Speaker 1: And welcome.
Speaker 2: Hello, how are you on this Thursday? Today is the
ninth day of July, year of our Lord, twenty twenty six.
My name is Tom Sullivan. And well, no surprise that
Graham Plattner said audio some egos. Well not, actually he hasn't.
I know everybody has reported that Plattner dropped out and
all that sort of stuff. But the problem with that
is we're finding out, according to Axios, that he told
his staff he's planning to officially file his paperwork to
end his campaign on Monday. Monday is the deadline five
o'clock at five o'clock Eastern time. That's how he hasn't
tell them to drop out of the race in time
for the party to replace him with a new nominee.
But as of this afternoon, he has not officially withdrawn
from the race, according to the main secretary of state.
And so he said he has withdrawn, but the paperwork.
He even said, I think in his eleven minute video
that he has put together the paperwork to withdraw, but
he hasn't done it yet. And so now now the
co founder of a centrist Democrat group, Welcome, told Axios
it seems like people are under rating the odds he
just doesn't file the actual withdrawal. Maybe, I mean, I don't.
I don't know. If you watched his video, I there's
it was eleven minutes and what I what I My
reaction to his video is that, oh, he's good. He
is a great populist speaker. You know what a populist is.
Populist is somebody that says everything that people want. I mean,
he's talked about going after you know, corruption, Well, who's
in favor of corruption? So that's that's a populist for that. Uh,
we're gonna start stop spending money on all these foreign
wards and we're gonna spend him on Americans who's against
spending money on ourselves. I mean, it's that one thing
after another. And he was very good about he stopped,
he paused, He looked like he was in deep thought.
But the only problem that I had I've met a
lot of people like this over my lifetime. Then they're
bs ers. I don't know. I'm sure I've missed a
few along the line, but I think I'm pretty good
at spotting bs and this guy is a big bs her.
And it always comes down to I always would say
I thought it was fascinating, and I brought it out
every time she did it. When Nancy Pelosi always would
have something to say about some subject, and at the
end she said for the American people, Well, who was
against the American people? Of course, were for whatever it
is that you want to help the American people. She
always added on no matter how controversial, no matter how
far left, it was always and for the American people.
So that he people out in the in the hinterlands
would say, oh, well, that nasty Pelosi. Isn't that nice?
She's for the American people. Problem with Plantner, I'll play it.
I'll play a one minute version of his eleven minute song.
But he never took any responsibility zero. He blamed everybody
but not him. He didn't apologize to the women that
he has. Well, I know he's saying he did not
rape anybody, but he even though he was accused of it,
there's a lot of women that said they that he
was not a good person. So did he apologize to them? No,
did he bring up anything. He blamed the political system. Well,
I kind of got to g give him credit for that.
The political system is rigged and it just didn't work
for him. But man. He suckered a lot of people
in in Maine when he kept going on about how
he's for them and fighting for them and fighting against
corruption and all that other stuff. So let me just play.
This is a little more than a minute of his
eleven minute Swan song.
Speaker 3: It's not the false allegations though, that have brought us
to where we are. It's the fact that they're being
used by the political establishment to put structural pressure on us.
We live in a political system that is not built
for normal people. It is a system that is built
structurally to make sure that movements like ours cannot flourish,
that if they begin to succeed, they can be crushed.
Speaker 2: Well, he brought up the normal people. Think he's not
a normal people guy. He's an odd he's an odd man,
odd man out. But here's the thing which a lot
of people haven't publicized, and I think has a great
deal to why all of a sudden, I know, the
woman came out and said that he was raped, he
raped her, that she was raped. But there was also
something else that was popping up. There were all these
other things that talking about all the bad behavior that
he had over the years. He's not a normal guy.
He's a bad guy. But the one thing that the
politicians got rid of him fast was because the polling
showed that he was losing to Susan Collins. Yes, she
is ahead in the polling, and she's a five term senator,
so she's been there a long time, and they've thought
she was going to lose four or five of those
of those reelection business. She keeps winning and look like
she's going to win again. So they had to get
rid of him because he wasn't going to win. Excuse me,
but does this sound familiar. They took a look around
and said, Joe Biden, Oh my gosh, he's going to
he wants to run for reelection, but we're doing the
polling and he is not going to win. So the Democrats,
who say they are the Party of Democracy, blew out
all the voters that voted in primaries for Joe Biden
and installed their own candidate, Kamala Harris. Well, now we're
in the same vote the people of Maine. He's won
the primary. They've voted for him, the people's vote, the
people's voice, democracy at its finess. Nope, they're going to
throw that out with the baby because he's not winning
and they want to get rid of him, and now
they're scrambling to make it look like the people are
going to choose somebody else. But they're not going to have,
I don't think a primary of any kind. So they're
going to have a convention of you know what, the
party conventions are the real hard core people, Republicans and
Democrats in their respective parties. The people that go to
the conventions are the hardcore people. So you're going to
get a bunch of hard core Democrats, but not your
average main person, main resident. It's going to be the
hard core people, and they're going to pick somebody. But
here is the problem for Susan Collins. There were a
lot of people, there are a lot of people in
Maine that don't want to vote for her again. And
they were willing because he sounded good. He was for
the people. They were willing to vote, hold their nose
and vote for him because they just don't want to
vote for Susan Collins. So when the main Democrat party
puts their candidate, whoever it is, on the ballot in
what it'll be in the next two weeks and then
they'll be voting on that person in November. I think
that person has a better shot because if they if
the Democrats can come up with somebody that the normal
average maner doesn't have to hold their nose to vote for.
But they don't want to vote for Susan Collins. But
they certainly weren't going to vote for that Platner guy.
They just may for a halfway normal candidate may vote
for that person. So I and Susan Collins has already
said that this is going to make her reelection campaign
much tougher. Yeah, it's but really is a bad sign.
Replacing the candidate that the people wanted. Rob Flaherty, he
is the deputy, He was the deputy campaign manager for
Joe Biden. And listen to what he has to say.
Speaker 4: Kids are watching. I thought that video was unbelievable. It
was brazen, It was ridiculous, It was offensive. I just
can't how stupid do you think people are? First of all,
you want us to believe that this guy who's an
extremely online read it pilled military history buff doesn't know
that he has a total content too. You also want
us to believe that none of these incredibly credible allegations
of sexual assault are real that it's an establishment plot.
Give me a break. I mean, it was completely ridiculous,
and you know, I'm glad he is gone, and I
hope he, you know, falls through with it.
Speaker 2: Well, good for him. Yeah, he wasn't buying the bs either,
that Platner was trying to blame the political system one.
In fact, it was he's got a checkered pass and
people were willing to hold their nose and vote for
him until the Raypath accusations came forward. But Mark Short,
former chief of staff for Mike Pince, weighed in as well.
Speaker 5: Well, no, I don't think you have a cyber relief
on this. I think it's a pretty tragic series of events.
I think that Susan Collins has always found a way
to win. I thought, befeven before this, she was going
to find a way to win. I think what's more
disturbing is that, outside of John Fetterman, every elected Democrats
stood with him when it was a Nazi tattoo. They
staid with him when he's trafficking apps to find young
girls under age, they said with him when they were
first sexual harassment allegations. Only after this last allegation the
Democrats finally say this is too much. So there's a
huge comfort level with a lot of it up until
the very end.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Mark Short, Yes, they were. They were comfortable with
all those terrible things until they found out that, oh
he's Susan Collins is ahead. That was too much for them,
That truly was too much for them. So we wait
to see. I mean, I don't know, what do you think.
The folks over at acxios they say that this Democrat
group said it seemed like people are underrating the odds.
He just doesn't file the actual withdrawal paperwork.
Speaker 3: Huh.
Speaker 2: So place your bets. I'm sure the betting places will
bet on whether or not he's actually going to do it.
But he's going to wait till Monday, and he has
until Monday at five o'clock. But it's all about him, folks,
all these politicians. He's actually would fit in quite well,
because these politicians, it's not about you, it's not about
our country. It's about them, their glory and their power.
I know I say that a lot, but it is
just so painfully true. All Right, what else have we got? Oh?
The air Force? One question? Yesterday we talked about the
fact that the president flew to Turkey on the brand
new Shiny Qatar gifted seven forty seven. But when he
flew home, not only did he fly home on the
old old thirty five years old. It's a thirty five
year old airplane is not that old. If you're flying commercially,
you're probably flying on have flown on many planes that
all the major airlines fly, and at thirty five years old,
they're still flying. They're not old anyway. So when he left,
everybody noticed that he flew home on the Jackie Kennedy
Blue and White Old seven, but he didn't fly home
on it. What had happened was they flew the brand
new shiny Qatar gifted seven forty seven to England, and
in England they landed at a at a military base
there with it. And then Trump gets on the blue,
the old blue and white seven forty seven, and flies
out of Turkey on that to the same air base
in England. So he gets off the plane, the blue
and white one literally walks down the stairs, walks over
to the They parked right behind the new shiny Gutar
gifted one, walked you know, a football field length to
the new one, got on that one and flew that
one home because it's it's got lots of gold trinkets
and gold handles, and it was built as a luxury jet,
and he likes that. I'm sure the Air Force won.
The blue and white one is pretty dark, nice, but
it's probably not as fancy as the new one. So
it's coming down to everybody, and their brother goes they
he rushed them to get that guitar jet ready as
an air Force one plane, and it's kind of there.
But as far as some of the security measures on
the old seven forty seven, they apparently are not. They're
not going to say this out loud, but they're not.
They're not on the new plane. So they did not
want to that. He's had all kinds of threats and
they were in the very dicey neighborhood over there in Turkey,
and so they put him on the one that had
the best defenses if anything, if there was anybody trying
to attack the plane. So he flew it to Mintle
to England and then jumped on the new one and
flew that back to DC. Weird, huh, I think so.
Charlie Kirk, the guy who shot him, he killed him
the preliminary trial. Preliminary hearing, I should say, is on
right now. The preliminary hearing is simply they come forward
to say to the judge, we have enough probable cause
to go forward to a full bull blown trial. And
that's what they're doing. And they're getting to all kinds
of testimony yesterday and today. James Gagliano, former FBIS supervisor,
is there.
Speaker 6: You know, normally in preliminary hearings you're concerned as the
prosecution you're laying out too much of your case. And
I have never seen a preliminary hearing go like this
where the defense moved up one of their witnesses. Remember
there's nine total witnesses, six on the state side and
three on the defense side. And for the defense to
move up their witness they called an FBI analyst And
as they walked through all the painstaking numbers and things
that make your head explode because it's really kind of
terric and technical work. I don't think it helps their
case because it's showing the prosecution exactly what they're going
to attack at trial.
Speaker 2: Well, I don't understand the case anyway. I mean, they've
got they've got DNA, they've got video, They've got a confession.
He told his boyfriend that yeah, I did it. They've
got I don't know. Criminal justice system has to get
more efficient. I know we have to always treat people
that they're innocent until proven guilty, But I mean, how
much more proofty you need and how much is this
costing to try to put this loser dude who killed
a wonderful young man with a wonderful family. I'm having
trouble understanding why they have to go through all these hoops.
Since we're at the courthouse, we'll flip from Utah over
to Washington, d C. Where this guy who was the
Olympic athlete who was given a ticket because he reached
in the water at the reflecting pool and they gave
him a ticket. It's like a jaywalking ticket. And somehow
it got into Judge Janine Piro's room, and she does
she knows the president's man about this pool, and so
she decided to bump that thing up to a felony.
She got a grand jury indictment and as a result,
this guy is going to face He showed up today
for an arraignment, but he is now going to be
on trial for a felony, which has big fines in
big prison terms. Here's Joey Jackson, the big defense lawyer.
Speaker 7: It means that they are alleging that he intentionally destroyed
the property, and that's the critical issue. But more important
than that, because it's a felony that the value of
the damage was over one thousand dollars. You might recall
when this happened a few weeks ago. Now, they initially
gave him a citation. Apparently that wasn't good enough for prosecutors.
They went, they evaluated, they spoke to a National Park
Service eyewitnesses, and they said, no, you were pulling and
violently tugging, and as a result, we're going to go
to the grand jury, which they did. They went to
a grand jury, right consisting of twenty three people, not
deciding guilty in a sense, a simple majority of which
says that there's reason to believe you did it. They
got an indictment and now he comes today for an
arraignment before the.
Speaker 2: Judge, and it was straightforward. They said, how do you plead?
He says not guilty, and so now he goes off
for a court date coming up later in the summer.
It's maybe maybe he did damage it. I think it's
political if I I'll tell you what I would have done,
the exact same thing that this guy says that he did.
He was out bike riding and all this news about
the reflecting pool and how it was growing algae and
it's terrible and the and that the blue paint was
coming undone, and there was lots of television crews that
showed up. It looked like the paint was was pieces
of it were coming up, not like it was cut.
But maybe they have maybe they have the evidence, maybe
they have the goods that this guy cut the cut
the the blue paint. Uh, but it it just he said.
I was riding my bike and I've heard all about
this and people were talking about so I rode over,
took a look at it, put my hand in it
to feel it, to feel what it felt like and
see if the blue paint was coming apart. I think
I would have been My curiosity is high enough to
where I probably would have done the same thing. So
we'll see if they have the evidence. But I know
Janine Pirot very well. I worked with the woman for
a number of years. I'm I guess I better just
keep it right there. My mother told me, if you
don't have anything nice to say, don't say it at all.
So that's where I'll leave it. So back to the war.
What is this four point Oh? We since the ceasefire started,
we have stopped started to stop its four times. We're
now we're and last night they attacked a bunch of places.
We did, they did, and we're going to do it
again tonight apparently. But we're not doing full President even
said yesterday we're not doing full fledged war. Why not.
You don't do war kind of You do war to
reach victory and get it over with. I don't understand.
Dan Hoffmann, former CIA station chief in Moscow, was talking
about how it looks from his fantage point.
Speaker 8: Yeah, I think we are. Look when Iron chose to
strike those oil tankers transitting the straight Off, that was
a deliberate provocation. Iran had to have anticipated the United
States response, and they did that because a state of
war against the United States and against Israel and our
Gulf allies. That's oxygen for this hardline IRGC regime in Iran.
I think they also want to test the United States
by driving up oil prices and disrupting trade. Global trade
with an eye towards gaining some leverage in their interaction
with the United States. I don't even know if we'll
see negotiations as were planned before these strikes in Islamabad
on eleven July, but Iran sees this as an opportunity,
especially in advance of the midterms, to gain some leverage.
Speaker 2: It seems it just seems so abundantly obvious to me
that the Iranians are plain President Trump like a fiddle.
That's how it appears to me. Back to Dan Hoffman, we.
Speaker 8: Gave Iran an economic entice by allowing them to export
oil at market prices for some time, and Iran made
it clear that they were not interested in negotiating in
good faith. In fact, as successful as our kinetic strikes
have been, we have not induced a change in the
regime's behavior. Now we changed the regime by launching decapitation strikes,
and I'm sure that those potentially are on the table again,
further decapitation strikes. If these guys don't want to negotiate,
maybe the next round of leaders will. But I think
that's at the heart of It's that we need to
ensure that the strait of Hormus is open that we're
doing that independently while simultaneously blockading Iran from exporting oil.
Speaker 2: So, speaking of oil, the last two days oil prices
have shot up. Today they're down a little bit. It
was interesting because Scott Bessen yesterday before everybody left the
NATO meeting in Turkey, was asked about the oil city.
And I've talked about this before. A lot of people
think that we are in an oil shortage worldwide. There's
a lot of countries. We've drawn down our strategic petroleum
reserves so have a bunch of other countries. But that
when this war is over, there is going to be
the economy in many parts of the world is slowing down.
The demand for oil is going to be so much
lower that there is going to be a glut of
oil next year. So we squeeze our way through this
year with higher prices and stand by for a glut
of oil in the market which will drive prices down
next year. Is what Scott Besson had to say about it.
Speaker 1: Yes, so record production under President Trump in his first
term now in his second term. The US is an
energy superpower. It's why we weathered the conflict better than
anyone else and there. Just this weekend Bloomberg wrote that
there is an oil glot out there, and we think
that safe to secure American oil, maybe even shouldn't trade
at a freemium.
Speaker 2: So well, I don't know about our oil trading at
a premium. Oil is priced worldwide, and he knows that,
but it be prepared. So here we are in July,
we're halfway through this year. Sometime in twenty twenty seven,
there's going to be a glod of oil and you're
going to see prices come way way down. Well with
the caveat that this war is over by then, but
the way it's going, you're not sure, because we're not
going full blast against them. It's really odd. I got
to play two things for you. One is the difference
between JD. Vans and Donald Trump on their view of
the leaders of Iran. Let's we'll start with JD. Vans
and his view of the leaders of Iran and then
President's latest view, latest view because it changes.
Speaker 9: The coolest thing about the progress we've made over the
last few weeks is that you see people within the
Iranian system, senior leadership, even IRGC officials, say, you know
what we may have some animosity, we may have some mistrust,
but we recognize the way that we've done business with
the United States for forty seven years is a mistake.
Let's try something else.
Speaker 1: To me, I think it's over. I don't want to
deal with them an with there's scum. You know what
scum is. There's gum. There's sick people. They're led by
sick people.
Speaker 2: So there you go. A couple different views. One is
the coolest thing and they've really thought about the fact
that they've been doing it wrong for forty seven years. Oh,
they're the coolest people. I'll tell you what. There's scum.
There's scum, scum of the earth. So a couple different
views from our president and vice president. One of the
oil analysts that I think has a pretty good crack
record of figuring out what's going on in the oil
markets is Paul Sank. He runs a research firm on
Wall Street, and he was asked about his view of
what's going on in the oil and gas markets.
Speaker 10: You know, so the situation obviously has gone rotten again.
We never really resolved it. As you know, there's three
huge issues here. Control of the Strait of Hormuz, the
whole issue of nuclear and the whole issue of Israel Lebanon,
and then you know, do we bribe the Iranians with
vast amounts of money which is relatively easy obviously, and
we really haven't advanced the solution to the three major problems,
and so the ongoing situation continues. You have to remember
that the Huties have cut sewers through put for the
Babel Mandab by fifty percent for the last three years.
So I don't think we're anticipating a return to full
harn Moose volumes ever again. But we saw you know,
twenty seventh of February before this started. On the other hand,
as you know, the US is quite immune to this
in many ways. You know, we are certainly oil and
energy immune. There are other issues around sulfur and other commodities.
But the fact of the matter is, you know, we
can handle this situation. It just seems like it's going
to remain an open wound.
Speaker 2: I'm afraid to say, as long as they're going to
remain an open wound. But He's right, we are somewhat immune,
except for we are exporting a tremendous amount of oil
now that we won't be when there's a world gloot
of it next year. So again timing on the prices
of oil is and gas will vary and be very volatile.
So it brings up the point about the fact that
we watch the oil markets, but nobody burns oil in
their car. They burn gas.
Speaker 10: I mean, crude oil is not the problem, right, nobody's
burning crude oil in their car, and the problem is
US gasoline in many ways. So yesterday, by contrast, what
we saw was a new low in US gasoline inventries
and a major problem in terms of capacity of US refining.
There's enormous risk around US refining, particularly in extreme heat,
the potential for accidents increases, and then of course we've
got hurricane season coming. So I think what we found
out is that governments can control the crude price. You know,
you've had enormous releases by the US government, by the Europeans,
somewhat certainly by the Japanese over a million barrels a
day from Japan, and then of course, as we all know,
the Chinese at one point had cut imports but as
much as eight million barrels a day of crude, and
in fact yesterday announced that they will now start exporting products,
which will take the pressure off in Asia. But there's
no real solution to the refining problem here. And as
you know, refining margins have gone through the top of
the range.
Speaker 2: Here.
Speaker 10: We would normally say that, you know, above fifteen dollars
a barrel is about you know, a good margin costs
between five and ten dollars of barrel to refine for
someone like Bollera, and we're at sixty, you know, So
that you can see where the problem is. And there's
an incremental problem with the ethanol market, which is frankly
too complex to get into right here. But that's also
at very very high levels.
Speaker 2: So think with these massive profits that refiners are able
to make right now, that they would build more of them.
The problem with that is the Nimbi's nobody wants a
refinery built in their backyard. So the refineries that are
still in business in this country are going to be
making a fortune off of all of this. But go
back to what he said just a minute ago about
the volumes in the horror Mooz straight hit a peak
a couple of years ago, and with a glut coming
that the volume of oil coming through the Strait of
horror moves will be much lower going forward, so maybe
that will help to solve some of the geopolitical problems
we have with Iran. So the markets, speaking of bottlegelt,
that's kind of the name of the game lately. Today.
The Dow up one hundred and thirty nine to fifty
two four eighty seven, SMP up sixty NADAK up three
hundred and thirty six, Gold up fifty dollars to four
thousand and one thirty two. Oil after going up big
on Tuesday and big yesterday, went down a buck seventy today.
It's just under seventy two dollars now for one barrel
of West Texas Intermediate crude. Thank you for coming by.
By the way, I need to remind you if you
have questions or comments about money, investing, taxes, of the markets,
whatever you want to talk about Financial Friday, call in
with your comments or questions. The phone numbers eight five
five two nine five sixty six hundred eight five five
two nine five sixty six hundred. You can also if
you forget the number, you can look it up on
my website, which is Tom Sullivan dot com. But I
look forward to getting your calls to the comment line.
So that's it for today. Thank you for coming by.
We will be back again tomorrow and I hope to
see you then