6/16/26: Anthropic CEO Pressed On AI In Military Use, Gas Prices Here To Stay, MAGA Grandma Turns On Trump

25:32So it will be a further delay before traffic fully returns to normal. You also have a situation where, you know, everybody's stockpiles have dramatically diminished. So there's very low levels in our strategic petroleum reserve as well as countries around the country. So there's going to be, you know, further increased demand as things come back to normal. All of this is to say that it may still be a while before things truly return to anything approximating what they were before the war. Right. And if we look at some of the oil markets and others, so for example, Brent crude is currently trading around$80 a barrel.

26:09I think that West Texas somewhere around 70. We should begin to see gas prices come, which is good. We're going to see it's still about$4 a gallon nationally. It'll probably normalize around$3.50 or so. But that's the problem is$3.50 is still at least a dollar higher or so than where things were before the war began. And people are going to remember that they still had to pay those 100 days of$4 a gallon gasoline as things continue. The important point that they make inside of this story around the Strait of Hormuz and the resumption of oil traffic is the amount of slack in the system now is basically completely gone.

26:48For example, let's put D2 up here on the screen. This is the U.S. Energy Secretary who was speaking just a week ago, who said, quote, it will take many months to get back to normal after this energy crisis. And the specific thing that he points to is around the shifting of supply chain. And so what we were talking about a lot of time during the blockade was it takes like 40-something days from a tanker to get from Asia to the United States, and then another 40 days, I could be wrong on the exact number of days, but something like that, to go back. And so, so many different supply chains have been redirected from Asia to America or from America to Asia that reshifting and coming back to the Strait of America, it takes months.

27:34And there's also all the excess oil that was in the system is gone, basically. And the example of this I think we have is about, what was it? Yeah, D5, please, that we can put up here. You can actually see in this chart what we have is the barrels of crude in the U.S. Petroleum Reserve are literally at their lowest level since the 1980s. So since Ronald Reagan was president, the U.S. Petroleum Reserve has never been this low. And what the oil executives say is that with all these dwindling stockpiles, it basically just means you're going to have some level of demand destruction. for oil facilities and others, as we've described, we still don't even know what level they were operating at.

28:16Rory made a real point of telling us here on the show, it's not that simple to go from 10 % to 80. You have all the storage, which is backed up. And if any of those refineries were taken completely to zero, that's not, I mean, it takes a while for everything to spin back up. And you still have all these shifts. The UAE left OPEC, they're gonna be pumping as much as they possibly can. Saudi Arabia, you know, and others, it could be even a price war, which could cause problems. So there's just going to be chaos, I think, in the markets for probably at least a year or so to come. So they say in this piece, too, that, you know, a lot of oil and natural gas producers, they, you know, some of them shut their wells.

28:57Some of the oil fields, there was significant damage that occurred during the war as well. So, you know, are you going to do the difficult work of bringing everything back online, of repairing everything when things continue to be uncertain, at least for the 60-day period? According to this New York Times report, Gulf countries slash up to 15 million barrels a day of oil production this spring. That's nearly 15 percent of global supply. So you have to judge, okay, is it worth going back to the production levels we had, which is not a simple and straightforward thing? Or are we going to wait a little bit longer and see if this thing really comes to fruition and see how this all completely shakes out?

29:36You know, with regard to traffic in the Strait of Hormuz, we can go ahead and put D4 up on the screen here as well, because you can see that we are still a long way from getting back to the normal level of traffic within the Strait. This tweet says, claims about Hormuz reopening are exactly why we built this. As ships start moving through the strait with AIS transpotters on, you'll see it in the index updated every 30 minutes. So this will certainly be something to pay attention to as we see how companies read the political dynamics and how certain they are that this deal is going to come through and it's going to ultimately be solid.

30:17The other thing I was looking at this morning, Sagar, is, you know, some aspects of the energy market are likely not to go back to normal ever, Because I think just like there were a lot of learnings from Ukraine and Russia, there was a big realization here, certainly in other places as well, that as long as you are reliant on global energy markets, your whole economy can be held hostage, right? You are truly at risk. And so during the course of this war, there was a massive increase in demand for Chinese solar panels and for EV cars. That technology has really come of age now where it can be a reliable and affordable alternative, both at sort of the nationwide level and also at the individual consumer level.

31:02And so countries that have started to shift in that direction are not likely to shift back because they don't want to find themselves in this situation again. And the technology has advanced even in just the several years since the Ukraine war began to make it a much more feasible alternative. So I guess thank you to Trump for helping to speed up the renewable energy transition. We appreciate your service, sir. Dean Baker. I think he was from The Washington Post. He wrote this very interesting story about how BYD should award Trump salesman of the year. And I was reading the data. It's unbelievable the amount of cars that they have been able to export and to sell.

31:41Actually, in the interim last six months, they're actually rolling out all kinds of new technology, which, you know, I've been wanting to cover some of this stuff for a while. One of them is a flash charger, which can take your car from 10 % to 70 % in five minutes. That's amazing. I mean, on a supercharger with a Tesla, I mean, you're probably looking, I did it this weekend, at least 15 minutes or so. And that's assuming, you know, there's some idiot parked next to you, even when there's five other stalls that are open. Or that the chargers are broken. Or the chargers. Yeah. I mean, I will say, the Tesla chargers are never broken, but the, what is it, EV America or not Never Broken, but I forget exactly what they are.

32:18The private other companies are awful in terms of the infrastructure. But I saw that and I was like, man, I mean, if you make charging similar to just filling up a gas tank, that changes the whole ballgame. I even saw, I think they can go 10 to 90, I think in 10 minutes, which is shocking, right? For hundreds of miles of charge to be able to go. Like, I don't know. I mean, I see that. And I see also you have this feeling of abandonment by the United States in all of these different countries. We talked a lot about Asia over the last several months. Well, it's going to be very difficult for them to keep a superior product and to really just like align itself with America over this period.

33:02I really do think, you know, that this, we will live with the consequences of that for a really long time. On top of Tesla, I mean, if you look, they don't even want to be a car company anymore. That's one kind of thing which is crazy. They want to become a robo-taxi and robot company. They want nothing to do with the car business. They've ended the production of some of their models explicitly just to move to, what is it, CyberCab, their robo-taxi, and then to robots. They say it in their own production documents. So they're almost acquiescing in certain ways. So anyway, yeah, I mean, it's a tangent, but I was fascinated by that in terms of how the war could significantly accelerate EV adoption in the rest of the world, which is de facto good for China and for their market.

33:44I mean, the only reason our domestic car producers are competitive in the EV market at all is because we cannot buy BYD. I mean, it would be over for them if we were allowed to purchase their vehicles because they're just more technologically advanced. And, yeah, if we had the infrastructure here and we had that level of tech, it would be, you know, only a matter of time before the full transition happened because the technology genuinely is superior. Like not having to go to the gas station fill up is great. There's less maintenance on the car, not having to get the little light coming on. Oh, you've got to get your oil changed again.

34:16It's great. The way they drive is fantastic. It is going to be the future. It's just a matter of time. And, you know, the Trump administration has this like ideological war on EVs and any sort of renewable energy that has precluded us from moving more aggressively in that direction. But ultimately, I think that the technology will win out. Yeah, it's certainly possible. All right, let's get to the polls. Apple Vacations, where your story starts. The Splash into Savings event from Apple Vacations is here. Now through June 25th, save up to$150 on vacation packages, plus instant savings at select resorts in Mexico, the Caribbean, Central America, and top U.S.

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36:02One dollar a day premium based on 2024 average new policyholder data for accident and illness plans, pets age zero to ten. Very interesting interview with a MAGA grandma who was a big Trump supporter and now says she is so upset over the price increases that she is seeing and the Trump economy that she is having literal panic attacks. Let's take a listen to what she had to say. I actually have panic attacks. I've had a couple this past week and I get very emotional over it. I don't want to work anymore, but I can't afford to retire. Obviously, President Trump is immensely wealthy, has been wealthy since he was born.

36:44Yeah. Do you think he understands? No. No. He hasn't lived it to understand it. He sees it. He has not lived it. He needs to live it. Wear the clothes. Wear the shoes. Wear your Walmart clothes. Wear your Walmart shoes. Do your thrift store shopping. Don't eat steaks. I don't get to go out to dinner. It's not an overnight thing, but it's been two years now. You said you'd bring down the grocery prices. Literally, I must be the most angry person when I grocery shop because I buy the same things every week. And I see it jump every week. It is not every couple months. It's literally every week. So she is not happy.

37:32Hard to imagine that woman enthusiastically turning up to vote for Republicans in the midterms, given her upset over their handlers. That means she'll vote for Democrats. No, probably not. Is she one that just says, you know what? I got other things to do on Election Day. I'm just not showing up. This party does not deserve my support at this moment. That seems very likely, if not probable. And there was a write of The New York Times of their recent polling with regard to a group that has long been considered Trump's strongest base of support, which is the white working class. And they are in a very different mindset for these midterms versus where they were for the 2018 midterms.

38:09We can put this next element up on the screen. So back in 2018, working class voters approved of Trump on the economy by 30 plus points. So whatever else concerns they may have had, they were like, look, this is working for me. OK, I feel like I've got more money in my pocket. I feel like things are speeding along by 30 points. OK, now they disapprove of his handling of the economy by as much as that margin. So minus 30 points. And then they have a deeper look at the way some of these voters are feeling about Trump. And that really is a night and day difference between this term and the last time he was in office, where I think a big part of the reason he got back into office is because people looked at that time and were like, I felt pretty good about the economy then, and I feel pretty bad about the economy now.

38:56So, you know, this guy's his businessman. That's his core brand. Now, between not only the tariffs, but obviously the tariffs and the Iran war, people feel completely differently, where his lowest approval ratings are on the economy, on inflation, and on cost of living. So when you consider, you know, how will these midterms compare with what was a very negative of a midterm result for them in 2018, I think all the signs are there that this will be an even bigger wave for Democrats. I think what's interesting about the working class polls, and if you read very deeply into all of these numbers, the blue collar white voters, isn't that MAGA grandma is like a perfect example?

39:34Now, these people are not Democrats. It's actually very clear. And I think even one of our guests yesterday was talking about this as well with young men. Yeah, Luke was saying this. Yeah, Luke was like, look, these people aren't Dems, but they're still mad. And being mad, you know, sometimes they can be converted a significant slice. And ultimately, as the trite expression goes, it comes down to turnout. But in 2018, the white working class had a very like low drop in the amount of approval that Donald Trump has had. But now, I mean, you're near 40 percent in terms of the reservoir of goodwill.

40:07It's completely evaporated. I also think it was such a potent talking point back in 2024. Make America 2019 again, how could somebody not want that? I mean, you had low inflation, you had decent growth. Yes. What was the famous saying that they would all, they'd be like, all I had were some bad tweets. It's like, yeah, okay. I mean, seems tolerable in comparison to what we've just had to experience over the last four years. But now when you have a bad economy, you have no reduction in inflation. You actually have an increase in the overall inflation. You have no change in overall housing. And you have, oh, how long has Trump been in office?

40:42Almost two years. That was a year and a half or so, an almost total and complete focus at this point on foreign affairs with the signature achievement and, you know, memory. Ultimately, when we write the history books, you know, on the admin, this is it. And everybody knows it, including the people who are involved from the Israeli side and from, you know, the anti-war side. Everybody knows that war ultimately defines everything about your presidency. And so that's what he decided to make his ultimate gamble on. And with the economy continuing in the direction that it already was even before the Iran war, on top of what just happened, it's very obvious that even those people coming back, it's going to be very, very difficult.

41:22You would have to see a massive material change in the U.S. economy, which on autopilot, we know that's not happening, absent significant government intervention. Yeah, well, and this ties in with the block we just did about how, look, you may have a deal. It may even come together in 60 days. there's still going to be months, and the Trump administration is outright saying this, months of disruption to the energy markets. Things are not going to just go back to the way that they were. And voters understand where to place the blame because he, I mean, I think because he has such a larger-than-life personality, takes such personal control over everything anyway, and then also because the tariffs and the war are directly laid at his feet.

42:03so you know why you're paying more at the pump. And the other peace dogger is he hasn't done himself any favors rhetorically. When you come out and you say, quote, I love the inflation. Yes, yeah. When you come out and you say, I don't think about Americans' financial situation at all, you don't think Democrats are going to run that on a loop until Election Day 100%, as they should. And you can claim it was out of context. We played for you the entire context. No, he was he was articulating exactly what it sounded like he was articulating. And I think that comes through in that woman's comments as well, where she says he hasn't lived it.

42:39So he doesn't understand. I want him to go out and wear the Walmart clothes and know what it's like for us struggling to get by. Another area that's interesting, put the last element here up on the screen, is there was a lot of fanfare about the significant gains that Trump had made among working class Latino men in particular, but among Latinos overall. Man, that has also fallen off a cliff. You now have 64 percent of Latinos with a disapproval of Trump. Only 34 percent approve. 77 percent of voters between ages 18 and 29 disapprove of Trump compared to 21 percent who approve. So also the vaunted, you know, improvement with young voters that has all dissipated.

43:20Again, that doesn't mean these people have become like, you know, resistance liberal Democrats, super excited to vote for like Roy Cooper in North Carolina or whatever. But are these tend to be infrequent voters? They're just not going to show up. They're just they're they're going to register. They're discussed by staying home on Election Day. The only group where Trump has maintained solid support is with Republicans. And even there, the percent that say that they strongly approve of him has fallen. And that is a really significant change from the entirety of his political career since he really came on the scene in 2014, 2015.

43:57So that also is going to have an impact on midterm enthusiasm and who ultimately shows up to vote. The thing of the, you know, I don't know whether he truly doesn't care, but he certainly acts like he doesn't really care what happens in the midterms anyway. I guess you could make an argument that the very fact that he made such a push for a deal right now is because he was concerned. about the political impact, but there's just no real sign that this is something he's focused on. I have no inside information. This is my theory of observing this man now for a decade, depressing. I've spent my entire professional life trying to psychoanalyze this person.

44:33I think the way that JD and Rick Coff and all those guys got to him was this. Sir, and look at the way that they're selling it. We are going to transform the entire Middle East. The way that they sold it to him is like, you will be - The legacy building project. It's like you will bring peace, the peacemaker, Trump the peacemaker, to Persia, the first of his name, Donald Trump, to march in the gates of Persia. And he loves that, right? He loved the idea of conquering it. He loves even more the idea of normalizing relations with the whole region. That's why only Trump could attack them, demand unconditional surrender, and then turn them into an economic powerhouse.

45:11Like literally nobody else could do that. But that's how they appeal to his vanities. Like, you will appear in this historic peace deal, and that's the way that we'll get everything going. The Israelis did it to him. That's how they got him to attack in the first place. So, you know, the other side basically did the same thing. I don't think he cares whatsoever about the midterms because the administration has given up on domestic concerns. Again, like, if you vote for Republicans in the midterm elections, what are you voting for? Right. Like, what? Well, and it's not like— There's nothing on the table.

45:39There's not even, like, a deal. Nothing. Yeah. And the only thing that they really worked with Congress on at all was the big, beautiful bill. Correct. Which is gone. Which is done. And has been wiped out. Right. Yeah. So, yeah, I mean, he does when he wants to do something, he just does it through executive order and implements it and then dares the courts to pull him back, which they mostly haven't done. So he doesn't really care that much about Congress. he himself is immune from criminal investigations of any sort of you know wrongdoing or as many corrupt dealings etc so while obviously it's going to be uncomfortable for a lot of republicans who are facing subpoenas and various investigations if democrats are in control like trump doesn't care about them either so i i think it's genuine when that was another thing he said he said i don't care about them at terms remember he said he said that and i think he's right i think he's telling the truth there.

46:31I don't think that he thinks about it all that much because if he did, then you might see some different moves. I don't think he'd be out there saying, I love the inflation and I don't care about your financial situation if he was really thinking about what political consequences would be. I will say he really should care because it's going to be Clinton 2.0 if the Dems win. I mean, it really is going to be a nightmare. Well, the reason he should care is because of that legacy piece because, you know, I mean, it's already, his legacy is already going going to be a mess, whether he knows it or not.

46:58But if you spend the last two years of your presidency just having, you know, various of your officials like under scrutiny for corrupt dealings and, you know, if it's just investigation after investigation and that's what the entire news cycle is about day after day after day, it's, yeah, it's not going to be a great legacy builder for you. Yeah. I mean, seriously, people should recall like the Clinton administration, they're not there's some modern histories of uh 96 to 2000 it was a non-stop the kenneth star nonsense like it just went on forever like that is what modern fox news is built off of lewinsky and ken star and whitewater and the rose law like it was oh my god like no no president would want to live through that i mean you can even see remember some of the obama administration too whenever he had to deal with the Republican Congress.

47:50I mean, it was over for him. They tried to do the grand bargain on Social Security. And from that point forward, that's why he did the Iran deal. Actually, in retrospect, that's why he became obsessed with foreign affairs. He couldn't do anything else. So that's just with the House. Now imagine with both the House and the Senate. Yeah. Oh, my. It'll pass nothing. It'll turn into a nightmare. You have total subpoena power. every day of your White House and administration will be dealt with a new attack, a new hearing, a new trial. I mean, they'll put them on trial. I mean, who even knows, right?

48:22And they have, you know, all of the ability, every single member of Congress will be required or every single cabinet official will be living before Capitol Hill. Every guy who ever served in Doge will have a million dollars in private legal bills. Like it's going to be bad. Epstein investigation, cover-up investigations, all the stuff that he clearly did not want to talk about. is going to be drag front and center every single day. And I think at this point, I think Democrats will take the House. I think it's more likely than not that they take the Senate as well, which is really crazy because the landscape for them was so difficult coming in.

48:55They have to win in places like Ohio and Alaska or Texas to be able to take the Senate. And yet I think given the numbers that we just showed you, I think that is more likely than not. But hey, you never know. We've seen crazy things happen. I mean, Harry Enten gave that warning on the generic ballot. He was like, look, Dems are, you know, they're doing well, but they're still not exactly where they need to be because there's still a lot of dissatisfaction with the Democratic Party. I think the problem with this analysis is that people may not like the Democratic Party. People didn't love the Republican Party either in 2010, but they hated Obama or they stayed home.

49:28So it could work out to their benefit. All right. Thank you guys so much for watching. We appreciate it. We're about to do the AMA, so you could stick around for that. Or I guess you will have watched it already by the time this comes out. They'll be at Wednesday's show. They'll see you then.

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