7/13/26: Trump Says US Will Take Over Hormuz, Freedom Fuel Stations, Lindsey Graham Dead

23:31Every time that the negotiators try to throw the IRGC under the bus, they're like, oh, it was just a few commanders who fired into the strait. They fire again. Nobody is constraining them. You can, by the way, thank America for that because the last person who could actually restrain them was the previous Ayatollah who's now dead, who was the actual cautious leader of Iran who did no war nor peace strategy. Now you actually have people inside the regime who either can't be restrained or potentially the current Ayatollah, whose own father was murdered, who can just say, OK, go, let's go. And he's not going to do anything to restrain them.

24:05So we have no idea how it's going to happen. And let's get, as you said, to the freedom fuel and the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, which remains a serious problem. And gas still very stubbornly high here in the United States. What's up, fam? I'm sports journalist Ari Chambers. Hey, what's up, y 'all? It's your girl, Sam J. And we're the hosts of Everyone Watches Women's Sports, a new podcast from Together and I Heart Women's Sports. Because let's be real, women's sports is giving us way too much to talk about these days. The highlights, the rivalries, the breakout starts, the moments that take over your entire timeline.

24:38And the conversations that start during the game and somehow keep going all week. Every week, we're breaking down the biggest stories across women's sports. We'll give you our takes, our debates, and probably a few disagreements. We'll talk to athletes, celebrate big moments, and get into what's happening on and off the field, court, track, and beyond. Because we're not just interested in what happened, we're interested in why everyone's talking about it. Because everyone watches women's sports. So if you're already a fan, or you're just getting into the game, there's a seat for you right here.

25:09Listen to Everyone Watches Women's Sports on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Bill, why is my eye twitching? Does this mean I'm in perimenopause? Maybe I have adult ADHD. I need to look this up. Where's my phone? Juliana, your phone is hot to the touch. I think it's asking you for a break. You know what? Maybe I should just ask ChatGPT. Or maybe we can ask an actual human. Yes, like a couple sex therapist. Whoa, that escalated quickly, but okay. Because I have questions. We have questions. And I bet everyone has questions. Like, is it normal to sleep in separate bedrooms?

25:46We do that. How about this one? Is bribing your kids bad parenting or just negotiating? Oh, and I still do need to know, why was my poop green that one time? Hypothetically, right? Okay, well, instead of letting the internet guess, we've got actual people answering these exact questions. And laughing with us has got to be better than spending three hours down a rabbit hole online. Listen to Bill and Juliana. The podcast. On the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your podcasts.

26:20I'm Emily Oster. I'm an economist and data expert. And I'm Perry Wilson. I'm a medical doctor. And this is our new podcast, Wellness Actually. Because you're getting a staggering amount of health and wellness information nowadays, and some of it is awesome. And some of it is, well, actually bulls**t. Fortunately, we're both people who know how to read studies, parse data, and can tell you what's worth trying out and what you can safely ignore. Each episode, we tackle the health news of the week and then take a deeper dive into a misunderstood health and wellness topic like... What's the deal with peptides?

26:54What's the deal with GLP-1s? What's the deal with creatine? What's the deal with cupping? What's the deal with sleep? So join us for a weekly dose of sanity. It might actually be just what the doctor... Or the economist... Ordered. Listen to Wellness Actually on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

27:18So White House recently put out this video touting a chain of quote-unquote freedom fuel gas stations, which are offering gas prices much lower than the rest of the market. Let's go ahead and take a look at this video. I saved money. I had to go back in and get my change. I thought gas was more expensive, but it's not. So thanks, Trump, for saving me some money. We're here at the first Freedom Fuel Network gas station right here in Philadelphia, leading the charge to lower gas prices at$3.47. That's for our 47th president, President Donald J. Trump. The price of gas here is 50 cents lower than the Pennsylvania average gas price.

27:59Fourth of July, the gas prices are coming down, which is great. I am very happy about the cheap gas prices. Happy Fourth of July. Hopefully everyone has a great holiday. Super pumped the gas prices are lowered. I'm just grateful. Right now, we're in a difficult time in this world, but it's nice to see some stability that we can enjoy. Definitely appreciate the lower gas prices. Oh, yeah, definitely. When I saw it, I thought it was fake news, but I'm glad it's true. I definitely couldn't believe my eyes, because when I just rolled past, I'm actually taking a trip down the shore, so I wasn't even going to come and get the gas, but I'm glad I did, now and it just saved me a lot of money.

28:33Thanks a lot, Trump. Just keep doing what you're doing. Doing a good job. Thank you, President Trump. Thank you for helping our country. It's President Donald J. Trump leading the charge to lower gas prices right here at Freedom Fuel Network's gas stations. Okay, so this went out from an official White House account and there's a lot to me that's interesting about this. I mean, first of all, I think, Sagar, the politics of it are very interesting. It exposes the fact they see this as a major problem. Like they needed to do something, put out some propaganda of like, we're bringing prices down.

29:01which, by the way,$3.47, of course, in honor of our 47th president. $3.47 is not— Oh, I didn't even pick up on that. Oh, you didn't pick up on that. Oh, sorry. Of course, yes. Okay, got it. Although, apparently, some of the stations have already upped their price a little bit to like$3.50-something, according to the latest reporting. But in any case, it was originally$3.47. It's very mysterious what is going on here with the New York Times reporting up on the screen because the White House claims they don't have anything to do with this, that they're just celebrating this, whoever is behind this chain of like 25 gas stations that have lowered the price to such a point that they are likely losing money on, you know, for every car that fills up there, they're actually losing money at this price because of what the wholesale price for oil is at this point.

29:51So they say Trump is promising freedom fuel for$3.47 a gallon. Who is behind it? These are different gas stations that had a bunch of different branding that are now in this Freedom Fuel Network umbrella. A Delaware corporation was just set up for this Freedom Fuel Network in the past couple of weeks. The funders, investors, whoever's behind this are being kept secret. So no one really knows what is going on here. Now, it does appear that there is an asset manager that owns at least some significant number or did own, potentially still does own some significant number of these gas stations. And it is an asset manager that Trump just happens to have millions of dollars of investments in.

30:38So you have that tie in here, potentially, you know, corrupt angle as well. But certainly an indication that they realize this gas price thing is a major, major problem for them. And they're desperate to score any kind of a propaganda win on that front. Yeah, it's very interesting. Let's put B3 up here. So Politico also did the investigation, like who is paying for this? And nobody can really figure it out who's footing the bill. Because remember, we're talking about almost a 50 cent cut. And you may even ask like, okay, so in the gas market, how come there's no race to price? And it's like, because they run on a very standard margin, the way that it all works, it doesn't really enable you to do this.

31:17That's why this is so extraordinary. And somebody out there is got this 25 stations, which are only in southeastern Pennsylvania and South Jersey. I think that that is a very targeted place. Southeastern PA is like the definition of swing country. That's exactly where the you had the classic like Obama, Trump, Biden, Trump voter who exists. And that's why it appears to be concentrated in this region. What they say is, they quote, we've had members who have, this is like according to the New Jersey Energy Markets Group, we had members who have reached out to ask what it is. I have not been able to find any answers.

31:55The executive director of their own energy markets group. So as you said, it's a Delaware company that was formed on June 23rd. That's a week before it was promoted. The White House won't name who it is, describing it as a private company. The officials said there is no defined timeline for how long these discounts will be offered. They will refuse to connect representatives of Freedom Fuel Network with Politico. Freedom Fuel, they just say, is a patriotic company doing a good thing for drivers. I'm sure that's all it is. And as you said, this sketchy affiliate, something called Blue Owl, a New York-based asset company.

32:30Trump has sold millions of dollars in Blue Owl stock through its subsidiaries. Blue Owl owns hundreds of gas stations operated by a Georgia-based gas supplier and retailer called Mountain Express Oil, but it declared bankruptcy in 2023 and declined to expand nationwide. So nobody knows anything about Blue Owl. The White House claims Blue Owl has nothing to do with Freedom Fuel. But it is one of those stations which did previously hold host to an American Trump White House official at an unveiling ceremony last Friday. So we could start to put some of the pieces together here about what's going on.

33:12He sold some Blue Owl stock last year. He still has millions of dollars of Blue Owl holdings. They seem to be Trump friendly. It says at least seven of these stations that are now in the Freedom Fuel Network are owned by affiliates of Blue Owl. So that seems to be the most likely thing here. I don't know. My own theory, and this is just a theory, is that this is some Trump aligned billionaire. He talked to them. They hatched this idea. Whoever this person is that is fronting the cash that would be required to sustain these losses because that is what's going on here. they're definitely selling this fuel at a loss at this point, wants some other favor from Trump or just wants to be in his good graces in general.

33:53And so this is a, you know, you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours sort of the situation as most things in the Trump White House are at this point. So that's the best I can figure. But, you know, obviously, in terms of the impact on gas prices nationwide, it is going to be nil. I don't know how long whoever is funding this is going to be willing to put up with these losses. As I mentioned before, some of the gas stations have already increased their prices. And one theory was, well, you know, sometimes if you have like at the larger gas, like Wawa or Sheetz, where you have a large offering, you know, they're selling sandwiches and all sorts of other stuff inside, you can lower the gas prices and you can sustain a loss because what you're really making the money on is then people going inside and buying a sandwich and getting their coffee and whatever.

34:38But a lot of these stations are just, you know, type that you would see in neighborhoods where they don't really even have a store. They might sell like a few candy bars effectively and some Gatorades or some Monster Energy drinks, but not a large convenience station. So it wouldn't make sense from an economic perspective to sell the fuel at a loss just to bring people into the convenience store. The majority of them are not operating on that model. So I don't know. There's also theoretically in New Jersey, there's actually a law against selling under the market price because then what you don't want a big station coming in and undercutting all of the local retailers and being able to sustain that long enough to push all of them out of business.

35:18So that could be enforced at some point. But in any case, very interesting, very mysterious, very noteworthy to me that Trump is pushing this and the White House is pushing this from official White House. Imagine celebrating 350 a gallon. Like, that's crazy. That's the other aspect of it. It was already 280 a gallon. It was cheap. Can we put B5 up here just to show people? Gas is still$3.87 a gallon nationally. Still$5.38 a gallon in California. All of those red states, it's either$4 or$5 a gallon. When I say red, in terms of the graphic, if you're just listening, which is all on the West Coast in addition to New York and to Illinois, where gas all remains above$4 a gallon nationally.

35:59Some of the cheapest gas in the country is in Texas, 342. It's still not cheap, right? So they're barely selling it in Pennsylvania for slightly below or slightly around what it has sold in Texas. And in Pennsylvania, the price in the entire state, the average price is 396 a gallon. So it's still right around$4. And very similar in Jersey. What is that, four or five months now of almost$4 a gallon gasoline? That's incredibly detrimental to the overall pocketbook. Last thing on New Jersey, have you experienced this where they don't let you pump your own gas? So, look, I'm usually on the side of small business and all that, but I can't stand that.

36:35I've got to be honest. It's like New Jersey and Oregon, the only two states where they make you do it. And I'm like, this is madness. Just let people pump their own gas. What are we doing? I feel uncomfortable when people do things for me that I'm capable of doing. I totally agree. I feel uncomfortable with that. It's weird. Yeah. It's third world behavior. That's what they do in India because everybody needs a job. You know? It's like that's what they let you do, which is fine. I mean, they have an overpopulation problem over there, but this is New Jersey. Like, I don't need somebody to pump my own gas.

37:00I have an electric car, so it doesn't matter anymore. I did recently stop in New Jersey, and I was, like, walking through the parking lot, and there's all those, you know, those attendants just standing there. I'm like, what do you guys do all day? You just pump gas? Like, this is crazy. Anyway, my personal soapbox. Last thing here, just to zoom out to the broader geopolitical perspective, put B4 up on the screen, you can see the Strategic Petroleum Reserve still at very, very low levels. So we have not been able to refill it to the extent that would be necessary to provide a large buffer. This is the sort of thing that the Iranians will be paying close, close attention to because that is their whole bet, is that, you know, the gas prices are a big problem, that the oil market is a major pain point for the U.S., for the global economy.

37:43And we've been able to buffer the pain for the American consumer somewhat through the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. And also, by the way, through China just randomly deciding that they're going to import a lot less oil. And we don't know why and we don't know how long that will last. So that's a big question mark that hangs over this whole thing, whether they will continue bailing us out the way that they have effectively been doing. But that is when the Iranians, you know, when we talk about, oh, they think Trump will blink first. They think that the American consumer pain and the global economic pain will force concessions from the American side.

38:20This is what they're looking at. And so this is an indication that their logic has a lot to it, that Trump sees this as a major, major political issue heading into the midterm. This is where I wonder if the Iranians made a big mistake because, you know, J.E. kind of let the game, he let the cat out of the bag in that interview when he was like, look, we're just going to take these few months to, you know, restock. Well, he's kind of right. I mean, in terms of the SPR, we haven't done it. It would be a huge bull signal for the price of oil if the government had to start refilling. But I would not put it past the Trump administration to just drain the SPR as far as it could possibly go.

38:56I mean, they're getting close to it. I know they're at minimum operating levels, but that's a guidance. I think they would just keep draining it, honestly. Because what are they going to do? They're going to keep—to buy oil at$4 a gallon to refill, it would be a disaster. I mean, there'd be billions and billions, hundreds of billions of dollars is basically what it would cost. It would be insane, and he would take an enormous hit. And it would cause gas prices to go up. Of course. Because obviously you're adding a gigantic customer to the demand pool. I don't know. I mean, I'm no expert on the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, but what I've been reading is that when you get down to it, there's a theory of what the minimum operating level is.

39:31But, yeah, it's not like it's really been tested, but you start to hop around. Some of the stuff you're getting at the bottom is kind of like the dregs. it's mixed in with other things, these salt caverns that it's stored in. If you don't have sufficient pressure, they can start to collapse. So it becomes a real question mark the closer you get to that minimum operating level. Because it could be that you could draw down even further than that. It could be that they're wrong and you actually can't draw down even that much without causing significant problems. So we're getting down to that. What scares me the most is not Iran.

39:58It's something else. Is that that's why it exists. That's why you don't drain it. Like, is it because you just don't know? Like, full-blown, I mean, who knows? Look at Russia. Russia stopped exporting diesel all of a sudden. It's like, oh, now we got diesel. Prices are going to go up. So Ukraine hits one wrong thing and boom, you know, a bunch of stuff goes offline. China, Taiwan, that's the predictables. North Korea, like who, no one has any idea where, like wherever the rest of the oil is coming from. What if China's SPR is now very low? They've been, you know, using all their own supply. Tomorrow they're like, okay, we have to buy again.

40:30I mean, all of a sudden, you know, you go to buy 50 a gallon or something like that. You're striking in Yemen when the Houthis say, you know what? Exactly. Fuck you. We're going to close to the Babam on top straight. Enjoy that. Anything can happen. It could come from anywhere around the world. I mean, it could even be a natural disaster, right? Like some pipeline or somewhere. There's an earthquake and it takes a hit. Like this is why the thing exists in the first place. And that is when you should panic because then you've got no slack and you're looking at$7,$8. We're here. We're in hurricane season.

40:57There you go. All of those refineries on the Gulf Coast. All of that is. And this is the thing with Trump that we've talked about many times before is all of these problems are of his own making. He has been actually tremendously lucky in terms of not having a lot of like major outside forces that have created crises. All the crises are just things that he decided himself to do. And all we know from history is something is going to happen. Like Katrina, it just happened, right? And then it becomes about your management. Ukraine, it happened to Biden. COVID happened to Trump. Like you have no you have no control.

41:31And so when you create a crisis of your own making and then an external crisis hits that, that's where if you look at the history books and things, that's when things start to get into collapse territory. And it becomes point fingers whose problem is this already. Trump is already a very low approval ratings. And that's when you have to start doing crazy shit like export bans and, you know, all kinds of absolute, you know, government takeovers of the entire industry. When you start to get to that, you wreck the market for all time in the future, and it becomes incredibly dangerous. This is literally why we have the SPR in the first place is to make sure we don't have some crazy Middle Eastern shock that ends up, what was it, like alternative license plate?

42:12Oh, if your number ends in odd, you can fill up today. It's a nightmare. That's why so many people were so upset by it. There you go. All right, let's get to Lindsey Graham. What's up, fam? I'm sports journalist Ari Chambers. Hey, what's up, y 'all? It's your girl, Sam Jay. And we're the hosts of Everyone Watches Women's Sports, a new podcast from Together and I Heart Women's Sports. Because let's be real, women's sports is giving us way too much to talk about these days. The highlights, the rivalries, the breakout stars, the moments that take over your entire timeline. And the conversations that start during the game and somehow keep going all week.

42:47Every week, we're breaking down the biggest stories across women's sports. We'll give you our tapes, our debates, and probably a few disagreements. We'll talk to athletes, celebrate big moments, and get into what's happening on and off the field, court, track, and beyond. Because we're not just interested in what happened, we're interested in why everyone's talking about it. Because everyone watches women's sports. So if you're already a fan, or you're just getting into the game, there's a seat for you right here. Listen to Everyone Watches Women's Sports on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

43:22Bill, why is my eye twitching? Does this mean I'm in perimenopause? Maybe I have adult ADHD. I need to look this up. Where's my phone? Juliana, your phone is hot to the touch. I think it's asking you for a break. You know what? Maybe I should just ask ChatGPT. Or maybe we can ask an actual human. Yes, like a couple sex therapist. Whoa, that escalated quickly, but okay. Because I have questions. We have questions. And I bet everyone has questions. Like, is it normal to sleep in separate bedrooms? We do that. How about this one? Is bribing your kids bad parenting or just negotiating? Oh, and I still do need to know, why was my poop green that one time?

44:00Hypothetically, right? Okay, well, instead of letting the internet guess, we've got actual people answering these exact questions. And laughing with us has got to be better than spending three hours down a rabbit hole online. Listen to Bill and Juliana. The podcast. On the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your podcasts.

44:25I'm Emily Oster. I'm an economist and data expert. And I'm Perry Wilson. I'm a medical doctor. And this is our new podcast, Wellness Actually. Because you're getting a staggering amount of health and wellness information nowadays, and some of it is awesome. And some of it is, well, actually bullshit. Fortunately, we're both people who know how to read studies, parse data, and can tell you what's worth trying out and what you can safely ignore. Each episode, we tackle the health news of the week and then take a deeper dive into a misunderstood health and wellness topic like... What's the deal with peptides?

44:59What's the deal with GLP-1s? What's the deal with creatine? What's the deal with cupping? What's the deal with sleep? So join us for a weekly dose of sanity. It might actually be just what the doctor... Or the economist... Ordered. Listen to Wellness Actually on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

45:23Okay, turning now to Senator Lindsey Graham. Let's go ahead and start with this, put it up here on the screen. His office announced early on Sunday morning a statement from the office of Senator Graham. On the evening of Saturday, July 11, Senator Lindsey Graham passed away from a brief and a sudden illness. Senator Graham's family appreciates prayers at this time. As for privacy during this incredibly difficult period, a follow-up from Senator Graham's office indicates that he died from an aortic dissection after struggling with a cardiovascular disease. So he was 71 years old and suffered a massive heart attack, which my medical friends tell me is, you know, it's not unsurvivable, but it's very, very difficult to survive.

46:06So obviously - What I saw is if you aren't in a hospital, very unlikely you're going to make it. Exactly. It's obviously a bad situation. Indicative aging, diet, et cetera. You should do some, you know, your own research, you know, just in terms of 71 years old. It seems young. But if you don't take care of yourself, this is the type of things that can happen. But bigger picture, obviously, what this has done is kind of thrown a wrench into domestic and international politics. Lindsey Graham, in my opinion, was one of the most effective political operators in Washington. I am purely describing this from an analytical level.

46:42I don't really appreciate how good he was at his job, but you do have to acknowledge that. On his departure, in the middle of what was his heyday, there's no denying that. And I think, you know, if we were to look and analyze his political entrepreneurship, his opportunism, what exactly and how he was able to move from 2016 to 2026 to probably become a genuine whisperer to Donald Trump, that in and of itself is the story, I think, of his life and of his entire legacy, really, which ultimately, I mean, Senator Graham was probably the most authentic neocon in Washington. A lot of people are showing he wasn't rich.

47:22He didn't really have a lot of money. He was one of the poorest members of the United States Senate. He did it for the love of the game. And, I mean, I guess there's some respect in that. But what you can see from his political career, cheering on the Iraq War from John McCain, is he never wavered on what he wanted. But what he did is he would utilize the political system, the wins, whatever happened to be convenient within the GOP. Very often he would back them up on a few domestic things to give himself some credibility, not credibility, but some space maneuver here on foreign policy. He never wavered on his foreign policy views.

47:58He did a bear hag strategy with Donald Trump. And ultimately he won. He is the person who moved Donald Trump to where he wanted to be, which is remarkable considering where things actually started. Here's where they were. Lindsey Graham, 2016 or 2015, 2016, talking about Donald Trump. Let's take a listen. What is your reaction to hearing what Donald Trump says? Disgusted. He's a jackass. He's becoming a jackass and he shouldn't be commander in chief. We think that he's unfit for office, that he would be a terrible commander in chief. He doesn't have the temperament or judgment. What I think he's doing is being a demagogue.

48:34Here's what I think. I think Donald Trump is a political car wreck and people slow down and look at the wreck, but they eventually move on. At the end of the day, he would be the most flawed nominee in the history of the Republican Party. I think he's a wrecking ball for the future of the Republican Party. I think he's a kook. So that's 2015-2016. In fact, let's put C3 up here, his infamous tweet. If we nominate Trump, we will get destroyed and we will deserve it. That was May 3rd, 2016. Eventually, he, of course, becomes not only one of Trump's biggest defenders, but one of his greatest allies in the United States Senate.

49:11And my friend Sorob Mamari, let's put this up here on the screen, he wrote, and I summarized some of this already, the triumph of Lindsey Graham, what he talks about as populists should learn from the late senator, is his extraordinary political ability, again, is he never compromised on Iran, on Iraq, on Ukraine, on anything that was near and dear to his neoconservative heart. But what he did is within the system is that he would grab Donald Trump. He would wrap himself in the veneer of it. He would, let's say, like things like the Save America Act. Lindsey knew it was never going to pass, and he didn't care.

49:43But what he decided to do is become one of the chief proponents for the bill in Congress because he knew it would give him credibility with Trump. He was a major Kavanaugh defender, for example. He would defend Donald Trump, let's say, on impeachment or various other things. So he would back Trump on domestic political things, which he didn't particularly care about. He would never compromise, though, on immigration or on a few of these other things, which were very near and dear to his heart. And then at the same time, he would constantly use his rhetoric and his closeness with Trump, number one, to get Trump to endorse him.

50:17But number two is he's always whispering in his ear. He was like an evil genius as he would say things. Apparently his most common line to Trump was, well, that's something Obama would do, Mr. President, whatever came to Iran. or, you know, on Russia. He was always using that ability to channel Trump. And, you know, he didn't have a family. This is literally all he actually cared about is he was always golfing with Trump. He's always at Mar-a-Lago. He's always calling him on the phone late at night. It seems actually that Trump is the very last person who he spoke to before he died and in which he was advocating for more war with Iran, which is kind of incredible.

50:48So that is ultimately, I mean, you know, again, it's not an endorsement whatsoever. It's just that there's no, There's no even thinking about Lindsey Graham without acknowledging he died at the peak of his powers, which is a remarkable story for a person like Trump who ran against Lindsey Graham, who didn't want allegedly his own vice president. Others were his biggest opponents supposedly in the United States Senate. But this was Lindsey's time at the peak of his power, but also at a time when he got what he wanted with the Iran war. And also got to see what a disaster that policy was, because you're right.

51:29I think he was ideologically committed neocon. I saw a Twitter joke that was like, you know, somebody in Mossad is right now deleting two terabytes of compromise that they have on Lindsey Graham. Maybe they had it, but no, he was in it for he he was committed. And you see all of it, everyone from Netanyahu on down to Ben Gavir, lamenting the loss of this great friend to Israel, which I think is absolutely true. You know, this is a man who supported and pushed for the Iraq war, saw what a disaster that was. I still don't think that he would say it was the wrong thing to do. He never, never learned from how many, how much of a disaster the foreign policy that he loved and that he advocated for, how consistently disastrous it was for the world, first and foremost, for the countries that we were attacking, but also for the U.S.

52:19And that has never been more abundantly clear than right now, where we got our ass kicked by a middle rate power that we'd had sanctioned for decades, who now is a regional hegemon, thanks to the very policy that Lindsey Graham pushed, hoping to project American power and have more say over the Middle East. So in spite of all of the facts and all of the pain and all of the destruction, he never took that in. He never adjusted one iota to the reality. And so there's a kind of an incredible Fox clip coming around, which is they're going around, which they're talking about Lindsey Graham and his legacy, blah, blah, blah.

53:01And they have to interrupt that to announce new bombings of Iran. I know, yeah. Could not be more appropriate for who this man was, what his ideological project was, and how even by his own conception of, like, pursuing American exceptionalism in power in the world, it was an utter and complete disaster. Let's put C6 up on the screen because it has some pretty remarkable quotes here about the, you know, the final hours for Lindsey Graham. It says a person who spoke with Graham shortly afterwards said the senator complained he was feeling unwell. This is after he had just gotten back from this trip to Ukraine where he was touring a drone factory.

53:38I think the last photo of him alive is of him in Ukraine holding this drone. When the person urged him to seek medical attention immediately, he said he would do it after his Sunday morning appearance on NBC's Meet the Press. He then joked, I can't die now. I still need to do the Russia sanctions, get Iran sorted out, and do Israeli-Saudi normalization. And so we focus a lot, obviously, with Graham pushing for the Iran war and being able to be part of the successful propaganda effort to push Trump in that direction. All of the ways that he endeared himself to Trump and going on golf trips with him and backing him up at key moments, et cetera, paying off.

54:22But we don't talk enough, too, about how probably influential he's been on the Ukraine policy as well, where Trump during the campaign, very skeptical, really wanting to cut some sort of a deal and get out of this thing. Well, we're not out of this thing. You know, continues in the direction that Lindsey Graham would want it to go as well. Trump even acknowledged that on CNN live reacting. Let's take a listen, C5. Well, we disagreed a little bit. But overall, you know, I'm a big Israel person. He was certainly that. I wanted to see the war with Ukraine end very quickly. I think he was more into keeping it going, frankly.

55:00He was very militant having to do with that, but I was, from the standpoint of 25 ,000 people dying every month, I didn't like that. He was a very strong military person, so am I, but I think we used it a little bit differently. We probably had a little bit of a different attitude, but we got along on it. Essentially, we agreed. And essentially, we agreed on almost everything. And to the point about Graham's influence, guess what? Trump greenlit those Ukrainian deep strikes into Russia. That's why Lindsay was over there. That was literally his dying thing. His last thing that he did was go to Ukraine to assure them that he was going to convince Trump to allow more deep strikes into Russia.

55:41You can support that, not support that. You cannot say, at the very least, that he was incredibly influential in terms of the policy, which Trump originally said. And to your point, I mean, yeah, I always find it hard, you know, when somebody dies, especially if you don't like someone, it's like, okay, how do you handle this? You're not wrong, but the story of Washington for my lifetime has been that the neocons led the United States into the most disastrous war in American history, only to then have a rising tide, an election of a candidate and a president who said explicitly that war was a disaster, who somehow then topped that by launching the United States into a war, which is also as disastrous, potentially even more so strategically, than the current war that we're in right now.

56:24How did that happen? He is a central character, ultimately, to that story. Yeah, I mean, it's like my entire feed after he died. Zelensky, Beebe, Ben Givir, I think we have some. You put C9 up. C9. Let's put this up here. I mean, you got, you know, Ben Givir, you got Zelensky, you got AIPAC, you got, you know, all of these. in my opinion, odious characters in American politics and American influence. And meanwhile, it's like every European leader that ever lived is like, wow, the chairman of Germany or whatever is like, well, we're going to miss Lindsey. I'm like, anybody from South Carolina going to miss this guy?

56:58I'm like, it's pretty obvious where his entire interest and focus was. I don't think he particularly cared about his own state. I really genuinely think he saw his legacy as protecting whatever he saw as Europe or Israel or whatever, all these places deeply committed to this worldview, which despite Libya, despite Iraq, despite Syria, despite any of these places, always his excuse was we didn't go far enough. That's what it always came down to with him. And I mean, he got what he wanted, as you said, just like we did after Iraq. If anything, his real project today was continuing to push us even more so to where we are.

57:36And you could say, oh, his death is a major blow to the neoconservatives. I disagree, actually. I think he will be used as a martyr in this current moment.

58:07that start during the game and somehow keep going all week. Every week we're breaking down the biggest stories across women's sports. We'll give you our takes, our debates, and probably a few disagreements. We'll talk to athletes, celebrate big moments, and get into what's happening on and off the field, court, track, and beyond. Because we're not just interested in what happened, we're interested in why everyone's talking about it. Because everyone watches women's sports. So if you're already a fan, or you're just getting into the game, there's a seat for you right here. Listen to everyone watches women's sports on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

58:46Bill, why is my eye twitching? Does this mean I'm in perimenopause? Maybe I have adult ADHD. I need to look this up. Where's my phone? Juliana, your phone is hot to the touch. I think it's asking you for a break. You know what? Maybe I should just ask ChatGPT. Or maybe we can ask an actual human. Yes, like a couple sex therapist. Whoa, that escalated quickly, but okay. Because I have questions. We have questions. And I bet everyone has questions. Like, is it normal to sleep in separate bedrooms? We do that. How about this one? Is bribing your kids bad parenting or just negotiating? Oh, and I still do need to know, why was my poop green that one time?

59:23Hypothetically, right? Okay, well, instead of letting the internet guess, we've got actual people answering these exact questions. And laughing with us has got to be better than spending three hours down a rabbit hole online. Listen to Bill and Juliana, the podcast, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your podcasts.

59:48I'm Emily Oster. I'm an economist and data expert. And I'm Perry Wilson. I'm a medical doctor. And this is our new podcast, Wellness Actually. Because you're getting a staggering amount of health and wellness information nowadays, and some of it is awesome. And some of it is, well, actually, bullsh**. Fortunately, we're both people who know how to read studies, parse data, and can tell you what's worth trying out and what you can safely ignore. Each episode, we tackle the health news of the week and then take a deeper dive into a misunderstood health and wellness topic, like... What's the deal with peptides?

1:00:22What's the deal with GLP-1s? What's the deal with creatine? What's the deal with cupping? What's the deal with sleep? So join us for a weekly dose of sanity. might actually be just what the doctor or the economist ordered. Listen to Wellness Actually on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

1:00:47Trump is processing his death, you know, I think in the most Trumpian way. Don't we have that thought of him going after him a little bit? Yeah. Let's take a listen to C-15 of Donald Trump kind of trashing him a little bit, actually, this morning on Fox and Friends. He was totally against me. I mean, he was fighting me. He sort of used me as the example because I was leading in the polls by a lot. And he said, I'll get you in South Carolina. I'm going to get you in South Carolina. That didn't work out too well. I joke about it. And it was like, it was amazing, actually. The whole thing was amazing.

1:01:22Hey, the whole career was amazing. But Lindsey was a big part of it because once that ended, he left the race. And once that ended, I became really good friends with him. Right. So once that ended, I became very good friends with him. But, you know, again, to just talk here about Trump, about Lindsey, you know, Trump became the Lindsey Graham president in a lot of ways. He really did. And, I mean, it's their most remarkable political story, I think, in maybe, not ever, but in modern history for sure, in terms of how you get elected and then what you end up doing. And actually, Trump gave us a very good preview.

1:02:00Do we have that image of Donald Trump that he posted on Trump Truth Social this morning where he said, so sad, President DJT. Here is Lindsey Graham, either at Bedminster or at Mar-a-Lago, who is in a polo shirt wearing a Make Iran Great Again hat and with a piece of cardboard that seems to be from Wikipedia where it shows Trump and it says, acting president of Venezuela. Think about the mechanics here. He had to get a custom Make Iran Great Again hat. He had to either go or his staff had to go to Kinko's and create this Photoshop image. and all of this is planned at some sort of luncheon or whatever he's doing here at Mar-a-Lago, this is an insight into how he was able to influence Donald Trump.

1:02:45And he won. He used the Venezuela. Of course, he cheered on the Venezuela thing, cheered on Make Iran Great Again. That is how he ended up winning this entire presidency. I mean, Rubio is a very similar figure. Another opponent of Trump, you know, aggressively were like challenging each other based on their manhood size and whatever in the primary. And now here he is, Secretary of State, and got what he wanted with Venezuela. Yeah, and very likely to get what he wants with regard to Cuba. All it required was for them to abandon any other principle that they ever had in terms of, like, moral character or integrity and suck up to this guy.

1:03:19And both of them for completely odious ends that they were pursuing. You know, I want to play C8, which just a reminder of how, like, I appreciate Sager's analysis, and I think it's true, of how effective he was in getting what he wanted from Trump and persuading Trump to pursue this hardline neocon path, I think it's also worth judging the nature of that political project. And so Blue Georgia put together a compilation of some of the utterly disgusting and sociopathic things that Lindsey Graham has said about his own ideology and the ends that he was pursuing. Let's take a listen to that. America first is to kill people who wish us ill.

1:04:03I feel good about the Republican Party. We're killing all the right people and we're cutting your taxes. We've run out of bombs. We didn't run out of bombs in World War II. You just wait to see what comes in the next two weeks. We're gonna blow the hell out of these people. We're in a religious war here. I am with Israel. Do whatever the hell you have to do to defend yourself. Level the place. Why is it okay for America to drop two nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki to end their existential threat war? Why was it okay for us to do that? I thought it was okay. To Israel, do whatever you have to do to survive as a Jewish state.

1:04:39Iran's going to have a choice in two to three weeks. You either do a deal where you get out of the business you were in, or we're going to blow your stuff up. Our friends in Israel are surrounded by people that want to kill them, destroy them, a second holocaust in the making. What is the proportional response to people who want to kill you and your family? They're running out of ammunition in Israel. We have to help our friends. I go back to South Carolina. I'm asking them to send their sons and daughters over to the Mideast. To our friends in Israel, God bless you. I'm with you in every way.

1:05:10To all the anti-Seminites, to all the isolationists, forget it. I'm not with you. I'm with Israel. I will be with Israel to our dying day. There's no better partner on the planet than Israel. God bless Israel. We should move all our stuff to Israel. Well, he didn't lie. He was with Israel till his dying day. In this past year, he's been back and forth to Ukraine and Israel, probably spending more time in those countries than he has been in South Carolina. Wouldn't doubt that that contributed to the negative health outcomes. It's very hard on you, certainly at a certain age. But But this is what he was pursuing and what he's been fairly successful at pursuing.

1:05:48And now he gets to see the wreckage, not that I think it caused him to question for a second the policy that he would – he would be – if he lived for another five years, he'd be the one pushing us to war with Turkey or whatever. Would be next. So I don't think that it was causing him to reckon at all with what a monstrous disaster this ideology has amounted to. And this is more of a mainstream media thing because I get it. What's one of the worst things Trump did recently? And I know this is like might be selective. That Rob Reiner post, it was like, oh, that's horrible. Right. So like you want to piss on someone's grave immediately after they die.

1:06:21But there is like a mainstream media like, hey, geography. Remember when Dick Cheney died and they were like, oh, Dick Cheney, he was a protector of democracy. Democracy. Like, OK, look, we can just say the guy died. Let's leave it at that. But then whenever it comes to discussion of legacy, if you're only going to highlight one thing, it's like, well, you got to highlight the rest, too. And that's how I feel about Lindsey Graham. I'm like, again, I don't want to disparage too much. And like, I get it's distasteful. But yeah, you take a look at that. Lindsey Graham reveled in death, who he would define as America's enemies.

1:06:52I think it killed a lot of Americans and it killed a lot of foreigners too. A lot of civilians too were completely uninvolved. And you know, that really was a bedrock belief of his, that that was a good, ultimately. I dramatically disagree with that. And there's no assessing him without – there's no assessing him, period, without looking at that. And you have all these Democratic senators and others who are posting selfies of him with him and Zelensky being like, oh, he was such a champion for democracy. And that's part of why, you know, to assess Lindsey, he is the ultimate Washington creature.

1:07:25I met him a couple times. He is the nicest guy. Everybody has a story about how funny he is, how disarming he is. I would disagree with him. You know, oh, we just agree to disagree or something like that. And everybody's got a story like that. But that doesn't mean that what he was saying is good. Like he used those powers for bad. I think when you're talking about a powerful person, you have to be honest about their legacy and not pull punches. Because it's important that we set the record. You know, this will be, you know, one of the last times we think about or talk about Lindsey Graham. That's true.

1:07:54It was important to set the record of what this man's life was actually dedicated to and, you know, certainly playing him in his own words. You know, with regard to the impact on Trump, I just have to, there was one clip of him almost seeming to like get choked up talking about. I know. Lindsey Graham, which is not something. And he doesn't, he barely cares about his own son. Yeah. He didn't even go to his own son's wedding. True. Yeah. True. So, I mean, I think he was genuinely close to him, but also Trump is such a narcissist, which is what you can see with him posting that Lindsey Graham holding up, you know, the Trump picture, that Trump clearly is thinking about his own mortality a lot.

1:08:29Lindsey is a decade younger than he is. Was a decade younger than he is. And part of, I think, how he got persuaded to go to war with Iran was about what is the legacy that you're going to leave behind? And he's not going to be the one who wants to be here to deal with the fallout from it. So I think it probably feeds into that sense of his own mortality. It's natural anytime someone who's close to you dies that you start contemplating those things more. So it would not surprise me if it just further fuels his sense of his limited time and how much he wants to leave his mark on this town and on the world.

1:09:05I mean, they're very similar. It's not necessarily a good thing. They're both very similar. They're in their late 70s. Obviously, Lindsey was not as obese, but he was like, you know, he's not like working out, obviously. He was 71. He flew all over the world. He was totally dedicated to his work, didn't sleep a lot, a total creature of politics. Trump looks at that and he's like, wait, I could be like that. Yeah. No, seriously. Trump is 80 now. And if you look at Lindsey Graham, you could actually see his degradation over the years in terms of his head. Like his face looks more haggard. That's how cardiovascular disease, heart disease works.

1:09:33So Trump and any older person, Sam Neill, we were talking about that before the show, he died today. He's 78. He's younger than Trump. So, you know, once you start getting to that age, a lot of people you know start dying, especially who are old, who are only obsessed with themselves, who are, you know, totally dedicated to the work of politics. I mean, the fact that one of the very last things that Lindsey Graham ever said was, I can't die now because I have to go do X, Y, and Z and not, you know, hang out with my wife or my children or something. I just don't want to go out that way. I could put it like that.

1:10:03And then now what you also see, you know, without Trump is South Carolina, I believe Lindsey Graham was running for his fifth term, which is crazy, his fifth term, a long history of senators from South Carolina dying from old age in office, which that's your business. I guess. And now we have like the race to replace him will just be, you know, the grifting race for the age. So let's put C10 up here on the screen. The disgraced gubernatorial former Congress candidate, former Congresswoman Nancy Mace says, just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in. Scott Besant, the Treasury Secretary, let's put C11 up here on the screen, apparently is a native son of South Carolina who has maintained a house there during Washington.

1:10:49He's been fielding calls. They want him to run, potentially, even though he's a Treasury Secretary. And so you had at one point— Oh, Graham actually did succeed Strom Thurmond. I know that. That was my reference. Who died of what—how old was Strom? He was like 102. Something like that. When he died, something like that. A hundred and—yeah, I'm not sure. And then we found out about his black daughter after he died, if I'm doing my math correctly. Anyway, if you don't know who Strom Thurmond is, he was a—he did the filibuster against the segregation. Segregation, yeah. Anyways. When I went to Clemson, there were buildings still named after him.

1:11:22Because I think his grandson was at school there when I was there, too. Anyway, yes. Okay. I digress. I met someone here in Washington once, the older person. They're like, I came to work from the Senate. I was like, oh, for who? Oh, for a Southern senator. I was like, well, which one? That one. I was like, oh, okay. And then I did the math in terms of the year, and I was like, 61, huh? Interesting. Nice. Nice work there. Yeah, interesting. So anyways, zooming out, the race to replace Lindsey Graham, it will be a titanic one. I'm going to call it. I'm calling Nikki Haley. That's my call. I think she's going to make a deal with Trump.

1:11:59Trump has said, I want to, he said, I have somebody in mind already. She's been sucking up to him on Iran. She's going to have more money than, you know, than humanly possible. That would be a natural place, I think, for her to end up. The only reason she never did it was because those seats are really, really hard to get. And so I could see. I could see. You don't think Scott Besson? Well, here's the reason. Lindsay just died. It's going to be very hard. It's 50-50 right there in the Senate. McConnell is God knows what is up with him. If you replace Scott Besson, you've got to get a confirmation.

1:12:31Is a single Democrat going to vote for confirmation? This is part of the reason why no member of the South Carolina delegation is going to get it from the House of Representatives because they can't afford the margin. Yeah, they talked about the. So what happens is the governor nominates someone and then they have a special primary election to figure out who the nominee is going to be, because they've already had the primaries. Lindsey Graham obviously won. There is a Democrat woman. I can't remember her name right now who also won. So she will remain the Democratic nominee. And now you have to have a special primary to figure out who is going to be the Republican that will stand for election in the fall.

1:13:03Joe Wilson, who is the like. Yeah, who's young, sprightly. Spring chicken. 78, not even close to the oldest person in the House of Representatives. Anyway, he was being contemplated. But then he seemed to say, hey, we shouldn't do this because we got to protect our majority in the House, which is extremely slim at this point. This also, it does have huge repercussions for what the Senate will be able to get done. Oh, they can't do anything. This Trump's fantasy of the Save America Act, not going to happen because you've got Mitch McConnell, maybe alive, but certainly not in the Senate and voting.

1:13:36I don't know. We'll get to that, like I said, in a moment. Lindsey Graham now dead. So you have no one in that seat. You have and then you've got a couple of people, Tom Tillis, Cassidy, who and not Thune. I'm at Cornyn down in Texas who are, you know, they're primary down. They don't care. They don't care. So they can do whatever they want. Now, on the other side, you do have John Fetterman, who also does whatever he wants. So maybe you could get him for some things. But no, their majority in the Senate is sort of de facto gone at this point. It's a very—that's part of the reason why with Besson.

1:14:11I mean, Treasury Secretary, such an important position. Why would they gear up for confirmation right there? You know, there was that other—you remember, I think I was off. That whole Alito resigning thing, which might have been happening. Yeah. That's not going to happen now because you can't have confirmation battle. So he's got to wait until the next. He should have gone with the NPR announcement. He should have gone. No, I'm dead serious. If he had left, well, we wouldn't have enough time. Yeah. But now, I mean, now if the Senate goes blue, you're going to see there are a lot of guys like Clarence Thomas and all those people.

1:14:42You better hope nothing happens to them if you're a Republican. They were talking about doing a reconciliation bill for the Save America Act because it only requires a majority vote. But now you don't even you can't even count on that. So even if they get rid of the filibuster at this point, there's no guarantee that you're going to be able to cobble together a majority for literally anything. Because some of these guys that Trump went against, Cornyn et al, would love to stick it to him and get some vengeance for being for losing their political power. Yeah, this really does have some serious, serious implications here in Washington, even in terms of funding the government.

1:15:14ICE, I mean, DHS, I mean, who knows, right? There's all kinds of crazy stuff that happens. What's up, fam? I'm sports journalist Ari Chambers. Hey, what's up, y 'all? It's your girl, Sam Jay. And we're the hosts of Everyone Watches Women's Sports, a new podcast from Together and I Heart Women's Sports. Because let's be real, women's sports is giving us way too much to talk about these days. The highlights, the rivalries, the breakout stars, the moments that take over your entire timeline. And the conversations that start during the game and somehow keep going all week. Every week we're breaking down the biggest stories across women's sports.

1:15:48We'll give you our takes, our debates, and probably a few disagreements. We'll talk to athletes, celebrate big moments, and get into what's happening on and off the field, court, track, and beyond. Because we're not just interested in what happened, we're interested in why everyone's talking about it. Because everyone watches women's sports. So if you're already a fan, or you're just getting into the game, there's a seat for you right here. Listen to everyone watches women's sports on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

1:16:22I'm Emily Oster. I'm an economist and data expert. And I'm Perry Wilson. I'm a medical doctor. And this is our new podcast, Wellness Actually. Because you're getting a staggering amount of health and wellness information nowadays, and some of it is awesome. And some of it is, well, actually, bullsh**. Fortunately, we're both people who know how to read studies, parse data, and can tell you what's worth trying out and what you can safely ignore. Each episode, we tackle the health news of the week and then take a deeper dive into a misunderstood health and wellness topic, like... What's the deal with peptides?

1:16:56What's the deal with GLP-1s? What's the deal with creatine? What's the deal with cupping? What's the deal with sleep? So join us for a weekly dose of sanity. It might actually be just what the doctor or the economist ordered. Listen to Wellness Actually on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

1:17:20Bill, why is my eye twitching? Does this mean I'm in perimenopause? Maybe I have adult ADHD. I need to look this up. Where's my phone? Juliana, your phone is hot to the touch. I think it's asking you for a break. You know what? Maybe I should just ask ChatGPT. Or maybe we can ask an actual human. Yes, like a couple sex therapist. Whoa, that escalated quickly, but okay. Because I have questions. We have questions. And I bet everyone has questions. Like, is it normal to sleep in separate bedrooms? We do that. How about this one? Is bribing your kids bad parenting or just negotiating? Oh, and I still do need to know, why was my poop green that one time?

1:17:57Hypothetically, right? Okay, well, instead of letting the internet guess, we've got actual people answering these exact questions. And laughing with us has got to be better than spending three hours down a rabbit hole online. Listen to Bill and Juliana. The podcast. On the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your podcasts.

1:18:22McConnell, proof of life. Maybe. Let's put C13 up here on the screen. Here it is. Here's a photo released yesterday. Leave this up for a good. Let's take a look at this. Let's analyze the picture. So here is Senator Mitch McConnell. It's very nice to see his wife by his side after she took a trip to China two days after he went to the hospital. I joked that it's like a story out of the notebook. It's just the love affair that you like to see. Two elderly people separated by continents. You can feel the passion. Yeah, you can just feel the passion. what you can see in this photo is bottom left very strategically places that newspaper so you could see the modern day newspaper so when we see mitch he's smiling um kind of he's got he's got his glasses eyes are open the what is that the left hand there a lot of bruising there on the left hand usually indicative of an ivy very very trump looking very trumpian we'll all remember the the photo of the queen from like the day before that she died, where she also had a lot of the bruising there.

1:19:23Usually that's where they place an IV. So obviously in a hospital bed, I recognize that those types of chairs from my time when my wife was giving birth. So, okay. So that's where Mitch is. He's propped up there on a pillow. Now let's keep in mind, nothing of him talking, but he disappeared to be sentient, semi or whatever. His eyes are open. That's what we know. And his wife is there by side. I mean, that's all we can, That's all we can assess from this photo. Right. Is that he is alive. I mean, maybe. I don't, like, also it's the age of AI. That's true. And you accept us just to accept a photo at face value.

1:19:58Like, oh, see the newspaper here? I mean, it's just, it's too much. It is too much. And then. It's too much that they have to do this. Right. And so if you, if you actually want a proof of life, all these Republicans are, oh, I talked to Mitch McConnell for 20 minutes. He's great. No worries. No problem. Okay. Well then talk to someone who's not a Republican. Like talk to a news reporter. Yeah. Call up CNN. Call one of your many Democratic friends in the Senate. You know, I mean, someone who might have a little more credibility to vouch for what's going on here. And then we get this statement from him.

1:20:27Put C-13 up on the screen. I'll read this. It's lengthy. I'm sorry. But let me read this whole thing just so I don't, you know, don't paraphrase in a way that doesn't fully capture all of the sentiments expressed here. To my fellow Kentuckians, and this was put out alongside that photo. When you elected me to seventh term, made me our Commonwealth's longest serving center, you did so trusting I would keep showing up to fight for you every day. Over the past several weeks, Elaine and I have appreciated both your well wishes and your honest questions about what was keeping me away from the Senate.

1:20:55You all know how folks of my generation often hesitate to share the vulnerability that comes with growing older. Even in the public eye, I feel that same instinct. I can't help it. Keep in mind, guys. He has been gone for a month, a month. We have heard nothing. This is all we've gotten is this one photo and the statement. But at the same time, I've had more than my share of experience with physical vulnerabilities. Surviving childhood polio meant spending my entire life with mobility challenges. This is reminding me very much of the Joe Biden stutter discourse. They haven't exactly gotten easier to manage with age.

1:21:26And last month, I took a fall, which landed me in the hospital. My doctors confirmed I didn't break any bones or suffer a concussion. I did not have a heart attack or a stroke. I don't have any tumors or hemorrhages. but I was briefly unconscious and was taken to the hospital while receiving excellent care over the past several weeks. I've also had to deal with a mild case of pneumonia. Let me just pause there. He's claiming that a fall, a mild fall that did not cause a concussion, that was not caused by a heart attack or stroke, that he doesn't have any tumors or hemorrhages, but somehow left him unconscious, but didn't cause a concussion, is what led to him being hospitalized for a month And by the way, they're still not releasing him and letting him go.

1:22:14So what exactly happened with this alleged fall that was so severe that all you can do is put out this photo and have to be in the hospital for a month? Allow me to continue. He says, I can assure you that I've been a good patient at my age. I tend to do what my doctors tell me to do. I've submitted to every test they can think of to help figure out what caused this incident. I'm continuing to do everything that asks to speed my recovery. In fact, with signs of continued progress, I've been able to move from hospital care to a rehabilitation center where I'll keep regaining my strength. As much as it frustrates me, this process takes time.

1:22:45And on the advice of my doctors, I will not be able to return to the Senate floor to vote quite yet. Rest assured, in the meantime, I'm not taking a break from the Senate business that matters to you. I've been working closely with my legislative staff on current issues with my Kentucky team who help me provide timely constituent services across our Commonwealth, blah, blah, blah. You're right to expect your representatives to work hard for you, et cetera, et cetera. I'll keep working hard to get back on the Senate floor as soon as possible. Keep you posted on the progress of my recovery. Until then, so grateful for your prayers and well wishes.

1:23:13This still makes absolutely no sense, Sagar. So if you, no concussion, no stroke, no problem, everything's good, why are you still in the hospital? Yes. Why don't we have a video? Why can't you talk to reporters? Like, what is going on here? Why do we just get this one photo with the newspaper? What is also weird is, remember, the EMS call had said cardiac arrest. That's part of the reason a lot of people are like, oh, my God, he might be dead. Because Ryan had looked up the stats. He's like, if you have cardiac arrest and EMS and CPR and they're coming to get you and you're 84 years old at your home, you have like a 2 % survival rate.

1:23:44So it does make a little bit more sense now that he didn't suffer a heart attack. At least according to him, he suffered a fall. Now, that said, fall is one of the leading causes of death for people who are his age. So it's not uncommon. A lot of hip breaking and it leads to rapid deterioration. But he's pairing it here with the mild pneumonia. I mean, I feel insane even talking about this. You're 84 years old. This is bonkers. Like, you're 84. You're fallen. You've had multiple incidents where you can't speak on camera. Freeze up on camera. You literally freeze up completely. You're spending weeks in the – if you had to spend weeks in the hospital, weeks in the hospital because of your old age, how can you be a public servant?

1:24:21How could you run again? You know, and he'd say, oh, I retired. Why didn't – or sorry, I'm retiring at the end of January. Leave now. Like, you can't, you're not doing your job. Allegedly, you're talking to your staff. You've been multiple weeks here in the hospital. I mean, it's just, did you end up hearing, by the way, remember that missing congressman? We found out what happened. Oh, yeah. He had depression. Depression. Yeah. Mm-hmm. And again, look, you know. Months. And by the way, he is not telling the truth either. No, yeah. Because you're not hospitalized for months with depression without something very severe.

1:24:54Maybe at a schizophrenic break. Going on. Which, in either case, I'm sorry. You gotta go, dude. You can't be taken three and a half months off work. You are usually kept, if you are hospitalized with a mental illness for months at a time, it means you are a risk to yourself or others. Right. Right. So, yeah, I mean, we're definitely not getting the straight story there, and we're definitely not getting the straight story here. And the reason why people were and still are very much speculating that he, you know, may be not there at all at this point is that they would want to drag out the process past, I think it's August 3rd, because if he's, you know, out of the Senate or dead before August 3rd, then they have to call a special election.

1:25:32Oh, and then Thomas Massey might run and that could cause some problems for them, because if he runs as a Republican, he could win the nomination. And then that's another senator that Trump can't control. or if he runs as an independent, then he could serve as a spoiler. So that was the reason why there would be some motivation to cover up the reality of what is going on here. But look, I mean, it's, yeah, we're being lied to. It's in your face. They're not giving the whole story. What he's saying doesn't make sense. And I don't think anyone should be convinced of anything from this photo that they're putting, the single, singular photo that they are putting out at this point.

1:26:06The fact that they have to put the photo out is in and of itself, We're in crazy town. You know, when you're, I'm 84, I just fell. Don't worry about it. I'm totally fine, but I've spent here weeks in the hospital. And need to spend an unspecified amount of time more in the hospital before I'm cleared to. And this was something, did you see Lauren Boebert reacting to that Tom Keen guy? No, what did she say? She was like, oh, she was disgusted. She was absolutely disgusted. She was like, you had to be out for months because you're a little sad. But she made a point. She was like, this job is not that hard.

1:26:39Like, we can roll you in the back door. It works three days a week. You cast your vote and you leave. Yeah. Right? You can make it a lot. You can do a lot more with it. But if you're just doing the bare minimum. You work three days a week. It takes you like 10 minutes a day. It's really not that big a deal. You can't do that. You can't do that. That tells you how dire the situation is. That you can't even roll his wheelchair in the back door to cast a vote and roll him back out. He is not in a condition even to do that. Yeah, I remember reading some book where they used to do that. There was some senator who was basically on his deathbed, and they forced him to come vote.

1:27:17And he never forgave the whippersnapper who forced him to come vote from his deathbed. Yeah. But literally, they wheeled him in from his hospital bed or from his hotel room or something where he was holed up. He voted, and then he went back. And that's apparently the norm. Remember Feinstein? Like, voted and then hours later died, didn't she? That's crazy. Yeah. Yeah, and what did Amy Klobuchar was like? Just vote yes. I can't live like this.

1:28:09Rob and I was always a great hang. And director Morgan Neville. Film school teaches you all the wrong things about making documentary. What do you want to say? Documentary is all about your ear. What do you hear? I feel like my job is listening really, really hard. Listen to Here's the Thing on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hello, my love. I'm Ryan Weiss. And for the past 15 years, I've been an emotional intelligence coach and a spiritual guide. and I'm sharing with you my new podcast, Waking Up With Ryan. Waking Up With Ryan is a daily audio video podcast here to help you connect with yourself before the noise of the day takes over.

1:28:50So let's start our days together with a moment of calm that's just for you. Listen to Waking Up With Ryan on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. It just came out. Jeremy, what did you just do? You just set yourself up for failure. I've never heard you tell this story. I've never told this story. This must have been tucked deep, deep in the Jeremy Lin file. My name is MC Jin. I'm excited to tell you about Laugh But Not Lease. I'll be chatting with guests from all walks of life about the power of humor when it comes to facing difficult times. These will be conversations that remind us all life is hard.

1:29:22Laugh harder. Listen to Laugh But Not Lease with MC Jin on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed human.