Secrets of Trump War Market Manipulation Finally Exposed

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2:24Michael Popok:Donald Trump got us into a war intentionally in order to distract attention from all of his failings at home. And now he's looking at his voters at MAGA at the electorate, talking down to them once again and calling them fools if they're not willing to suffer at the gas pump up to six or seven or eight dollars a gallon in order to avoid nuclear war with Iran. I thought that's the reason we bombed Iran over the summer was to avoid nuclear war. I didn't realize that that was a down payment on taking over a country of 90 million people and spending half a trillion dollars to do it. And the impact on the economy.

3:06Michael Popok:I'm Michael Popak. You're on the Midas Touch Network and Legal AF. I'm putting on my Wall Street experience now to talk about what's happening in the markets, financial markets, It's now that Donald Trump has effectively cut the fuel line between the American economy and energy, gas, electric and the rest. And don't you know it, but our supposed allies that Donald Trump's been currying favor with, the ones that he's invested in and has taken investments from for his family business, those very same OPEC oil nations are putting the screws to Donald Trump and the American economy. And that's why a barrel of oil, which started out in the 70s,$70 a barrel of oil in February before the war in Iran, is now touching$110, soon to be$120 a barrel.

3:58Michael Popok:That means gas prices are going to go up 50%, 5-0 % in the next several days. And the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait, alleged friends of America, are taking advantage and extorting America with these pricing. Now, Trump came into the war with Iran, which he hopes all of these global impacts, his exporting of chaos, would distract attention and make people forget about his failings at home. You know, the taxes through tariffs on American goods, the inflation, the joblessness of his economy. I mean, it doesn't create any jobs. He thought, well, I'm doing terrible at home. Let me pull a Nixon and let me start bombing overseas and see if that improves my political fortunes.

4:54Michael Popok:As you're in my economic fortunes, flush, go down the drain. That's not working for him. Not when you have approval ratings that are hovering in the 30 % range, when people hate your immigration policy, hate what tariffs did to prices, hate the inflation, hate the fact that their friends and family aren't working in this Trump economy. And so when you're bombing, you're not just bombing randomly. He's taking over and bombing and roiling the oil and energy markets already in the Trump administration. your percentage of your own family budget that goes for energy that means a gas at the pump electric heating oil you know all of the things that go into just fueling your day is a larger percentage of your budget than it was when joe biden was president and not by a little but by a lot so you're already paying more okay that was when gas was hovering at three dollars $2.99 and something like that.

5:58Michael Popok:Now go look at the gas prices. $5,$6,$7. And I'm not talking about just California. And that's in the, look how quickly these things went up. Just to give you an idea, as we headed into the war in Iran at the end of February, gas, oil, which is how we measure what you're ultimately going to pay at the pump. What is the light crude oil? They call it the Brent, B-R-E-N-T, Brent oil barrel price comes from an oil field in the 70s that had amazing crude oil. It's basically extinct now, depleted, but we still call it the Brent oil barrel marker. It was$70. It's now$105,$108,$110 on the spot market, higher.

6:42Michael Popok:That happened $70 before February 28th. By March 3rd, after the war started, it was up to$80 a barrel. It then went on March 8th to 100, touching 110 and now beyond. What does that mean for you? That means that 50 % higher, 60 % higher gas prices at the pump in the next several days. What do you think that's going to do to an economy that was already reeling? Before the war started, we already got the economic report on jobs. Not only did Donald Trump not make one job in the month of February, didn't make one job in the month of February in an economy of 330 million people. He lost almost 100 ,000 jobs.

7:25Michael Popok:100 ,000. So it's not even net zero. Like, it would be abysmal. It would be grounds for instant removal and impeachment, the way he's running the economy into the ground and beyond. To say that this economy made no jobs, but to lose 100 ,000 jobs in the month of February, what do you think is going to happen in March now that he's cut the fuel line between the American economy, the global economy, and energy? How do you fuel the economy if you don't have power? You don't have power without energy. You don't have energy without oil and electric and hydroelectric and all the rest of that. So let's just look at what's happening because of Iran.

8:03Michael Popok:Again, an attempt to bamboozle you, right? To distract you from his failings at home. That's all it is. We can make a list, you know, the top 100 reasons people despise Donald Trump's policies. And I haven't even talked about the layers of scandal, right? The stench of scandal, the indelible scar of scandal, that marks this administration. Epstein leading it. How many sex scandals can one administration commit in just a term? We're a year, we're 15 months in. There's three separate sex scandals going on within the Trump administration. The labor secretary, the Epstein child sex trafficking cover-up, and Christine Noem's alleged affair with Corey Lewandowski and her play in footsie in a one-bedroom suite on a Gulf or a Boeing jet that you and I paid for.

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10:28Michael Popok:What did that do? Do you know that 50 percent, sorry, one fifth, sorry, one fifth of all oil in the world, 20 percent, comes through one location in the Middle East called the Strait of Hormuz? You know what ships are getting through the Strait of Hormuz right now? Iranian. Everything else, it's a giant parking lot. Donald Trump says, we're going to start escorting ships to get through the Strait of Hormuz. You know, this is like policy on the fly. Somebody asked me over dinner over the weekend, what do you feel about the Iran war? I said, look, if it were in the hands of mature people that I believed had a plan for the aftermath, you know, the old Powell doctrine, once you break it, you bought it for 90 million people in the oil fields and the security and the area so it doesn't tip over and just become a raging inferno through the Middle East, I'd feel better.

11:21Michael Popok:If it were competent people. But how can you possibly? Sure, any monkey can bomb. Any monkey can push a button. We used to send them up at NASA in rockets to bomb people. But what do you do in the aftermath? The reason we're watching erratic policy behavior by Donald Trump every day saying, we're going to do something different. We're going to let the people pick the leader. No, I'm going to pick the leader. There's no consistency here because he is erratic and he is in the throes of dementia and the rest of his administration know it. So no, in the hands of Donald Trump, I did not want regime change or bombing war in Iran or boots on the ground.

12:00Michael Popok:Not with this administration. And who's going to pay the price now for all of the fact that all of the Middle East is inflamed in inferno? You know, when you see the map, it's not just the, here's the 75 places the Americans bombed today in and around Iran. It's here's the other 40 places that Iran bombed, including our allies and military bases. Were we prepared for this? Do you think Pete Hegsepp, this is rhetorical, do you think Pete Hegsepp has the brain power, the intellectual horsepower to be making these decisions? Look what they did with the economy and the brain trust around the economy.

12:38Michael Popok:And we're going to trust them with a war effort? And what its impact is on the global economy? I don't think so. And now Donald Trump is busy calling his own followers fools. He posted on social media, only fools would think, would oppose my policy. Only fools would be upset with higher, higher, higher gas prices in return for nuclear security. Is that what we just obtained? Did you just obtain what you thought was a way to step on the news cycle and give yourself some points at home for politics? Because that's what we think you did. And look at the cost sucked out of the American economy. And think what we could have done with this money.

13:23Michael Popok:It's going to be a half a trillion dollars by the time we're done in Iran and Venezuela. I haven't even added Cuba into that. Half a trillion dollars. That would educate a lot of people, wouldn't it, with free scholarship? That would pay for a lot of health care for people who can't afford it. That would make affordability a lot easier in America. That would pay for a lot of down payments for home mortgages, wouldn't it? Yeah. No, instead, the only one that's making money right now is the military industrial complex and companies that make weapons and resupply weapons. They're giddy. You know, if you can afford to invest in Lockheed Martin or Boeing, I guess you're doing okay.

14:05Michael Popok:The rest of the world is not. So when you're so desperate that you're Donald Trump who attacks his own voters and calls them fools, talks down to them, right? Disparages them, patronizes them, patronizes them because of his erratic policies that have now made oil up to triple the price. What did he think was going to happen to the economy? not a strong economy economy that was a jobless a jobless economy to begin with we haven't even gotten the full pricing baked in yet for his original tariffs now that the tariffs have been struck down he reimposed new tariffs that are being challenged still collecting ill-gotten money that doesn't belong to him for the american people stealing our money no job creation inflation going to tick up one, two, three more points because of oil.

15:04Michael Popok:Oil going to double in pricing up to$140 a barrel, no doubt, in the next quarter. Your gas prices are going to double. Did you like the$3 gallon of gas? It's going to be six now or seven or higher. So we're going to continue to follow it all right here. If anything, Epstein scandal, the economy, Donald Trump's willful blindness to the suffering of the American voter in this economy. If anything tears him down, it's going to be him thinking he could start wars all over the world, spend our money to do it, undermine our economy and how you and I are able to afford things like health care, things related to education, groceries, the gas pump, that he'd be able to get away with that.

15:53Michael Popok:If anything is going to tear down his political viability, it's what we're watching right now with the Iran war. I'll continue to follow it. You're here on the Midas Touch Network and on Legal AF. Come over to Legal AF YouTube channel. Every hour, we got a new, amazing video analyzing law and politics just for you under one pane of glass. Legal AF. Till my next report, this is Michael Popa. Can't get your fill of Legal AF? Me neither. That's why we formed the Legal AF Substack. Every time we mention something in a hot take, whether it's a court filing or a oral argument, come over to the Substack.

16:27Michael Popok:You'll find the court filing and the oral argument there, including a daily roundup that I do call, wait for it, Morning AF. What else? All the other contributors from Legal AF are there as well. We got some new reporting. We got interviews. We got ad-free versions of the podcast and hot takes. Where? Legal AF on Substack. Come over now to free subscribe.

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