Speaker 1: And here we go. Welcome to the Big Podcast. Happy
Monday to you on this first day of June, Year
of all the Word twenty twenty six. My name is
Tom Sullivan. We've got a lot to go over today,
very busy Monday, as Congress gets back to war. Yeah,
they finally are back from their Memorial Day break. Man,
their calendar or something else, isn't it. So here we go.
We've got a lot about First of all, we've got
a lot of primaries tomorrow. We've got six states that
have primaries. We'll dig into a little bit of that.
We've got an update on the Weapons Fund and all
the things that the President is doing in Washington, DC.
We've got speaking of elections, the one that's getting a
lot of pushback over the weekend is this Graham Platner
out of Maine. But let me start you with the
update on what's going on in Iran, because we've got
a couple of different mixed messages. Middle of the day today,
Iran came out and said that they are stopping negotiations.
They are asking for the negotiators in the middle. I
presume they're talking about Pakistan, that they are actually asking
everybody to stop and they're also apparently threatening that they
are in talks with the Huthis and others about closing
another water waterway, which is the access to the Red Sea.
So if you can't go up the Persian Gulf that
has a dead end on it, you come back around,
you go around to the Red Sea, that'll bring you
up to the straight to the Sieuez Canal and into
the Mediterranean. They're talking about trying to stop that as well.
And that is another one of these areas where there's
a very narrow passageway and on one side of it
is where Yemen is located, and that's where the hoodies
are located, and so that would be another area where
they would try and interfere with international commerce. Now, the
Red Sea and the Sieuez Canal are critical for access
to the Mediterranean. Therefore Europe and Europe really counts on
the commercial traffic coming up through that body of water,
so that is a big deal. The name of the
strait is bad L Mandeb. Bad L Mandeb is the
name of the strait. It looks very much like the
Strait of our moves. It's a very narrow passageway and
that what they're talking about is nothing official. Nobody's doing
it right now. But this is what the Iranians have
come out and said, no more negotiating, We're stopping the talking.
And oh, by the way, we are talking about maybe
stopping another commercial waterway now. At the shortly after that,
on true social the President comes out and says that
we are continuing to negotiate and at a rapid pace.
Wait a minute, you just heard me say. The Iranians
are saying we're not negotiating, we're stopping, and the President
comes out and says, we're work continuing our negotiations and
at a rapid pace. So you figure it out. I can't.
I don't think anybody else count either. These are in
total conflict of each other. So this it appears as
though nothing is actually closed. Mark Esper, former Defense secretary
in Trump one point zero. He was asked a bunch
of questions about this earlier today on CNBC.
Speaker 2: For the Foreseeable Future, it's broken down clearly that both
sides are and odds, and the so called ceasefire has
seen multiple tits for tats over the past few days.
Right this morning, we learned that Kuwait was hit by
ballistic missiles, so I think this goes on for a while. Clearly,
you know, we know that the IRGC, the Islamic Revolutionary
Guard Corps, is in charge in this country and they're
drawing a very hard line. They feel emboldened by their
position right now in this conflict. So now what, well, look,
I think it'll the side will calm down. The negotiators,
the Pakistanis will probably go out to Tehran, they'll talk
to DC. We'll try and see if we get both
sides together, and that'll take some time to play out,
but at the end of the day, so we're just
trying to get to an MoU of memorandum of understanding
that gets us to negotiations. And all that MoU would
largely do is take the economic pressure off of both
sides by freeing up the straight hor moves. Tehran's been
insisting on Israel halt its operations in Lebanon against Hezbela
for some time now. They believe, they assert that it
was part of the original ceasefire agreement, and they've come
out I think at least the semi official news agency
has said that's no longer sufficient. We want Israel to
withdraw from Lebanon and look, I don't see that happening.
Israel sees Iran, and of course Hesbela to its north,
is an existential threat to their country.
Speaker 1: Well, late this afternoon of Benjamin nette Yah, who posted
on Twitter, he said, tonight I spoke with President Trump
told him that if Hesbelah does not cease attacking our
cities and citizens, Israel will attack terror targets in Beirut.
This stance of ours remains unchanged. In parallel well, the
ide F will continue to operate as planned in southern Lebanon.
That's because Hesbelah continues to send missiles into the populated
areas of Israel, and Israel is not going to take
it lined down.
Speaker 2: At their point of view, we may change their behavior
for a short period of time, maybe ask them to
hold off a little bit on the strikes, or maybe
stay out of the bey Root neighborhoods because that's where
they struck recently, to kind of help calm things down
a little bit. But at the end of the day, again,
Israel isn't a tough neighborhood. These are existential threats to
the country.
Speaker 1: But Iran is now tying everything between Iran and the
US and Israel to Iran's looking over at hesbe law
and saying, well, wait a minute, that you've got to
include that too. So it's getting more complex than getting better.
Let me put it that way, Kareem is that Jappor
from the Carnegie Institute keeps track of everybody in Iran.
This is his viewpoint, you know.
Speaker 3: And the islamerk Republic of Iran since nine teen seventy
nine has been committed to resistance against America. That's part
of their identity. It's not just a policy. And President
Trump is now in a dilemma of his own making
because he pulled out of the Obama nuclear deal. He
called it the worst deal ever, and he's now stepped
into a situation in which he may be forced to
provide around some pretty significant sanctions relief if he wants
to reach at least a near term resolution. So when
you speak to people inside Tehran now, I think it's
pretty clear that they've reached almost an internal consensus that
the regime needs nuclear weapons as a cloak of protection.
It doesn't take a grand strategist to look at the
world and say the countries that gave up their nuclear programs,
whether that was Saddam Hussein's Iraq, or Khadafi's Libya or
post Soviet Ukraine. They all made themselves vulnerable to external intervention.
North Korea has nuclear weapons, has this kind of cloak
of immunity. So the danger here is that Iran has
what they call these missile cities, which are potentially even
deeper underground than some of their nuclear sites. And so
any oral commitment Iran gives to not pursuing nuclear weapons,
it's not something we can believe, and so we're going
to have to stay incredibly vigilant about their clandestine activities.
Speaker 1: Well again, I don't see any solution other than taking
out the people that are running the government of Iran. Iran,
the IRGC, they're the ones running the country. They're the
ones who are hell bent for continuing to do fair
sponsorship around the world, and they have missiles hidden deep
as Kareem says, we haven't even gotten to those. Who
knows what else they've got down in deep tunnels, probably
some more nuclear centrifuges. So they're not planning on stopping.
I don't even know why we're talking to them. That
brings up the military option. Let me stay with the
agreement right now, because the agreement has basically been in
Donald Trump's hands, it's been on his desk, nothing was
being done. John Bolton was asked about, well, what do
you make of that?
Speaker 4: Well, I think there must be confusion over what people
think has been agreed, or more likely, in my view,
Trump is dissatisfied with what he sees in the agreement.
He's worried that parts of it could come back to
haunt him or be the subject of criticism, and they're
trying to figure a way out of it. I think
this is the sort of indecision though that's a gift
to Iran every day that goes by that Iran isn't
being bombed. The regime can dig out, try and regroup
and re entrench its position. It would certainly like to
be free of our blockade of their exports of oil,
but fundamentally the regime is more interested right now just
basic regime survival, and this delay ultimately better fits the
regime more than that benefits us or the people of Iran.
Speaker 1: And that was part of the announcement today that they
are stopping negotiations, is that they are also going to
again blockade the Persian Gulf, so things are going going backwards,
not forward in our talks or even our non talks
with Iran.
Speaker 4: Well, I think they caused enormous destruction inside Iran, There's
no doubt about it. There appears to be from more
recent intelligence analysis that there's more that could be done,
and I think that speaks to just how determined, really,
how fanatic this militaristic, ideological regime really is. That they're
not spending money on the welfare of the Iranian people.
They're doing work to entrench themselves in power. So if
there's more to be done that I think that that's
what we should focus on, because otherwise, if the regime
holds on and eventually gets to export oil again, will
simply rebuild all the facilities we've destroyed, and in some
definable period of time we'll be right back worrying about
the nuclear weapons program, right back worried about their terrorist
proxies around the region and around the world and all
the rest of it.
Speaker 1: The president has a pickle because if he doesn't finish
off the regime, then it will be exactly what John
Bolton's talking about. They will rebuild as fast as they
possibly can, and if they get that port, the straight
up Hoar moves open again. They'll make three four hundred
million a day. That'll give them the money to start
rebuilding as fast as they can. David Rode, National Security reporter,
his update on where he thinks we are.
Speaker 5: Yes, I mean it is like this low level conflict
now that's just continuing, despite what the President says, and
despite you know, Secretary of HeiG sets saying that Irani
military has been decimated. So Iran shot down this m
Q nine Reaper, as you mentioned, that's a very expensive
American drone. They're able to carry that out in terms
of their air defenses. And then one new detail er
MEMERSI over the weekend. Last week, uniings fired a ballistic
missile at Kuwait and it was shot down. And again
the American Military Secretary SI didn't make this public, but
ABC News reported and we confirmed several American soldiers and
contractors were injured as the debris from that missile fell down.
I would appear on an American base, so it was
close to target there and the dependingon didn't make that public.
So a low level armed conflict continues. As you mentioned,
Israeli forces are advancing farther and farther into Lebanon. There
isn't a final agreement even in Gaza at this point.
And the President, as you talked about in the last segment,
is just sort of creating wish casting for where he
wants this to go with his social media posts. So
this war is not, you know, ending, it looks like
anytime soon.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we don't have word as far as how badly
people were injured on a US base in Kuwait, but
they fired a ballistic missile a couple of them at
that location, and again they were taken out, but the
debris must have been pretty close to the ground because
the debris injured a number of US service members that
were at that base. But what about the update on
the nuclear dust as it's called.
Speaker 5: So again, the reporting is that from access to the
New York Times, that the President was this specific thing
was that he wanted the memorandum some kind of agreement
that this the enriched uranium would be removed to the
United States. The earlier language that they would just talk
about how to dispose of that uranium, And what the
Iranians have talked about is down blending it. That's where
you bring the enrichment level down so it can't be
used to make nuclear bomb. That specific offer to downblend
that uranium was on the table the day before the
US began these strikes. The Omani foreign minister said that publicly,
he said it to me and to market brown Is
CBS News, and so it's sort of here we go
again about this same issue. And I don't think the
Iranians are going to agree that the US can come
in and remove that and rich uranium. Maybe that's not
reasonable on their part. Maybe they should agree to that,
but they won't. They feel they're winning. They will keep waiting.
They would rather push off all the nuclear parts of
these negotiations into this sixty day timeframe. The President, I
think senses how politically damaging it would be if Iran
were to keep it's enriched uranium as part of this
interim deal.
Speaker 1: All right, that was before the announcement that Aron says, no, right,
let's stop the talks, no more talking, and we're going
to start blocking the straight up hoom moves and we're
talking to who He's about blocking the Red Sea as well.
So let's check in with General Keen to find out
from the military standpoint, he's got to be pulling his
hair out on.
Speaker 6: The face of it. Despite the board brief it was
is excellent. The ceasefire is not holding we don't, let's
face it. I mean, Iran is doing everything they can
to disrupt the straits of Moves even further. Why because
we've been passing shipping through there be sure, And that's
not a violation of any ceasefire. That Ran has taken
very aggressive actions and we are defending ourselves against it
quite handily, as you point out there, and just so
our audience gets a grip on what is actually happening here.
We had a ceasefire on April the eighth overall, and
then a more specific ceasefire on April the seventeenth in Lebanon.
And since April the seventeenth to today, the Iranians have
fired over twenty four hundred twenty four hundred missiles and
drones in the northern Israel. That is more than what
it is Israel had to defend against during the five days.
And we are at war. That is the significance of it.
And is that a ceasefire? Are they holding to that?
Obviously they're not. I mean, it's absolutely laughable. That they're
saying that what Israel is doing to defend itself is
in violation of the ceasefire. We got to call it
out for what is really happening here. And listen, give
the president a huge amount of credit here. He's exercising
some real strategic patients trying to get a deal here,
and he knows full well at some point he could
run out of patients. One because of their seriousness is
lacking and getting down to the real terms of the deal,
and we're going to find out over time. There's no
reason even speculated what those terms are, because we don't know.
But the second thing is he's right when he talks
about holding the cards here. We have plenty of justification
to go back to a war footing right now based
on all these violations of the ceasefire that I just described.
He's not doing it, but they also know that he
could do it, and if this behavior continues, it certainly
undermines anything their runnings is saying about the seriousness of
their wanting to make a deal, and they're using I
think this pressure to think that that's going to force
us into making a deal sooner and making it more
in terms of what they want to achieve themselves.
Speaker 1: Again, this was general Keema was talking before the Iranians
came out and said that they were shutting down the
strait of our moves and stopping negotiations.
Speaker 6: One of the barriers has always been the strace of
a mouse, and they want to have some level of
control over that and organizing it. Maybe remove the fees,
but if they are still telling ships when they can
go and what time to go, etc. And where to go,
that's obviously control. We want none of that. We don't
even want it. The implication there, well, we'd be preferred
to be if Ron made a statement that it is
territorial it is international waters, not territorial waters that they
claim it to be, and its freedom of navigation. I
doubt seriously they would agree to a statement like that,
but at least remove any threat that they're going to
stay in some kind of organizational control over the other
stuff I'm assuming has something to do with nuclear and
whether they're fully committed in the memorandum of Understanding that
we're trying to get them to sign, that there is
a commitment there to ridding themselves of the nuclear capabilities
that they have.
Speaker 1: So once again I mean, the President earlier today had
said that they really want an agreement, doesn't sound like it,
and then they cut off negotiations and said they're locking
down the Persian Gulf. So all of this is going
backwards this afternoon, not improving at all, and by tomorrow
there'll be a whole new raft of comments and who
knows what direction it'll go tomorrow. Meantime, Tomorrow is a
primary day for six of the states. California is one
of the big ones. It's going to be out there,
but Iowa, Important, Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico, and South
Dakota all holding primaries tomorrow, so we'll find out probably
obviously by Wednesday, we should know what the results are.
In California, they've got an interesting situation with they've got
the jungle primary, as it's called, the top two vote
getters get to be in the runoff. In November, Democrats
were panicking because the top two in the polls was
two Republicans. Well, as we sit here on this Monday,
it looks like Steve Hilton is in second place behind
Javier Bessera. But right on Hilton's heels is Tom Styer,
the billionaire, and apparently in California. You can't turn on
the radio or television without with our go buy down
the road and see of billboard without it being Tom
Steyer's face. So he is a weird duck. What a strange,
very weak group of candidates they have to be the
governor of California in any case, let's here's Melanie Mason.
She's with political She's been a political reporter in California
for as long as I can remember.
Speaker 7: I think that that's right. I think that we are
really watching whether the question is whether the Republican voters
in the state have coalesced enough behind Steve Hilton truly
power him into the top two, or are we going
to be watching two Democrats slug it out in November,
between Jaby Visera and Tom Steyer.
Speaker 1: And it's kind of.
Speaker 7: Ironic because if you recall, there was so much panic
among Democrats for so many months that perhaps there'd be
two Republicans in the top two because of this wonky system. Instead,
I think it's most likely we'll see Steve Hilton run
against a Democrat, but it's possible we could see two
Democrats going up against each other in November.
Speaker 1: Yes, Dyer is making a very heavy last minute push.
Kevin McCarthy, who was Speaker of the House, but he
was also the congressman from Bakersfield, California. He was back
out in California this weekend, not only keeping an eye
on what's going on with the governor's race, but there's
also a big race in the city of Los Angeles.
Mark Karen Bass is in first place, but barely, and
there's a Democrat socialist right on her heels, and then
in third place. Very tight, very tight race in La
is Spencer Pratt, and Kevin McCarthy talks about him.
Speaker 8: You know, I was in la this weekend and I
was doing Bill Mahershaw, but I was around a lot
of Democrats. They were talking about it. And these are
former supporters of the mayor. This race shouldn't even be close.
They shouldn't even be talked about. But Pratt is really
hitting a nerve here. Everyone's showing his ads. They're excellent ads,
and they're sticking just to three items homelessness, crime, your streets,
and this is really a referendum on the Democratic policies.
I think he's got a real chance of getting into
the runoff. It is difficult down there. And a real
tell tale sign here is after the first debate, the
other two candidates can't and would not debate him anymore.
So the public is not being able to see these debates.
The first one he did an excellent job. His ads
are just viral. He's not spending much money on it,
but he has his why, his reason why. He's running
his house burnt down and he couldn't rebuild it. His
kids can't go to the parks anymore. And that's just
what he's showing. And this is a Democrat Democrat city
that is frustrated with how it is managed.
Speaker 1: So here's a clip from from Spencer Pratt talking about
the race that he is, Like I said, he's in
third place, but it's tight, tight tight.
Speaker 9: True breaking news because I had not heard that. But
it's not shocking because they're alleged criminal partners. Not only
did they work together and their negligence and burning down
seven thousand houses and twelve people alive, but they're both
complicit in laundering what twenty four billion dollars to actually
increase almost this newsoman Karen Bass makeup status. Those are
not real numbers. Anybody with eye in the state of
California or Los Angeles knows that there has not been
a reduction in one old homeless person.
Speaker 6: This is what we know.
Speaker 1: He's attracted to Kevin McCarthy.
Speaker 8: But I'm very nervous Stiers are spending a lot of money.
There's an opportunity here where two Democrats can move forward.
Republicans need to consolidate, and I will tell you President
Trump has endorsed Hilton. Let's get behind Hilton to make
sure we have a Republican to start talking about that issues.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm not sure if a Trump endorsement is a
good thing or a bad thing in Los Angeles because
it's a heavy Democrat city and they don't like President Trump.
But when you look at this race, they he talked
about it, and so did Melanie Mason about the fact
that Republicans need to consolidate. There is another person running.
His name is Chad Bianco. There's only two Republicans running.
I'm talking about the governor's race again. So you've got
Steve Hilton and then you've also got Chad Biancoco is
the current sheriff of Riverside County and he is doing well,
but he's not in the top three he's probably about
five or six on the list out of seven, and
he but he got he has enough of a following
to where if he and Steve Hilton put their numbers together,
and he recommended, he ended he drops out and endorsed
Steve Hilton and got all of Chad Bianco's voters, that
would give Steve Hilton a win. He would get about
thirty percent. That would put him ahead of all the Democrats.
So we'll see if they consolidate. But here we are
on the eve of the primary, and I haven't heard
anything about Chad Bianco dropping out, but that would be
the way for the Republicans to win if they consolidate.
So let's go up to Maine. They don't have a
primary tomorrow. I think it's next week. But there's a
big controversy with the controversy guy who's running for Senate
from Maine, and he would, he would. He's trying to
go up against Susan Collins, who's been a senator over
and over and over and over, and everybody keeps saying
she's going to lose, but she keeps getting elected. But
this time, this guy has got a lot of populism,
lots of populism. His name is Graham Platner, and he
has been called so many names because he's been very controversial,
and people don't seem to find that to be a problem.
May I refer you back to Texas and Ken Paxton
was supposed to be the guy with all these baggage
problems that he had, and yet the people knew it
and they voted for him. Anyway, I'll go back to
Bill Clinton had lots of baggage and people voted for
him for president twice. So I'm not so sure having
all these scamnds makes a difference anymore. I really don't
think so. So the latest one is that Graham Plattner's
wife alerted the campaign to the fact that the opposition
research will probably pull up all kinds of sexting messages
that Graham Platner had with a number of women, apparently
about twelve different women, and he was up to sexting them,
which who knows how far that went, But in any case,
the wife was the one who brought it to the
campaign's attention. Here is the wife. Her name is Amy.
Speaker 8: We work on our mental health every day.
Speaker 9: No marriage is perfect, and I don't want a perfect marriage.
Speaker 8: I want my marriage and I want to be married
to Crown.
Speaker 1: Ye, she's not mad, Adam. She brought it to the
attention of the campaign so that they wouldn't be caught
flat footed. But Corey Booker and Chris mur they don't
have good things to say about their fellow Democrat. Yeah,
I have concerns that guy has questions to answer, and
that's what campaigns are for. He certainly admitted that he
has made mistakes.
Speaker 4: But I think this is going to be a pretty
clear contrast.
Speaker 1: It's going to definitely be a very very clear contrast
between Platner and Susan Collins Andrew. This is adarro. He
worked for punch Bowl Media at this observation, Well.
Speaker 10: We're going to find out a lot about democrats level
of tolerance for these types of scandals. Obviously there's been
a lot that's already come out about Grant Platner, but
it seems to be, you know, even five months out
from the election, that this is going to continue to
be sort of a drip drip of opposition research and
other information coming out about him. But look, Maine is
a critical state for Democrats. I mean, if they have
any hope of taking back the Senate majority they need
to win in Maine. And so Democrats right now are
putting all their effort behind sort of making sure they're
unified behind Grand Platner because he is their best and really,
at this point now they're only shot at defeating Senator
Susan Collins, someone who Democrats have not been able to
defeat for election after election after election, and it's really
frustrated them, and it's especially frustrated by the way Senate
maj Senate Minority Leader excuse me, Chuck Schumer. So this
is going to be a key race to watch, and
it's going to be interesting to see how Democrats continue
to react to what I think is going to continue
to be this strip drip of information coming out about
Grand Platner's past.
Speaker 1: Well he's not alone. There's a guy by the name
of John Featherstone. He writes for one of the big
newspapers in Maine, and this is his observation as well.
Speaker 11: I would definitely tell you that the settlement is definitely
changing on the ground. Platner has always gotten close to
one thousand people at his event. Yesterday, he didn't even
have one hundred people there yesterday, As you had mentioned
they formed a human shield around him because they saw
me there and they did not want me to get
any access to him. And you can't even make it up.
You had a grown man in a bear costume purposely
dripped to block me from Latiner. It's just amazing, and
it feels like they're in crisis mode here though they've
radically changed the way that they've had access to the candidate.
I've seen, even just driving around Maine, platinum signs being
picked up. I was even an Augusta today in the
Governor's office and there was a flurry of activity in
the governor's office. It might be that she's trying to
get back in the race, or at least tip putting
her toe in the water to see if she's going
to get back in the race.
Speaker 1: But he's talking about Governor Mills and she dropped out
Jana Mills because he was way ahead of her. And
now maybe maners are starting to take a third look
at this guy. But so far, I mean, I'm serious,
there's I'll go back to Bill Clinton. All these candidates
with all these checkered past, it doesn't seem to be
a deal killer for voters anymore. But I'll tell you
who doesn't like him. And this is always I'm playing
this kid. That's a surprise. The ladies on the view
listen to them.
Speaker 3: So he's a liar of racist and anti semi, he's
a homophobe.
Speaker 1: So he's all the things.
Speaker 8: And this man should be nowhere near Congress.
Speaker 2: And it is disturbing, and it is horrible, and why
can't we do better?
Speaker 1: Why can't we have better candidates? Well, I think for
the first time, I'm actually agreeing with the ladies. Why
can't we do better? Why can't we get better candidates
out there? So they're calling him every name in the book,
and so everybody I associates the view with people on
the left, but man, in this case, they don't have
any any room for this guy. And some late breaking
information this afternoon, there's been a lot of people Republicans
and Democrats in the Congress that had been pushing back
against a one point eight billion dollar weaponization fund moneies
for people that mostly the Jan six crowd and other
people that were abused by the government and the president
apparently has thrown in the taal this afternoon. The DOJ
says that they will abide by a federal judge, and
they're dropping the idea of creating the one point eight
billion dollar Weaponization Fund, getting a lot of pushback from
both sides of the aisle. So that's going down in flames.
Wall Street today did not go down in flames. It
was slightly underwater for most of the treading session, but
at the end eked out again. The DW Jones industrials
up forty six forty six points to fifty one thousand
and seventy eight, the SMP up nineteen, Nasdaq up one
hundred and fourteen. The price of gold fell eighty dollars
down to four thy five thirteen, and oil went up
almost five dollars today again with Iran saying we're not
talking anymore. Oil went up five bucks. The ninety two
dollars for one barrel of West Texas Intermediate. That's it
for today. Thank you for coming by. We'll be back
again tomorrow. I hope see you there.