Iran's Strait of Hormuz THREATS + McDonald’s CEO Gets ROASTED | PBD #752
Iran’s threats to block the Strait of Hormuz—disrupting 20% of global oil—clash with U.S. strikes degrading its navy, while China’s reliance on Iranian crude risks economic strain; Senator Rubio warns Iran’s missile stockpile outpaces U.S. interceptors by 2028. Meanwhile, McDonald’s CEO Chris Kempczinski faces backlash for a botched burger promo amid corporate DEI controversies, and California’s "billionaire tax" sparks exodus to Florida, where billionaires like Musk and Bezos flee confiscatory policies. A viral 2024 prediction of U.S.-Iran war resurfaces as tensions escalate, while CNN’s acquisition by Paramount triggers internal panic over layoffs and legacy media’s decline—all amid a broader Cold War II strategy targeting China’s allies. [Automatically generated summary]
Another great business show with brilliant minds in the house.
Mark Moss, Snyder, and Ellsworth.
All in the house.
Gentlemen, great to have you back.
There's a lot that's going on right now.
Obviously, we will cover some business stories, probably on the second half of it.
But anything and everything that's going on in Iran right now is tied back to business.
You got the Iranian commander threatening to fire to set fire to ships crossing Strait of Hormuz, which is going to directly impact oil prices.
We're going to look at oil prices.
I'm curious to know where you guys think it's going to be going to.
There's a story that came out from Bloomberg talking about Iran's missile math, $20,000 drones to take out 4 million Nautilopatriots.
There's a guy that made a clip making a prediction, I think, two years ago.
I don't know if you saw this Asian guy, who said, you know, Trump's going to win in November.
U.S. is going to go to war with Iran and U.S. is going to lose to Iran.
He made these three claims.
So he got two of them right.
Listen, even if he gets two out of three right, that's 66%.
But some are saying, what are they talking about?
Is it the fact that they produce smaller drones like Ukraine did against Russia?
Maybe we'll talk about that.
Qatar shot down two Iranian planes.
Can you imagine Qatar that's supposed to be somewhat of a neutral ally is now shooting down Iranian planes?
And then China, there's some stories with China.
I know Jeff and Mark were talking about some thoughts about China.
China could face some real problems within two months of Strait of Hormuz.
Crisis drags on because I think, if I'm not mistaken, 70% of their crude oil, I believe, comes from Iran.
So they're relying, comes from that entire area, specifically Iran.
So they have to make sure Iran's going to be okay.
What that means, we don't know.
Will China get involved?
Will they not get involved?
There's some stories online that are spreading about what is going on, what is not going on.
And then I want to show you a clip from BBC that shows how many of these videos that are AI-driven videos are confusing the crap out of people and people don't know who to believe.
One of them got 17 million views.
Oh my God, look what's going on.
So we'll show you some of these clips from BBC, which BBC, we know, is not a pro-Trump organization.
BBC is probably getting sued if they haven't already by Trump for what they did with that documentary where they kind of changed and cut apart of the clip.
And Trump obliterates Iran's Navy by sinking 11 ships, including the mothership, as Tehran's brazen lies are exposed.
At the same time, while all this stuff is going on, a massive crisis, folks, I'm talking devastating crisis happened to the CEO of McDonald's.
This guy chose to eat this big burger in a bite smaller than my four-year-old daughter.
And Burger King's marketing team said, Mr. CEO of Burger King, do me a favor.
And by the way, I used to work at Burger King, so I don't know which one you worked at, Fast Food.
I worked at BK.
Did you guys work at any of these places?
Or no, no fast food?
He went and took a big bite of their double whopper, whatever it was.
And everyone's taking shots at McDonald's right now.
Mr. CEO Chris Kipjinski, if you're going to take a bite, take a real bite, buddy.
Maybe redo the video and take a real bite of it.
But anyways, that's called marketing and they capitalize.
Miami Heat, apparently their phones are ringing off the hook as California billionaires look to drop nine figures on homes in 305.
I believe, if I'm not mistaken, Mark Zuckerberg Rob, if I'm not mistaken, just closed on his $175 million home.
Small little place he got, but $175 million, $170 million home in Miami.
And they're moving here, guys.
It's just happening.
There's not much you can do about it right now.
They're moving down here.
Pete Hex said, Snapsat reporter and pressed on Trump's four-week Iran war timeline.
Marco Rubio, there's clips saying, well, you said this.
Well, you said that with Israel.
Well, you said, what do you really mean?
What really happened?
Maybe we'll react to that as well.
And then Jamie Dimon, typically Jamie Dimon, you never know how Jamie's going to react.
Jamie Dimon, there could be a rain coming El Nino.
This is the end of times.
Be careful with your assets.
But then there's a war going on with Iran.
And Jamie Dimon says, this is not a big deal.
Iran conflict won't be major inflationary hit.
You got to love his poise when it's a real massive crisis.
And then when it's something else, he'll bring up the fear porn.
Iran war prediction market bets draw heat and saying that this is legal.
I think Calci had to do something with the Khamenei as well as both of them.
I think they have to do it.
But we'll talk about that story.
Bill Clinton was shown footage and asked questions about the massage from the girls he got, and he answered.
And when they said Hillary Clinton really got angry, apparently she really did get angry inside when questioned on a few things.
And I'm surprised because Hillary seems like this major sweetheart.
I can't see her getting angry, but apparently the rumors are true.
She has a temper, and we got to give credit to her.
Took time out of cherry work to be in Congress.
I cannot believe.
Iranian Strait Threat00:15:15
And then Michael Saylor is probably the biggest gambler in the world to be able to do what he does and keep his poise.
This guy's either going to end up being a trillionaire or he's going to be a barista working at Starbucks one of these days.
He wants one of those two.
He's not going for the middle.
He has to wear extra bag pants.
Yeah, that's right.
But listen, he's got brass.
And then maybe we'll talk about some of the stuff that's going on with Paramount and the new leader in Iran with Ayatollah Khamenei's son emergence as a leading choice to be a successor.
Some people are saying his days are numbered.
At any time, something could happen to this man.
Okay, with that being said, I said we get right into it, guys.
Number one is Iran's commander threatens to set fire to ships crossing Strait of Hormuz.
Okay.
So what are they talking about here and how much of an impact will this have on the economy?
As Iranian commander threatened, and Iranian commander threatened Monday.
Rob, do you have a clip of this?
I do.
It's in Farsi, just so you know.
But does it show translation in English or no?
I don't believe so.
Okay, then, Rob, unless if you're going to translate it to us, we can't go to it, Rob.
So I appreciate your effort.
Threatened Monday to attack any ship crossing the Strait of Hormuz and a move that could choke about a fifth of global oil supplies that will send oil prices soaring.
The Strait of Hormuz is closed.
If anyone tries to pass, the heroes of the Revolutionary Guard and the regular Navy will set those ships ablaze.
Ibrahim Jabari, a senior advisor, the Guards commander-in-chief, said in remarks, carried by state media, the waterway is the world's most important oil route connecting the Gulf.
Biggest oil producers like Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iran, Qatar, UAE, one way for Iran to block it is to lay mines, but there hasn't been any such moves so far.
The reason why this matters so much is because of one country, which we're going to get to.
China's the biggest buyer of crude oil from Iran, 80 to 90% of it.
If they shut down Strait of Hormuz, this is 20 million barrels a day, 1.2, 1.3 billion hours a day, 20% of the world's oil supply.
Jeff, how concerned are you about this or is this just a bunch of tough talk?
No, there's definitely a reason to be concerned, but you got to realize this is Iran's only weapon.
The only thing they have left is the price of oil and the leverage that they have over China.
Nothing else.
They really don't have, I mean, not even drones.
No, drones are a little bit of a nuisance, annoyance here.
But what they really have, the only pressure point that they can really use is the Strait of Hormuz, close the gap, or close the seaway, send oil prices higher, press China on, you know, you got to help us out here, man.
We're really stuck here.
It's really the only thing that they have.
And the Trump administration knew that, which is why Israel went after the regime.
The Trump administration went after Iranian capabilities to do this.
This is why Trump keeps talking about, you know, we sent their navy to the bottom of the sea.
It's why there was news earlier, just, I mean, we were just talking about this.
It just broke.
Apparently, something off of Sri Lanka sunk a Iranian warship that was over in Sri Lanka.
That is another, it's another part of the Trump administration's strategy to counter the only leverage that the Iranians have.
Your threat is to get the price of oil to go up by closing the Strait of Hormuz.
We're going to make sure that you can't do that.
So the entire U.S. war effort, or the vast majority of it right now, is to counter that one threat because that's really the only threat the Iranians have.
Yeah, and this is the story we were talking about earlier.
U.S. submarine sinks Iranian warship off Sri Lanka, killing at least 80 and leaving dozens more injured.
Tom, what are your thoughts on this?
Well, this is the coast of India, literally one quarter of the world away.
You have to go from the Middle East, all as people look at me, all the way over here to India, and then you go off the side of India, and there you have it.
Why does this matter, though?
Why does it matter?
What it matters, it means why would an Iran.
Can you pull up the map, Rob?
Just to look at the map of what this location would be exactly what it is.
Why would an Iranian warship be off the coast of Sri Lanka to escort oil tankers, to be a patrol in the area, to be there at certain times?
Now, if you zoom out on this, you're going to see there's a channel there at India.
Keep going.
Now, the Middle East is way over there.
So you have to go all the way down here.
So the fighting is way up here.
And you have Iranian warship.
And now take a look where you go.
You're not far.
You go down and now you end up finally at China.
The other side, Rob, the other side.
The other side.
You have energy.
So you could see how putting a military patrol navy boat there, Pat, could help passage of the oil you're trying to send over to China.
You could menace it, right?
Huh?
You could menace anything, anyway.
Or you could menace anybody else that's in the area.
Instead, the U.S. warship off the coast of India, padoop, you know, and you sink the ship.
And what's interesting, what's related to this, West Texas Intermedia is down a dollar today.
It's holding steady.
That's the oil.
When Trump said drill, baby, drill, that's domestic oil holding steady 74.05.
See there?
Down 51%.
So it was down a dollar in early trading.
Now it's 0.51%.
There it is.
And so guess what?
0.68%.
Our oil over here is staying steady.
So inflationary response, big response.
Oil is a global market, and there's a lot of different types of oil, as we know, the heavy crude from Venezuela.
But the oil market is staying stable.
And to Jeff's point, that's the only card they have.
But the card, they're not playing at a table where all the world is sitting there with a hand.
They're only playing with China and others.
60% of the natural gas that goes to Europe comes from us, United States.
So it's become a much more balanced energy market because now that becomes sort of your sixth fleet.
If you think of the five branches of the military, your sixth fleet is energy independence and ability to be an exporter on the world stage.
So they're saying this is the first time a U.S. submarine shot down an enemy's ship since World War II.
So this hasn't happened for quite some time.
And what it shows is that, again, this is a message.
We are taking this threat very seriously.
So the reason why oil prices are down is because the oil market is saying the U.S. is going to do everything it can to make sure that this worst-case scenario...
So they are optimistic.
So that is a form of showing confidence.
in the fact that the White House is a very important thing.
We're sinking Iranian ships over in India.
That's how serious we're taking this.
We are taking this so seriously.
We will take that threat to the end.
And by the way, Rubio said it was going to get – is this Hexa talking about it?
And Mark, I'm coming to you right afterwards.
Yeah, he said it right at the end of that story.
Let me hear this, and I'm going to go to Mark.
Go for it.
Their Navy, not a factor.
Pick your adjective.
It is no more.
In fact, yesterday in the Indian Ocean, and we'll play it on the screen there, an American submarine sunk an Iranian warship that thought it was safe in international waters.
Instead, it was sunk by a torpedo.
Quiet death.
The first sinking of an enemy ship by a torpedo since World War II.
Bingo.
Like in that war, back when we were still the War Department, we are fighting to win.
Mark, thoughts.
Yeah, I mean, this is high-stakes poker.
It's not even poker.
I mean, this is real life.
This is war.
There's a lot that hangs in the balance.
Number one, I think about what he just said there and the stakes.
I mean, sinking a ship, right, hasn't been done since World War II.
You look at what Trump said on True Social about the straits, and he said, hey, we're going to back the ships.
We'll put the insurance up, which is a whole different topic, but we will not allow the straits to be closed.
That's like, that's strong words.
So they've put the line in the sand, so to speak.
But I think it's really interesting.
And I think about this poker chip that he's trying to play here, because as the point that you made, Patrick, China is the one that suffers the most if this oil doesn't flow to them.
So the U.S. is sort of insulated because we're the number one producer of oil in the world.
We've got Venezuela coming online.
The output has doubled down there.
And we could almost just, hey, let that pain be felt by China and maybe they could influence Iran a little bit in some of these negotiations.
But if we're going to open up the straits and keep the oil flowing, China doesn't suffer, then whose side are they really on?
Where's that pain?
It's interesting.
I think also, you know, to the point that he said, we're not going to allow them to slow this down.
It also shows why there's a war in Iran in the first place.
Because all they constantly do is threaten global markets.
And Jeff and I were talking earlier before we came up here where Trump wants to make a deal.
Most of the Middle East, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, they just want to make a deal.
They're just business people.
But Iran constantly wants to threaten global markets by shutting down the straits.
You can't have that.
You can't ever have peace.
And so I think that's what's at stake here.
And I think it's a bold move.
If a U.S. ship goes down over it, then it's World War III.
Yeah.
If you look over there, right before this started, the Saudis met with Iran and gave them limited assurances for certain situations.
Then Iran starts lobbying semi-accurate missiles, low-grade payloads, over onto these Arab states.
And now the smaller Arab states are saying, what the hell are you doing?
And you've actually hit with a drone one of the iconic hotels that's supposed to be bringing the West to the Middle East.
It's safe to do business here, vacation here from Europe.
You know what we're talking about, right?
Doha.
And so they're like, what the hell are you doing?
So now the Saudis are backing the small Arab states now after giving assurances.
So frequently, there's people that are no longer at the card table.
There's very few people at the card table with Iran.
And I'd like to know how they're going to keep the straits closed for an extended period of time.
And I'll tell you why.
On February 28th, you had American B-2 Spirit.
We only have 20 of these aircraft.
It's supersonic.
It's lethal.
And it flies in areas where there is extreme danger because it's fully stealth.
On March 2nd, they were reporting that B-1 Lancers were now flying deep into Iran, deeper than we had flown, Pat, since 2003.
Now, why do you fly that?
It's not as stealth, but it is supersonic and has a big payload.
If the B-1s are flying, it means you've degraded the defense systems on the ground that are surface to air.
So, okay.
And then yesterday, March 3rd, we're hearing that B-52s, it's a 50-year-old.
70-year-old.
70-year-old.
It's over 50 years old, Pat.
And it has the radar signature of a barn door.
And you can hear it before you can see it.
So if the B-52s are flying, you know what that means?
The skies are safe.
So I'd like to know how and how long is Iran going to keep the strait closed, given what we're seeing with American air superiority right now and what has been cleared out and what's happened to the Navy.
Exactly what are you using to keep the strait closed?
That was yesterday.
Yesterday was Iran's, they played their card.
The card isn't necessarily the military.
It's the threat that we're going to set some tankers on fire.
Any tankers that flow through the strait of Hormuz, we're going to hit it with a drone.
The insurance carriers are going to drop anybody who tries to go through Hormuz.
Lloyd's put a 72-hour suspension.
Right.
And then there was news that others insurance.
Trump said, wait a minute, I'll cover that.
That's what I'm saying.
So Iran played their card.
Their card was, we're going to close the straits of Hormuz with asymmetric warfare and just the threat of it.
What Trump did, again, they had this ready.
They knew this was going to be an eventuality.
So Trump at 12, was it 12.15 p.m. is oil prices were skyrocketing because of the lack of insurance.
International prices.
Right.
So oil prices are skyrocketing.
Trump comes out and says, you know what?
If insurance carriers are not going to write insurance on tankers going through Hormuz, we'll do it.
The U.S. government using, I forget the name of the government.
Can you imagine the boldness and the confidence to say that?
We'll underwrite it.
Don't worry about it.
We got it.
Why?
The only way you underwrite is why.
Because you know what you're going to do.
And you're controlling the air.
That's unbelievable to be able to say that.
Where you were going, if you want to finish your thought, and then I'm going to show the clip.
Go ahead and finish your thought.
The thought is the Trump administration understands their role here is to guarantee that this is going to work, that they can continue to keep the straight of Hermuz open.
We don't have to worry about the fallout, which is all you ever heard about attacking Iran was going to close the straits.
Oil prices are going to go to $500 a barrel.
But Joe, again, what I was saying earlier about, but China suffers the most.
So why would Trump want to keep the oil flowing instead of putting some pressure on China to help them in this situation?
You remember, he's meeting with them.
I think they're having a meeting sometime this week.
Is it this week or next week?
It's also, you're putting pressure on China, but also at the same time, you're not directly harming China.
You're not directly.
But I'm saying by guaranteeing, you're sort of helping China.
So he could say, hey, we got plenty of oil.
We don't need, go ahead, shut it down.
There's two things.
So the consequences, you have two things, in my opinion.
One is if this is a prolonged war, which Iran can do, like it's a negotiation.
The other side's like, I got time.
Me too.
Let's go.
Say the other guy only has six months left.
I got 22 months left.
By the fifth month, he's panicking.
Then he says, hey, let's do a deal.
All right, let's do a deal.
I think if this drags on, if you got China or American voters and midterms, he's going to go here.
He's going to choose this one.
So to me, I don't think they want a prolonged war.
Although, while this is taking place, you guys saw what JD said yesterday.
He says, look, he can go months.
This can be a six-month war.
This can be a 12-month war.
This can be the president has the ability to go as long as they want.
And then Hex said was being pushed on.
You guys said this is going to be four weeks.
This is going to be four weeks.
Well, listen, can you go to that, Rob?
Is this the one about the four weeks?
Yes, sir.
Where he jumps in?
Yep.
Okay, go forward.
The question about four weeks.
It's the typical NBC sort of gotcha type question.
President Trump has all the latitude in the world to talk about how long it may or may not take.
Four weeks, two weeks, six weeks.
It could move up.
It could move back.
We're going to execute at his command the objectives we've set out to achieve.
And what he has shown an ability to do that other presidents can't quite seem to have the aperture to do.
Well, I mean, Joe Biden didn't even know what he was doing, is to look for opportunities and off-ramps and escalations for the United States that creates new opportunities to execute what we need on our own timeline.
So you can play games about four weeks, five weeks.
He has all the latitude, and I'm glad he does because there's no better communicator than our president expressing those things.
Through the Daily Mail.
I've been in meetings with the president for the last two and a half days.
We know exactly where his headspace is, and he will communicate, as he should, exactly what he would like, and we will follow those orders.
And I think everything he said on that is right down the middle.
There you go.
So the concern becomes how long it goes.
They argue, there's a part of me that says they have to say, we'll go three months, six months, 12 months.
I think they're only talking to, they're talking to two people when they say that.
Kuwait Pilots' Careful Approach00:02:56
They're talking to Iran and they're talking to China.
Yep.
I don't think they're talking to the voters.
They know the voters are going to get angry on Twitter, on YouTube, on X, on Alto.
I cannot believe this is going to be another Iraq.
They're like, that's noise.
We'll handle you, you know, folks and media that are going to bitch and moan all this, my mindset on what they're thinking.
But they're like, let us make Iran and China think we can go a minute.
Now, watch this story about U.S. sinking 11 Iranian Navy ships.
Rob, is this the story?
Yes, sir.
Go for it.
Now stands at six.
U.S. Central Command shared this video as well of an Iranian ship being absolutely obliterated.
The U.S. has sunk 11 Iranian ships.
Defense officials tell Fox Iran only has small boats left, but still could mine the Strait of Hormuz.
Iran says it's closed.
The U.S. says it isn't.
Meanwhile, three American fighter jets got shot down accidentally by Kuwaiti air defense today.
All six American pilots are okay.
The incident is under investigation.
Iran also continues firing on American bases all across the region.
The smoke you see here, though, Sean, is rising from the U.S. Embassy in Kuwait today.
Also, tonight, the U.S. Embassy in Saudi Arabia got hit by two Iranian Shaheed drones.
Thankfully, nobody was injured as Iran not only targets civilian infrastructure, but now also oil and gas infrastructure, Sean.
We'll send it back to you.
Tom, if you want to give some thoughts on what happened with the USA.
The Kuwait thing is really annoying.
Let me remind everybody that Iraq invaded Kuwait and basically pillaged it of all resources.
Saddam Hussein did.
And who came over there was the USA and George Bush Sr. to reliberate Kuwait.
Say what you will about the ancillary activity, but we went over and liberated Kuwait after that.
And so the Kuwaitis carelessly, remember, if we're flying over Kuwait, we are now flying back toward the Gulf area away from the engaged conflict.
So you're coming back.
You're empty.
You've dropped your payload, which is bombs.
You're coming back in and you're not expecting radar signature to be coming over Kuwait, which is supposed to be a friendly place, while you go back to the carrier or the base.
And the clumsy Kuwaitis shoot down three of it.
Praise God, our six pilots are okay.
But come on, guys.
We saved your ass.
You got to be a little more careful.
So how do you do that, though?
How do you're not training them to say, guys, what are you doing?
By the way, do you have the clip of one of the pilots being approached?
He's like, no, no, no, I'm American.
I'm American.
Have you guys seen this clip?
The people did back off, but it was an interesting scene to say, how do you make a mistake like that?
You can't.
Thank God those guys, nothing happened to him.
Rob, is that it?
Yes, sir.
Go for it.
You're fine?
Really?
You need something to help you?
No problem.
You're safe.
Everything good?
No problem.
Thank you for helping us.
NATO's Nuclear Ambitions00:15:26
Everything about it.
Is this the female pilot?
Yeah, I think that's a female.
Is that not amazing?
Can we give her credit?
Like, what's her name, Rob?
What is her name?
I mean, we got to recognize people like this.
What a freaking amazing.
Did you see how poised she was?
Hey, let me explain to you guys.
Think about the worst thing that happened to you last 12 months.
Imagine you're on a jet.
You're in enemy territory.
They shoot you down accidentally.
You land and you're smiling.
Hey, no, I'm good.
Can I get some coffee?
Like, what an attitude do I have?
What is her name, Rob?
I don't know if they've released her name yet.
Wow.
I mean, whoever you are, hey, thank you for your service.
What an honor to have women like this that are this tough, that are willing to serve.
Great example.
And restraint.
She's carrying a nine millimeter with two or three magazines.
Didn't do anything with it to come out.
So let me go to another part.
Let me go to another part about what we're seeing because one of the clips that is going viral on X, and I'm curious to get all your thoughts, is Marco Rubio and a comment some of the media members are asking, the two clips, Rob.
The one that shows him saying, do you know which one I'm talking about?
Hey, is this because of Netanyahu?
Is this because of Israel?
And then, you know, they're both on the same.
What I'm trying to say is like they're on the same page, Rob.
Okay.
So if this is one of them, let me see if this is one of them.
No, Rob, this is not one of them.
They're playing refusal to listen.
You can play this clip.
You can play this clip.
Because Rubio right now is on fire.
Iran is run by lunatics, religious fanatic lunatics.
They have an ambition to have nuclear weapons.
They intend to develop those nuclear weapons behind a program of missiles and drones and terrorism that the world will not be able to touch them for fear of those things.
And this is the weakest they've ever been.
Now is the time to go after them.
The president made the decision to go after them, take away their missiles, take away their navy, take away their drones, take away their ability to make those things so that they can never have a nuclear weapon.
That's why the president made this decision.
It was the right decision.
And the world will be a safer place when these radical clerics no longer have access to these weapons.
You see how they're using them now.
Imagine how they would use them a year from now if they had more of these.
So Rubio is front and center right now.
And by the way, two days ago, when he did the 12-minute message that everybody was talking about, at the end of it, he says, if you think this was bad, wait till you see, go to the last 30 seconds of that.
The one you just had, Rob.
I actually have that.
I pulled that separately.
Wait till you see the hardest part is coming.
Is this it?
Yes, sir.
Go ahead, Rob.
No, not at this time.
I mean, look, we always have people that reach out from inside of governments.
You don't know if they're authorized to reach out or not.
They're suffering a tremendous amount of damage.
Honestly, again, I'm not going to give away the details of our tactical efforts, but the hardest hits are yet to come from the U.S. military.
The next phase will be even more punishing on Iran than it is right now.
Someone was streaming, how long will it take?
I don't know how long it'll take.
We have objectives.
We will do this as long as it takes to achieve those objectives, and we will achieve those objectives.
The world will be a safer place when we're done with this operation.
See how it's growing.
Yeah, that's crazy when you're hearing that.
How are you thinking, Mark?
I'm going to show that clip on what you just showed, Rob.
Mark just showed me something about Iranians' missile stockpile versus U.S. interceptor capacity.
If you can post that, I think Rubio posted that.
Mark, where are you at with what Rubio is doing right now?
Yeah, I mean, what Rubio is talking about is just a preemptive move to take somebody out when they're weak.
And what he's talking about is religious fanatics.
And so, you know, Trump wants to make a deal.
Most of the Middle East wants to make a deal.
The UAE wants to make a deal.
Dubai, obviously, Saudi Arabia.
But then we have in Iran these religious fanatics who don't want to make a deal, and they're irrational actors.
The problem that he's talking about is they're the weakest that they've ever been because of some of the pre-strikes that we saw from Israel already.
But even bigger than that, you know, talks of the enriched uranium 60% already getting close to the 90%, way above the 20% threshold they would ever need.
But the chart I was just showing you, Patrick, is their ability or their production of ballistic missiles, and it's going up in a parabolic, like hockey stip type move.
And our ability to intercept those missiles is not going up at that same rate.
And so the problem is right now we're like sort of matched, but they're in the hockey stick growth if we can pull that chart up.
Iran is.
Iran is.
And the problem is if we don't go now, then you're repeating that to me.
I'll send it to you.
Every day we wait.
Every day we wait, we get further and further behind.
So it's like, if we see this as a significant threat down in the future, would we rather get them today or try to have a much bigger war in the future?
Well, they keep referencing missiles.
I mean, everybody wants to focus on nuclear weapons, but I hear constantly is missiles, ballistic missiles, ballistic missiles, ballistic missiles.
So that's exactly what the administration is thinking.
It's not necessarily about nuclear weapons.
And the other part about the weakness, too, is the Iranian government is probably at the weakest it's ever been too, given the uprising.
But are you saying that the longer it goes, it's worse for U.S.?
Mark, is that what you're saying?
Well, yeah, definitely, because like what this chart is showing, I just sent it to you right here, is that their Iranian missile stockpile capacity is going up in a hockey stick, but our ability to intercept these.
So we talk about this asymmetric warfare where they have the cheap drones, $20,000 drone, we have to send a $4 million missile at it.
And so the problem, there we go, there's the chart right there.
You can see here we are 2025, 2026.
But look if we wait till 2027 or 2028, we're way off sides on this.
And so right now we are somewhat evenly matched, maybe a little bit behind based off of this chart right here.
But you could see every year we wait, it just gets harder and harder and harder.
That's not even counting the enriched uranium that they have.
And so if they do get that uranium from 60% to 90% or whatever that level has to be, I mean, then we're really behind.
Tom.
Yeah, you have to look at this.
You're exactly right, Mark.
And so this was the time to do it.
And here's why.
As this stockpile of increasingly lethal, increasingly accurate missiles for Iran grows up, now you cannot checkmate them in a ground situation.
And they neutralize your ability to sanction them and they neutralize your ability to stop them.
While in the background, they're wrenching the uranium and then they become a nuclear power.
And when that, so the missiles here creates a checkmate, and then they're able to become a nuclear power in the background.
You can't let it happen.
And what Rubio said is we're going after their missiles and their ability to manufacture them.
So that's why you have all these secondary and tertiary sites that people say, wait, there's no base there.
There's no base here.
That's armchair quarterbacking by Reuters and BBC because they don't understand that what's being hit is manufacturing facilities, Pat.
They're hitting surface-to-air missile locations, radar locations, actually in order, radar, surface-to-air, airstrips, aircraft, then military bases.
And finally, now you get into the manufacturing.
And then you also, you know, you hit the boat over there by Sri Lanka to remove the Navy.
But this is the problem.
If those missile stockpiles have been allowed to increase, they hold the cards.
And it's harder to get them to stop.
I want to show this.
I want to show this and get your reaction, Jeff.
So shout out to Breaking Points.
They did a great interview with Professor Zhang.
Those guys do a great job.
Crystal and Sagar, they're one of the bigger podcasts out there in the world.
They interviewed Professor Zhang.
This is a prediction he made in 2024 that everybody's talking about right now.
This interview got a few million views.
And everyone's saying, why would he make a prediction like this?
Go ahead, Rob.
So in this class this semester, I'm making three big predictions, right?
First is that Trump will win in November.
Second is the United States will go to war against Iran.
And the third big prediction is that the United States will lose this war, which will forever change the global order.
So what do you think about what he's saying?
For him to say, why would somebody in 2024 make a prediction?
Does it go back to the stockpile?
Is he talking about, because his argument, I believe, what he's saying is they're going to use the small little drones to destroy multi, multi-million dollar properties versus their drones cost them thousand dollars to make.
Tom, are you concerned as much as what he's saying here, the professor?
Well, I think many people made those three predictions.
And I think what you're seeing here is a multi-point effort against Iran.
So in the midst of this, so U.S. will lose the war in Iran.
Who's moving an aircraft carrier to the coast this morning?
France.
France, yeah.
Why?
I saw that.
Because if our bases are hit and our assets are hit, regardless of who started it, we've never invoked the NATO article.
We've never gone to the podium and saying, we hereby call you to support and respond according to the NATO article.
And the article is one attacked, all attacked.
And so Europe is very, the NATO players in Europe are very, very nervous right now that even though, well, sort of you and Israel started it, but they're attacking you.
Gosh, don't pull us into this.
So Macron, no friend to Trump's right now, an ally economically, but certainly not a buddy of Trump's, orders France's nuclear-powered aircraft carrier to move to the Mediterranean.
And so you're seeing the rest of the world here, and I think this is well orchestrated.
I don't think 0.3 is going to come true at all because I think everybody knew the risk of 0.3 coming true.
And that's what you're seeing here.
I would say that those three predictions were not that hard to make.
And the reason why I say that, number one, I mean, after we had President Biden here and we saw who was running against Trump, Kamala, I mean, Trump seemed to be a pretty easy pick.
I think the deep state was maybe throwing a little bit into the mix, but I mean, Trump winning was obvious, number one.
Number two, would he attack Iran?
Well, I mean, Hillary Clinton, you saw that news or that video clip surface in 2008.
He said, if I'm elected, I'll attack Iran.
And we understand in his first term, he put heavy pressure in Iran.
So Obama had given him pallets of money and had eased the negotiations on nuclear weapons.
Trump went full court press on them.
Of course, then when Biden came in, he pulled all that back again.
So you would realize that if Trump came back in, the first thing he's going to do is go back after them again.
So I think prediction number two.
As far as prediction number three, what I would say is because during the Ukraine-Russia war, many commentators that I follow were talking constantly about the U.S.'s losing that war against Russia.
We couldn't produce the munitions for Ukraine to fight back against Russia.
And so the world just saw the U.S. lose.
A lot of people said that.
So I'd say those three predictions, as you said, a lot of people made those predictions.
They weren't that hard to make at that time.
But what does losing to Iran even mean?
And so I think what happens, again, Trump wants to make a deal.
This is going to be negotiated out.
Some deal.
Looks like this morning Iran's already floating the deal out there, which is why markets are up this morning.
We haven't talked about that.
But I think there's going to be a deal made.
Both sides are going to say they won.
And so his prediction is going to come true.
Oh, Iran won.
Yeah, from what lens?
That's really the important point, isn't it?
What are we actually talking about here?
What is it the U.S. is actually trying to accomplish?
Right.
You know, how can we lose a war if we don't really know what we're trying to do?
What do you think they're trying to accomplish?
What they're trying to accomplish here is, as I keep saying, this is Cold War II.
This is bigger than just Iran.
Not that Iran is not a big thing, but this is bigger than just Iran.
That's the point right there.
We've talked about this before, Pat.
Panama, Venezuela, Iran, Cuba is next, Greenland.
The Trump administration is executing a strategy.
They're doing it exactly one by one, and it has to do with China encountering China.
And by the way, where are the Chinese?
Where are they in all this?
I think the Chinese are stunned.
They are absolutely stunned by the fact that the Trump administration had the cojones to do all these things, and they don't know how to effectively counter it.
Because what is Trump really doing?
He's going to all these Chinese allies and saying, I'll take you out.
Beijing ain't going to help you.
You're on your own here.
Yeah.
And you brought up the point about NATO and bringing NATO into this, but Iran has a deal with Russia.
And Russia is supposed to be defending Iran, but so did Venezuela, right?
They're standing down.
Comrade, I'm busy at the moment.
Yeah, they're standing down.
And so we're seeing that their potential allies are standing down.
NATO allies will stand up.
And so, yeah, I think Jeff has the bigger picture, right?
I think a lot of people just say Israel, Israel, Israel, but they don't understand the bigger picture.
Lock down the Western hemisphere.
If you look at the sequence of orders, first close the borders, then get the elite, the dangerous criminals out of the U.S., secure the homeland number one, then go after Venezuela, which was a big piece, not just for oil, of course, but obviously with Trantiagua and all of that that we have potentially there.
Then you move over to Iran.
It's very sequential.
If you look back, right, we're really in a, also, we're in a technology race with China, right?
So they keep threatening the rare earth elements.
And so this is like the bargaining chip.
So Trump wants to cut them off from our high-powered chips.
They want to come back and they want to take away our rare earth elements, which of course we need.
And as much as we need technology in the race to AI, you need oil at the end of the day.
And China is dependent on the world for oil.
So if we can restrict the oil, we have the biggest bargaining chip.
And now we have a level playing field.
And I think Jeff is right with that.
And by the way, what a great move for them to go take out Venezuela.
Like imagine if they did it the other way around.
Yeah.
So imagine they go Iran first and Venezuela second.
No, let's take out Maduro first.
We have control of the oil here.
Now let's go there.
So if China wants oil, you got to come through us.
And if you don't get it through Iran, because I think it's like 80% of the oil that they get from Iran, puts them in a tough place.
But the part I do want to show you, because online social media guys are reacting to it, this was the clip of Rubio that they're saying, look what happened.
The messaging changed within 24 hours.
One is March 3rd.
The other one is March 2nd.
Go ahead, Rob.
And this is Midas Touch.
That's why we needed to get involved.
Today, the president said that Iran was going to get it.
Yeah, your statement is false.
So that's not what I was asked very specifically.
Were you there yesterday?
Yes, I am.
Okay.
And so the president made the very wise decision.
We knew that there was going to be an Israeli action.
We knew that that would precipitate an attack against American forces.
And we knew that if we didn't preemptively go after them before they launched those attacks, we would suffer higher casualties and perhaps even higher those killed.
And then we would all be here answering questions about why we knew that in Jeff, how do you react to this?
Yeah, look, there's more going on here than people keep giving credit for.
You know, it's tough to make statements like that to begin with when you're under pressure.
I mean, he's responding to a specific question.
And again, I think, you know, as Mark and I were talking about, it's somewhat of a distraction.
This is not really about Israel.
Israel and the U.S. have a strategy that they're developing and a game plan that they're following specifically to deal with the Iranian threat.
And the U.S. is using that as leverage in their bigger Cold War strategy again to counter China, Russia, and the other side.
So, you know, focusing on Israel here and making it seem like we're just following along with Israel is just missing the point, totally missing the point.
Endgame Urgency00:10:34
Yeah, and it's interesting you say this because there's an old clip of MBS being interviewed where she asks him about Khamenei.
Have you guys ever seen this clip?
Here's a clip of MBS being interviewed and she asks and makes a comment.
She says, wait a minute, is this really how you view Khamenei?
Look what he says about Khamenei.
Go ahead, Rob.
Scene that you called the Ayatollah, Khamenei, the new Hitler of the Middle East.
Absolutely.
Why?
Because he wants to expand.
He wants to create his own project in the Middle East, very much like Hitler, who wanted to expand at the time.
Many countries around the world and in Europe did not realize how dangerous Hitler was until what happened happened.
I don't want to see the same events happening in the Middle East.
Does Saudi Arabia need nuclear weapons to counter Iran?
Saudi Arabia does not want to acquire any nuclear bomb.
But without a doubt, if Iran developed a nuclear bomb, we will follow suit as soon as possible.
Scene that you call.
It's crazy when you think about it because Saudi pre-79 had a decent relationship with Iran under Mohammad Raza Shah Palavi.
And now, who knows them better?
Who knows Khamenei better?
Who knows the IRGC better?
Social media influencers?
Mainstream media folks?
Or MBS?
Who do you think knows them better?
Of course a guy like this does.
So why do you think they're sitting there saying they're not allies?
We're not working with them.
We're not going to.
And by the way, FYI, just so everybody knows, this is the part that for someone said, well, you don't even know it's because of this.
He's bad.
He's this.
It's a business deal.
It's that deal.
By the way, if Iran is set free and the sanctions are lifted and they can do business with the world, Saudi takes a hit from business because there's a new competitor in town.
I don't know if you understand what I'm saying.
Now you have a massive oil supplier that can sell to everybody.
You think Saudi wants Iran like economically?
They're now, and so imagine if Iran opens up, it becomes free.
They start building towers.
They start doing concerts.
They start doing events.
People start going there for vacation like they used to in the 70s, way before Dubai.
What does that do to Saudi?
That's a new competitor.
Why would he want the regime to fall?
He wouldn't want the regime to fall.
Yet he still does, yet they're still supporting.
Why are they still supporting?
There's a lot of questions that comes up when you think about what's going on there.
But what are your thoughts when you see what MBS said about Khamenei?
Survival.
Like you said, I mean, Saudi Arabia doesn't lose everything, but they lose quite a bit with Iran being a functioning state and a competitor.
However, survival comes first.
And he understands the threat more than anybody else does because he's got to live next door to them.
He's seen it up close and personal.
I mean, we've seen it before.
So it really is a matter of this is just way too freaking dangerous to just not, to just sit here and do nothing.
And as Mark, that chart was absolutely fantastic, by the way, because it actually does put everything into the right context.
Everybody said, we got to do this and we got to do this now because if we wait any longer, it gets to the point where action becomes catastrophic.
I think a bigger piece that has to be taken into consideration is that we, a lot of us, sit here and think about this from a rational mindset.
And so the whole thought during the Cold War, Jeff referenced Cold War 2.0, but in the Cold War, it was mutually assured destruction.
It was rational thought.
If you can kill me and I can kill you, then we have a standoff and we have peace.
But that only works with a rational actor.
When you have an ideological actor whose actual goal is to die in war, they would rather die in as many people with them as they can.
Then it changes the whole thing.
And you have to take that into consideration.
You're so right because they do not have a constitution or something they want to stand on.
They have a suicide pact with an ideology.
And their ultimate outcome is the destruction of anything that is not aligned with that.
And then ultimately, they believe in this endgame.
And so you look at it, you go, wait a minute, you don't really believe in a happily ever after.
Your form of world domination tightens the noose until the Shi'i question is eventually solved because the Sunni-Shi'i question is the last question and that is the last war of Islam.
When everyone else, but remember, it's first the Christians, then it's the Jews, then it's the neutral, then it's the people that stayed even more neutral.
It's like the old poem that was that talked about Germany.
These people did something and I did nothing.
Then these people did something.
Finally, at the end, they came for me and I did nothing.
That is exactly the path they're on.
It's a suicide pact with the future.
And then at the very end, what most of us don't know, the Sunnis and Shiite fight the final war to see who wins.
Right?
Which if you want to go back and look at that was how many years was that between Iraq and Iran?
The 10-year war wasn't?
10-year war?
80 to 80.
Yeah.
It's like you why.
So this is such a great point about the rational actor.
So what do you have to do?
You have to defang every part of the rational actor and put them in check.
And the way you put it in check is you somehow have to move the clerics out and then move others in.
Remember the subway bombings?
The young men that died in those subway bombings were radicalized to the point of committing suicide by the radical clerics that were north of London.
That is, look at it.
That's the way it works.
Get that page.
Good one-to-ones I give you.
That's my denim.
Yeah.
Well, I think the other thing too, Tom, is, you know, we were talking about this too a little bit, Mark.
You know, Maduro, Venezuela was pretty easy, relatively easy, because it was not an ideological state.
It was basically a criminal organization.
You take out the top, everybody's mercenary.
Who am I going to get paid by?
That's done.
The point you're making is...
And they were nearly bankrupt.
They didn't have a money.
They didn't have anybody to pay them anyway.
Iran is different because there was this Israeli, I think it was an intelligence operative.
I can't remember where I saw the clip.
He's talking about, we're not interested in regime change in Iran.
We are interested in collapsing the regime.
Right.
Which is a huge statement.
It's exactly what you're saying.
You can't just change the Ayatollah because the next Ayatollah, like you're talking about with Khomeini's son, he's going to be probably worse than the last one.
You have to collapse the entire regime because you're rooting out an ideology.
What's the difference?
So the average person that's asking, Jeff, what do you mean?
It's still a regime change.
What's the difference?
Well, collapsing the regime means taking out the ideology and handing it over to somebody who's outside of that ideology.
So you can't just get the next guy in line like in Venezuela because they're acting irrationally, as Mark is saying, because they're a full believer in this Islamic takeover, the Islamic end state.
What I would say there's a little nuance to that, though, because I feel the Trump administration has been pretty deliberate by saying we're not going for regime change.
If we get regime change, great, but we're not going for that.
Of course, he's saying, hey, Iranian people rise up and take your country back and things like that.
But what Tom said is defang the regime.
So, hey, if we get regime change, okay, we get regime change.
But how about we just defang them?
How about we take away their ability to go attack the world and have these new good weapons?
And if they stay, they stay.
If they change, they change.
That's not the goal.
The goal is the defanging.
Don't you think deep down, though, they're on board with the Israelis?
If the Israelis, the way I see it is the partnership here is the Israelis are going after the regime, trying to collapse the regime.
And the U.S. is, first of all, trying to protect their economic interests, but also supporting Israel by saying, look, you guys take care of the regime.
You target where the clerics are meeting to pick the next Ayatollah.
We'll take care of all the rest of the stuff so that you guys can do that and we'll do this.
And in the end, if it works, it works really well.
The chart you show is very important.
The reason why the chart is important that you show with the missiles and the interceptors, Rob, if you can send that to me as well so I have it.
Reason why it's important is if you don't, it's like, you know, it's like when Tom, when you guys sold jammed that for $680 million in 04, right?
And you were there and you remember the negotiation is like, so why are you paying 680 for it now?
Jerry Pope said, I don't want to pay a billion next year.
That's right.
I don't want to pay a billion next year.
So I'll pay $680 now versus a billion next year.
So if you don't attack now and this keeps climbing, the longer you delay to do this, eventually you're going to be like, we can't do nothing, so we have to just tolerate them.
So there's an element of urgency for getting that done now rather than waiting for what could happen next.
I do want to go to a couple things and then we can get off the topic and go to a different topic.
Here's what the president was asked about the next president, right, on what's going to happen with Iran.
There's two clips I want to play.
This is about whoever becomes next is going to get killed, and then we'll go what he said about Reza Palabi.
Go ahead, Rob.
Listen, right?
That could happen.
We don't want that to happen.
It would probably be the worst.
You go through this, and then in five years you realize you put somebody in who is no better.
So we'd like to see somebody in there that's going to bring it back for the people.
And we'll see what happens with the people.
You know, they have their chance.
And we've said, don't do it yet.
If you're going to go out and protest, don't do it yet.
It's very dangerous out there.
A lot of bombs are being dropped.
But I would say that would be about the worst.
Do you have someone in mind right now?
Because you've said all the people you did have in mind have been taken out.
What do you think?
Well, most of the people we had in mind are dead.
So, you know, we had some in mind from that group that is dead.
And now we have another group.
They may be dead also, based on reports.
Can you go to the Reza Palabi question?
He loves saying that.
They're dead.
The way he says it, it's lots of enthusiasm.
Go ahead.
My daddy is dead.
President Trump, President Trump, is he an option at all in your mind?
I guess he is.
Some people like him, and we haven't been thinking about too much about that.
It would seem to me that somebody from within maybe would be more appropriate.
I've said that.
He looks like a very nice person.
But it would seem to me that somebody that's there, that's currently popular, if there's such a person.
But we have people like that.
We have people that were more moderate.
You know, these were radical lunatics.
And you know what they get?
They get nothing.
All they do is kill people.
Jeff, what do you think about what he said here?
Well, I think, look, it goes back to what we're talking about here is that if we're going to do this, let's do this, right?
Finish the Job00:02:46
If we're going to do this, let's not do a bunch of missile strikes and take out some capacity, then have to do this four or five years from now.
That was the lesson from the Gulf Wars.
If we're going to do this, let's do it right.
I have to believe that he has something in mind.
This is not just, hey, let's just hope that the Iranian regime collapses on its own under its own weight and that somebody just magically shows up, a Cicero or Washington or something just shows up and everything works out.
Have to believe because they are executing a strategy, both a big picture strategy as well as a smaller picture strategy, that they have something in mind for what comes next.
I believe it has to do with a popular uprising, too, because they keep saying, look, now's not the time to protest.
Wait.
Wait for what?
They have something in mind.
We'll tell you when the time comes that the regime is on its last legs.
You guys rise up and take it over.
That's the optimistic scenario.
I hope that's the case.
And I think that there's probably a reasonable chance that it is.
You know, for most people that don't know their history, they know that we had the Cuban Missile Crisis.
What most Americans don't know is from about 1940 to 1950, there were 10 years that there was a democratic government and system in Cuba.
Was it corrupt?
Yes.
Were there problems?
Yes.
Were there assassinations?
Yes.
But it wasn't Castro.
And then this guy shows up, I think it was 1950 to 1959, Batista.
And it was even more corrupt and it got weird.
And it opened the door for the revolution in 1952.
And what do we get?
Fidel Castro forever.
And that's exactly the lesson here.
The lesson here is that, you know, think of that time in Cuba, 1940, 1950, as Iran before 1979.
And if you're not careful during like Batista with the Ayatollah, you get what you get.
And it goes a hell of a lot longer than you think.
So if we're going to do this, we need to do it.
And it's not just regime change, it's regime collapse.
What happened was Cuba's government, even though it was corrupt and cumbersome, it collapsed.
And now you had a long-term military dictatorship with no economic help for the people.
And we all know how it ends.
So right now, you can't just, you know, as Clinton did, throw a couple cruise missiles into Bosnia and say, see, what do you think of that?
You got to go in there and you remember that?
Yeah.
And yeah, we dropped cruise missiles in Bosnia.
That did what?
How many barns were destroyed?
And you didn't change anything.
And Bosnia, Herzevina, and all the horrible genocide that was going there continued.
You have to finish the job and open the door for the people to establish new, not regime change, like what you're saying, regime collapse to bring back the glory.
And by the way, people are going to think I'm crazy.
Finish the Job00:03:19
Look at the pictures.
Look at the film.
Bring back the glory of Iran from 50 years ago that stopped 47 years ago.
Go look at that.
That could be brought back.
Maybe lost in all this is that there is that optimistic scenario.
Again, the Trump administration, to me, seems to be playing like a traitor.
We talked about this, Mark.
They looking for bets.
Asymmetric.
Traitor.
Trades, yeah.
A traitor.
Yes, a traitor, not traitor.
And I want to make sure that you're not going to be able to do that.
Thank you for clarifying.
There are those traditions.
No, yeah, but no, a traitor.
A traitor, a good trader looks for asymmetric bets.
They'll take risk if the upside is absolutely huge.
In a free Iran is an absolute, it is worth the gamble, I think.
I think that's what the calculation.
Look, the downside is really bad.
The upside is really good.
We think we can do it with Israel as a partner, and I think that's what's taking place.
Yeah, and I think the temperatures are going to go even higher as this extends.
Noise is going to get higher as it extends.
Markets are going to be volatile.
Markets are going to be volatile.
And we'll get into that here as well.
This morning, they're green.
What Joe Lonsdale.
I had Joe Lonsdale on last week from Palantir, and he said something very interesting about do it the way the Romans did it, okay, on what to do with Iran.
And by the way, he said this two days before the war, before we attacked Iran.
So watch this clip here, billionaire, co-founder of Palantir.
He hired the first few hundred employees at Palantir.
Watch this.
Go for it.
You hear the two arguments.
I think they're going to do a surgical mission the way they did Venezuela two days before.
And here's what's going to happen.
And then the other side is like, how do we know that for a fact?
So if I was in charge, I'd be very Roman about it.
So I don't know, maybe this is not appropriate, but I'd be very Roman.
So the Romans would do, you'd go and you wipe out the leadership class.
You're all dead.
And you say, okay, you guys are now in charge.
We're going to make a deal or we're going to kill all of you too.
It's up to you.
Because it's going to be the IRGC who's in charge again, probably, right?
Because they're the guys with the guns.
They say, okay, now here's what we're going to do.
We're going to make a deal.
Here's what's going to happen.
Here's how your republic's going to work and to be free people.
And if you don't do that, then we'll kill you all in six months too.
They won't give you another chance.
But I don't think we should be occupying ourselves.
That's bullshit.
I think Iraq was terribly wrong.
I think trying to go and have people over there is ridiculous.
But should these guys who have acted like they've had, who spread terrorism around the region, who have tried to kill Trump, who have killed so many people, should they be allowed to get away with that?
No way.
I wouldn't let them get away with it.
I'll tell you that.
How much do you think the attack is going to be a collaboration with Israel?
Or do you think it's going to be...
Well, Israel has really good intelligence there.
Every region.
And so obviously, if you're doing something, you need to work with your allies to be positive as possible.
So I assume that's happening right now.
Okay.
I assume it's like, hey, you're going to be the next leader?
You're next.
You're going to be the next supreme leader?
You're next.
This morning, I was reading an article or watching something that said the president of Iran Pezeshkian right now has decentralized power and decision making and has put it on the governors.
Where it's like, rather than waiting for us to make the decision, what do you think is right?
Make the decision.
And I think the reason why they're doing that, because they don't know who's going to be alive, who's not.
So rather than waiting and say, what do you want me to do?
What would you like me?
Should I attack?
Should I not?
What do we do next?
Listen, what do you think is right?
Go do it.
They have gotten to the point that they have to do that because, you know, you'll typically have a general to call.
You'll typically have the commander to call.
It's a very different approach now they're taking when it's decentralized.
And we'll see what happened with this as it's going.
Jamie On Inflation Risk00:08:41
Jamie Dimon was asked about how this affects the economy.
Here's what Jamie had to say.
He says, Iran's conflict won't be major inflationary hit.
Rob, I don't know if you have a clip on this.
I think you do.
Go for it.
As people kind of think about the potential ripple effects of higher oil prices, for example, obviously today's move is just one day.
Do you see a risk that this could lead to sustained inflation over the long run?
I don't think this thing in an isolated way will.
I think there's some risk.
There's more inflation than people think.
And that could be like a skunk at a party if that ever happens.
Hopefully it doesn't happen.
And no one actually knows.
But this right now will increase gas prices a little bit.
And again, if it's not prolonged, there's not going to be a major inflationary hit.
Again, if it went on for a long time, that would be different.
Another concern that I've seen mentioned out there is the risk of retaliatory cyber attacks, banks being a potential target there.
How concerned are you about that?
I know that's something that you mentioned in your letter about a year ago.
I think the most important thing is that we keep the Western world free and safe for democracy.
And people like this have gone away literally with murder for 50 years.
So that's far more important.
But as a corollary to that, you got to expect there'll be cyber attacks or terrorist attacks either here around the world.
Banks may be targets, so may plenty of other people.
And we always try to be prepared for that.
We never try to predict when, why, where.
We spend a lot of money protecting ourselves for cyber.
We think it's part of our job.
But I've always said, I would consider that one of the highest risk banks bear.
Not just the cycle, cyber.
Yes, I remember that from your letter last year.
And of course, we are here at the leveraged finance.
Tom Thoughts.
So Jamie Diamond is speaking at the Global Leveraged Finance Conference.
Translation.
This is where they have their butt hung out with billions and billions and billions of global leverage.
Translations, loans to the rest of the world.
The only thing he's going to do is be a secretary of state and try to talk about calmness, especially sitting there at his own conference on global leveraged finance.
The last thing he wants would be to make some spook comments because Jamie is probably one of the few voices in America outside the Fed that can move a market like radically because a lot of people fall behind him.
Snyder.
Yeah, Jamie and inflation, there's a tortured history there.
I mean, last year he talked about how tariffs were going to create much more inflation than people were expecting.
And at the same time, JP Morgan was buying U.S. Treasury bonds hand over fist.
So you never know what he's actually, but you're right.
He is more of a politician.
Exactly.
He's more of a politician than anything.
And so his whole point here is to maintain calm.
He realizes that if oil prices go higher, it's going to create a bunch of trouble.
There's already trouble percolating up in the credit markets to begin with, especially in private credit and leveraged loans in particular.
So he is, yeah, let's keep this at the absolute minimum so that people don't get too upset about what's taking place.
Mark.
Well, I think, as you said, I mean, when Jamie talks, you have to listen.
He's one of the few people that can move markets, as you said.
He understands what's going on.
Now, of course, he has to talk his own book, and his job is to calm the market, so to speak.
But I would say, you know, as far as is he right or wrong.
Of course he's right.
It's pretty obvious.
If this is a prolonged conflict, we're going to have inflation for any number of reasons, and we can go through the list of what those are.
If this is relatively short, it gets wrapped up in four or five weeks, as Trump said, maybe it will, then probably it's just a little blip and it's not a big deal.
But certainly we already see a little bit of uptick in oil prices, a little bit of uptick on gas.
I think not only about prices going up because of supply chains and oil prices, et cetera, but also because of the sheer amount of debt and monetary stimulus we're going to need to fight this war as well.
So if it's prolonged, yes, we're going to have inflation.
And I think, you know, Trump ran on a couple main points.
Number one, bringing inflation down.
Two, having markets do very, very well.
And three, peace, no wars.
And so a sustained conflict takes away all three of those points.
But two, anyway, to Jamie's points, if this is sustained, yeah, inflation is going to be a problem.
Okay.
All right.
We'll see.
I mean, last time, Rob, we ran a poll.
The poll was how long do you think this is going to last?
And what was the number?
57% said less than four weeks.
Some 50 to 60% said less than four weeks.
Are you guys in the same spot?
You're not?
Okay, why don't we do this, Rob?
Don't say anything, Rob.
Run another poll identical, because now it's been how long?
It's been five days, right?
Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday.
We're now, today's Wednesday or Thursday.
I think today's Wednesday.
Five days.
They all come together.
Ask the same exact question, and I'm curious to know what the audience is saying on how long they think it's going to last now.
And pull it up on Polymarket, too.
Polymarket has it up on OpenStreetMap.
Calci and Polymark.
Do they have it?
Okay, we'll take a look at that as well.
Rob, if you want to post that, I'm curious because— I'm sure there's a Cal Shea on that.
100% there's going to be Calci.
Rob, did you post it or not yet?
Posting it right now.
The other day, Polymarket had like 50% ending in like 12 weeks.
Ending in 12 weeks.
Yeah, 50%.
A couple days ago.
I don't know where it's at as of today.
Where do you think it's going, Jeff?
I think this is more complex than people want to give it credit.
Four weeks, I think, is overly optimistic.
This is a very complex operation that takes time.
And unlike previous administrations, I mean, they're absolutely right talking about this.
I mean, think about the first Gulf War.
As soon as they got into the complex part of it, the Bush administration said, oh, we're done.
They stopped way short of where they probably should have.
And I think it was a realization that to go to the final lengths that they wanted to go to, the final length that the Trump administration wants to go to, this is not a four-week operation.
This is a complex operation.
It's going to take time.
It's going to take an investment.
I think they're laying the groundwork for that to take place.
That's why they're saying four weeks, maybe five.
We'll see how it goes.
But that doesn't mean it's going wrong.
It just means it takes time to do what they're trying to do because what they're trying to do is not have to do this every couple of years.
Yeah, it's funny.
Right now, if you look at the poll, Rob, if you want to pull it up, is that it?
Yes, sir.
Okay, it's 2,000 sample size, a little over 2,000, 25% less than a month.
1% to 1, 44%.
3 to 6 months, 12%, 6 months plus 19.
Now, when we did the same exact poll on Saturday, look what Saturdays look like.
You have a picture of it, Rob, if you just want to.
It's going to be a little bit pixelated.
How long do you think it'll last?
6,000 votes?
47% less than a month.
And that has now flipped from less than a month to one to three months in five days.
I'll take the one to three.
You'll take the one to three.
I'll take the one to three.
And I say that based off of Trump seems to have this pattern.
So if you look at this pattern that he has, where if we look at the tariff negotiations, for example, right?
He has this pattern where he comes in and says, hey, if we're going to make a deal and I'm going to take everything from you, really, really strong.
And then he sort of like backs off, like, let's make a deal.
Then he started moving warships over, started staging them.
So we saw it happening with Maduro as well.
Started staging the ship, started applying pressure, and then he backs it off.
He starts kind of seeding the news stories like, hey, there's probably a deal coming.
Then no deal happens.
And so you see these waves of power.
And so when we look at the tariffs, when we look at Maduro, Venezuela, et cetera, I think about six to 12 weeks seems to be about the timeframe that it takes to go from like that sort of first pressure to getting the deal done.
Do you have the Calci numbers, Rob?
And we'd have to say what done looks like.
And so when I say done, obviously, to your point, this is probably going to take a long time.
But what I would say what done looks like is where the war de-escalates.
Yes.
What is this?
This shows what?
It's done when the Straits of Hormuz is no longer any threat, and then they can still do whatever it is they need to do.
It's really the active conflict that leads to potentially escalating branches.
I mean, that's really honest.
We'll see that part.
Go back to that calcium, Rob.
Is that the one that we're looking at?
U.S.-Iran nuclear deal?
Oh, that's a whole different thing.
I think that part, I don't, again, if it's regime change versus regime collapse, who the hell is negotiating nuclear deal?
If it's about regime collapse, there is no nuclear deal.
We're not doing no nuclear deal with you.
It's just there is no conversation similar to how, and this says what?
This says who the next leaders are going to be?
Red Dress Controversy00:11:47
Yes, sir.
They have this one figured out.
$7 million.
$7 million waged on this one?
Interesting.
By the way, you know who's quietly coming up, Tom?
Who's getting more press than JD?
If you were to right now go and look at minutes on TV, okay, the last 90 days, who has more?
Is it Hexet or Rubio?
I'm sorry, Hexett or JD?
Yeah.
90 days.
Oh, it's Hegseth and Rubio over JD.
So you realize any way you want to look at it, as they should right now.
It is as they should right now, but that's also, you know, a lot of these Calchis have JD at the top.
Now, Hexet's coming up.
So imagine this ends good for Hexet.
Now you have a three-way race of who's going to be running for 2028.
You have JD, you have Rubio, and you have, you know, Hexed wanting to put his hat in.
Didn't Rubio say if JD runs, I'm not going to run?
He did.
But let me tell you, the people that are in his ear, they have a lot of work to do to kind of shift his mindset to be like, look, you know, you don't get, think about how hot DeSantis was in 2020, 2021.
Remember how hot he was at one point?
And he won by 34,000 votes first time, second time, he won by a million and a half?
Chuck, how many chances?
Everybody forgot already what DeSantis did.
DeSantis' news is yesterday, right?
If this is happening right now, Hexet may want to get involved and participate in some of the stuff that's going to happen.
I'm going to show you how quickly we forget because remember that we were talking about that for three days on a national level, not just this podcast.
Which one?
On a national level when the reelection of DeSantis.
Oh my gosh, he won Dade County.
Remember that?
A Republican won Dade County.
It was only Orange County, a small part of Orlando he lost.
Oh my gosh, he's on a roll.
And guess what?
One season later.
There you go.
Yep.
Yep.
So that's why we don't know fully what happened next.
Real quick, I have to touch on this story because it's something that happened.
Bill Clinton, Rob.
Bill Clinton, him and his wife have had an interesting week.
It is funny when his lawyer's like, stop looking at picture, give it back to me.
And then Bill Kipps picked it.
I don't know if you caught that or not.
It is so funny, Rob.
What do you have here?
That was like smiling and nodding.
It was creepy.
Did you guys find that creepy?
Are you kidding me?
Of course it's creepy.
You know, some of the answers he gave.
Which ones do you have, Rob?
You have quite a few of them?
Yes.
I have asked why Epstein said that Bill Clinton liked them young.
I have Bill Clinton talking about President Trump and if he was involved in anything improper with Epstein as well.
I guess one of the ones you can show, you can show that one.
Did we show that last week or not yet?
No, we talked about it, but the clips did not get the one when they're shown a picture of a girl and a lawyer takes it from him and then he takes it back.
I'll find that.
Do you know which one I'm talking about?
Yep.
Start with one of them right now so we can look at because, you know, Hillary Clinton was definitely furious, but let's start off with Bill first.
I hate this, but because I don't believe I should inject anything.
But I do not want to leave the impression.
But since there was no follow-up question, He never, the president never, this is 20-something years ago, never said anything to me to make me think he was involved in anything unproper with regard to Epstein either.
He just didn't.
That's the truth.
As I said earlier, the only conversation I had with President Trump about this was in the early 2000s.
And I have no information that he did anything wrong.
I just want it all out there.
I want everybody to get it all out there and let everybody see where we are.
What do you think about that, Jeff?
Where do you start with all this stuff?
Look, Clinton is Clinton, but is he being lawyerly here?
You know, I didn't hear Jeffrey Epstein say he had anything.
I mean, the context, Bill, right?
The context.
What were you doing?
But I think the bigger question about all of this is did they get anything out of him?
Did they get anything out of Hillary?
Did they get anything out of Bill?
And I'm not sure that they did, which is why I think Hillary was upset, and not to defend Hillary here, but what she was upset about was the fact that Congressman Boebert leaked a photo, which why leak a photo if you're getting some, if you're getting somewhere?
It's to create sensationalism in the absence of finding something that you were looking for.
So that's why, I mean, at the end of the day, is this another waste of our time?
I mean, because look, the Clintons made a huge deal out of this.
They threatened to not show up to Congress.
So it's like they had something to hide.
Did Congress actually find out what they had to hide?
And if they did, what is it?
Because this is another one of those that looks like another dead end.
So I want to show you three clips.
Rob, go to the first one.
I send you three of them, and then we'll go to the next story.
The first one is not this one.
It's the other one where the girl pull the lawyer to the left swipes the paper.
I text that one to you as well.
I texted three clips to you.
Is this it?
This is funny.
Watch this. Watch this.
He's smiling.
Yeah.
Okay, Mr. President, we have about five minutes remaining in the majority's first hour.
So I just want to ask you some questions related to the crimes committed.
You can go to the next one about the painting because the painting story is funny.
And I'll tell you why this is funny.
Go ahead.
Submit it to the record.
We have a painting that seems to be of you, Mr. President, found in one of Jeffrey Epstein's residences wearing a, I would categorize it as a famous blue dress worn by the White House intern Monica Lewinsky.
And I have this image here.
This image is being passed around.
So, Mr. President, we are looking at an image of a portrait that looks to be you, Mr. President, in this blue dress.
Can you describe this painting?
He doesn't need to describe the painting.
You just gave him a picture.
What's your question?
My question is, are you familiar with this painting?
Have you ever seen it in person?
I've never seen it in person.
Do you know why someone would paint this painting?
Are you asking that's cause for speculation?
You can ask the artist.
And if I had known Jeffrey Epstein had this painting, it would have saved me this whole day.
It's funny with that blue painting.
He says he hasn't seen it, right?
Well, this is the tricky part.
I had Michael Wolf on.
Michael Wolfe had been at Epstein's place interviewing him for 100 hours.
And I asked Michael Wolf, Rob, if you go to minute 20.
2130.
There you go.
Go to 2130.
I said, hey, what do you know about this painting?
Did you ever see this painting in his place?
Which, by the way, we know that the president has been to Epstein's.
Rob, we know that president has been to Epstein's house multiple times, right?
According to the president, he said he's never been to the Zoro Ranch property.
Not the Zoro Ranch.
I'm talking about the Manhattan one.
I'm not sure about the Manhattan.
The only things I saw him talk about in the deposition was the island, which he claimed he was never to, and the New Zealand, the New Mexico Ranch, he claims he never went to.
Okay, play this clip.
Go for it.
Walked into this private residence.
You know how they say that painting of President Bush and Clinton, did you ever see those two paintings in the property?
I don't know the President Bush.
I saw that one, and it was in a little, a little, it was basically in a closet off the main entrance.
Did you ever ask him why he has that?
That's a very weird painting for you to have of a president in a dress in a painting, in a painting.
That's kind of weird.
Yeah, I think it was a joke painting.
You know, at one point, I never saw that painting.
So I don't know where the Bush painting is from.
I have seen the Clinton painting.
And, you know, it was a joke.
The nature of the joke.
You can possibly.
You got to keep in mind, Michael Wolf is not necessarily the biggest Trump fan himself.
So he is a guy that is probably more Clinton than it is.
But, you know, to say that painting didn't exist, a lot of people know about that painting.
Who knows whether he's seen it or not?
We know what the painting means, the blue dress.
He did say it was in a closet.
He did say something.
I mean, I'm no fan of the Clintons, but he did say it was in a closet.
Yeah, he said right next to a closet that you could see.
If it wasn't a closet, then what is Michael Wolf doing in the closet?
Yeah.
You know what I'm saying?
That seemed a little bit more concerning.
It kind of looked like he knew the painting, and it was like this is an inside joke between him and him and Epstein.
That's what, I mean, that's the reaction I get.
You know what the blue dress is?
Yeah.
It's Monica Lewinsky's dress.
Yeah.
So that's why he was chuckling.
Yeah.
And by the way, even the lawyer was chuckling.
The lawyer was chuckling like, I can't believe my client's such a big playboy, but I got to defend him here today.
But then go to the Hillary one and we can move on with this because here's the amazing Hillary Clinton.
Go ahead.
I have another photos that are being released of the secretary as she is testifying from inside this room.
Can you please advise me as to whether or not that's permissible and consistent with the rules, particularly given that we have asked for a public hearing?
If there are photos that are being released of the secretary as she is testifying, can you please explain how I'm done with this?
If you guys are doing that, I am done.
You can hold me in contempt from now until the cows come home.
This is just typical behavior.
I did post one.
Oh, for heaven.
So I would like to understand how that's permissible for the hearing was.
It doesn't matter.
We all are abiding by the same rules.
I will take that down.
Yeah, well.
I would like to take a break at this moment.
I'd like to have a break.
I've got issues for now.
That's pretty much.
Go off the record.
Go off the record.
It's pretty bad on whose end.
That's pretty bad.
For Bobart who posted that.
I mean, why would you do that?
I'm with you there.
I'm with Hillary on that one.
Sorry.
There's no reason to do that.
I always knew you were a big Hillary supporter.
You gave me a vibe.
Come on, now you're killing me here.
I mean, I'm forcing you to support him.
You're forcing me to support him.
No, the Republicans are forcing me to support him.
I agree.
You can't do this.
I agree.
You can't do that.
If you have decorum and power, you need to corner the witness with this, and you need to avoid the sideshow.
And this created a sideshow.
I will say this.
Clinton looked old.
Bill or Hillary?
The handshaking.
Yeah, I mean, he looked older than I remember just from recent media and stuff.
And it's really shocking because you remember, he and Trump are exactly two months apart.
Trump is in the middle of June.
I think Clinton's middle of August.
You're right.
But I've heard that they were two months apart in age.
But which one of them looks more vibrant right now?
It's not close.
It's not even close.
There is a red thing that they're talking about with the president.
There's still some stuff that's going on that they're talking about the president, but you're right.
It's not even close to the energy.
And by the way, imagine how, when have you gone a day or two that you haven't seen the president on the screen talking to somebody?
Yeah.
Every day.
All hours of the day.
McDonald's Parachute Strategy00:07:26
Yeah, all hours of the day.
I'll go back to something that Jeff said, though.
Like, why would they post that?
Like, if they had something, they probably wouldn't be trying to cause that uproar.
Maybe, maybe not.
I think probably all of us, not to speak for everybody, but I think we're all pretty disappointed in how slow the government's been going through this Epstein stuff.
Like, where's the arrest?
Like, I think a lot of us maybe thought we knew it was in the Epstein files, but to see it confirmed, I mean, it's shocking how terrible it is.
And so, where are the arrests?
Where's the action?
However, I'm no attorney, obviously, but like these cases do take time to get built up.
So, I wouldn't jump to the conclusion that they didn't find anything.
To your point, they did make a deal to show up.
So, that meant that they probably did have something there.
Otherwise, why would they have asked for a deal?
There is maybe something that came out.
Maybe I'm hopeful here.
You know who's next?
Lutnik is next.
Yeah.
And they won Milani and they volunteer.
He's voluntarily coming in.
He's voluntarily coming in, which is great.
By the way, this is great.
Do it.
It doesn't look good for him.
It doesn't look good for him.
I'm a fan of Lutnik, but it doesn't look good for him.
Yeah, it doesn't.
When you come in multiple times saying nothing to one time, it's a bad look.
And the constant smiling, like what's the big deal?
I think that's also a bigger thing that frustrates some people.
But let's get to the next story.
A massive story broke, guys.
You have to see this.
This is massive.
This is heartbreaking.
Some people are saying this is bigger than the Iran story.
It's not getting enough credit.
But low-key, a lot of people are paying attention to this of what the CEO of McDonald's just did.
The CEO of McDonald's tried to do a publicity stunt to introduce the new burger that they're launching, which is called what?
The Big Arch?
Rob, is it already out or not yet?
I'm not sure if it's out.
I'll check.
Jake, is it out?
Do you know if it's out or no?
I think this is the PR tour that's supposed to be part of it.
It came out today.
Beautiful.
I'd say, let's cancel the podcast.
Let's go, guys.
So here's him eating the McDonald's, a new Big Arch burger.
And then obviously right afterwards, Burger King's like, this is a massive opportunity for us.
Rob, maybe don't go from the beginning because people will, it's a cure for insomnia.
But if you can play it from the go for it from right there, that's fine.
At two quarter-pound patties, a delicious big arch sauce, and of course, some lettuce.
So, oh, there's so much going on with this.
First of all, let's try to get this thing.
I don't even know how to attack it.
Got so much to it.
Oh, there's also some crispy onions on here as well.
I see those kind of coming.
It looks like a vegetarian.
All right.
The moment of truth.
Come on, buddy.
Take that bite.
That's so good.
That's a big bite for a big arch.
It's distinctively McDonald's.
Only McDonald's could do this type of burger, but it also is unlike anything else on our menu.
Okay.
So delicious.
Sounds like a nice guy.
Do me a favor: go to the Burger King CEO and watch what he does here.
He doesn't even say anything, he just puts on a kitchen, what do you call it, chef's apron and then takes a bite out of it.
And go ahead, Rob.
That's a bite.
Not bad, right?
Only one thing missing: a napkin.
Fur.
Yeah.
So what do you do?
When you look at this, what do you say?
You say, Mr. CO, respectfully, you're not a personality.
Yes.
Yes.
Somebody in marketing should have said, you're not the guy to be out in front of this.
You're kind of robotic.
You don't look like a human in some cases.
You look like a Burger King.
You look like a vegetarian.
The Burger King guy looked like he should be eating Burger King.
Now's guy does not look like a McDonald's.
If I put my marketing hat on for a second, it looks like what he was trying to do is show how big it was.
And he's like, oh, look at those two patties.
And it's like, it's so big.
Let's see.
What do you say?
Let me see if I can get my mouth.
But isn't that even overthinking it?
It is.
And so he's robotic and they coach him.
And so then he's trying to make it look big by taking a small bite is probably what they told him something.
It was a marketing thing.
It was bad.
It was horrible.
Burger Wars have been going on for a while.
By the way, Value Team has a case study that's going to drop this week on the Burger Wars.
Coincidentally enough, we shot it last week.
And what's amazing if you think about it, McDonald's, if you took the top 10 burger chains, Pat, what percent of the total revenue of all top 10 combined is McDonald's?
How much?
Which one?
55%.
Really?
Of all the top 10.
Last year, they were $57 billion.
They grew 6% last year when most nobody else grew.
And Wendy's has been rumbling, stumbling.
Burger King is about to leapfrog him place $11 billion.
So it's $57 billion versus $11 billion.
And the boutiques are doing great.
In-N-Out's doing great.
Waterburger's doing great.
Those are the boutiques.
But what's really interesting is McDonald's on a roll.
Remember what happened?
Just a couple of years ago, McDonald's was kind of flat with growth.
And they had this guy, Steve Easterbrook, who was CEO.
Do you remember what happened to him?
He was caught dipping the french fry with a member of his staff.
And he suddenly resigned, and they had this big settlement.
And because he lied to the board, the board sue him.
And for one of the first times in U.S. history, an exiting CEO that had this big parachute package had to give the parachute back $100 million.
So now, Tom, what do you mean by parachute?
They gave him a parachute is like a couple different meanings.
Well, when he was dismissed, they gave him $100 million to go away as part of his contract.
But then the board realized just how much the Steve Easterbrook guy apparently had deceived the board, and they actually sued to get it back.
And that's rare.
Usually you have America sitting there slackjawed saying, so a CEO gets fired and he gets $25 million to retire?
Well, I don't know if this guy would talk dirty the right way, so they don't have to worry about that.
No, this guy, this guy.
He's going to say, wow, look how big this burger is.
Are you ready?
To go for it right now.
You're about to get it.
I don't know if I see that happen.
So the board is pretty fine with him.
By the way, I looked up his background.
He's been the president and CEO since 19.
He was the chairman of the board since 2024.
Duke University grad.
Harvard, he got his MBA.
He was at Procter ⁇ Gamble, started in brand management, then went to Boston Consulting Group, BCG.
So he's a consultant, then went to PepsiCo, corporate strategy and later VP of marketing, then went to Kraft Foods, EVP of Growth Initiatives, president of Kraft International.
Then he joined McDonald's as the EVP of strategy.
Then he became president of McDonald's USA, running 14,000 restaurants.
Then he became the CEO.
So he's a guy that's a corporate guy that's moved around a few different places, but he's been at McDonald's for a few years.
Shareholder, you like this guy because the transition of Steve Easterbrook, he's done a great job.
He's just not a guy for the commercial.
You don't see him at the nightclub.
You're not going to see him out there partying hardcore.
I was going to say, regarding McDonald's, I have a friend who owns about a dozen McDonald's franchises.
He's second generation.
His father owned a bunch of franchises.
He was able to buy some of those from him.
And he's about my age, and he's trying to exit all of his franchises as quickly as he can.
He said that lots of people are doing that.
He said that the DEI policies have gotten so bad inside McDonald's that what's happened is they don't allow them to now buy and sell McDonald's franchises freely.
And so now they have to be sold to DEI candidates.
And so what that's done is it's lowered the value of his franchises now.
Florida Wealth Tax Concerns00:10:15
Wow.
So now he's not able to sell them for the value that he would have before.
And he said it's just getting worse and worse.
So he's trying to exit all of them.
And he has kids.
Like, I'm like, why wouldn't you get your kids?
Like, you got them?
He's like, no, no, no.
The value is going down so fast.
I'm exiting all of them right now.
Unbelievable.
I thought that was kind of interesting.
We had a call with the chief expansion officer of McDonald's probably about eight months ago.
It was a Zoom seven months ago about opening up a McDonald's in Armenia.
And by the time we were done with the conversation, it wasn't something they were interested in at the time because of risk protection military.
They have a certain program, a structure they use on expanding into different countries.
And they said, not right now, maybe later on.
But fun fact, this guy doesn't attend co-play concerts.
I don't know if that matters anything or not.
I just want to put that out there.
Good, good.
That he's safe.
Okay, let's go to the next story.
Next story we got here is Miami Heat.
Why does this matter?
Okay, this is not a sports podcast, but the Miami Heats phones are ringing off the hook as California billionaires look to drop nine figures on homes in the 305.
And we're seeing the wealth tax conversation that is taking place.
So Saddie Abunza Delgado has sold luxury real estate in South Florida for over three decades, typically to doctors or family business owners, ready to spend as much as $8 million on a home in the Miami area.
Almost overnight that changed.
Her phone started ringing with billionaires, Titans of tech and finance looking to drop nine figures on waterfront properties.
I got a flurry of requests and inquiries.
Delgado has landed two billionaire clients recently, told Business Insider, I had a lot of Zoom calls with people coming in January after the holidays.
While the Florida migration among everyday people may have cooled following a pandemic era, boom, billionaires are fueling a spree of massive purchases.
They are largely looking to avoid a property California wealth tax, which Delgado said led to the busiest January she's ever experienced.
Three other agents told Business Insider that inquiries picked up at the end of 2025 and into 2026.
We know Mark Zuckerberg just bought a $170 million home.
If you want to pull that up, Rob.
I think if I'm not mistaken, there is Ken Griffin that's building a billion-dollar home in compound in Palm Beach, and it's going to be the most expensive private residence in America with what he's building.
And then he got Sergei Bran and Citadel's building a massive building in Miami.
Yeah, and by the way, Palantir also announced that they're moving to Miami as well.
So, Jeff, what are your thoughts on this story here?
Can we stop calling it a tax?
It's not a tax.
It's confiscation.
You know, what they're proposing in California.
Thank you.
It's not a tax.
It's not.
It is not a tax.
Whatever you think about billionaires, and we should not be demonizing billionaires.
Whatever you think about billionaires, it's inherently unfair.
And I'm going to use the word, it's un-American.
You don't confiscate somebody's wealth just because they're wealthy.
So you can understand why they're fleeing California and other places, not just California, Illinois.
That's where Citadel was, they're in Chicago.
Correct.
So they're fleeing these blue states.
And somebody who's done that before, I mean, I used to live in upstate New York.
I moved to Florida for basically the same reasons, certainly not on that level.
But you can understand where they're coming from because it's not a tax.
It's not a matter of policy disagreements.
It's a matter of philosophical disagreements.
The government in California philosophically has shifted.
It has shifted to the point that it demonizes success.
It demonizes people who are able to create wealth, essentially, which is what an economy actually needs, is wealth creation.
It's no longer just about, hey, we need to raise some revenue for the government.
There's a different element to it.
And I think finally, some of these people who may have supported that in the past have realized that the worm has changed here.
And this is something completely different.
This is categorically different.
This is not a tax.
This is something completely different.
Yeah.
Yeah, I love the word.
It is confiscation.
It's confiscation.
It's not what you earned.
It's what you have.
There's a big difference.
You have a big year.
You earn a lot.
You pay taxes on that.
We have a tax code.
Damn, right.
And it's progressive.
The higher it goes, the higher it goes.
And all of a sudden, you hit a million dollars, and every dollar above that is 39% to the federal government, and plus whatever is in your state.
This is, I don't like what you have after you've paid your taxes.
And people need to think about it that way.
This so-called billionaire tax is confiscation after they have paid taxes, after they have paid it.
So the only thing is jealousy.
Oh, well, they've made too much.
You want to take it?
Or it's socialist confiscation.
There's another word here, attraction, you know, and leadership.
So attraction and leadership go hand in hand together in Florida.
Attraction.
Francis Suarez has probably one of the most economically changing tweets in American history.
Wouldn't you say, Pat?
How can I help?
And all of a sudden, there's a crypto conference in Miami and people realizing, wow, this is what you have to offer.
Traffic's not perfect.
Things aren't perfect.
But you know what?
You offer no income taxes.
You offer a lot of other things.
And Francis Suarez worked to cultivate that.
So it was attraction and leadership.
Then look what DeSantis did leading during COVID.
So now Florida's attractive to people and somehow that's a bad thing.
And now you're shocked that millionaires are coming down here to buy, millionaires and billionaires are coming down to buy incredible places in an incredible state.
It's a law of attraction and leadership set it up.
And so, but please, please correct all your friends.
Mark, you're the only one that lives in California, right?
You're the only one that lives in California.
So tell us about that.
You know, I would say to the point that you both made, it's absolutely right.
And I just want to hit on that point.
It's confiscation of property.
But I think there's a big misconception by the public to how billionaires hold their wealth because what it's really doing is it's forced liquidation of assets.
And so when you look at, you know, a Jeff Bezos or an Elon Musk, you know, they don't just have billions of dollars of cash in a bank they can just like cut a check for.
They have it in their stock of their company.
Paper.
And so, yeah, but not just paper in ownership.
And so what they're really being forced to do is they're being forced to give up ownership of their company.
And then that ownership is going to go to who?
And so then that ownership gets democratized or it goes to people who don't know how to run or manage that ownership of those properties.
So I think that's a really big problem.
To your point, though, Pat, yeah, billionaires are leaving.
Friends of mine that are not billionaires, but even millionaires make millions per year.
They're leaving right now as well.
And the reason why is because it's very easy for the state of California to just turn a dial and bring it down to lower income people without even having to go back through another vote.
And so I think that's really bad.
And the last thing I'd say is kind of to the point that you said about attracting people.
It's a carrot or a stick, right?
We look at Dubai.
I went to Dubai for the first time two years ago and I was blown away coming from California, like how nice the streets were and how new the buildings were.
And they've done that by attracting talent, by giving you a good business climate, low taxes, things like that.
Things like Florida has done.
And so it's catastrophic.
Florida's lucky, I guess.
New York and California are pushing the best of the best to them.
I want to say this to some of you guys that are buyers of big homes.
You'll maneuck me and you'll say, Pat, I'm looking at a $12 million home in Bulca.
Looking at a $22 million home in Manalopan.
If you're a bigger buyer, just keep this part in mind, a tip for you.
When you're negotiating commissions, it is a different conversation to have versus, well, listen, I normally charge $5 and $6, but for you, because we really like you, 4% and 5%.
No, no.
The way you negotiate if you're buying a house that's above 10 million or above 20 million or above 100 million, whatever the number may be, is you say, look, I don't know.
Let's just say you want to buy a $50 million house.
Don't negotiate rate because 4% on $50 million as well, $2 million commission.
Rather say, I don't know how big of a house I'm buying.
Are you willing to work with a flat fee of half a million dollars?
They don't like that.
So remember the difference.
You know how big of a house you want to buy.
Don't tell them how big of a house you want to buy.
Say, I'm talking to a handful of different realtors and have a very simple agreement.
If you're open to it, you help me find a property.
It's a half a million dollar flat fee.
So this is not a $700,000 house where it's 5% or 6% or million $8 house that's 4.5%, 5%.
No.
Talk about a flat fee.
And some of these guys will agree.
Some of them won't agree.
Some of them will agree to be able to say, I sold the house to Sergey Brin.
I sold the house.
So if you're somebody that's in that market.
So the only question that's.
And if you are Sergey Brin, don't let them trade on your name.
The only question you need is: would you like me to bring the U-Haul?
Yeah.
I'm thankful for Pat giving us some free consulting here because now I know I have to negotiate my deal.
No, but in all honesty, I mean, I grew up there and I love it there.
And like my lifestyle is built there.
But my daughter, my youngest daughter, is going to graduate high school in a year.
And there's a good chance we're probably going to move our tax residence.
I have a ranch in Texas.
I got a beautiful house in Mexico.
Like I could just move my tax residence and there's probably a pretty good chance I might do that.
And I don't want to.
Where are you looking at in Texas?
Well, I have a ranch property in Dripping Springs outside of Austin.
It's beautiful.
Like I said, I have my house in Mexico that we could just go live at on the beach down there.
You have choices.
You make the right decisions where you and your family have a choice on what to do with that.
And I don't want to.
And I'm willing to pay a premium.
I'm willing to pay a premium to stay there.
I don't eat a McDonald's.
Going back to me.
I don't eat a McDonald's.
I'd rather go get a steak.
So I'm willing to pay a premium to live there, but there's only so much.
Give me a flipping break.
So you shouldn't lose a person like this.
This is a good citizen, good for society, family.
Why not keep them instead of pushing them to a different place?
Well, if you think about Florida as one of your options, let us know.
I have a realtor that charges 7%, but it'll be a deal for you 46%.
Hey, by the way, for those of you guys that are watching.
Family member?
No, no, no.
For those of you guys that are watching this and you're tuning in, I got two more stories to do before we wrap up.
Remember, this is the biggest request I have from you.
51% of you watch our podcast who are not subscribed to it.
You just watch it, consume it regularly, but you haven't pressed that subscribe button.
MicroStrategy's Bitcoin Bet00:12:26
That's very important to us on the algorithm.
If you enjoy the big, this last week, our team has done a great job, a lot of interviews, a lot of different shows.
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If you like what we do with PBD podcasts and the guests that we bring and the conversations that we have, smash that subscribe button.
It helps us out a lot when you're doing that.
So 51% of you enjoy watching it, but it would mean a lot to us if you press that subscribe button.
Okay, let's get to the next story.
Next story I want to go to, I got so many directions to go with this next one, but I'm trying to see, is there a specific story for us to go to?
Yeah, let's talk about this one here.
So Michael Saylor's strategy steps up.
Bitcoin buys by using common shares.
There are a lot of people that are sitting around saying, what is going to happen with these guys if all of a sudden you get that famous movie that we've all seen in the financial industry, Margin Call?
Is there such a thing that this guy's going to get a margin call?
Because either this guy has the biggest brass in the world, he's the biggest gamble in the world.
One of two stories are going to be told about him in the next five to 10 years.
He's either going to be one of the top five, top 10 richest people in the world, or he's a name you'll never hear about.
It's kind of like if you've ever read the book, A Virgin, I don't know what it was called with Branson.
His mother said, losing my virginity.
Losing my virginity.
His mother or his teacher said, either my son's going to be in prison or he's going to be a very famous man in the world.
So Michael Saylor is kind of going for that.
He bought more than $200 million of Bitcoin, turning to common stock to finance the bulk of its acquisition, despite promises to lean on its perpetual preferred shares.
The company former loans on MicroStrategy bought 3,015 Bitcoins between February 23rd and March 1st, according to regulatory filing.
Monday, roughly $230 million of the purchase was funded through sales of Class A common stock.
The remaining $7 million, about 3% of the total, came from at-the-market sales of its stretch, preferred shares.
Rob, if you can pull up what prices are, and by the way, previous week was $40 million.
Where's Bitcoin right now?
$72,000.
So can you go to six months?
Six percent.
Go to six months?
Six months.
Down 50% off the tie.
So what do you think about what Michael is doing here?
Yeah.
Mark.
I'd love to answer this.
If we could, pull up strategy.com, pull up their website, and just look at some of these stats right here.
Most people, it's so new and groundbreaking.
Most people don't understand Bitcoin.
Of course, Jeff does.
We've talked about it for hours and hours and hours.
But because you don't understand Bitcoin, you can't really understand what strategy is doing.
And so you're looking at it through the wrong lens.
And what do I mean by that?
First of all, the whole world, the financial world, is built off discounted future cash flows.
So we buy stocks based off of a PE ratio, and we hope that in the future, they're going to borrow money.
And in the future, they're going to invest it into their data center.
And hopefully in the future, that'll make enough money where they can pay me back.
Or I do it through a bond and I'll loan them money and I hope they pay me back.
So, you know, the Mag 7 is trading at a 30, 40, 50 times PE ratio.
Hopefully, they have the cash flow.
What strategy is doing is something completely different.
You give them money and they buy the asset.
They're not hoping to have cash flow in the future.
They have the assets.
So look at these charts right here.
What we can see right now, $2.2 million in cash, but more importantly, net leverage, 11%.
Debt low is very low.
They have 30 months of dividend coverage, but they have 58 years of assets to cover.
what they owe.
Now, if you don't believe in Bitcoin, none of this makes any sense to you.
If you believe Bitcoin's going to zero, then this is the stupidest thing in the world.
So that being said, I don't think that's the case.
Now, some people want to look at either extreme.
Either Bitcoin is going to be a million or it's going to be zero.
No, it doesn't have to be.
Bitcoin could also just be $200,000.
I don't believe it's going to zero.
The chance, as Jeff said, asymmetric bets, the chance of it going to zero is barely zero.
So if you don't believe Bitcoin's going to zero, then you look at this company from a different lens.
58 years of assets to cover the dividend, 2.2 million.
So that's the first underlying thing.
Now, secondly, why would he be selling common stock to buy more Bitcoin?
Number one, Bitcoin's down 50%.
It's an amazing buying opportunity.
Anytime it's around the 200 weekly moving average, it's a historic buy.
Number two, what he does is you can look here.
It says MNAV on the right right there, 1.2%.
So the company is being valued at a 1.2 times book value, price to book, if you'll call it that, right?
So what that means is if he sells common stock to buy more Bitcoin at that price, it's accretive to what he's doing.
And MicroStrategy, people need to understand what they're buying at MicroStrategy is they're buying a ratio of Bitcoin per share.
So the goal of MicroStrategy is to get the Bitcoin per share higher.
So if I buy MicroStrategy, I want exposure to Bitcoin's price.
And so I'm expecting him to get the amount of Bitcoin per share higher.
That's what I'm buying it for.
And anytime he sells common stock above one, it's accretive for me.
So I can kind of stop there.
It's a smart move on what he's doing.
I think it's a very smart move.
And now, if you're a common stock holder and you don't understand this, you go, oh, I'm being dilated.
What's the risk, though?
What's the worst thing that can happen to Michael?
Yeah, well, the risk would be Bitcoin going to zero and staying there forever.
I think the risk of that is very low, you know, almost zero.
What a lot of people don't understand is the way that he's built this debt.
So what people say is, oh, if Bitcoin drops below 30,000, he'll get liquidated.
If it drops below 10,000, he'll get liquidated.
None of that is true.
None of the Bitcoin is pledged as collateral.
None of it is callable.
So he can allow the stock to crater to five bucks or $10, and he can just sit there.
And so what?
As long as you believe Bitcoin is going to go back higher again.
So again, if Bitcoin goes to zero, that is the risk.
But he can withstand the storm.
He's built up multiple layers of protection.
Again, $2.2 billion in cash or million in cash.
And so the greatest risk is Bitcoin goes to zero.
As long as Bitcoin doesn't go to zero, there's really no risk.
Now, one of the things that he did when he converted micro strategy into strategy, when he started doing this about five years ago in 2020, he sort of bought out all the people that weren't aligned with this.
If you don't believe in what we're doing, get out.
Here's your money.
I love that.
All the institutions.
What are you doing?
Right.
Your business is over here.
Why are you buying all this?
He has control of the company.
He's bought out everyone who doesn't believe in it.
And all the shareholders have bought in, believing in this MNAV number and the accretive function of what he's doing.
And so there's not really a lot of risk unless Bitcoin goes to zero, which, you know, Jeff, you could give probabilities on that.
I think it's a non-zero chance.
No, it's Bitcoin going to zero is never not going to happen.
Right.
Not going to happen.
And you're right.
It's the MNAV that people are, what the market is saying, the stock market is saying is we believe in Michael Thayler.
We're willing to pay a premium for Bitcoin stock, which he's leveraging to buy more Bitcoin.
And unlike I have no problem with what he's doing, he's got 2.2 billion in cash, which the biggest mistake that people in finance make is being forced to sell because they're overly leveraged and then something happens in the market, an adverse reaction.
They're forced to liquidate and that's where bad things start to happen.
Forced liquidation.
That's not going to happen with strategy.
I'm more concerned about it happening with some of the other copycats.
They're probably not in the same situation.
But all that's going to do is create a buying opportunity.
Let's say Bitcoin continues to go lower, which is, it's frankly, it's really possible.
I'm going to buy a ton of Bitcoin if it gets under $50,000.
You're going to buy a ton of Bitcoin.
So as far as strategy is concerned, they're not the one to be focused on.
Because this is sort of in my wheelhouse and Jeff and I have talked hours on Bitcoin.
I'd love to just point out, if I can, take a second.
I think this may be one of the most undervalued stocks that you could buy today.
I was about to say that exactly.
And here's why.
And it's a Bitcoin lens.
Okay.
It's a Bitcoin lens.
So bear with me on this for a second.
Look at the price to book 1.2 times.
So what Jeff is saying, that the market is paying a premium for this.
Big one.
20%.
Asset-heavy businesses trade on a price to book, not a PE ratio, but a price to book.
So if you look at banks, for example, they'll probably trade in about a one to two times price to book.
And it comes down to their operational efficiency and what they have.
If you look at oil companies, they may trade in a two to three times.
A gold company might, like a Barrett gold or Newmont might trade in a three times price to book.
Why?
Because they have gold in the ground.
Gold will be worth more in the future.
And then they have operational efficiency.
So the value of this company should probably be at least a three times book value because Bitcoin is more explosive than gold is, number one.
But also, you can back it down into a mathematical formula based off the leverage that they have.
And he has it on the sheet there.
So I've had many conversations with Michael Saylor.
He believes three should be the floor.
The price to book rate should be about a three.
And we can get into the math of as why that is.
So right now it's at 1.2.
MicroStrategy or strategy is on pace to have a million Bitcoin.
They're on pace to have that.
I'm guessing before the end of the decade, they'll have a million Bitcoin.
And I believe within the next six.
Six fifth.
Right.
And I believe in the next six to seven years, Bitcoin's a million dollars.
So you take a million dollar Bitcoin times a million Bitcoin.
That's 5% of all Bitcoin.
That's a trillion dollars of book value, a trillion.
And you put a 1.2 times on a trillion, put a two times on a $1 trillion price to book value, and then see what that does to the stock.
Are you yourself in strategy?
Yeah.
And I guess I'm talking my book, but really, I'm a Bitcoin guy.
But so we don't know how much the stock will be diluted up until that point.
So that's a question mark.
But that's for strategy, not for Bitcoin.
That's for strategy.
Right.
Yeah, there's 19.9 million Bitcoin right now.
We're about to have the 20 millionth Bitcoin mined, and there's a cap of 21 million.
So therefore, strategy, think of it this way: there's only 21 pristine Michael Jordan rookie cards.
They're going to own one of them.
And so now, when the mining stops and you're at 21, at least in this crypto, suddenly you now have the supply side pressure on Bitcoin demand when Bitcoin is more broadly demand, which only helps, which only helps strategy.
You know, I'm on the same page on what they're doing.
One out of 21 will be owned by Michael Sales.
And what he said there is that they told shareholders they would lean on the preferreds.
And I think that's just worth touching on for a second, if you don't mind.
So the preferreds, they've launched Strike, Strife, Stride, and now Stretch, S-T-R-C.
It's the newest addition that they have.
And I believe it's the most revolutionary product that's ever hit the market.
And nobody can, most people can't really comprehend what it is.
So what he's doing is you're taking a high-vol asset like Bitcoin, a high-beta asset.
Over the last three years, it's about a 75% CAGR, compound annual growth rate.
Now, it's very volatile, right?
It's very extremely volatile.
It's down 50% right now.
But what he's saying, sort of like a bank, give me money and I'll give you a dividend off of that and I'll invest the money and I'll make the difference.
That's what he's saying, right?
So he's saying, hey, you give me money, I'll buy Bitcoin.
I expect it to do a 21% CAGR over the next 20 years.
That's his projection.
21% over the next 20 years.
You give me money, I'll give you 10.
I'll hold through the volatility.
So right now, Stretch is paying 11% or 11.5%.
So it's a stable yield.
I don't know if you know about this, but it's pegged at 100, okay?
So the goal is they can manipulate the supply and the yield to keep it pegged at 100.
So it's like a money market account.
I put $100 in, it's always $100, but I'm earning 11.5% on it.
And he's doing that by, again, scrapping the scraping the top off of the high volume.
Is he keeping eight and a half or is it?
Well, he's keeping the difference.
So he expects Bitcoin to do 50%.
He's going to give you 10%.
He's going to keep 40.
39 of it goes.
39 of it, right?
And so what he's doing is, right, obviously the CAGR is going down over time, but he believes it's going to be higher than 11, but he can also lower that yield.
But just think about this for one second.
In the United States, and Jeff Bryan knows these numbers better than I do.
In the United States, there's about $28 trillion earning yield.
I think there's, what, $7 trillion in money market accounts alone.
The fixed income market is the largest market in the world, $350 trillion.
And he just asked a simple question.
How many people have a bank account?
Of course, everybody does.
How many people would like to earn 10% in their bank account?
Warner Brothers Shakeup00:15:41
Of course, everybody would.
And he's basically paying 11.5% on a bank account on a stable yield.
And why is that the largest sector for people that don't understand the underlying demographics?
The boomers.
The boomers are older.
They don't have time to recover from a market crash.
And fixed income is their friend.
In the 1970s and 80s, they used to call it the widows and orphan stocks.
GE, Coca-Cola, IBM, Hilton were like paying the best dividends.
So when you had a life insurance payout on your father, the broker would say to your mom, We're just going to put these in the dividend stocks, and then you're going to keep getting, you know, this back.
And that was a form that was like early fixed income thinking, but now fixed income is massive.
Massive.
All these boomers.
Yeah.
Let's do one last story and then wrap up.
So Paramount merger could create streaming behemoth with 200 million subscribers.
And if they combine HBO Max, Paramount to challenge Netflix, which would be the plan.
Rob, is this the update of the news?
Yes, sir.
Go for it.
Paramount Skydance announcing plans to combine Paramount Plus and HBO Max.
Just three days ago, HBO's parent company, Warner Brothers Discovery, agreed to be acquired by Paramount.
CEO David Ellison says the combination will boost their subscriber base to 200 million.
Federal regulators still need to approve that merger.
That's a real number right there while this is taking place.
And Paramount debt to its $79 billion after Warner Brothers deal, no plan to sell cable assets.
And Warner Brothers, Discovery CEO Zaslav, calls Paramount Pivot whiplashy as a $110 billion deal takes shape.
So which clip is this, Rob?
This is about the $79 billion debt.
That's okay.
So Tom, as we're going through this next phase, do you think there's going to be anything that's going to prevent this from happening?
Or it's pretty much Paramount's property.
That's it.
Well, if you listen to Netflix and Ted Sorrandos, well, I didn't end up meeting at the White House and I think the president had his thumb on the scale.
Come on, Ted.
You know, that's loser talk.
You didn't get the deal.
You didn't get it done.
Ted said that?
Yeah.
He didn't say thumb on the scale.
He said they had favor with the White House.
They're meeting with the White House.
I don't know what you want me to do.
We always had our number.
This is what we had to do.
But Ted is exactly, you look at his quotes and tell me, does that sound like a guy who is a little bitter and maybe lost a deal?
Yes, it does.
I haven't seen it to make a real judgment on it.
Can you see articles?
You just look at Ted's quote.
Look at Ted Sorrando's quotes in the last 96 hours.
He didn't meet with the president.
He actually went to the president and was told, I'm sorry, sir, your meeting has been canceled.
Really?
So the president canceled the meeting last minute.
Interesting.
He's got a few other bigger things on shortly after arriving at the White House, so this meeting was canceled.
He's in the waiting room.
I'm sorry, sir.
Was you like a coffee?
Yeah, you can go.
Trump's in the war room.
Sorry.
And so things like this, he was saying, was I ever going to meet with Trump?
No, he had a, you know who they had set him up with?
Huh.
Susie Wiles and Pam Bondi.
Well, why don't you talk about your concerns in the Federal Trade Commission with the Attorney General and Susie Wilds?
That's what they told him.
And he wasn't going to get the meeting with the president.
And all the media was saying, he's going to the White House.
What does this say, though?
What does this say to you, Tom?
It says that Trump had no desire to really listen, give ear to Netflix.
You can talk about desires and intentions later.
But the president was busy with Iran and planning.
And no, I'm not giving you my ear.
Mark, where are you at with this?
Yeah, I mean, I would agree with that.
I mean, Trump made it pretty apparent that he didn't want to be involved in this deal.
You know, it's easy.
I loved what you said.
That's loser talk.
You know, you want to make excuses for why you didn't get the deal, right?
You're always trying to find the blame.
And so I think that's really what it comes down to.
You know, from an interesting lens, Jeff Park put out this paper and he called it the end of the value invest the death of the value investor and the rise of the ideological investor.
And he talked about how the Benjamin Graham world, the Warren Buffett world is gone.
Nobody invests on value anymore.
They invest on their ideology.
So Bud Light puts Dylan McVeigh stocking down and Cracker Barrel, right?
Yeah, pro crap.
Jeff Park's amazing.
And so he talked about like Sydney talks about great jeans and then American Eagle goes up.
Stocks.
And so when I look at this, I like some of the shows on Paramount.
I don't like what Netflix has done.
So from an ideological side, to me, you know, it's like, wow, I'm kind of glad that deal happened.
But I would just say, I would say it's loser talk.
The deal, they were outbid, and that's kind of all there was to it.
Well, I mean, if you look at the history of Netflix, Obama's, you know, politics, Suzanne Rice, you know, you kind of know no matter how much they try to play politics.
By the way, did Netflix give a million dollars for the inauguration?
I don't know if Netflix was part.
I know Amazon did.
I know Meta did.
I know quite a few people did, but did Netflix participate in that or no?
Can you say did Netflix inauguration?
I don't know if they were.
Remember the time of the inauguration?
It's like everybody went to a burmitzva where you didn't like the kid, but you gave his dad an envelope anyway.
Sure.
Yeah.
So that was kind of like the inauguration.
So inauguration, there's no evidence that Netflix donated a million dollars.
Reports come from that other major tech companies, exactly, including Amazon, Meta, OpenAI, all gave a million dollar contributions.
They should have donated.
I mean, you have to realize, as crazy as it sounds, these things matter.
They pay attention to it.
They're watching to see, hey, are you going to be a because it was like, well, no, we want to play neutral.
We don't want to say that we're on this side or this or that.
Amazon did, Meta did, Facebook did, Altman did.
And I know it's like, well, Pat, that's exactly the problem.
Pay for play and get rid of it.
Until you get rid of it, both sides are going to be doing it.
Then what do you do?
You sit on the sidelines and not say anything.
By the way, Jake Tapper came out and said the following about, you know, CNN will be affected by Paramount's looming takeover of the network.
Rob, is this the clip?
Yes, sir.
Go for it.
Moments ago, Netflix said it is declining to raise its offer for the purchase of Warner Brothers Studios and HBO following the Warner Brothers Discovery Board's determination that Paramount, which is not just going for Warner Brothers Studios and HBO, but also the whole enchilada, including us here at CNN, Paramount has submitted a superior offer, according to Warner Brothers Discovery's board.
As I've noted, Warner Brothers Discovery is the parent company of CNN.
So let's get right to CNN Chief Media Analyst Brian Stelter.
So let's start with the fired up.
Why did Netflix walk away?
Ted Sarandos and others at Netflix made it very clear.
They really wanted Warner Brothers Studios and they really wanted HBO.
They didn't want you.
In this corporate tug of war, it seems Netflix has suddenly let go of the rope.
There's a lot, of course, that could still happen here, but the big news this afternoon is that Paramount suddenly is in a much stronger position to take over CNN and the rest of the Warner Buzz Discovery company, which includes HBO and the Warner Buzz Discovery.
Pause it right there, Rob.
So they asked insiders at CNN.
CNN Insider told Fox News Digital, which is kind of weird, but CNN Insider told Fox News Digital, the mood is horrific.
People are very upset.
A second CNN Insider staffer said a mix of despair, apprehension, and curiosity.
Look, I think this is a place that has gone through a lot, a lot of mergers in the past decade, a lot of fresh starts.
The insider said, I think there's an underlying fear of mixing two news divisions.
Who is going to get camped?
Of course, they're going to be worried about it, Tom.
Do you think there is going to be a massive restructure of getting rid of certain people like Stelters?
I thought Stelter got fired.
I don't know how he's back then.
I keep forgetting he's still employed.
So it's the, and then all of a sudden he pops up on the news.
Look, here's what you have.
You have to look at these as assets.
Look at those as divisions.
Look at us as product lines.
That is the way the Ellisons look at this.
Read all the things when they have talked deep.
Puck has covered it.
Information has covered it.
You can read some of the things that they've said.
And they're looking at this.
They didn't buy this not to do anything with it.
Netflix didn't want the cable nets.
They were going to be left so that Zaz could put them together in a tracking stock, throw it to the dogs on the market and watch it like a cheap SPAC start at 10 and slowly drift to five because there was nothing there and there was not a lot of, there's no cash being formed.
There's no valuing form.
Cable subs are going down.
The Ellisons look at it differently.
They're going to say, okay, CNN Plus didn't work because old school tried to build an OTT channel and they just mishandled it.
They went out and paid all this money to Chris Wallace.
I mean, you and I talked about this, Pat, remember?
And I'm like, Pat, if you were running this, this wouldn't be happening like this.
CNN Plus wouldn't have been doing it this way.
There would have been so many other ways to make money on this.
The Ellisons know that.
And guess what?
They have been cutting contracts at CNN for two years.
And Zaz has been going to the Allen conference.
We've talked to people.
We've seen the quotes.
And at the Allen conference, it's like Zaz walking up and opening his jacket.
Like you were walking out street New York.
Want to buy a copy watch?
You know, it's like he's trying to sell CNN and he hasn't been able to get any buyers.
They were trying to spin it off.
And strong reports indicated he was reminding people that like Caitlin Collins was on a rookie deal.
She wasn't on one of these legacy 20-year super expensive deals trying to sell it.
And so what are the Ellisons going to do?
I think the old guys, like what we're hearing here, Brian and our friend Tepper, you know what?
I think that they've had their time.
I think they're going to reconstitute it.
And they're like, Tapita has a place.
I don't think, I don't, I think the people you have to get, if you're building a news station, you don't get rid of center left, center right, middle.
You don't, you get rid of the, there was a girl on CNN the other day.
I was watching this, and I think she works for CNN.
Rob, I don't know if you've seen this or not.
She said a convicted rapist.
Did you see this one?
That they try to correct her over and over.
And she eventually was like, she lost her shit.
And CNN's like, listen, you can't talk like that.
I'll find it to show you.
You have to get rid of the people that are saying stuff that makes absolute no sense.
But Jeff, what do you think is going to happen with this?
You think CNN is going to go through a massive, if the deal closes, how nasty do you think it's going to be for CNN?
I think Paramount is going to shut CNN down.
Shut CNN down.
Yeah.
There's no value in it.
I mean, Tom, you just spent five minutes talking about how CNN is valueless.
It has no value.
And the value is not going to suddenly rise in the future.
Everybody's moving away from cable television and cable news.
So you milk what you can out of it.
You take whatever parts are good enough to move to other parts of the division.
And then CNN as a brand, let's face it, completely tarnished.
That's never coming back.
Certainly the people on the right.
Somebody on the right is never going to watch CNN again, other than maybe, you know, Scott Jennings is a stud.
Scott doesn't.
He's not going to stay there.
Let's be honest.
He's not going to stay there.
He just re-signed his contract.
I think six months ago he signed a new contract with perhaps, but I you sounded like a show and he told us I think eventually what happens is Paramount says we're done with CNN.
Okay, so let me put it in the middle.
It's not really about CNN anymore.
Do you think a Paramount takes a guy like Scott and says, why don't you run it and do what they did to CBS by bringing Barry Wisense and Barry from Free Press, you run it?
Do you think something like that is possible?
Except not in the old legacy media format.
You take somebody like Scott and make him do what you're doing.
You say, oh, we're going to build a social media new and new empire around.
You take the talent and build up the infrastructure around it.
Got it.
You don't use the old legacy framework, which is no longer viable.
Let's be honest.
It's no longer viable.
No, I agree.
I agree.
You know, for me, I get invited to shows.
I'm having dinner with a couple of guys.
They're like, hey, how come you don't come back to our Fox anymore?
I said, dude, I come.
Why would you?
No, no.
Let me tell you what I said to them.
I don't mind going to these shows.
But here was my problem.
I said, look, I don't live on TV.
I come to your show.
I know who the audience is.
And you guys don't cut the clip on YouTube or X. Why am I coming to your show?
It's a waste of my time to sit till 9.30 to do a four-minute clip, and then all of a sudden you're not posting the clip for two or three days.
I have no interest.
I have better things to do.
So they have to also realize what they need to do to attract the younger people to come on that you need to get to their audience where their audience is at.
Some that do, great, let's roll.
Some that don't.
Why would it continue coming back on?
Well, I would say the point that Jeff made.
I mean, that model is dead.
The rails are gone.
And what I think about specifically is the network model.
And so where it lives supreme is at the airport or where the doctor's office in the hotel lobby.
I was, you know, I had to go get some passport stuff.
I'm sitting in the office and it sits there all day and it just runs.
But the network model is mostly dead.
Today it's on demand.
I see a show I want, I watch the show, I turn it back off.
Or save it for later.
Just-in-time information, right?
And so I watch what I want to watch.
And then the day of having a network that just runs 24-7 and I sit there and watch the program and it's over.
Yeah, like I said, the old people, they have their TV on all day or at the airport.
That's coming to an end.
The model's dead.
That's the only value that's left is pharmaceutical ads to boomers.
And as soon as the demographic shift, boomers start to die off.
Who needs the pharmaceuticals?
Exactly.
So then the whole model is just dead.
So you milk what you count of CNN.
Not to mention the cost.
I mean, look at this production here.
It's probably a fraction of what CNN would cost to run.
Absolutely.
No, business-wise, it doesn't make sense on what they're doing, but it is what it is.
I'm curious if they're actually going to do what you're talking about, which is shutting the whole thing down.
And if they do, obviously, you know, it'd be a statement to the entire marketplace.
What the hell do they do next?
Where do I go next?
What happens to the business model?
You know, do I have to go be independent?
Do you know how hard it is to be independent?
Do you know how many people like these guys?
So today at 6 o'clock news, we found out that I'm being a teleprompter host.
Yeah.
And then go do it like this.
You're live.
Oh my God, comment section.
Did you hear what they said about me?
They said this.
Fix your title.
Oh my God.
I don't want to read the comments.
And then you go to all these tough guys, Ilhan Omar and Deer and Mehdi Hassan, and they go on Twitter.
They post a bunch of stuff.
What do they do?
Cut the comments on the comment section.
Turn the comment section on.
What are you afraid of?
People get called out all the time, but they can't hide the comment section.
I don't want people to say anything.
Just my friends say nice things about me.
This business is nasty.
It is so nasty.
And the part I'm excited about is how that transition is going to take place and how many of them are going to make it.
Like you guys, independently, you run your own shows.
You have a few hundred thousand listeners that follow you.
Both of you got almost a million people that follow you.
Your channel, Wealth is Engineered, Mark Moss, Reasonable.
We had you on before.
And I like his taste.
This morning, we texted each other.
I said, You better wear a gray suit today.
And he followed.
He followed suit.
But I wanted a dark shirt.
I can't have no fan.
We had a differentiator.
And then Jeff Snyder's channel, Euro Dollar University.
Can you imagine?
Independently, we're just doing our own thing.
And people are showing up from around the world saying, Hey, what does he have to say?
What does she have to say?
What are they talking about?
So if you enjoy what Mark and Jeff had to say, we're going to put the link below.
Go support them, subscribe to their channels.
And Tom's got a burger episode that's coming up that I keep being taught.
It's being posted everywhere at the office.
So when it does come out, folks, we're going to share it with you as well.
With that being said, God bless everybody.
Tomorrow's Alley00:02:12
Rob, who's tomorrow for the podcast?
Terrence Howard.
We have the intro.
Oh, my God.
Guys, you have to watch.
Do not miss.
This is the funniest podcast I've done.
And some of the stuff he said, I can't even repeat.
I'll just let him tell you.
Go ahead, Rob.
Say you're walking down an alley.
There's somebody at the end of the alley talking about, I'm going to kill you, you know.
Denzel giving him this advice.
If someone comes up to you and they say, I'm going to cut your throat.
Which one are you more afraid of?
Oh, Mike.
Did you enjoy doing Iron Man?
I've never seen somebody own a set the way that Robert owned that character.
So I started making calls, and then it's like, you're not the star of this thing.
If you ever talk to me in that way again, I'm going to knock your teeth out, Jamal.
You said that.
Eight months later, I lose Iron Man.
How could you have done it differently?
Just let it pass.
Shouldn't you be above the titles?
Well, if I should be above the titles, I would be.
Shouldn't you be with that girl right there?
Yeah, if that was my girl, should I wither in despair because a woman be so fair?
Denzel, he told me, Look at your hands, man.
You're always like this.
All these producers want to do is they try to open your hand so they can put money in it, but you won't do it.
You're in-house.
It's a hookup culture.
I've dated them, but I never slept with anybody inside.
Never slept with anybody, man.
Nobody.
A healthy males still produce about 1,500 sperm per heartbeat.
So that desire to empty the storehouse is always there.
The lines you use, I love it.
I'd love to empty my storehouse with you today.
Can you imagine?
How different is it raising boys versus girls?
Girls are the hardest because men have game.
I watch my daughters now and I'm scared to death because of the karma because I know the things that I did to women.
So I have to make sure none of this stuff is around.
And mind you, I didn't masturbate until I was 25 years old.
I had them remove the television out of the room of the hotel because I couldn't stop.
I couldn't stop.
I kept watching it.
Wow, I'm going to have to watch.
No, no, you're, by the way, this is, I couldn't stop laughing with the stuff he was saying.
It was none of the typical math stuff and the stuff that we talked about last time.
Extremely entertaining with stories he's never shared before.