Speaker 1: And hello, how are you welcome to the Big podcast
on this Monday today. It's the thirteenth day of July,
Year of Our Lord, twenty twenty six. My name is
Tom Sullivan. And before we delve into all of the
topics of the day, I must apologize and inform I'm
never run into this, but it's a you know, podcasts
are different than radio shows. Did radio shows forever. But
I was all set to do the Financial Friday podcast
and Friday night Friday after that Friday evening, and I
was all set to do it, and I tried to
log into where we keep all of the files your
phone calls had been downloaded and ready to go, and
was all ready to put into the program, and I
couldn't get in. I could not, No, it was I
couldn't my user name, my password, nothing would work. So,
like any big corporation, iHeart has a help desk, and
I called the help desk, and the help desks again,
we got to, you know, upgrade this to this other higher.
So this guy gets on the line and he said, uh, yeah,
the the contract has inspired. I said, what contract? He said,
I don't know. It says there, it's a contract here
and expired on Friday the tenth, So I couldn't do anything.
I mean I couldn't send out a message. I couldn't
send out a note, I couldn't create anything. So this morning,
on this Monday, I got a hold of I mean,
I went right up the chain up to near the
top of the company, and I said, what's going on?
And the problem becomes And I'm not bashing in any
way the fine folks at iHeart, but they've had a.
Speaker 2: Lot of layoffs.
Speaker 1: I mean thousands of people have been laid off over
the years in large groups, large waves, And there was
just recently another big wave and the guy who was
in charge of making sure that my contract was dusted off,
renewed in effect and all that, well, he was one
of those that was let go. So nothing happened, and
it expired. And when it expired, it's controlled by computers,
not by people, and computers said, sorry, this is this,
this has expired, So IX nay on anything. I apologize.
So they are working behind the scenes trying to figure
out how to bring back the life a debt agreement
that was supposed to be managed by somebody who did
a great job of managing it as long as he
was working, but he was let go. I don't know
how else to tell it. I don't know what your
reaction is. It's I'm kind of numb to it because
there's been layoffs at iHeart for years, and they just
they're always in large numbers, and it's it's always sad.
But that's that's what it is, and there's nothing I
could do about it. So until further notice, I'm not
going to be able to I need to get access
to the parts of the company's computer system that keeps
phone calls, and I don't have access right now. So
we'll just march into today and I'll keep you up
to date on what is happening when we can get
that thing fire back up again. We just got it started.
We've just done what three or four of them, So
Financial Friday is on hiatus for a little bit, and
we'll let you know when it comes back. Meantime. Speaking
of shockers, I was very shocked when on Friday evening
and then get up Saturday and find out that Lindsey
Graham had passed away Saturday. I'm not sure what day
I said. I think it was Saturday he died, got
up Sunday and he knews that he had passed away.
I've met him. I mean, I've talked to him a
little bit in a green room one time. That's that's
my extent of knowing. Lindsey Graham seemed like a nice
and guy power I mean, he built himself into a powerhouse.
He was running against Donald Trump, and he called Donald
Trump every name under the book. And then Donald Trump
won and Lindsey Graham went out and played golf with them.
Next thing, you know, they were pals. A lot of
people wondered about that. A lot of people thought, well,
how did that happen? So yes, here's Lindsey Graham from
his hometown in South Carolina in twenty fifteen, when he
had just announced that he was running for president. Here's
Senator Graham.
Speaker 3: There are a lot of so called self made people
in this world. I am not one of them. My family,
my friends, neighbors, and my faith picked me up when
I was down, believed in me when I had doubts.
Speaker 4: You made me the man I am today.
Speaker 1: He was one of the I think there were seventeen
Republicans that were running for president and Donald Trump mowed
them all down and became the nominee and the president.
So Lindsey Graham. Now everybody, of course, when somebody passes away,
everybody says nice things. It's just polite. But I also
find it, I don't know, it's a little more raise
an eyebrow when you see Democrats come out and talk
about how much they loved Lindsey Graham and what a
great guy he was, and they fought tooth and nail.
But the stories really are coming out that he really
did have a lot of relationships across the aisle. And
I've talked about this with you before. If you talk
to people that were members of Congress years ago, they
were friends with everybody. They knew each other from a
across the aisle, they knew each other personally, they knew
their families, they knew their children, They had a relationship
with people across sale. Now it's become very poisonous, and
Republicans act like they hate Democrats, and Democrats act like
they hate Republicans. They won't have anything to do with
each other. And it's also part of the scheduling of
being a Congress member of Congress, whether it's the House
or the Senate, is that you come in, you give
your speech and you leave. You don't ever have time together,
very very little time together. So Lindsey Graham was one
of the old school. He was a longtime jag officer
in the Air Force, judge affac at General. He was
a lawyer, Air Force lawyer for many many years. Also
many many years in the Senate. So he was seventy
one years of age. His dad died of a massive
heart attack when his father was sixty nine. And one
of the things that I know a lot of doctors
will tell you is if you have heart disease in
your family, you probably have it too. If you don't
have anybody in the family that has heart has had
heart troubles, you probably don't have heart troubles. Here's doctor
Jonathan Reiner.
Speaker 5: He was.
Speaker 1: Dick Cheney's heart doctor and kept Dick Cheney alive for
many many years. Here here's what doctor Reiner had to say.
Speaker 6: The heart transmits bled to the body through initially a
very large artery called the aorta. So picture a vessel
about twice the diameter of a garden house and highly pressurized.
You know, the pressure in your orda is the pressure
that your doc measures with a blood pressure cuff, so
it's highly pressurized. And the aorda is a vessel that
has three layers, and the innermost layer of the aorta
is called the entima, and an aortic dissection is a
tear in that innermost lining that allows blood to get
into the actual wall of the artery, and many bad
things can happen when that occurs. So when blood, when
blood moves into the wall of the artery, it can
compress the channel that's actually carrying blood out to the body,
and that creates a lack of blood flow to the
heart itself, to the brain, you know, to the major
organs in the in the abdomen. And the other thing
that can happen is when that or when the aorda dissects,
it can also rupture. And this massive, uh, this massive
artery under high pressure can deliver a catastrophic amount of
blood into the chest in a very short period of time.
And when that happens, that's typically unsurvivable injury. UH. When
the vessel is dissected but not ruptured, there is is
a relatively short window during which a patient can be salvage.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so that is some of the technical stuff about it.
An emergency room doc, doctor Jeremy Faust. He's a Harvard
trained er doc, and he makes I don't know, he
sounds like he explains it in better English.
Speaker 2: There are several types of orgic the section, but they
are extraordinarily dangerous emergencies. Probably around half of the people
who have a spontaneous or the section die before they
reach the hospital, and from there, the mortality of the
people who even make it to the hospital is very
time dependent. Maybe one to two percent per hour will
die with every hour of delay. So if you're having
chest pain, the classic teaching is chest pain with a
kind of tearing, ripping sensation going to the back. Anyone
experiencing that needs to seek medical attention immediately. The way
I've heard it described is the sensation that you are
stat and you turn around but nobody's there. It is
that strong of a sensation.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so, Lindsey Graham, I mean, you can look at
it sadly, but you can also look at it. And
he went fast. He just dropped and that was it. It
was over. It was it's quick, it's immediate. He did
not suffer. I remember, if you remember Three's Company, John
Ritter was the star of Three's company. He also was
on a set doing the show and had the same
same thing just dropped right in his track. So it's
it is sad. Donald Trump was basically on the phone
with the guy with Lindsey Graham just shortly before his
heart gave out. Here's a little bit of what the
President said.
Speaker 5: Well, thank you. He's a tough one to lose. He's
he was great, he was unique and every way actually,
so what makes it even strangers that I got a
call last night sometime, you know, the early evening, maybe
in the sevens, and he called and he said, we're
all set for the Save America Act. He was pushing
to Save America Act like crazy. He got back, said
he just landed from Ukraine. I said, that's a long
trip to Mecca. He said, he sounded a little tired
but perfect. But it's a little bit tired. I had
a right to be. Then. He was a worker, he
was really a worker. But but he sounded great. Actually,
but he was. He was He actually said he was tired,
but he wanted to pass the Save America Act. And
I said, well, we're going to get it done, lindsay,
We're going to get it done. I'll see you like soon.
We thought we might even meet today, and then that
was it. And that was, you know, very around the time.
It couldn't have been much longer. It could have been
his last call. I don't know exactly, but I got
a message about one o'clock in the morning from one
of the people at his office that he had passed away.
I said, I just can't believe it. He was like
a member of the family to me. It's very tough. Actually,
it's amazing he was. He was such an advocate. He was,
you know, if he wanted to get something, and you know,
he had a unique ability. He was able to deal
with Democrats. And if I had a problem, a real problem,
I wouldn't often ask, but if I had a problem
with a Democrat, he could work it out.
Speaker 7: He was a great He was a great politician. Actually
that was from Meet the Press yesterday morning. And since then,
I mean, it's it's I don't know, maybe you'll take
it ghoulish, but.
Speaker 1: I mean it's politics. He won the primary for South
Carolina for the Republicans. But the election coming up in November,
what do you do, because now he has passed on,
they're going to have the Republicans are going to have
to pick a new person, and that primary will be
August fourth. So for a bunch of people that are
Republicans in South Carolina, they got a hustle to get
together and figure out how to run a campaign to
be elected as denominee replacing Lindsey Graham as far as
between now and the end of the year. Today, the
Governor of South Carolina has appointed Lindsey's sister, Darlene Graham
Nordon is Lindsay's sister, and she has been selected by
the governor to be the temporary senator from South Carolina.
So she will serve going forward until the end of
this congressional period, which will be the first couple of
days of January, and then by then they will have
put together a primary, selected a candidate, and the people
of South Carolina will decide who their senator will be
going forward. The sister is an interesting story too, because
Lindsey Graham, like I said, seventy one massive heart attack.
He had this aora dissection, and his father died suddenly
from a heart attack. It was probably the same thing
when his father was sixty nine, so it's about the
same age and his mother had died a few months
before or after his father, and he was a young guy.
I think he was eighteen or nineteen years old, and
he had a thirteen year old sister, and he took
care of her, raised her, adopted her, even though they
were brother and sister, so that he was the guardian
over his sister. So she is now going to be
the guardian of that seat from South Carolina, at least
until January. So the governor of South Carolina appointed her
this afternoon. Tim Scott, the other Senator from South Carolina,
close on many different levels with Lindsey Graham, had this
to sent.
Speaker 8: Well, Jake Gosh, America's lost a truth statesman. We don't
have many left, but he was a true statesman. But
I've lost a friend. It is a morning of mourning
for me. It's a powerful reminder that life is fleeting,
that we are not here very long. If I were
to tell stories about Linda Graham, one of the most
important stories about Lindsing Graham is that when I was
a new senator, he welcomed me in. He knew that
my path was different. He understood the power of change
in South Carolina and how much our state had changed,
but he was one of the first folks in the
Senate to welcome me in with open arms. And I
will say that I do a South Line of Prayer
breakfast every year in DC. And I called Lindsay the
first time, and Lindsey says, Tim, if this thing's r
for ten am, I'm not coming because I'm not going
even if Jesus comes back before ten am. And I
just laughed out loud. And of course it started at
eight thirty and he walked to the door at eight
thirty one. Lindsey Graham. He was just the kind of
committed person that you don't really appreciate how much how
committed he was to America. I can't think Jacob a
more committed public servant to this country. His family was
his sister that he adopted when he was nineteen and
she was thirteen. Because their parents died within fifteen months
in America, he spent every single day, every week and
going somewhere trying to make America a safer country. And
I'll say this because of the pain of his past,
his father dying of a massive heart attack at I
think he was sixty nine years old, his mother dying
of cancer, Lindsey Grim had a passion for so many
of the important issues around cancer research and around taking
care of people. He didn't want anyone to feel invisible
in his presence, and he used levity and wit to
help people go through really hard times. And I got
to tell you, it's just a devastating loss for our
state of South Carolina and frankly for me as an individual.
Speaker 1: And Mark Shart, who was the chief of staff to
Mike Pence, said this.
Speaker 9: I think in a time when Washington is going through
one of his most divisive chapters, it's hard to think
of a legislator who was more joyful in representing his constituents.
And I think uniquely had close friendships with John McGain, Democrat,
Joe Lieberman, and Donald Trump. I think that's a trifecta.
That's pretty hard for anyone else to boast of having
those friendships. But you know, look, I mean, Graham went
from in twenty sixteen referring to Donald Trump as a
bigot and condemning him to becoming one of his closest
allies in Congress during the first term, to then on
January sixth, you know, announcing I'm out. I can't do
this anymore with this is not what I signed up
for to once again becoming one of his closest allies.
But you know, for Senator Graham looked at his causes
of It's hard to think of somebody who was more
involved in trying to defend Ukraine from Russian and Grants aggression,
keeping alliances with Israel, defending judicial nominations, and perhaps most notably,
defending Brett Kavanaugh of fighting for life like he used
those relationships to advance the causes and agendas that he
felt was most important disconstituents.
Speaker 1: Now, his arguments in favor of Brent Kavanaugh were a
classic moment in Congress. And finally, Alex Thompson from Accios
said this.
Speaker 10: I mean, you look at all the reporting about the
average age of Congress over the last thirty years has
gone up by decades, and you've added several even members
and it's bipartisan. You've had several members the Democratic Party
in the House US die in office. You've had senators
last you know, too too long, honestly beyond their you
know capacity to Senator Dianne Feinstein, you know, Sender Mitch McConnell,
I think if you were to really ask.
Speaker 11: Uh.
Speaker 10: You know a lot of former Mitch McConnell staffers if
they believe that he is at his best right now, Uh,
they if you put them on true serm, they would
they would say, no, that maybe he is not, you know,
at his best in terms of being able to serve
the people of Kentucky. And you know it, aging is difficult,
it's fine, it's also very sensitive. But the fact is
that these are public positions. They are taxpayer dollars paying
their salaries, and there are some people that are no
longer capable. And you're even seeing this in some of
the re election campaigns right now. Sender Murky in Massachusetts
is running for another term at seventy nine years old
and promising to be you know, just one more term.
But this issue is not going away, in part because
these are public positions with saxbary salaries.
Speaker 1: Yeah, age does seem to be more in the headlines
now than it used to be. We've got a lot
of really old people in Congress, and you want sharp minds,
you don't want experiences. Great, but they've got to keep
their marble straight. So Alex Thompson points out the obvious
and brought up Mitch McConnell. Mitch McConnell put out a
statement finally, after three plus weeks of silence, that he
apparently claims that he had a fall and a mild
case of pneumonia. Well, doctor Jeremy Faust, the emergency room doctor,
said that doesn't make sense.
Speaker 2: The problem that we have here is a mismatch between
the description of what's occurred to the senator and the
level of care he's needing. If he's saying, if his
team is saying that he had a fall and a
mild case of pneumonia, that doesn't really comport with somebody
who's been in the hospital for over for almost a
month now and not communicative with the public. We hear
lots of different stories online and on your network about
the communication. But if it's that mild, then it really
wouldn't necessitate this level of care. On the other hand,
if he did receive CPR, which they're not saying he did,
it would be much more likely that he would need
long term care. So I'm worried that there are some
missing pieces here because falls can be devastating and pneumonia
can be devastating, can cause stepsis and death, but it
sounds to me like a mild case wouldn't be that.
So I think that there are a lot of questions still.
Speaker 5: They do that.
Speaker 1: I mean, Mitch McConnell is a very private person, but
still your public servant. You ought to be straight with
the public, no question about it. And over the weekend,
Iran has flared back up again. This come on, let's
not play games. There's no cease fire. They keep saying
there's a cease fire, and it keeps being violated. No,
there is a de cease fire. They're shooting at each other.
And the President today came out with something that I
raised my eyebrows. Listen to what the President was talking
about regarding the Strait of hormoes.
Speaker 5: We've had ten deals with these people, and so we're
just going to hit them very hard and we're going
to keep the straight and we'll probably run it. Will
become the Guardian of the Strait. Maybe we'll call it
the Guardian Angel of the Strait. And we should be
reimbursed for that when we do that, we're going to
be reimbursed because the other nations are very wealthy that
are on our side, and we can't be expected to
do that for nothing, unlike we had for many years.
You know, we guarded the straight for fifty years more
and we never got paid for it. They made all
the money in the United States was just you know,
not they wouldn't. It's amazing. It's we never make We
guarded it for nothing, and now we're going to guard it.
We're gonna get paid for guarding it.
Speaker 1: Well, this idea of us guarding the strait of hormos,
I think is borderline insane. I don't want anything to
do with guarding it. And it's international waters, asked Marco.
Rubio keeps repeating this over and over again. It doesn't
belong to Iran, and I don't want it to belong
to us or anybody else. It's international waters and they
need to enforce that. But the president is giving them
a different message. Well, Bob mcdally, who is the head
of rapidand which is one of the more premiere oil
analysts in the country, thinks this is just Donald Trump
just being Donald Trump.
Speaker 11: You know, I think this is a distraction. The President
is raising the stakes on Iran. You control hormose, really,
I control it a million dollars about twenty percent at
the end of the day. I don't think US policy
has changed, and that is the straight up har moves
must go back to status quo anti free flow of navigation.
And second, Chary Rubio says it over and over again.
I think this is brinkmanship posturing. Take them seriously, but
not literally. Much more important, the US Navy announced we're
gonna start reimposing the blockade tomorrow. The Yemeni's the hooties
are shooting at the Saudis again. We've had an explosion
of violence over the weekend, and the crude oil market
has been a sleep complacent and very short.
Speaker 1: That's real.
Speaker 11: I think this twenty percent thing is a bit of
a distraction and brinkmanship.
Speaker 1: Forty percent of talking about the President said, yeah when
and our fee for guarding the strait of our moves
will be twenty percent. And we don't know if that's
twenty percent of what. It's not defined, and it's just him.
It's him talking the Queen's talk again. You know what
I'm gonna do to you. I'm gonna take you. I'm
gonna take that straight for me, and you gotta pay me.
It talking like a tough guy, and it's it's stupid.
It just is so that's not gonna happen. See what
Alex Thompson over at Actios has to say.
Speaker 10: I mean, this ceasefire has been full of fire so far,
and you're seeing Iran have every incentive to continue to
escalate and make sure that everyone, not just the United States,
but everyone in the Middle East and the world recognizes
that they ultimately control the Strait of Horror Moves and
that you know, I think, based on my reporting and
my colleague brock Revis reporting, there is a significant chance
of incredible escalation in the coming months. That fire will
you know, the violence will resume in the Strait of
Horror Moves. And I can tell you that people in Iran,
the leadership in Iran also understands the political calendar and
feels that they have political leverage over Trump in the
coming months because Donald Trump doesn't want oil prices to
go back up.
Speaker 1: Well, oil prices have gone back up. Last week. There
was a couple of two or three days in a
row where prices were going higher. They went higher again today.
We'll get to those closing numbers in just a minute.
But there was one more piece of news that happened
over the weekend and that was that the President would
not sign the bipartisan Housing Bill unless they passed the
Save America Act. Well, they haven't passed the Save America
Act because Republicans in the Senate there's not enough support
for it. So the President did not sign the Housing bill.
But there's a rule that says if the president doesn't
sign a bill or veto it within ten days, it
becomes law. Well it became law over the weekend because
he did not veto it, and so the Housing Bill
did go into effect. It's a bad bill. Most of
it is more government regulation over housing, and actually housing
is a local issue about your city permits and your
county permits and planning and all the other things that
go into housing is much more on a local level
than it is a federal government issue. But there was
a guide today. Stephen Shecher, he's former Goldman Sachs guy.
He started his company a few years back called Pretium
and it is the largest single family rental company in
the country, not apartments, single family homes and that they
own lots of them. And the whole thing is is
that big Wall Street firms can't come in and buy
all these homes and a basically ace out people that
are trying to make an offer. But he obviously had
a different tune today now that the law has passed.
Here's mister Stephen Sheer talking about the housing building and
how it affects his company.
Speaker 4: Well, the upshot is that you know, the president and
lawmakers have spoken and they want to set certain parameters
around which capital can be deployed in housing, an issue
very important to the to the American people, and so
from our vantage point, this is a bit about the
maturity of this industry, a recognition of the place of
private capital in housing, and a set of parameters and
directions by which, subject to the limitations the President and
lawmakers have put in place, capital can come in and
take up its position in leading to increased housing stock,
better housing stock, more opportunity for people to become homeowners,
all of which is critically important to the direction of
housing in the country.
Speaker 1: So he sounds fine with it. What it basically means
is that he's still going to be able to go
out there and do what he does. I don't think
his bill advances the affordability of homes. I change my mind.
If you find a home that all of a sudden
is more affordable, and they say, yeah, it's more affordable
because of the housing ability passed in Congress. I'll buy
a large luncher to drive up window. I don't think
this bill did not change housing affordability one I owed him.
And speaking of big money, my old hometown football team,
the Seattle Seahawks, who won the Super Bowl this year.
They well, Paul Allen, who was the co founder of
Microsoft's He and Bill Gates were partners, and Paul Allen
got what Lukemi I believe it was. Anyway, he passed
away and as part of his will, he told his sister,
who was in charge of his estate, to basically sell
off all of the big giant things that he owned.
I think he owned the Portland trail Blazers in the
NBA owned the Seattle Seahawks. Anyway, the Seahawks not because
they won the Super Bowl. That didn't hurt them, but
they sold for a record NFL record highest price ever
for a football team, nine zero point six billion dollars. Yeah,
and the previous record was just three years ago. I
believe that was the Washington Commanders. But the owners, the
new owners of the Seattle Seahawks Vinod Koshla and his
brother or a son, I'm not sure, but the two
of them. But he's a big tech guy out of
San Francisco, and Beck he owns a piece of the
forty nine ers. But now he paid the highest price
ever for an NFL franchise, nine point six billion dollars
for the Seahawks. And speaking of money, Wall Street today
it was mostly a split market during the day, but
it finished all with a bunch of red arrows now
closed down. Well, you start shooting at each other again,
and the starting tomorrow, the President said that the straight
up hoar moves will be closed by the US Navy.
So down we go on Wall Street. Down one hundred
and thirty eight to close a fifty two thousand and
four ninety eight SMP, down sixty NASDAK. The big tech
stock's still selling off, down four hundred and eight, Gold
down one hundred four dollars to four thousand and nine,
and oil, like I said, went up last week, going
up more today, up seven dollars today to seventy eight
dollars now for one barrel of West Texas Intermediate. But
that's it for today. Thank you for coming by. We
will be back again tomorrow. I'll update you about Financial
Friday when we get that thing restarted. In the meantime,
I have a wonderful rest of your day and we'll
see you tomorrow