8/19/26: DSA Shocking Victory In Florida, Trump Backed Candidate Crushed, US Plots Retreat From Middle East

25:42DSA aligned or progressive candidates that we were tracking at the congressional level. It could put a seven up on the screen. Oliver Larkin, who we've interviewed a number of times, he loses to Jared Moskowitz in this South Florida district, 65 to 37 percent. To be honest with you, I think this is a fairly decent showing. This is about as tough a district, maybe the toughest district you could run in in the country as a Democratic Socialist. Massively outspent all of those things. But Moskowitz with the easy win here and we'll go on to the general election. Let's put a eight up on the screen.

26:17There were some unique dynamics in this race. And also worth noting here, all of these Florida districts got somewhat scrambled because there was a redistricting. So the original districts that Oliver Larkin and Jared Moskowitz were running in, that was changed. And then Debbie Wasserman Schultz, her district was redrawn. She decided to run in a district she does not live in, which also has been historically a black opportunity district and has had black representation for decades at this point. There was a lot of upset from local and national black leaders about her jumping into this race. However, you had a number of other black candidates, including Elijah Manley, who we interviewed on the show yesterday, who sorry, not yesterday, day before yesterday, who was the progressive in the race.

27:06So those candidates were did not consolidate that vote. Debbie Wasserman Schultz with 45 percent is able to win in this district that she does not live in and over the upset of some at least community leaders there. So that's another interesting one. But again, so it wasn't uniform DSA victories across the board. I think it really was Angie Nixon's unique ability to stitch together the DSA coalition with a lot of strong support in the black community that leads to her incredibly strong result there. Emily, any reflections on that? We also had some other Democratic wins in the state that are worth flagging.

27:41Well, just that because the maps were redrawn, Jared Moskowitz could well lose his seat outright. So, yes, beat the DSA candidate in that race. but he might not hold down a seat in the House of Representatives. Worth noting that. And Crystal, let's get to A9 here. This is from Tanyol, who notes, Florida Democrats flipped the school board of Sarasota County. That was one of the more symbolic strongholds of Moms for Liberty, Tanyol notes, which, by the way, in the grassroots conservative movement, that's nothing. That's fairly important because of the kind of 2020-era grassroots conservative movement, Republican Party organizing, Moms for Liberty was a decently important part of that.

28:19Also, the office of the school board chair in Orange County and an at-large city council seat in Jacksonville. So three things just right there. And in races, people weren't paying close attention to or super close attention to that went Democrats way last night. And one more. And by the way, Trump won Sarasota County by 18 points. There was another district put A10 up on the screen in Pennsylvania. They had a special election in the Pennsylvania legislature in a legislative district Trump carried by 18 percentage points. This is actually in Butler, Pennsylvania, where that assassination attempt on Trump's life occurred.

28:53In any case, at the time of this tweet, the GOP nominee was up by just 44 votes. Now the Democrat, all the vote is in, the Democrat is in the lead by some, I think it was roughly a thousand votes last time I checked, very, very narrowly. So last I checked, the race had not been called, But Democrats look to have flipped this special election in a district Trump carried by 18 percentage points. So, you know, definitely all the indications are that Democrats are in a strong position heading into the midterms. One more name check on the Democratic side is the Senate race up in Alaska. So the way they do this is it's a jungle primary.

29:32The top four, I think, move on. Mary Peltola and Dan Sullivan, the Democrat and the Republican, they were the top two. But everyone's paying attention to, OK, well, who will get more of the vote and what's the margin going to be? Peltola's got to feel pretty good because she was sitting at 47, I think, percent. And Dan Sullivan was down around 43 percent. So she secured more of the vote in this primary, showing, again, a lot of enthusiasm for Democrats, even in a more conservative state like Alaska. And that is one that Democrats really kind of need to win if they're going to have a shot at taking back the Senate.

30:04Yeah, big time. And by the way, just that Brandon Dukes race in the Butler area, I've been to that district many times. That's Trump country. There's just no question about it. That's an area where you would probably would have to go back and look precisely, but where you would probably see voting patterns that looked like Obama-Trump, then maybe Biden-Trump or Trump-Trump. But that's Trump country since the last couple of years. It's like the heart of Trump country, to be honest. And that's why they did the rally in Butler there. So that's a pretty important result for Democrats to right now be claiming a victory.

30:38Very, very close election, obviously, but really something to see that. This is Jacob Goldstein from What's Your Problem? Running a business is hard enough. Don't make it harder with a dozen apps that don't talk to each other. One for sales, another for inventory, a separate one for accounting. That's software overload. Odoo is the all-in-one platform that replaces them all. CRM, accounting, inventory, e-commerce, HR, fully integrated, easy to use, and built to grow with your business. Thousands have already made the switch. Why not you? Try Odoo for free at odoo.com. That's odoo.com. 16 years ago, I started working as a CNA in the hospital.

31:22I loved it. On the day I decided to enroll in the nursing program at Rasmussen University, it was afternoon, my 35th birthday. I was hanging out with a friend and they had just questioned me what I was going to do with this next chapter of my life. I immediately had said, I want to go to nursing school. So I actually had contact information from an advisor at Rasmussen, contacted her and actually ended up starting like three weeks later. My name is Cherish Adams and I'm a Rasmussen University graduate. Learn more at rasmussen.edu. Bite into a stacked sandwich made with hero bread or a fully loaded bagel.

31:54And the only thing you'll think is delicious. You won't think it's up to 19 grams of protein, but it is. You wouldn't believe it has 11 to 32 grams of fiber, but it does. Hero Bread makes loaves, buns, tortillas, bagels, and noodles packed with taste, but without all the net carbs. We're talking 0 to 5 grams net carbs per serving. With Hero Bread, there are no compromises, just flavor. There's none of the stiff baked goods you'd expect from Better For You brands. There's just the soft, fluffy bread you crave. Plus, small batch drops of indulgent favorites like the popular 2-gram net carb Hero Croissant and 3-gram net carb Hero Pen au Chocolat.

32:35And right now, Hero Bread is offering 10 % off your order. Go to Hero.co and use code IHEART at checkout. That's code IHEART at H-E-R-O dot C-O. All figures per serving of Hero Bread. See Nutrition Facts on Hero.co. Should we talk about what happened on the Republican side? Some interesting ones there, too. We should definitely talk about what happened. Republican side. Let's move over. We'll move back to Florida here. So Corey Mills has lost the Republican primary for the seventh district. Corey Mills was obviously swamped by all kinds of allegations of misconduct and lost pretty easily, double digits.

33:13Right now it's sitting at 47.3 % for Ryan Elijah, who won that race, 34.1 % for Corey Mills, sitting Congressman Corey Mills, of course, and we can put this Mother Jones element up on the screen. This is just a little bit, if you've missed the Cory Mills scandal, it should be a movie. Frankly, it has been an absolute roller coaster for him over the last couple of years and the whole district. Mother Jones notes just in bullet points. His last 18 months look like this. February 2025, Washington, D.C. police nearly arrest Mills after a girlfriend calls 911 and accuses him of domestic assault. Assault.

33:49She recants the accusation after reportedly being pressured to do so by the Congressman. May 2025, Army veterans accused Mills of obtaining a bronze star through stolen valor. August 2025, an ex-girlfriend who Mills was cheating on with a partner who accused him of abuse seeks a restraining order against Mills after the congressman is accused of threatening to potentially share explicit videos recorded during the relationship. Then fast forward to October, just a couple months later, a Florida judge grants the restraining order. After finding a key part of the congressman testimony in the dating violence case had not been truthful, House Ethics Committee started investigating him then last November.

34:23In May, the Ethics Committee found, quote, it has authorized more than 20 subpoenas or revealed that it authorized more than 20 subpoenas and obtained thousands of documents as part of its investigation into serious and complex allegations against Mills. July of 2026, NBC News reports that Mills is under investigation by the DOJ, and that was into his finances. So DropSite did some great reporting, But also The Blaze did great reporting. The conservative website The Blaze really started doing great reporting on Mills in the last 18 months. I mean, I've even been earlier than that, showing his arms dealing, some of which appeared to be through the company while he was still or while he was a sitting member of Congress.

35:06Absolutely scandal plagued. But, Crystal, no real surprise he lost. It was just remarkable to watch him act as though nothing was wrong over the last 18 months, go about business as usual here and basically hold his head up high despite all of this mounting in just a really ugly way. This was one where it was just hard for me to keep in my head all of the many scandals that he was implicated in as you were reading. And I was like, isn't that the arms dealer guy, too? Yes, it was. our own Ryan Grimm confronted him on the Piers Morgan show about the arms dealing aspect of all of this. So in any case, they were able to get this kind of like Chad look looking local news anchor guy to run against him.

35:49He was able to get a few endorsements from Republicans, elected Republicans. I think Anna Paulina Luna, for example, backed him. Corey Mills, on the other hand, did have Trump's endorsement and backing Trump. This is another aspect of things. Trump actually took a number of losses last night and has taken a number of losses throughout this primary election cycle. I saw someone who had analyzed this this morning saying that 10 Trump-backed candidates had lost. That matches the higher watermark of his worst electoral season yet, that being in 2022. And if you put all of the other years that he's been in office together, this is more than the losses that he suffered during those years.

36:28So there is something interesting there about voters making their own judgments about some of these candidates. And they just took a look at Corey Mills and said, you know what, buddy, this is one, two, three, four or more scandals. Too much for us. We'll go with this other guy instead. Yeah. And again, though, I mean, this guy was, I'm reading from a Roger Sullenberger report at DropSite. In July, Mills and the weapons company he founded a decade ago, Payson, were notified that their foreign creditors were moving to liquidate tens of millions of dollars an unpaid foreign debt that Mills has never disclosed to Congress, despite his personal liability.

37:01So his entire tenure in the House was an interesting glimpse into run-of-the-mill D.C. corruption. Then obviously the personal allegations did not help with that. Corey Mills make that case that he deserved to retain his seat in Congress. But just there should be a movie coming out of the Cory Mills situation at the very least. He is, I don't know, he's a crystal. I was going to say he's a piece of garbage, but maybe I shouldn't. Too late. Too late. I think the I think the deeds and the allegations speak for themselves on that front. They sure do. Now, Byron Donald ended up winning the primary very easily.

37:4047.8 percent for Governor Jay Collins came in at 25.2 percent. And James Fishback's social media fueled campaign came in at 10.5 percent. Now, we can put this Florida politics tear sheet up on the screen. You may most remember this story from late last year. But one of Florida's largest school districts cut ties in 2022 with James Fishback, now Republican candidate for governor, following allegations that he had an inappropriate relationship with a student who was a minor at the time, According to interviews and records reviewed by NBC News earlier this year, the woman, Kana Fort, went to court asking for an order of protection against Fishback.

38:18She said he, quote, initiated a romantic relationship with her in spring 2022 and directed her to keep it a secret when she said he was 27 and he was 17 working for his group Incubate Debate. Fishback founded the organization in 2019, partnering with school districts in Florida to build debate programs for middle and high school students. And at that period in Fishback's life, I can personally say, because I interviewed him a number of times, he was kind of a what's the best way to put it? A kind of norms loving, civility embracing, Barry Weiss style, intellectual, dark web centrist. Um, it wasn't always clear to me what his ideology really was, uh, because he seemed like somebody who was leaning really hard into the, let's all just get back to having civil debates.

39:12He literally, his group was called Incubate Debate. Conversations. Yes, it was. He, he was running. And by the way, it seemed like a perfectly normal human being at the time. It has rattled me, unlike any other race or individual I can think of that I've met covering politics for a decade. This has seen the total personality transformation that Fishback has undergone so rapidly, has been personally rattling because I knew him for several years leading up to this. And he appears to be a totally different person. And for some obvious political reasons, right? Like he was running hard against Israel.

39:50He was running on what was it like a syntax crystal. So against like only fans, taxing only fans, that sort of thing on a lot of culture war issues that I would say put him somewhere in the proximity of Nick Fuentes. And he was testing this out on a statewide campaign. He was calling Byron Donald's Byron and saying he was like a Section 8 candidate. So it was a it was a gnarly campaign. And then, of course, these allegations came out. We would be remiss, though, to not mention B5. We can put this up on the screen. Another small sample from Zachary Donany, who writes, but Fishback won 89 percent of the vote in the Florida State University precinct.

40:31Will aggregate results across these campus precincts tomorrow for a broader look at his performance with younger voters? I didn't go precinct by precinct, but I did go county by county. And he did not appear to have come out ahead in any of the individual counties and actually didn't even appear to be very close in any of the individual counties. So we'll keep an eye on that. But he certainly was drawing crowds at campuses and those sorts of places. But as we've seen before, it doesn't always materialize into something real. It wasn't only at this campus, but apparently he won like all the major universities overwhelmingly, 89 percent.

41:08But then you go and look at the number of votes, 25. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Byron Donald's got one. So it shows you a little bit of a lack of enthusiasm, I guess, amongst the young Republicans. But I think, you know, look, Fishback very much positioned himself as like a groiper, online groiper candidate. And he was greeted with huge crowds and online acclaim and all this stuff, both in real life and in Internet life. Tucker endorsed him, for example. Yeah. Sorry, who endorsed him? Tucker. He went on Tucker's show and Tucker said, like, I hope you do well. Oh, great. Right. And Kyle Rittenhouse apparently also voted for him.

41:45So some interesting coalition building that he's doing there. Not enough to prevail in a primary. I think this isn't this around where the polls that he would ultimately end up somewhere like in very low single digits. So I think they pretty much captured what was going on here. We were debating before the election started what would happen. And we thought it would either be a total flop or, you know, something that was surprising. and we were kind of leaning in the direction of total flop because we just imagine all these young guys who it's not even that they really care about the electoral result.

42:15It's more of sort of like a performative, you know, this guy's an influencer and I like this influencer versus I actually think he's going to be governor of the state of Florida. So I'm sure there were many bros in Florida who kind of liked him, but didn't even bother to like register to vote, let alone go out and vote for this guy. or by the way they maybe don't want him to be an elected official but they find him like to be a compelling internet personality which is a difference that is i think it's i think it's worth pointing out that i mean you mentioned all the like just blatantly racist like race baiting crap he was doing i think it's fair to deem his views genuinely anti-semitic even though that word gets thrown around way too much in terms of the way he was critiquing israel but he's also just a total shapeshifter to your point.

43:03People are digging up old Jubilee clips of him. He was in the Jubilee versus Destiny sounding completely different than how he sounds today. So anyway, I think between him and we can talk about the Randy Fine versus Dan Belzerian race, got to be one of the most loathsome contests in human history between the two of those individuals. You could see, I guess, the limits of griperism as an actual political electoral force in the Republican Party at this point. However, you have to say with young Republicans, this has a lot of appeal. And that is something that the party is going to have to grapple with quite a bit over the years.

43:43Well, I do want to say, I mean, I don't think 10 % is nothing. And we were just batting around yesterday what it might look like. And I was vacillating between like either 2 % or 20%. And I was thinking it would be one or the other. 10 % is absolutely not nothing at all. And one of the things that's worth looking at here is Ryan McComb of VoteHub looked at the precincts and showed that Byron Donald's dominated Florida's oldest precincts. Now, the chart says vote share in the August Republican primary for governor group by average adult age of precinct residents. The precinct where they're grouping it with under 35, Fishback was up at about 31 percent.

44:21Now, that's still a minority. Collins, between Collins and Donald, Byron Donald, they were over 50 percent. So Fishback, 30 percent. When it was 35 to 45, 14 percent. 45 to 55, he's at 11 percent. And then 55 and up, 6.9 percent. We'd be curious to hear who those 70-year-old Florida voters casting their ballots for James Fishback were. But those under 35 precincts averaged by VoteHub, 30 percent. So again, hardly nothing, hardly insignificant. That's something for the GOP to certainly grapple with. Yeah, no doubt about it. Should we get into this Randy Fine situation here? We must. Because there's a lot going on there.

45:07So let's put the results up first. Randy Fine, who is the most repellent, bigoted person, I would say, in the United States Congress. And that is a very, very high bar at this point. Was victorious in his primary against another extreme bigot, Dan Bilzerian. Put B6A up on the screen here. We can see the results. Very easy victory, 57 % to 18.7%. Now, there was something a little bit weird that happened here, which is the first results that came out actually had Bilzerian within range. He was at like, I don't know, just under 40%. It was like a 40-60 kind of a race. And I was like, oh, interesting.

45:48What's going on here? It must have been a mistake because then those were taken down and there was a correction. Of course, Bilzerian is seizing on this to say this was definitely rigged. They took my votes away, et cetera. But in any case, appears to have been a big victory here for big Randy Fine. Earlier in the day, however, let's put B6 up on the screen. He was out door knocking and was waiting for someone to answer and, you know, standing around. Unmistakable. This is someone's ring camera footage. Body so T, you don't even need to see the face to know who this is. and here he is rifling through the mail of whoever's doorstep he's on here.

46:34Why? I couldn't tell you, but that is extremely creepy and it is also a federal crime. So I don't know what's going on there with that, Emily, but if I was that homeowner, I would definitely be looking into what I could do legally to pursue some sort of avenue here. I don't know. I'm just glad that he was getting some exercise, Crystal. That's very kind of you, Ab. It's good to see. It's good to see. Now, Hakeem Jeffries went after Dan Bilzerian and said, The hateful campaign being run by Dan Bilzerian in Florida is blatantly anti-Semitic and shocks the conscience people of goodwill, regardless of political affiliation.

47:10Must reject his vile attacks on the Jewish community. This cannot and will not stand. And then we should also. Which is true. I mean, Bilzerian is blatantly anti-Semitic. you know, flirts with, you know, rehabbing Hitler. It's really gross stuff, right? This is not a borderline, like he said, from the river to the sea. This is he, I don't think he would even deny the level of anti-Semitism that he brings to the table. That's kind of his whole thing. So yes, the end of the area is gross than a bigot. It was kind of bigot on bigot in this particular Republican primary. Let's put the next element up on the screen.

47:46Randy Fine, many will remember, posted once, if they force us to choose, the choice between dogs and Muslims is not a difficult one. So that was the state of the race for Republicans. Called for nuking Gaza, let them all starve. Just so many Islamophobic, blatantly bigoted posts, you could not even keep track of them. And look, again, fine for Hakeem Jeffries to call out Dan Bilzerian, I think that's entirely warranted. Where is the condemnation of Randy Fine, who is not only an equally bigoted person, openly and proudly so, but also has been in a position of power to act on those bigoted inclinations.

48:33So yeah, just very disturbing race here between one individual who hates all Muslims, another individual who hates all Jews, and pretty gross to have that be a dividing line in a political contest, but may not be the last time that we see that particular dynamic. And before we move on, I do just want to note, there was a candidate in this race who came in at 13.5 % named Aaron Baker, who Ryan and I interviewed about a year ago. He was a contractor in the area who was disgusted by Randy Fiennes' bigotry, got into the race, a normal guy. And so listen, 13.5%, if Dan Bilzerian hadn't been in the race, And I'm sure, I mean, Bilzerian right now with 99 percent of the votes in is at 18.7 percent.

49:17So higher than Fishback, significantly higher than Fishback, almost double Fishback's vote total percentage. But that's unfortunate because if there had been a little bit more room for Aaron, I mean, he was it was really he was literally just a normal guy who was trying to get involved. People can go back and watch that interview. Still 13 and a half percent, you know, for having basically no money. I say good for you, Aaron Baker. And not being an influencer with like a national brand and name. For Gen Z. Yeah, I remember when you guys did that interview. I was going to say for Gen Z, they may not know the Bilzerian lore, but Crystal, when we were younger, in the heyday of Instagram, when Instagram was new in the world, the word influencer was still a vague term that boomers were unaware of.

50:04Dan Bilzerian was not political at all. He was just a dude who was like flying around on private planes with guns and naked women and was like one of the most popular people on Instagram, period. And like kind of very famous. Yeah, indeed. So there you go. I guess all of that gets you 18 percent versus Randy Fine. So one of the two very odious individuals very likely headed back to Congress because it was it's a very Republican district. So even in a year like this, I don't think that there's much chance that Randy Fine is going down. This is Jacob Goldstein from What's Your Problem? Running a business is hard enough.

50:43Don't make it harder with a dozen apps that don't talk to each other. One for sales, another for inventory, a separate one for accounting. That's software overload. Odoo is the all-in-one platform that replaces them all. CRM, accounting, inventory, e-commerce, HR. fully integrated, easy to use, and built to grow with your business. Thousands have already made the switch. Why not you? Try Odoo for free at odoo.com. That's odoo.com. My name is Tuva Nguyen, and enrolling at Rasmussen University was essentially a handshake to a lifeline, a career, stability, and a future for myself. I found it important to be able to speak with instructors and staff outside of office hours and to have that support system was essential because they believed in me.

51:35Rasmussen University. Are you ready to rewrite your story online and on campus? Learn more at rasmussen.edu. Bite into a stacked sandwich made with hero bread or a fully loaded bagel. And the only thing you'll think is delicious. You won't think it's up to 19 grams of protein, But it is. You wouldn't believe it has 11 to 32 grams of fiber, but it does. Hero Bread makes loaves, buns, tortillas, bagels, and noodles packed with taste, but without all the net carbs. We're talking zero to five grams net carbs per serving. With Hero Bread, there are no compromises, just flavor. There's none of the stiff baked goods you'd expect from Better For You brands.

52:19There's just the soft, fluffy bread you crave. Plus, small batch drops of indulgent favorites, like the popular 2-gram net carb Hero croissant and 3-gram net carb Hero pen au chocolat. And right now, Hero Bread is offering 10 % off your order. Go to Hero.co and use code IHEART at checkout. That's code IHEART at H-E-R-O dot C-O. All figures per serving of Hero Bread. See Nutrition Facts on Hero.co. Well, let's head over to the Iran conflict. We can put the first element up on the screen. This is from DropSite. The United Arab Emirates has halted all trade with Iran after accusing it of launching missiles.

52:56This happened yesterday. The UAE Defense Ministry, according to Dropsite, said its air defenses detected two ballistic missiles launched from Iran, the first falling outside its territorial waters and the second within them, with a phone alert also warning residents in the UAE of a, quote, potential missile threat. The UAE Foreign Ministry then announced it was halting all trade, commercial exchanges, and financial transactions with Iran until further notice, citing regional escalations. Iran's foreign ministry spokesperson said completely rejected the claim that it launched those missiles targeting Emirati territory, calling it contrary to good neighborly relations and damaging to efforts to build trust, regional trust.

53:34He urged regional states to avoid, quote, baseless accusations against Iran, citing what he called the history of U.S. and Israeli, quote, false flag operations in the region. Now, if we then move on to another major update from yesterday in the New York Times, just to put these two things together, two ships passing through the Strait of Hormuz are attacked. Two ships in the Strait of Hormuz were attacked in recent days, killing at least one sailor, maritime officials said on Tuesday, as a declining number of vessels brave the dangerous passageway. Now, you can see in the chart from the New York Times that's up on the screen right now, if you're listening to this, the five-day moving average peaked in late June and has just continued to go back down ever since.

54:16So it's at a pretty low level, somewhere between, it looks like it's around 10 ships. The pre-war average, of course, was 130 ships. Meanwhile, Crystal, let's also note a Big Washington Post report from yesterday, Pentagon weighing smaller U.S. military presence in Gulf once the Iran war ends. This is a piece that reports the Pentagon is evaluating its military footprint in the Middle East in an early sign of the Iran war's potential to transform the U.S. presence in the region. According to eight people, including officials and others familiar with the matter, one of the key areas the Defense Department is assessing is whether to pull back troops from the Persian Gulf, where America's large overseas military bases have been battered by months of Iranian strikes, two people familiar with the ongoing analysis said.

55:01So that as ships through the Strait of Hormuz being attacked. And UAE says that a missile, two missiles were launched towards the territory. No sign, no sign of de-escalation in site crystal. But of course, that is apparently the same story every single day now. This Washington Post story is very interesting with them acknowledging that they're considering totally changing the basing strategy through the region. Of course, it has a little bit of a vibe of like, you can't fire me, I quit, where we were, we may not have a lot of options for going back into the region, not only because of Iran's demonstrated ability to destroy our bases throughout the region, but also those Gulf Arab allies that were previously hosting us are not going to be really eager to welcome us back in with open arms, given that rather than demonstrating that our positions there served as a protective shield, they made those countries targets.

55:55So I'm not sure that they were going to be really open to allowing us. to come back and rebuild our bases and reestablish the positions that we had previously. But more to the point, it really doesn't make sense to do so at this point anyway, given how badly that basing strategy has been revealed to be a failure and create a lot, a lot of vulnerabilities. Even before the war started, before we started the war, we pulled a lot of service members from those bases. You know, we routinely have something like 40 ,000 troops stationed throughout the region. We pulled a lot of those from those bases, had them housed in civilian hotels, which is not really a moral, ethical thing to do.

56:34But in any case, because we recognized that there was a lot of vulnerability there, but I don't think anyone knew just how much and how much damage the Iranians would be able to exact against us in the region. So in any case, I found it very interesting, this leak to The Washington Post that, oh, we're thinking about maybe changing our strategy here. Not we've been humiliated and forced out of this region at the point of a gun, basically the barrel of a gun, and are going to have to retreat to whatever we can get away with here from from here on out. Yeah. And worth noting this NBC News report as well, which NBC News says they got their hands on government documents from Europe.

57:16And then they were verified by a Western official that show Russia is shipping explosives to Iran to bolster its missile and drone arsenal in the U.S. war. That wouldn't entirely surprise me if it's true, Crystal. The sourcing, though, is worth, I guess, pausing on. They have European government documents that a Western official verified. That does seem like it could be a piece of well-placed propaganda to get people more interested in the conflict or to gin up more of an appetite for the war. It's not going to work. Yeah, it could also be this could be a sort of Ukrainian planted intel as well of like, see, the Russians, they're not only against us, they're against you directly in Iran.

58:01fun. They're helping your adversary here. So there's all kinds of people who would have all sorts of incentives to plant this intel and push it out to NBC News. So we have to take all of these things with a grain of salt. To your point, though, it also wouldn't shock me if it's true. Clearly, you know, the Russians do have an interest in bogging us down in Iran and getting us to expend our munitions and our interceptors and have our bases destroyed and be completely preoccupied there so that we can't help much on the Ukrainian or broader European front. So they certainly would have motivations for, you know, having this level of partnership with Iran as well.

58:38And there have been some indications as well that they've helped with some of the Iranian targeting, although I think Iran is also fairly capable in terms of their own ability to identify targets for attack. Yeah. Now, you wanted to also discuss this Financial Times piece, soaring diesel prices rip across U.S. economy. Not as price to anybody hearing it because you're living it. A surge in diesel prices, the FT reports, is dealing a powerful blow to industrial America, pushing up costs for businesses and consumers across the U.S. ahead of midterm election. The pump elections, the pump price of diesel hit a$5.47 a gallon on Tuesday, approaching its all-time high of$5.82 a gallon.

59:19Look at how close that is to the all-time high. 547 heading to the all-time high potentially of 582 at some point as wars in the Middle East and Europe, hobble production and throttle global supplies. Prices have jumped 8 % in the past month, while the gap between the cost of diesel and crude oil, known as the crack spread, has hit a record high in recent days in a sign of the deepening supply shock. The price surge has driven out costs for truckers and farmers that are set to ricochet through the broader economy, reigniting inflation and squeezing already thinly stretched American consumers. Yes, people know, obviously, that when diesel prices go up, that ripples throughout the rest of the economy.

59:56That is something that has all kinds of downstream consequences. And so, again, just the all-time high is$5.82 a gallon. Right now, yesterday,$5.47 a gallon, Crystal. Wow. Yeah, and so what we're feeling at the pump in terms of regular gasoline, there is a much higher price being paid for diesel. And yes, we have all learned through the COVID inflationary period just how much of an impact that has. So even if somehow a miracle occurred and the Strait of Hormuz opened and the war ended and there was peace reigned throughout the world, we are going to be dealing with the supply shocks and the bottlenecks from what has already been done for months, if not years to come.

1:00:44Food prices are going to go up. I was reading farmers who are facing foreclosure now because think of the double whammy they're facing, double whammy at least because they're also dealing with a lot of climate problems. But you have not only the increased cost of diesel, which all the farm equipment, of course, runs on, but increased costs of fertilizer as well thanks to this war. Then I've already come up with a triple whammy here. Then you've got the tariffs, which really dramatically impacted them as well. And you can see the political nexus of this very clearly. I think it's entirely likely Democrats win.

1:01:18Certainly the governorship in Iowa Senate is definitely on the table as well, because this is a rural farming state. Farmers have been extremely hard hit and they've had it. So whereas in Trump 1.0, you know, they were willing to put up with the tariffs. They understood that there was a rationale behind it that maybe in the long run would ignore to everyone's benefit. And I think there was a kind of a willingness to sacrifice there some on behalf of a president that they truly believed in. Here we are many years down the road, and it's just one thing after another thing after another thing. And they're at their wits end in terms of the family farmer to the extent that that exists, even exists anymore after big ag has taken over so much market share in the farming world.

1:02:01So in any case, this is really hitting farmers hard, but of course it's going to show up in all of our budgets as food costs continue to climb. And cost of basically everything is impacted by diesel because this is the primary mode of shipping across the country. So definitely one to pay attention to. And we talked yesterday, Sagar and I, about the diesel crack spread, which is just an indication of two things. Number one, that the market is completely screwed up and refining capacity is pushed to the absolute brink. One more, let's say there's a bad storm that takes down a refiner. Let's say Ukraine continues to hit Russian refinery capacity.

1:02:39Let's say one of the states that are war-torn in Africa has a huge refining issue. We've seen some of that as well. Any additional strain really is just going to push that system to its breaking point. So the pressure continues to mount here with obviously no end in sight. And a lot of the political horizon having basically run out now for Trump at this point. Midterm elections are just around the corner. Yeah, and obviously the memorandum of understanding expired with nothing else coming from it. Now, Trump did push back the Canadian tariffs. He said that they're continuing to negotiate. That was supposed to be what yesterday.

1:03:16But he posted late on True Social that he was postponing the tariffs because they were in good negotiations. Folks may remember about a month ago when he threatened those massive retaliatory tariffs on Canada. Looks like that's not going to happen, at least as he threatened at first. But just a reminder, the numbers that came out last Wednesday, again, this was a war that was pitched as a two - to four-week bombing run, basically, as one U.S. senator told me back in the winter or the early spring. U.S. inflation declined slightly last month as the cost of gas and groceries slipped, though prices are still rising more quickly than before the Iran war, posing challenges for the White House as the midterm elections near.

1:03:54Consumer prices increased 3.4 percent in July from a year ago, down slightly from 3.5 percent in June. So what was, again, kind of heralded as a decline in the growth of inflation is still 3.4 percent, which puts Trump in territory. I believe it was 3.2 percent when he took over from Biden. It may have been a bit lower from that. I would have to go check back. But it was 2.4 percent before the Iran war. So it puts him in territory that's well beyond where he was literally right before this started. And as a reminder, we were just talking earlier in the block about two ships being hit in the Strait of Hormuz in recent days as well, with about 10, a daily average of 10 ships passing through the strait.

1:04:39That was 130 before the war. So, Crystal, just an abject disaster, however you look at it. Yeah. And let's take a look at how the Iranians are responding, at least rhetorically, to the current state of affairs. This is some statements from Ghalibov that DropSight wrote up. We can put up on the screen. He says that Hormuz will not reopen until the U.S. honors the Islamabad memorandum. That's a memorandum of understanding. To be honest with you, I feel like that is a bit of a walk back from some of the even more maximalist demands that have been made from the Iranians in recent weeks. But in any case, he says until the U.S.

1:05:17implements its commitments under the memorandum, including lifting the blockade, releasing frozen assets, lifting oil sanctions, ending threats of military operations on all fronts and the other agreed conditions, the strait will not reopen. He portrayed the memorandum as evidence of a U.S.-Israeli defeat, saying Iran's military pressure and diplomacy reinforced one another because Washington breached the agreement. He said the military field must against the port diplomacy with action. The pause in fighting, he added, let Iran rebuild defensive capabilities and prepare to impose a heavier defeat in response to further U.S.

1:05:53aggression. He also talks here about living costs, how Washington is trying to weaponize inflation and economic hardship. He urges the government to expand and better fund electronic credits for essential food, protect families' purchasing power, and avoid policies that could intensify public anger. He also says that Iran needs to reduce consumption but rejected higher prices on gas inside Iran and also warned rival factions against exploiting wartime pressures to begin campaigning or mobilizing supporters against one another. In any case, the key part here to me is where he says the military field must support diplomacy with action in that they are preparing to impose a heavier defeat in response to further U.S.

1:06:37aggression. There was a big piece that we discussed yesterday in the show, I think, from the Wall Street Journal about the, quote unquote, hidden plan or secret plan for Iran to go on the offensive in the war. I don't think it's secret if you're listening to their words whatsoever. It's a question whether it's bluster or not. But there is a lot of logic to the idea that they see that we're in very precarious position politically, economically, and with our munitions stockpile, with the morale of our troops stationed throughout the region and certainly our sailors on board those, you know, hell cruises, as Tucker put it, on those carriers.

1:07:13So they know that we're in a really particularly vulnerable and weak place right now. They also know that the game we want to play is to slowly squeeze the life out of them. Why would they just sit there and take it when they do have other options? So that's why I would not be surprised if these threatening words from them are not just bluster at this point, but that it could be action. And that's why also I took great interest in the allegations from the UAE yesterday that missiles had been fired in their direction. Yeah. And obviously, Iran knows that Trump right now is trying to get affordability to be a slightly better or neutralize that issue for Republicans because he has elections coming up.

1:07:53So that is certainly weighing in in their strategy as well. No question about it.

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