8/17/26: Outrage Over USS Lincoln, Navy Retreats After Bases Destroyed, Trump Unapologetic On Gas Prices

24:37This is all run from these carriers. That really is the center of how this operation is unfolding at this point. So this is a very taxing situation, and you're doing it for a cause that you do not believe in, that you do not even think is good for our country. That alone is devastating mentally, that you're sacrificing and suffering for something that you don't even believe in. And that's what this is indicative of. Exactly. And you don't have to be a historian to say if that en masse happens, some crazy stuff begins to happen in your society. I was thinking too with the aircraft flap. Again, we don't know exactly where that, I'm gonna assume that it's on the ground, but just considering the dust.

25:18But if we think about that, these guys, remember, it's not just carrier like, oh, I've been deployed at sea. some of them have died. Actually, the majority of those casualties have come from either drones or missiles incoming to an air base. Those three service members just recently died in that attack in Jordan. So imagine you're not only just fixing up an airplane. Your life is on the line. You might know somebody who died. You might have been in proximity to a serious attack for a war that you don't even necessarily believe in or want to. And it's just the casual nature which your life is being used in this game, which is a tale as old as time, but in today's world, in a democratic society, like that is supposed to have consequence.

26:03And I think that it obviously should. And just to give everybody an idea, again, in the cavalier nature in which Trump is willing to embrace this, he again is returning to threats against Oman, saying that we'll bomb the shit out of them if we get in their way, along with a long diatribe issued to Fox News this morning. Let's take a listen. Yeah. Hey, guys. Good morning. I just got off the phone with President Trump, who discussed the situation with Iran as the 60 day memorandum of understanding expires. The president told Fox News Iran should raise the white flag of surrender. He went on to say, I have no time schedule.

26:40I'm not in a hurry. The president indicating that the U.S. naval blockade is continuing to put new economic pressure on the Iranian regime, despite what the Iranians have said publicly. He said they're good poker players, but they're dying, and that the midterms in the United States have nothing to do with the president's thinking. Now, I asked the president about these parallel talks that are taking place between Iran and Oman about control of the Strait of Hormuz, and the president told Fox News, if Oman gets in the way, we'll bomb the S out of them. We went on to talk about a variety of different regional topics, including the U.S.

27:15stockpiles of weapons that are currently stationed in the Middle East. The president says what we've used so far is peanuts. He went on to say the United States has a lot of mid-level weapons and that many of the more advanced systems, the president says, were given away by President Biden to Ukraine, for example, when we're talking about air defense that is needed right now in the Middle East. Yeah, it's Biden's fault. Look, I mean, plenty of smoke criticism here for the last five years about the number of munitions that we pissed away to Ukraine. But there is no objective reality where you can even remotely compare the two, especially whenever it comes to the more critical munitions like that and others.

27:54But yeah, well, and also, OK, so the stockpiles were low when you took office. So then don't launch an unnecessary war that has been a complete disaster. How about that? Like you made your choices here. Obviously, I don't think anyone is buying this like, oh, it's Biden's fault on the economy or on the stockpile situation bullshit. And the other thing, Sagar, that I've been thinking about is, you know, part of the problem, too, is the fact that Trump has built a culture of yes men around him. So any of these challenge logistical challenges are, hey, we don't have the ships. We don't have the munitions.

28:29We don't have the supply lines to be able to pull off what you want to pull off. People are too afraid to say that because they know if they tell him, well, that's not possible, they're going to be fired. They're going to be at the very least on the ounce and have all of their power diminished. And very likely they'll be pushed out entirely. And we've seen that with a number of top military brass throughout the Trump regime. So this is what happens. I mean, you can go back to any sort of like authoritarian kind of you look at the Soviet Union and, you know, the way their ability to communicate leadership falls apart.

28:57This is what happens when you create that climate where you will not brook any dissent. You will not accept any bad news. All you want to hear about is rainbows and sunshines and puppies and yes, sir, how high, sir. This is what that leads to. Having done my own, you know, I talked about that in the early days of the war. And then obviously Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan's book is the best of the subject because they can literally recreate. I do not think that there is a modern disaster in American history that had less pushback in the situation room than this one. There was more dissent over Vietnam inside the White House than there was over this one.

29:34There was more dissent. I mean, Colin Powell, for all of his crimes before the United Nations, lying about WMD and yellow cake uranium, inside Lawrence Wilkerson, who we could talk to actually maybe about this in the future. They were inside being like, this is a nightmare. This is a disaster. The Army Chief of Staff, General Eric Shinseki, testified before Congress, this will not work and we will need 400 ,000 troops. In this case, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Cain, he gave a very tepid pushback in the Oval, or in the Situation Room, barely gave anything. By the reconstruction of what's happened, there was one comment from J.D.

30:13in the lead up where he's like, I don't think you should do this and it's not going to work. But I'll support you. But also, I mean, hey, what else? What's he going to do? It works for the guy. But I mean, it shows you how even the most, like, that's the furthest that anyone would go. Yes, that was the furthest. And even that has to be, of course, wrapped in, but sir, whatever you want, sir. Of course, you're the great leader and you'll under, you know best what to do. So, of course, I'll support you. There was one flash change Joe Kent's resignation. And no disrespect, it took a tremendous amount of courage.

30:40He's a subcabinet official. It's not somebody all the way up at the top. That was it. And we got nothing else. And to this day, it's honestly worse with Pete Hegsath and the reels that they put together for him. It's like AI slop, but military where he just Trump goes into a trance watching shit blow up. It's just like Johnson, you know, looking at various different things and trying to choose. Oh, we blew this up today. We blew that up today. It's like for what to what end? But that's how the situation is right now. I was thinking less of Johnson and more of like your boomer parent or grandparent scrolling Facebook and thinking that the AI videos of like the fat lady.

31:17collapsing the bridge is real or whatever. That's more what I would equate it to. Like, that's the world he has constructed for himself. He doesn't want to live in reality. He wants to construct his own reality. He wants to be fed only fake information that supports that reality. And guess what? When you decide to get into a war, when you decide to commit our nation to a war, there is an actual reality that you're going to have to deal with. And of course, the people who We're going to have to face that reality head on. First and foremost are going to be our service members on the front lines.

31:49Let's talk about that reality with logistics. Let's get to it. NYX, that's K-N-I-X, leak-proof underwear is made for real life. Because when your day is already full, your underwear shouldn't be something you have to think about. NYX gives you reliable leak-proof protection that fits seamlessly into your routine. For periods, for light bladder leaks, for workouts, for everyday freshness. NYX leak-proof underwear comes in a range of absorbencies, from light to ultra. So if you need a little backup or all-day protection, there's a pair for you. Unlike bulky protection, NYX feels barely there with soft fabrics, moisture-wicking layers, and anti-odor technology that keeps you feeling fresh and confident.

32:30Wear them to work, running errands, traveling, even overnight. Plus, they're machine washable, so you can wear them again and again. Find your perfect level of protection at knix.com and get 15 % off with code FLOW15. That's knix.com, code FLOW15. That's knix.com. Hey everybody, this is Kevin. This is Nick. Hey, this is Joe. From Hey Jonas. You know, I recently learned that every 36 minutes, another child in the U.S. is diagnosed with cancer. Think about that for a second. Some of the bravest warriors you will ever meet aren't professional athletes or superheroes. They're kids in this fight. And every day, these young warriors face challenges most adults couldn't imagine.

33:09Yet they continue to show up with incredible courage, determination, and hope. That's why we're proud to support Hyundai Hope on Wheels. The past 28 years, with support from Hyundai, their dealers, and every new Hyundai sold, Hope on Wheels has contributed over$300 million to childhood cancer research, helping save more than 40 ,000 kids. But we're not done yet. We need your help. Together, let's bring every warrior home. Learn more at HyundaiUSA.com slash Hope on Wheels or ask about Hope on Wheels at your local Hyundai dealer. Shortly after I enrolled at Rasmussen, I was diagnosed with breast cancer.

33:44It was like a bomb had just been dropped in my life. I reached out to Rasmussen. They immediately were like, Rosa, take what time you need. You can come back when you're ready. We are cancer free today. And I'm just so grateful for Rasmussen, for all of their support throughout my journey and for my own village. Rasmussen University. Find your seat and start now at rasmussen.edu. Turning now to the logistics crisis. How did all of this happen? It again demonstrates the fragility of the American empire and how Iran really was able to show all of the cracks within it. Let's put this up here on the screen.

34:24the Navy carrier's problems are tied to attacks on the U.S. base early in the war. So basically, on the war's very first day, when Iranian missiles and drones destroyed much of the U.S. Navy base in Bahrain, it had served as the key logistics hub for decades. With that hub gone, along with several other regional ports, like Fujairah in the UAE, within all Iranian missile range, The Pentagon was forced to shift its main resupply point to Diego Garcia, which is obviously in the Maldives. So that means 2 ,200 miles from where the carrier strike groups are operating is where their main logistics base was as opposed to a few hundred miles.

35:06So the reason why then that the deteriorating crew conditions and all of that are linked is because you just have a shortage of basic supply. It's got to come from thousands and thousands of miles away. And so when you go nine months without the port, it's because the port they would go to was to Bahrain. So when you put those two things together and you have Diego Garcia obviously being the main logistics hub, you add several layers of logistical complication even bigger than that. And this makes sense. I kept wondering. I go, why is Trump so obsessed with Diego Garcia? He was constantly hammering the British for like giving it away and changing the treaty under which it's administered.

35:45Now it all makes sense is that we have been so pushed out of those Middle Eastern logistics bases that Diego Garcia becoming the number one hub for logistics, which, again, none of us really knew anything about this, means that for once you can see an actual forcible retreat of the United States military and changing of logistics is what threw this entire thing into complete chaos. And it actually could have been even worse is what that reveals, because Starmer originally did not want to let us use Diego Garcia. And, you know, Trump really like bullied and cajoled him into doing it. But no, the reality is that we have to we have to get ships from the from Asia all the way to Diego Garcia, which is just this little island.

36:30And then be able to, you know, to supply carriers from there. So you've got this very long distance to travel. by the time the goods even get to Diego Garcia, you're already having to deal with shelf life issues. So the real key here is that we did not anticipate that Iran would be able to destroy our bases throughout the region. You know, our entire logistic supply chain strategy was built on this basing approach. So when that basing approach was taken off the map, we were left scrambling, and that leads directly to the situation that our sailors find themselves in today. We've both been watching Sal.

37:11How do you say his last name, Mercogliano? I don't know his last name. We'll go with that. Shout out to you, Sal. We were trying to get him on the show today. Yeah, we'll still work on that. But in any case, he has a great YouTube channel. He's a shipping and logistics expert, former military himself, understands this stuff so deeply. We can put this tweet from him up on the screen. And really go and watch the video that is linked in this tweet because you will understand both the problems today and also the historical context. You were bringing up how even in World War II, we didn't have this long of sailors being on board ships.

37:42We had to figure out a supply chain that worked much more effectively than what is working here. In any case, he says, is logistics the U.S. Navy's greatest weakness? the Lincoln case study and analysis of the USS Abraham Lincoln's 266-day deployment, including 200 days in a combat zone and the reported mental health toll on the crew due to prolonged operations and resupply delays. So here's what he points to. Wartime tempo versus peacetime support. U.S. Navy is currently conducting wartime-level operations strikes and blockades with a logistics infrastructure designed for peacetime. The gutting of the Logistics fleet, a look back at the 90s policy shifts that replaced Navy crewed auxiliary ships with civilian crewed military seal of command vessels, merging station shuttle fleets and reducing overall capacity.

38:28So this was after the end of the Cold War. All right, we don't need all of these extra ships that do the supply chain, all of that stuff. So we're going to just rely on the bases and let those ships come out of service. Loss of forward bases, why the loss of central Persian Gulf bases has forced the Navy to rely on distant hubs like Diego Garcia and Singapore, drastically increasing resupply transit time. So that's as a result of the Iranians effective strategy here. The tyranny of distance, a comparison of modern logistics challenges in the Arabian Sea versus massive dedicated replenishment groups used during World War Two campaigns like Okinawa.

39:03and the invisible force, why logistics remains the bottom end of military finding until you find yourself in a situation like this, where food, fuel, or ammunition start to run low and why that mindset must change to maintain a viable global fleet. I am by far not even close to military expert. I am a complete rube when it comes to this stuff. Even I know that the first rule of war is make sure that you can supply the troops. And we failed on even that very first basic level as evidenced here. And, you know, Starmer is no longer the prime minister in the UK. You've got Burnham in now, who's trying to position himself as more of a progressive and can see, you know, sentiment in the UK, which is also very, very against the traditional relationship with Israel, very opposed to the Iran war.

39:49And so there's no guarantee that Burnham continues allowing us to use Diego Garcia the way that we have been. So we are incredibly, incredibly vulnerable here through our own faulty thinking, lack of strategic planning and complete failure. Yeah, the designers like General Marshall and these people, they are rolling in their grave at this disaster. It honestly boggles the mind that this could happen in the year 2026. But it was all predictable. We had no drone preparation. We had no ability to counter them in the beginning. We launched the war thinking that they were a paper tiger and they showed us on day one and now you got guys out in the middle of the ocean.

40:30Honestly, I worry. You got no fresh food? I mean, it's scary. Like scurvy? I don't know. I mean, maybe you could take vitamins these days. I'm not a doctor or anything, but malnutrition and working 20 hours a day seems to take a toll on anybody, no matter what kind of medical resources that you have access to. Put B3 also up on the screen just to underscore all of this. The U.S. – honestly, I cannot believe this. The U.S. has now pulled its last aircraft carrier in Asia as Trump has to focus on Iran and the Western Hemisphere. So what they show is that the USS George Washington is now departing the Pacific and is expected to replace the Lincoln in the Middle East.

41:11Lincoln's time at sea had originally had to be extended like we talked about earlier. But as they show now, the lack of a U.S. carrier in the Pacific will be short-lived for the next couple of months. But it does show how open-ended operations with Iran are running the sailors ragged. And that they're going to have to get another carrier to the Asia Pacific. They're going to have to sprint and force another group of sailors to probably suffer in exactly the same way that these guys. This shows you, I mean, this is the crown jewel of the American empire is its ability to project power on a blue water ocean.

41:48That's why we have it in the first place. And it's not for, you know, just for the military industrial complex. It's so that we all get to buy cheap televisions and we get to enforce the free trade, which is obviously not free. But the entire reason that most people were okay with it in the post-World War II era is, yes, it protects our ability to prosper as a nation. There's obviously been huge chinks in all that over the years. But if you were to choose Iran or South Korea, for no reason at all I'll bring up that example. Iran, Israel, or South Korea, which one would you choose? Which one would you choose?

42:25Would you choose the 11th largest trading partner with the United States, which has been an ally for literally decades, which bled with America in Vietnam, which we defended, literally died, tens of thousands of Americans died trying to defend South Korea, and which is vitally important to the U.S. economy, or this place which has the Holy Temple and ways, okay? All right. And which we have to fund the entire or I mean, honestly, even just look at a balance sheet. Look at Iran versus Israel in the long run. Which would you rather actually take a look at and say, oh, we should have better relations with this country?

43:01I mean, it is crazy. And yet between this move and I cannot let this go be six. Let's put it up here because this this is the future. This is what our future is going to look like. Trump, based on my very good relationship with Kim Jong-un, I am not happy with the fact the United States has long ago agreed to participate in joint military exercises with South Korea. These exercises are not only costly, which most of these costs paid for by the United States, but send a signal that is totally inappropriate and hostile to a country that as long as Donald J. Trump has been president has been unthreatening and respectful.

43:34Therefore, and based on the fact that it's too late to cancel, I have instructed the Secretary of War, Pete Hegseth, to substantially reduce the joint military exercises. While somewhat unrelated, question mark, I recently asked the president of South Korea if they would like to join us in the denuclearization of the Islamic Republic. They said, no thanks. Thanks for your attention to this matter. Can't blame them. So, yeah. The country which we economically nuked with their stock market, with their AI nonsense, which we destroyed their consumer sector with their energy prices. which provides Samsung and memory chips to the entire globe, we're saying, oh, that's not worth it.

44:11Oh, and by the way, where did we strip a bunch of THAAD missiles out of? South Korea. And now this is the future. The neocons have bought us this future. We have no carrier in Asia. We have no THAAD missiles. And North Korea's got a nuke. So guess what? You got to give it up. And I'm not even saying I don't support better relations. I supported the summit. I think doing a deal with Kim Jong-un is the only rational thing because he has a nuclear weapon. But just think about the downstream consequences. We cannot defend South Korea now. We probably never could, but now we especially can. And now what does it mean?

44:43South Korea has to choose. We get a nuke, which is very likely now, in my opinion. In the next decade, I think they'll have a nuclear weapon. Or they'll just kick us out and they have to do a better deal with China. And remember, They got so much shit back into, I think it was 2018, when we deployed that radar to South Korea, China cut them off and economically waged war on them. They stopped all their tourists from going to South Korea. They took a several billion dollar a year hit in South Korea. The government said it's worth it for our long term security relationship with America. We just fucked them.

45:15Tripoli. I mean, it's over. And so think about what the future is. If you're Taiwan or South Korea or Japan, good luck to you, man. Seriously. I mean, it's one of those where you've got your security relationship with America, but you're going to start seeing all kinds of side deals. Because I read the Asian press every day. The Japanese and the Australians are signing things. They're doing all kinds of security meetings and things between the two of them. I mean, the empire is shattering before our eyes. And it's all because of Iran and Israel. It's insanity that we would choose this over them.

45:46I mean, Iran and Israel, the Iran war has revealed how weak and retrograde the empire really was. We turned out to be the paper tigers, truly. And it's very difficult to wrap your head around what that is going to mean for the future. Because our entire ability to basically scare the world into compliance, oh, we've got all these, you know, bases all around the world and we can project power anywhere. We can protect our allies. You better not cross this. It's like, it's done. That world is over. And so we've talked here a lot about preparing for a multipolar world and being in a multipolar world and how that's going to go and what that's going to look like, how the U.S.

46:27should change and adjust. There is very much a possibility that we are heading into a unipolar world where we are not the unipole. I mean, that is a very real direction that is possible on the table at this point because we are doing such an incredible job of shattering every useful illusion about the American empire that exists. So yeah, if you look at China's technological advancement, where they are, they're so far beyond us in terms of drones. They're so far beyond us in terms of EV. They're maybe six months behind us in terms of frontier AI capabilities. We got to start thinking a lot differently about the way we comport ourselves in the world.

47:07But on this North Korea, South Korea piece in particular, this just strengthens the logic of acquiring a nuclear weapon. Where North Korea, they clearly made the right play here over the long term. South Korea has got to feel like fools, like, OK, well, I guess that's the path we need to pursue. Iran, the whole supposed reason we're in here is prevent them from pursuing a nuclear weapon. The logic for them to get a nuclear weapon has never been stronger than it is right now. And there are going to be countries all over the world that are thinking the same exact thing. This is the ultimate way to preserve our sovereignty, to get it so that, you know, the U.S.

47:43doesn't mess with us and that we have an ability to, you know, maintain our own domestic policy and conduct ourselves in the world the way we want to. So it truly is the dawn of a new era. And it's very difficult to predict how all of these dominoes are ultimately going to fall because there's already been a lot of things that have happened that I could never have predicted. You know when Iran at the beginning was like, we want the U.S. out of the region in particular? I think everybody looks at that and like, well, that's what a joke. Like, who are you to be able to say that? You don't have the strength to be able to say that.

48:16That's a delusion. That's like a religious fanatics delusion. And now here we are. Like, it's basically done. We're having to, we've had to retreat all the way to Jordan, and our service members are getting blown up there. You know, they got, they were, we had significant casualties and deaths there. And that's basically what has led to this new pause in the war because we didn't want to take further losses. So those bases that we had in the Middle East, like, that's never coming back. Not certainly in the way that it was. And those Arab allies do not want us back because it made them a target.

48:50They're desperate, most of them, for this war to end because they see the dire consequences. And look at what happened. You have the Saudi deal with Turkey and Pakistan. So same thing. Saudi has now a side defense. Is it real? I don't know. I mean, we'll find out. I hope not to find out. We might. You have all these reports that Egypt was strong armed to not join into this pact. I mean, that would be a serious. Egypt, it's been so long, we forget. But, you know, the balance of Egypt and Israel is the traditional American foreign policy. You pay off both corrupt governments and hope that they don't fight each other.

49:23Well, now what? I mean, we're living in a world where post-CC, he could die at any moment. What's it going to look like? Nobody has a clue for this critical linchpin. I'll just come back to the final thing on the pivot to Asia. It is so, it's not disappointing. It is genuinely insane because I will tell you, like the chief goal of Bridge Colby, who is the number three at the Pentagon, was to avoid war and entanglement in the Middle East and to pivot to Asia. I mean, he's the literal head of policy at the Pentagon. So for this to happen on his watch is insane. I mean, several members of the cabinet and of the Trump administration's national security, they write in their documents about how they want to prioritize Asia and here at home.

50:07Now what? I mean, this is what the war has destroyed all of it. It's also, it's not just South Korea. We really have to think the entire world is going to get nukes like Australia. You are going to see you are going to see multiple countries which previously were very dependent on the United States for their security umbrella. Like Poland, for example, has expressed an interest in a nuclear weapons program because of their proximity to Russia. South Korea is going to get a nuclear weapon. You are almost certain to see Japan and Saudi Arabia and, I mean, any of these Middle Eastern countries, they might not get a nuke themselves, but they will definitely sign more of these defense packs with side nuclear weapons powers.

50:51This gives tremendous power to North Korea, to all of these other countries, and the strategic logic of a nuclear Iran only makes more sense today, which is why all of the reports that are coming out of, you know, who knows how much of it is true or not, of the Supreme Leader being like, yeah, actually, I'm not as opposed as my father was to a nuclear weapon. Why wouldn't you be? Look at Kim Jong-un. He can do whatever he wants, literally whatever he wants, because he can hit the United States with an intercontinental ballistic missile. One other thing I want to mention here, because there's a report out in the Wall Street Journal about how while we were, during the Memo of Understanding time, we were like, okay, sort of living on hopium.

51:35Like, oh, it's going to work out. not really doing anything to prepare if it didn't work out. The Iranians went in with the assumption that it was not going to work out, that this was all a ruse from the U.S. in order to buy time because we were getting our butts kicked on the battlefield. And so they worked vociferously during that time to re-prepare themselves, dig out the missile cities, make sure they're manufacturing drones, think strategically about what they would do. And now there is reporting, again, it's very hard to say whether this is true or not that they are thinking of going on a more offensive footing.

52:10Now, it does make some logic for them, some logical sense, because number one, they know that we've got we're on the back foot. Like our sailors are here starving. We've got, you know, a very low morale. Munition stockpiles are a disaster. We've had to retreat from the region all the way to Jordan, where, you know, the Iranians are still able to hit and cause damage and service member loss of life. You know, know, the Gulf Arab allies are like sick of this. They are feeling very vulnerable themselves and they are incredibly exposed because this is a region that cannot sustain life without desalination plants and also without lots of imports.

52:45So they know that they have a lot of cards that they could play here. And meanwhile, the U.S. strategy is to sort of like bleed them out slowly. So why would you let us do that? Why would you just sit there and take that? That doesn't seem logical. So I do buy some of the reporting that we're seeing in the Wall Street Journal and other places that says, hey, they are taking a more offensive approach and they are planning ways themselves to escalate rather than just waiting to see what the U.S. is going to do next. I think that's very much possible. I bring it back to the analogy I gave last time about World War I and the Germans shifting to the unrestricted warfare in submarine, which is ultimately what really escalated the conflict, brought the United States in.

53:23It's the same line. Why would you sit there and be bled? Especially at that time, it was a relatively novel situation where you had the asymmetric ability to strike back at a blockade. What, Iran? I mean, to be honest, their leadership often seems much more educated and more knowledgeable of history than ours does. It's not even close. Are you kidding me? Compared to Trump? Yeah, it's like when we killed Larajani, I didn't know much about him. I'm reading about this like, oh, he wrote a biography and series of essays on Foucault. You're like, what? I cannot think of a single person in senior leadership.

53:58And I'm talking about both elite parties, Democrat and Republican, who is remotely comparable at an intellectual level of something like that. So, yeah, I don't know. That's what we're doing. So they can look, they know to allow themselves to be squeezed by the blockade would be suicide in the long run. So they have the ability to escalate and to try and change the situation in their favor. Why wouldn't you? I think they would, especially considering the gambles that they've taken have almost all come up on the right side for them, at least so far in this war. OK, let's get to the economy. NYX, that's K-N-I-X, leak-proof underwear, is made for real life because when your day is already full, your underwear shouldn't be something you have to think about.

54:39NYX gives you reliable leak-proof protection that fits seamlessly into your routine. For periods, for light bladder leaks, for workouts, for everyday freshness, NYX leak-proof underwear comes in a range of absorbencies, from light to ultra. So if you need a little backup or all-day protection, there's a pair for you. Unlike bulky protection, NYX feels barely there with soft fabrics, moisture-wicking layers, and anti-odor technology that keeps you feeling fresh and confident. Wear them to work, running errands, traveling, even overnight. Plus, they're machine washable, so you can wear them again and again.

55:15Find your perfect level of protection at knix.com and get 15 % off with code FLOW15. That's knix.com, code FLOW15. That's knix.com. Hey everybody, this is Kevin. This is Nick. Hey, this is Joe. From Hey Jonas. You know, I recently learned that every 36 minutes, another child in the U.S. is diagnosed with cancer. Think about that for a second. Some of the bravest warriors you will ever meet aren't professional athletes or superheroes. They're kids in this fight. And every day, these young warriors face challenges most adults couldn't imagine. Yet they continue to show up with incredible courage, determination, and hope.

55:50That's why we're proud to support Hyundai Hope on Wheels. The past 28 years, with support from Hyundai, their dealers, and every new Hyundai sold, Hope on Wheels has contributed over$300 million to childhood cancer research, helping save more than 40 ,000 kids. But we're not done yet. We need your help. Together, let's bring every warrior home. Learn more at HyundaiUSA.com slash Hope on Wheels or ask about Hope on Wheels at your local Hyundai dealer. I have been with Rasmussen University since 2013, all virtual. All of my professors throughout the entire journey have been nothing but supportive of making me reach my dreams.

56:27Rasmussen professors, they want to see you grow so that you can be what you went to school to be. I'm so thankful for Rasmussen University for being able to make it so easy and seamless. Rasmussen University. Find your seat and start now at rasmussen.edu. All right, let's turn now to some of the economic fallout of the war. By the way, oil prices going up this morning, so we will keep an eye on that. But President Trump, meanwhile, is unrepentant about the consequences at the gas pump for all of you. Let's take a listen. For you to pay a tiny little bit more for your gasoline, just remember you're doing it so that a very evil country cannot have a country.

57:12Really, it's the number one state sponsor of terror in the world. We don't want to have them have a nuclear weapon. So remember that when you have to pay a little bit more, you're at four dollars. It's OK. I mean, it's I'm not I'm not I'll never apologize. I did the right thing. I'll never apologize. And there I think he's telling the truth, Sagar. I don't think he ever will. I know, I never apologize. Yeah, I think actually what it demonstrates too is that this framing, this all-in problem is exactly the same thing that's bedeviled every previous American president because you can see exactly how any opposition party seeing this was like, this is the greatest ad in the history of the midterms.

57:55And if you're Iranians and you're saying, remember that when you're paying$4, you go, all right, well, he's not feeling the pain yet. You got to turn the screws off. Exactly what we were just talking about. They're like, oh, he seems fine with four. Let's try five. Let's try six. Let's try 750 if we really have to go as far as we can. This demonstrates like multiple things. Number one is he has to be all in. And remember, he changes his tune every single time he talks about it. So in this case, he goes, we have to prevent them from getting a nuclear weapon. Over the weekend, he had a true social post where he said that essential denuclearization has already happened with Iran.

58:31And he's like, it's eventually been denuclearized. Oh, my God. This morning, this morning, he has a new Truth Social post out, which says Iran can never be allowed to have a nuclear weapon. He says the number one goal and is and always will be that Iran cannot have in any way, shape or form a nuclear weapon. Thank you for your attention to this matter. So it's been essentially denuclearized. It has been it cannot have a nuclear weapon. Also, you have to be grateful for paying$4 a gallon to be able to stop them from getting the nuclear weapon. To stop them from getting the nuclear weapon that we told you in June of 2025 was completely unattainable.

59:11So put all these things together. Old enough to remember when the nuclear program was thoroughly obliterated during the 12-day war, and yet here we are being told that we must pay endless amounts of increases in gas prices to denuclearize Iran when in reality, the war has only made it more likely that Iran will pursue a nuclear weapon. Bravo all around, sir. Let's take a look at how Americans are feeling about having to pay more at the gas pump and about his economic choices in general. This is from the Financial Times, and they found most U.S. voters say they are worse off under Trump. This is according to their poll.

59:48So let me go ahead and give you these numbers. So the overall numbers are 53 percent. So majority of Americans say they are worse off. 26 percent say about the same. Only 21 percent say they are better off. And that is overwhelmingly Republicans, by the way, that are in that category. Democrats, 78 percent say they're worse off. Even among Republicans, though, almost a quarter, 23 percent, admit they are worse off under Trump. Given the amount of loyalty the Republican base has had to him. That is a pretty extraordinary number to actively come out and say, you know what, I'm doing worse now under Trump 2.0.

1:00:25Among independents, again, you have a clear majority, 57 percent saying they are worse off and only 15 percent saying they are better off. Again, coming back just to the Republicans, only 42 percent of them, so much less than a majority, says they are better off under Trump. So even many Republicans having to admit to themselves that when they're looking at their bills and how they're making it month to month, this is not going well. If you look at the numbers on is the economy going in the right direction or the wrong direction, they're even worse. 64 % say that we are going in the wrong direction.

1:00:57Only 25 % say the right direction. Democrats, it's almost unanimous. Independents, 67 % say wrong direction. And again, with Republicans, more than a third, 37%, say the economy is going in the wrong direction. And as we've discussed before, you know, in previous presidencies, there's a confluence of factors that contribute to the economy. The president doesn't have total command control over either the domestic or the global economic situation. However, between the tariffs and the Iran war, I don't know that we have in our lifetime had a president who was more directly responsible for the economic conditions that Americans are living through.

1:01:36And he doesn't really even deny it. I mean, in that clip that we just played where he says, I'll never apologize for you having to pay a little bit more at the gas pump in order to denuclearize Iran. He is taking credit for the economic, the dire economic circumstances that people are facing. And how could you deny that he was directly responsible for it? Like, if you look at the trend lines going into, he was handed a pretty good situation. Things are recovering. You had manufacturing output increasing. You had inflation that was coming down. Now we have inflation back up to numbers that are higher than when he took office.

1:02:11Yeah, I mean, I wouldn't say it was a good situation. It was still high inflation over a four-year cumulative year. Yes, it was primed to. But it was, you know, a lot of jobs had been created. Inflation was coming down. There was a lot that was sort of going for him and very likely to have a pretty solid four years. If he had done nothing, we'd be in a much better situation. I agree with that. I still don't think it was. I would just say it wasn't good. Now, to your point, though, there are several voluntary things that Trump has done which have made the situation worse. Gas is the most obvious.

1:02:42The national price of gasoline this morning,$4.06. A gallon Brent crude, roughly around$90. A barrel, that's with no hot war. So we're primed for some sort of major Iran attack or escalation, which could easily send it well above over$100. And if the trend line continues, it'll be roughly around that within the next few months. So that's one thing. Number two is interest rates. I actually think that was one where in some ways Trump was fucked no matter what because interest rates were not coming down from the, what, 6%, 7%. Now, they could – or back to where they were when he was president, 2%, something like that.

1:03:18That's never happening again, most likely. But with what he did, which was – has made the situation worse, was voluntarily increase inflation via tariff and via gas prices. Then the third thing, and it's probably the one that he had most in his control outside of the war, was the big, beautiful bill, was the extension. I mean, look, every time you touch the tax code and you don't give a dramatic amount of manufacturing or resupply credits or whatever to actually try to boost production over the long term, you're not helping yourself whenever you're actually just giving large tax breaks largely to the corporate class and to the existing stock buybacks and general financial architecture system.

1:03:59So if you put those together, I think that you can see that every term where he had the ability to voluntarily switch things up in his favor, it just didn't work for him and has made things dramatically worse. That's where, you know, structurally the way things were under Biden. I mean, it was bad. I think when Trump took office, a lot of people genuinely did hope. Maybe naively they're like, oh, well, we hope all they wanted to see is a reduction in grocery price. I actually think that alone, as you said, if he did nothing and did something along those lines and got an interest rate, I don't know, what was it, 650 or something?

1:04:32And 6.5 percent. And he gets it down to 4. I mean, that would have been considered a victory, modestly, at least better than Biden. But he screwed himself. You can see that all over the data. My point is just the trend lines were headed in the right direction when he took office. And now the trend lines are headed very much in the wrong direction since he's taken office. And so and again, it's something you really can't bullshit people on. They have their own experience with it. Meanwhile, let's focus on what Trump is actually spending a lot of his time thinking about, because it's certainly not your pocketbook, your wallet or your bank account.

1:05:07It is his ballroom. Let's put C3 up on the screen. He says now the White House needs this military complex as courts have blocked this construction. I mean, this is entirely predictable that he should have had to have gone through Congress before demolishing a significant part of the White House, building this complete monstrosity. He just thinks he can do whatever he wants to do. And remember, originally, this was all going to be paid for by private donors, which has its own issues. It is now going to be significantly taxpayer funded. And so the reason he's now framing this as a military complex is so that he can invoke national security requirements, which allows him to have more power in the hands of the executive.

1:05:47I mean, this is a tool that they've used for a number of different purposes throughout the Trump administration, including the tariffs, by the way, where they will claim some national security justification and use that in order for Trump to get his way. So they're trying the same trick here now with his beloved ballroom. quote here i miss this army secretary dan driscoll writes if there was ever a drone attack on the white house the ballroom would be sacrificial outer cover to protect the people and military complex underneath you know you gotta be honest those conspiracy people in the beginning who said that the ballroom was a data center project or something yeah they might be right this entire time they were certainly closer to reality than maybe many of us thought i mean the guys out here saying that this is some vital military complex, although this is where I just think it's nonsense and he just wants either taxpayers to fund it.

1:06:38But this is his obsession. Maggie Haberman gave an interview and they asked her, he said, what percent of Trump's mindshare does the ballroom and his Lincoln Memorial or Lincoln reflecting pool projects occupy? And she was like, probably like 60%. And I was like, yeah, it tracks. It tracks from what I've been able to, I mean, that's where his heart is. That's his passion is the reflecting pool. I mean, look how obsessed he is with this whole Jeanine Pirro thing saying that she needs to go back to law school. We'll talk about Dodd Blanchier in a little bit. He's in a tough spot on that one, but he's got the reflecting pool and the ballroom.

1:07:14But this is his genuine obsession is recreating. No president since Truman has touched the White House in the way that Trump has. Truman at least went through Congress and had like a historical commission and other things that redesigned it in a decent way. This is purely to his own aesthetic taste, which is part of the reason that so many Americans are so repulsed by it. Yeah. And the truth is, if he had bothered to go through Congress, probably could get what he wanted or less. But he doesn't want to have to deal with the messiness of democracy and having to ask anybody for anything. So he just does it all on his own.

1:07:50But this is part of him wanting to leave his stamp. This is part of his obsession with his legacy and, you know, making his reign here in D.C. a permanent fixture that we all have to think about and deal with just visually from the way that he changes the skyline here in the city. He also, his other obsession is posting weird A.I. slop. And so we have an example here, I can put this up on the screen, where his ballroom obsession and his weird AI boomer slop obsession come together. He posts, thank you, George, George Washington. He's got an AI slop video of him and George Washington together touring the new ballroom.

1:08:29Thank you, George, for some of your brilliant ideas on this great military complex slash ballroom. President DJT. So the full boomerification of the White House has happened, complete with the AI slop obsession, and it is grotesque to watch. Yeah, especially because he could probably have not picked another president that was worse for the example. I cannot even imagine what George Washington would think about building a palatial ballroom for visiting heads of state on the White grounds. He himself, who refused the title of his imperial or his majesty, which was proposed while he was the president and insisted on being the ultimate kind of non-noteworthy citizen, like the extraordinary average Joe, I guess, if you will.

1:09:18And his total unremarkability is the thing that probably is the most important thing about Washington, kind of an everyman citizen soldier who voluntarily leaves the presidency and wanted specifically to not be imbued with both the powers, the titles, and the imagery of the European monarchs and societies, which he despised more than anything. So yeah, I'm sure he, a palatial gold Versailles-style ballroom would probably send him into genuine hysterics. I bet he also would have thought about the logistics supply chain of the sailors who were stranded in the Middle East. Yes and no. Washington's track record as a general is not as good as we try to remember, but it's fine.

1:10:01Everybody needs their own mythos.

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