Speaker 1: And welcome to the Big Podcast. Happy Monday to you.
I hope you had a great weekend. It's Monday, the
thirteenth of April, Year of Our Lord, twenty twenty six.
My name is Tom Sullivan. I watch maybe two golf
tournaments a year, and not the whole thing, only like
the last hour or two. One of them is the Masters,
and McElroy won for the second year in a row,
and it was he's such a great golfer and such
a great champion, but he never won the green jacket
until last year, and then this year he wanted again.
So that was ane thing over the weekend. And over
the weekend they had the big negotiations going on over
in Pakistan, and they went twenty one hours of negotiating
about what to do regarding Iran, and they came away
with no deal. So I'm sure there was a bunch
of tired people, but they came up with nothing. And
so Vice President Jeddie Vance flies home. And when he
gets home, he got back yesterday, and yesterday evening the
President came out and said, Okay, here's the next plan.
And the next plan is to blockade the Strait of Hormuz.
And this has been brought up before. I want to
say it was Scott Besant that talked about maybe because
they let the sanctions off of ironnie and oil, which
made it so that was making even more money. But
they were only letting their own ships through the strait
of war moves. And I think Besons came up with
the idea, well, why don't we just blockade everything? And
I'm really surprised by some of the specially Democrats that
I think there's some of them that are pretty pretty
smart people that are going, I don't get this, I
don't understand, and I'm going, how hard is this to understand? Yes,
it will drive oil prices higher, maybe it will probably actually,
but at the same time it will cut off a
run has been making a fortune off of the straight
of war moves. They send all of their oil out
but nobody else, and at the oil prices we get
we have today, they're making boatloads, literally boat loads of money.
And so as a result, this is a big chunk
of their income. Why don't we cut off their income.
There's no other country that we've ever gone to war
with where that country made more money because we were
at war with them. So that's the first item is
the blockade. Let's start first with just the deal itself.
Barack Revid who worked for Accios, has close tabs on
what's going on there.
Speaker 2: No doubt, And the previous nuclear deal took a year
and a half to negotiate. Here we're talking about negotiations
that you know, the war negotiations last April and May.
There were negotiations now before the war in February, but
now we only had twenty one hours of negotiations. But
I think what they're trying to reach is first a
one pager that gives very very general, in very general terms,
what both sides agree on, and if on the nuclear
issue there will be a general agreement, I think everything
else will well, there's a good chance it will fall
into place.
Speaker 1: And I think that's the effort. Right now.
Speaker 2: We have until April twenty first, when the seasfire expires.
One of the things that the mediators are trying to
do is to get the USA RAN to hold another
round of negotiations with the hope that there'll be enough
progress for President trumk to agree for another extension of
the seas fire. That one of the mediators, the four
Miniestoa Turkey said today that forty five to sixty days
will be needed to get a deal. Other mediators have
different number of days. But I think that's the effort
right now, to have another round of negotiations and to
have an extension of the seaspire.
Speaker 1: He's guys, thinker on the post of this thing, and
that's exactly what they're trying to do, is just drag
this thing out. And yes, the ceasefire is apparently still
being held, and no they're not shooting at each other.
But the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz started at
ten o'clock this morning Eastern time, and so it's underway,
and we have sent two US Navy destroyers into the
Strait of Hormuz. And we'll get into the whole business
about the mind clearing and everything else that they're worried about.
But this is now, I think a pretty good chance
that you're going to see that this will stretch out
to the end of this ceasefire period, which is another
what do you say, the twenty first, and then after
that Donald Trump will extended even more and they'll come
to some sort of agreement. Already, since the blockade started
this morning, the White House is saying that Iran has
called and said, well, let's talk some more. I'm always
interested in Brett McGirk because he's done a bunch of these,
he's done ceasefire, he knows the Middle East, he's worked
for for presidents. This is his reaction to what happened
over the weekend.
Speaker 3: Every time I've negotiated with Iran, they come in. They're
the weaker power, but they come in with something. They
understand that no negotiations work without leverage, and they come
in they're holding hostages, or they're attacking American troops, or
I've been with the Iranians in Oman where they shut
down a passage in the Red Sea through the houthis
one of their proxies. So what happened in Pakistan and
Iran came in and basically put a proverbial loaded gun
on the table and they said, we control the Straight
of Hormuz. The straight will remain closed. Other than our
ships and ships that we approved through passageway up near
the Iranian border, there's kind of a separate route. And
the Americans could have done two things. They could have
tried to put more on the table to try to
open up the straight of Hormuz or put a bigger
gun on the table. And that's basically what's happened. Whether
or not it works, we'll see, But it's basically the
Americans saying, actually, what's going to happen is a strait
will be open to everyone but your ships. And this
is the first time ever we're in uncharted waters. No
pun intended that we have a blockade on Iran. They
cannot get their oil out of the Golf and it's
a big move that we're making. I think the Navy
can do it, but you know, we'll see how it
plays out.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 3: Importantly, the ceasefire is in place. The ceasefire lasts until
April twenty second, and this is kind of I would
see this as this is still a negotiation. It doesn't
mean that we're in the precipice of the war starting again.
But Iran could react here by breaking the ceasefire. They
could strike ports in the Golf, they could strike some ships.
I don't think they'll do that, but this is going
to play out here over the next week. It's a
big move that President Trump just made and it is
going to really bite the Iranians if it works. Because
this is how this is their economic lifeline.
Speaker 1: Okay, it is a big move. It's a bold move.
We'll see if it works. Nobody seems to know where
this is going or what's going to happen next. But
it's they're saying we're blocking the strait of our moves
from all the ships that want to move their oil,
and we're saying we're blocking Iranian ships. So who's going
to blink you?
Speaker 3: War is ultimately a test of wills, and that is
still what we see playing out. I think the Iranians say,
are very surprised actually that the American side made this move.
I do not think they anticipated it. I thought they
they believe that the economic pressure is really biting and
that we are going to have to kind of sue
at the table to try to get the straight open.
And we've now done the opposite. But yeah, it's a
test of wills. I mean so far here, actually the
American side and the President are showing that they are
determined to achieve at the negotiating table now what they
have demanded from the beginning, and that means an abandonment
of Iron's Richmond program, which is the cornerstone of a
nuclear program if you want to have the potential for
a weapon and some other things that they're demanding.
Speaker 1: It's a high stakes game.
Speaker 3: I don't know where it's going to go. Oh, but
I do think given that the Iranis are using the
strait of Her Moves as their main leverage card, and
they've set it openly, it's what we've known they might
always do for decades. It's one reason we actually never
did a military campaign like this because of the risk.
They're now doing it, and we're trying to combat it
by saying, okay, well, if you're going to shut the
straight up Her Moves, it's going to be shut to
your tankers, and we will use our assets to open
it to others. One important thing John over the weekend
also while these talks are going on in Pakistan, and
I don't want to just drive by the fact these
are the highest level talks between the Iranians and the
Americans since Iron's revolution in nineteen seventy nine. So it's
again unprecedented, but two American naval destroyers went through that
international passageway, and the straight of Her Moves has been
used for decades that the Iranians have set his mind
and is dangerous. That was an important show of force
and again trying to build confidence for the shippers to
use that passageway. But this is going to take a
long time. I dealt with this in the Red Sea,
even when we had a military coalition to help open
it up. It's very difficult for the confidence of the
shippers and the insurance companies to put those ships in
US cargoes through. But let's hope it works well.
Speaker 1: The more fundamental question for me is why are we
even negotiating with these people who have a long history
of being terrorist. They lie about everything, they don't keep
their promises. Why are we even talking to them. Why
don't they just finish the military campaign and see what's left.
You got to get rid of this regime. And the
regime has not been changed. Names have changed, but it's
the same crowd meantime. One guy who has made it
very clear he wants to finish the military part is
General Jack Keen. Yeah.
Speaker 4: Well, first of all, I think the time is exquisite
here in terms of what's actually taking place. I mean,
clearly Aaran had the momentum in the upper hand when
they shut down the straits of a Mouse and then
the administration went to a ceasefire, and Iran got what
they wanted. They wanted a war to stop. So we
went into negotiations and clearly the President gave his negotiators
clear instructions here and he wanted everything, and he didn't
get everything. The Iranians kind of surprised me a little bit.
I think they actually miscalculated somewhat because I think they
overplayed their hand in the sense of what the straits
of a moves and taking control of it meant. We
all understand the significance it means in the region, that
its impact on the world economy. Got that, but I
think they believed it had more impact on the president
and his team than that, and they expected us to
fold and make some concessions because they believed they had
us in the right place based on the fact that
they were now in control of the Straits of Moves,
and that wasn't the case at all. You know, my
confidence is always in the President. He's the number one
backstop here and he's just not going to make a
bad deal. And that's the reality of it. In terms
of what's in front of us now. This is the
right thing to do. We now have taken a momentum
away from Iran. That is clear. We're in the hour
of execution. Ships are coming on a channel that Sendcom
is demanding them to talk to on and they will
control their transit on that channel and tell them where
to go and what to do. Anybody to test it
will see Marines boarding no ships. If Iran wants to
test these things, that's what they're going to get. Likely
they'll have to calculate that that they really want the
humiliation of that taking place with the Marines on international
television boarding one of their ships that are carrying their oil.
May not be their flagship, but there's carrying their oil.
Or Iran is also threatening to take out some of
the other ports facilities certainly, or take out the oil
production capabilities in the golf station or a natural gas
production capability in Qatar, or they could just stalemate and
sweat this out a little bit, with the United States
believing that the United States have eventually would relent because
after all, oil isn't flowing to the degree it should flow.
But remember the escape val here is what we have
in place is the United States is going to permit
the transit of oil for countries that are non Iranean ports.
It remains to be seen whether those ships will still
transit because they believe Iran can intervene in it. So
the second piece it is, and we haven't discussed that much,
is we have the blockade. That's piece one. But we
certainly believe that we will have to make certain the
straits are open and clear, and that will take another
operation by Central Command. They have obviously begun that operation
by sending up, as you pointed out, a couple of destroyers,
and we've got some underground drones looking for these mines
that are that aren't tracked by the Iranians. So we've
got some mind sweeping the we got some clearance to do,
and then also we have to secure the transit of
all those other ships. And remember, for our audience to understand,
this is an implication of defense budget. When Reagan came
after the Iranians in eighty eight because they they were
interfering with the transit of oil through the region, he
had twice the number of ships that we have in
the United States Navy.
Speaker 1: Now we're under three hundred. Then he was closer to
six hundred.
Speaker 4: We had a different navy and all the atrophy of
Obama budgets and the nine Elemon wars that brought us
to this place, and the importance of the Trump defence
budget and not just building up the navy. The Army
is the smallest suspensince prior to World War Two. The
Air Force is down forty year low. That is going
to be imperative. But this is a graphic illustration of
why you need a larger navy.
Speaker 1: That's surprising. I mean, I knew that that our military
was not as big as it used to be, but
I mean he's talking the Air Force, the Navy, the Army,
all of them substantially smaller. So what does General Keane
think will happen from here? I think likely in front
of us.
Speaker 4: I think our tactic would be let the cease fire
play out to its duration. Event the Iranians want to
come back and talk somewhere, and they may very well.
I mean, they know now how stiff the Americans are
in their position, and they may be willing to make
some concessions they weren't made before. As I've said time
and time again here, even when they make those kind
of concessions, you've got to be completely skeptical about it.
Because their likelihood is just to delete a ceasefire, which
because that's in their interest and solely not in ours. Yes,
the Iranians know we'll go back to combat operations, but
believe me, I think once the ceasefire ends, I think
we need to go back to combat operations anyway. I
mean Cooper running Central Command ends and here running the IDF,
they both had close to two weeks left of targets
to take down. That tells us there's still something out there,
and I think we should go out and finish it.
If there's some very critical targets and we want to
do something limited, then that's absolutely essential. But I think
those commanders should drive and certainly then they're going to
do that. They're going to tell Prime Minister that now,
and also President Trump. Here's what we have left, here's
what the tasks are ahead of us, and those decisions
will be made accordingly.
Speaker 1: I told you he wants to continue the punch list,
he wants to continue the military of war and take
out that regime. It's still there. I don't know why
we're negotiating with him. And I bet you if General
Ken was asked the specific question, I bet you he
would say the same thing. So the blockade, here's President
Trump talking about it.
Speaker 5: Do you know what's tennant flock Tomorrow? We have a
blockade going into effect. That'll be ten o'clock tomorrow. Other
nations are working so that Iran will not be able
to sell oil, and that would be very effective.
Speaker 1: There are many boats heading.
Speaker 5: Toward our country to fill up with oil and then
go and take it, so they're not going to go
through the Horbode straight, and ultimately that'll be corrected. But
in the meantime, they're using us. I think Irana's in
very bad shape. I think they're very desperate. We had
a meeting that less than twenty one hours. We understand
the situation better than anybody, and Iran's in very bad shape.
Iran will not be able to sell oil, and that
would be very effective.
Speaker 1: But what we want to do is we want to
and again we don't need it.
Speaker 5: What we notice and what we see and what I
think is maybe my idea, maybe not, I don't know,
but there are many boats heading toward our country to
fill up with oil and then go and take it,
so they're not going to he goes through the Ormost
straight and ultimately that'll be corrected.
Speaker 1: That was from last night when he landered in Washington
talking about the fact that the rock age started ten
o'clock this morning. David Goldman, who's financial guy over CNN, said.
Speaker 6: This reason that this is happening is because America is
turning off the spigot for Iran right now. Let's be
clear that the what cent Com just sent is basically
saying any ship that's paying a toll to Iran that
was about two million dollars a ship, or Iranian ships
that had been carrying Iranian oil to mostly China, those
are coming off the market right now, so that's doing
this now. Iran had about one point eight million barrels
of crude that it was exporting every day. It's not
a lot of crew.
Speaker 1: That's around two percent.
Speaker 6: But when you think about it, we've been losing twelve
million barrels of crude every single day because because of
Iranians blockaded the strait and so every little drop counts.
This makes a big difference. That's why oil is up
seven percent now.
Speaker 1: The oil market started very hot, whale over one hundred
dollars a barrel this morning. But as they thought about
it and thought Okay, well, we're going to get more
oil into the market, into the world market, prices start
to go download it. But we'll get to that in
just a minute. General Karen Gibson, she was a Intel officer,
and Intel is key in all of this with Iran.
Speaker 7: I think that's fair.
Speaker 8: I think this is a very bold move to both
delegitimize Iran's choke hold on the Strait as well as
deny them revenue, whether that's from tolls that they're extracting
from vessels as they pass or from the export of
their own oil. And the US military, particularly US Central
Command in the US Navy, are well prepared to execute
this mission. I do think there will be some throughput challenges.
They cannot escort through ensure the safe passage of a
number of commercial vessels that were transiting before this crisis began.
And I would also say that while our destroyers over
the weekend demonstrated the feasibility of safely transiting the Strait,
it's really, at the end of the day, a business
decision that will be made by commercial entities and their
insurers as to whether or not this is a risk
that they want.
Speaker 1: So two ships to Navy ships destroyers went through, but
will we start seeing oil tankers that are not Iranian flagged.
That's going to be the big test to see what
goes on there. Tom Sower, he is a retired Navy
I'm not exactly sure what to call him, but he
was in charge of clearing minds and he knows all
about clearing minds and he caught it to when he
was in the navy, so he knows what needs to
be done in order to get that straight of our
moves wide open again.
Speaker 9: Right now, there are reports, but it's all kind of
what we say, rumors, indications and warnings that there might
be about a dozen or so moored mines. Right There's
many different types of minds out there. Moored minds are
ones that are suspended by a cable that's resting on
an anchor on the seabed floor that's floating at or
usually just below the water line. They can be contact mines,
which is where basically the ship runs into one of
the horns like the traditional horns you see on what
you think of a mind would look like. But there
also could be influence minds, and that is when a
ship cruises right above it and it has a metal detector,
a magnetometer that detects something metal that's very close to
it and then it detonates. So and also on top
of that, influenced minds can be very sophisticated where they
can put a ship counter on that where basically it'll
wait until five, six, seven, a dozen or more ships
go past it before it would detonate. Which is why
sweeping is something that is good and is helpful, but
what's best is hunting. We always say hunt if you can,
sweep if you must. And in order to hunt for
those mines, we've got some of the most sophisticated unmanned
underwater vehicle technology that's led by EOD Mobile Unit six.
Many of my Navy O D brothers and former teammates
are there. They're the same unit that actually cleared minds
from the Persian Gulf nearly forty years ago during the
Tanker Wars. And what they're using are they look like
it looks like an underwater torpedo that cruises around uses
side scan sonar to find the minds. We've got some
excellent technology and there's even better technology that's on the way.
There's companies like Ulysses that is already that is already
ready to deploy mass produced inexpensive mind hunting drones that
can be deployed in mass to find all these mines.
We think there might only be a dozen or more,
but we're going to find out here pretty soon.
Speaker 1: In then it's going to take a few days, but
we're going to get to get there, and they're working
on it, you bet. The fact that drone to become
such a big part of the military. We know about
the drones flying overhead Ukraine is used very smartly, and
so has Russia and now so has a run. So
with these mine drones, they're underwater drones that go and
look for these mines and then blow them up. So
things are looking fascinating as far as when they get
that straight of horror moves back open again. But they
have a few things to do before they do. And
then of course the question is is anybody going to
start shooting at each other? Meantime, price of gas actually, well,
the triple A gas prices four dollars twelve cents average
across the country for the cheap stuff. That's the same
as it was yesterday. There are now instead of four
there's only two states out West that have better than
five dollars gasoline. That's California and Washington. California's at five
eighty nine, Washington's at five thirty nine. Everybody else is
not at five. As far as where prices are going
from here, the President was on with Maria Bartiroma yesterday
and she asked him about what he thinks will happen
to gas prices. You may not be happy with his answer.
Speaker 10: It's going to be enough to lower the price of
oil and gas.
Speaker 11: Well, it's going to be eventually, it's going to be lower. No,
it might not happen initially, but it's going to go down.
Speaker 12: You So, do you.
Speaker 13: Believe the price of oil and gas will be lower
before the midterm elections?
Speaker 11: I hope so. I mean I think, Shelly could be
it could be all the same or maybe a little
bit higher, but it should be around the same. I
think this won't be that much longer.
Speaker 1: You hear that. She asked him if what the price
will be around midterm election We're talking November, and he said, well,
it'll be a you know, all around where it is
right now, maybe a little bit higher. So if you're
thinking you can hang on for a couple of weeks
for these high gas prices. Stand by because these prices
are going to according to President Trump thinks these gas
prices are going to stay the same or maybe a
little bit higher between now and midterm elections in November. Well,
besides that, we've got a couple of stinks for the day.
One of them is can we talk about Eric Swalwell.
I don't know why I have never liked the guy.
Alwell has always impressed me as the kind of guy
who is very arrogant and thinks that he is the
smartest guy in the room and wants to make sure
that you know it. And he's not the smartest guy
in the room, which makes it even more obnoxious. But
men can spot sleezy men. Women can't, and this is
the guy. Well, what's happened was Friday, there was a
woman that came out and said that he sexually attacked her.
She worked for him, she was one of his staffers.
And the problem with the story is is that she
said she got drunk and passed out and next thing
she knowed she was sexually attacked. And it happened then
a couple of years later, and so with one accusation
you go, he said. She said, I'm not sure who
to believe. I know, we're supposed to believe the woman,
That's what me too said. But seriously, you've got to
stop and go what's the evidence, what are the accusations,
what's the defense? And in Swallwells this was Friday, and
then by Saturday morning, three more, so there's now four women,
and there's rumors that there's a whole bunch more that
are ready to come out as well. But over the
weekend on Saturday, four more women came Four women came
forward and said he sexually attacked them individually, one by one,
over and over. And so I'm ever seen anything like
this before. I mean, there's been all kinds of sex
scandals in Washington, DC. Usually they try to sweep them
under the carpet, they try to hide them, they offy skate,
they do everything they can, and that takes forever for
anybody to actually be held accountable. This one is a
tsunami Democrats. I haven't heard a Republican say a peep,
but Democrats are coming after Swalwell, which means he must
have a lot of people like me who just don't
like him. Because everybody from the Democrat partner everybody. A
lot of Democrats are coming after him with guns, ablazon.
Let's start off with Laura Friedman. She is a congresswoman
from Burbank.
Speaker 14: It's very important that the House follow its processes, for sure,
and a criminal process can happen concurrently, but we should
always refer to that criminal process because the most important
thing is.
Speaker 1: That the victims get justice.
Speaker 14: And in the case of rape, that's beyond what the
House can do. That is a criminal investigation, and it
would be an adjudication from a jury. And given that
these accusations are very serious, I'm glad to see that
they're being investigated as criminal charges by the correct by
the correct agencies.
Speaker 1: All right, So she's a California Democrat. Ellie Honig the
former of federal prosecutor. He weighs in.
Speaker 15: So, first of all, prosecutors can and often do use
media reports as leads for investigations. I've done it, nothing
wrong with it at all. It could be a great
source of information. Regarding these three other women who allege
sexual misconduct by Eric Swollwell, prosecutors should absolutely speak with them.
But I think prosecutors need to be careful here. Because
the other three women's stories are distinct and separate in
some respects from what we're hearing from the primary accuser.
Things like sending unwanted texts or images are bad, but
they are not the same thing as a sexual assault.
So prosecutors want to hear those stories. They're going to
have to make a calculation. Do we try to use
these women as part of our overall prosecution. Are we
going to argue that there's some sort of pattern here,
or are they going to determine that these witnesses, even
if their stories are true and problematic, don't necessarily go
to the issue of sexual assault.
Speaker 1: Those two things going on, One of them is the
Ethics Committee has already started today. They've already started investigation
into Eric's walwell, and that's you know, usually that to
slap on the wrist. No, they're talking about expelling him
from Congress, throwing him out. Then on top of that,
you've got criminal prosecutors investigating him for criminal charges. Jonathan Turley,
Law School professor Georgetown says this it is.
Speaker 7: I mean, look, Swallow was never viewed as an effective legislator.
You know, in twenty twenty five he was outvoted by
a colleague who died halfway through the year. So his
real appeal was that he fed a rage addiction. He
was willing to say things others wouldn't be willing to say,
even in an age of rage. When Senator Collins he
received death threats, it was Swollwell who mocked her and publicly.
Now he later was forced to sort of withdraw those comments.
But he's never been laid to a mob, and that's
what brings up this irony. I mean, he is facing
multiple women who are accusing him of the most serious
types of misconduct. He's now facing investigation over his nanny.
He's facing possible criminal investigation in New York. He's facing
what seems to be an expedited House Ethics Committee proceeding,
and there's already a motion for his expulsion.
Speaker 1: He mentioned the nanny. She's from Brazil, she's illegal, apparently,
that's the accusation, and he was paying her out of
his campaign funds. Yeah, I know, it's arrogance on parade
that he's paying an illegal to work for him and
then using campaign funds for it. Nancy Pelosi, who's also
because he represents an area of northern California, on East
Bay if you will. So it's it's just across the
Bay from San Francisco, and that's where Nancy Pelosi of
course has her district. And Nancy Pelosi was very much
behind propping him up because he would say outrageous attack
bombs at any Republican at any time. So she loved him,
she propped him up. Now now she's turned and says
he needs to resign. She wants him out. There's one
after the Hakeem Jeffries wants him to resign. So all
the Democrats going against him. Janine Shaheen Democrat, she doesn't
like him either.
Speaker 10: Well, I think he.
Speaker 12: Needs to answer to his constituents and to his colleagues.
But I do think, as I said, we need to
listen when victims come forward who have been sexually assaulted
or raped. I think victims who allege in appropriate behavior
need to be listened to, and it needs to be
done in a way that provides for a real investigation
and real consequences if found guilty.
Speaker 1: And this one sounds like maybe real consequences because again
there's criminal activity going on here being accused. So it's
going to be interesting to watch the thing that surprised me.
A couple of weeks ago, I haven't been following the
California governor's race. It's one of those where the top
two vote getters go against each other. So in California,
because it's run by the Democrats, it's usually two Democrats
that go against each other. But this time you've got
a couple of Republicans that are doing very well. But
the top poll getter in the Democrat party was eric's Walwell.
And I about fell off my chair. I could not
believe that the people of California can't see what a phony,
two faced guy this is, but they liked him. Well.
He's dropped out of the California race. That came Saturday,
and now he's facing all these other problems that face him.
Harry Enton even was asked about how he's pulling now.
Speaker 13: Things changed really quickly, and it really left Eric Swalwell
with no choice in terms of dropping out of the ace.
I mean, just take a look at the Cawshi prediction
market's chance that Swallow wins the California governorship. You go
back to the beginning of a month. Look at this,
it's about three and five. He was a clear favorite
at this point to be the next California government. But
by Friday his chances are already Audio sim Echos good bye. Basically,
he was down to two percent, he saw the writing
on the wall, and then of course now we're at
a zero percent chance as he has suspended his campaign.
But Eric Swalwell dropped out of this race because we
put there was no path forward for him to be
the next California governor.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm still stunned that he even had a chance.
He was doing great in the race. He just comes
across to me, is a guy that is a phony
and is making it up as he goes along. And
he's done very well for himself making it up. But
he's had people like Nancy Pelosi and others that have
used him because he was an useful idiot. He would
do or say whatever they wanted him to do or say.
So he's out of the race. But what Californians are
left with is the Democrats. Remember Katie Porter, Remember she
just she bad mouths and treats her staff like their dirt,
and that's where she basically lost a lot of advantage earlier. Well,
she's still in the race. They've got a guy Antonio
Villa Rogoso, who used to be the mayor of Los
Angeles years ago. He's passed his He's gotten really old.
Betty Yee. Some of these people I don't even know
who they are. But Tom Steyer is like a crazed
billionaire environmental guy. He made a ton of money off
of commodities futures and then decided to become an environmental
But not just somebody that's concerned about the environment. He's crazy.
He wants to change the world because of the environmental rules.
So he's still running. And then they've got two Republicans,
the Sheriff of Riverside County, Chad Bianco and Steve Hilton,
who used to be on staff of the Prime Minister
in London in Great Britain. Then he became a Fox
News contributor. Rupert Murdoch liked him, and Rupert spends a
lot of time in London. He liked him, so he said,
why don't you come do some commentary for Fox. So
Hilton did that for couple of years. But he's been
out running for California governor now for a couple of
years and he's leading now. So Steve Hilton may be
the next governor of California. I'll believe it when I
see it that they are ready to vote for a Republican.
But maybe maybe they're tired of having high taxes, high
gas prices, high poverty. I mean, it's a ruined state.
So this isn't over for Eric Swalwell again. He's facing
criminal investigations because of the accusations at these four women.
I'll hesitate on one woman coming forward, but not two,
and then three, and then four, and rumors of even
more to come after that, and then finally, I don't
understand sometimes the President, I don't get it. He's picked
a fight with the Pope. No, you heard me right, Yes,
Donald Trump has picked a fight with Pope Leo. I
don't know why. I kind of suspect I do know,
because Trump likes to pull chains, yank people's chains, and
he gets a kick out of it. He gets him
more attention, and I think that's where this started. But
he's picking a fight with a religious leader. Pick a
fight with a Democrat, go for it. But the head
of the Catholic church, and he did very well President
Trump did in twenty twenty four with Catholics, they voted
for him very positively, and he's now I think it's
going to be underwater because of this. Father James Martin,
he is a well known Catholic Jesuit priest. He publishes
a magazine that's a Catholic magazine. He's editor at large
of America Magazine and the founder of Outreach. He's well read,
written a bunch of books, and Father Martin is pretty
eloquent guy. Let's see what he has to say before
we go to him. Let me add one more thing. So, also,
the President put out and he did. He did not
call it fake, he's he claimed it. He put out
a photo of essentially Jesus with a glowing hand touching
a sick man in his sick bed, and it was
it was one of those photos you would see, or
not photo, one of the drawings you would see in
a in a religious book. And there it was, with
Jesus healing the sick man. But instead Donald Trump put
his face on Jesus. And yes he did, and he
was asked about it. White House has taken it down
since then, but he said, yeah, yeah, yeah, I was.
I thought I looked like a doctor. And here's Father
Martin reat responding.
Speaker 16: I don't know too many doctors that have glowing hands.
So that's the most Jesus looking picture I think I
could imagine, and I think it was pretty shocking to
me that someone would put themselves in the place of Jesus.
And as your reporter was just saying, it came after
he had just been tweeting out a pretty hateful attack
on Pope Leo. So obviously religion was on his mind
last night, and that probably came from watching the sixty
minutes special with the Three Cardinals, So I guess he
was thinking about religion and that's what came out.
Speaker 1: Okay, So what do you make of Pope Leo? Oh?
Speaker 16: Sure, I think he's doing a great job. And it's
not just you know, having to do with political issues,
but he's turning our attention to the poor and to
the marginalized. He's asking the church to become more united,
and you know, as we speak, he's visiting Algeria, visiting
a small group of cath like said, in a largely
poor country. So I think he's doing a wonderful job
and he is the right person for the time.
Speaker 1: So the attack, it's a long one. It was posted
on True Social at nine oh three pm last night.
I'll read just a couple of lines from it. Pope
Leo is weak in capital letters. Pope Leo is weak
on crime and terrible for foreign policy. I like his
brother Lewis much better than I like him, because Lewis
is all maga. He gets it and Leo doesn't. I
don't want a pope who criticizes the President of the
United States because, as everyone knows, he was a shocking surprise.
He wasn't on any list to be pope and was
only put there by the Church because he was an
American and they thought that would be the best way
to deal with President Donald J. Trump. If I wasn't
in the White House, Leo wouldn't be in the Vatican. Unfortunately,
Leo's week on crime, week on nuclear weapons does not
sit well with me, Nor does the fact that he
meets with Obama sympathizer like David Axelrod, a loser from
the left. Leo should get his act together as pope,
focus on being a great pope, not a politician. It's
hurting him very badly, and more importantly, it's hurting the
Catholic Church. President Donald J. Trump. I was blown away
by it. Yeah, I'm Catholic, but I mean I'm not.
I don't understand why any politician would want to pick
a fight with the Pope. Here's Katie McGrady. She has
a program on Serious Exam Catholic Radio.
Speaker 10: Well, it was a little surprising, of course, that the
President tweeted this. I guess maybe we shouldn't be too
surprised President Trump on's fans and Pope Leo is seeking
to bring followers to Jesus, and those two things are
going to conflict to a certain point. But I think
it's important to note the Holy Father is not a
conflicting voice. He's a contrasting voice in a conflict driven world.
And it's blessed are the peacemakers in scripture. That's what
he quoted this morning at his first stop when he
started talking about the beatitudes. It's not blessed are the
bomb droppers. And he's been very clear that this is
not just appointed criticism of the United States, it's across
the spectrum. He's been calling for peace since the moment
we met him. So my first what I make of
it is, I'm not surprised President Trump tweeted this. He
wants Pope Leo to baptize what he's doing, and the
Holy Father's not going to do that. That's why the
President made reference to the pope's brother. Is he trying
to start some sort of sibling warfare here? It's not
all that surprising. I'm very pleased, however, that the Holy
Father is saying, Look, I'm not scared. This doesn't bother me.
I'm going to keep on with the message that I
know I've been charged to give to the world.
Speaker 1: The message he talks about is the Gospel and about
peace in those sorts of things. And I don't know
why that bothered the President. And let's let's wrap this
up for today. But just as we're going to day
to wrap, I got a headline. Congressman Eric Swalwell has
resigned from the US House. So he's quit the California
governor's race. He has quit his seat in the California
in the in the Congress representing the fourteenth district of California.
So his career just imploded from Friday, very very quickly.
But the criminal investigation is still underway. All right, Wall Street,
Today quite an interesting day because we went up, we
went down. We started off on the Dow down about
three four hundred points, and we turned around and we
finished up three hundred and one to forty eight two eighteen,
so a complete turnaround. S and P up sixty nine,
the Nasdaq up two hundred and eighty. Price of goldfelt
twenty one dollars just in seven sixty six, and oil,
like I said, it was higher. It was up to
one hundred and five this morning, but it finished much
lower at ninety just undred ninety eight dollars for one
barrel of oil. So that's it for today. Thank you
for coming by. We will be back again tomorrow. I
hope to see you then.