Speaker 1: And hello, how are you welcome to the Big Podcast
on this Monday. Today is the twenty seventh day of
April year by Lord twenty twenty six. My name is
Tom Sullivan. And well, we'll get, we'll get. We have
a very busy weekend to talk about. But before we
get to the weekend. For Friday, we left this podcast
on Friday with the idea that they were going to
send Witkoff and Kushner to Pakistan to talk to Iran
because Iron's foreign Minister and their team was going to
be there, and and then it was up in the
air and we no sooner posted this podcast, the Friday podcast,
and everything fell apart. The Foreign Minister went to Pakistan,
and then he left and went down to Oman, and
then he went to Russia, and then he came back
to Pakistan. So we'll get into all of that, but
it's it was.
Speaker 2: It was.
Speaker 1: Things were changing literally every couple of minutes on Friday.
So it turned out to be chaos. It's a total chaos,
So no solicious solutions there. The big story over the
weekend was Saturday, Saturday evening and we did not go
out Saturday night, and I was looking around for something
on television and I'd watched the Yankees game.
Speaker 3: And.
Speaker 1: Oh, there's a White House Correspondence to And it surprised
me because just about everybody was broadcasting it. And I
must tell you I did go to the White House
Correspondence Dinner in two thousand and eight. George W. Bush
was the entertainment for the night. Actually, Craig Ferguson was
the entertainment. George Bush that was his last time as
going to the White House Correspondence dinner. Yes, it was
at the Washington Hilton. Yes, it was downstairs in that ballroom.
It is a massive ballroom. They hold over two thousand people.
That's two hundred and some tables. They're crammed in, very
hard to get just through to anywhere. It's so crammed.
But I did, I did go. I was I was new.
I'd worked well. First of all, I was working for Fox,
and Fox does have a membership in the White House course,
in the White House Membership Correspondence membership, And so I
got invited, and so I went and went out of
more curiosity because I'd heard about it before. And it
was interesting because on the on the train from New
York down to Washington. I sat next to George Clooney,
very nice. Uh Ron Vic Victor I think was his name.
He was an actor. He's passed away since then. Ted
Kennedy and his wife were on the on the same
car that I was in. So it all of a sudden,
you could tell things were ramped up that it was not. Yeah,
there were there were big things going. So it was
weird because what I noticed about the White House Correspondence
dinner on Saturday night. It used to be where the
media would go members and of organizations that cover the
White House, and there were celebrities that would go, and
then the politicians. Now celebrities don't like Donald Trump, so
I don't think there was I didn't see anybody from
Hollywood that went to that because if they did, they
would be ostracized by the mafia in Hollywood. But anyway,
it was politicians and the media that covers them, and
so there I was a young rookie on the national
stage and I I was. I thought it was just
a strange event and it was a phony event, but
it was it was Washington's chance to do something that
they considered to be glitsey. It wasn't glitsey on a
New York style or Los Angeles style, but it was
that's Glitsey for DC. And so they go, all these
reporters go and they do two things. One is they
commiserate with their competitors from the other networks and oh hi,
how are you, Oh so good to see you, that
sort of thing, very funny. And then there I was.
I was surprised because they had They still do, but
they had when I went. There were a lot of
pre parties still are and NBC has a party, and
ABC is a party, in Fox has a party, and
all the media. There are lots and lots of New
York Times, Washington Post. There are tons of pre parties.
And you go in. You can wander in and out
of these pre parties without any security none whatsoever. They're
in various rooms besides the big ballroom. And you walk
in there and there are all the big deals. Those
are the there's the leadership of the White House, there's
a leadership from Congress and everybody in the reporters and
they're all being nicely nice to each other. It's a
very strange event, like nothing else I'd ever seen before.
So I went once in the next year, I was
invited to go back, and I said, eh, so I
did one time, but in any case, so lo and behold.
I had it on and all of a sudden, there's
all this commotion. I looked at him. Oh my gosh.
There's a lot of questions that have to be asked
about the security. I mean a lot. Now, there is
never an air tight security. There's not one thousand percent perfection.
There's always going to be some flaw somewhere in every
presidential security plan. But this is one where they've gone
back for years, for decades, they've used that same ballroom
at the Washington Hill because it's the biggest ballroom in Washington.
It holds, like I said, over two thousand people. It's
the exact same setup when I went, and that was
a long time ago. But yeah, they have the different floors.
There's the lobby and then there's the kind of a
mezzanine floor, and then you go down, you go down
to that, and then there's another drop down to the
to the ballroom floor. So it's kind of three levels underground.
But yeah, the magnetometers and all that were in the
same place that they were when they had the event.
This past Saturday night, so they have some cookie cutter
security arrangement that they it doesn't look like they've updated
a thing, not a thing. So I mean, I'm looking
at the Secret Service, and I know that there are
people that do not like Donald Trump. Well there's also
people that did not like Barack Obama or Joe Biden
or George I mean, you just you have to be
on guard for people that just don't like the president.
This is an odd one because this guy is a
smart guy, but obviously he's not right in the head.
But the Secret Service, the guy who's in charge of
the Secret Service was one of the agents assigned to
candidate Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania, and so Trump liked him,
and he's now the head of the Social Security And
I saw people trying to interview him on Saturday night,
and he didn't sound like he really had He didn't
he didn't sound like a like he knew what he
was doing. He's had no managerial experience whatsoever. He's a
Secret Service agent, so he has he has line experience,
but he doesn't have any management experience. And I don't
know if he just pulled out the drawings from previous
years and said here, you use these, so anyway. The
other thing is that if you've seen the video for
those I shouldn't assume everybody knows that that there was
a man who tried to get into the ballroom of
the White House correspondence dinner, and he had a manifesto
saying he wanted to kill the leadership of the country,
President Trump and all of his people. And that's the
other thing. They were all there. I don't believe there
were any Supreme Court justices there, but there were. But
all of Trump's cabinet I think attended. And so you
had basically the executive brand to the United States government
in place, and they did not do a very good job.
They say, well, he didn't get in. Well, I got
to tell you something. He got down to the stairs
that ten stairs down and you're in the ballroom. I
mean he got really really really close. And the other thing,
I'll play some clips for you, but there was a
lot of questions about you saw them. He goes running
as fast as he can through the one magnetometer that
they had only one. He goes running through that and
it looked like the Secret Service had already dropped their
guard because the event was underway, But I'm telling you,
they were all standing around and all of a sudden,
this guy comes running through and they were kind of
a few seconds behind him, and it looked like they
pulled out their guns and maybe started shooting. But the
guy was not shot. So are they just bad shots?
Were they not? I mean, there were five or six
of these Secret Service agents that spun and looked like
they were pulling their guns out. How many how many
shots did they take that did not hit the guy?
And there is a witness. I'll play the clip for
you here in just a minute. A woman that was
at the stairs that go she came out of the
ballroom and up the ten stairs to the mezzanine level
as she wanted to text her son and there was
no reception down below, and he came charging right at her,
and she said, he wasn't shot. He tripped. Nobody stopped him.
He wasn't tackled. He tripped. He was only twenty feet
away from entering the ballroom that is packed like sardines
with people, and he had a shotgun and a semi
automatic pistol and a bunch of big knives. Well, pistol
is going to take out one person at a time
a shotgun, and he had in his manifesto the order
in which people would be shot and not shot. And
he obviously must not know much about guns, because a
shotgun is the spray of of of bullets if you
will and it it will take out a large crowd
with very little effort, and you don't even have to
barely aim it. You just kind of shoot it in
a direction and everybody in that direction is going to
be hit. So it was seconds away, and everybody's going
at a boy at a boy secret service. He never
got in, no, but he was. He got past whatever
security they had and was seconds away from a mass
shooting of a lot of people in that in that ballroom,
a lot of people asking questions that went about the security.
Oh you know who else. Wolf Blitzer had to use
the men's room, and the men's rooms are up on
the mezzanine floor. So he got up and wandered out
of the ballroom like the lady did, and went up
the stairs. And I don't know if he had yet
entered the restroom or had already been in the restroom,
but he's standing there with the gunman coming right at him.
Here's Wolf Blitzer talking about what he saw and how
it scared the pants. This is a guy who was
in war zones as a younger man, but this one
got him, at least it scared him.
Speaker 4: It's very, very worried from what happened. Just coincidentally, after
they served the appetizers, I walked out to simply go
to the men's room, but you have to walk up
these stairs and walk out, and which I was doing.
And as I was walking back towards the door to
get back into the big area where the event was
taking place, all of a sudden, I start hearing gunshots
in the hall right near me. And the next thing
I knew, a police officer threw me to the ground
and was i top of me, and I was listening
and watching what was going on. And apparently they got
the gunman who had a major weapon there. But it
was so worrisome. The noise was so loud in a
small area, and all of a sudden, I'm seeing gunshots
and then they grabbed me, the police officers, and they
take me back into the men's room. There was safe
for they about fifteen other men Bullah are stuck in there,
and they won't let it out, and that's what happened.
And then after a while they let me out and
I'm out. Now I'm not back in the ballroom, but
I think that he's apparently closing down. Very scary incident.
All of a sudden, the guy with a weapon, it
was a very very serious weapon. He started shooting, and
I happened to have been a few feet away from
him as he was shooting, and of course the court
then he went through my mind, is he's trying to
shoot me? And I don't think he was trying to
shoot me, but I was very close to him as
the gunshots were fired. I mean, it was very, very scary,
but I'm okay.
Speaker 5: Now.
Speaker 1: That was from Saturday night where they finally got him
on a cell phone to report on what happened to him.
The other thing, if you've seen any of the coverage
there's from offstage, there is video of the Secret Service
came out and I mean within seconds nothing happened. I mean,
all of a sudden, two or three, maybe four Secret
Service guys came out and one guy grabbed jd Vance
by the back of his coat. He's sitting in a
chair at the head table grabbed him by his coat,
lifted him out of this chair, and whoosh, off they
went with him. I mean, JD doesn't seem like a
small man. But I'm watching and I went back and
looked at it. It took them ten to twelve seconds.
They had three or four Secret Service agents down with
the President. And oh, they were standing there looking out
into the crowd. I mean that ten to twelve seconds
when somebody's firing a gun is important. And they did nothing.
So finally somebody grabbed Trump, picked him up out of
his chair, and they started to march out of there,
and he says that they pushed him back down again. No,
you could see he tripped over something. And all I
saw when it first happened was there's the president. I
can see his head, and down he went, and an
old boy, why did he go down? It was just
he simply tripped. He won't admit that because he doesn't
like to admit anything like that. But he tripped, and
they picked him up and then he marched out. And
the problem is the Secret Service agents that are supposed
to be assigned to the president we learned this from Butler,
are supposed to be at least as tall as him,
because they'd form a circle around him so that he
doesn't get shot. And there still were a couple of
female Secret Service agents that are much shorter than him,
and there's his head clear shot if somebody wanted to
do it. But they got him and Millennia out, but
they were quite late compared to the people that were
handling JD. Vans. They got JD. Vans out right away.
Mike Johnson, Speaker of the House, I've been telling you
the whole you know, if the president dies, then the
vice president comes up. Unless the vice president dies then
the secret The Speaker of the House is the next
in line. Well, the Speaker of the House they picked
him up too, and rushed him out of the room.
Here's Mike Johnson talking about his view.
Speaker 6: I can tell you from a layman's perspective, it did
look a little lax in terms of as everyone's now
noted getting into the building, that we all came in,
cabinet sectaries of government officials with their own details. We
come in the back, so I didn't see the magnatometers
and all that. But it doesn't sound like it was sufficient.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So he didn't have a good view because he
came in a special way and he had his own
security detail with him. But the other thing about the
Secret Service, they closed off access to where the Washington
Hilton is located. Blocks four or five blocks were completely blocked.
You couldn't get a car anywhere near it, but you
could magnetometers were only feet away from the entrance to
the ballroom. That doesn't make any sense to me none whatsoever.
Juliet Tam she's former FBI big security lady.
Speaker 7: I think the question it depends on which question you ask.
So we don't really talk in my field about things
being safe. We talk about them being safer. And that
distinction is important because anytime you have a big event,
think about a big party like this, or a concert
or a sporting event, what you're trying to do is
minimize the risks, as the Secrets of Us thought they
were doing by having a very secure perimeter, but obviously
two open outside other elements of the hotel. And then
you also make sure that you're able to respond quickly.
I think you know the fact that no one was
harmed is a good sign, but the Secret Service and
Congress will likely evaluate what the response time is. So
if you ask me, was this safe? The answer is
absolutely no, right, this happened, But the question is how
could you make it safe? For given that is at
a hotel that didn't close, that you know that you
have protesters outside. So in some ways, you know, both
Congress people were correct.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 1: I was thinking about the fact that there was this
one guy and he's kind of not a not a
very big man, but he had guns on him, and
he is not right in the head. But what if
there was a team of commandos from Iran or from anywhere,
they could have the Secret Service lucked out the fact
that the guy ran through them and then tripped and
then they got him. If it was a group of
commandos who were actually fit and trained and armed, that
that would have been a whole different story. Here's the
woman I was talking about. Her name is Aaron Thielman.
She was in the ballroom and wound up at the
top of the steps, right where the gunman was. Let's
listen to her description of what happened, how he went
down by basically tripping.
Speaker 8: I was trying to send a text message at the
table to my son to check in on him and
the kids, and I couldn't get a reception. So when
there was a break in service, I walked up the
stairs to the next level, just to the top of
the stairs, and I remained right at the top of
the stairs while I called my son. When he answered,
that's when I heard a lot of It was gunshots.
Speaker 5: Really loud gunshots coming from this alleged shooter.
Speaker 8: My ear is still ringing from the gunshots. They were
very loud, and I saw him charging right at me.
He had one hand on the butt of the gun,
one hand on the barrel of the gun.
Speaker 5: Was a shotgun.
Speaker 8: It was a shotgun, yes, and he was running right
in my directions, magazine clips around his body.
Speaker 5: Had you already climbed all the stairs.
Speaker 8: I had already climbed all the stairs.
Speaker 5: You were on the same level as him.
Speaker 8: He dropped right at my feet.
Speaker 5: When you say he dropped right at your feet, he.
Speaker 8: Fell face first, and I knew the situation was somewhat
safe when I saw that he had dropped his gun
and it was laying just to the left of his
shoulder on the ground.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it was pretty traumatic. Yes, it's pretty traumatic. Indeed,
what was going through your head? I know you were
an Air Force veteran, correct.
Speaker 8: When I first saw him charging at me, immediately I
thowt it bad guy, enemy terrorists, and I just had
to get out of his way. And it was a
split second decision. I just took a step back trying
to get out of the way. And then he something
knocked him out. I don't know what, and he just
he fell down and dropped his gun.
Speaker 5: And when you were on the top level over there,
one flight above the ballroom, and he was right there,
did you see me standing there too?
Speaker 8: I did see you there. I did see you over
on the other side of the hallway.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 5: And did you see a law enforcement officer tell me
to get down? Get down? Get down? And then he
jumped on top of me.
Speaker 8: I heard it.
Speaker 5: You heard that? Yeah? Okay, So what do you say?
What did you say to your family when you got home?
Speaker 4: Oh?
Speaker 8: When we got home, I don't remember the words that
were exchanged, but I hugged my kids for a really
long time. I mean, obviously you were a key eyewitness
as Wolf was.
Speaker 9: So when you say he fell at your feet, did
it seem like he he felt something brought him down.
He wasn't tackled at that moment, and by law enforcement No.
Speaker 8: They started running in on him right as I ran
down the stairs.
Speaker 9: Okay, so like he so he wasn't tackled and that's
what brought him down to the No, I was not.
Speaker 8: He was nice. Maybe that's what happened. I have no idea.
Speaker 9: I mean, if he hadn't fallen, he could have just
kept absolutely okay, because I thought there was an understanding
before that, there was a he was tackled or you know,
but he just fell.
Speaker 8: He just fell.
Speaker 5: He could have easily gone down those stairs and gone
right into the ballroom. There was nothing in between.
Speaker 8: You had to do is go down the stairs and
there's the ballroom.
Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, and the ballroom doors were wide open, she said.
So it was seconds away from him being successful in
killing a large number of people. Josh Campbell, former FBI agent,
weighs in.
Speaker 3: Well, we want those additional details about kind of the
timeline that they've been piecing together, if there's any information
that we would get about what people in his orbit
might have stated. A law enforcement source told me that
his family has been extremely cooperative. But you know, I
agree with Ellie on that document itself, and you know,
we're not talking about a threat to the President, charging
him with that. We're talking about attempting to kill the
President of the United States, and that so called manifesto
is damning. I mean, you look in there, he essentially
lays out the targets in order of succession within the
US government. Really has animis for President Donald Trump. And
you look at some of the other evidence. You know,
when we're talking about attempted assassination, we're talking about a
substantial over steps that were taken in order to try
to conduct this act. You look at that video that
we've obtained, that CCTV from the hotel where he is
at a dead sprint running past that security checkpoint. He's
heavily armed, He's got a shotgun, he has a pistol,
he has several knives. Law enforcement source told me that
when we talk about knives, we're not talking about paget knives.
We're talking about combat tactical style knives. Racing towards the
location where the President of the United States is after
just writing that his intent was to kill the president.
That is extremely strong evidence, guys.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and he was. The suspect was charged in federal
court today in Washington with three counts, formally charged with
the count one attempting to assassinate the president, So it's
not about some federal officer, some vague thing. It's attempting
to assassinate the president. One count on discharging of farm
during a violent crime in one count on transportation of
a firearm and ammunition in interstate commerce. Which is interesting
that he took the train from Los Angeles to Washington,
d C. That's I mean, this guy planned this out
by the way I looked it up to see. The
President announced that he was going to attend the White
House Correspondence dinner on March second, So it's been yeah,
almost two months. He had of time to plan. Meantime,
this guy he had his appearance today next chearing his
May eleventh. As they work on putting this guy, You've
got to think, if I get caught, I'm either going
to die or I'm going to get caught. If I
get caught, I'm going to be in prison for the
rest of my life. This is all life without the
possibility of parole on the federal level, where it will stick.
So the President, of course, on Saturday night, went back
to the White House and held a news conference in
the White House Press Briefing room and said he wanted
another dinner within thirty days. I don't know where they
can accommodate. That's the biggest ballroom in Washington. It's booked
for months, if not a year in advance. I wouldn't
be a bit surprised if the White House Correspondence Association
hasn't already booked it for next year. So I don't
see that happening. I know the President loves this is
the relationship that he has with the media has always
kind of made me smirk because he says he hates
them and the media hates him, so they had this
mutual hate relationship, but they both devour each other. The
President loves to talk to the media, loves the collection
of them in the Oval office every day. I mean,
he's very transparent, and they say they hate him, but
they scramble for anything that he says or does. So
it's the weird relationship. So I'll be surprised to see
if this actually takes place within thirty days. I hope
it doesn't. I hope just say that's it, kiss it off,
and move on the next year. The other thing, he
put a pitch it for the ballroom, and I'm not
a fan of the ballroom, not because of the having
a ballroom there, but because of the facts. It's going
to be a monstrosity, much bigger than the White House.
And I think the White House should be the prominent
building on those grounds.
Speaker 2: But that's just me.
Speaker 1: But people say, well, then then he'll be safe, and
I'm going, you mean, the President is never going to
leave the White House grounds. Everything he does will be
in the in the new ballroom. He's got to go
out and meet the voters. He's got to go out
and do his rallies. So it's there's a lot to
be seen. The wall, like I said, it fell apart.
The talks fell apart on Friday. Nick Robertson is still
in Pakistan and kind of gives us up to speed
on what's happened since Friday night.
Speaker 2: John, We're here to scrape up the minutia and try
and try to read the teei's if you will, And
there's a lot going on. The Iranian Foreign Minister's meetings
over the weekend have been illuminating, but let's just start
with the big point issues here. These red lines that
Iran is talking about from the main state media news
organization in Iran tasn't in, which is really a representation
of what the IRGC is thinking. They're talking about breaking
the talks down into several phases. The first phase is
the United States needs to agree to a permanent ceasefire,
unconditional going forward, doesn't change, don't go back to war.
The next phase is about the Strait of Hormuz, and
this is where it begins to get really interesting. It's
not just about lifting the blockade. There's a lot more
to it than that, and the travels by the Iranian
Foreign Minister get us into a better understanding of it.
So let me break that part of it down. What
the Iranians are saying is they want to see a
sort of a new legal dispensation over the Straits of Homers.
It's as if they feel that the war has sort
of given them a greater legitimacy and legal entitlement to
the shipping that passes through the Straits of Houmas and
therefore potentially financial gain. And we got further illumination on
that because the Iranian Foreign Minister over the weekend went
to Omar, which of course is the other country that
has a border a coastline with the Strait of Homers
And I'll just read you what the Uranian foreign minister
said for the reason for that trip or part of it,
engaged with the coast with other coastal state states on
the Straits of Hummers, that our shared interest can be secured,
shared interest can be secured. It is clear Iran is
setting a high price on what it wants out of
the Strait of Humos, and it was that dealt with
before it then moves on to all the other issues.
Iran is trying to lock in what it thinks against.
Does that take it closer to what President Trump wants
to see? Doesn't seem so at the moment.
Speaker 1: So the President basically said, Okay, we'll just call us
if you got a new idea. But he's putting the
ball in the court of Iran to offer something that
the US is interested in. Again, going back to Friday,
we heard on Friday that the DOJ was dropping the
investigation into Jpalll, the head of the FED. But then
Jannine Piro, the US attorney for DC, said, well, we
still reserve the right to file charges in the future
and basically leaving it open ended. And that raised a
lot of eyebrows. Was the DOJ going to drop the
investigation of the JPAL. I mean, the federal judge in
charge of the US District has already said there's no
they're there, and she couldn't get an indictment from a
grand jury in Washington, so you would guess that they're
probably over, But she did not close the door. Roger Ferguson,
former Vice Chairman of the Federal Reserve, said, yeah, we're
still vague enough to where if I was J. Powell,
I would not step aside from the role at the FED.
Speaker 10: Obviously, no one really knows. He'll tell us maybe this week,
But frankly, you know, in the world of you know,
complete total exonomation, put this behind us, I'm not sure
that the move of this investigation from Justice Department someplace
else really fully checks the box of putting us behind us.
It's important to not be a criminal investigation, obviously, but
I'm not sure that if I were sitting in his
seat or his advisors that I would say, yeah, let's
blow they are clear, whistle on this and move forward. Well,
your didder thing is, you know, we need a court
approach on Lisa Cook, which also tells us you know
what the guard are. So I think there's a number
of reasons why if IRUs his seat, I might just
stay for a little while longer.
Speaker 1: So we'll see what Jay Powell does. But the next
meeting of the Fed is tomorrow and Wednesday, two day meeting,
and this is theoretically the last meeting that Jay Powell.
The Jerome Pile is the chairman of the Federal Reserve.
That doesn't mean he has to leave the Federal Reserve
Board of Governors, but he would step down as chairman.
And there's also like Ferguson brought up the issue about
Lisa Cook, who they could not pin and he charges
on even though they went after her. So there's still
some up in the air questions over at the Federal Reserve.
Speaking of money, Wall Street, not a lot to talk
about there. The market basically zigzag below the beginning line,
so we were in the negative territory all day long
as far as Dow, but the rest of the market
was mixed, now down sixty two. The close of forty
nine thousand and one sixty seven. SMP, however, gained eight
and the NASDAC gained fifty. The price of gold felt
forty six dollars. It's now down to forty four thousand
and six ninety four and oil continuing to go higher,
up another two dollars today. This is West Texas Intermediate.
It's at ninety six rounded up to ninety seven dollars
for a barrel of oil. So that's it for today.
Thank you for coming by. We will be back again
tomorrow and I hope to see you then