3/31/26: Trump Floats Iran Surrender, Trump Rock Bottom Polls, Gas Prices Spike

21:42Rory Johnston:Well, they may not starve now because of the taco, but it's one of those where, look, we may have an end to the actual crisis, but this is a full-blown, like, this is the Pandora's box. I mean, this is why you shouldn't get into any of this in the first place. Are you trying to get weight loss support through telehealth, but it feels overwhelming and rushed? Check out orderlymeds.com now. Orderlymeds.com was built to be different. Here, you connect with real doctors who take the time to understand your goals, review your eligibility, and guide you through a plan that's right for you. Orderlymeds provides access to proven GLP-1 medications, like semaglutide and terzepatide, including both name brand options and personalized compound versions when appropriate.

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23:03It's her secret to absolutely gorgeous skin. Meaningful Beauty makes powerful and effective skincare simple, and it's loved by millions of women. It's formulated for all ages and all skin tones and types, and it's designed to work as a complete skin care system, leaving your skin feeling soft, smooth, and nourished. I recommend starting with Cindy's Full Regiment, which contains all five of her best-selling products, including the amazing Youth Activating Melon Serum. This next-generation serum has the power of Melonleaf stem cell technology. It's Melonleaf stem cells encapsulated for freshness and released onto the skin to support a visible reduction in the appearance of wrinkles.

23:38With thousands of glowing five-star reviews, why not give it a try? Subscribe today and you can get the amazing Meaningful Beauty system for just$49.95. That includes our introductory five-piece system, free gifts, free shipping, and a 60-day money-back guarantee. All of that available at MeaningfulBeauty.com. Go on, get a little out there into the big heart of Nevada, where you can go off-road and off the map on two lakes or on horseback. Dip into hot springs and dive into deserts. Climb a mountain or make your best effort. See thousands of stars in some of the darkest skies. Stake out haunted hotels.

24:17Can you make it to sunrise? There's always something new to see because we've got plenty of space to just be. Plan your trip at TravelMevada.com.

24:29Rory Johnston:We have a lot of elements here. I'll skip most of them, but let's just make sure, again, that we set the table, that there's still a war going on with Iran. Let's put A2 up here on the screen just to show all of you. This is video that came out just yesterday. This is, by the way, what makes me very skeptical that this unilateral taco might happen. So this was a massive airstrike, bunker-busting bombs dropped by the United States just yesterday on an Iranian ammo depot, which was in Isfahan, which is near, of course, all of those nuclear facilities in Iran. Now, here's the thing. Originally, there was some cope and hope, honestly, that they were like, oh, we finally hit the Missile City.

25:07Rory Johnston:The Pentagon even confirmed this is an ammunition dump with artillery and other things. And that is what made me think, look, you're going to strike an ammo dump with bunker buster bombs, not the Missile City? Now, you probably would if you could, but why would you do that, especially in the area where you have these nuclear facilities and some sort of potential nuclear operation was going to happen? So keep your eyes open. You know, the unilateral taco can also still happen even after some sort of potential nuclear operation that's happening there. The other ground, the other reading of this.

25:37So one reading of it is that, yeah, this is, you know, Isfahan is where they think a lot of the nuclear material is at this point. And so you could be trying to, you know, degrade their their capabilities there for some eventual, you know, commandos coming in and trying to seize the nuclear material, all that stuff. OK, that's one possibility. The other possibility is Trump shared this on True Social, which makes it more noteworthy because clearly wanted to highlight like, oh, look at this big explosion. You know, the other possibility is this is just him trying to show like, you know, oh, look at this grand display of how how much we've decimated them, et cetera, because it was a large explosion.

26:16So I don't know. But I think either of those interpretations are possible.

26:20Rory Johnston:Take it for what you will. You also look now that we have this truth, the taco stuff, it's everywhere. Let's put a three. Let's go ahead and play it. This was Caroline Levitt telling everyone just yesterday. Well, the president said four to six weeks. We're on day 30. So we're on track. Let's take a listen. President Trump initially said about four weeks. Secretary of State Rubio on Friday reportedly said it might be another two to four. It's two to four. The current ballpark that the administration is thinking. With respect to the timeline, again, the president, commander in chief, the Pentagon has always stated four to six weeks estimated timeline for Operation Epic Fury.

26:53We're on day 30 today. So again, you do the math on how much longer we the Pentagon needs to fully achieve the objectives of Operation Epic Fury, which I will reiterate. rate.

27:05Rory Johnston:So there she says, laying out the timeline. Secretary Hegseth is briefing literally right as we're all talking here. I haven't seen anything exactly noteworthy, but he has continued to say Iran should try to make a deal because we're decimating. We are the people that are making sure. He said, we are like, you know, bringing them to the table, negotiating them with bombs. So you could see that the messaging has shifted dramatically. We also should go to a seven. Now, this again was a little bit of a preview of the current Trump Truth Social this morning. Here is Secretary of State Marco Rubio in an interview with Al Jazeera, where he again opens the door to, well, maybe we don't have to control the Straits of Hormuz.

27:41Rory Johnston:Other countries could do it. Let's take a listen. The Straits of Hormuz will be open. When this operation is over, it will be open, and it'll be open one way or another. It will be open because Iran agrees to abide by international law and not block the commercial waterway, or a coalition of nations from around the world and the region with the participation of the United States will make sure that it's open. So the Straits of Hormuz will be open. Iran either agrees to abide by international law and not by the international law from this administration? Come on. I know. This is fake as hell. I know.

28:14You open the war by murdering a bunch of schoolgirls and assassinating their head of state.

28:19Rory Johnston:And threatening to bomb nuclear, or sorry, it's a bomb like power plants. Yeah, Trump literally yesterday was like a blow up your water plants. I mean, this is like textbook war crimes, but whatever. As I said, international law is fake. And that's fine. International law has always been fake. It's really all been in terms of the norms and the enforcing ability of being able to do so. We have decided to get in bed with Israel, this rogue state, and conduct ourselves the way that we have. It always kind of has been an illusion. We just decided to put the blinders on. And it's like, all right, well, if we're going to go about the world and we're going to kidnap Maduro and we're going to just come in, create a gigantic mess, withdraw, tell everybody else to do so, who are we to tell the Iranians exactly?

28:59Rory Johnston:How are they going to govern the Straits of Hormuz? They will govern by force, as we could do it too. You can invade and take it if you want to. It'd be a nightmare and a disaster. Part of the reason, maybe you shouldn't have gotten into this mess in the first place. Well, and just really quick, Hegseth is doing a press briefing right now. And just a couple things that were noteworthy here. I see this one clip of him. He says, President Trump will make a deal. He is willing, and the terms of the deal are known to them. If Iran is not willing, then the U.S. War Department will continue with even more intensity.

29:32So that's the messaging they're putting out is continuing like this. Oh, we'll deal with them, but we're going to come in with even more, you know, fire and fury or whatever is where there's what he's still messaging this morning from the podium.

29:44Rory Johnston:Yeah. So, look, very important just to put I just I really am all all over the place this morning just because I have to I have to deal with the ramifications of what this would mean. Also, to make sure our audience understands, the war's still happening. The bombs are still dropping. It's not like the Israelis, oh, they're doing just great. They just basically annexed half of Lebanon, in case anybody's wondering. The Israeli empire, it's expanded. The regional super... Think about this nation since October 7th. They've expanded their border into Syria. I mean, removed the leader there. They're basically taking half of Lebanon.

30:18Rory Johnston:They're basically taking the... I mean, they had the West Bank. Now they're solidifying control over it. Gaza, wow, you have to marvel at it. Yeah. This country, which I don't want to say hijacked. It was, you know, willingly given, I guess. Think about it. We will end our own empire and create a new Israeli one. That's effectively been the net policy if the current status quo remains as it is. Although the Israelis have their own vulnerability because they can only act the way that they act because they have our full and complete backing at all turns. And the moment that that is taken away, then they are extremely vulnerable.

30:51So they have their own, you know, their own vulnerabilities here. My heart breaks for them. Actually, I saw Ryan was sharing this thread on Twitter about, you know, this whole like, do they have a right to exist? The state of Israel have a right to exist discourse. And someone was pointing out like, in what way are they even a state? Because a state would indicate that there are borders and laws that are applied consistently to the citizens of that state. So by the conventional definition, Israel isn't even a state because of the way that they operate. But that's another discussion for another day.

31:21I mean, another thing I wanted to point out, because I think it's relevant, you've now got two European allies, Italy and Spain, who have both said we are not allowing U.S. military planes to land at our bases and enjoy flyover rights. So, I mean, that's really significant. So it also tells you.

31:39Rory Johnston:Italy is way bigger than Spain. Yeah. Spain from the beginning has been like, you know, it's a left-wing government. Their adversary, like they've been opposed from the beginning. Italy coming out and joining them and being like, yeah, we're done here too. That is highly significant and also shows you the way that our allies are feeling about this and that they are also coming to a point where they're like, OK, whatever we're getting from the U.S., it is not worth it because the costs that are being imposed. I mean, the energy prices in Europe already were high. Now they're going even higher. So they're in quite a bind here as well.

32:13And, yeah, I don't think it's your point about, like, let's say we do walk away and just tell them go get your own oil and good luck with the Strait of Hormuz. they're going to be, you know, quite willing, I think, to go and make a deal with Iran at whatever terms are necessary.

32:26Rory Johnston:People know, no big fan of Europe. You know, I would decouple on my own terms. These aren't the terms that I would do it on. And let's think about Italy. All right. So Italy, NATO country, it is, I think, four U.S. bases, I want to say four major U.S. bases, probably 15 ,000 or so troops, a major hub for AFRICOM operation. Remember Benghazi and Libya and all that, or scrambling the jets out of Italy. It's kind of a critical US note. Last time I checked, their own prime, we'll get to this later on the show, their defense minister is saying like, he's like vague posting, being like, I can't sleep at night because of the things that I know that are coming.

33:03Rory Johnston:So they're obviously then, they're facing a crisis and it's not like their economy was doing all that well, even within the EU context. So for them, high energy prices, it's a nightmare. It's a total disaster, especially on top of what just happened with Russia and with Ukraine. I guess continuing on down this line, let's just make sure that we get a couple more things that are in here. Oh, right. A-11, or sorry, A-12, please. This also happened yesterday. This was the Kuwaiti crude carrier, the Al-Salmi, was directly attacked by Iranians docked at the anchorage area of the Dubai port in UAE. So So yesterday, the UAE took more missiles and incoming drones than at any time since the first week of the war, showing, again, Iran's projected ability or Iran's ability to continue to project some force in the region and also to be able to hit whatever tanker that they want to.

33:57Rory Johnston:There is some confusing stuff around this tanker. Apparently, it was bound for China. So there's a lot of reasons as to why Iran hit it. They may have actually mistakenly targeted this carrier. There was another one that was heading to Israel. I've also seen it could have been, you know, shrapnel from a missile intercept or something like that, too. I've got another clip here from Hegseth that is noteworthy on the Strait of Hormuz significantly. Specifically, he says, on the Strait of Hormuz, there are many more vessels flowing through today than there were, as the president has arranged. Oh, my God.

34:27No, he's not.

34:28Rory Johnston:The Pakistanis arranged that. That's not even true. The president's been clear to Iran. Open it for business or we have options, and we certainly do. There are countries around the world who ought to be prepared to step up on this critical waterway as well. It's not just the United States Navy. Last time I checked, there was supposed to be a big, bad Royal Navy that could be prepared to do things like that as well. So he's pointing out this is an international waterway that we use less than most, in fact, dramatically less than most. So the world ought to pay attention and be prepared to stand up.

34:58President Trump's been willing to do the heavy lifting on behalf of the free world. Oh, thank you so much, President Trump, to address this threat of Iran. It's not just our problem set going forward, even though we have done the lion's share preparation to ensure that that strait will be open. So, you know, sort of consistent with what the reporting about Trump saying basically and his true social being like, hey, you guys use this more than us. Go and get the oil. You know, but in other comments, Hegseth also said.

35:27Rory Johnston:What year do they think we're living in? 1898? I know. Where the sun never sets on the British Empire? Right. People look at the UK and their society. I know. The idea. And they want to go and. We can't do it, but we're going to. Oh, they're going to. OK, right. Yeah. And then he also says, we'll negotiate with bombs. He loves this line. Our job is to ensure we compel Iran to realize that this new regime, this regime in charge is in a better place if they make that deal. And so we'll continue. We're working hand in hand. But the primary effort is a deal. We want the deal to be accomplished if at all possible.

35:54If not, then we're prepared to continue. So take from that what you want. Look, I mean, we can't trust Trump's word. I can't trust any of this. This guy's just this idiot stew, so I can't take any of his words seriously either.

36:06Rory Johnston:I think this is what he wants to do. I just don't think that it can be done. I mean, well, it can. It can. And then all the consequences that we've laid out just are. But let's just not forget. And those consequences are probably best case scenario at this point. It probably is. Because if you continue, it only gets worse. But let's then talk about the economic ramifications. We talked about the empire ramifications. You've got the UAE and Saudi Arabia. They're effectively being held hostage here now by Iran. They've proven their capability to hit you. I was listening to an episode this morning from OddLot, shout out to them, about Dubai and specifically the real estate market.

36:38Rory Johnston:But they touched on the amount of 40 % of global sovereign wealth is just the Gulf, the big four countries out of the Gulf. Almost all that wealth is invested in U.S. companies from venture capital to commercial real estate to private credit markets, which are having their own problems right now. Now, let's take Qatar, the Qatar Sovereign Wealth Fund, right? QIA, Qatar Investment Authority. Well, they just took a 17 % haircut on their natural gas. Stands to reason they're going to take some haircut on their flow of cash, which maybe means they can't fulfill future deals or other things. So let's call it 10%.

37:12Rory Johnston:Well, if 10 % of that money just dries up, that's a lot of money. I mean, that's billions of dollars. So what's that mean? And then you've got high oil prices as a result of this shock, potentially for years if Iran is just messing with the oil market. So these Gulf economies will either be held hostage or they'll have to pull back their investments here. In the United States, Japan, South Korea, all these Asian countries, which we're supposed to invest all this money here, they are getting destroyed right now in their stock markets and their economy. So just think about the ramifications for all of us.

37:43Rory Johnston:I mean, again, look. And our economy is a house of cards. Like, it's basically AI speculation. It's like the whole economy and, like, gambling. And for everybody saying, well, I don't care about that. I'm like, well, listen, you know, oh, actually, it'd be a good thing. Yeah, I mean, theoretically, you know what it also means? It means you're going to lose your job. It means you're going to pay high interest rates. It means that you're going to pay high gas prices. Like, remember, they'll be fine taking a 10 % haircut. Can you realistically afford to take that? The answer is always no, is that the people at the top will be okay.

38:11Rory Johnston:They're largely insulated from these decisions. But, you know, when the bottom falls out, then people get laid off. They lose their jobs. You can't buy a home. You can't buy a car. It's a genuine nightmare. So, look, that's where things stand. Obviously, this is a breaking situation. So, you know, hopefully it's still as up to date whenever we release it. But that's it. When people turn to telehealth or weight loss, they're looking for real support. That's why more people are choosing orderlymeds.com. Orderly Meds connects you with real doctors and access to proven GLP-1 medications like semaglutide and terzeptatide.

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38:55Rory Johnston:Individual results may vary. Not medical advice. Eligibility required. See site for details. Now I'd like to introduce you to Meaningful Beauty, the famed skincare brand created by iconic supermodel Cindy Crawford. It's her secret to absolutely gorgeous skin. Meaningful Beauty makes powerful and effective skincare simple, and it's loved by millions of women. It's formulated for all ages and all skin tones and types, and it's designed to work as a complete skincare system, leaving your skin feeling soft, smooth, and nourished. I recommend starting with Cindy's Full Regiment, which contains all five of her best-selling products, including the amazing Youth Activating Melon Serum.

39:32This next-generation serum has the power of Melon Leaf stem cell technology. It's Melon Leaf stem cells encapsulated for freshness and released onto the skin to support a visible reduction in the appearance of wrinkles. With thousands of glowing five-star reviews, why not give it a try? Subscribe today and you can get the amazing Meaningful Beauty system for just$49.95. That includes our introductory five-piece system, free gifts, free shipping, and a 60-day money-back guarantee. All of that available at MeaningfulBeauty.com. Go on, get a little out there into the big heart of Nevada, where you can go off-road and off the map on two lakes or on horseback.

40:12Dip into hot springs and dive into deserts. Climb a mountain or make your best effort. See thousands of stars in some of the darkest skies, stake out haunted hotels. Can you make it to sunrise? There's always something new to see because we've got plenty of space to just be. Plan your trip at TravelNevada.com.

40:33Rory Johnston:Why don't we turn to polling? Just why did Trump decide to do this? Yeah, I mean, this is one piece of that puzzle. I think probably the markets are an even more important piece, but let's go ahead and put this up on the screen. This YouGov poll came out yesterday, and it was a real eye-opener. Approval rating of 33%. That is about as low as I have ever, ever seen it. Disapproval at 62%. Now, this is a little bit of an, it's not that much of an outlier. It's a little bit of an outlier, but we've been seeing a lot of polling coming in for him that has the approval rating under 40%. And in fact, if we put B3 up on the screen, this Nate Silver's analysis of his poll numbers, according to his average, and keep this up on the screen for a second because this chart is actually really useful.

41:20According to his average, he now has Trump dipping under 40 % approval rating, so 39.7%, I think, for an average of all the polls, the ones that are more favorable to him and the ones that are less favorable to him. And you can see quite clearly, first of all, the trajectory has just been consistently downward. So of course, there have been little peaks and valleys in between, but overall, the story of his second term in office is just down, down, down. Now, the place where he actually saw the steepest decline was after Liberation Day, and the tariffs were just wildly, wildly unpopular. And then you can see, though, since the Iran war began, he was actually at a little sort of localized peak there, and it's just been downward ever since the Iran war started.

42:08Nate Silver also tracking, you know, the popularity of the Iran war and finding that it is very unpopular. And usually Americans have a good war. So it's kind of historically unusual for this country to have be negative on a war really from day one. The other thing here, Sagar, is put B2 up on the screen. So we called this because it was obviously predictable when Trump and Hexat said, oh, we're going to need 200 billion dollars to pay for this war. and we're going to achieve it through reconciliation. Well, that means you have to balance it with cuts elsewhere. Where are you going to get that money?

42:44Health care. Because that's basically like the big, if you're not going to cut defense spending, the other, and you can't cut interest spending. In fact, that piece is going up, interest on the debt because of bond yield surging. The only other place where you have a significant amount of funds is health care. So they already cut health care significantly back in the one big, beautiful bill. And they are looking at taking another hatchet to healthcare, Americans' healthcare, in order to pay for the bombs to hit Iran and continue this war.

43:16Rory Johnston:I'm like, where would you even cut it from? They said made deep cuts to federal. I'm looking just at even what would even potentially be. Yeah, I mean, then you're really, I mean, they already cut into the bone, but you're really cutting into the bone with that one. It would be Medicare Advantage. Okay. This is, yeah, I mean, look, you're paying the fire. You're cutting Medicare. Yeah, you're cutting Medicare. That's the bottom line. You know, I'm pro-Medicare also. You know, boomers taking a little haircut right now. Like, oh, what a tragedy. No, I much rather boomers have their health care than, not to mention, sorry, you know, you know, you know.

43:50It's penny-wise and pound-foolish because then you end up with people at the emergency. I know, I know. Getting the most expensive care, not getting preventive care. I know. You understand these things. But in any case, let's talk about how this is going to play for a midterm election. Right. We're cutting your health care so we can bomb girls' schools in Iran and wage Israel's war.

44:08Rory Johnston:Oh, and gas is more expensive and any potential housing that you want to buy. I'm sure people are going to love that. I'm sure people are going to be flocking to the polls to do their patriotic duty of paying more gas at the pump and giving up their health care so that more bombs can be dropped on Iran. I was thinking about it, too. At this point, I actually do. I don't say I support more defense spending because that would be the incorrect way of putting it. I do not support an increase in the dollar amount. I do genuinely think at this point we need like a Manhattan level project to reform the entire defense industrial base.

44:37Rory Johnston:Of course, under this administration now, it's pretty clear that's just not going to happen, largely because of people who are in charge, but also because of not just corruption, the creative thinking and like ability to take on permanent Washington to basically we need to make sure that we're safe in a future conflict. because what has Iran really showed us is the asymmetry problem that we face from drones, aircraft carriers with laundry fires, massively expensive interceptors. Like this problem needs to be solved yesterday. It's literally an urgent and a critical situation. And let's say if we ever got into a conflict over something that really matters, you know, one of the reasons why I think this is so bad too is now this poisons the well.

45:17Rory Johnston:People are gonna be like, well, hold on a sec. I'm not gonna give you more stuff so you can go do more stupid shit like this. Total. Right? I mean, rational, right? They're not going to sit there and give the same soft case that I'm taking. To your point, they already get a trillion dollars. Do you know what Iran's annual military budget is? It's$10 billion. We're asking for$200 billion just for this one excursion, right? They spent roughly$10 billion a year on them. I do think they upped it a little bit since the 12-day war or whatever. But yeah, whoever it was that was on the show that was like, we built our military to fight the Cold War.

45:52And it was more about like some big presentation of power than it is the reality of modern warfare. And we've seen the reality of modern warfare up close in the Ukraine-Russia fight. I mean, even with Hamas and what they were able to do, we've seen the reality of modern warfare. And the more that we obliterated international law, frankly, the more it benefits a country like Iran. because in an asymmetric fight, yeah, if you have the ability to pick off civilian targets and screw up an oil tanker, bomb a refinery, bomb a water desalination plant, and no one can say shit to you because they murdered your head of state and bombed little girls' schools, that is not actually to our benefit.

46:32That is to the benefit of smaller players who can use these low-cost drones. And, of course, the number one drone producer in the world by far is China.

46:40Rory Johnston:Yes, of course. See, that's what I'm most worried about. I don't think we need an increase in the defense budget. We need to literally, we could probably spend less if we just took on the actual industrial base, performed our companies, had an intelligent like DARPA, Manhattan level, Manhattan Project style like investment and just be like, okay, this is a crisis. And by the way, everyone was saying this is agitating for war with China. Listen, even at this point, like with the whole Taiwan situation, I mean, come on. I don't know how you can look at this and say, there's any chance of the US having the ability right now.

47:11Rory Johnston:I'm not worried about that. I'm worried about Japan. I'm worried about South Korea. I'm worried about, I mean, these are real allies. These are people, number three, number seven, whatever economy in the world, top 10 trading partners. We're talking about Singapore, Vietnam, the Philippines. I mean, these people who have been there with us, this is the backbone of the US consumer market, 50 % of global GDP. That's the stuff that I actually worry about right now. And I look at this and I go, oh, it's not going to happen. I mean, and you could call it Doomer or any of that, but I genuinely believe that if we could have done more in the Iran War, we would have.

47:47It exposed all of these so predictable problems.

47:51Rory Johnston:And it's like I said, for years we heard people make fun of the Russians. It's like, what if we're more like the Russians than we wanted to think? Turns out we are. That's just the truth. And, I mean, yeah, the level of change this will take from our government. And the thing is, we're a democracy. We have to convince people why this is necessary. And this has actually poisoned the well for any future defense industrial project because people are going to say, I'm not going to give you more weapons to go out and fight stupid wars. We should only – if you had a doctrine of like rearmament or reform in the system without all of this insane adventurism, people would say, okay, that makes sense, all of this.

48:30Rory Johnston:And, of course, by the way,$200 billion of the$1 trillion is on TRICARE last time I checked, like the healthcare system. It's a disaster from everybody I've spoken to. So, yeah, the level of reform and all that we would need would be titanic. And also this is where Doge comes into play. They poison the well on this. You know, they never even looked over at the Pentagon. Yeah. So I look at this polling now and I just think about the overall sweeping democratic effect that this is going to have. people will very rationally not want to give a dollar more to defense under this administration because they don't want to see more things like this.

49:07Rory Johnston:And then in the interim, we still got, what, three more years to go. Let's put B3 up there on the screen from Nate Silver. He makes a point. Trump's approval hits the 30s. Can't his numbers get any lower? It's a genuine question. It's one of those where what else could you do to lift yourself out of this? I don't think in modern history we've ever had a president who has been at this low at this time and had any meaningful recovery. Not – look, he's going to think about legacy, but let's think also generally about the GOP and about the ramifications. So if you see this type of situation take place in – I mean this is where the Senate starts to come into play, right?

49:50Rory Johnston:When's the last time we lived with something like this? 08, I want to say? 08 with the financial crisis and Iraq? I mean, that's when crazy shit happens. Like, that's when Democrats were getting elected in, like, North Dakota, right? Obama won North Dakota. Didn't Arkansas have a Democratic senator? I don't think Obama won North Dakota, but he won Indiana. North Carolina. North Carolina. North Carolina. He won North Carolina. Didn't, like, Arkansas have a Democratic senator? Yeah, I mean, part of that. You know, I was like, it was just sad. Yeah, I mean, part of that is because it was pre, like, full partisan realignment.

50:19So things like winning in Arkansas and South Dakota were more possible. But yeah, I mean, in the 2008, like there were people who won elections that no one thought was going to be on the table. And, you know, the other thing Nate Silver points out, because this question of like, can he go even lower than the 30s because his base famously very strong, very cold like, etc. That is definitely the case. But he does point out that the level of strong approval for Trump has really fallen off. So if you ask people, you know, you can give people these options, not just approve, disapprove, but strong, disapprove or strong, approve, weak, approve, weak, disapprove.

50:56And the strong approve has fallen from, you know, at the beginning of the term, it was at 36 percent. Now it's only 22 percent. And that's all his base going from like, yes, make America great again to being like, I think he's better than Kamala. You know, I mean, that's and that's significant.

51:16Rory Johnston:That's the only cope that you have left, right? And in a midterm election, that's really significant. Because, look, these are all people, anybody who approves of Trump is going to vote Republican if they come out and vote. But if you're feeling like, eh, this is not that great, are you going to take the time to come out and vote? I mean, it looks, and that's why also - 2010 is the same scenario. Yes. Is you have all these disappointed Democrats and they're like, hey, you said you would get us out of Iraq. That didn't happen. You said you would end the war in Afghanistan. We're sending more troops to Afghanistan.

51:44Rory Johnston:You just fucked up my health care. I mean, I'm not happy about this. And so, I mean, it's – look, the midterms – Democrats just won yet another seat in Florida. It was like really close. It was in a Trump plus 11 district. It's different than the one that represents Mar-a-Lago. This is another Florida special election seat that Democrats just won. I think that means that they've flipped 31 seats since Trump's election and Republicans have flipped zero. I mean it's very clear where things are trending. The only question is what sort of things Trump's going to do to try to mess with the elections.

52:19But I have to say at this point I'm less worried about that because it's one thing when things are marginal. You can screw with things enough that it makes a difference. It's looking increasingly like things are not going to be marginal. It's going to be too big to rig.

52:31Rory Johnston:Yeah, from 2024 and 2026 will be the too big to rig elections, which is really funny. But then let's think about generally what that even means politically. This would be 2008 level sea change, except within the Democratic Party, there's been all kinds of learning. Within the Republican Party, I have no idea. I mean, I don't see a scenario where there are more Tom Tillis types who are willing to buck Trump. But if anything, it'll probably narrow the faithful down to like an extremely small group. But it could be years then in the wilderness. Like those are wilderness years where six years, eight years out of power.

53:08Rory Johnston:I mean, who knows, right? And all kinds of crazy stuff happens. Sagar, what do you make of, sorry, what do you make of all these reports about like, oh, J.D. Vance is trying to bring the order to close and he's not happy and he said, Netanyahu, you better cut it down or whatever. Is that coming from his team trying to separate or what's coming? No, I don't think so. I think it's, I think, I have no inside knowledge. As you might suspect, many people are very upset with me right now. But my theory, and this is based on a little bit of like observation and knowledge of the dynamic, A lot of people who were his boosters are very worried about his potential candidacy.

53:43Rory Johnston:And so that is a very convenient. Now, here's the problem, though. Those leaks, while could be important for him in the future, are actually extremely detrimental to him in the interim. Because any report that the vice president is straying away from the president is very bad for him in the immediate term. At the end of the day, the calculus is empirically correct politically. He has to chain himself at the hip with Trump. That's why whatever Trump does, he has to defend him. Did you see him giving the Iraq comment in the Situation Room about a suicide bomber? Oh, God, yeah. I was like, oh, okay.

54:16Rory Johnston:So we're doing this now? Yeah, when it was like, just imagine if they've got suicide vests that are nuclear bombs, and it's like, oh, my God. I mean, that's one of those where I'll tell you, look, I've been shocked by a lot. I see that, and I'm like, wow. Yeah. Like, that's what we're doing now. But that's evidence of the point of this dramatically difficult dynamic, which is you have to chain yourself. If he loses his access to Trump, he loses everything. The vice president sees an irrelevant job. Ask Kamala Harris, John Nance Garner, FDR's vice president. It's not worth a warm bucket of piss, I believe, is what he said.

54:49Rory Johnston:He hated it. Absolutely hated it. And so it's really only what the president decides to give you. Now, look, there's various different schools of thought because clearly the president doesn't really give a shit what he thinks very much. whenever it comes to foreign policy and is just going to make you go out and humiliate himself. But I do think a lot of the people who are around him, let's say consultants and others, they're either leaking it or they're trying to prop up this type of messaging to preserve that optionality in the future. But honestly, the smart play at this, I mean, we're talking now, who knows what things will look like in three years.

55:21Rory Johnston:I've seen Saurabh Amari with a guest we've had on. He's very close with JD. He wrote a piece and he's like, maybe you won't run in 2028. Maybe you would run in 2032, too, like some sort of Nixon-style comeback. You know, spend a couple of years in the wilderness, let Margot Rubio be the heir to Trump. Enjoy. Yeah, enjoy, right? He's having a baby this year. He's going to have four kids. Easy excuse. I want to spend more time with my family, my young family. I could see that as well. So I really have no idea. I mean, if you were to ask me today, that would be a smart play. At the same time in politics, it's all about timing.

55:54Rory Johnston:Like, you're only going to be vice president once. people may not care who you are five years from now. I think the thing I'll say is that for Trump, it is not a good sign that the heir apparent, which is obviously your vice president, either him or his staff, think that it may be politically advantageous for them to try to create some distance from the man who has been the kingmaker in the Republican Party. This is why vice presidents are terrible candidates. They just shouldn't run. Like, they really, if you look in history, who are all the vice presidents who really got screwed. Gore, Harris, I mean, potentially, J.D.

56:30Rory Johnston:I mean, there's a few successful campaigns. H.W. Bush. Right, but even then, he's riding off the coattails of Reagan when he has to stand on his own two feet. He gets a bitch slapped by Bill Clinton, right? And Ross Perot. Ross Perot's help, yeah. You really can see in, like, vice presidents empirically then are kind of bad candidates because they're so chained to the status quo. Sometimes you get lucky, like with Reagan. Especially in the modern era where people are just disgusted with the status quo. We have change election after change election. But I mean, all of the little leaks that they're putting out or whatever they're doing.

57:01I mean, at the end of the day, when you decided to cozy up to Trump and be his guy and defend it, like you placed your bet. Well, there's a second angle. That would be the, you know, that would be the lane. And it wasn't a bad bet politically because he has been so dominant in terms of the Republican Party. But I just think, I mean, it's very possible a Republican project is just destroyed for quite a while for anyone, whether it's him or Rubio or even Tucker Carlson or whoever.

57:28Rory Johnston:Just remember, things change rapidly in American politics. A decade from now, I mean, a decade ago, are you really going to say Trump is going to stick around and still be the president of the United States? No, nobody would say that, right? Remember, 40 more years. So never make grand pronouncements about it's over forever. It could be over in the interim, six to eight years, something like that. And I think American history, modern American history shows us genuine dominance would be the FDR to Truman pipeline of about, what was that, 20-something years, 24 years, right, of democratic rule. That's about as good as you can get, I think, in America.

57:56Rory Johnston:Yeah. And so, yeah. Large majority. Things change very rapidly. But for Vance, I mean, I actually was thinking about this earlier. Not to start to go on a bit of a tangent, but he was at a donor retreat yesterday with a lot of tech people. And a lot of them are very pro-AI. And I was like, you know, that's like the wrong side of that issue. right so you've got i mean it's not me saying this like republican voters are like hey i don't want these data centers here right voters period right voters period but i'm saying even republican voters they are not on board with a lot of the ai policy out of this current white house they're not paying attention per se but the data center is going to be a critical issue i think especially in the energy crunch after this nonsense oh yeah we're going to pay higher bills to make sure that google's ai can you know create uh black nazis in the gen gemini like no we're not doing that Yeah.

58:43Rory Johnston:So I was thinking about that, too, about I actually think the insurgent lane in the Republican Party is probably more open than ever before. Like somebody could do to the Republican Party today what Trump did. Somebody has to be so disconnected from the system to be able to stand on the stage and be able to be like, Donald, no, no one's ever told you this, Mr. Vice President. Iran was a disaster. You know, maybe somebody to be able to say that. I mean, maybe. But at this point, we're still at a place where the Republican base. Right. They may not be. in love. You're talking about today. I'm saying, let's say years from now.

59:16Rory Johnston:Possible. Yeah, possible. It probably couldn't happen in 2028. And maybe it can't really happen while Trump is still alive. But look, he's 80. Who knows 10 years from now what that would look like. So yeah, same thing like Iraq. 10 years later, somebody can come along. Let's say any Trump-aligned official is running. And tell the truth. And just say the truth about what happened with Iran. I maybe wish casting. I don't know how things will work out, obviously. Last point I'll make, put, sorry, B3, Nate Silver's thing back up on the screen for the third time here. But I want to make a point about look at each of these moments that, you know, where he really suffers a significant decline.

59:51So first you have the Liberation Day announcement. So none of these are external crises. These are all things that Trump himself did, right? So the Liberation Day tariffs, dreadfully unpopular and a chaotic mess, even, you know, we're people who are sympathetic to targeted tariffs. This was idiotic, okay? Justice Department declares Epstein investigation over. Again, the whole Epstein thing, total own goal, mess, disaster, really damaging to his brand. Government shutdown begins. Again, these are, you know, political problems that he could have handled differently. Then you have Renee Good killed.

1:00:26And of course, Alex Preddy a week or so after. This was, again, all because of his choice to occupy the city of Minneapolis after Nick Shirley does his like Somali fraud thing. And then the Iran war starts. I mean, in a sense, He's been so fortunate. There haven't been a lot of really any major external crises in this administration. This is all of his own making every one of these decisions. And Doge was not even on there was also ended up being, you know, total cluster and profoundly unpopular, etc. Even though it started off with people sort of open and receptive to it. So, I mean, that's why I do think that the damage to the Republican Party will be could be relatively severe.

1:01:08because, you know, it's one thing, like you're dealing with coronavirus, it's not your fault, and it's everybody struggling to deal with it. You know, I mean, obviously there were moves that were made by the United States of America that helped to spark the Ukraine-Russia war, but that ultimately is also like an external event, at least it's perceived that way by the general public. These are all choices that he made that every single one of these freaking people were out there defending. So, I mean, that's part of why -

1:01:34Rory Johnston:It's very Iraq level. Yeah. It's very similar. That's right. That's why Iraq just nuked them for so long. That's right. And Iraq started off so much more popular and honestly had less of a direct impact on our lives. And this is already having outside, obviously, you know, there were, you know, severe casualties in American service members who were killed. But unfortunately, the reality of service in this country at this point is that it's confined to it's sort of like segregated off from a lot of the population. So in any case, you know, certainly he's looking at these polls and feeling like things are not going too great, which part of what played into potentially the attempted taco.

1:02:06Yeah, that's right.

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1:04:14Rory Johnston:Joining us now is our great friend Rory Johnston. He is the founder of Commodity Context on Substack, which we highly recommend everybody go and subscribe to. There will be a link down in the description. Thanks for joining us, man. Appreciate it. Thanks for having me back. All right, so Rory, let's start with your reaction to the Trump taco. It's Taco Tuesday. Let's put this up here on the screen. All of those countries that can't get jet fuel because of the Straits of Hormuz, like the United Kingdom, which refused to involve decapitation of Iran, I have a suggestion from you. Number one, buy from the U.S.

1:04:41Rory Johnston:We have plenty. Number two, build up some delayed courage. Go to the strait. Just take it. You'll have to start learning how to fight for yourself. The USA won't be there to help you anymore, just like you weren't there for us. Iran has been essentially decimated. The hard part is done. go get your own oil. So as the premier oil analyst, how's that going to work? I mean, it's just a wild statement from a U.S. president. I think just on two points here, actually, let's go. It's actually a third point as well. So hard parts done, you know, you do the rest. Obviously, the rest is the part that's too hard for Trump to do himself.

1:05:14So I would say at this stage, it's not entirely sincere, although that's not shocking in this environment. I think the part that really hits like a like a hammer though is the go get your own oil exclamation mark which is essentially like the epigraph on a book about the end of the carter doctrine that the united states has been the has been the policeman in this region of the world for decades it has been the guarantor of these oil supplies and for the regional security of the gulf kingdoms and gulf states and gulf you know oil exporters it's a complete rewriting of how this situation in the Middle East works.

1:05:52And I, you know, when we're talking about the unilateral taco, I think I kind of see the two most likely scenarios here as kind of the really, really bad scenario where the global economy goes into like a deep recession, we get a$200 plus oil. That is the scenario I think that we've been grinding towards steadily and disconcertingly of boots on the ground, trying to take Carg Island, et cetera, et cetera. That's where you get prolonged closure of the strait, you get risk of further attacks on regional oil infrastructure, things that can't just be undone, things that are permanent or at least years long durable.

1:06:27I think that's a scenario, but I see that is so dire that I see it as very difficult to hold as my base case because I just don't think that any politician, at least alone Donald Trump, has the wherewithal to go through with kind of something so long and arduous like that. I think more likely here is the other scenario, which is my base case from the very beginning, which has been what I call the unilateral taco. which is people are like, well, Trump can't just talk. This is not tariffs. This is not trade policy. You know, there are multiple participants in this war. He can't just decide by himself.

1:06:57I humbly disagree. And I think that Trump would likely disagree with that as well. I think if we've seen anything about Trump, he's not bound by precedent. He's not bound by allies. He's not bound by anything. And I think he's very clearly already bored of this war. I think by this stage, he planned to basically be rolling over onto Cuba. I think, you know, I never thought that Trump planned to get this deep, and he never had a plan for once he was this deep. So I think if the consequences keep ramping, and I don't think this is over yet, I think that we still need higher oil prices and lower equity prices and more economic pain to force that unilateral taco.

1:07:33But that's how I see this eventually going, is that one day we're just going to get a post. It's like, it's done. You know, U.S. Navy's sailing home. That's how I picture this ending. Let's put C0 up on the screen. We're now officially at national average over$4 a gallon for gas. So a significant and not great milestone being reached here. Let's say that he does the full taco. Go get your own gas. We're out. Straight up Hormuz. There's new reality. There's new sheriff in town. We're going to let Iran charge their toll. And you can do deals with them and Chinese yuan. We're out of here. OK, let's say that that is what happens.

1:08:10What is the damage that's already been done? and how will that trickle throughout the global economy? Yeah, so the one thing I want to kind of stress here is that in no reasonable scenario coming out of the Iran war, do I see the oil market being in a healthier or more secure position than which it entered the war in? Yeah. So I think, you know, any scenario is going to have structurally higher prices. I think in the scenario where you have, you know, a boots on the ground drag out,$200 plus. I think in this scenario of a unilateral taco, Iran having some kind of sovereign control over the strait which again is just an unthinkable thing to kind of consider long term but that's what we're looking like we're at least trending towards possibly um in that scenario I still think that oil prices currently I'm looking at my screen Brent's just about 117 I think that's still too low I think that you know even though this unilateral taco is bearish or a lower price environment than the boots on the ground scenario I think both of them are still dire and like a deeply untenable supply situation.

1:09:11I think in the scenario where Iran does continue to control the strait, then we're just going to like it's just setting us up very predictably for the next crisis. I think this is like this is a situation that can't last. It is inherently politically untenable and unstable. And we're going to get the next flare up. So we go from a long, drawn-out, awful Hormuz closure to maybe like a perennial two-week closure in Hormuz, which seems like an insane thing to bake into the system. But that's kind of, again, what it's looking like we might be arriving at.

1:09:40Rory Johnston:Yeah, it really does. Let's go and put A9, guys, up on there on the screen. That's the bill that is being passed through Iran. They say that they would impose a toll system in rials, that they would ban passage of U.S. and Israeli vessels through the strait, assert Iranian sovereignty over the airway, strategic waterway, ban any country that imposes unilateral sanctions against Iran, Oman slated to help shape the legal framework. Which, by the way, that Omani piece is actually pretty significant. Yeah, so Rory, I mean, let's game this out. I was thinking earlier, I go, how could you be the Gulf countries where you have to get all, you just got bombed by these people and now you have to pay them some sort of toll and maybe they won't even want money and they're like, bombs keep coming unless the bases go.

1:10:23Rory Johnston:but like that seems to be the reality. I mean, the UK, Japan, South Korea, all of these Asian countries, they would have to pay. I mean, I don't even know how they could get reals, by the way. I mean, is there a market to exchange? Like talk us through what that would look like. Yeah, so just let's talk through the size of the toll first. Because I think, you know, what we've seen discussed so far is a$2 million passage, which sounds very expensive, but relative to like a VLCC or a very large crude carrier tanker, the largest ones that are typically used, they carry about 2 million barrels of crude.

1:10:56So that's only about a dollar a barrel on toll. That is expensive, but relative to the current deeply, deeply problematic status quo, it is a clear kind of beneficial change to the global supply situation. But to your point, the politics of this are deeply untenable, and it seems unlikely that Iran would allow a complete reopening of this trade. Again, prior to the war, we were having about 100 plus, 100 to 120 vessels crossing the street every day. You know, maybe we get back up to 50 percent of that. Then with some of the offsets that we have in the system, like the Saudi East-West pipeline and other sources, maybe we get back to something that's, you know, just a deep deficit rather than a catastrophic supply deficit.

1:11:39But I think that's the scenario is that we just have some kind of durable control for Iran in this region. and the Gulf countries kind of having just need to, you know, swallow the bitter pill because the alternative is existential for them. This, I think, is existential for them as well. But at least it is a scenario where they continue exporting their oil and restarting their economies relative to right now where virtually, I mean, by far their largest economic sector is completely sidelined. The other thing Trump says offers as a solution other than go get your own oil and good luck militarily in the Strait of Hormuz is, hey, come buy from us.

1:12:17We've got plenty of oil. Can you talk about how our supply fits into the global oil markets and the reality of what that looks like as well? Yeah, so yeah, definitely. So let's say Europe is the only, because I think that's kind of who he's aiming this tweet at in terms of like the UK reference. The UK and Europe more broadly is a net importer of what we call middle distillates. So diesel, jet fuel, et cetera. Historically, Europe got that from Russia following 2022 in the invasion of Ukraine. They banned the import of Russian oil and gas. And increasingly, they turn, European importers turn to the Middle East and the Gulf for those supplies.

1:12:55So this is obviously particularly acute for them. You can actually, you know, the United States is a net exporter of diesel and middle distillates. Largely, those current cargoes go to Latin America. Mexico is the largest single recipient. so if if Europe started to overbid those one they'd be paying a very pretty penny for them and you'd essentially be taking those flows away from Latin American importers which are going to be in a different entire world of hurt but I think also what's further going to complicate this is if this crisis continues and if prices get get higher and more volatile I think the one thing that a lot of people a lot of analysts have been watching for is any signs that that the Trump administration is going to pull the trigger on some kind of trade restrictions which obviously i think i mean the ultimate rug pull here would basically be that trump starts the iran war destabilizes the strait leaves and says oh by the way your problem go get your own oil or buy from us they're like okay we'll buy from you and they're like actually we're gonna ban the export of diesel in the first place so go find it somewhere else like this is it's a recurring cycle of kind of bad faith negotiations and diplomacy leading to just a situation that is, you know, sure, the United States, relative to a lot of the rest of the world, is going to be in a relatively better spot because a lot of domestic production.

1:14:12I'm up in Toronto. You know, you have secure supplies of Canadian crude into the U.S., Midwest in particular, that can't get enticed away to other regions. So the United States is in a good spot. But the United States exists in a global economy. And the U.S. can, you know, no matter how strong the U.S. economy is, it's going to feel that buffeting from a global economy if it's under that retrenchment of this recessionary pressure.

1:14:35Rory Johnston:Something I've really learned from you, Rory, is about why an export ban would be a bad idea. You've talked actually about refinery capacity, about the various different types of refineries and what they're built for. Some of it's for foreign oil, some other foreign refineries built for US oil, about how much that would distort the global market. So when people say, when Trump says you can come buy from us, I think what you're trying to hammer home is, yeah, they'll come by from us, but we have to buy ours too. And that's really going to be expensive. So it could still be a$6 a gallon type scenario, depending on where the crude oil market and all of that goes.

1:15:07Rory Johnston:Not to mention, I mean, I know you're not an LNG expert either, but like that is also kind of critical. Last time I checked for Europe, could you just talk through that about why you're kind of screwed either way? If you do an export ban, you really would hurt the US market, you know, kind of forever. And if you don't, we're also still going to have to pay sky high prices yeah just to your point even aside from the crude quality and the kind of you know refinery slate stuff even just on the product side if you know the u.s gulf coast the net exporter of diesel and jet fuel and other products like that whereas the east and west coast are net importers of gasoline um the relaxation and kind of suspension or waving of the jones act could allow some more of those gulf coast barrels to the coasts in a way that could help an autarkic kind of u.s petroleum trade work without completely breaking but fundamentally you need these export markets in order to clear uh additional like let's say excess diesel from the from the u.s gulf coast if you banned the export of that it would initially manifest as what the white house would see as a great thing which is you'd have excess supplies you'd have uh inventories that build up you'd have depressed diesel prices domestically briefly which is going to sound like a great thing for a couple of weeks until that surplus of diesel ends up forcing those Gulf Coast refineries to reduce their run rates because they can't put their diesel anywhere.

1:16:26And that means that you would end up in a situation where you could actually end up running out or having a scarcity of gasoline in the U.S. Gulf Coast, which would be an insane thing. One thing I keep saying is that for advanced economies, this will largely manifest as a debilitating price shock because we will be able to we have very low price sensitivity you these fuels. I like to say, like, I'm driving my kids to school regardless of how high the pump price is. But much of the world does not have that scenario. And they're going to feel the weight of this through supply losses. But as soon as actual scarcity and the lack of supply.

1:16:59But the way you can short circuit that ability for us to pay for these fuels is by beginning to muck with trade. And I think that is the temptation here. And again, that's my worry of if this keeps going, where we could be headed. Yeah, let's put C5 up on the screen. There was an announcement from Russia. They're planning to ban gasoline exports starting on April 1st. You know, Russia, obviously, major oil producer, a significant global supplier. What is the significance of this? Yeah, so I think you're seeing a lot of countries around the world. Russia is one example. China is another example, I think, even more critically, that has banned the export of refined fuels.

1:17:37In 2022, they were a very important swing producer into that diesel starved market. With Russia specifically, Russia isn't typically, it's a very, very minor net export of gasoline. And ever since Ukraine's attacks on domestic refining infrastructure, it's increasingly actually been pushed into a scenario of net imports. So the reason that they're banning exports is to kind of try and hold back as much of that gasoline as possible. The bigger concern would be if you started seeing Russia banning the export of diesel, because unlike gasoline, where they're a minor export player, diesel, they're a major export player, more like a million barrels a day versus, let's say, gas at 100 ,000 barrels a day.

1:18:15And in that scenario, again, diesel and middle distillates, the tightest area of the market, that would, you know, really, really hurt in terms of those refining margins, the cracks, and the prices you and I see at the pump. But one thing on Moscow, I just, I keep repeating this, that Moscow is the single largest beneficiary of the Iran war, both in terms of an overall higher price environment, explicit removal of sanctions by the U.S. Treasury against Russian, and shockingly in this context, even Iranian crude. And I think all of the pressure that the White House had very successfully imposed on the Russian oil industry over the past eight, nine months, that wasn't done in a month.

1:18:55And I think we're back to square one. And I think the one rub to this is that the one person who knows this has been a boon and likely a windfall for Putin is Zelensky. And what we've seen over the past couple of weeks is Ukrainian forces dramatically ramping up attacks against Russian export infrastructure. Last week, Reuters had it at 40 % of Russian oil export infrastructure was offline, was the largest disruption to Russian supply in modern history. Wow. On top of the largest supply shock in the oil market's entire history happening in the Gulf, just entirely separately. So I think there's this pro-cyclical element now that the higher oil prices go, the more pressure Ukraine is going to put on Russian exports.

1:19:35and that's going to put prices higher and again, ramp pressure further.

1:19:38Rory Johnston:Even more geopolitical spiral. My last question for you, man, is let's put C3. I love this map that you put out there. I believe it was made by JP Morgan, which shows the actual, like you said, where the air pocket, which is kind of the way you could think about the supply loss, is moving through the world. So East Africa was already hit. East Asia this week, we're literally about to do an entire block about all of the global chaos and South Korean president being like, I can't sleep at night. Europe next week. And you say North America, two more weeks. Now, Secretary Hegseth took the podium this morning, basically refused to give some sort of a timeline.

1:20:12Rory Johnston:The war is not going to end today, that's for sure. It's going to end sometime in the future. But you're saying two weeks coming up on that. What does that look like? We're already at$4 a gallon here in the U.S. nationally. Let's say two more weeks when that pocket hits us. How does that manifest? Are we going to have supply shortages? Are we going to be Australia with petrol stations that are closed? What's that look like for us? so i think the united states like i was saying earlier is in a beneficial and kind of privileged position that it likely won't immediately run into any major physical shortages but to your point of like u.s average gas price is already back over four bucks a gallon the price pressure is going to keep coming so like that chart shows that that air pocket and just to get to give the the logic of this you know before the war you had tankers leaving the gulf fully living with crude they take upwards of a month or a month and a half to get where they're going um you're not going to feel the loss of those supplies in the closure of the strait until that final tanker reaches your shores uh behind which there's nothing but air that's the air pocket that air pocket is landing in asia likely this week europe next week and north america two weeks after but if you look at that chart north america also doesn't get that much oil from the gulf anymore it used to get a lot more shell revolution and the and growth in canadian production has largely displaced those barrels but we got big we end up back in the situation the united states is still an importer of or is still an importer of various fuels on the coasts and of crude oil in the Gulf because of quality issues those barrels that are imported are going to have furious demand and competition for them already and as as Asia starts drawing down stocks because that air pocket has arrived and then Europe next week that's when you're going to see mounting and ever more pressure and one thing we keep talking about is this disconnect between paper or financial futures and crude and the physical market underlying these industries, that has remained fairly wide.

1:22:03When that air pocket lands, it's gonna kind of wedge those things together. We're gonna see way more of that physical pressure manifest in the prices that we see on our screen. And Rory, if you could, best you can, sort of bottom line it for consumers who are listening, like what should their expectations be over the coming weeks at what they're gonna pay at the pump? It's going to be a very, very expensive driving season. Like, you know, easily the most expensive driving season since 2022. and if this continues through April and further, we will likely, we will very, very likely see all-time high pump prices and surely all-time high diesel prices in the United States.

1:22:38Great.

1:22:39Rory Johnston:All right. Well, you know, heading into good weather, but - We got a notable plan. We trust you and you are not a sensational person. That's one of the reasons I really enjoy speaking with you. Well, he is a sensational person, but not a sensational list. Thank you. He's not, what's the term permable? You're not a perma-bull in the oil space. Everybody go follow Rory and subscribe to the Substack. Thanks, man. Thank you for joining us. Thanks for having me.

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