Iran, where is that story, Rob?
I know it's somewhere here.
It could be in the addendum.
Let me see in the addendum side.
John Renezula Trumpy.
Anyways, he told Iran that if you do anything, I'm going to come out and take care of the people.
Do you see that story?
I thought I just saw the story there of Trump.
Anyways, there it is.
So if Iran shots and violently kills people, which is their customer, okay, this is an older one.
But there was another one that he said, page eight.
Three.
Do you see it?
Trump warns Iran he will rescue protesters.
That's the one.
What page three?
Page three, Trump threatens that he will rescue protesters, Financial Times, if anything happens to them, which is the same one that Rob has up here.
But then here's what happened.
Reza Pahlavi posted a video yesterday.
He did two things.
He did three things, actually.
He did an interview with Wall Street Journal, okay, where in the interview, he's being asked, do you want intervention?
Meaning, do you want America to intervene and to help you?
In this interview, this is one of the comments he made that's confused a lot of Iranians.
Now, obviously, the people that are that he can't do anything wrong in their eyes, they're not going to protest to this.
But the logical, reasonable players who are looking at this saying, wait a minute, you're saying you don't need a single boot of your military on the ground in Iran?
Yes, I don't need it.
Iranians are saying, Trump, come help us.
But you're not saying you don't need anything.
No, we don't need any intervention.
They're going to be able to do it all by themselves.
Okay.
No problem.
So that's the role he's playing.
That's what he thinks the strategy.
And then he got back from vacation, I believe, from Bahamas, and he posted a video.
Rob, which clip is that?
This was the protesters in the street begging for Trump to prevent anything.
Can you play that, please?
Go for it.
Clomac, help.
Yeah, here's what he said.
He says, foreign intervention, such as operations in Venezuela, was asked.
Reza Pallavi emphasized that the regime must be carried out by Iranian people themselves with no need for foreign military intervention for special operations.
The regime is in the weakest state, and the people are protesting to bring it to an end.
So it doesn't need help.
For 47 years, Iran, do you think the 1979 revolution happened without intervention?
By the way, do you think your father became the king without any intervention?
Do you think your father, let me say that again, your father, a man I support, do you think he became the leader of Iran without intervention?
You don't think anybody got involved for Mosaddegh to fall?
You think Mossadegh was like all of a sudden decided to step away and go live in a small little village?
And I'm not a socialist.
Mossadegh was a modern-day Bernie Sanders.
He would have been horrible for Iran.
Your father was good for Iran.
Okay?
My opinion.
There's a lot of people that are saying certain things nowadays about your father.
I thought he was great for Iran.
But here's a message, which, by the way, I like that he's playing offense.
Watch the message he just said here.
I just don't understand some of his sequencing.
Here's a message that he just gave.
Go ahead, Rob, if you want to play this clip.
Go ahead.
Over the last week, I've watched you do.
Particular those that taking place today in the bazaars.
Despite the regime's violence, You are resisting and it's inspired.
You certainly notice large crowds reported to flee increased affections of Iran.
It's critical to keep his demonstrations disciplined and large as possible.
This is my first call with you.
This Thursday and Friday, January 8th and 9th from 8 p.m. Wherever you are, whether in the streets or even in your own home, I'll call you to begin chanting exactly what's on the ground.
Okay, so he's asking people to chant what they want.
Do they want his return?
Do they want him to be there?
And then I think he was on Hannity yesterday, Rob.
I don't know if you have that clip or not.
Right here.
Is that the clip?
Yeah, that's the clip.
If you want to play that clip, go forward.
Look, in all these years, I've never seen an opportunity as we see today in Iran.
He's right.
People are more than ever committed to bring an end to this regime as the world has witnessed in the last few days.
The level of demonstrations unprecedented in Iran.
Over 100 cities and millions of people on the street chanting death to the dictator and then to this regime.
And by God, it is about time that Iran gets its opportunity to free itself from a tyrannical regime.
So here's what I would say.
He's right.
This is the closest it's ever been.
But I'm going to tell you this.
And I'm going to tell you this very clearly.
All the comments and stuff that comes at me does nothing to me.
I have one priority.
I want to see Iran be free.
These Iranian people, these young men, young boys, young women that are in the streets protesting, making all the noise with the burden of families that their kids are out there doing what they're doing.
No one's going through tougher times than them.
But Reza Palabi, you better close the deal this time.
Because if you don't, you're done.
You are done.
I will, for the rest of my life, call you the Jeb Bush of your family, which there's nothing wrong with that.
He's a very nice man, but he's not George Bush.
And he's definitely not George Bush Sr.
And it's okay if you're Jeb Bush.
You've done what you've done.
You do very good interviews.
You've done very good things over the years.
But I hope you close the deal.
I hope all this pressure, I hope the amount of frustration you and your people are getting from me drives the hell out of you to prove a point to say we're going to go get this done.
I hope you do.
I hope you drive like hell.
I hope you do.
I think you're going to back down at the last minute.
And I hope I'm wrong.
By the way, if I'm wrong, I'll be the first person to come out and say it.
I'll be the first person to come out and say it if I'm wrong.
I'm not trying to be right or wrong here.
I'm trying to see Iran to be free.
I don't have anything in this.
I don't want nothing from you.
I don't need anything.
You typically need money from other people.
I don't need nothing from you.
Nothing.
I got so many messages from people that messaged me.
Very, very well-known celebrities, very, very well-known names saying keep pushing because it's driving him.
Don't worry about all the backlash you're getting and all the things that people are saying.
You indirectly could become the enemy to drive him to get to work because you're the only one that's saying what millions of Iranians are thinking that have been waiting for 47 years and he could play a very big role.
I don't care what you do.
I'm going to be on you like white on rice because to me, you're not my king.
My president is Donald J. Trump.
And your father was a king I respected.
I have his painting in my house.
You're not crown prince, Reza Palabi.
You're Reza Palabi.
You're not a crown prince.
And it's constitutional monarchy that you're trying to push.
And now you're changing, flip-flopping.
We need intervention.
We don't need intervention.
Just last year, you said Israel should attack Iran.
Now you're saying no.
So how do you change your intervention philosophy?
Stick to your freaking philosophy.
What do you believe in?
You know what it's almost like, Tom?
Here's what it's almost like.
Let me tell you what the frustrating part is.
It's almost like one day, no, no, let's do this.
And then he talks to seven people.
Oh, okay, you're right.
No, let's do this.
And he talks to five people.
No, no, let's do this.
No, what do you think as the leader is the right?
Should they intervene or no?
Have you called yet?
Have you called the White House?
I hope you have.
I hope your team has.
I hope they want to talk to you.
I hope you want to talk to them.
By the way, if Trump gives you a call, you are the luckiest man alive because your reputation is on the line.
And this is going to be the closest chance you're ever going to get, ever, ever going to get.
It's not going to get closer than this.
So if you want to help the Iranian people, so all the reputation and rumors that people would say all you cared about is going to families and raising money, raising money, raising money, and the fact that you've never had a job in your life, you've never ran a job in your life your entire life.
Every day, three o'clock games, you know, chess and all this other stuff that you have based on the things I'm hearing from everybody, this is your chance.
I will be the biggest supporter and fan if you pull this off.
I'll go on Twitter, on X, on YouTube, telling you respect the man pulled it off.
I'll be the one that'll say it everywhere.
I'll be the one that says it.
But I'm very comfortable calling you the Jeb Bush of your family.
You.
Very comfortable.
If you don't pull this off.
I love seeing all this virality stuff that's happening with Iran.
I love it.
I love all this stuff that's happening right now.
I hope you are working your ass off morning till night.
I hope you're a diplomat calling people.
Learn from Trump that he has relationship with his friends, his allies, his enemies.
He talks to everybody.
He talks to everybody and he moves on very quickly because that's what the Iranian people need.
But something tells me you're kind of like, well, let me tell you who I am.
Do you know who I am?
You are and all the people around you.
Shomo Shohan Shaw, he can't talk to you like that.
You are the crown prince.
You're not.
You are currently Reza Palavi.
If you close the deal, I will call you whatever it is.
If you do.
Till then, Agoy Reza Palavi.
Let's see your fight.
I am so curious to see your fight.
All the criticism and the shots that you're coming.
I had no idea how disrespectful some of the people on your side are.
Wow.
The threats on your side are.
I had no idea some of the people that were reaching out to me were some very interesting organizations that were reaching out to me.
I didn't know that.
But we're going to keep making our noisier, our voice here, because my number one priority is the Iranian people.
Not a son of a father who was a king, whose grandfather was a king, who shows up every time these types of things happen and gets eyeballs and disappears again, comes back up again.
My number one priority isn't that person.
It's Iran.
But if you do pull it off, I will give you all the respect, the glory, whatever small respect and glory you can get from our audience and the people that we have.
I have no problem being right or wrong here.
Priority is Iran.
Hopefully you'll pull it off.
We'll be watching you very, very closely and we're rooting for you because Iranian people deserve it.
They've been waiting for 47 years.
And the name that's always been said is 47 years.
Do you know in America, when you run for president, how many years it is?
Four years.
Two terms, eight years.
You campaign for 18 months.
You've been campaigning for 47 years.
There may have never been any candidate in the history of mankind that's been running to be the leader of their country for 47 years and is disappointed.
It's people every year.
You.
But if you go and win, salute.
I'd be the first person to say it.
You get all my respect if you pull it off.
And I hope I'm wrong, but we will see.
We are rooting for the Iranian people and anything the Iranian people need.
I am more than happy to help.
But at the same time, it has to come with a leader that's willing to do the right thing.
I hope he does.
And if President Trump calls you, pick up the call.
If he doesn't, you call them.
You go to them.
Go knock on their doors.
Hey, I'd like to be able to help, but let's see what happens next.
God willing, he has a sequencing in place and he's able to pull it off and help these guys out.
Okay, Rob, what story do we have left?
Is there any other story that's left outside of this for us to go to?
I think we did a lot of these on the addendum.
Is there anything else I got here?
No.
It was a manufacturing boom.
No, no.
Tom, is there anything that we have to hit?
I don't think so.
I think everything else has been hit.
I think that's a great rap.
The people, to finish up starting this year, looking at people who just want freedom.
They just want their country back.
And they're crying out for a synergist to come to the fore and to make that happen for them.
And along the way, people are kind of screwing around.
And I'm glad to see, I'm proud of my president saying, these people are speaking.
They want their country back.
And I'm going to back them up.
Don't slaughter these people.
I love that by Trump.
Yeah, and that's called intervention.
That's called intervention.
That's called if you mess with the Iranian people, America's not going to be happy about it.
That's called intervention.
So either you want that or you don't want that, because obviously Khamenei is not afraid of Reza Palavis threats.
You better not mess with my people.
Khamenei is like, what the hell are you going to do?
While he's picking carpet color for his French chateau where he can go hide or his, you know, Russia is going to give him something so he can hide.
He's gone.
I mean, it's about to fall.
I mean, I'm not saying absolute, but it sure looks like it's about to fall.
It looks like Russia is going to give him a place to stay.
And that opens the door for the people to get leadership in a government to have their country.
Yeah.
Okay.
Gang, another great podcast.
Wednesday.
Really enjoyed it.
And Rob, what's the next one?
Home Team Friday.
That's what we got.
We'll be together on Friday.
And guys, again, Jeff Snyder, Euro Dollar University.
If you like, listen to him as much as we do, his insight, go to EuroDollar University and subscribe to his channel and support his work.