Joe Kent Resigns + Trump's Cuba Takeover | PBD #761

Patrick Bet-David, Tom Ellsworth, Brandon Aceto & Jeff Snider break down Joe Kent’s resignation and Trump’s response, rising diesel prices and Strait of Hormuz tensions, Iran’s Ali Larijani killing and USS Tripoli deployment, Trump’s Cuba takeover comments, and Bob Iger stepping down as Disney CEO. ------ 👍 LIKE AND SUBSCRIBE! 🥃 BOARDROOM CIGAR LOUNGE: https://bit.ly/4pzLEXj 📺 JEFF SNIDER'S EURODOLLAR UNIVERSITY: https://bit.ly/4i5uz3W Ⓜ️ MINNECT WITH JEFF SNIDER: https://bit.ly/4c27s9x Ⓜ️ MINNECT WITH BRANDON ACETO: https://bit.ly/4anHnR3 Ⓜ️ CONNECT ON MINNECT: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://bit.ly/4kSVkso⁠⁠⁠ https://bit.ly/4kSVkso Ⓜ️ PBD PODCAST CIRCLES: ⁠⁠⁠https://bit.ly/4mAWQAP⁠⁠⁠ https://bit.ly/4mAWQAP 👔 BET-DAVID CONSULTING: ⁠⁠⁠https://bit.ly/4lzQph2⁠⁠⁠ https://bit.ly/4lzQph2 💬 TEXT US: TEXT “PODCAST” TO 310-340-1132 TO GET THE LATEST UPDATES IN REAL-TIME! ABOUT US: Patrick Bet-David is the founder and CEO of Valuetainment Media. He is the author of the #1 Wall Street Journal Bestseller “Your Next Five Moves” (Simon & Schuster) and a father of 2 boys and 2 girls. He currently resides in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:16Speaker 00

  My handshake is better than anything I ever signed, right here.

• 0:21Patrick Bet-David?

  You are a one of one?

• 0:22Speaker 00

  My son's right there. I don't think I've ever said this before.

• 0:30Patrick Bet-David?

  Alright, uh, Business Wednesdays with lots going on. Bob Iger today, apparently resigned. Today's his last day. I don't know if he got hurt or not. We got Snyder in the house, Aceto and Ellsworth. We're all gonna get smarter today. And gas hits, diesel, what was it Tom? Diesel hit five? Was it gas hit, uh?

• 0:46Tom Ellsworth?

  Five dollar national average.

• 0:48Patrick Bet-David?

  Five dollar US, uh, diesel prices soar to five dollars, national average. We're gonna look at the numbers today. The numbers are high as we're going through what people are, uh, how people are being affected by these gas prices. I think today the number is what, ninety-six dollars? Is that what it is? Ninety-six dollars?

• 1:05Tom Ellsworth?

  Oil.

• 1:06Patrick Bet-David?

  Oil right now, as of right now?

• 1:08Tom Ellsworth?

  U.S. was Texas.

• 1:08Patrick Bet-David?

  Right.

• 1:09Tom Ellsworth?

  Ten bucks more in Europe.

• 1:10Patrick Bet-David?

  So, that's that. So, we'll talk Disney with Bob Iger. We'll talk about gas prices. We'll talk about how NATO kinda pushed back and said, "We're not gonna get involved." And even Starmer came out and is like, "We're not gonna get involved in your war. We have to react to that." Joe Kent, not the great Jeff Kent from the Giants. We don't wanna undermine Jeff Kent. Jeff, you were great when you played. We watched you. Hall of Fame, finally. Joe Kent comes out and calls out the president and the White House on the decisions that were made. And he worked directly with, um, uh, head of DNI, uh, which is Tulsi Gabbard. And then Tulsi Gabbard had to come out and post a tweet about it. This video, this tweet, if I'm not mistaken,

• 1:54Patrick Bet-David?

  I don't know how many views it got, but it's got nearly eight-hundred thousand likes on X alone. And we haven't talked about it yet. Let me go to it. Yeah, eight-hundred thousand likes on X. And still going. Eighty-six million views is what this one tweet got and a letter, which we will read.

• 2:14Patrick Bet-David?

  And Speaker Johnson reacted to it, the president reacted to it. Uh, the market reacted to it, left, right and center. Uh, even some baseball players thought he was Jeff Kent. They're like, wait a minute, is he back running? We had no idea this, but it's not Jeff Kent, it's Joe Kent. I want to make sure we qualify those two, uh, very clearly. Then US economy, we have to talk about McDonald's. How closely they're paying attention to the affordability as well as coal, as well as, um, dollar store, they're making moves. Everyone's trying to find a way, because this affordability conversation is no longer just the thing people are talking about. They're starting to realize there is something here and we have to definitely talk about it.

• 2:56Patrick Bet-David?

  And then you have the chief, uh, of intel in Iran was taken out. You know, it's like the more you talk, it's like you're next. And he's the guy that said to Trump, you better watch your life because we're coming after you. And then next thing you know, there's this thing called karma. It's happening to a lot of Iranians with the threats is coming back now. We'll see if any of that's going to come back to us as well or not. Um, polls came out, WaPo and CNN poll of where Americans are for the Iranian war, where they support it and they don't. We'll talk about that. I think it's 53 to 59% that don't as of today. So we'll address that as well. Aside from that, we got a bunch of other stories to get into.

• 3:36Patrick Bet-David?

  Uh, billionaire, uh, Uber co-founder Travis Kalanick admits strategically moving to Texas before California's wealth tax, uh, goes into effect. Uh, Washington actually passes millionaire tax despite concerns of the wealth flight. And they're not worried about it. Even Forbes came out and did an article. It's an interesting way the article is written, saying only six billionaires left the state of.

• 4:05Patrick Bet-David?

  California, but of the six that left, they generate $27 billion of revenue in taxes for the state allegedly. We're gonna look at that and what that number is. And then aside from that, we got a few other things we'll get into as well. As it's going on, if we're able to make these stories, if we're able to make these stories, time forward, we'll get into it. I do want to talk to you guys about something. A lot of you guys DM me and message me and say, hey, you know, how do I become a member of the cigar lounge, the boardroom that you have here? Last night, I can't tell you how many people were here watching the great game of Venezuela against US. When Bryce Harper hit the homerun, I mean, it was beautiful. And I was, I'm like, this is the moment, my son Dylan called it,

• 4:50Patrick Bet-David?

  that he was gonna hit the homerun. He hit the homerun, but then we fell one short, and the score ended up being 3-2. Congratulations to Venezuela. I know how much this means to Venezuela. Venezuela's had a great 2026. Some may call it the greatest year 90 days Venezuela's had in 20, 30, 40 years, is what people are talking about, the way they're celebrating. So congrats to the Venezuelan team, as much as I'm, was rooting for America. I wanted Judge to hit that homerun and have that victory, but you gotta recognize it. A ton of people were here watching it. You know, just yesterday, I did a podcast with Joey Merlino here, the allegedly, Rob, we have to say this correctly, the allegedly

• 5:31Patrick Bet-David?

  boss of the Philadelphia crime family. That podcast will come out. We had Eric Trump here. We've had Stephen A. Smith here. We had Tate here. We have a lot of people here that come to the club, the boardroom. So if you want to be a member, it's by invitation only. Everybody goes through background checks. You can't bring a cellphone inside. If you want to learn more, to come in here and network with others in South Florida, at Fort Lauderdale, at a high-end premier cigar lounge, we'll do Louis, you know, the 13th events. We'll do different kind of events here that you'll come in and be involved. Go to boardroomcigarlounge.com, boardroomcigarlounge.com. Rob, if you want to put the link below, click on become a member, and one of our representative will reach out to you. With that being said, let's

• 6:16Patrick Bet-David?

  get right into it. I think the first story I want to get into, Rob, if you want to pull up the NATO story. I think the NATO story, it kinda goes with everything that's going on in Iran. The president went up to them and said, "Hey, listen, we need you guys to be with us. Are you with us or not?" And I'm just paraphrasing. And it was a very different approach. I think Kier Starmer came out. If you have that clip, Rob, if you want to play the clip with Starmer. Here's what he had to say about their involvement in a war with Iran. Go for it.

• 6:49Speaker 03

  Our priority is always the national interest. And so we have been clear and consistent in our objectives throughout this conflict. First, we will protect our people in the region. Second, while taking the necessary action to defend ourselves and our allies, we will not be drawn into the wider war. And third, we will keep working towards a swift resolution that brings security and stability back to the region and stops the Iranian threat to its neighbors.

• 7:32Speaker 03

  I want to see an end to this war as quickly as possible. Because the longer it goes on, the more dangerous the situation becomes and the worse it is for the cost of living back here at home.

• 7:49Patrick Bet-David?

  Okay, so that's Kier Starmer saying that. The president, I think, responds to it as well, Rob. You got maybe a clip on that. There's an article from Wall Street Journal saying US allies rebuff Trump's demand for help opening Strait of Hormuz. President Trump is pressuring allies to help open the Strait of Hormuz and relive pressure of the global economy and relief. So far, most of them aren't biting. Germany has rejected taking apart, taking part. While Japan and Australia have indicated they are unlikely to send vessels to help. Britain and France said they are assessing possible action but haven't committed to doing anything before fighting halts. All our close US allies on Monday, German defense...

• 8:30Patrick Bet-David?

  Minister Boris Pistorius dismissed Trump's call for help, asking rhetorically what Trump expects a handful or two handful of European frigates to accomplish in the Strait of Hormuz that the powerful US Navy there cannot achieve on its own. This is not our war. We did not start it. Trump sent a pointed message to allies over the weekend. Rob, is that the clip that you have?

• 8:54Speaker 04

  This is, yes, Boris.

• 8:55Patrick Bet-David?

  You want to go to the president first because I already read this. Just go to the clip you have with the president. Here's the president. Go for it.

• 9:01Speaker 05

  Very surprised with the United Kingdom because the United Kingdom, two weeks ago, I said, why don't you send some ships over? And he really didn't want to do it. I said, you don't want to do it. We've been with you. You're our oldest ally and we spend a lot of money on NATO and all of these things to protect you. I mean, we're protecting them. We're working with them on Ukraine. Ukraine's thousands of miles away, separated by a vast ocean. We don't have to do that, but we did it. Well, Biden did it. I mean, I have to be honest with you. Biden got taken to the cleaners, but we worked with them in Ukraine. We don't need to work with them in Ukraine.

• 9:42Speaker 05

  And then they tell us that we have a mine ship around and they don't want to do it. I think it's terrible. No, I was very surprised. I told him, you know, we requested two aircraft carriers, which they had, and he didn't really want to do it. And then right after the war essentially ended, you know, meaning they were obliterated, he said, I would like to send the aircraft carriers. I said, I don't need them after the war has ended and won. I need it before the war. So I was very upset with, not upset, I was not happy with the UK. I think they'll be involved. Yeah, maybe. But they should be involved enthusiastically.

• 10:26Speaker 05

  We've been protecting these countries for years with NATO.

• 10:28Patrick Bet-David?

  Jeff, your thoughts?

• 10:29Speaker 06

  Yeah, I mean, what is the reason that they can really come up with to say, we don't want to participate in this? I mean, what is really going on here with the UK? Is it really a political thing here? Because that's the immediate thought I have.

• 10:41Patrick Bet-David?

  On why they're not wanting to get involved?

• 10:43Speaker 06

  Yeah, is it really partisan politics? Are they really looking to say if we drag this out a little bit more than Trump will relinquish? And that will be-

• 10:51Patrick Bet-David?

  Speculate, what do you think it could be?

• 10:53Speaker 06

  I think that's what it is, honestly.

• 10:54Patrick Bet-David?

  Purely?

• 10:55Speaker 06

  Purely politics.

• 10:56Patrick Bet-David?

  Tom, where are you at?

• 10:57Tom Ellsworth?

  I'm on the same page. I think that the Europeans are playing very careful. You know, I parsed the words out, what Starmer said, and at the very open it says, "We are interested in our national interest, protecting our people." He sounds very, very noble, and all of a sudden, he's of the UK, by the UK, for the UK. Wait a minute, he's a globalist that was caught on a train with Macron hiding a coke spoon. And they were talking all about "We are family" and all these globalist agenda. Suddenly, he's the noble statesman, you know, harkening back to Neville Chamberlain of the UK? I think that the European leadership actually is enjoying the fact that Trump is in what looks like an extended war.

• 11:42Tom Ellsworth?

  I think they are enjoying it.

• 11:44Patrick Bet-David?

  Brandon?

• 11:45Speaker 07

  Yeah, they don't want a swift ending or to help Trump save face here. I mean, the audacity, after all that we've done for them, I mean, not once, not twice, but three times, we've been there for Europe in major ways. I mean, World War I, we saved UK. UK would be decimated if it wasn't for us in World War I. They would be decimated if it wasn't for us in World War II. Then with NATO, we didn't have to do NATO, but I mean, part of it was just to like, revamp the military industrial complex. So I mean, we created this fake thing that we didn't even need like under the guise of protecting Europe from Russia, when Russia wanted to be part of NATO. So yeah, no, I think we have plenty of leverage over the UK and the rest of Europe. They get 50% of their liquid natural gas from America since 2022. Before that, it was only 10%.

• 12:29Speaker 07

  So, you know, we could cut that right off if we wanted to.

• 12:31Patrick Bet-David?

  What's giving them this much of a backing?

• 12:35Speaker 07

  Like the confidence to say it?

• 12:36Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah, where is the confidence from?

• 12:38Speaker 07

  That's the interesting part, because they get half of their weapons from us and half their liquid natural gas from us.

• 12:42Patrick Bet-David?

  I mean, either you are double dumb, or someone behind closed doors is saying, "Don't worry about it, we have your back." Because while this is going on, Trump was supposed to go visit Xi March 31st, right? And he said, "We'll see based on how the calls go." Well, guess what? The calls apparently didn't go as planned, because Trump says, "US asked China to delay Xi meeting a month or so due to Iran war." So why are we delaying it? Rob, you want to play that clip? Is this him? Go for it.

• 13:12Speaker 05

  I don't know. We're working on that right now. We're speaking to China. I'd love to, but because of the war, I want to be here. I have to be here, I feel. And so we've requested that we delay it a month or so, and I'm looking forward to being with them. We have a very good relationship.

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• 15:59Patrick Bet-David?

  So, so to me, is this, is this NATO and those guys are sitting around saying, hey, we gotta be careful with China, maybe China's got our back, you know, let's kind of sit this one out. NATO, if you look up who gives the most money to NATO, we know who it is. This is something that everybody knows that US gives the most money. I don't know how many billions of dollars we helped them out with. He made the point with Ukraine, we gave how much money under Biden to Ukraine? 300 billion. How much? I think 300 billion. I think it's 160 to 200 billion, it could be 300 billion dollars at this point. Buckets of money. Under the table too. Of comeback weapons, all this stuff, yeah, we've, we've seen the numbers at this point.

• 16:40Patrick Bet-David?

  The numbers are, so we are willing to help, but you don't want to give the two ships until after the war is over with, that's when you want to give? You know, it's, it's like a bank, the bank wants to lend you money, wants to deck a millionaire, but you needed the money to start the business, they don't want to give you any money. We'll give you the money when you're no longer a risk. So, but I don't know, to me, the question is, where's the audacity coming from?

• 17:02Speaker 06

  The thing, Starmer said it, he said, look, we want this over to be as quickly as possible. What would be the easiest way to get this over as quickly as possible? Help. Everybody get involved and get it done, right? I mean, because Trump has said we're in this. The weight of the West. Right, exactly.

• 17:15Patrick Bet-David?

  Oh, but this is, here's what's gonna happen.

• 17:17Speaker 06

  So why are they, why are they, why would they not do that? If your interest is to end this as quickly as possible, then join, get it done, get it over with and move on.

• 17:25Patrick Bet-David?

  Let me read a quote, let me read a quote to you, okay, which maybe they need to hear. Here's a quote, okay, you ready? And a part of this quote I love, okay, I love when I read this quote. "No friend ever served me, no enemy ever wronged me, who I have not repaid in full." Hmm. Lucius Cornelius Sulla, let me read this one more time. "No friend..." ever served me and no enemy ever wronged me whom I have not repaid in full. A ruthless Roman dictator in general, right? Is who he was back in the days uncompromising.

• 18:06Patrick Bet-David?

  An element of Trump is he's an uncompromising guy that is gonna remember these moments. So what does this mean? If you're an ally, we have your back. If you're an enemy, we will never forget. And we know Trump's never gonna forget. I think this is a dumb move because a part of this that they can use as leverage is the following way. Here's how I would do it. Let's just say you're part of these NATO countries. What if you come out and say, Mr. President, we are absolutely with you. We all have your back with one reasoning. What's that? We want to make one ask. You cannot raise tariffs above 10% the next 24 months. Go back to this following levels. If you do this, because this is gonna be a cost to us.

• 18:51Patrick Bet-David?

  If you're willing to do this, we're all in. What would you like to do? This is an opportunity for them to negotiate. I don't know if you understand like. Yeah, guess what? Instead of just being like, I'm out. Listen, maybe the president is like wanting to make a deal with you right now. Propose something. What if we do this? And by the way, how do you know that's not been talked about? If it's been talked about, maybe somebody could leak it to the market and say, hey, you know, what if, what if in this moment where you're coming to us for help? Great. Give us a two-year commitment. The real number you want to negotiate for not raising tariffs is what? How many years? It's not two years, it's three years. Exactly. Why do you want three years? Because he's out in three years.

• 19:33Patrick Bet-David?

  And you're hoping the guy that comes after him. So I don't know. I think a part of this is Trump's not gonna forget. And in two years, when you guys desperately need him, he will not forget how you handled this. And he's gonna delay the support for you. Then what's gonna happen? You don't think you're gonna need the help on the other way around? Who do you think needs who's help more often? And you know what it's like? It's like when a guy comes to you for help 19 times, you go to help for one time. But the one time you go to help for him, he holds it over your head and you're like, I'm sorry. What did you just do? I helped you 19 times and the one time I need you, you are, you're using this as a wow. Okay, no problem. Let me get back to it. No friend ever served me.

• 20:18Patrick Bet-David?

  And no ever, no enemy ever wrong me whom I have not repaid in full. You're gonna get paid in full.

• 20:23Speaker 06

  That's what I think is, what's really bad about this is what I think the calculation from the Europeans is that they're betting that gasoline prices and diesel prices, which I'm, we're gonna talk about. They're betting that gasoline prices and diesel prices inflict enough pain on the American voter.

• 20:39Tom Ellsworth?

  Right.

• 20:40Speaker 06

  That they get Trump to relent. To call a quick, you know, call a victory, then just, you know, go back to the way it was. And I think that's a, it's a political calculation in both directions. First of all, from their, from their own perspective, but also from the Trump perspective. So, go ahead, Tom.

• 20:54Tom Ellsworth?

  I agree with that 100%. I'm sorry to cut you off at the end. There are two types of leadership. There is clear vision leadership, and then you go all the way downhill from that to pure political leadership. Pat, the Europeans have always been political leadership. Political leadership, conversations, muddy visions, we'll consider it, we'll think it over. Whereas clear vision leadership is Mr. Gorbachev, take down this wall. It's very clear, very defined. The Europeans think they have allies right now. They think the midterm election in the United States is an ally. They think the Democrats in the United States is an ally. They think an upset consumer is an ally. They don't have to have clear leadership, Pat. They're waiting for everything else to pinch Trump.

• 21:36Tom Ellsworth?

  They would rather than go out and stating what they want the future world to be, where they wanna go, what they wanna do, how they wanna get there, how they wanna provide for their people in the future. Rather than that, they'd rather let other things happen. You know, it's, it's astonishing to me to see this, but you know what it is? It's UN leadership. Cause they are still globalist, they are still UN leadership. And I'm not surprised. I'm really not surprised.

• 22:01Speaker 06

  Tom, do you think they're underestimating Trump here? Because, I mean, we've talked about this many times.

• 22:05Tom Ellsworth?

  Look, I take all kinds of heat because people say you won't see anything new about Trump. But I'll tell you, they are underestimating a true leader. When you come up against a true leader like this, you were underestimating him. It's not only the legend of Lucius Sulla, which is correct. It's also dealing with someone who is a dealmaker and is going to come back and go, wait a minute, you did what? And he's got levers to pull. You don't think Starmer is going to need it? Look at what's starting to happen right now in the UK. He's got his own issues in his backyard as the people of the UK.

• 22:39Speaker 06

  He's the most unpopular prime minister in UK history.

• 22:41Tom Ellsworth?

  In UK history! And the people are starting to erupt about the rape gangs and about things that are going on. And he's up there, we're interested in the people and all this.

• 22:51Patrick Bet-David?

  He was about to resign anyways, guys. I mean, he was about to resign. So I think at any point in the next few months, we could be like, it's the end of it. Rob ran a poll here. Should NATO support the US in helping keeping the Strait of Hormuz? It's an 80/20 issue, okay? Even with our audience. Our audience is a reasonable audience that watches and gets involved. So 80% saying yes, 20% is saying no. To the 20% saying no, can you put in the comment section why not? And can all of you guys debate it out? The reasonable players, can you guys debate it out on why you say no? So that's that part. Now, this leads to oil, gas prices. US diesel prices soar to almost $5 as Iran war pinches global supply.

• 23:33Patrick Bet-David?

  Rob, if you can pull up the AAA gas prices for the last 30 days while I'm reading this article, that'd be great. US diesel prices have jumped to more than a third, more than a third over the past month to almost $5 a gallon as the war in Iran ventures on. Average diesel prices at the pump, $4.99 on Monday, a 37% increase a month ago as the blockage of Strait of Hormuz chokes energy supplies. It marks the highest price for diesel, a fuel that is vital for industry since the aftermath of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Diesel costs rocket up and float back down, said Ed Hears, an energy economist at the University of Houston. The only thing that Donald Trump's administration can do is finish this war. The diesel...

• 24:19Patrick Bet-David?

  Surge is pushing up costs for motorists and farmers, threatening to trigger spiraling costs for consumers across the world's largest economy at a time when the president is battling an affordability crisis. Tom.

• 24:30Tom Ellsworth?

  So, right now, diesel's $5 a gallon and gas is about gasoline, regular automotive gas is creeping up now. It's across $3.80 a gallon. This is going to start having a pinch on the consumer. For everybody that says it's going to be runaway inflation, that's not correct. This will be a short-term inflationary catalyst. However, frequently, when this is short-term, people that are paying for transport, product makers, produce makers, they'll eat a short-term increase because they don't actually don't want to raise prices on the consumer right away because that's how you lose market share. You know what I mean, Pat? You and I are making products at a company. Oh, diesel is up for a week. Let's raise the price. You go, wait a minute, wait a minute. That's what if our competitor doesn't? We

• 25:14Tom Ellsworth?

  could lose market share. Let's be more careful. So, for the short run, you know, producers that are selling into retail are a little bit conservative, but not, not forever. But right now, $5 diesel is not good. That's increasing the cost on producers and $3.80 gas, which is pushes it up to 550 because the people that live in California have almost $2 of localized taxes. This is not good. We need this war to be over so that this can settle back down.

• 25:42Patrick Bet-David?

  Jeff Snider, thoughts?

• 25:43Speaker 06

  Yeah, again, it's, you know, what Starmer said. We want to help people's cost of living. What's the best way to do it is to end this conflict as quickly as possible because Trump is correct. If the Straits of Hormuz get open tomorrow, oil prices are going to go down. They're going to go right back to where they were immediately, like the guy that you just quoted said.

• 26:00Tom Ellsworth?

  Overnight indexes.

• 26:01Speaker 06

  But the oil prices, we saw this last summer, and when there's a brief 12-day war in the conflict, oil prices shot up. Didn't go as high as they are now, but they shot up and then they went right back down again. And Tom, you're absolutely, absolutely correct here. It's a, it's a time issue. If oil prices go back down and energy prices can go back down quickly, there'll be limited, limited downside in the economy because in the initial stage, people do absorb the pressure. However, the longer it goes, the more it does erode consumer spending, it erodes a business's ability to maintain employment. That's the true downside here. Any oil shock case, the real issue is not really inflation so much as it is unemployment. When you have energy prices that skyrocket this much and stay there for even just a couple of months.

• 26:45Speaker 06

  Think back to the 1990 example. It only took a three-month oil shock to produce the 1990-91 recession. So that's the downside case. But if you're on this, I mean, I can't get over this thing with the UK. I mean, if you, you want to avoid that scenario, then why not contribute? Why not just sit there and wait for it, even root for it because you're politically opposed to Trump? If you want to help out the economy, you want to help out the Middle East, the thing to do would be to participate at the absolute maximum level.

• 27:14Speaker 07

  They don't like oil, though. You know, the UK doesn't, they like expensive oil. And then instead of them getting blamed for it, they could blame it on Trump. So I think that's a part of why they like this.

• 27:22Speaker 06

  It's politics. It's disgusting politics.

• 27:25Speaker 07

  But the thing that's bugging me, though, is that everybody's saying, oh, the good thing is at least China's being hurt more than America's being hurt. But it's widely acknowledged that Iran's letting Chinese ships with Chinese oil go through the Strait of Hormuz right now to China. So China's actually not being hurt by this in the way that we are. And then Trump is saying, it's okay, we produce more than enough oil domestically to supply ourselves for years and years and years. But not exactly the case because we built refineries to handle the heavy crude oil. You know, because we didn't know that we had all this light crude oil that we found in 2008. So we produce, we do produce the most oil in the world by far, but we could only refine like 10% of it because we don't have refineries that could refine the light crude that we have. Does that make sense?

• 28:08Patrick Bet-David?

  I do, but did you see the subtle support that France gave to Trump with Macron? Did you see what Trump said about Macron? Did you guys see this or no? Bob, I think there was something there.

• 28:20Speaker 07

  Were they sending something?

• 28:22Patrick Bet-David?

  He says, you know, there's a Macron over there.

• 28:28Patrick Bet-David?

  He'll never help in the Strait of Hormuz, yeah. He said it's an eight call, eight and a half call. He'll be out of office very soon, so we'll have to see. What is this? This is about, there's two clips. Which one is this one? Play this one, let's see this one, because this looks like a traditional Trump. And he's got the green tie on, so it's yesterday. Go for it.

• 28:47Speaker 15

  ...said in the last hour that he will never join a task force in the Strait of Hormuz until hostility is finished. Yet yesterday you said-

• 28:55Speaker 05

  Who said that?

• 28:56Speaker 15

  President Macron of France. What's your reaction to that?

• 28:59Speaker 05

  Well, he'll be out of office very soon, so we'll have to see. You know, I don't know.

• 29:06Tom Ellsworth?

  I like the trail off comments, right? Well, he'll be on-

• 29:08Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah, he'll be out of office soon. Look, I mean, what this is doing, what the Strait of Hormuz conversation is doing is it's making you wonder how many other choke points are there in the world that can impact the economy, okay? And what leverage different people have. So, we got a history lesson the last two weeks about Strait of Hormuz, right? The world did. Sometime when this stuff happens, you're like, oh, I didn't know that. Oh, I didn't, everybody's learning collectively, right? So what did we learn? We learned the power, we learned who goes through it. We learned who really has control at the choke, which Iran has a lot of influence. And a country like Iran, people are scared of that they could attack. And we learned about Carug Island, and what could happen with Carug Island, and the influence. We learned about the mines. We learned about all this stuff, right?

• 29:52Patrick Bet-David?

  But what other choke points are there out there that China may be afraid of? You know, that other people, we hear about Suez Canal, right? You hear what Suez Canal does. And by the way, with the choke point of, can you go to the Strait of Hormuz? Did you guys hear about what Saudi Arabia just announced yesterday that they've been working on the last 40 years that almost got done? The pipeline? Can you type in the Saudi Arabia Strait Pipeline?

• 30:19Patrick Bet-David?

  Uh, uh, uh, go to, um, bypass Hormuz as Iran locks, yeah. Go to the east-west pipeline, right? They see it to the left? Okay, can you do me a favor and go type in Saudi east-west pipeline and go to images? Saudi, it, out of nowhere, they announced this. So, check this out. Go to, right there, that's a good one. So, the Strait of Hormuz is that choke point to the right. Do you see it top right? Yep. All the way to the top right. Now, go even further, right? And Iran is right above it. That's Iran, right above. So, if you look at this image, there's better ones. Okay, perfect. So, Strait of Hormuz is to the right, okay? Kuwait to the, to the right of Kuwait is Iran.

• 31:01Patrick Bet-David?

  Well, quietly, Saudi's been working on this east-west pipeline that's able to do five to six and a half million barrels of oil through not having to go through Strait of Hormuz, and they're claiming it is ready. So, they don't have to build, uh, deal with this. So, they're playing, uh, prevent offense, right? Hey, if you're gonna do this to us and put the threat, we're gonna protect ourselves. So, everybody's paying attention to the different choke points. The other one was Panama Canal. We talked about it extensively, that now, you know, Panama came out, Supreme Court saying, hey, you guys can't have control over China. So, somewhat Panama Canal, Panama has control with the influence of America, right? Then, the other one we have to look at is what Israel is doing, that they're talking about. They proposed this in the 60s quietly.

• 31:46Patrick Bet-David?

  Rob, if you can go to the Bengurian pipeline, type in Bengurian pipeline and go to images. They proposed this quietly internally in the 60s. They named it after their first prime minister. And this is what the Bengurian pipeline looks like. Can you go to images, Rob? So, it's just immediately, people will see it. Uh, let me see which one to go through. Go to, um, uh, none of them are good. I mean, go to the, go to the second row. Uh, keep going, keep going, keep going. The fourth one, second or fourth one, right there. So currently the Suez Canal is to the left, which is roughly 193 kilometers. Okay, you see that to the left, right there, the red line? That's 193 kilometers, which by the way, we know who controls that, that's Egypt.

• 32:29Speaker 07

  Yep.

• 32:30Patrick Bet-David?

  So now Egypt, for the most part, they're making a lot of money off of that. I don't know what the number is, but they make four and a half to seven billion-ish off of that. You guys can fact check me on this. If you look to the right, you see Israel? Israel came up with this idea of building their own canal. We know straight is God made canal is man made. To build that through, it's gonna be around 250 to 300 kilometers to not be reliant on Suez Canal. And by doing so, it'll cost them uh, 55 billion dollars. They'll need 300,000 employees to build it. Some claim this may go through Gaza and that was part of the war. It'll save them a few kilometers if they're able to go through Gaza. If not, it'll be 290 kilometers.

• 33:14Patrick Bet-David?

  And they're proposing to do that. So everybody right now is kinda sitting around saying, what do we do next? But you know what's the other two that uh, one of them we don't talk about a lot? One of them we know is the choke point is what? Taiwan with 90% of the semiconductors. We all know how much control they have and how everybody has ships around that area to protect Taiwan, Japan, US. You know, and then China's flying jets constantly to make sure no one's messing with that because they eventually wanna find a way to have control over it. This is, this is the last one that we have to talk about. And it's the Strait of Malacca. Rob, can you tap in Strait of Malacca? Strait of Malacca is by far the most important straight to China. Nothing is more important than the Strait of Malacca.

• 33:59Patrick Bet-David?

  If you go to map, I'm trying to see which map to use that uh, shows it. Just, just go to the, yeah, that, that's a good one, Rob. Click on that and go to the site. Uh, yeah, Strait of Malacca is probably the one no one is talking about. Look at mainland China to the right. Okay, up top, okay, right there. Strait of Malacca is right there on the bottom. If you go to Malaysia, and they don't have it too zoomed in, all the way that small little island at the tail end between Indonesia, Indonesia's the bottom one. Okay, go to the, go to south of Malaysia, Rob. Go to south of Malaysia. Go to Malaysia. You see where Malaysia's at? Right there. No, you're, you're right there. Just put the arrow on south on Malaysia. See that land to the left?

• 34:42Patrick Bet-David?

  Right there. That's Indonesia. That's Indonesia. So Malaysia gets seven billion a year from that strait in revenue. Indonesia only gets three billion a year, but that small little island Singapore that you can barely see gets fifteen billion dollars of revenue. And they know, if anybody wanted to make China's life a living hell, that's the one you mess with. And China knows that. So to me, in the negotiation where Trump's talking to China, you don't think Trump knows that? Strait of Malacca is the, China probably doesn't want any attention on Strait of Malacca.

• 35:16Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 35:16Patrick Bet-David?

  Any. So if I'm talking and Trump's talking the way he's talking, I don't know, but I would kind of drop it in there. And I would kind of give a hint and say, hey, let's not, by the way, you know how much money goes through there every year? You know what the number is? Three and a half trillion dollars. Ninety-four thousand vessels a year go through this area. Three and a half trillion dollars. So it's not like, I don't know what the number is, some thirty, thirty-five percent goes through this area. Thirty-five percent, uh, go, go back to the number you had right there, Rob. What did it say? Third, uh, in twenty twenty-four, thirty-five percent of oil transported by sea and twenty percent of gas flow through the strait. Thirty-five, more than a third goes through this. So to me, if they're talking threats behind closed doors.

• 36:00Patrick Bet-David?

  And I trust Trump's team has talked about this probably immensely with them. But we haven't heard this name a lot. We haven't heard this name a lot. This is something China wants nobody to pay attention to. This is a place China wants nobody to be talking about. So to me, while all this negotiation behind closed doors are going on, I wonder how much if this thing gets a little bit deeper and China plays a little bit of an asshole move and tries to come and help Iran with the straight of whore moves, I wouldn't be surprised if America goes out there and does something, not anything to this area, but dangling something saying, hey, don't forget, we know how much important this area to you is. You better not be acting too crazy. Knowing Trump behind closed doors in his own way, he may do that. I don't know. So we'll see.

• 36:44Speaker 06

  Pat, don't you think that one of the reasons they, you know, Trump delayed the meeting with Xi was to get this Iran conflict resolved? He wanted to go over there in a position of strength and power and say, look, look at what we did with Iran. Iran was supposed to be this major country, major ally. You know, we've heard endlessly about their ability to inflict harm all across the region, all across everywhere. We took care of them in about a month. We can do that to Iran. Don't mess with us in all these other different places. I think that's what Trump was thinking.

• 37:13Patrick Bet-David?

  But let me tell you, and Besen says it's got nothing to do with any of this stuff. Like it didn't get delayed because they're not willing to play ball. That's what Scott Besen said. And he's supposed to say that, Rob. You want to play this clip?

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• 39:50Speaker 17

  We will see whether the visit takes place as scheduled, but what I do want to parse, and there's a false narrative out there, that if the meetings are delayed, it wouldn't be delayed because the President's demanded that China police the Straits of Hormuz. Because there was a report out to that effect this morning. That's completely false. So if the meeting for some reason is rescheduled, it would be rescheduled because of logistics. The President wants to remain in D.C. to coordinate the war effort. And...

• 40:27Patrick Bet-David?

  That traveling abroad at a time like this may not be-

• 40:31Speaker 06

  I think they're talking right now, to be honest.

• 40:33Patrick Bet-David?

  But do you agree? Do you agree with Scott? Do you agree 50/50 with Scott?

• 40:37Speaker 06

  What, that this isn't the reason that he's not going?

• 40:39Patrick Bet-David?

  Do you agree 50% that the reason to not go is because the calls didn't go well as planned and hey, let's delay it? And do you agree the other 50% this is not the time to travel? Do you give both sides a little bit of credit that's probably happening?

• 40:50Speaker 06

  I do, yeah.

• 40:51Patrick Bet-David?

  What do you think?

• 40:52Speaker 06

  I, no, I think, I think this is Trump playing power politics. Again, my whole framework is this is Cold War II. You go to Cold War II, you go to Xi Jinping in a position of strength. You go to them after you got the Iran thing bottled up and say, look, we took out Venezuela, Cuba's next, Panama Canal, we've done all of these things, now Iran. We're negotiating on our terms, even though I'm in your country, visiting you, we're negotiating on our terms. I think that's the overall argument. And Taiwan's a friend.

• 41:20Patrick Bet-David?

  And keep in mind, keep in mind that one thing that the Strait of Hormuz in a war with Iran has almost taken off the table as a topic that no one's talking about right now.

• 41:31Speaker 06

  Taiwan?

• 41:32Patrick Bet-David?

  No, tariffs. You know, and the court saying you gotta pay back the $193 billion in tariffs and said, oh, it's gonna take years. Not really, we want the money back now and they're kind of pushing, the judge is saying, no. You guys gotta, so, so to me, he's going there to China at a time that tariffs didn't rule for him, it ruled against him, so.

• 41:51Speaker 06

  You need to get a position of strength to go there?

• 41:53Patrick Bet-David?

  I agree with Jeff. I think, I think there's, I think there's a part of it that, and by the way, I, I would do the same thing. But yeah, no, not right now, guys, you don't want to, but again, to me, Strait of Malacca is very important to China.

• 42:06Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 42:06Patrick Bet-David?

  I want to know what hurts you, okay? And I'm gonna remember, I'm gonna go back to our nice quote from our friendly general back in the days, "No friend ever served me, no enemy ever wronged me, whom I have not repaid in full." Trump right now is watching to see who's an enemy, who's a friend, or you don't want to help us? No, either way, we're gonna repay you in full, whatever it is, good or bad. You choose whether you want to be a friend and an enemy, we're not gonna forget, okay? We're not gonna forget. So anyways, we'll see what's gonna happen here. I don't think it's going away, this, you know, Iran, Strait of Hormuz, all this stuff that we're talking about. At the same time, while this is going on, Israel says Iran's security chief, Ali Lari Giani-

• 42:54Patrick Bet-David?

  Has been killed, Laddi Giani, no relation to Larry Bird, but so Ali Laddi Giani has been killed in a strike, according to CNBC. Rob, is this, is this Adam's best friend?

• 43:05Speaker 18

  This morning, we eliminated Ali Laddi Giani. Ali Laddi Giani is the boss of the Revolutionary Guards, that group of gangsters that effectively runs Iran. Alongside him, we also eliminated the commander of the Basij. They are the gangsters assistants who are terrorizing the population in the streets of Tehran and other Iranian cities. We are operating there as well, operating from the air with air force jets and UAVs. We are undermining this regime in the hope of giving the Iranian people an opportunity to remove it. It will not happen all at once, and it will not happen easily. But if we persist, we will give them the chance to take their destiny into their own hands. At the same time, we are helping our

• 43:47Speaker 18

  American friends in the Gulf. I spoke at length with President Trump on this matter yesterday. There is cooperation between our air forces and navies, between myself and President Trump and his staff. We will assist both through indirect attacks, which create immense pressure on the Iranian regime, and through direct actions. There are many more surprises. By stratagems, you shall make war. We will not reveal all the stratagems here, but as I told you, there are many. Now, regarding another matter-

• 44:16Patrick Bet-David?

  We can pause it right there. So by the way, this Ali guy that they killed, the way to put it, he is like, to make a comparison, is he like the director of CIA type of thing? It's a heavyweight to take out, right?

• 44:29Tom Ellsworth?

  Uh, Tom, your thoughts? You think this is the end of it, with leaders getting killed?

• 44:33Patrick Bet-David?

  Do you think there's more of this that's gonna be coming every other day?

• 44:36Tom Ellsworth?

  Well, it feels like the war is methodically moving along, and Israel is doing exactly what we've been watching for two weeks. They are knocking down leaders, and they are- Tightening the noose, they want no leadership in there. You can, you know what the strategy is for Israel right now, right? Is, you know, take down the leaders. It's, it's a bingo card and they're just another one, another one, another one, another one. That's what I see. And I see Israel kinda, kinda on their own strategy here. I don't know, I don't know how aligned we really are and I don't know how much I trust. But, you know, that's, that's their strategy and, you know, he's making a speech, he's

• 45:18Tom Ellsworth?

  also showing, he was, there was 72 hours, he didn't make any comments publicly and then we had a bunch of, you know, BS about, oh, you know, Bibi's been hurt or be, or worse, right? There was that going on for 72 hours. Now he's up there speaking, it's not AI, he's very, very clear, talking about, you know, that's what we're doing. So, this is their plan. Their plan is leader.

• 45:41Patrick Bet-David?

  And by the way, Bibi had five fingers in that video, I don't know if you saw that, it wasn't seven. And so-

• 45:45Tom Ellsworth?

  He also had the Bugs Bunny in the Superman costume sitting on the shelf, which I'm trying to figure out.

• 45:49Patrick Bet-David?

  To, to, to say who he was, he was like the, go back to his title, Rob, go back so we can say it correctly. He's like the Speaker Johnson, right? Speaker of the Parliament of Iran for 12 years, so he's like the Speaker of the House. And he was a media personality, you know, educated guy, PhD in philosophy. Iranians saw this guy on TV and he, he had a lot of weight. Jeff, where are you at with this?

• 46:20Speaker 06

  I think the strategy here has been pretty consistent from the beginning. Iran, or Israel has said their goal is regime collapse, not regime change, but regime collapse. And that means not just taking out one or two guys, but taking out the ability of the regime to sustain itself. So what they're really hoping for is if by continuing to pressure the top leadership, it splinters the, what's remaining, what's left there, and it opens the door for the Iranian people to rise up and remove the regime, or at least for somebody within the regime to say, we're no longer part of the regime, we'll start moving in a different direction. And I think the US goal is similar, but then to contain the fallout, first of all, the economic fallout, but also the longstanding goals of the US foreign policy, which have

• 47:05Speaker 06

  been to eliminate Iran as a threat. So there's, there's a bit of symbiosis here, even though I think there are different, different tactics and different strategies going on.

• 47:15Speaker 06

  But overall, this is why I think it's underestimating Trump from the European perspective and other perspective, that they're not going to stop until they accomplish their goal. Everybody thinks they can wait out Trump in Europe, you know, we'll just wait till gas prices go high enough and the midterm election goes wrong and Trump will say, okay, we'll just declare victory, you know, and go home. They've crossed the Rubicon here. They've gone way too far and I think Trump has shown, and Israel certainly has shown ever since October 7th, that they're willing to go to extreme lengths to accomplish their goals. And what they've said is, our goal in Iran is regime collapse and we're not going to stop until we actually get it. And I think that's both the aim here as well as the resolve. Brendan?

• 47:57Speaker 07

  Yeah, I'm curious, what happens once we do say we do take out all the leaders? I mean, what does that look like in terms of how involved do we get in the regime change, the transitionary period? How do we make sure it doesn't become an even more volatile and lethal and deadly place that continues to execute terror attacks? Because, I mean, what does it typically look like when you create a power vacuum like that? And I'm not saying it's a bad thing that we're doing that. I think it'd be great if we methodically took out all the leaders. I'm just saying, what degree do we have to be involved in that transition? And I mean, does Israel have any plan or vision for being involved in that leadership transition? Do we have a person in mind to be the leader? Because that's the weird thing and that's the unfortunate thing about Reza Pahlavi, that he has no interest in being the leader. Because like, what else?

• 48:41Speaker 07

  Who else is there that's a name that could be?

• 48:43Patrick Bet-David?

  It's not Reza Pahlavi has no interest in being the leader. It's President Trump has no interest in him being the leader.

• 48:49Speaker 07

  Hasn't he said that?

• 48:51Patrick Bet-David?

  No, President, him or Reza Pahlavi.

• 48:53Speaker 07

  Reza, I thought Reza said he didn't want to be.

• 48:54Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah, he said that on the podcast. Right now, he's saying, the moment the regime collapses, I'm coming back to Iran to help being a transitional leader. And we don't fully know what that means, but he can't do that.

• 49:06Speaker 07

  Without Trump.

• 49:07Patrick Bet-David?

  Without Trump.

• 49:08Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 49:09Patrick Bet-David?

  And so Trump said he seems like a nice guy, but he's been out for 47 years. I think we need somebody on the inside, not somebody from the outside. Do I think the President will work with him? Meaning, could he play a role in helping in the transition? I think yes. Do I think he's going to be the guy they're going to look at? The President is saying no. He doesn't believe. He says he's a nice guy, but he's not the guy to do it.

• 49:32Speaker 07

  That's the portion where we need like, we need like potentially boots on the ground, even more so than taking people out. Because like, how do we even protect the person that like, whoever he does decide to make that person? How's that person safe from the people who are upset about that turnover?

• 49:45Speaker 06

  That's always the gamble, right? That's the one reason that nobody has ever acted in Iran and other places is that you don't know what comes next. That's always the question. Okay, we want to, we want, everybody agrees, we gotta take out the leadership in Iran. This is bad, we don't need to keep going for 50 years. But what has sustained them for 47 years is this question, what comes next? And I see Trump as not some crazed bad man who's just going around the map and just randomly blowing things up. He's a gambler, he's a dealmaker. You guys say it all the time, he is a dealmaker. A dealmaker doesn't start down a road toward a deal without having some idea how it's resolved. You don't just throw the dice. Throwing the dice is a loser's game. So I have to believe at some point, or in some way, I don't think, I don't, you know,

• 50:28Speaker 06

  Israel, I don't know if they're necessarily going to be involved, but I believe that the Trump administration has some roadmap. Whether they can execute or not, that's always the question. But they have some strategic roadmap that gets them to answer that question, what comes next? I don't think what comes next is, you know, the Marine Expeditionary Forces landing in Tehran. I think it is solidifying opposition leaders enough that once the regime collapse, when the regime collapse becomes viable, that the opposition leaders can then for what you hope is a seamless transition, it probably won't be seamless, but um... It's like a civil war type of situation. Worst case. But that, again, I don't see Trump as a gambler who's just gonna throw the dice and say, well, you know, like Iraq, we'll just, we'll go in there, blow everything up, and just hope that everybody's happy on the other side.

• 51:13Speaker 06

  I think they have at least some idea that this was going to go, there was a significantly positive outcome that was, um, a realistic one.

• 51:23Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah, I mean, look, while this is going on, you know, you got the concern when you hear the, uh, the numbers from WaPo and CNN on what percentage of Americans are supportive of the war, you see the 53 to 59% are not. Are not, and there's different polls. You can pick and choose on what these polls are. That's only gonna go up. The opposition to the war is only gonna go up the longer it goes. I think it's just gonna go up. And the reason why it's gonna go up is what? They, you think you felt the impact of money, you know, and affordability, hasn't happened yet. Right now, it's kinda like, ah, maybe 350, 380, you know, I can deal with that yet. That, that right there, disapproval. Which poll is that, Rob? Is that the CNN Wapo?

• 52:02Tom Ellsworth?

  CNN and Wapo.

• 52:03Patrick Bet-David?

  And Wapo, 52 to 59, uh, where it's like, can you go search it for yourself as well on what some other polls are saying? So, that's, that's what Americans are worried about. How bad this could turn into. The moment it's hitting their pockets, they're gonna be reacting to it in a different way. This is why being swift and fast. If it becomes a lengthy thing, oh, you're, you're gonna have some issues with that. Let me read this that came out yesterday, which by the way, Tom, uh, predicted this last week, US warship believed to be carrying additional Marines to Middle East tracked off Singapore. Okay, which kinda we talked about a little bit earlier. Singapore, go ahead, is this a rock? Go for it. Right there. Okay, so what is it doing there? Is the, is there a good restaurant in Singapore they're checking out?

• 52:49Patrick Bet-David?

  Are they're there because there's good fishing? Lobster and steak? There's good lobster. So maybe it's lobster. We don't know about, because we saw the numbers of lobster. They like to eat lobster before going to war. So we don't know why they're there. Maybe it's innocent. It's just lobster. You know, they're trying to catch it and have some food. But Tom, why are they there? What, what is going on here? What's your guesstimation?

• 53:07Tom Ellsworth?

  That is the USS Tripoli. The US Tripoli is a ground invasion ship. It looks like a little baby aircraft carrier, but there is one purpose of that ship. It is not a hospital ship. It is not a floating barrack. It is a invasion ship. And it is, what is on there is 2,500 Marines from the Marine Corps Expeditionary Force, and now they've made it to Singapore. I and a lot of defense analysts are believing that the reason we loaded those guys up and sent them over there is Karg Island. Is to take possession of the island, shut off the valve, and say, okay, you get what you wanna get through, um,

• 53:47Tom Ellsworth?

  the new Saudi pipeline. That's not near the volume we're gonna have here. We need to figure out the Strait. And now, by the way, there's not a lot getting through the Strait. I think the actual number, Pat, was 21 ships over 96 hours. I believe that's the number of ship. They've got through. So all this comment about, oh, we're only going to hold up the Americans and their ally ships. There is not unfettered passage going on right now. So China is still being limited in its ability to get that oil. But that ship, that is coming, and I believe it's going to get a lot of support. And soon as you see it within 300 miles of the Strait

• 54:29Tom Ellsworth?

  of Hormuz and turn north, you know where it's going. It's going to Karg Island. Because where else would it be going? They're not going to take 2,500 Marines and come ashore in Iran.

• 54:39Patrick Bet-David?

  Rob, can you see exactly where it's at right now as of this second? Jeff, your thoughts?

• 54:44Speaker 06

  Yeah, I agree with Tom. I think this is more pressure on the Iranian regime. I mean, what better way to help bring about regime collapse than the cutting off Iranian oil? I mean, what is it, 90% of Iranian oil goes through Karg Island? So if you take control of the island, you can effectively control what Iranian oil is doing, assuming they don't sabotage the pipeline going to the island, which is a whole set of other different circumstances. But it's another layer of pressure that's being applied to the Iranian regime, as well as accomplishing the mission of trying to manage the energy fallout and the energy cost fallout. So it's, there really isn't any ambiguity here.

• 55:25Speaker 07

  Brandon? Just to play devil's advocate for fun, I mean, the whole, I think, philosophy of like Trump and the art of war and the CIA and everything, it's like, all right, like, look over here because I'm actually doing this. I mean, if we could see the ship going to the thing from, you know, miles and miles away, if the whole world sees it going there and is anticipating this, I mean, like, Iran obviously has plenty of time to see the threat coming and plan for what they want to do about that. So, I mean...

• 55:50Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah, you're right. Because for you to have the audacity to go through, what are you saying? You're not going to do shit.

• 55:56Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 55:56Patrick Bet-David?

  That's what you're saying.

• 55:57Speaker 07

  Right.

• 55:58Patrick Bet-David?

  If they go through the choke point, and Iran's right there, and they're just going to look at him, do something. Go ahead. If they don't... That is the ultimate, you know, sign of...

• 56:11Speaker 06

  Well, that's the resolution to this problem, right? Is to prove, to prove that we can park something like that in the middle of Strait Hormuz and then that will operate as a platform to help protect shipping. The biggest problem right now with the shipping isn't carg island, it's insurance costs. Even though, you know, London insurers say, yes, insurance is available, we aren't denying coverage to anybody.

• 56:32Patrick Bet-David?

  Sure, yeah.

• 56:33Speaker 06

  Their rates are ridicu... I mean, I think I saw the report and I think you guys have it in here to talk about. The insurance rates to cover vessels going to the Straits of Hormuz are like 5% of the vessel value. And that's just the prices that we can get. So to get oil moving and to get, not just more than oil, but to get everything moving through Hormuz, you have to have a credible, a credible solution to the... The Iranian problem isn't even direct attacks. It's almost like the naval doctrine of fleet and being. When you have a lesser, lesser powerful adversary, all they need to have is a credible threat that the naval actually have to act on that causes the more powerful adversary to dedicate resources to trying to protect the threat. So if you drop a bunch of Marines on this island, you eliminate the, even the idea of

• 57:18Speaker 06

  the threat, of the fleet and being that Iran poses, just, you know, lobbing some missiles or some suicide drones at traffic passing through the strait. That's really, that's the goal here. The goal here is to remove the credibility of the threat from the Iranian side to restrict transit through that area.

• 57:36Patrick Bet-David?

  You said insurance. Here's what this fellow, Gene Soroka, had to say about the Hormuz insurance. Go for it, Rob.

• 57:43Speaker 19

  There are thousands of vessels that are stuck in the Arabian Gulf and just to the east outside of the Strait of Hormuz. The companies do not have an interest right now, nor is there enough money for insurance to transit those ships through the strait. Risking the life and limb of crew is just not an option for the private sector companies today.

• 58:06Speaker 06

  So, Gene, are you saying that for many, they're just doing a hands-off approach and have canceled a lot of transits?

• 58:13Speaker 19

  That's right.

• 58:14Patrick Bet-David?

  There you go. So that's what he had to say. And the president said this about Carg Island. Rob, is this it? Yes. By the way, real quick, Suzy Wiles, I hope she recovers. I hope everything's gonna be fine. Word came out that she may have breast cancer. We pray for a full recovery. She's played a very important role in this administration. So our prayers go out to her and her family. Go ahead, Rob.

• 58:35Speaker 05

  You know, we attacked Carg Island and knocked it, knocked it literally destroyed everything on the island except for the area where the oil is. I call it the pipes. We left the pipes. We didn't want to do that, but we will do that. We can do that on five minutes' notice. It'll be over. But for purposes of someday rebuilding that country, I guess we did the right thing. But it's, it may not stay that way. Just one simple word and the pipes will be gone too. But it'll take a long time to rebuild that. We are aggressively dismantling Iran's defense industrial base and ability to rebuild its missiles and drone.

• 59:19Tom Ellsworth?

  Tom? They are five days to the coast of Somalia. That's where the ship is now, according to...

• 59:26Patrick Bet-David?

  Five days?

• 59:26Tom Ellsworth?

  Yep. Five days from Singapore to Somalia. And if you look at the map, you see where Somalia is. And so when the USS Tripoli reaches the Somali coast and turns north, the discussion's over. You'll go take a look at where that is.

• 59:44Patrick Bet-David?

  Rob, you're trying to find a flight. It's like, Rob wants to go to Somalia. It's interesting. Man on the ground.

• 59:51Tom Ellsworth?

  Yep. They are five days to Somalia, which means they're five days to Oman. And so soon as they show up down there, soon as they show up down there. So look at this on Monday, Tuesday, the USS Tripoli is gonna be sitting right there. Everybody's saying, okay, are they gonna turn toward Oman and go toward the Strait? It's five days. So it's like a movie. Five days to decision.

• 1:00:16Patrick Bet-David?

  Let me ask you, from there, how many days is it to get past the choke point?

• 1:00:20Tom Ellsworth?

  Um...

• 1:00:21Patrick Bet-David?

  Two?

• 1:00:22Tom Ellsworth?

  Yeah. Probably a day and a half, two days to go all the way, all the way north.

• 1:00:25Patrick Bet-David?

  Got it. So that means next Wednesday, we will hear news that something's happening.

• 1:00:30Tom Ellsworth?

  Well, I think we'll hear it on Monday, because we're gonna know where the USS Tripoli is on Monday. And everybody's gonna know, okay, if I hang a right turn here, we're not going back.

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• 1:03:08Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah, I think our Marines are gonna be, uh, uh, these are Marines. You're not talking about, uh, regular folks. I, I, I just, I just see them just looking north, just looking at them. Just looking at them. Because if it does get through, listen, if Iran does something to the USS Tripoli, what, what does US do?

• 1:03:28Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 1:03:28Patrick Bet-David?

  If they do something, how do you think US reacts?

• 1:03:31Speaker 06

  Yeah, violently.

• 1:03:32Patrick Bet-David?

  How bad?

• 1:03:33Speaker 06

  Oh, like they annihilate them.

• 1:03:34Patrick Bet-David?

  So what's the chances that Iran will do, will take a gamble, like Jeff is talking about earlier, and try to make a statement and do something to the Tripoli?

• 1:03:43Tom Ellsworth?

  The USS Tripoli is coming through the Strait of Hormuz, we're basically saying, "It's on."

• 1:03:49Patrick Bet-David?

  So what do you think the chances are?

• 1:03:50Speaker 06

  I think they, I think they would try to do something because they're telegraphing it, you know?

• 1:03:53Patrick Bet-David?

  I think so as well. So what do you think the chances are?

• 1:03:55Speaker 06

  They, no, it's 100%. They're gonna try to.

• 1:03:58Patrick Bet-David?

  Oh, you think they're gonna try?

• 1:03:59Speaker 06

  This is, from Iran's, from Iran's perspective, this is a war of survival. Nothing is off the table.

• 1:04:04Patrick Bet-David?

  And I think this is the end of it. Like, meaning, no, what I'm, what I mean by the end of it is,

• 1:04:09Speaker 06

  Checkmate.

• 1:04:09Patrick Bet-David?

  If you don't,

• 1:04:10Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 1:04:11Patrick Bet-David?

  You're saying you surrender.

• 1:04:12Speaker 06

  Right.

• 1:04:12Patrick Bet-David?

  If you do, you're saying you still have a lifeline. You know, you're still...

• 1:04:16Speaker 06

  That's why I think the, the pressure metaphor works because they're add more and more pressure, they're moving chess pieces around, getting closer and closer to checkmate, and enough of a checkmate that allows the Iranian opposition to start rising up and start exhibiting control. That's the, that's the positive outlook. That's, that's if it works well, if they can execute this and it actually goes in the right direction.

• 1:04:36Tom Ellsworth?

  Check is the right word. Over the next five days, how many more leaders does Israel check off the list?

• 1:04:42Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 1:04:44Speaker 06

  That's right.

• 1:04:44Tom Ellsworth?

  For the next five, so the next five days, does the noose get tighter? You know, all they have left is what, a drone swarm? That's all they have left. They have two options: a drone swarm, or, you know, the unthinkable that, you know, right now Russia is helping them with satellite imaging. If Russia or China actually help them with a weapon, forget about it. I don't think that's gonna happen. I don't think that's gonna happen.

• 1:05:13Speaker 07

  I'd be shocked if this is the actual plan, though, if the Tripoli pulling up and deploying the troops in there. I'd be shocked if that's the actual plan with like how far ahead of the time we know about it. Like, think about it, like, that'd be crazy from a military standpoint, like, we're just telegraphing it for five days in advance. I think that something else is gonna happen. This is supposed to be the decoy that we're looking at.

• 1:05:31Speaker 06

  Well, they did that last year, remember? They had the B2 bombers flying off. They made a big show that they were flying from the east or from the west, and then the actual strike came in the other direction.

• 1:05:41Speaker 07

  Yeah, the fact that the media's talking about it, I don't know. But, I mean, it's a good idea if they're using that as a decoy.

• 1:05:45Speaker 06

  But I think it's also to China and Russia to say, "Look, if they actually go through with this, it's to say, 'Look, we're gonna do this.' What are you gonna do about it? Are you gonna back the Iranians?" It's pressure from all over the board and all over the map.

• 1:05:59Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah, you know if the USS Tripoli's ever been attacked? You know it's been attacked once before? Rob, go pull it up.

• 1:06:07Speaker 07

  Oh, wow.

• 1:06:07Patrick Bet-David?

  February 18th, 1991, during Gulf War. Okay, location, Persian Gulf, damage, a massive explosion ripped a 20-by-30-foot hole in the hull. You can actually pull up the picture, Rob, and see it. Nearly 5,000 gallons of fuel was spilled. The ship could have been crippled or sunk. Four sailors injured, no death, no one died. The crew stabilized the ship within two minutes of state operational and continued its mission. That's it right there.

• 1:06:35Speaker 07

  Hmm.

• 1:06:36Patrick Bet-David?

  Look at that, that's not a...

• 1:06:37Speaker 06

  It took that shot, and within two minutes, they were...

• 1:06:41Patrick Bet-David?

  20 minutes. 20 minutes later, they were operational, you know, back at it again. So, to me, that's a mine. And we know where mines are, right around Carag Island. There's a lot of them.

• 1:06:52Speaker 07

  And drones.

• 1:06:53Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah, so, it'll be interesting. It'll be interesting, it'll be interesting if you're saying if they do, so this...

• 1:07:04Patrick Bet-David?

  NATO saying no, as of today. Israel's playing offense, taking out more people. China doesn't want to meet because they don't want to say they're taking sides. The USS Tripoli is on its way there, not for food, but they're just going there because they want to make a statement. Uh, so that means the most intense moment of this entire war could be next Wednesday.

• 1:07:28Tom Ellsworth?

  He's all in, Trump is all in. There's no going back.

• 1:07:31Patrick Bet-David?

  Alright, so.

• 1:07:32Tom Ellsworth?

  I believe Monday, Tuesday is decision time. I think you're exactly right, and an intense moment is there.

• 1:07:37Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah, and by the way, that mine was a mine laid by Iraq. That was not even a mine laid by, uh, that was a mine laid by Iraq. So, on this side, it's more mines laid by Iran, so we'll see. So, let's go, let's go to something that happened yesterday, okay? Joe Kent, not Jeff Kent, Joe Kent, yesterday, out of nowhere, puts out a tweet. And by the way, before we read this, Rob, can you do me, this is Director of National Intelligence, National Counterterrorism Center. Rob, can you do me a favor and first go to the tweet that he has pinned to the top of his Twitter account? Um, at the top of his Twitter account, he has a tweet from the President, it's pinned. "Thank you, President, it's an honor to serve our nation again.

• 1:08:21Patrick Bet-David?

  Time to keep our nation safe and strong. It is my pleasure to nominate Joe Kent as the Director of National Security, National Counterterrorism Center. As a soldier Green Beret and CIA Officer, Joe has hunted down terrorists and criminals his entire life. Above all, Joe knows the terrible cost of terrorism, losing his wonderful wife. Shannon, a great American hero who was killed in the fight against ISIS. Joe continues to honor her legacy by staying in the fight. Joe will help to keep America safe by eradicating all terrorism from the jihadists around the world to the cartels in our backyard. Congratulations, Joe." It's February 3rd, 2025, okay? A little over a year ago. Then yesterday. He puts out this tweet, Rob, can we first show how many views this tweet got?

• 1:09:03Patrick Bet-David?

  He puts out this tweet, zoom in 784,000 likes, 234,000 retweets, 67,000 comments, 87 million views. Let's read the letter. Here's what the letter had to say. "After much reflection, I have decided to resign from my position. I cannot in good conscience support an ongoing war with Iran. Iran poses no imminent threat to our nation and it's clear that we stated this war, started this war due to the pressure from Israel and its powerful American lobby." I suppo- and by the way, that quote right there is what's gone viral. "I support the values and a foreign policy that you campaigned on in July 20- in 2016, 2020, 2024, which you enacted your first term until June of 2025.

• 1:09:45Patrick Bet-David?

  You understood that the wars in the Middle East were a trap that robbed America of the precious lives of our patriots and depleted the wealth and prosperity of our nation. In your first administration, you understood the better than any modern president, how to decisively apply military power without getting us drawn into never-ending wars. You demonstrated this by killing Hassan Soleimani and defeating ISIS. Early in this administration, high-ranking Israeli officials and influential members of the American media deployed a misinformation campaign that wholly undermined your America-first platform and sowed pro-war sentiments to encourage a war against Iran. This echo chamber was used to deceive you into believing that Iran posed an imminent threat

• 1:10:25Patrick Bet-David?

  to the US and that should you, should you strike now, there was a clear path to a swift victory. This was a lie and is the same tactic that Israelis used to draw us into a disastrous Iraqi war that cost our nation the lives of thousands of men and women. We cannot make this mistake again. As a veteran who was deployed to 11 combat 11 times and a Gold Star husband who lost my beloved wife Shannon, a war manufactured by Israel, I cannot support sending the generation off to fight and die in a war that served no benefit to American people nor justifies the cost of American lives. I pray that you will reflect upon what we are doing in Iran and who we are doing it for. The time for bold action is now. You can reserve course and chart a new path for our nation and you can allow us to slip further into decline. You hold the cards.

• 1:11:10Patrick Bet-David?

  It's an honor to serve in your administration and to serve our great nation." Now, this is what he said. The response to it after this went out. Rob, can you go on the tweet and let's just read the top 20 comments and see who responded to it, just to see what the market is saying, uh, under his tweet, because the market's reacting to it. No, just go under his tweet. Yeah, there you go. So, Jank, make note of everyone's criticizing his patriot. It's a good way of separating who works for Israel and who doesn't. Every Israel first neocon will now either call him a traitor, or that Trump's fault. Okay, great, that's his position. Next, interesting, what is that? Uh, Joe Kent's tweet, I personally think we should have crushed their ballistic and nuke capes, but Trump has a plan. He has definitely earned

• 1:11:52Patrick Bet-David?

  the confidence of any clear-eyed observer. January 8, 2020, six years ago, go a little bit lower. Uh, now the most toxic voices. Okay, keep going lower, that's the family. Dan, we got that, just keep going, just leaving this here. Okay, keep going. Uh, uh, well done, keep going, little bit lower. Nothing else major. Okay. Uh, uh, boom, keep going, keep going, keep going. Keep going, Rob, keep going. Okay. So then if this is stuff that we're seeing, I think right afterwards, there was a lot of different people that responded. We have few of them. So let's go through a few of these things that he said. This is him, three months ago, on Sean Ryan. What does he talk about here on this one, Rob?

• 1:12:33Speaker 04

  Uh, this is where he talks, I believe it's the threat to, uh, America that Iran poses.

• 1:12:37Patrick Bet-David?

  So this is just three months ago? Or this is like three years ago?

• 1:12:41Speaker 04

  I believe it was three months ago.

• 1:12:42Patrick Bet-David?

  Okay, let's, let's listen to this. Go forward.

• 1:12:44Speaker 21

  They're still registering for the draft, aren't they? Like, that's, that's the logical conclusion to the direction that we're heading in right now, unless we make some serious changes.

• 1:12:52Speaker 22

  I mean, it's already, it's, I've already heard rumors that fifth group is gonna be sending guys to Iraq because of the escalated, um, situation with Iran now.

• 1:13:04Speaker 21

  Yeah. I mean, uh, most Americans aren't, aren't aware of it. We've, our troops in Iraq and Syria have been attacked 150-plus times by Iranian proxies. And when we say Iranian proxies, we gotta be clear on what that is. That's the Iraqi government that we pay. Because after the Iraqi military, we spent 2 trillion on, surrendered to ISIS, we had to go back in there in very short order and stand a military back up again, and guess who filled the breach? The Shia militias controlled by Iran did. And the Iraqi government's controlled by Iran.

• 1:13:31Patrick Bet-David?

  Okay, so in this part, he is saying that Iran is still a threat. How does the president respond to it, Rob? Do you have that clip? I do. Okay. So let's go, guys. I'm gonna come to you. We've got a few other things. Speaker Johnson, there's a bunch of different guys that reacted to it, and we can process it together. Go for it.

• 1:13:46Speaker 23

  Your Director of National Counterterrorism, Joe Kent, he just resigned today. He said he can't support your conflict with Iran. What's your reaction to that? And did you talk to him?

• 1:13:56Speaker 05

  Well, I read his statement. I always thought he was a nice guy, but I always thought he was weak on security, very weak on security.

• 1:14:04Speaker 05

  I didn't know him well, but I thought he seemed like a pretty nice guy.

• 1:14:09Speaker 05

  But when I read his statement, I realized that it's a good thing that he's out because he said that Iran was not a threat. Iran was a threat. Every country realized what a threat Iran was. The question is whether or not they wanted to do something about it. And many people, many of the greatest military scholars, are saying for years that presidents should have taken out Iran because they wanted a nuclear weapon. They were, if we didn't do the attack, or if, I'll go a step further. If I didn't terminate the Iran nuclear deal given to us, one of the worst deals ever made by Barack Hussein Obama. Remember when they sent Boeing 757s over there? Loaded with cash. Hundreds of millions of dollars. You would have been very happy.

• 1:14:54Speaker 05

  This was a wonderful, they sent hundreds of million. People forget that. Does anybody remember? Right? You remember? Hundreds of millions of dollars in a Boeing 757. I think that two of them loaded. They took the seats out and they put cash. And it was so much that there wasn't a bank in Virginia, Maryland, or DC that had any money left. They stripped them of all their money, put it into planes, sent it to Iran. Almost as ransom. That's not gonna happen with Trump. And nobody ever did anything.

• 1:15:27Patrick Bet-David?

  You can pause it right there. You can pause it right there. So Joe Kent, with his letter, with what he said, Tom, where are you at with it?

• 1:15:37Tom Ellsworth?

  The guy changed. You see people, there's a lot of people in American media, American government appear to be shifting, and he has clearly shifted. You can't say Iran wasn't arming and funding Houthis, Hezbollah, you can't say that. How do you possibly say that? And he himself gave statistics about the number of attacks on our bases and our interest in the reason, not just interest, not like an oil refinery, oh, I'm interested in that. These were our men and women, our, in arms, that were attacked. How can you say Iran is not a threat? You can debate the nuclear, was it four days, was it four months, or

• 1:16:21Tom Ellsworth?

  was it a year until they had nuclear weapon? Well, they were sure, testing missiles, they were building larger, they were building ballistic missiles, so you can talk about that, even if you want to debate how close were they with centrifuges and refining the uranium. But to say that Iran wasn't a threat, after you go back and everything, I do know this, the guy's a patriot, he's a decorated soldier, he endured one of the most horrible losses you can endure, but you, I really, I don't understand what appears to be a radical change in position. Jeff?

• 1:16:56Speaker 06

  Yeah, there's a couple of things here that really stick out. One is to parse his statement, which, I mean, what else are we gonna do, right? We're gonna parse every last word. When he says imminent threat, I tend to agree with him, because, you know, we talked about this a couple of weeks ago, Mark Moss had that wonderful chart that showed missile production going faster than our ability to destroy it. So I think the idea, this is, I don't want to say this is, you know, Iraq WMD, but I think that was, it's the same kind of idea here, that the Trump administration said, yeah, there were, I don't believe that there was a plan by Iran to attack everybody overnight. It wasn't an imminent threat. I think the idea was, if we're going to attack Iran and get rid of their leadership, we

• 1:17:35Speaker 06

  have to do it now. It was, the imminent threat maybe wasn't a, a, um, a, um, it wasn't an explicit threat. Which, I mean, you can argue about that, but if you wanted to read his statement charitably, there probably was not an imminent threat. Of course, I have no idea. I'm not a security expert by any means, but just going off the language of what we've been talking about, I don't think there was an explicit imminent threat that said we need to go attack Iran. If that's your problem, obviously, he was in favor of doing something about the Iranian leadership. Maybe he doesn't like the strategy that Trump has chosen to do something about it. You could give him the most charitable view. However, I have a problem with, right

• 1:18:17Speaker 06

  there in the first quote, in the first paragraph, bringing in the Israel and Israel lobby. That changes this entire character to something political. So if it was just an analytical statement where he left that part out, I would say, look, I mean, yeah, maybe he's probably right. There's something to the statement. By bringing in this whole Israel, Israel lobby, it changes the character of what he's trying to say, and it makes it...

• 1:18:39Patrick Bet-David?

  Have a lot of thoughts on this. Brent, I want to hear your thoughts.

• 1:18:43Speaker 07

  Yeah, I mean, I could totally see the side of people being upset about another foreign war. I mean, we're $30 trillion, $30 trillion in debt because of the last foreign war in the Middle East that we got stuck in. So, I mean, we see that, but also Iran's been something that we've probably had to deal with for the last 47, 48, 49 years. Like, it's always something that we were gonna have to face at some point. I don't think that they were, they have the enriched uranium that people are saying they do, but I do think that they're probably the biggest problem in terms of world instability, in terms of Middle East instability that we did have to address at some point. If any administration was going to address it, I'd want this one to be the one to do it because I think Trump actually listens to the military generals and chooses the best plans to go forward with instead of kind of putting the handcuffs on the military the way that a lot of other

• 1:19:28Speaker 07

  presidents have. So, I don't know if it's been executed perfectly. Yeah, I think a lot of his other military attacks or military missions have been done pretty perfectly meticulously. But yeah, if anyone was gonna be doing this, I'm glad it's him. But yeah, I could see the argument where it's not the best thing for America because it could cost a lot of money and lives. So, I can see both sides of it.

• 1:19:50Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah, Rob, do you want to pull up, do you want to pull up the tweet by Tulsi? There you go. Donald Trump was overwhelmingly elected by the American people to be our president, commander in chief. As our commander in chief, he is responsible for determining what is and is not an imminent threat and whether or not to take action. He seems, he deems necessary to protect the safety and security of our troops. The American people in our country, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence is responsible for helping coordinate and tell integrate all intelligence to provide the President Commander in Chief with best information available to inform his decisions. After careful reviewing all the information before him, President Trump concluded that the terrorist Islamist regime in Iran posed an imminent threat and he took action based on that conclusion.

• 1:20:33Patrick Bet-David?

  So, the way I read this, I don't read this as supportive. I read this as, you know, he is responsible if he sees an imminent threat. And whether or not to take action, he deems necessary to protect the safety he. She hates this. And the Office of the Director of National Intel is responsible for helping coordinate and integrate all intelligence to provide the President Commander in Chief with the best information available to inform his decisions. After carefully reviewing all the information before him, the President concluded that the terrorist Islamist regime. So, it's almost a neutral towards Trump statement.

• 1:21:17Patrick Bet-David?

  It's not fully towards Trump. It's written so delicately to create possibly an opening in case she gets fired or she steps out. She's saying, "I'm on the team, but I didn't do this." That's kinda how I take it, right? Because to me, you know, Tulsi's a independent center, or some people may even say she's a center leftist, but I think she's a center right today, a little bit more, she's moved. This is my, this is my challenge with all of this stuff that you're hearing with the, what Joe Kent just said. There are a lot of things that came out with tweets that he's made about Iran, okay? And about the President. That's very supportive. Rob, which clip is this?

• 1:22:01Speaker 04

  This is Caroline Levitt. She was just asked a few minutes ago.

• 1:22:04Patrick Bet-David?

  Okay, go for it. This is good if it's recent, because then I'll get into what I'm gonna say. Go for it.

• 1:22:08Speaker 10

  Tulsi Gabbard's job in jeopardy right now, given the Joe Penn stuff?

• 1:22:12Speaker 24

  Not to my knowledge. I haven't heard the President say that, nor have I heard him say that. So, obviously, that's a question for him, but I haven't heard him say that at all.

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• 1:24:51Patrick Bet-David?

  What's that? She said what?

• 1:24:52Speaker 04

  That she hasn't heard President Trump say that Tulsi Gabbard's job is in jeopardy over Joe Kent's resignation.

• 1:24:58Patrick Bet-David?

  But it's also not a firm... Played one more time, Rob?

• 1:25:01Speaker 07

  Her body language is weird, the way she answers that.

• 1:25:04Patrick Bet-David?

  Played one more time?

• 1:25:05Speaker 07

  Tulsi Gabbard's job is in jeopardy right now, given the Joe Kent stuff.

• 1:25:08Speaker 24

  Not to my knowledge. I haven't heard the President say that, nor have I heard him say that. So obviously, that's a question for him, but I haven't heard him say that at all.

• 1:25:18Patrick Bet-David?

  Okay, alright. So, Rob, can you pull up this one tweet? I don't know if you have it or not. This is a tweet from Joe, okay? This is a tweet from Joe, if you want to pull it up.

• 1:25:32Patrick Bet-David?

  He said this a year and four months ago, not this one, Rob, the other one. I just sent it to you, Rob. Just look at your phone. I just sent it to you. He said this, retweeting a tweet from the President, okay? Iran has been, after Trump, since January of 2020, after he ordered the target killing of terrorist Qassem Soleimani. This isn't a new threat. The Secret Service consistently failing to secure Trump is new. We need to figure out exactly why these failures are happening. So he said some stuff that he's making it clear that Iran is a threat. Now, here's my challenge. My challenge is,

• 1:26:15Patrick Bet-David?

  you say that, you've backed him up, now you're saying you think people are buying him and, you know, not buying him, Israel is kind of getting involved and doing some things like that, and then you want to come out and say publicly, becomes the most viral tweet of the day. Who did that benefit? Who did that tweet benefit the most? While we're in war, who does that tweet benefit the most?

• 1:26:39Speaker 07

  Kent.

• 1:26:40Patrick Bet-David?

  Kent?

• 1:26:40Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 1:26:41Patrick Bet-David?

  Okay, so that tweet benefits Kent the most.

• 1:26:44Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 1:26:44Patrick Bet-David?

  Who else does it benefit? I would have to say it benefits one other person as well.

• 1:26:48Speaker 07

  Tucker.

• 1:26:49Patrick Bet-David?

  I think it also benefits Tucker. Guess who's the first podcast he's doing?

• 1:26:53Speaker 07

  Tucker.

• 1:26:53Patrick Bet-David?

  With Tucker. And there are some rumors that while he was working there, he was sharing intel with Tucker. Okay, and that was passed on. Now, listen. Say what you say about Laura Loomer, if you want to pull this up, Rob. Laura Loomer had a...

• 1:27:11Patrick Bet-David?

  Laura Loomer had this, this one thing that she said about the exchange between the two. Uh, and let me see if I can find this. And as reported, you know,

• 1:27:25Patrick Bet-David?

  reported Trump hater and Jew hater. I'm trying to see which one it was because there was something that there was a communication saying that maybe allegedly, some of the stories were being leaked from him to Tucker. So if there is a connection with how Tucker makes the video the other day, saying, I don't know why the CIA is coming after me. And then now you're saying this, okay? That you're stepping down the day after. Then you're going on Tucker. There's an alignment there. Okay. Between the two. It's very obvious. Tucker just announced right now that he's going to be, uh, uh, going live with him tonight or something like that.

• 1:28:08Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah. His statement was political. It was obviously political. Yeah. And, and, and, and to me, again, so, but, but, but even, even above that, just go a little bit lower, Rob, go a little bit lower. Even with the Israel stuff. Actually, I'm not, you know, with the Israel comments that he's making. You know, fine. If you have that. This is a bigger challenge for me. So we're in it. You decide to resign. All the timing of it is a little bit weird. Okay. You all of a sudden decide to resign and after resigning, you go out and put the tweet. And then you go do the podcast. You're definitely not making Trump look good. Okay. You're definitely not making,

• 1:28:49Patrick Bet-David?

  him look good and where he's at. So I just have a hard time with that. I think the timing of it. You accepted the job. You went into the job. Now you're getting out to do this. Now, look, this kind of stuff happens. This is a risk of hiring people and they can get out and it's not like, you know how typically there's a, what is the, uh, disparagement clause, Tom? Like, you know, if you're leaving no defamation. No defamation, no social media. Obviously that stuff doesn't apply to here. So, I don't know. What's this, Rob? Which one is this?

• 1:29:18Speaker 04

  Uh, this is the tweet that Laura Loomer put out yesterday claiming Joe Kent, was leaking information according to many White House staffers.

• 1:29:25Patrick Bet-David?

  Uh, leaking to John Hudson? Who's John Hudson? Can you go to it? Washington Post. So John Hunt Hudson is a Wapo. Not a coincidence that Hudson chose to run to CNN during prime time tonight to attack President Trump for less than 12 hours after Kent resigned. Who told Hudson that Wapo, that Joe Kent and Tulsi Gabbard met with J.D. Vance to show him the resignation letter ahead of time? Wow. Okay, so there you go. Guys. That's crazy. But we talked about this as well last week. I haven't seen this tweet. Did the Vice President agree with the blood libels in Joe Kent's letter in which he blamed Israel for his wife's death? Kent's wife was tragically killed by Islamic terrorists.

• 1:30:07Patrick Bet-David?

  Do you believe Joe Kent told Buckley Carson to tell his father he sends his regards when he met with J.D.? Wow. It's only one big family affair. Anything to blame the Jews and destroy President Trump. Why was J.D., Tulsi, and Kent's first stop at the White House? Interesting choice. I don't know. I mean, look, one thing about Laura, you don't know what Laura's gonna be saying, but a lot of people have gotten fired over Laura Loomer's tweets, and somehow, some way, she tends to get a lot of news from a lot of different people. But you're seeing the connections. And gets it right a lot. And she gets it right a lot. She gets it right a lot, and then people can come back and say a lot of stuff about her. Um, just the pro and the con about X.

• 1:30:50Patrick Bet-David?

  Debate it out, go to, but if there's a, if there's a connection, the person that gets negatively impacted the most by this is who? Trump? No. Not true. Trump's gonna move on. This is a 24-hour news cycle. Trump's, trust me, Trump knows, 24 hours, you've moved on, okay? Mike Walz, how long did that last? Yeah, one day. Boom, you moved on. This is not that big of a deal. You move on. But guess who was negatively impacted by this a lot short term? J.D. J.D. Vance. J.D. Vance. If it's true, which by the way, how are you, as the VP, meet with him? If, that's not hard to document and find out. Right. If there was a meeting...

• 1:31:37Patrick Bet-David?

  With Kent, with uh uh uh JD. Yeah. With Tulsi. Tulsi's tweet is already a safe tweet. Right. That's a bulletproof tweet. And I'm, and I'm a fan of Tulsi. Mm hmm. So, so even when we, when, when I interact with Tulsi, she's always very calculating on what she's gonna be. She's brilliant. Yeah. It's why she does so well. But Tulsi's tweet is a protection in case she does get fired, that, that helps her for 2028. Cause you gotta also realize, if I'm Tulsi, I'm sitting there saying, I'm not being used. Yeah. How often do you see Tulsi being used? Never. How often do you see Trump using JD? Not a lot. No more. Why not?

• 1:32:19Patrick Bet-David?

  Maybe he gave him the Minnesota thing, or California fraud, or some of that stuff that we're reading about. But this could lead to one thing. If this leads to, you know, JD being a top candidate in 2028, or Tucker, cause Tucker went from two to four percent, and he's now head of DeSantis on the odds. But if, let's say JD runs, which the world now knows what JD's positions would be. He would need a VP like who? Believe it or not, a DeSantis. Cause JD and Tucker is too much of the same thing. And so, DeSantis would be the VP, because you need the pro-Israel, you need those guys. So, DeSantis will play that role, because we know how strong he is, you know? Freedom of protecting, you can't comment anything on Israel. Yeah.

• 1:33:04Patrick Bet-David?

  And then JD does to DeSantis what Trump did to JD. Trump hired JD for a very good position. You need a JD. Yeah. But he doesn't use JD that much. You think JD's in the inner circles of the inner circles? I don't believe so. So, again, we're purely speculating, but while we're speculating, the 2028 Republican nomination for president on Calci, $22 million, Rubio is now at 29%. Look at third. Oof. Look at third, 5.3, out of nowhere. That's Tucker. But if you go on the bottom, the ones you have to look at that are critical VP positions, DeSantis is the one. DeSantis is the one. DeSantis is a very, very, very safe, solid VP position.

• 1:33:48Patrick Bet-David?

  That is useful not to Rubio. That is useful to JD and Tucker. Right. Again, if it gets to that point, but this is all purely speculation conversations that we're having. So which one of you guys has a thoughts on this because I'll come to any one of you guys if you have anything to say.

• 1:34:06Speaker 06

  Look, I think there's, setting aside the politics of it, I think there is, the reason we're talking about this and the reason it's such a big issue is that there is a legitimate debate about all this. Let's face it, the Iran conflict makes us uncomfortable, as it should. We should not be happy about this.

• 1:34:20Patrick Bet-David?

  Yep.

• 1:34:20Speaker 06

  Um, so there is room for legitimate dissent. There is room for legitimate debate. Is the Trump administration executing and prosecuting the war with a correct strategy? Obviously, we don't know that because we don't know what their strategy actually is, nor should we. He's right when he says, you know, every time they ask him, what are you going to do next? I'm not going to tell you. Why would I tell you?

• 1:34:38Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah.

• 1:34:39Speaker 06

  So I, we're, we're sitting in the fog of war. It is understandable why people would be, um, would vehemently object to the idea of something like this because we went through Iraq. We went through Afghanistan. We don't want to go through those things again. And there is very, there's every reason to believe that we shouldn't be doing those things. So the reason this is such a hot button issue is because there should be a legitimate debate about this entire thing. Yes, we should, you know, we should be positive and hopeful, but you know, let's be honest here. The history here isn't great.

• 1:35:09Patrick Bet-David?

  The history isn't great whatsoever, but also at the same time, alliances are being built and right now it's in the open. Everybody's watching and saying, oh, okay.

• 1:35:19Speaker 06

  That's the part that gets lost in this. There is opportunity here. I think that's what the Trump administration is.

• 1:35:24Patrick Bet-David?

  Say that again?

• 1:35:24Speaker 07

  I said, that's why I think Ken left. I mean, we're talking about Tucker being the candidate. I think Ken made himself VP. I know they're too similar in that regard, but I think there was an angle for why he left. I only just did our principle.

• 1:35:35Patrick Bet-David?

  I don't think until yesterday's letter, Joe Kent, you know, I don't know if he has been that, you know, uh, big of a name that you know. If I ask you right now who Joe Kent was last week, I don't know. You're going to say, is he a second baseman for the Giants?

• 1:35:48Speaker 07

  I was typing in Jeff Kent last time. I was looking this up.

• 1:35:50Speaker 06

  So, no, exactly. You would have brought it up and said, but you remember the guy that interfered with the FBI investigation, making comments after Charlie Kirk was assassinated? And you would have said, oh, that guy. Oh, okay. But there was nothing else.

• 1:36:02Patrick Bet-David?

  Good looking guy, solid guy.

• 1:36:04Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 1:36:05Patrick Bet-David?

  Uh, I, all of this leads to 2028, my opinion, AOC being the frontrunner. If this goes the way it's going. If AOC gets the right people around her, AOC could be the President of the United States in 2020. And when people are like, "You're crazy." I know. I'm telling you, I'm not. You're out of your mind. Oh, the Republican Party. Can you imagine, let's just say it's a Rubio and give me a good VP. Pick a VP for Rubio. Uh, shh, not DeSantis. Rubio? Give a VP for Rubio. Pick a VP for Rubio. Okay? A VP for Rubio would need to be who? Tulsi? He, no way. That's not gonna work.

• 1:36:50Patrick Bet-David?

  That won't work because Tulsi's telling you what camp she's a part of. Yeah. Tulsi's with JD, with Tucker, quietly. She, she, she is- You think so on the Israel stuff? Oh. Yeah? Not saying 100%. Yeah. I think she's there. Mm-hmm. Okay, she's definitely an anti, you know, non-interventionist, yeah. So she's definitely there, but to me, camps are being made. And, uh, this 27, 28 election will be very different. There's gonna be so much disruption that Trump knew how to handle it. We won't know if, you know, the Rubio's and all those guys will be able to handle the chaos and inside the tornado of media at that level. We don't know yet. And the right's split, too. We don't know yet.

• 1:37:35Patrick Bet-David?

  The right is split, yeah, I mean, listen. Even, you know, it's, but- Rubio, Mark Wayne Mullen. Okay, so let's just say that is. Okay? Say if that's who it is, huh? Polly? Josh Hawley, if he does, right, Hawley?

• 1:37:50Tom Ellsworth?

  If the GOP gets their fingers in it, they'll be pushing for, uh, like, uh, Stefanik or Huckabee Sanders.

• 1:37:59Patrick Bet-David?

  Not gonna happen.

• 1:37:59Tom Ellsworth?

  No, but they'll be, the GOP money, Pat-

• 1:38:02Patrick Bet-David?

  You're saying Rhino, Rhino money?

• 1:38:04Tom Ellsworth?

  Yeah, they'll be pushing for a female.

• 1:38:06Patrick Bet-David?

  That's the most boring ticket in the world.

• 1:38:07Tom Ellsworth?

  I know.

• 1:38:08Patrick Bet-David?

  Zero chance.

• 1:38:08Tom Ellsworth?

  I don't disagree with you strategically.

• 1:38:10Patrick Bet-David?

  Zero chance.

• 1:38:11Tom Ellsworth?

  But I'm pointing out-

• 1:38:12Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah.

• 1:38:12Tom Ellsworth?

  That the GOP money machine that's in the middle that will dictate the conventions, the order of the primaries, and buckets of money will severely attempt to influence it. And they'll be saying, "What about Stefanik? You know, you need a female." That's what you're gonna hear.

• 1:38:28Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah. Yeah. Uh, it-

• 1:38:30Tom Ellsworth?

  But I agree with you strategically.

• 1:38:32Patrick Bet-David?

  Issues vary every, every four years and we're gonna see, by the way, here's the reality of it. We also don't have a clue what the hell is gonna happen with this war. Is it gonna end good or bad for Trump? We don't know. If it ends good, guess what? You know, they have to eat their words. If it ends bad, you know, Trump's gonna eat their words. We're like, oh shit. So we don't know anything yet right now. We don't fully know what's gonna be happening and how it's gonna be handled. All we know is NATO said no, China stepping out, playing quiet. We got USS Triple E that's on its way to Somalia. We don't know what's gonna happen next Monday, Wednesday. It's gonna be very revealing how Iran's gonna attack. We don't know what's gonna be happening the next few weeks. And if it ends up being done, less than three to six months,

• 1:39:18Patrick Bet-David?

  then the guys that said this is the next Iraq, the next this, the next that, they have to sit there and say, well, it's not. But they're still gonna come back and say, yeah, but, yeah, but. There is no winning, you know, a certain 5% of people that, no matter what you do, you're not gonna win it. But, you know, all along Rubio's coming up, okay? And Tucker's coming up as well. Look at Tucker here, you know, 728%. He is coming up. I called this three years ago when I said Tucker is either, he's campaigning for 2028 and he wants to run Churchill type of thing, you know, a media. I called this three years ago. Rob, I don't know how many clips did I say this to Rob that we did this? We almost have to cut it. Eventually we'll do it when it becomes a reality.

• 1:40:02Patrick Bet-David?

  And I think he's playing that card and he's playing it well. He's constantly in the news. Now, if anything happens with CIA coming out and arresting, changes the game a little bit.

• 1:40:10Tom Ellsworth?

  Yeah.

• 1:40:10Patrick Bet-David?

  It may even help him 10 times more, by the way.

• 1:40:12Tom Ellsworth?

  Make him a martyr.

• 1:40:13Patrick Bet-David?

  It may even increase the popularity to the root.

• 1:40:14Tom Ellsworth?

  What happened when the Dems got mugshots of Trump? It became the campaign.

• 1:40:20Patrick Bet-David?

  He may almost want it. He may almost want it. So, by the way, okay, let's talk about Cuba. The president asked about Cuba, but I think by, what's his name, Rob?

• 1:40:32Patrick Bet-David?

  Scott, no, what's the guy, the father and son that were Doocy, Peter Doocy? Yeah. Here's what, when he was asked about taking Cuba, watch this, go for it.

• 1:40:41Speaker 25

  Cuba is next.

• 1:40:42Speaker 05

  Cuba.

• 1:40:43Speaker 25

  Is Cuba, whatever you do with the military there, it seems like something. Will that look more like Iran or Venezuela?

• 1:40:50Speaker 05

  Can't tell you that. I can tell you that they're talking to us. It's a failed nation. They have no money, they have no oil, they have no nothing. They have nice land. They have nice landscape. It's a beautiful island. I think Cuba, in its own way, if you know tourism and everything else, it's a beautiful island. Great weather. They're not in a hurricane zone, which is nice for a change, you know? They won't be asking us for money for hurricanes every week. But I think Cuba's seen the end. You know, all my life I've been hearing about the United States and Cuba. When will the United States do it? I do believe I'll be the honor of, having the honor of taking Cuba.

• 1:41:34Speaker 05

  That'd be good, that's a big honor.

• 1:41:36Speaker 25

  Taking Cuba.

• 1:41:37Speaker 05

  Taking Cuba, in some form, yeah. Taking Cuba. I mean, whether I free it, take it, I think I could do anything I want with it. You want to know? They're a very weakened nation right now.

• 1:41:49Speaker 25

  Brandon, go ahead. You seem like you have some thoughts on this.

• 1:41:53Speaker 07

  No, I love it. I mean, you know, if you were to think about it from terms of precedent and international law and everything, yeah, sure, you could say like, oh, so we're talking about taking over a country? But no, like, I mean, let's be real. I don't think there's a Cuban in the world that exists that would be upset if the United States won and took out the leader of Cuba the way we do with Venezuela. And talk about wasted potential, what Cuba could be. Cuba could be like a Hawaii, like Puerto Rico. I mean...

• 1:42:18Speaker 06

  What it used to be.

• 1:42:19Speaker 07

  Yeah, right. I mean, like, it was a booming place before the friggin Castro took over.

• 1:42:23Speaker 06

  It wasn't perfect, but geez.

• 1:42:24Speaker 07

  No, but I mean, it has all the potential in the world. It's what, like, less than 100 miles away from us? It could be a crazy vacation place. You know, they have deep water ports, they have everything. So, yeah, I mean, I'm all for it. I think that every Cuban in existence would be in support of that.

• 1:42:40Speaker 06

  It's again, it's the same template, right? It's... Presidents, governments, people did not want to touch Cuba. Cuba's been festering there for 70 years. Nobody wanted to touch them, even though they were relatively weak nation, relatively weak economy, relatively weak political, I mean, top-heavy, everything else. Nobody wanted to go that far, and here's Trump saying, "I'm gonna do it." Why wouldn't I do it? So you gotta take the guy at his word, you gotta understand he has the resolve to do it. Whether you disagree with him or not, he says what he's going to do. If he says, "I'm gonna take Venezuela," or "I'm gonna take Maduro," he took Maduro. If he says, "I'm gonna attack Iran," which nobody, I mean, it was a third rail in geopolitical circles for a long time, he goes and does it.

• 1:43:23Speaker 06

  He says, "I'm gonna take Cuba," I gotta think that, you know, probably six months from now, we're gonna be sitting here talking about the new Cuban regime and what the opportunities are in Cuba. Cuba, I think, is probably much easier to crack than Iran.

• 1:43:36Patrick Bet-David?

  It's just a knock on the door.

• 1:43:37Speaker 06

  Yeah, just...

• 1:43:38Patrick Bet-David?

  It's all it is.

• 1:43:39Speaker 06

  Right.

• 1:43:39Tom Ellsworth?

  By the way, it has to be a knock on the door, because you can't ring the doorbell, because there's a nationwide power outage, right?

• 1:43:45Patrick Bet-David?

  Literally.

• 1:43:45Tom Ellsworth?

  Literally. The westernized resorts, you know, owned by Europeans and Latin American interests, have generators, but the generators are low on power. It was a nationwide blackout that happened on Monday. They've been going 16 hours a day, Pat, without power. And the people there are literally suffering, the citizens are suffering. Look at that! You know, this supposedly was Monday night, Tuesday morning. There's no lights, right? And that some of the hotels have...

• 1:44:16Patrick Bet-David?

  Of course, we had nothing to do with this. We would never do such a thing to show like, uh...

• 1:44:20Tom Ellsworth?

  No, it's Fred and Louis vacationing from Langley, having a carmenian, and then pulled the plug. So, I believe you're correct. It is a knock at the door. You know why it's a knock at the door? Look at the rich Cuban population that is in Miami. Look at what's going with Latin American World Baseball Classic and what's going on. It is culturally much different. Those people are clamoring for something better. They are waiting. And right now, they can't, they are short on oil, they can't get fuel, they can't get energy, and the grid has collapsed. What side do you think the citizens are on? Right? Trump, all he has to do is walk over there and hold up an extension cord, and people are gonna say, "I'm with him."

• 1:45:03Speaker 06

  Well, the people were always there, they just never had anything to grab on to because nobody would support them, right? They would always, "Oh, you guys are on your own. You guys hate Castro, well, maybe do something about it." So now Trump is giving them a life raft.

• 1:45:15Patrick Bet-David?

  We had presidents that would go to baseball games with them.

• 1:45:16Tom Ellsworth?

  I hate him, but don't say it.

• 1:45:17Speaker 07

  This is the final piece of socialism in South America, too. I mean, you have some small ones like Colombia, but those, like, this was the epicenter of South America socialism spreading. So if you take this out after taking out Venezuela and getting the Argentina fixed, I mean, I think we eradicate socialism in South America after this.

• 1:45:33Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah, I don't know. I think, I think if that power went out, then it's one way of, the easiest way to say, "Hey." Like, imagine visually, there's a CIA officer that's there and saying, "This is the switch? Yeah, turn it off." Okay, boom. "You want me to turn it back on? Turn it back on." Okay, boom. And just kind of mess with them a little bit like strobe lights. And then for them to, people to say, "Listen, let's, let's become part of America. Let's finish up, finish this off and figure something out and move." I don't know. But I think this will be the easiest thing for them to do. By the way, did you guys see the president saying he spoke to a previous president, then they asked him, "Was it Bush?" And he said, "No." He says, "But I don't want to talk about which president I talked to."

• 1:46:10Speaker 07

  When I actually like, yeah.

• 1:46:11Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah, you want to play, have we played that clip yet or no?

• 1:46:13Speaker 07

  No, sir.

• 1:46:14Patrick Bet-David?

  Do you have that, Rob?

• 1:46:15Speaker 07

  Right here.

• 1:46:16Patrick Bet-David?

  So here it is. So he's saying he spoke to a president. Go for it.

• 1:46:19Speaker 05

  But they never had the chance. I never gave him the chance to use it. And other presidents should have done. I spoke to one of the former presidents who I actually like.

• 1:46:29Patrick Bet-David?

  Can you move the arrow?

• 1:46:30Speaker 05

  I actually speak to some. I do like some people. Be shocking. And he said, "I wish I did what you did. Could have done it." Other presidents, somebody should have done it. Forty-seven years this went on. They call Iran the bully of the Middle East.

• 1:46:46Tom Ellsworth?

  Look who he has on his desk. He's got a B-2 bomber sitting on his desk. The model is sitting there. It's like, you know, hey, wait a minute, I need this. Okay, I'm ready.

• 1:46:59Patrick Bet-David?

  Can you go, Rob, to the one where he's being asked who the president was? Do you have that one?

• 1:47:03Speaker 07

  I'm looking right now.

• 1:47:04Patrick Bet-David?

  Because immediately, somebody asked, "Who was the president you spoke to?" And he gave the, he gave the answer. It's very, he didn't give the answer. He says, "Maybe I'm gonna call him and ask him and see." You don't have it? Yeah, I'll find it.

• 1:47:19Speaker 07

  He looks like he's having so much fun, by the way.

• 1:47:21Patrick Bet-David?

  He does look like he's, he looks, he looks like he's playing loose. A lot of other people are stressed out.

• 1:47:26Tom Ellsworth?

  He's a wartime president.

• 1:47:27Patrick Bet-David?

  He's a wartime president.

• 1:47:27Tom Ellsworth?

  He's in his favorite arena right now.

• 1:47:30Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 1:47:30Speaker 06

  Well, like you said, love him or hate him, he's a leader. If you disagree with where he's going, that's fine, but he's a leader who's taking charge. And I think the reason people resonate with, he resonates with people is that we haven't seen something like that in so long. It's kind of like a, it seems like a brand new phenomenon. He at least has clear-eyed ideas and is, is not just has ideas, he's not just talking about them, he's executing them. Again, love him or hate him, disagree with him or not, he's executing a strategy and a plan.

• 1:47:59Speaker 07

  And all the problems that we've had and complained about for a long time, aside from the national debt.

• 1:48:03Patrick Bet-David?

  Is what?

• 1:48:03Speaker 07

  I said, he's checking the boxes on all the problems we've complained about for a long time, aside from things like the national debt.

• 1:48:08Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah, Rob, that's the one, go ahead.

• 1:48:09Speaker 06

  Even Reagan never really got there.

• 1:48:10Patrick Bet-David?

  Watch this.

• 1:48:11Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 1:48:11Speaker 25

  I just want to ask you about something very interesting that you said twice today. That you talked to another former president about the Iran strikes.

• 1:48:19Speaker 05

  I did.

• 1:48:19Speaker 25

  Was it George W. Bush?

• 1:48:21Speaker 05

  No.

• 1:48:21Speaker 25

  Was it Bill Clinton?

• 1:48:23Speaker 05

  I don't want to say.

• 1:48:24Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 1:48:26Speaker 05

  I don't want to say, because...

• 1:48:29Speaker 25

  Barack Obama.

• 1:48:29Speaker 05

  A member of a party, a member of a party. They have Trump derangement syndrome, oh, but it's somebody that happens to like me and I like that person, who's a smart person, but that person said, "I wish I did it." Okay, but I don't want to get into who.

• 1:48:49Speaker 25

  Okay.

• 1:48:49Speaker 05

  I don't want to get him into trouble. Maybe, hey, you know what? I think you probably know. You know, it's interesting, and maybe he'd be proud, and I could even ask him that. Would you like me to reveal your name to Peter at Fox? Well, at least you have high ratings. Your ratings are through the roof, Peter.

• 1:49:08Speaker 25

  Thank you for noticing.

• 1:49:09Speaker 05

  Congratulations.

• 1:49:10Speaker 25

  Can I ask you another question?

• 1:49:12Patrick Bet-David?

  Wow, by the way, he is doing a million and one things and he says, your ratings are by the and he says, thank you for noticing. The guy doesn't, can you imagine like what this guy's paying attention to with the numbers?

• 1:49:23Tom Ellsworth?

  It's amazing.

• 1:49:24Patrick Bet-David?

  Wow, interesting. So, you know, I noticed the picture for, you know, yesterday the game, he's watching everything like a hawk. Uh, your thoughts, Tom? Who do you think it is?

• 1:49:34Tom Ellsworth?

  Okay.

• 1:49:34Patrick Bet-David?

  I have an idea who it is.

• 1:49:35Tom Ellsworth?

  So it wasn't W. It certainly isn't gonna be Biden. What's he gonna call Biden?

• 1:49:40Patrick Bet-David?

  There is no conversation there.

• 1:49:41Tom Ellsworth?

  There's no conversation with Biden.

• 1:49:43Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah.

• 1:49:43Tom Ellsworth?

  And it's not gonna be Obama. Obama would have wanted to prop up, you know, the ghost of the ghost of Che. So the only one it could be is Bill Clinton. That's why he said, I don't wanna say.

• 1:49:54Patrick Bet-David?

  And you know what else he did yesterday that validates that is, um, that is, um, him? Yesterday, he's talking about, uh, the Churchill statue. Okay? The Churchill statue. There was a statue behind him. He's turning around and taking shots at Tiers Starmer, but he talks about how Obama got rid of the statue. Okay? I don't know if you have that, Rob, or not. I'll just send it to you as well. Uh, it may or may not be this clip. I haven't listened to it. But, uh, he says, when Obama got elected, he got rid of this. But here's one thing we know for a fact, who's not a Churchill? Go ahead, Rob.

• 1:50:31Speaker 08

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• 1:52:56Speaker 05

  You see that man right there? You know who that is? Mm-hmm. Winston Churchill. The late, great Winston Churchill. And Barack Hussein Obama did not want his bust in this office. Did you know that? And Barack Hussein Obama sent that bust back to England. He didn't, they didn't want it. And when I came in, I was asked if I wanted, I said, absolutely, I want it. And I put it right there, Winston Churchill. And, you know, unfortunately, Kier is not Winston Churchill.

• 1:53:31Patrick Bet-David?

  In 30 seconds, he took shots at two people and validated that it's not Obama that he spoke to. So that means it's only one of two people.

• 1:53:39Tom Ellsworth?

  And paid homage to a wartime leader.

• 1:53:41Patrick Bet-David?

  It's either himself, because he's a previous president, 45.

• 1:53:45Tom Ellsworth?

  Right.

• 1:53:45Patrick Bet-David?

  Or it's Clinton. Okay? He's like, I talked to myself.

• 1:53:48Speaker 06

  So you're saying he was regretting in his first term not doing it?

• 1:53:51Patrick Bet-David?

  No, he wouldn't say that. It's only Clinton is who he is. So we know, we know it's only a Clinton situation here, but, uh, okay, there you have it. Let's go to the next story, Rob. Do you have the Bob Iger story? Bob Iger, okay? Uh, I believe he is stepping down today, if I'm not mistaken, if we go to news. Bob Iger at Disney, CEO, transformative leader. Uh, you know, look at his tenure as a dynamic transformative leader with an asterisk or two.

• 1:54:18Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 1:54:18Patrick Bet-David?

  And I don't know if the stories in, uh, in, um, the articles that we have, but I do know, I think today, he is stepping down. Tom, thoughts on this?

• 1:54:26Tom Ellsworth?

  Well, as a deal maker, Bob Iger got high marks. Um, as building long-term valuation, his report card didn't stand up to, um, Michael Eisner. Uh, and the transition. Pat, unless you're walked to the door, or you have a heart attack at your desk, who is responsible for a CEO's transition? The CEO and their board.

• 1:54:50Patrick Bet-David?

  No question.

• 1:54:51Tom Ellsworth?

  Who has the ability to do that? And Bob Iger now has presided over not one, but two guys that come from the theme park side of it, which I believe is, is the wrong way to focus. So my asterisk for Iger is, look, you, Chapek was not the guy. And you were the CEO and you could have helped influence that. The board just didn't run it down your throat for absolutely nothing. There's too much respect. Could they have had a lot of influence here? I think Iger, you know, is will be known as a dealmaker, will be known as a guy that built a great big library of content, but he was also the guy that missed a couple of spots on streaming, made a couple of things on streaming, the way Disney went through step

• 1:55:35Tom Ellsworth?

  by step by step by step to acquire Hulu, which I think is a masterclass in sequential acquisition. I love how that turned out, and I think he gets credit for that. But the transition to theme park and then what's happened over the last eight years is this was just not handled well. But I got a lot of respect for the guy, and he's a guy I think who'll look back and say, man, I wish I stayed retired the first time.

• 1:55:58Patrick Bet-David?

  Jeff.

• 1:55:59Speaker 06

  Yeah, I think Disney is just struggling with the change, the evolution of the entertainment space and everything else. And they had an opportunity here to reset everything, which Tom's right, they should have done it years ago. But to really reset their strategy and their focus, and they didn't take it. So I think they're they're another one of these big corporations that hasn't got the message yet that the landscape is completely changed, and they need some kind of radical reset to, first of all, where are they doing things well, or at least they could be doing things well, their content library, it definitely needs to be reset, too. But also, they need to get with the fact that, you know, the legacy media is no longer going to be a profitable center for the business. They should do something about that before it's too late, which they haven't. They just continue to to drag that

• 1:56:43Speaker 06

  baggage ever forever forward. So I think Tom's right. Bob Iger, tons of missed opportunity. And I think an even bigger missed opportunity with Iger's retirement to go in a radically new direction and reinvent the business.

• 1:56:55Tom Ellsworth?

  And never known as a jerk CEO, always known as a genuinely good guy.

• 1:57:00Patrick Bet-David?

  Who's this?

• 1:57:00Tom Ellsworth?

  Iger.

• 1:57:01Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah, and you know, we were having dinner with somebody about a month ago, who works for Iger. It's one of the guys that's got a massive nine-figure contract with Iger. Super complimentary of him, defended him. He's a good guy. He's this, he's that. To me, there's a couple of things you got to be thinking about here. He was involved in his replacement the first time, Shepik. That came in and then he came back and I'm sure he was involved with the new guy that they replaced him. Josh, what's his last name? I want to get Diamaro, uh, which I think both of them were from the parks, right? If I'm not mistaken, Tom.

• 1:57:39Tom Ellsworth?

  Both of these guys are from parks.

• 1:57:41Patrick Bet-David?

  Both of them are from the parks. If Josh Diamaro fails, Bob Iger will be the first person that found two new replacements that both failed and failure to me is if he steps down within thirty six months. That to me is failure because thirty six months is generally the shortest lifespan of hiring a CMO. The lowest lifespan of a C-suite executive a company hires is a CMO. CFO, CEO, a little bit longer and CEOs definitely longer, you know, five, seven, 10 years. So, so we'll, we'll, we'll see how that's going to work out, but you know, you, they say you're judged by, you know, to, to judge how great of a father you were. You, you don't judge it based on your kids. You judge it based on your grandkids. Well, let's see what happens there. Maybe they do it right. Maybe they do it wrong, but

• 1:58:25Patrick Bet-David?

  in the business economics side, Rob, can you pull up what is the difference in valuation between Disney and Netflix? Okay. What is Disney worth valuation versus Netflix? So Disney is worth as of right now, what's the market cap? As of right now, if you just go to their stock, let's just say a hundred and eighty billion dollars today. Perfect. What's, what's, uh, what's Netflix? Let's look at Netflix where it's at right now. Netflix valuation. So Netflix,

• 1:58:52Patrick Bet-David?

  Netflix is worth four hundred billion dollars.

• 1:58:57Tom Ellsworth?

  Just over two X.

• 1:58:58Patrick Bet-David?

  Disney is worth a hundred and eighty-five billion dollars. Netflix got started in nineteen ninety-seven selling DVDs and they didn't get into streaming until two thousand and seven, two thousand, I don't know what it was, some, some many, many years later. Disney got started, what year? Nineteen twenty-three. Disney's been around for a hundred and three years. Netflix has been around for roughly twenty-nine years. Netflix valuation, two times then watch this. Netflix has never bought any major asset, even recently when they, when they moved away from Paramount, they're like, we're builders. We don't need to buy anybody. The philosophy with Disney was They went and bought companies. Now, what companies did Disney buy? Let me give you some names here, Tom. We've talked about it many times.

• 1:59:42Patrick Bet-David?

  They bought Pixar, which was Steve Jobs's company, Toy Story. They bought Marvel, that came with Avengers, Iron Man, Spider-Man, all of that, right? They bought Star Wars, they bought Indiana Jones, they bought X-Men, they bought Avatar, they bought Simpsons, they bought Hulu. Okay, you got ABC, strategic buys, ESPN. You, you, you got, um, Miramax. I can give you so many list of things. Even though they bought all of those companies. They're still less than half the price of Netflix.

• 2:00:14Speaker 06

  They bought brands. They didn't buy creativity, they didn't buy businesses, they bought brands.

• 2:00:19Patrick Bet-David?

  That's the point. That's the point. And so the, the, the, the opportunity here lies to think about. If you're just gonna go up and buy up everybody. And you're gonna stop building, it's okay to buy up everybody while you're still building. Maybe critics could say, you're a great deal maker, but Netflix beats you. And that's just the reality of it, what, what happened with Netflix. And Netflix did it without buying up. Everybody. They just said, hey, we're gonna buy shows, we're gonna buy this, we're gonna buy that. Uh, in my eyes, he's one of the better executives we've had last 40 years. I've studied this stuff many times. I'm actually a fan and, and I hope he enjoys his next ride. That he's gonna go on the actual final ride of a lifetime.

• 2:01:03Patrick Bet-David?

  And gets involved, then he's probably gonna get him out some charities and helping out with some presidents and. Sitting on certain boards, so we'll see what happens there.

• 2:01:10Speaker 06

  Owns a soccer team.

• 2:01:11Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah, he's, he, he's not gonna be, he's gonna have time on his hands to do stuff, but I don't see him being a guy that's gonna sit around. Brandon?

• 2:01:18Speaker 07

  Yeah, I mean, they haven't had a, it makes me think of that video you made a long time ago called, um, I think it was how to strategize as an entrepreneur. And, um, you spoke about how there's linear growth and exponential growth and, um. You know, makes me think of the next innovative campaign category with the exponential growth. I mean, when's the last time they've had an explosive innovative campaign? Can't think of anything with that. So like, like I said, they no creativity, not building anything, just like trying to acquire things that are already built by others. So, um, yeah, I don't, I, I'm not too impressed with them as a C, CEO, but, um, I think if they get hungry again, if they try to like get bold and, uh, take some risks, which they haven't taken risks in a while, they've been in like preserve and survival mode. If they take some risks, then they could do some things.

• 2:01:59Patrick Bet-David?

  That's a scary thing to do. And, and

• 2:02:01Speaker 07

  They need to blow things up. Yeah.

• 2:02:02Patrick Bet-David?

  You need to do it. I mean, you know, Jeff talked about it earlier, you know, risks and gambles, you gotta take some of that, right?

• 2:02:09Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 2:02:09Patrick Bet-David?

  And i- if the president's doing it at the political level, at the highest job, sometimes some of these other companies, as big as they are, they have to sit there and realize America's a bigger company than you. Maybe you ought to be able to take some risks and

• 2:02:20Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 2:02:20Patrick Bet-David?

  Not be too. And by the way, the affordability conversation with McDonald's, numbers came in with McDonald's, the dollar menu, and we saw the $5 gas prices and coal. Tom, what's going on with affordability right now?

• 2:02:32Tom Ellsworth?

  So affordability, and I love your perspective on this too. And also you were watching the news yesterday, Pat. A bunch of things happened yesterday that sounded individually like good news. McDonald's seeing continual traction on the value meal and the super value meals. Dollar Tree announces a really good quarter. Kohl's comes out and says, no, things are picking up a bit and, um, we're not going to do any further store closures at this time, which was good for employees at Kohl's. But what does that tell you? Where are the consumers spending their money? Down low. This is down low, which means that discretionary spending

• 2:03:11Tom Ellsworth?

  is not happening up high. Furniture, um, clothing, a lot of categories that are kind of flat. And so it's both of that. Then AI, is it a bubble or not? Nvidia comes out, strong earnings. So Nvidia up on strong earnings. So AI, is it a bubble? Is it not? Well, it still seems to be chunking along. And then you've got a lot of success with low end businesses, which I don't think is a good sign for, uh, consumer spending over the summer. Um, when you see all the people catering to the lowest part, the lowest half of, uh, the economic, uh, society actually doing exceptionally well.

• 2:03:52Patrick Bet-David?

  Rob, is this the one with McDonald's? Because McDonald's now has a McValue 2.0 menu with $3 items, $4 meals. After years of post-pandemic price hikes, they went the complete opposite way.

• 2:04:05Speaker 06

  There's a fight for the $5 bill going on in fast food right now.

• 2:04:08Patrick Bet-David?

  Rob, this has three minutes?

• 2:04:10Speaker 04

  They get right to it.

• 2:04:11Patrick Bet-David?

  Okay, go for it, go for it.

• 2:04:13Speaker 15

  Fresh off the grill this morning, another serving of savings as fast food companies wrestle with affordability.

• 2:04:19Speaker 00

  From breakfast to late night, make it a meal and save.

• 2:04:22Speaker 15

  McDonald's will reportedly launch a new $3 and less value menu. That will include popular items like a sausage biscuit and four-piece Chicken McNuggets, according to the Wall Street Journal. The company is also reportedly set to unveil a $4 meal deal with a McMuffin, hash brown, and coffee, extending efforts to offer cheaper combos.

• 2:04:41Speaker 24

  Let me show you what I got for $5.

• 2:04:43Speaker 15

  While the days of the dollar menu are long gone, we give you lots of great choices to make your own meal. The golden arches now leaning into $3 deals. As McDonald's CEO Chris Kamczynski said last month that traffic has been pressured with lower-income consumers. $3 is the new $1, basically. To give lower-income and younger consumers something that they can get when they're going to McDonald's. It comes as price-pinched consumers balk at higher fast food prices, as the cost of eating out has risen faster than the cost of groceries over the last year.

• 2:05:18Speaker 26

  The fast food prices and the regular food prices and the price for fruits are all the same prices?

• 2:05:25Speaker 15

  In September, McDonald's relaunched extra-value meals after a six-year hiatus. It's time for a reset. The McDonald's USA president telling us on Today, the fact that McDonald's is actually going to be lowering prices, I think is really notable and shows that we're in lockstep with our consumers. Other fast food chains are delivering more deals, too. This is still Domino's best deal ever.

• 2:05:45Patrick Bet-David?

  Get the idea with what's going on with this. Jeff, where are you at with this?

• 2:05:49Speaker 06

  Look, McDonald's for years kept stubbornly raising prices and losing traffic. They did that year after year after year, expecting that either they could outprice the lost traffic and therefore win on just a nominal level, or they were expecting that consumers would pay the higher prices and eventually come back, which they never did. So in many ways, what McDonald's is doing, and across the restaurant business too, is admitting that they were wrong in pursuing higher prices because they sacrificed market share and traffic to lower values. And Tom is right, this is not a good sign. When, you know, the joke we always had, when Walmart is doing really well, you know the economy's bad. Because that means that people who shouldn't be shopping at Walmart, who don't really want to be shopping at Walmart, are shopping at Walmart. In fact, that's what Walmart has said over the last year or so.

• 2:06:34Speaker 06

  They have grown really well with people who make a hundred thousand dollars and more. True. People who would rather shop at places like Target and boutique shops. So, yeah. McDonald's, who else is it that's, PepsiCo recently said they're cutting prices, the same exact thing for years. They were raising prices on Doritos and Mountain Dew and Gatorade and sacrificing volume in the process. Thinking that the economy was going to pick up at some point, therefore would justify the strategy, it never did. So what we're seeing is these companies, especially consumer-focused businesses, time and time again are admitting they pursued the wrong strategy and now going back to affordability because, again, this is not a good sign for the state of the consumer. And by the way, this is before we get to the prospect of five-dollar gasoline extended

• 2:07:19Speaker 06

  out into the future. So it adds even more pressure on the economy to get this Iran thing done and get the Hormuz thing done, to get oil prices back down before it actually does lead to a 1990 scenario where it really does break the economy.

• 2:07:32Patrick Bet-David?

  Brandon?

• 2:07:33Speaker 07

  Yeah, I mean, man, I remember just when I was in high school, you could get like a bag of thirty cheeseburgers, thirty McDobles for like less than a hundred bucks. I mean, you know, it's crazy. And now that it's on the same level as a grocery store...

• 2:07:45Patrick Bet-David?

  You would buy thirty cheeseburgers?

• 2:07:47Speaker 07

  Like after a football game or something, yeah.

• 2:07:49Patrick Bet-David?

  What was he talking about?

• 2:07:50Speaker 07

  Me and my buddies, dude, like after a football game, we'd buy like a ridiculous amount of cheeseburgers and McDobles.

• 2:07:54Speaker 06

  Because they used to be cheap, right?

• 2:07:55Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 2:07:56Speaker 06

  I remember Arby's used to have five for five. You'd get five roast beef sandwiches for five bucks.

• 2:08:00Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 2:08:01Speaker 06

  I mean, that was thirty years ago. Setting a world record for cholesterol is not a good thing.

• 2:08:04Speaker 07

  Well, like after an exhaustive workout, though, you know, that type of thing. But, I mean, yeah, it doesn't even feel cheap anymore. I mean, I don't eat fast food anymore, but it, like, it used to feel like cheap compared to the grocery store, cheap compared to a restaurant, but now I don't even know what the argument is to eat fast food. If it's like on the same level, like, you can't go to McDonald's without spending twenty bucks on a basic meal, so...

• 2:08:22Speaker 06

  It's not fast either.

• 2:08:23Speaker 07

  Right, yeah. So it's not fast, not cheap, but definitely toxic and poisonous for you, so...

• 2:08:27Patrick Bet-David?

  The guy says the dollar menu is now three-dollar menu. So fast, we have to change fast food and call it, you know, uh...

• 2:08:34Speaker 07

  Modern...

• 2:08:35Patrick Bet-David?

  Swift.

• 2:08:36Speaker 06

  Overpriced microwave food.

• 2:08:38Patrick Bet-David?

  Swift foods, okay? On time, you know, maybe a little bit delayed, but it'll get to you. Food anyways, last one here before we wrap up last, I think it was on Monday. We talked about and we did some math because you know we're numbers people, right? I'm a numbers guy. Uh, and one of the stories was Meta. That Meta wants to let go of 20% of their employees, uh, 16,000. And what that math is gonna look like. Well, guess what? And I said it's gonna go, the stock's gonna go up what 3 to 12%? Did we do the calculation on the EBITDA or something, Tom? And it came up to 6, 7 billion dollars and we did the math.

• 2:09:14Tom Ellsworth?

  You made a post and you posted a range and guess what happened?

• 2:09:17Patrick Bet-David?

  This is a New York Post story. Meta shares jump 3% as Zuckerberg reportedly malls, cutting 20% of workforce. By the way, this is on reportedly. This is on this, it goes up 3% just on he may, hasn't even happened yet. Imagine when it says it does, uh, on what's gonna happen with Facebook. So we'll be watching that closely as well. And we'll talk about it with that being said, gang, um, uh, great being with everybody on the podcast. We're gonna do it again on Friday. Rob, tomorrow's Joey Marino?

• 2:09:51Tom Ellsworth?

  Yes, sir.

• 2:09:52Patrick Bet-David?

  Okay. You got questions for Jeff, Manectum? Uh, you got Brandon and Tom here as well and Jeff's also got a podcast. If you guys want to go subscribe to it, let's put the link below. We will do this again on Friday, but tomorrow me and Joey Marino sat down. And, uh, he and I used to be neighbors. So it's gonna be a, it's gonna be a very, very, very interesting. He may have broken the record for the most F bombs dropped in a two hour interview. I think he had a few hundred, by the way, you can track it. Anyways, having said that, that'll come out tomorrow. Take care, everybody. God bless. Bye bye, bye bye.

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