Speaker 1: And hello, welcome to the Big podcast on this on
this Wednesday, the eighth day of July, Year of Our Lord,
twenty twenty six. My name is Tom Sullivan, and I've
got a busy, busy, busy list here today to go
over with you everything from Iran and what's going to
happen there, because it's confusing at the very minimum. There's
also a mystery about Air Force one and why isn't
the President using the new plane on his way back?
The latest update on Platner, et cetera, et cetera. So
let's Start's start with Iran because the President has made
it clear that he does he well. He says that
the ceasefire deal is over. I told you so. I mean,
let me reach here. I bet myself on the back.
I knew this thing when lot last sixty days, it
lasted three weeks. The ceasefire agreement lasted three weeks. So
that being said, the President also said that he would
let our negotiators Steve Whitkoff and Jared Kushner keep talking
if they want to. He says, I'm not sure I
want to make a deal with them. He's also today
and because he's been doing at the end of the
NATO conference, they he came out to answer questions from
the press, and in doing so, uh he threatened about
carg Island again. He called them liars and scum, cheats,
sick people, waste a time. And then was asked the
question about so since we struck, since rom struck a
bunch of ships last night and we fired back a
bunch of missiles with them, that is, and to cease
fire is over, So I guess a new war is
going to start. And that's where this gets confusing because
the president keeps saying different things. This was all on
the same day before he left Turkey. Today. Let me
play some of this for you so you get a
feel for what's going on. We'll begin with some of
his he's such a queen's guy. Sorry for all of
you guys from Queens, but you know it's true. They
have a reputation that they talk tough. It's the old
bar fight. Do you know what I'm better do to you?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Well you know what I'm going to do to you.
And most of the time none of that happens. And
so there's a lot of this tough talk rabato that
I think comes from Donald Trump's early childhood, and he
loves to do it. But it doesn't make any difference
with the Iranian leaders. They don't. It doesn't. I don't
even think they blink. But here is Donald Trump saying
he doesn't like the Iranian regime.
Speaker 3: They'll never build a nuclear weapon under our deal. But
I don't know if we're gonna have a deal. We
may just do it without a deal, because, you know what,
it's easier because these people they lie and they cheat,
and you have an agreement and they'll go outside. For instance,
they agreed, well, we'll never have a nuclear weapon. They agreed,
then they go outside, have a news conference, or they
leak that we never just guss the subject. Now, who
would believe we never discussed the subject because for me,
that's ninety nine point nine percent of what we're doing.
It's denuclearization of Iran. Okay, So when you ask our
guys can continue. You know, Steve is great, and Jared
and all the guys, they know him very well. Yeah,
actually they're what kind of yourself?
Speaker 1: Too?
Speaker 3: I wonder which I picked two beauties? You know what,
we settled eight wars. I got a couple of beauties here.
But Steve's great and Jared's great. You know, they're the
right guys, and we'll see what happens. But but I
will say this, Iran they misbehaved for forty seven years.
They've killed our soldiers, they've killed our people, and they've
killed a lot of people all over the Middle East
and elsewhere. And the roadside bomb was there preferred. You know,
the preferred weapon was by solomony, the roadside bomb where
it would explode on a truck. We actually built trucks
with flours steal this thick and then all they did
was they made bigger bombs. No, we have young guys around,
not walking around because they have no legs. But their
legs were blown off, their arms were blown off, their
face was blown off, and they lived because of modern medicine.
You can do anything. But they're living. They're living like
in hell. Their whole life changed because of Iran. And
that was ninety six percent of the people that use
that night they were made.
Speaker 4: And so.
Speaker 3: We have a score to settle too.
Speaker 1: So finally he says, you can't trust them, their cheats,
their liars. What else did he call them? Scum? Sick people?
To wait the time doing business with them. So that's
that's what he says. And then he turned around and
the reporter said, all right, so what are you going
to do? And instead he did something that I was
taught a long time ago in the military. You never
ever ever telegraph to the enemy what you're going to
do and what you're not going to do.
Speaker 3: We're not attacking at the highest level. The highest level
of the bridges there which we can knock down. I
would say, in one day we knocked down every single
bridge in a rand is not a thing they can
do the better. They're electric manufacturing facilities, electric plants where
they're making electricity in there. We will if we have
to take them out. I don't want to do that,
but if we have to, we'll take them out. They
have desalinization plants, will take them out if we have to.
Hate to do that. That's probably the one I would
like not to do least.
Speaker 1: But he lists off some things that, well, we should
do this, but I want to do that. We could
do that, but oh, I don't want to do that,
and we could do I really don't want to do that.
I don't know. Maybe it's maybe he's fooling me, Maybe
it's the art of the deal. But I'm listening to
a guy who, not only through his words but also
through his actions, does not want to use any military
force other than little individual strikes, which is not going
to win a war, and it's just going to keep
this thing going. Adam Kissinger, the former Republican congressman, had
this observation.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean, at one point the President even said
I'm bored with it. I mean, and since the moment
these strikes were launched and the President quickly declared victory.
If you understand human behavior even five percent, you're going
to look at that and go he wants out. He
wanted a quick victory. He's not getting it. Iran has
a very high pain threshold, and so they think they
can outlast him, and he has to quit negotiating with
himself in public. They have to quit using the information
war here against Democrats and start using it against Iranians.
And actually, as the Admiral will probably tell you, I'm
sure the military is a piece of the whole aspect
of how you compel an answer from Iran. You use diplomatic, information,
military economic. The military side is good, the US military
is fantastic, but you've got to bring in the economic piece,
the diplomatic piece. It's perfect that he's in at the
NATO summit right now, start talking to other NATO members
and try to bring them into this fight with us
instead of offending them all the time. And of course
the information piece. Buran's putting out great lego videos and
we all chuckle at him. But that's where the information
war is now. And unfortunately this White House, instead of
fighting back against Iran, has taken their efforts against democrats
and then they wonder why the country is divided.
Speaker 1: So at the NATO news conference before the president left,
like I said, he talked to the yet open open
question and answer with the media, and one reporter asked
him about when will the war start?
Speaker 3: Present? How did your media, Tom chakouch Tu Kiev to present?
It seems that the war with Iran may start again.
What do you expect from your European allies? No, I
don't think it's going to start again. I think it's
going to go very quickly. They hit a couple of ships,
and so we hit that much harder. When they hit,
We hit ten times harder. You know, we hit much
harder than they do. We have a lot better equipment
than they do. We may even somebody else before. Do
you think you'll hit him tonight? I said we might, Yeah,
we might. But when they hit, we hit. You know,
it's what they're we use. We use their language, we
speak their language. No, I don't think so. I think
anything that happens is going to be over very quickly
only and we'll only make it safe for including for oil.
Oil is going to be very free, very easy, and
it's going to happen very fast. We have the Harmon
Street that boats have pulled out. I mean it is
a gusher of oil right now. We have a lot
of oil. And no, anything this happens is going to
happen very fast. We're not we're not looking we're not
looking for a long term Okay, go ahead.
Speaker 1: Well he may not be looking at it long term,
but he keeps making that same mistake because he says, okay, okay,
now we got an agreement, and then Iran they're just
pulling his chain. They're having they're having a ball with
him because he says, oh yeah, it'll be very fast.
He's been saying that ever since February twenty eighth. It'll
be over very quickly. I don't believe them. I don't
know why he says that. I don't believe his military
advisors are telling him that. I don't know what it
is about him that he thinks this way. Mark Theeson,
former speechwriter for w This is what he had to say.
Speaker 6: Well, I think that the deal didn't say anything about
them firing at ships going through the Amani waters. So
you know, look, the reality is the President saw this
MoU as a way to get them to the table
to launch. This was an agreement to negotiate an agreement,
and they're not taking the opportunity. And so I think,
and I've always believed that the best outcome for this
is no deal. The best outcome for this. We were
ten to fifteen days away from finishing all the military
targets we have, as you pointed out earlier, in the
last hour, they've taken their ballistic missiles out of storage
where they were being protected in caves. Now they're targets.
Speaker 7: Let's take them all out. Let's finish the job.
Speaker 6: We've destroyed eighty five percent of their defense industrial base.
Let's destroy one hundred percent of it. Let's set them
back to the Stone Age and militarily and then declare victory,
open the straight by force and reimpose the blockade and
declare victory, and then help the Iranian people overthrow the regime,
because all the games that Donald Trump has made will
only be permanent if the regime changes in Irun.
Speaker 1: Mark Theeson is singing my song. I've been saying that
all along, you have to take the regime and change it,
and he keeps saying, Oh, it's changed, No, it hasn't.
They're the same ideology group, different people, but of the
same belief the IRGC. They're fanatics. They're not bending, they're
not bending to his threats. They're not bending. The only
thing they'll bend to is power. And I don't think
we can bomb them into submission either. And this is
where I don't see Donald Trump doing what needs to
be done, which is sadly but necessarily boots on the ground.
You send in troops and you arrest the regime leaders,
You arrest the are GC leaders, You take control of Tehran,
and you do it just like World War two and
in Tokyo and also in Berlin. I mean, that's what
needs to be done. The guy knows a lot more
about that than I do is alec puts us he
who is with the Atlantic Council.
Speaker 7: So by itself, I don't think it has influenced Iranian
behavior in the past. And that's the reason we saw
a larger number of strikes yesterday, and that's because the
Iranians had been hit back after they struck ships previously,
and they continued to strike because we saw more strikes yesterday.
So the President ordered strikes in about eighty targets as
you just mentioned there along the coast, really to degrade
Iran's capabilities to strike ships, and in response, Iran struck
eighty five targets, or at least they claimed obstruct There
doesn't appear to have been any damage at our Alielski
Air Force Base in Kuwait and then the fifth feet
our naval headquarters in the area in Bahrain. If you
look at the numbers, it's largely proportional. The signal from
the Iranians is it's proportional. We're not looking to escalate.
But based on the president's comments, the small he's extremely frustrated.
Speaker 1: He's frustrated because he's in a pickle. He either has
to use boots on the ground, which would be very unpopular,
and he's looking at the election date coming up in November,
so we're less than four months away for that, so
he doesn't know what to do at this particular time. Well,
let's see if General Keith Kellogg has any ideas.
Speaker 8: Yes, I mean it's clearly yes, And I think there's
really this memorandum be fourteen points memorandum really kind of
obfiscated the issue. You know, I'm a big believer in principles.
For one of those simplicity, I'll make it really simple
for you. Number one, we're going to send in the
IEA to get the enriched uranium if we can get
to it with American advisors, and oh, by the way,
you don't get to get any restrictions. We're going to
go where we want to go. Number two, we're going
to go open up the straight of home moves and
we're going to do it militarily and if we need to,
if they sink a tanker, we're taking to your ass
that's making in fungible, and then we're going to replace
those assets that you lost. Number Three, we're telling Iranians
knock it off with the neighbors. You don't attack Ua,
you don't take cutter. You don't just help a hamas
or hasible anybody else, and then they're not. The other
thing is, we're not negotiating his equals right now, we're
treat him his equals.
Speaker 1: They're not.
Speaker 8: Rachie's a master negotiator. He's their foreign minister. He wrote
the book on negotiations. His parents were rug merchants. They understand.
Have you ever tried to buy a rug in the
Middle League? I actually have four. He basically say, we're
done with this, We're tired of it, We're not going
to do it anymore, and we're going to finish the
job as we should do it.
Speaker 4: Now.
Speaker 8: The alternative is, what's he going to do when he
does that.
Speaker 1: Well, the general is still docuted about not replacing the regime.
Let's see what General Jack Keane says. He's all along
said that you can't trust these people. Finally, finally, President
Trump says you can't trust these people, but he doesn't
act like it. He still wants to do business with them.
Speaker 2: Their general key, Well, clearly we got violations of the
ceasefire here now repeatedly in the United States. Is not
going to stand for that, you know, for our audience,
to understand when Iran looks at the Straits of the Moons,
they really see that as a strategic asset and controlling
that is equivalent in their minds to having nuclear weapons.
And I'm not over exaggerating this. And the reality is
why is that because it gives them significant strategic influence
in the region, geopolitical blackmail in a sense, it gives
them leverage to bend the nations in the region to
their will if they're controlling the flow of oil out
of the Gulf. That's the reality of it. Their strategic
objectives from the outset have been WoT one, dominate and
control the Middle East, to control the distribution of oil
out of the Golf, destroy Israel, drive the United States out,
so right from the initial objectives for forty seven years,
the control of distribution of oil has always been a
strategic objective and that is why we're witnessing a modified
battle for the straits of a Mouse here. And they
are not going to give into this, in my judgment,
and it will likely lead to return to major combat
operations because it means that much to them. And I
think the reason why the MoU had this ambiguity in
it that we all looked at it and said, why
that don't make any sense. Remember, the Straits would be
open immediately, we would release the blockade. But then in
the written description of it, in sixty days, o'ran and
Oman can begin discussions about administration and services with the Straits,
and that's smacked of what that's smacked of giving them
some kind of control. It didn't make any sense. But
I think the Iranians insisted on that kind of lineanguage
in there, or there wasn't going to be a deal.
Don't know the facts of that, but I'm speculating here,
but it just shows you how important this is they met.
That was actually that ambiguity is in there, in a
sense gives them some leverage here to what they're doing,
except for firing on ships. Once they fired on ships,
that obviously broke the ceasefire and entered President Trump and
the action he's taken here. He is not going to
put up with this. And at the same time, we're
going to continue to move ships through the Straits, which
we are doing right as we speak, and that is
a form of distribution of oil that's continuing. Likely to
be some slow down because of the hostilities to a
certain degree, but this is a strategic asset, and the Iranians,
I'm convinced, will dig in their heels over this.
Speaker 7: Well.
Speaker 1: The reason I played General Keane's comments so often on
this podcast is because he has called it right. He
has predicted what was going to happen, and it happens.
And I'm sorry to say this, but our president has
keep saying things that do not come to fruition. He's
wrong on almost every single prediction. The fact now we're
saying today, like I played for you already, oh yeah,
this will go fast, Yeah, there'll be yeah, this be overfore,
you know it very fast. So the President just keeps
saying things that are not turning out to be true,
and General Keane keeps saying things that are spot on.
Speaker 2: Well, I think he's still going to try to do that,
and I mean clearly where we are obviously very frustrated,
you know, with the Iranians, and in my judgment, quite
predictable who they are. I haven't believed for a minute
that even though we're dealing with different players here because
we killed the other leaders, they very much represent the
ideals of this regime and they're diabolical tyrannical, radical ideology,
and I think that's where they are. They have had
the Straits of a Moose as a strategic objective for
forty seven years, and they've had four objectives. One dominated
control the Middle East, Two control the distribution of oil
out of the Persian Gulf, Three destroy Israel. Four drive
the United States out of the region. They have been
in control somewhat of the Straits of a Moose since
March the second, when they shut it down, so four months.
They have, in their minds, been in control, and they're
not going to give this up without a fight. In
my view, economic pressure and diplomatic pressure will solely be
applied here, and I think they're going to stick to
this and knock back down, and it will likely lead
to an acceleration of military operations to bend them to
our will. I think that is the path we're on.
The President is going to continue to negotiate. He has
said that he's obviously frustrated. We heard the rich language
to describe that frustration. And we'll see what happens here.
Economic pressure back on We've slapped sanctions back on them.
I don't think we necessarily should have taken them off
at all until we have seen much more from what
in terms of a change in their behavior. We haven't
seen much change in behavior here whatsoever. So that's the
path we're on. I think specifically what will happen is
Admiral Cooper will continue to move ships down in the
southern route off the coast of Oman. We were up
to forty or fifty ships before the attack began. We'll
likely get back to there unless the Runnings interfere again.
If they interfere again, we're going to begin to escalate
and accelerate military operations, and it may likely lead to
full major combat operations at some point.
Speaker 1: So I I hear him use the phrase over and
over again about return to major combat operations. He's trumpeted
the bit. I know he's in general, but I mean,
and I don't like war, but we've started one. And
the only way to stop this is to is to
crush the enemy, not the people, the regime, the IRGC.
And until we do, this is just going to keep
on going, just like the Ukraine War. Everybody's sitting back
watching it, but nobody's doing anything about it. Meantime, the
President is on his way back as we record this
podcast from Turkey where the NATO conference was held, and
lo and behold, they pulled out the old Jackie Kennedy
designed blue and white seven forty seven, the one that
he just said, Oh, that's an old thing. It looks
so embarrassing when we pull in and the other planes
are bigger. Well, guess what the new Katar donated airplane
is not. It brought him from DC to Turkey, but
it's not bringing him back. Here's the president asked about,
why aren't you flying the brand new one that you
love so much? What's going on with that? Why are
you coming back on the old seven forty seven?
Speaker 7: Go ahead, go ahead, hey, Sean mccreasan air Times, but
why aren't you flying the new plane home?
Speaker 1: Why aren't you flying on the new air Force?
Speaker 3: It's flying to Europe to one of the big bases,
two or three of the big bases, where we can
show it to the people and we'll be going home
by normal methods. But we have it going to Europe
to a couple of bases, actually one in particular, but
it's going to go to a couple of basis stop
so the soldiers can see it. Because it's truly magnificent. Yeah,
please go ahead, do you want to go?
Speaker 1: That was his answer, that they're going to send the
brand new air Force air Force one. It won't be
air Force one unless he's in it. The new Katari
gifted plane to Europe to show it off to the troops. Really,
do you believe that something. My stinkometer is going off
big time, and so is Leon Panetes.
Speaker 9: You know, I've always been concerned about security issues with
this kind of plane that's built by another country, regardless
of the fact that that country we may have good
relations with that country. The fact is that from a
security point of view, you have got to be concerned
that there are going to be efforts to try to
gather intelligence. And I'm sure they've reviewed the whole plane,
But as somebody involved with security, I would be very
concerned about making sure that the president's security is protected.
The only way to do that is by having that
plane made in the United States and carrying the equipment
that is provided by the United States, so that we
can assure that the president is not only secure but safe.
So I don't think there's any question that there are
security concerns here.
Speaker 1: What they are, we don't know.
Speaker 9: But I'm sure that's involved.
Speaker 1: Well, there was a previous question asked at the news
conference after the NATO conference, and the President answered it
by saying that he is the number one target for assassination.
And then Panetta says, hey, this thing smells like it's
a security problem. So the Air Force one, the blue
one's designed by Jackie Kennedy, is carrying the President back
to Washington. We'll see what happens to the new super
duper luxury Katari gift. I'm with Panetta, man, you know
you don't want a plane that has been in service
to the to another government for four years using being
the facility the president uses as he flies around the world.
The other item that we're keeping an eye on is
this Platner story. Graham Plattner, Man, it has taken over.
They are they don't have a countdown because they don't
know what time he's going to do it. But everybody
and their brother is saying that Platner is going to
step down from being the Democrat nominee for the US
Senate race out of Maine, and so far the only
thing we're hearing is Democrats are mad at him because
he's now saying to the Democrats. I want to have
a say in who you pick. And the Democrat Party
is trying to figure out how not to do a
repeat of the Joe Biden Kamala Harris but Tod handoff.
They want to have maybe some quick primaries of something
in Maine for the people to choose. But Platner is saying,
look it, I come from the far far far left.
Therefore I demand that you pick a far far far
left person to replace me if I step down. So
he hasn't said he will. He's reflecting right now, Here's
a Devin Murphy Anderson who is the head of the
Democrat Party in the state of Maine.
Speaker 4: Graham Plotner's team has repeatedly reached out to us in
an attempt to put their thumb on the scale of
what this process looks like. You have repeatedly reiterated, too,
Grand Plotner's team that they have no role in determining
our next Democratic nominee for the US Senate, nor in
determining what this process looks like.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so he has no future. I mean, he's burned
his bridge, but it looks like he's still got the
lighter out trying to burn even more so we'll see
what they come up with. But they have deadlines, and
let me go over some of this. Let's go back
to August twenty fifth of last year, almost a year ago.
That's when Graham Platner threw his hat in the ring
to become the nominee for the Democrats in the state
of Maine. So the campaign began August twenty fifth, twenty
twenty five. October sixteenth of last year, the Reddit posts
started showing up where he wrote posts slamming police, mocking
rural Americans, and I mean, Maine is kind of all
one big rural area, isn't it. Then October twentieth, the
news came out about he has a Nazi tattoo on
his chest, and at first he said, yeah, it was
just a drunk marine and I got it like everybody else.
We didn't know what it meant. So the question then
was if he got it twenty years ago and he
found out subsequent because he's told some of the women
that he's had relationships with about the fact that it
was a Nazi tattoo, Why did he if he knew
it was a Nazi tattoo, why didn't he try to
get it taken off. Well, that was October twentieth. February
twenty sixth of this year, he deleted posts that he
wrote about political violence that it was necessary. Yeah, he
was for political He's still for political violence. In May
he started mocking purple heart veterans. May thirtieth, he posted
sexually expressed explicit messages while he was married. June fourth,
a next girlfriend described, I have some very unsettling behavior.
That turned out to be Lindsey Fifield. She spoke to
Jake Tapper today. It's the same as yesterday. It's he's dangerous.
He scared her, all of that sort of stuff. But
they dismissed her because of the fact that she is
a Republican woman, and they said, well, you don't count
June ninth. June ninth, so it's been a month tomorrow
that he won the nomination in May by the people
for the Senate nomination for Democrats. July six, just a
couple of days ago, Politico wrote about the new sexual
assault allegations and now going forward, he has until next
Monday to drop out July thirteenth, or his name will
be on the ballot, and the Democrat Party has until
July twenty seventh to name a replacement. So they're in
the same boat of scrambling after Joe Biden delayed and
delayed and delayed and finally threw in the towel and
then they scrambled and put Kamala Harrison and said, okay,
now let's have a vote. So they're having the same exact,
exact issues in May that the Democrats had in twenty
twenty four. A little update about our New York City
building that is not standing up very well. This is
a thirty six thirty four story building. I believe it
is thirty four story building and right down by Grand Central,
in between Grand Central and the United Nations Building. It's
in a very busy part of Manhattan. And they were
trying to convert this building twenty two story building they
were going to add had eleven more floors that would
make it to thirty three. I don't know they got
thirty six out of the total thing. In any case,
they wanted to add eleven more floors to the top
of the building and then convert it from an office
building to apartments. And somebody is going to get sued,
either the architect or the construction contractor because somebody had
to do the calculations. Even the City of New York
had to do the calculations about it. If you've got
a twenty two story building and you want to add
eleven more stories to it, have the structure of the
twenty two story building, will it be able to hold
eleven more stories on top of it without collapsing? And
what we're finding is no, it won't. So they've got
a collapse zone that's five blocks each direction from this building.
There's a lot of the buildings have been evacuated. I
don't know what the people that I have businesses in
those buildings are doing, but they're shut down waiting to
try to keep this building from collapsing. So that's what's
going on in New York today. The tenure Treasury, it's
the highest level of interest rates in a month. So
interest rates are going back up, and we'll talk about
all of that this Friday. Financial Friday. I'd like to
remind you to give me a call if you have
questions about interest rates, treasury bonds, corporate bonds, municipal bonds,
saving money for investments, saving money for retirement, utual funds,
get whatever's on your mind about about making money, investing
money we do on Financial Friday. And the phone number
to call and leave your message, leave your question, leave
your observation is eight five five two nine five. I've
sixty six hundred eight nine five. I'm sorry eight. I
don't even know the number eight five five two nine
five sixty six hundred. If you can't remember it like me,
you can go to my website and there's the number
at Tom Sullivan dot com. All right, I hope to
hear from you Wall Street today it was sell off
day once we started hearing saber rattling about war starting
back up again. Down went the market, the dow, well,
not all of it. The Dow went down five hundred
and seventy six to fifty two thousand and three forty eight.
The SMP fell twenty one. The NASDAC actually was down,
but it came back to have a gain at the end,
up fifty two points. The price of gold fell seventy
three dollars down to four thoy eighty four. An oil
big jump yesterday, another big jump today, four dollars today.
West Texas Intermediate now is seventy five dollars for one
barrel of oil. That's it for today, Thank you for
coming by. We will be back again tomorrow and I
hope we'll see you there