Speaker 1: And hello, Welcome one and all to the Big Podcast
on this Friday. Today is the tenth day of July,
Year of Our Lord, twenty twenty six. My name is
Tom Sullivan. Glad to have you come by. We've got
well a variety of topics for you today. One of
them got a lot of attention because the Wall Street
Journal did a story today specifically on breaking headlines, about
the fact that there is a new effort by Iran
to assassinate President Trump, and this has caused a flurry
of activity as far as reporting goes. Today, all the
major news sources are running with this story. But it
was again by an investigation that started by the Wall
Street Journal looking into why the President flew to Turkey
for the NATO meeting on the brand new shiny Qatari
gifted plane, but then flew halfway back on the old
seven forty seven, the old Air Force one to England,
which he then got off the old one and got
on the new one to fly home to DC. What
is turning out what the Wall Street Journal is reporting
the headline is fears over the new luxury jet forced
Trump back to an old Air Force one after Israeli
warning worries that the president's new plane lacked defensive capabilities
was combined with an Israeli warning about a possible threat,
So it was not surprising. It was the fact that
the new gift from Qatar, they said it would take
forever to actually get it up to the speed of
having all of the devices on that plane that the
current Air Force One has, and that is also why
it's taken Boeing longer than they thought it would take,
and they're losing their shirt on it. But there is
a lot going on with Air Force One that we
don't see or know that are defensive capabilities. So we
start off today with the reporter at the Wall Street
Journal who broke this story about the warning from Israel
and the problems with the new plane.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so what we know is that Israel recently shared
this Freshian intelligence. It says that it indicates that there
was a plan that you know, Iran was contemplating to
kill Trump and this would help to explain some of
his behavior. And I think some of the statements that
you guys played we also saw, you know, the chance
at the funeral. And what's important to note is that
these these two men have been speaking, you know, very
frequently during the war, and they had late night phone
calls and they would talk about intelligence and targets, and
the relationship recently soured. I think this helps explain some
of those statements. This intelligence was was shared very recently,
and we think that that's why he was making some
of those statements. And this was obviously a concern to him.
He has been a target of around in the past,
but this has, you know, been on his mind, and
it's come up again and again.
Speaker 1: She's talking about the president and it has come up
again and again and again. Recently he's been the President
has been bringing it up. This is a couple of
recent clips from the President in Turkey at the NATO
meeting and since.
Speaker 3: They want to take out the US later me. I'm
on every list, I shall think this morning. I'm on
every single one of their lists. I'm number one on
the kill list for Iran. They're lovely people. I'm number one.
I may be gone to because I'm their number one target.
It's out all over the place. I'm their number one
because they scum.
Speaker 1: You know what's interesting about this is he calls them scum,
and he's and he knows that they're trying to kill him,
and yet he still will not use military force against
them other than just a very tepid response back to
this is a neat pillad with the Wall Street Journal.
Speaker 2: No, we don't have these details right now. We just
know that these two countries, you know, they their cooperation,
their military cooperation, intelligence cooperation has really reached unprecedented levels
in this war. It's gotten much closer. You know, we
have tankers parked at the Tel Aviv Bengali on airport.
We have you know, you have Israeli officials all over,
you know, in different situation rooms in the US, and
so this is not unusual, but you know, this is
a different level of threat. And yeah, it obviously got
Trump's attention.
Speaker 1: It did get his attention. David Petraeus General David Betrayus,
a retired general. He also was asked about the threats
from Iran on our president.
Speaker 4: Well, I'm not surprised. There's a long history of Iran
putting people on various lists. As you know, a number
of our former officials had to have protection well after
their time in government. In fact, and as you described
and showed the mood in the crowd around the funeral
procession and so forth was one of anger, defiance in
a quest really for revenge and retribution. So I'm not
at all surprised that they would be figuring out if
they could take that retribution how they might do that.
We should note, though, again, that there's also a history
of a degree of incompetence in what they have done.
You may recall the case back when I was the
CI director and as long as a Revolutionary Guards Corps
Cooks Force officer tried to hire a hitman in Mexico
City to kill the Saudi ambassador to the US and
Cafe Milano in Washington, and thankfully the individual they hired
was a DA course and we diverted the aircraft to
Kennedy International Airport that was carrying that officer home, and
the FBI met him at the bottom of the ramp.
I hope that this is also a case where they're
not able to come up with a competent plan, but no,
this is a big warning. I think we should all
take it very seriously.
Speaker 1: Well apparently they did, because that was the reason now
that the Wall Street journals reporting that they switched planes
at the airport in Ankara, Turkey, and had Donald Trump
fly home on the or at least halfway on the
old Air Force one. What's interesting is once they got
to England, they switched and they obviously felt the threat
to an aircraft wasn't as great as they were leaving
England and going across the Atlantic Ocean and into Andrews
Air Force Base in Washington. But this is, like the
general said, this has been going on, and he was
asked a question about whether they've been trying to kill
Babe Net in Yahoo as well for many years.
Speaker 4: Well, it's a very big difference. Obviously, Prime Minster Net
Yahoo is well within range of Iranian intermediate range ballistic missiles.
President Trump generally is not. But the fact that they
changed out the new Air Force one for the old
one indicates that they took this very seriously and appropriately
so and wanted to make sure that all the countermeasures
that were possibly available were in fact on that craft.
So now we have to ask the question, then, what
is the point of our president flying around in that
Katari gifted plane. It's not safe, it doesn't have the
kind of anti defensive doesn't have defensive measures on the
plane sufficient enough for the Secret Service. Well, it's all
based on the threat, depending on where you're going and
what the threat posture is. I don't think there's any
threat posture that is elevated, for example in the UK
or heading back to the US or what have you.
But while he was out in Turkey, that possibility did
loom again. It appears that there is credible intelligence about
some unspecified threat, and so I think you take the
precautions that are available to you. And that's exactly what
the Secret Service gets paid to do, and presidents listen
to them, and especially somebody who's been twice at this
subject of an assassination attempt. Well, I don't have any
ends information, obviously, but what Betrayus was talking about was
surface to air missiles, and they if you look at
the map, Turkey's right next to Iran where once he
got to England. I guess it would be pretty hard
to set up a surface to air missile to try
to take down an airplane, namely Air Force one. Jonathan Swan,
who I think is a great reporter. He's been with
a number of different major media organizations. He's an Australian guy,
but he does a great job on getting sources within
Washington d C. He and Maggie Haberman have written a
new book they're out promoting. But he was asked also
about this whole business about security for the president.
Speaker 5: Well, you're exactly right. One element that people I think
underestimate or understate is how much Trump's feelings about Iran
intensified and became more personal in the interregnum period when
he was out of office. It was brief by the
FBI that Iran was trying to kill him. Iran hacked
into the emails of Susie Wilds during the campaign. There
was this sort of atmosphere of threat that was hanging
over the campaign. Wherever they went. They switched planes at
one time, and Trump has traveled far less this term
than he has in the first term. He would not
articulate this because it would be a sign of weakness,
but there are advisors around him who believe that part
of the reason for his much more home bound presidency
this time round is fear of assassination, which is understandable
given what he went through during the campaign.
Speaker 1: Well, that's interesting because what they planned on doing. They
said back at the beginning of the year that the president,
because this is a midterm election year, that they were
going to roll the President out a lot. He was
going to be on the road doing a lot of
rallies to getting people enthused about the Republican side of
the voting booth. And well he has been out, but not.
As Jonathan Swand just said, he's been traveling much less
than he has in the past. And I'm sure his
political advisors would love to get him out more, but
the Secret Service is probably putting the kabash on that one.
More from Andrew McKay, former deputy FBI director.
Speaker 6: You know, it's it is absolutely the right decision under
the circumstances. It's the conservative security first sort of analysis,
and that's what we have to be doing right now.
The simple facts are, there is no way that they
were able to take that new plane, the one we're
referred to as the bridge plane, the one given to
us by the Kaitaris, and to equip it with all
of the equipment that is already in the current Air
Force one fleet, the equipment that has been tested and
tested and used time and time and time again, and
so without we have to be operating at this point
with this sort of intelligence about these serious plots. We
have to be operating at our absolute a game when
it comes to the security around the president, and so
this is not the time to ride in the fancy
plane because you like the way it looks and it
makes you feel more confident. When you're landing at a
conference with the world leaders, you need to make sure
that you're going to be able to get out of there.
Let's remember that he has been in Turkey, which is
a neighbor of Iran, which is the country that we're
at war with. So simply traveling there without all of
this extra intelligence from the Israelis and what we've learned
in the last forty eight hours, simply going to Turkey,
which is so close to that theater of war, raises
all sorts of security concerns. They need to be in
the most secure aircraft possible, and.
Speaker 1: So talking about Iran, Admiral Robert Harward basically says, there's
nothing new. This is the same old story that we've
been dealing with with Iran for a long time.
Speaker 7: Well, first, let's assess what Iran's doing here, the same
thing they've been doing for decades. They've been targeting our
leadership in the US for decades. We had key officials
that had to have personal security Secretary POMPEII or what
comes to mind before and after his service and others
that needed personal security because of threats from Iran. Completely inacceptable.
So you have to believe, of course the president and
others were on their list. So that's just indicative of
the state of mind of the government of Iran and
what they are not just doing now, but what they've
been doing for decades. So I think the President made
it clear and I only have to assume what that,
if anything were to happen from at that behast of
the Iranians to continue, to course use power, political, military,
and economic power to ensure that the government ran changes
that you have a government in place that renounces the
Islamic Revolution and ceases the policies and programs they've had
for decades, and assassinations is one of those programs.
Speaker 1: So back and forth we go, and it seems as
if we have accomplished nothing. They still have some control
over the Strait of horror moves. They still have their
enriched uranium, they still have their IRGC leaders.
Speaker 4: It seems to.
Speaker 1: Me like they haven't. Oh, they've had a lot of
damage to their property. But Larry Kudlow interesting comments that
he made this afternoon about the fact that oil has
also been coming and going from the Strait of Horror Moves,
much more so than a lot of people have even guessed. Now,
there was again a Wall Street Journal story today the
fact that they're sending all kinds of oil in and
out of the straight or four moves the ships that
belonged to a run. But there's plenty more beyond that.
Here's Larry Kudlow describing some of the oil and gas activity.
Speaker 8: You know, I just want to read you this fact.
You know, Iran is telling us that they control the
Strait of Hormus and from sent comm This is not me,
this is sencom put this out earlier today. Since early May,
eight hundred commercial vessels have passed through the strait eight hundred, okay,
and three hundred and eighty million barrels as a lot,
a very, a lot, a lot. It just tells me
that Iran is bluffing.
Speaker 4: Okay.
Speaker 8: Now, you know, I'm one of those guys that would
like to see is take over carg Island and ruin
their era oil, essentially take away their old business completely.
And I'm one of the people who would like to
see the sanctions permanent, not just till August twenty first,
but the sanction should be put back on permanently. But
be that as it may. They don't have any impact
on the oil story. We are pushing it through in
the Southern Channel. We're pushing it through the so called
Omani Channel. Our navy has helped coordinate that.
Speaker 4: They've done a.
Speaker 8: Brilliant job as they always do, and has send Commas
reported eight hundred commercial vessels three hundred and eighty million
barrels of oil. That's why the price of oil has
come down and stayed down. There was a little pop
when we started bombing back on Tuesday and Wednesday, but
it came right down. In a sense, the market is
oversupplied with oil.
Speaker 4: Why do I say that.
Speaker 8: Because China is in a severe economic slump, and China
has substantially cut back on their imports of oil and
their use of oil because they're in such a bad
economic situation, and of course everyone's using strategic preserves. We're
still producing just short of fourteen million barrels a day,
where a net exporter as a matter of fact, and
liquid natural gas LNG is being used around the world.
You've got the Saudis using their east to west pipeline,
UAE and others are going to increase their production of oil.
UA is going to probably go from roughly two million
barrels a day to five million barrels a day. Iraq
remember them, they're going to go from about a million
and a half barrels a day to four to five
million barrels a day. That's all in the cars and
they're going to figure out ways to ship it away
from this gult.
Speaker 1: So he goes into a lot of numbers there, But
what comes down to is it answers a lot of
the questions about with all of this and all of
the geopolitical upheaval that's been going on since February twenty eighth,
oil prices are staying in the low seventies. I mean
they were in the low sixties, but at the same
time you would think they would be a hunt undred
and twenty one hundred and forty one hundred and fifty
dollars a barrel. It's because of the fact that with
all of this commotion, oil is still getting out through
the straight of hor moves and it does make you
wonder if somebody is just playing one big bluffing game
going on. I want to talk a little about who
uses a lot of oil and gas. The airlines do.
And the airlines are out giving us their earnings report.
As the earnings reports will start rolling in this next
week on second quarter earnings. Well Ed Bastian, who is
the CEO of Delta Airlines, and of all the major airlines,
there's no question that Delta is by far the most
successful of all the majors. They're out there. They also
have their own refinery. They may yes, they make their
own jet fuel. So Delta is just knocking the socks
off on the financials. And you'd think with all of
the prices of airline tickets going up that they would,
you know, all the airlines would have seen traffic slow down,
people customers, but no, people have been buying just like
you buy. They're still buying gas, they're still buying airline tickets.
So we haven't reached that point where people say, no,
I'm not going to pay anymore. Demand destruction. So Bastion said,
by the way, yes, our numbers are great for the quarter.
Airfares are way up and doesn't look like they're coming
down anytime soon.
Speaker 9: You're going to continue to see prices stay probably elevated,
not at the levels we've seen, and I think you'll
see demand continue to be very very strong out into
the back half of the ear So.
Speaker 1: If demand is strong the back half of the U year,
it's always during the holidays and all of that you
can't get you can't get on a plane. So he's
saying prices will remain elevated, not at the levels that
we've seen, but he used the term elevate. Others they're
still going to be much higher than they used to be,
so they're not They're probably lower them a smidgeon, but
not much in that because of the fact that demand
is still strong for their product, airline tickets, just like
the gas stations are still selling gas as fast as
they can. So the economy people moan and grown about it.
And there are people that cannot afford gas and cannot
afford airline tickets, but there are enough people that can
so that the products of gasoline and airline tickets don't
seem to be hurt at all. What domestic politics the
Platner story. I got an update for you this afternoon.
Graham plattin we told you yesterday had dropped out, but
then we found out that he never filed the paperwork.
He said, he dropped out, but you don't drop out
until you file the paperwork. So people in the Platner
campaign said that he was going to wait till the
last minute. The deadline for him to drop out is
Monday at five pm Eastern. If he did not, his
name would be on the ballot, so that would have
caused all kinds of havoc. So he wasn't going to
do it till the last minute. And then the betting
pools started thinking he's he may he may not drop out,
So there were betting on whether he will in fact
file the paperwork or not. Well, all of you that
placed bets, he filed the paper According to the Secretary
of State in Maine, he filed the paperwork this afternoon,
So he has officially dropped out. Now about the race
for them, they have they're trying to figure out how
to put some kind of convention together. But the convention
of Democrats in any state, say with Republicans, any of
these political conventions are full of died in the wool
political types. These are now your average Americans that vote
Democrat or Republicans. These are the hardcore people. So the
Democrats are going to have a convention to try to
select their next candidate. And as I explained to you yesterday,
it maybe that Susan Collins will have a tougher time
she was winning. That's one of the reasons Plattner was
pushed out was that he was losing to Susan Collins.
But now the question becomes with somebody new. There was
a lot of people that did not want to vote
for Susan Collins, but they did not want to vote
for Graham Planner. He was just too much for them.
But now if you bring in a halfway normal Democrat candidate,
halfway normal person, then the people that don't like Susan
Collins may just go ahead and flip over and vote
for somebody whoever this new candidate will be anyway out
of all of that. Jake Sherman, who runs punch Bowl News,
made some interesting comments about the seat itself on.
Speaker 10: Our show flyout Day on YouTube, and he's going to
send forty million dollars on main and he makes the
point that not only is this the most democratic seat
on the on the map this year, this is the
most democratic seat in the last six years on the
battleground map. This is a seat that Kamala Harris won,
a state where Donald Trump is not popular like Susan
Collins is the and I'm not saying she will win,
but is the only Republican who could win. And you
need to basically bat, you know, pitch a perfect game
here staff to beat her. I mean, she had a
raise in twenty twenty against Sarah Gideon. Sarah Gideon raised
endless amounts of money from donors who were told they
could knock off Susan.
Speaker 6: Collins, and Collins ran uncomfortably. So I mean, you know,
it went by the way Joe Biden was on the ballot.
Speaker 10: So I just I'm just you know, there's a lot
of dynamics at play here and Democrats need to move quickly,
they need to move carefully, and they need to get
a candidate in here who is ready for primetime and
doesn't have anything either position wise or personality wise that
could trick them up.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they need to find a choir boy or choiral
girl to run. And they have to you heard Sherman,
They have to run a perfect campaign because Susan Collins.
It is interesting, Maine is supposedly a Purple State. But
when you look at it, Joe Biden won it in
twenty twenty, Kamala Harris won it in twenty twenty four.
But all along, Susan Collins is out there, the big
old R after her name, and she keeps winning. So
they're going to have to find somebody that does not
have anything in their background that would cause any sort
of concern because you know, the minute they announced the name,
all the opposition research people are going to go to
a town on Tarte find something that they can attack
the person on. In the Charlie Kirk killing case, the
case of Tyler Robinson. The preliminary hearing, Oh my gosh,
I told you yesterday. I'm still I can't believe this
preliminary hearing has gone all week long. All it's supposed
to do in a preliminary hearing is they come forward
the prosecutor and the defense, and they talked before the
judge about probable cause. There's probable cause to have a trial.
This is not a trial. It's simply say proving to
the judge that there's probable cause that a crime was
in fact committed. They got a ton of evidence, but
the judge is just as slow as you can possibly imagine.
Everything has to be done just so carefully. So the
thing wrapped up today the preliminary hearing, and they're not
going to come back into the courtroom until September first,
So that a month and a half for him to
cogitate about whether or not to order a trial. And
that's September first, and he'll make the decision theoretically supposedly
on September first, about whether they're going to have a
trial or not. This isn't something that is even in question.
Why does it take a month and a half for
him to figure out whether or not there's probable cause?
Josh Ritter, defense lawyer, had this to say, Oh.
Speaker 11: We've been hearing the defense that sing that song for
a very long time. That has been the argument that
they continue to come back as they argue why court
cameras shouldn't be allowed in the courtroom. If they are
allowed in the courtroom, what should they be allowed to show?
Can they show their client? Should he be dressed out?
Are they allowed to show him in shackles? Where should
they be positioned? And then it had to do with
whether or not exhibits can be shown in court and
I will say on this one issue, it was an
accidental incident without consequence. And the reason for that is
it showed for just a few seconds an exhibit that
the judge didn't want shown publicly, but an exhibit that
contains information that we already know. I mean, here's the newsflash.
Tyler Robinson confessed and that's what this letter includes, is
that information. So this isn't like it broke something to
the outside world that they weren't aware of. But the
judge had his rules. He was upset about it, and
so his remedy was no more cameras showing exhibits for
at least today. We hope that won't continue into the
next area.
Speaker 1: Well, again, this seems like this judge is just way
over his head or is throwing out reasonableness and wanting
to pretend like he's making all these deep decisions. Well,
they go back to court on September first, and in
the meantime, I mean, you got to you've seen things
happen that you can't believe. Is there any possibility that
the prosecution's case is in doubt?
Speaker 11: I don't think so. I don't think so. Here's what
it's going to take. It would either take a cataclysmic
problem with the prosecution case, which they're done now. They
put on their case and it is overwhelming and damaging
according to the prosecution. I agree with that, or it's
going to take the defense coming in hot in hand
to the prosecutor's office and asking for them to take
the death penalty off the table. If things remain as
they are, I think we're absolutely coming back in September.
We will hear these arguments, the judge will hold him
to answer, bind him over for trial. Maybe they continue
some sort of plea discussions in that time, but it
really is going to be entirely up to the prosecutors
if they want to back off the death penalty, And
given what we've seen over the past week, I don't
see any reason why they should.
Speaker 1: I don't either. So justice delayed is not justice in
my humble opinion. So wall Streeg. Today we finished off
we've been having a string of four or five weeks
of where the markets are positive. Had a positive day
to day with the DOO not back up the record
territory but closed up one hundred and forty nine. The
Dow at fifty two thousand and six thirty seven, the
S and P up thirty one, the NAZDAC up seventy four,
Gold fell twelve dollars down to four thousand and one,
twenty nine. Oil up a little, down a little the
last couple of days. Down half a buck seventy one
dollars and some change now for one barrel of West
Texas Intermediate Crew. And again, uh, we're Once we post
this podcast, we're going to record the Financial Friday Podcast.
So I encourage you, whenever the thought crosses your mind,
you don't need to wait till Friday, pick up the
phone and call eight five five two nine five sixty
six hundred. Leave your questions, your comments, your observations about
anything involving money, investing, insurance, taxes, whatever it is that
has to.
Speaker 4: Deal with your wallet.
Speaker 1: Eight five five two nine five sixty six hundred. Once we,
like I said, we post this podcast, we're going to
turn around and get the other one done later today.
Thank you for coming by. We will be back with
the Financial Friday podcast, and we'll be back again hopefully
we'll see you on Monday