8/5/25: Trump Blocks Disaster Relief Over Israel, Bibi Plans Gaza Conquest, Trump Tariffs India Over Russia

26:10And why? Tell us why. Oh, Israel. And what's the justification? Trump doesn't like the way that UCLA handled protests. Okay. But if you remember. I was going to say, if I recall. The cops let a bunch of Zionist thugs beat up the students. Right. And even that is not good enough. So you had Joe Lonsdale, private equity guy. Yeah. I know Joe. Tweeted. So Paul Graham posted this. Joe Lonsdale shared it. And he's like, look, Terrence, obviously a genius. We all respect his work. But he should work somewhere else because UCLA is actually terribly anti-Semitic. and handled the protest. Like, they let the thugs beat the students, and then he disciplined a bunch of students for protesting a genocide.

27:00That's not good enough for you? That you have to, like, destroy Terrence Dow? And who wins out of this? Well, okay, and the irony is that UCLA and the University of California system has already taken extraordinary steps to comply with the Trump administration. So currently, just so everybody understands, UC system, the University of California system, has put a ban on BDS and has said that any student organization that participates in BDS - Which is like all of them. Which is, yeah, a lot. Not a shocker. The UC system will not be eligible for funds from the university. So already the university system, so it's like, well, what else do you want?

27:41And reading through all of this, the justification of the, look, it has nothing to do with America. and that's why it's just infuriating to me. You want to pull the guy's visa or whatever if he's here illegally? Okay, fine. He's American, though. No, I'm not saying, but I'm saying previous there were examples of that, right? You want to pull the guy's visa because he committed a crime, because he's a foreigner who violated the visa law or whatever. I'm fine with that. Or at least it's justifiable. If you want to pull the person for being discriminatory against fellow US citizens or engaging in racial discrimination or something, I would be fine with that.

28:18But here it's about what they claim is anti-Semitism. But as you just laid out, it's about boycotting a foreign state. And by the way, this guy didn't even – from what I can understand, he's not even political, right? Or I mean probably political to the extent all academics are, which is like vaguely liberal. Probably voted for Gavin Newsom. Yeah, voted for Gavin. Yeah, loves Gavin, loves Kamala. And this guy's funding gets pulled at the UCLA. I just want people to understand the justification for this sledgehammer from the government and the deploying of funds across all sectors of our economy and of our states that are based on boycott of Israel.

28:56And this is a right-left problem. This is now a Trump problem. And it's just completely absurd. And finally, Ryan, you have an update here, 8-8, about Elon and Twitter removing a blue check from Francesca Albanese, who has been on the show, by the way. Yeah, so this is wild. There are entire organizations that have been set up. I think UNWatch.org, which is referenced in this tweet here, is one of them. Specifically, it seems, for the sole purpose of trolling Francesca Albanese, who is an unpaid UN special rapporteur for Israel-Palestine. She was sanctioned recently by the U.S. government, which people need to absorb what that means.

29:44It makes it very difficult for her to bank, to travel, to kind of exist as a human in the world. Sanctioned. What does she do? She has no power whatsoever. She can convene events. Yeah, and made a report. And put out reports, which you can read or you can not read. I read it. She was here on our show. You can go watch that interview, by the way, if you're interested. Oh, you might get sanctioned. Yeah, actually, I don't know. Careful. So these pro-Israel pressure groups reached out with lawyers to Twitter to get her blue check. Are you joking? And Elon immediately, okay, fine, blue check gone.

30:26Wow. Taking the blue check. Interesting. And the justification is that sanctions now. So the Ayatollah has a blue check. Can't take her money. If she can't take her$8. How do you even know she's paying for it? Because nowadays you don't even have to pay to get your, quote, blue check. All you have to do is have a certain amount of followers. How did that work out, by the way? I remember a lot of people in my mentions talking about how genius the blue check system is. Really worked out well, didn't it? Yeah, that was great. So that's where we're at, guys. And like I said, I mean, if you want to have some hope, I guess you can.

30:58There was outcry about the explicit anti-Semitism boycott language in the document. They took it out. So, OK, I mean, you know, somewhat of a win. But the truth is, is that the policy remains in effect if they want it to. They can enforce it at any time. They say BDS is rooted in anti-Semitism. 39 states in this country, red and blue, you can't accomplish that if it's not truly bipartisan, have anti-BDS laws and or executive orders on their books, which is probably the vast majority of the U.S. population now living under those laws. It's ridiculous and just shows you the extent to which our government is basically at this service, state, local, federal, now all at the service of the interests of a foreign nation.

31:39I just think everybody should keep that in mind. And the other downside of this weird relationship with this small country is that you just had to spend the first block of this program talking about it rather than things that actually should matter. Well, I mean the reason – and that's a reasonable question. Why was this such an important story? Like, we don't control, if we don't control our own politics, then what's the point? Yeah, and I think that's why, you know, reasonable question, why lead with it? Well, number one, you know, obviously this topic, I think near and dear to a lot of people in our demographics, like audience, is hard.

32:15But two is, it's like you just said, how can we talk about anything if the framework is such where people have to be weary of their language and of their actions as private citizens, as businesses, as state residents, and others if we're literally not allowed to freely say whatever we want? especially it stings coming from a near decade-long freakout over anti-racism, which I was there with you. I fought in the trenches, anti-racism and DEI. I was there long before a lot of these other folks were, talking about Nicole Hannah-Jones and the 1619 Project. I was with the Trotskyites over at World Socialist Web who were writing some of the original takedowns.

33:00I loved them, guys. By the way, shout out to some of the originals. who were speaking out against this. So for me, it stings because I literally was there and saw many of the people who were enacting this policy speak out for free speech, for censorship and cancel culture, for this type of behavior. Similarly, remember I met a Texas politician. They were outraged, for example, that their state funds would be subject to BlackRock policies or bank policies because they weren't allowed to invest in oil and gas and or gun companies? And I was like, yeah, I mean, why should they tell you, you know, put your money wherever you want?

33:41This is the same, you know, freak out about ESG. You remember that? Right? I mean, think all of these things almost pale in comparison now at this point to the state explicitly denying you funds and or telling you what you can't do. So I think that everybody should speak out. And last point, none of these states actually do boycott Israel. Yeah, come on. What they do actually do, and we've done some reporting on this. Yeah, you told me. I was fascinated by this. Please explain it. Cities and states buy high-risk, low-yield Israeli bonds as a statement of political support. Got it. They are high-risk bonds that ought to be high-yield.

34:17If you're willing to take on risk, you're supposed to then take on a higher interest rate as a result of that. But because we're so friendly, we're going to oversubscribe to these high-risk Israeli bonds. So all of these cities and states could be getting higher interest rate returns for their taxpayers. Instead, they're sending the money to support Israel's debt policy. Interesting. Wow. So far from boycotting Israel, what cities and states are doing is propping it up. That's crazy. The expense of - Absolutely crazy. The returns that states could be getting. Yep. Apple Vacations, where your story starts.

34:57The Summer Savings Event is here at Apple Vacations. It's the perfect time to bring everyone together for the getaway you've been dreaming about. Book between July 24th and August 27th and enjoy up to 55 % instant savings. From relaxing beach days to unforgettable moments with the people who matter most, your next vacation starts here. Travel through July 31st, 2027. Start your vacation today at applevacations.com or through your travel advisor. Apple Vacations, where your story starts. Ugh, Honda, ice cream has turned to soup. I think the fridge is finally dead. Hopping on grandappliance.com.

35:30Great idea. They were awesome with the Samsung Ranger microwave we bought last year. Oh, they have matching Samsung in stock and next day delivery. Let me see. Oh, yeah, that looks perfect. I hope we get the same delivery crew. Those guys were awesome. Agree. Total pros. Another crisis averted by the team at Grand Appliance. Appliance experts since 1930. 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.

36:08Odoo 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 O-D-O-O dot com. That's Odoo dot com. Ryan, let's get to Israel. Tell us what's going on. The actual war. So Netanyahu, and we'll get to this in a moment, has announced that he is going to transform the assault on Gaza into a long-term occupation. Whether or not he actually does that or this is just a negotiating ploy remains unclear. Here, Donald Trump has supposedly greenlit this strategy.

36:55He was asked yesterday, does he believe that what Netanyahu is doing is a genocide? Here was his response. Do they see evidence of a genocide in Gaza? I don't think it's that. Look, they're in a war. Some horrible things happened on October 7th, as you know. It was a horrible, horrible thing. One of the worst I've ever seen. I've seen a lot of bad things in some president in terms of wars. and potential wars. I mean, if you look at the one that we just stopped, they had thousands of people being dead already at the border between Thailand and Cambodia, thousands of people. And I've seen some bad things, but that October 7th with Hamas was really, really bad.

37:42Mm. Thailand and Cambodia. Thailand and Cambodia. Definitely the hotspot. I don't remember thousands of people. I think it was one Thai. So anyway. Anyway, so Amit Siegel, who is important to follow because he channels Netanyahu. He's a Netanyahu English mouthpiece and is very open about not only support but conveying the internal views of the government. So that's why we're putting this up there. So whether what Amit Siegel is saying is true or not isn't the point. We know it is coming direct from Netanyahu. So we can put up B2 here. He had a major report yesterday that Netanyahu has made the decision that there's going to be a massive expanded invasion of Gaza, including a long term occupation.

38:36and that they're willing to operate in areas where they suspect that hostages are being kept, which has been a line that they have publicly at least attempted not to cross because, for obvious reasons, it puts them at immediate risk of being killed, either by Israel, by the IDF, or by their captors, who Hamas has long said have been told, if you're guarding hostages and they're trying to take them by force, that's it. You all go down. Well, let's go even further. He says, we are going to occupy the Strip. The decision has been made. Hamas won't release more hostages without total surrender. We won't surrender.

39:26If we don't act now, the hostages will starve to death and Gaza will remain under. The hostages will starve to death, not everybody else. will starve to death and Gaza will remain under Hamas control. Amid says, Israel was at a crossroads. It's achieving neither victory nor hostage release. The figure says that the mandate of negotiations is broad, but no deal was reached, so they're going to move to occupy Gaza. Now, quote, occupying Gaza entails what exactly, Ryan? I mean, it could entail all sorts of things. First, it could entail literally like house-to-house combat. I'm going to rule that out because they haven't done it in the last two years, And that would be what you would actually want to do if you wanted to rescue the houses.

40:04So they just destroy the houses, starve the population, immiserate the entire population, try to drive them out. You know, quote, voluntary migration, I guess, in the ways that they put it. But second is occupying Gaza entails the, quote, indefinite presence that they originally had wanted. And so this is not an occupation. It's an annexation. And it's an annexation which will be – look, I mean I know we're already in an extraordinary part. And, yes, they already control the borders and all that. But it is important to distinguish what this, quote, full spell occupation would look like because it would mean the political administration of the state.

40:38And it would be entirely not just U.S. funded, but it would allow them to facilitate their so-called voluntary migration, the forced expulsion of the whoever is left living inside of the Gaza Strip. Further, you know, basically enacting their policy of starvation or denial of aid or all of these other things. on top of a U.S.-led administration. I don't want to drop that either because that's the American point of all of this is that you think Israel has the money or the manpower to actually occupy, forget about it, okay? Look at them. They can't keep up what they're doing. Yeah, exactly. Their current pace of operations, they've already had 1 ,000 soldiers killed, a bunch of them.

41:19They're already having major reservist problems. It costs an extraordinary amount of money to continue their military. They're going to need untold numbers of bailouts from the U.S. to continue this occupation. And considering the way that they've acted, I think we all know what that occupation would look like. It'll literally look like Iraq, like a cakewalk. And of course, the political risk and all that then falls on who? America, right? And I think that's a very important part of the story and broadly what this will all look like for this occupation. This is not about hostages. This is about full-scale annexation, re-control of the land, maybe even more so than the West Bank now.

41:54And tactically, because of the tunnel system, it's not at all obvious how they could even accomplish this. In Beit Hanun, for instance, IDF has gone in, I believe, five times and declared each time that they had operational control. Yes. They went back in recently to this place that they said they had operational control and immediately got hit with an ambush. Hamas and the other resistance factions, it's not just Hamas, rely for their primary supply of weapons, unexploded Israeli bombs. Israel has dropped multiple Hiroshima's worth of explosives on Gaza because they are dropping them in what they call non-ideal circumstances.

42:41In other words, you're not supposed to just drop them on random urban environments. And when you do, they don't explode at the normal rate. And they already started with a bunch of their older stuff. So, you know, you're looking at a 10 % to 20 % dud rate. Even if it's a 2 % dud rate, that means that there is nearly an unlimited supply of explosive material for Hamas and other resistance groups to extract. That's literally where they get their weapons. then they turn them into small bombs and they on foot walk them up to tanks and then blow up the tanks. So it's like basically an IED. North Vietnam story.

43:23Very common. And so as long as there are human beings alive willing to do that they're going to continue to do that. So you have to depopulate entirely the Gaza Strip basically. Like if you're going to if you're going to hostily occupy it. How do you do that without American troops? Yeah, well, okay. And even with them, honestly, with American troops. Even without U.S. troops. Yeah, by the way, even with U.S. troops, it would be a disaster and we should have absolutely nothing to do with that. And I don't think that will happen, but Gazelago, which is basically what Trump determined is the policy.

44:02The U.S. is going to own it. If it is a U.S.-led administration, then we own all, I mean, And we already are funding and are diplomatically running cover, but it's a whole other thing to actually have actual administration. And that's what Israel wants. They want our ownership of Gaza so that they can push off the diplomatic cover and everything and then make all of us own it. Effectively, that's what Trump declared originally in the Oval Office in his meeting with Netanyahu about taking over Gaza. But this basically pairs with the literal expulsion of all the citizens taking them over. and there's just no world where this is going to work out better for the people and for the Palestinians, right?

44:39Where they're going to be under genuine direct Israeli occupation. In the same way, let's just look at the peaceful West Bank, which we covered yesterday, where people are being murdered in cold blood by a lot of these settlers. I mean, how soon do the settlers start coming in behind the IDF, which is the dream of the Israeli cabinet? They say it out loud. Smoch and Ben-Gavir and all those, that's what they want. They want settlers in Gaza. and to talk just to show how kind of corrupt the negotiation process was recently put up b3 here so the times of israel saying that you know this there's there's a saudi report that says hamas is under pressure to show flexibility um but unclear if new talks are in the offing and jeremy scahill i'll have more on this for uh drop site tomorrow uh but you know hamas officials have been speaking publicly and we have the paper that was passed back and forth in the negotiations According to Netanyahu and Witkoff, who walked away, one of the big stumbling blocks was Hamas was refusing to disarm.

45:40According to Hamas and according to all of the documents that are public that were swapped back and forth, that was never discussed as part of the negotiations. Because it's just not going to happen. So you don't discuss things that aren't going to happen. Like Hamas has said, like, we're not asking Israel to, like, abandon Tel Aviv. Like, we'd like them to. They say out loud they'd like to do, but we're not asking for that in the negotiations. We're trying to – Hamas says that they were on the brink of signing the – and they were moving toward the implementation phase. There was nothing in there about disarming.

46:14It was about the pace of the Israeli withdrawal from their current positions, the number of hostages exchanged on each side, and the flow of aid into Gaza. Like that's what they're talking about. And then all of a sudden, Whitcoff and the others just blow the whole thing up and are now talking about a massive occupation. And the thing they're blowing it up over, Ryan, as I understand it, having read Scales and others reporting, is about this literal occupation and the terms of occupation. Because they don't want them to just like demilitarize and lay down their weapons. They're like, you have to effectively surrender.

46:48They're like, all of Gaza, we will determine what area is ours for a DMZ. It will have a humanitarian zone. It will have a humanitarian zone. I mean, basically it looks like it does right now, right? But I mean, last time we had talked, you had told me that a lot of the population was even willing to take that. Well, where's the population on this question? I think still to this day, anything that gets in aid, food, and stops the bombs for 60 days or 30 days, just do it. Because they don't trust what's written down anyway. So it's like if we can get 30 or 60 days. So Hamas was, you can look at what they were willing to move on, was being quite flexible just because they knew how much pressure they were under from their own population.

47:35And that's why it had to end the way it did with Hamas thinking that they were about to sign a deal and move to the implementation phase. And Witkoff shocking even the Qatari and Egyptian mediators and announcing that Hamas is being inflexible and the whole thing is off. because it couldn't end with Hamas being inflexible and announcing that they were walking away because they weren't willing to. Hamas was going to cave on whatever. So that's why you had to have this weird, like, wait a minute, Whitcoff is announcing that Hamas is saying no? Like, wouldn't Hamas be the one that would say no if it's true that they were saying no?

48:13Right. And then Hamas comes out and they're like, we didn't say no, what are you doing, bro? And so this is all under pressure from whom? Is this from the Israeli government on the American government? That's a good question. Well, the way that it all seems to me— It's like the U.S. and Israel just are a lockstep. Yeah, it looks to me as if not only a lockstep, but basically making it so that Hamas, they said they won't do it and they wanted occupation this whole time. That's how it appears to me. And they've said they want occupation the whole time. And meanwhile, we can put up before, Netanyahu is trying to reshape the government in multiple ways.

48:46People who aren't following this closely might not realize the man spends a significant amount of his time in court. It's like Bill Clinton in 1998. Fending up corruption charges. Starting wars to distract from his own personal problems. And he and his aides are accused of being on the dole of Qatar, which is hilarious on a bunch of different layers. So now he moved to get rid of the attorney general who's prosecuting him. The Supreme Court has held this up. This is at the heart of his judicial reform that kind of blew up the country's politics prior to October 7th. He had all these protesters out in the streets for a year trying to stop him from doing this kind of judicial reform that everybody assumed was related to his own prosecutorial problems.

49:34Now he's going after the actual prosecutor. And meanwhile, he got rid of this Edelstein, who is the head of this committee that oversees basically the army and in a massive fight over whether or not the Haredi should be subject to the draft and should participate in the war. And so Netanyahu, on the one hand, getting rid of the attorney general, on the other hand, doing everything he can to keep his right-wing coalition together by excluding a huge portion of the population from having to participate for religious reasons in this war. And so the country is thoroughly united on the kind of genocide.

50:29Like you look at the polls on that. It would be an interesting challenge for a pollster to try to find a question that was so grotesque and over the top that it wouldn't get a majority of Israeli support in surveys. So they're united on that. But everywhere else, society is torn apart. And that is, those are the conditions on which he thinks he's then going to launch a massive war in Gaza, while at the same time hugely inflaming tensions in the West Bank. They're currently, if you haven't been following this, there was a radical settler murdered a well-known West Bank activist. activist. We covered it.

51:17Yeah. Who's featured in no other land. He's free. The guy's family is still in jail for no reason. And they're keeping the body. And like, so you're going to do all this and also then launch a massive occupation of Gaza. See, that's why so many Americans, it's, there's so many ironies going on here. Number one, the Israel first troops in America are always like, you're funded by Qatar if you're critical of Israel. And I'm like, well, Well, the only people where there's some like direct evidence are being funded by Qatar are Netanyahu's closest political advisors who are under indictment. And Bibi is under – Who he was using to fund Hamas.

51:52Who he was using to fund Hamas. Right. And so then we use it even further. Well, Bibi is actually under corruption trial. Every single time that something happens, he's like, oh, I'm sorry. We need to pause this because I'm bombing Syria today or I'm occupying Gaza today. And then slowly but surely, he's fired. I mean, it's literally like the original scandals back in the day in 2017 about firing Comey. I mean, he fired his FBI director, the Shin Bet director, over this corruption investigation. Now he's firing the attorney general. They had the, quote, judicial reform. I mean, it's cartoonish corruption.

52:28And at every single point, escalation in the war in Gaza and or with Iran and or with Syria is linked, lo and behold, to developments with his corruption trial. It happens like clockwork. But people here are so illiterate that they don't even know, even the pro-Israel groups, about what's actually happening in the country that they're supposedly passionate about. Is that he's obviously using his foreign policy to protect himself for political purposes. First, it was October 7th. Remember, we'll talk about October 7th after the war in Gaza is finished. Never end the war. Never have to talk about it.

53:03Wait for people to forget. It's like 9-11. By the time of the 9-11 Commission report, we're bogged down in Iraq. Everyone's like, ah, whatever. It was three years ago. It's the same thing. It happens every time. Right, now it's in the past. Right, it's all in the past. Why are you harping on the past? You mean the event that literally got us into the war? Yeah, that is the difficulty of all of it. And then finally, B6, Ryan, tell us what happened. Yeah, so this is just utterly tragic, outrageous. Ode Nahal Alkarin, a nurse at Al-Aqsa Hospital, just days ago posted a video talking about how humiliating these aid drops are.

53:42That what are you doing? Like why are you dropping aid out of airplanes when you have all of these land crossings just right there? If you want to bring in aid, put it on a truck, put the truck in first gear, hit the gas and bring it in. Like it is not complicated at all. and bring in enough trucks so that starving people aren't looting them the second they get in. Like, quite simple. This nurse, Ode, killed by a falling aid drop yesterday. Wow. And many of these airdrops have killed a lot of people. So we covered it. When the U.S. dropped aid, the same thing happened. And meanwhile, the head of nursing at Nasser Hospital was killed by a targeted strike yesterday in his tent with his family.

54:32So they killed this nurse accidentally with airdropped aid, and they still continue to target top medical professionals. Not collateral damage as part of some targeted operation at some militant or something, but identifying top medical staff and killing them in their tents with their families. Like, what are we doing?

55:28T-shirts where your story starts. Ugh, the washer won't start and the laundry's already piled to the ceiling. Hopping on grandappliance.com. Great idea. I heard they have next day delivery. Uh-huh, I'm seeing that too. And they have a bunch of GE options in stock. Oh, that's great. We've always had good luck with GE appliances. This one looks perfect. Scheduling for tomorrow. Gosh, Grand really makes it easy. Another crisis averted by the team at Grand Appliance. Visit GrandAppliance.com today. Grand Appliance. Appliance experts since 1930. This is Jacob Goldstein from What's Your Problem? Running a business is hard enough.

56:07Don'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. Moving now to the conflict with India. Donald Trump has gone off on the Indian government, raising tariffs on them to 25%. However, dramatically now escalating said tariffs.

56:52Why? Again, not because of any of the business or non-tariff barriers in the country, but because of their policy on the war in Ukraine and buying Russian oil. Here he is just this morning from an interview with CNBC. Let's take a listen. With India, what people don't like to say about India, they're the highest tariff nation. They have the highest tariff of anybody. We do very, very little business with India because their tariffs are so high. So India has not been a good trading partner because they do a lot of business with us, but we don't do business with them. So we settled on 25 percent, but I think I'm going to raise that very substantially over the next 24 hours because they're buying Russian oil.

57:34They're fueling the war machine. And if they're going to do that, then I'm not going to be happy. I'm not too happy. So dramatically increasing tariffs on India for the war in Ukraine. Got it. This is genuinely a Lindsey Graham fever dream of the neocons. And we've covered it here for years now, since 2022, is everyone's furious with India and with China. By the way, yeah, interesting, China is not listed in that, isn't it? Even though they're on a pause right now. The two largest buyers of Russian oil, Russia, of course, able to sell oil out on the market. In fact, the Indians and the Chinese are getting a discount on the oil because the rest of the world is not buying it.

58:11And they're using those profits to fund the war machine. Now, okay, I mean, you can be upset about that, but everyone should ask, should U.S. trade policy with its 10th largest trading partner, which is what India is, if you look at overall bilateral trade, be subject to the war in Ukraine? The war in Ukraine. Just so everybody understands here now, we have two separate instances of Trump using tariffs to enforce foreign policy goals which have no impact on any of us. First is Canada, if you'll recall, when Trump put out his tweet where he said something along the lines of, wow, Canada just raised or just recognized Palestine.

58:51That's going to impact our trade. What? So our tariff rate on maple syrup and lumber is going to be impacted by the Canadian government and oil. Yeah, great example. It's going to be impacted by the Canadian government's position on Palestine. So in this case, because Trump has unsuccessfully been able to wind up the war in Ukraine, something he said that he would do before he was even in office, is now tariffing India at a very, very high rate because they're buying Russian oil. Something, by the way, that his own vice president and others, when the Biden administration was considering doing this, spoke out against that very policy, using the full force of the empire and punishing more important allies for the purpose of protecting Ukraine and trying to, quote, force peace over there.

59:40Also, guys, let's all be honest here. We've punished the Russian economy into the ground, right, supposedly from the way that the Western sanctions. They're doing fine. Their GDP and all that. It's not also, by the way, not just because of oil. It's because of their own domestic war production and more. I'm not saying this wouldn't hurt, but we're all like let's think about the consequences. Like if you import something from India or if you have some business relationship, whatever, do you really think that you should have to pay more for that or have a shortage of it because of the war in Ukraine?

1:00:11This is a Biden policy. And if you think about it, our sanctions policy has created the circumstances that you're talking about, that the Russian economy is doing well-ish, but significantly because of the war. It's this Keynesian situation where war production and production for that effort is driving economic growth. Absolutely. So we've put them in this position where if they unwind the war, which is what they want them to do, then they will suffer a short-term economic setback. So our own sanctions policy actually incentivizes them to keep the war going. If our economic policy towards Russia was to balance out their economy so that the war machine was not such a central part of it, that would actually then free up the Russian kind of political calculation on which Putin rests to be able to then leave the war without the economic ramifications.

1:01:22Now, maybe he still wouldn't because he just war mad lunatic, but he would have the opportunity to be able to do so without the short-term political hit of an economic crash. Yeah. Because like just like Netanyahu, like just wants to go from Monday to Tuesday and keep himself alive, keep the war going. You know, if if it's easier to do A than B for a politician, that politician is usually going to do A. Yeah. And just broadly, I mean, somebody said they're like, you only care about this because you're Indian. Yeah, that's definitely the only reason. It's not that I haven't said anything similar about Vietnam or about the Philippines or any of the other critical allies in Asia, which are non-Chinese.

1:02:02A classic thing that you would want to do, let's say some Kissingerian-style realpolitik, would say, OK, our global whatever you want to call it, competition, adversary, et cetera, is China. So what do you do? All of the countries around China, what would you want? You would want some decent relations, which is why we should maybe not hit Japan with a 50 % tariff or Korea or – I mean I can go down the list. Philippines, India, any of these other powers. And we would say we want all of these people to have great economic relationships there. U.S. manufacturers can still benefit from trade in Southeast Asia and in Asia without having to rely on bolstering the Chinese economy and to make sure that the U.S.

1:02:40maintains whatever, its economic giant power there. By the way, this was a Trump administration policy. as you all might recall, Apple announcing that it would move production from China to India. These are strategic goals, which I'm very okay with. Again, it has nothing to do with my heritage or whatever. I'm saying broadly, they could move it to Vietnam for all I care. I don't care. All right, just get it out of China. My point is just that this is completely counter to the Europe first mentality that the Biden administration had with this religious obsession with NATO, punishing nations like China, India, and subjecting our entire foreign policy to the war in Ukraine, which again has nothing to do on any impact on any life of an American.

1:03:19And by the way, if sanctions or any of this could solve it, it would happen a long, long time ago. And in fact, every single day that the war continues, Ukrainian people are suffering. They're raising their age to 60, which we'll get to in a little bit. And now you're isolating an ally again, or fine, a trading partner, which I think is very critical in maintaining strategic balance in Southeast Asia. So with that, go ahead. Just the line that you only care about this because you're Indian would actually make a lot more sense if it was you only care about this because you're American. Yeah, that's true.

1:03:54They're a huge trading partner. Do you like generic pharmaceuticals? I would say the same thing about Taiwan. Do you like equipment? I would say the same thing about any of these countries. By the way, Taiwan is an even more important trading partner. Guess who also got hit with the tariff, if you want to know, under these. This is the point, is that the policy makes no sense. It's computed stupidly. And here, explicitly, the original 25 % is about non-tariff barriers. Fine. It's true, by the way. India is an insane economy. The way that they shut out Western investment, I don't blame them per se because if I were them, I'd probably do the same thing.

1:04:23We still export. It up 50 billion. Yeah, it's a lot. Well, okay. Their theory is we want total control of our economy because we don't trust the West and we don't trust China. I mean, you know. Also, aren't they two out of three on the things we're supposed to care about? Like the things that countries are supposed to do for us is they're supposed to support Bolsonaro and be mad. Oh, right. I forgot about that. That he was not able to carry his coup out. They're supposed to support Israel. And I think Modi is like check and check. He's fine with both of those. But three, you also have to hate Russia and love Ukraine.

1:04:55Right. Okay. Got it. So we should definitely, that's the way that we should be conducting it. So we wanted to give you guys a view into how this is being received in India. We've got a clip here from Republic TV. Our Indian viewers may know what it is. It's kind of hard to explain Fox, I guess. I mean, it's not exactly the same media environment, but this is Arnab Goswami. He's, I guess, the Tucker Carlson-ish of India. Very popular voice. Very, very popular voice. We'll say that on Indian national television. Here's how they are reacting to it, a nationalist India. Trump escalates the tariff war with India.

1:05:30Trump says he's going to substantially increase tariffs on India. Trump puts out an aggressive post saying, we're going to be further, further slapping more tariffs on India. And he's linking it to India's friendship and our business with the Russians. We have no response to Russia yet, but it's quite clear that we are caught in the middle of this Russia versus U.S. trade battle, that we've become the linchpin of this battle. So it serves Trump both ways. He targets Russia, and of course he squeezes India at a time when we were ahead of the other countries in terms of negotiating a tariff deal with America.

1:06:12He's sending, I think, Mr. Witkoff in the next week to negotiate with Russia. So he's opening up a line of conversation with Russia, increasing the threat and pressure on India, opening a line with Russia and then using his advisors to say that India and China are together raising the pressure, raising part of the machine that is supporting the Russian economy. Now, these are all last minute gambits by Trump. He's not liking the noises coming from India, or rather he's not liking the lack of a response from the Indian government. Man, okay, no offense, Indian TV. I don't know what is going on with the motion tracking there over on those cameras.

1:06:54All right, let me, call me. All right, we can talk. But the The Indian Foreign Ministry has also put out this statement. Let's put it up there on the screen. They say, India has been targeted by the United States and the European Union for importing oil from Russia after the commencement of the Ukraine conflict. India began importing Russia because traditional supplies were diverted to Europe after the conflict. Interesting. The United States at that time actively encouraged such imports by a name for strengthening global energy market stability. India's imports are to ensure predictable and affordable energy costs to the Indian consumer.

1:07:24They are a necessity compelled by the global market situation. However, it is revealing that the very nations criticizing India are themselves indulging in trade with Russia. Unlike our case, such trade is not even a vital national compulsion. The European Union had bilateral trade of$67 billion in goods with Russia. In addition, it had trade in services estimated Euro$17 billion in 2023. That is much more than India's total trade with Russia that year. Subsequently, European imports of LNG, in fact, reached a record 16.5 million tons, surpassing the last record of 15 million tons in 2022. Europe-Russia trade includes not just energy but fertilizer, et cetera.

1:08:00Where the United States is concerned, it continues to import Russian uranium hexafluoride for its nuclear industry, palladium for its EV industry, fertilizer as well as chemicals. In this background, the targeting in India is unjustified and unreasonable. And interestingly enough, actually Modi this morning basically is like, yeah, we're just going to keep buying Russian oil, and we'll see you guys on the other side. They're not taking this all that seriously. And increasingly, with the conflict with Russia, you're watching all of these crazy belligerent actions, which, again, are straight out of Lindsey Graham.

1:08:29Let's put C4 up there on the screen. So, for example, there was this more recent development from the Russians in response to Trump's deployment of nuclear submarines where former President Medvedev said that NATO countries have abandoned – has blamed NATO countries and says that Russia will now, quote, abandon a moratorium on short and medium-range nuclear missiles and said Moscow would take further steps in response. This was after Trump went after him for making belligerent statements about the conflict and deployed nuclear submarines publicly, saying that if we need to, of course, we have the ability to strike Russia back.

1:09:07Well, at the same time, what's happening in Ukraine – let's go ahead and put C6, please, up on the screen. The Ukrainian army now opening its ranks to the 60-plus club to volunteer for military service, contract terms, say one-year enlistment, medical clearance, and no upper age limit. This was after a revelation a couple of years ago now at this point that the average age of the Ukrainian military at that time was in the 40s. And they're already losing thousands of people on the front line. They're losing territory. This is despite the fact that Trump administration has accelerated weapons going to the country, including Patriot missile batteries, which we massively depleted for another country called Israel.

1:09:49It's just all so preposterous. And just to cap it all off, Ryan, at the same time, we're supposedly defending democracy in Ukraine. Let's go ahead and put the next one up there. C7, please, up on the screen is that Ukrainians recently took to the streets to protest Zelensky for cracking down on corruption watchdogs. Quote, for writing, corruption has been a central issue for Ukrainians and new curbs on watchdog agencies have alarmed many. So Zelensky and his top people, quote, granted the general prosecutor control over Ukraine's main anti-corruption bodies, which, quote, many citizens fear will roll back reforms introduced after a pro-democracy revolution more than 10 years ago.

1:10:37The demonstrations were the country's largest since 2022 invasion, were peaceful, but the crowds simmered with rage after a population that survived nearly three and a half years of war, drone attacks, loss of loved ones, et cetera. And now, supposedly the grandmaster democracy champion, Zelensky himself, is cracking down on the very anti-corruption institutions which were modestly pointing out the billions of dollars of money laundering and others that have been wasted on this conflict by the West. That's who we're all supporting, and that's why we're now tariffing India and putting our relationship with them subject so that Zelensky and his cronies can continue their anti-corruption crackdown in their own country.

1:11:24That's what we're all paying for. And we're paying for Ukrainian yarn shops and pensioners while people here are going to lose Medicare and SNAP. Makes a lot of sense, obviously. Yes. You would think that sending billions of dollars to Ukraine and canceling the elections would root out the corruption there. Turns out there's still work to be done, but that work will not be done by the anti-corruption groups that Zelensky is getting rid of. By the way, one one amazing quote from Trump on Sundays. He said, you know, if he gives a month long ultimatum to Putin and he's like, actually, it's 10 days because I don't trust that he's going to do anything.

1:12:01and if you don't do it or you make peace or else, and they said, well, what else? He said, I'm going to sanction them. And then Trump said, well, there will be sanctions, but they seem to be pretty good at avoiding sanctions. Yeah, that's right. Real tough talk. And so that's basically where we're at. I mean, the Indians have effectively called the bluff and they're like, okay, fine, let's go for it. And their theory is, yeah, we'll sign a trade deal and all of this will go away. And so actually, even the Ukrainians are basically, if that's true, are being used as a pawn in negotiations with India over trade.

1:12:33It's not like any of it all matters. But inside of India, this is not being met well, just from what I can see in terms of looking at public opinion and the way that the Biden administration previously treated them. They thought it would be different, but it turns out that the new boss is actually crazier than the old boss. I'm curious for a second, but I think what Trump doesn't understand here is that when you are starting at 25 % tariffs, that's an unserious tariff rate because it would decimate trade between India and the US if it stayed at 25%. It would seize it up. It's well over the rate at which companies are able to just absorb this hit and keep moving.

1:13:15So therefore, anything above that is meaningless because 25 is already killer. So they're at 25 now and Trump is like, I'm going to make it significantly higher. It's like, well, are you? It's like the difference between 25 and 50. Yeah, people talked about this with China. To most companies. 60 and 150 makes no difference. No difference. That's it. You're not making money at 25 or at 50. So both of them are prohibitive. So that's why I think India can be like, all right, bro, well, like, talk to us when you're not at 25. Well, we'll see. I mean, you know, just broadly, it is their foreign policy right now, our trade policy, our economic policy, is focused on Israel and on Ukraine and has nothing to do apparently with the rest of us.

1:14:05Poor Bolsonaro. He can't even crack the top two. Sorry, yeah, and Bolsonaro. Yeah, that's apparently why we should pay more for coffee. By the way, as a coffee fanatic, I don't know if everybody knows this. The coffee prices right now are out of control. Go and take a look at coffee futures, largely because of these Brazil tariffs. And there was some horrible storm or something like that that killed a bunch of the coffee crops. So, yeah, if you like to drink coffee every day, even low-rate coffee, all of that, well, I have bad news for you. It's probably going to go up by 20%, 30 % based upon the futures markets that I was looking at recently.

1:14:37People need to sacrifice for Bolsonaro. Yeah, you're right. Yeah, you're right. I should pay more for coffee for Bolsonaro. makes a lot of sense thank you guys so much for watching we appreciate it Ryan and Emily and be on tomorrow thank you Ryan it's great to see you man and have a great Counterpoint show tomorrow alright see you later

1:15:13Book between July 24th and August 27th and enjoy up to 55 % instant savings. From relaxing beach days to unforgettable moments with the people who matter most, your next vacation starts here. Travel through July 31st, 2027. Start your vacation today at AppleVacations.com or through your travel advisor. Apple Vacations, where your story starts. The washer won't start and the laundry's already piled to the ceiling. Hopping on GrandAppliance.com. Great idea. I heard they have next day delivery. Uh-huh, I'm seeing that too. And they have a bunch of GE options in stock. Oh, that's great. We've always had good luck with GE appliances.

1:15:51This one looks perfect. Scheduling for tomorrow. Gosh, Grand really makes it easy. Another crisis averted by the team at Grand Appliance. Visit GrandAppliance.com today. Grand Appliance, appliance experts since 1930. 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.

1:16:31Thousands have already made the switch. Why not you? Try Odoo for free at odoo.com. That's odoo.com. This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed Human.