00:00:13.000I thought I was talking about the Spurs Knicks game.
00:00:15.000It turns out I was talking about the Iran war.
00:00:17.000It turns out that in both basketball and war, you can only win if you win the second half.
00:00:22.000And it turns out it's dumb to think you can win the big games by implementing a losing strategy.
00:00:26.000The media and their allies keep saying the only way to win the war in Iran is to lose, to let Iran have a path to a bomb, give them a boatload of cash.
00:00:33.000Begged them to leave the Strait of Hormuz alone.
00:00:35.000The alternative, they say, is endless war, which of course is stupid.
00:00:38.000We could also do this thing called winning, which is what it seems President Trump may be considering anew.
00:01:12.000Both of those alternatives are super stupid.
00:01:14.000First of all, it doesn't have to be an endless war.
00:01:16.000Second of all, giving Iran a clear pathway toward a nuke, and ballistic missile building, and funding of terror.
00:01:23.000And billions of dollars in cash and the capacity to continue shutting down traffic in the straight, that's called losing.
00:01:29.000Or we could do this thing called winning, which is what President Trump may now be considering anew.
00:01:33.000And it's actually the thing we have to do.
00:01:35.000So the real reason that people in the United States, of course, are very concerned over what's happening in Iran is inflation in the U.S. If we weren't getting price inflation due to the cutoff of energy, no one would care.
00:01:46.000It would just be a thing that's happening quite far away, especially because the military has done an extraordinary job of minimizing.
00:01:54.000The damage to the U.S. and our allies.
00:01:57.000The reason people are worried right now is because the inflation is coming in very hot.
00:02:00.000So, according to CNBC, inflation clocked in in May at 4.2%.
00:02:09.000That's the annualized inflation rate, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
00:02:13.000It rose at a seasonally adjusted 0.5% for the month.
00:02:16.000Now, if you get rid of food and energy prices because of the Iran war, the so called core CPI accelerated at 0.2% for the month and 2.9% from a year ago, which again is not amazing, but it's not.
00:02:31.000The annual rate was in line with the forecast.
00:02:32.000The monthly gain was below the 0.3% estimate and less than the 0.4% April increase.
00:02:37.000So, what we're really watching right now is a temporary price spike that is generated by the bottlenecking of energy supply in the Strait of Hormuz.
00:02:46.000Now, the president was asked about this, and here is how he responded.
00:02:51.000Are you concerned, Mr. President, about the latest inflation number which came out this morning?
00:03:28.000He said, I love the inflation numbers because of what I'm talking about.
00:03:31.000The numbers are going to be phenomenal.
00:03:33.000Because what's showing is that despite the fact that we're in a war, the numbers are much lower than anticipated.
00:03:37.000And when we're out of that war, the numbers will be at lower numbers than they were before it even started, which of course is true.
00:03:43.000And again, the CPI annual rate 2020 to 2026, as you can see from this graph, you are seeing a jump.
00:03:50.000It is nothing like, nothing remotely like the spike that you saw under Joe Biden.
00:03:55.000That spike in inflation from January 2021 to essentially mid 22, you're talking about a spike.
00:04:03.000In inflation numbers that went from the mid twos all the way up to 9%.
00:04:08.000Here, even with what's going on in Iran, you are talking again about the low fours, which is not great, but it is going to go down after this war is over.
00:04:18.000Already coming up, we'll get to how we actually get to the end of this war.
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00:06:04.000I don't know whether it was the Whitcoff team or whether it was the vice president's office that was leading the negotiations via Pakistan, which is a Chinese cutout.
00:06:12.000But the idea that Iran was ever going to, via negotiations, give up its nuclear program, its ballistic missile capacity, or its funding of Iranian terror groups.
00:06:26.000And you know how you can tell it's not a great premise?
00:06:27.000Because if the offer to Iran is, hey, you get to reenter the world economy if you do all those things, you know what's been on the table the entire time for decades.
00:06:36.000If Iran had given up its extraterritorial ambitions, if it had not threatened its neighbors with ballistic missiles, if it had not tried to develop nuclear weapons, if they had been clear and open about all of that, they'd be in exactly the same position as Qatar or UAE or Bahrain or Saudi, none of which are democracies.
00:06:54.000All of which have Islamic law written into their constitutions, and all of which are well integrated into the world economy.
00:07:00.000So, Iran could at any time have reintegrated itself into the world economy.
00:07:03.000So, in other words, the sort of carrot that was being offered by the negotiators is not a carrot at all.
00:07:08.000Iran has had that carrot the entire time.
00:07:11.000And so, it turns out that Iran, instead, because of the United States' ceasefire, which I think was misbegotten, I think the ceasefire was a bad idea, I think the embargo is a great idea, cutting off Iran's capacity to use the Straits to ship its own oil while they cut off everybody else's capacity.
00:07:28.000But I think the ceasefire itself was a bad idea.
00:07:31.000The reason it was a bad idea is because it gave Iran hope.
00:07:33.000And when you give the Iranian regime hope, they push.
00:07:36.000When you give them an inch, they take several hundred miles.
00:07:39.000They try to relink up all of their terror apparatus by linking activity in Lebanon to activity in Iran.
00:07:45.000The idea is that if Israel strikes Hezbollah in Lebanon, again, that is not the government of Lebanon.
00:07:49.000The government of Lebanon does not like Hezbollah.
00:07:51.000It's an Iranian terror group located in Lebanon.
00:07:54.000Iran was saying if Israel hits Hezbollah, then Iran will fire missiles at Israel.
00:07:58.000They were trying to Link up all of these causes and create a sort of regional hegemony for itself based on that, based on grabbing the Strait of Hormuz and all of the rest.
00:08:10.000Well, there is really only one way to stop all of that, and that is to again exert extraordinary pressure on Iran and to show that you're willing to take what Iran is willing to dish out in return.
00:08:33.000Well, the United States, in response to the Iranians shooting down an American helicopter, yesterday, U.S. military forces struck air defenses and radar sites near the Strait of Hormuz.
00:08:46.000No infrastructure sites were hit, according to an official telling the Wall Street Journal.
00:08:51.000Iranian state media reported explosions in areas along the Strait of Hormuz, including Bandar Abbas, Kesham Island, and Sirik.
00:08:57.000All of those are, again, locations that sort of overlook the Strait and are used to fire drones by the Iranians.
00:09:03.000The Pentagon cast the attacks as an act of coercive diplomacy designed to force Iranian negotiations.
00:09:10.000Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said if we need to negotiate with bombs, we'll negotiate with bombs.
00:09:41.000And what they're worried about is that if their economy continues to tank, eventually there will be a movement inside the country to overthrow them.
00:09:49.000Meanwhile, the president announced via Truth Social that the United States had, in fact, been opening up the Strait of Hormuz, at least in part.
00:09:57.000He said, Last month, I directed our great U.S. military to execute a secret mission to support oil tankers and other commercial ships through the Strait of Hormuz.
00:10:05.000Today, I'm pleased to announce this effort has resulted in more than 100 million barrels of oil making its way through the Strait and into the open market.
00:10:12.000More than 200 commercial ships have safely traveled through the Strait.
00:10:15.000This wildly successful effort is because the United States of America controls the Strait of Hormuz, not Iran.
00:11:31.000And the president this morning made that clear.
00:11:34.000So the president put out a statement on Truth Social The United States will be hitting Iran, whose Navy, Air Force, radar, anti aircraft, and all other forms of defense, together with most of its offensive capability, are gone very hard tonight.
00:11:45.000At some point in the not too distant future, we will be taking Karga Island and other oil infrastructure points and assume total control of their oil and gas markets, much like we have with Venezuela, which is working out brilliantly for both Venezuela and the United States.
00:11:56.000Thank you for your attention to this matter, President Trump.
00:12:00.000Now, some of us have been saying for literally months at this point that this is precisely what should happen.
00:12:05.000This is a clip from my show, March 19th.
00:12:12.000So rather than doing a misbegotten ceasefire, this is what we should have been doing all along, would have shortened this journey a little bit.
00:12:18.000Here's what a smart man said on March 19th.
00:12:22.000In my opinion, the faster you move, the better.
00:12:26.000And so my temptation would be to take Harga Island, My temptation would be to, if that requires putting special operators on the ground to do it, I would do it.
00:12:36.000My temptation would be to basically obliterate the entire coastline where Iran is firing drones and missiles at ships, and then to provide whatever help is necessary in order to provoke a popular uprising in Tehran.
00:12:51.000So, again, that seems to now be the strategy, which it's about time.
00:12:57.000Coming up, the left has gone completely crazy.
00:12:59.000Maybe the right could win if they also didn't go crazy.
00:13:02.000We'll get to craziness all over the place.
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00:14:23.000And it seems to me that this ceasefire, again, all it really did was give the Iranians some time to rearm, maybe to get ready to shoot more of their citizens.
00:14:33.000Well, the president went on Fox News this morning and he said, listen, the Iranian regime is on its last legs.
00:14:40.000They're finished, but the papers, the media refuses to write it.
00:15:12.000The Treasury Department is ready to close it out.
00:15:15.000So Scott Besant, the Treasury Secretary, put up what I think is a pretty meaningful tweet this morning.
00:15:20.000He said the Iranian regime will lose the zero sum game it is playing.
00:15:23.000Any damage it inflicts on our allies in the Gulf will be paid for with funds extracted from Iranian accounts.
00:15:27.000Any tolls paid to the Persian Gulf Strait Authority will be offset by funds extracted from their accounts.
00:15:32.000Every attack Iran launches will only deepen the economic and financial consequences it faces.
00:15:36.000So I think that buried here in the street is one of the things that is a solve.
00:15:41.000And that is a lot of worry about the Iranians responding to American action against, say, Kharg or South Pars Oilsfield, that the Iranians will fire a bunch of missiles.
00:15:51.000At gas and oil facilities in places like Bahrain, Kuwait, Iraq, UAE, Saudi.
00:16:00.000And Besant is saying if they do that, we will just pay them with Iranian money because we've frozen their assets.
00:16:06.000Seems like a pretty good solution to me.
00:16:08.000Meanwhile, the Iranians have been relegated to complaining about how mean the Americans are.
00:16:13.000So the Iranian foreign minister is accusing the United States of a deliberate strike on civilian water infrastructure.
00:16:18.000Water is the pulse of life, says Ismail Bakay.
00:16:20.000And the U.S. is deliberately targeting the lifeblood of the Iranian people.
00:16:23.000This is pretty rich coming from a regime that mowed down 42,000 of its own people in one weekend, essentially.
00:16:29.000As part of its aggression against Iran, the U.S. military has deliberately struck vital civilian water infrastructure in Sarik Harmazgan, destroying two reservoirs with a combined capacity of 2,500 cubic meters.
00:16:40.000These facilities supply drinking water to more than 20,000 residents across 10 villages.
00:16:46.000No, these are dual use facilities, meaning that you are allowed by the properties of war to target infrastructure that is used to benefit the military of the opposing military.
00:16:55.000It's how you can blow up a bridge, for example.
00:16:58.000Pete Hegseth, the Secretary of Defense, He said that bombs would be dropping on key facilities.
00:17:09.000Admiral Cooper, the commander of CENTCOM, was going to be here with me.
00:17:13.000We just got done with detailed briefings.
00:17:16.000But of course, he is busy because CENTCOM, Central Command, will be busy tonight because President Trump said we will be hitting Iran hard and we will be.
00:17:26.000Because Iran has a chance to make a good deal, a great deal, to codify what they said they've been willing to do and they haven't been willing to do it.
00:17:35.000As President Trump said, they've been tap, tap, tapping.
00:17:38.000You can see when someone's trying to tap, tap, tap on a deal.
00:17:41.000Instead, they're going to have tap, tap, tap bombs dropping on key facilities in Iran from the United States of America.
00:17:49.000So, again, this is the proper response to what Iran has been doing this whole time.
00:17:54.000Now, there are people who are trying to stop Trump from winning this war.
00:17:57.000They don't like America, and they are very much in favor of America's enemies winning, just outright.
00:18:05.000Pretending that this is all about his concern about the economy.
00:18:09.000By the way, if inflation were at 0%, Chank would be opposing what the United States is doing because he would like for Iran to maintain its power in the region as well as the Turkish government.
00:18:17.000He put out a tweet yesterday Economic catastrophe is next.
00:18:20.000So all the talk of Trump and Netanyahu fighting was BS as usual.
00:19:57.000Again, the mainstream left does this too.
00:19:59.000Hakeem Jeffries, the wannabe speaker and the House minority leader, back in March, he was doing the sort of Why can't we spend more money on programs here at home?
00:20:10.000Instead of dropping bombs, which is the dumbest form of politics, it turns out we spend trillions a year on the American people.
00:20:17.000By the American people, I mean a bunch of people supported by various government programs.
00:20:22.000Here is Hakeem Jeffries doing this routine back in March.
00:20:26.000The administration has not even made the case to the American people as to why we are spending billions of dollars and dropping bombs every day in Iran while at the same period of time doing nothing about the affordability crisis, which Donald Trump continues to insist is a hoax.
00:20:45.000People are struggling throughout America to achieve the American dream.
00:20:50.000Many people have understandably concluded it is out of reach and we have to restore it.
00:20:56.000And instead, you've got the administration without any plan, any objective, any exit strategy, has gotten us into this reckless war of choice in the Middle East.
00:21:07.000So the notion that they would come up here and ask for additional money is beyond the pale at this moment.
00:21:14.000Yes, again, this has been the Democrat line, the left wing line.
00:21:17.000I have to say that actually, somehow, Hakeem Jeffries and Cenk Uyghur, in some weird way, have become less America hating than Tucker Carlson.
00:21:27.000I don't know what else to say about this.
00:21:29.000Tucker Carlson, literally last night, he's not just saying that it was a mistake to go into the war with Iran because of economic consequences or because of a mistake in geopolitics.
00:22:19.000Because they are tying the reopening of the Strait, which the world wants, to an end to Israeli bombing and murder in Lebanon.
00:22:31.000So, in the eyes of the region, whatever people hate about Iran, and there's a lot that the Arabs hate about Iran, they are uniquely standing up for the Palestinians.
00:22:44.000I love that Tucker is just discovering that the Palestinians and the Iranians are in cahoots together.
00:22:48.000Yeah, that would be the entire problem, but dude.
00:22:50.000But it is because he's on the side of Iran.
00:22:53.000I mean, again, I don't have to say it.
00:22:56.000Marjorie Taylor Greene did the same thing on CNN last night.
00:22:59.000She's calling Trump a traitor and also obviously invoking Epstein because this is her shtick.
00:23:05.000They're traitors, the ones that refuse to release Epstein files, want to cover up for pedophiles and rapists and all sorts of disgusting things in these files.
00:23:16.000Those are the traitors to the American people, and they should be ashamed of themselves.
00:23:21.000I mean, this report basically says it was the president who didn't want anything released.
00:23:26.000Are you saying that that applies to the president himself?
00:23:47.000Again, the two online right, my goodness.
00:23:51.000And they're just siding with the very online left.
00:23:55.000The president is going to have to overcome not only the Iranian military and government, he's going to have to overcome people who legitimately dislike America here at home.