Transcription
Good morning, everybody. Happy Wednesday. We have an amazing show for everybody today. All right, hit it up. There we go. Fascist point. Oh, we almost put the arm in an interesting way. Fascist Roman salute here. Fascist points with Sager and Emily. Got to, got to keep the arm down, right?
>> You got to keep the volume down, man.
>> The volume. What? This is, this is what it's all about, Emily. All right. We can find, remember, you know, all of our predecessors, they would speak loudly and formally to command attention. All right, I'm giving the critics enough there. What are we starting with? What are we starting with? We have a huge breaking news here. Thousands of more troops that are headed to the Middle East. We added it in as of this morning. So, we're going to do a little bit of mini block here at the top just to update everybody on the situation with Iran. We're also going to talk about inflation. That is by far our biggest story. We have the IMF which is warning about rapid inflation spreading across the entire global economy. Gas prices $4.11 a gallon here. Beef is going up. Fertilizer is drying up for farmers. Things are not looking good here in the United States of America. Emily, we're going to talk about polling and, uh, the Vice President at an event yesterday with TPUSA did not look good for him, uh, for the administration. Basically a stadium, uh, which was like, what, a quarter full? What would you say?
I mean, look, may have been less than that.
>> Bad luck.
>> Yeah, it was bad luck and giving some pleas to younger conservatives to not flee the movement.
We'll see how it works out. Uh, Europe, this is a fascinating story. So, we covered the Pope Francis yesterday. It turns out now the, yeah, it's a good, you know, we'll pepper a little SAT verbiage, uh, in here. So, we had the Pope Francis, uh, which we thought it was over. Uh, well, no, it's not over. So the Italian, uh, Prime Minister Maloney, she's defending the Pope and now Trump is trashing her and then the Italian Prime Minister is now suspending a defense agreement with Israel. So, really fascinating in terms of how this war just continues to rewrite geopolitics. Uh, Shyel Ben Ephraim is going to join us. He is a geopolitical analyst. He's an Israeli. He's going to join us to talk about this Lebanese-Israeli meeting that happened here in Washington yesterday. I believe it was the highest level talks, >> since the 1980s. So interesting, but of course, you know, Israel wants to keep bombing Lebanon, uh, violating the ceasefire that originally was agreed upon by the United States. So, I'm interested to hear what he said. And he had a very fascinating breakdown and kind of interest in the domestic politics of Israel, which I didn't fully, uh, and I didn't fully know. And then finally, we are going to talk about these scientists. And there is a now 10th missing scientist who is linked to all of these missing scientists. We're going to be joined by Lauren Conlin of Pop Crime TV. I saw a segment that she did, Emily. Phenomenal job. She, she's one of those like true crime people and she really like delves into the details. So, it's much better to hear from an idiot like me. Uh, and then of course, everybody's favorite, Professor Robert Pape, the Escalation Trap, uh, will be joining us at 10 a.m. to break down, I think, not only just these latest troops, uh, into the region, but also kind of the bigger picture, whether we're in a real ceasefire or not. We're always interested to hear what he has to say. Before we get to that, thank you to everybody subscribing to the show, breakingpoints.com. We are doing the AMA today. We are doing the AMA today. We went a little late yesterday, so we weren't able to do it. And then, of course, if you're listening to this on a podcast, please share an episode with a friend. And on YouTube, go ahead and hit subscribe to our channel.
2.02 just doesn't do it for me. What's your number?
>> Oh, you want >> Yeah. Well, but it needs to be clean. What's your number?
>> 50 million.
>> 50 million.
>> 50. Oh my god. That's why we're here. That's like Mr. Beast nonsense. Let's be honest. We got to set reasonable goals. Crystal's at 2.5.
>> Mr. Beast type.
>> Crystal's 2.5. I'm 2.22. We could stop right there. 222. Like nice clean. I like 2.0, but then it immediately went up to 2.01. Thanks to you. I think you're the person who gave you and Ryan were begging. And I was like, "No, you got to stop. We have to stop at two." All right, let's go ahead and hit it. Let's get to the mini block. So, turning now to this ground troop news. Going to put this up here on the screen. Washington Post Stan Lamoth reporting, "US sends thousands more troops to the Middle East as Trump seeks to squeeze Iran." The deployment includes sailors and Marines due to arrive as the administration attempts to enforce a maritime blockade against the regime in Tehran. Pentagon sending some 6,000 troops aboard the aircraft carrier USS George H.W. Bush. Several warships are escorting it. About 4,200 others with the Boxer Amphibious Group and its embarked Marine Corps Task Force, the 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit are also expected to arrive near the end of this month. So this infusion of firepower, quote, "appears likely to coalesce with warships already in the Middle East as a two-week ceasefire is set to expire." The troops will then join the estimated 50,000 personnel the Pentagon has said are involved in operations against Iran.
So Emily, I mean, something Crystal and I always point out, these ceasefires, there's talks, there's reports, there's all this. You got to follow the troops. You don't send two or three aircraft carriers to the Middle East, sail it around the Horn of Africa, all to come there with tens of thousands of troops that are all on their way and the 82nd Airborne is already there and you got these Marine Expeditionary Forces that are coming from Asia not to use them. At least so far in the Trump administration, every time there was thousands of troops in the Caribbean, all their talk talk about Maduro, at the end of the day, what do we do? We went and we kidnapped him. So here with Iran, it's very unlikely, usually, you know, to not have to have all these forces and not use them. You could say it is a deterrent effect, and it certainly has been in US history, but with this president, when the troops are there, he tends to use them. That's just my general analysis. I'm curious for your view.
Well, it's interesting you say that because actually just within the last 20 or so minutes, the Associated Press is out with a report. I'm reading from the, uh, yeah. So, they're saying,
>> too, please, while she's talking.
>> Yeah, we could pop that up on the screen. Um, so they're saying that in principle, there's an agreement on the table. And this is what is interesting about your point, Sager, that you're following the troops and not necessarily just the deals because Trump said on, we're going to cover this in a bit. Maria Bartiromo's show this morning. It's going to be a big two days in the Iran ceasefire negotiations. Pay attention to the next two days. So is this what his two days?
>> Was it this in principle agreement? Is that what he was telegraphing?
>> Yeah. And watch the next 48 hours and how significant actually is that?
Let's break it down. Right. So, this is an AP headline. It comes from Cairo. So, always take a look at the dateline. It says, "Mediators moved closer Wednesday to extending the ceasefire between the US and Iran and restarting negotiations to salvage the fragile truce before it expires." Senior Iranian military official threatened to halt trade in the region if the US does not lift its naval blockade. So, that's all we got. All right. Note the dateline. It's from Cairo. And nobody else is running with this.
>> Nobody else is running it.
>> It's the Egyptians who are leaking it. That's fine. Maybe it's true. But Egypt, has it really been the driving force? So, let's give again a bigger picture to the audience. It's Egypt, it's Turkey, and it's Pakistan, which are these like negotiators and/or ceasefire like, you know, they're the ones who are mediating between all three of the countries. Egypt actually has pretty good relations and has been on the phone quite a bit both the US and with Iran. Yeah. But even that, you got a mediator here saying in principle an extension. Maybe that's true. However, even if it is true, an extension of a ceasefire is not an end to hostilities. And we have all of these bigger picture things. Again, with Venezuela, we saw on and off and on and off until assets could move to the region.
>> With Gaza as well, by the way.
>> Yeah. Go into it. Go ahead.
Well, I was say, I mean, you how many times did we hear in principle? I mean, maybe not that exact phrase, but over and over again, >> Trump was saying similar to what he's doing now, stretched out over six months or so, that we have a deal, we have an agreement, or we're very close to ending the war. And so it's part of his, I mean, at least he sees it as part of his negotiation of just putting things out in public and hoping that it sticks with the American people and then hoping that it moves the deal in one direction or another. Everybody, I mean, let's remember from that New York Times story is that Trump had decided to attack Iran long before all of those negotiations had even happened in the month of February. He basically decided to attack them in early February. So, all of those Jared Kushner talks and it's all kayfabe. No,
>> it's a great point.
>> I, I mean, something tells me this time he actually does want a deal cuz he's panicking a little bit because the price of oil, the economy, but you never know. You know, he kind of seemed like he wanted a deal at that time, too. And you got all these tens of thousands of troops there. You just have to think on a long enough timeline with Israel and with Trump and the unpredictability and the lack of real good faith happening in these negotiations. And remember what I flagged for everybody yesterday, the technical experts. I talked with some few others. There was basically no real technical expert in the room in Islamabad. There was the Vice President, there was a defense attaché. The defense attaché, that's nothing. Like we need to be talking serious civilian and military nuclear scientists. Same people who tried to hash out JCPOA. On the Iranian side, remember this too. They're terrified. They can't even make a deal because they have to go back and then hand off a piece of paper to 10 different people just to get an okay from the Supreme Leader. It probably takes two or three days just to talk to him. Like Bin Laden and the Corer, remember, because they don't want him to be killed. And then from our side, JD at a minimum, we know had to phone Trump six or seven times in the middle of negotiation. So he screwed him. He had absolutely no authority to make a deal. Right. So you put all those together, the machinery of this, it can't happen in two weeks, maybe even in three weeks. In three weeks, what they will say, let's say, even if we do have some big picture thing, we've reached a memorandum of understanding, pending, working out the details.
>> Exactly.
>> Well, what is Israel's masterpiece every single time? They slither in and they're like, "Uh, well, what we'll do is, uh, this one particular red line, that's a violation." And then they try to move it and move it and they work on Trump, some bad faith stuff and then next thing you know, we're back to bombing or something bad can happen. All of this has just been, you know, proof positive of why you shouldn't conduct yourself. And also, let's put M3 up there on the screen again just to flag for everybody. Iran's top military command came out today and says it will disrupt trade flow in the Gulf, the Gulf of Oman, and the Red Sea if US naval actions targeting Iranian shipping continue. Said any such move would be viewed as a breach of the ceasefire. So there you go. I mean, as the Iranian, the Iranian navy or the Iranian naval assets, the small assets that they have for blocking the strait, so far at least according to CENTCOM, they have all turned around. Nobody knows if that's true. Remember our segment yesterday. There's a lot of contradictory evidence, but CENTCOM says the US military, we've turned all of these Iranian ships around. Let's assume it's true. Okay. So in that scenario, what it means is, let's put M1 up there on the screen, is that Iran faces a halt to oil production within weeks if the blockade succeeds. They only have 16 days of output for output for storage before they have to do the same thing the Gulf did and turn the refineries down, which should be a devastating blow to their economy. So that's a ticking clock right there in terms of where they have to go before they face basically economic annihilation. And we know from them that if they face economic annihilation, they will face and produce economic annihilation for Saudi Arabia by closing, closing the Red Sea and the Bab al-Mandeb Strait through the Houthis and their proxies. Which is why, as we reported to everybody yesterday, a US carrier has to sail not through the Red Sea as it normally would, but all the way around Africa, you know, costing hundreds of millions of dollars and delaying their arrival by, I don't even know, I think it's like two weeks of sail time. So there's a lot of dangerous stuff here on the horizon.
>> Yeah. The last thing I'll say is barring some significant concessions that would be really surprising from Iran and really sudden from Iran, it's not, we're not on the off-ramp right now. That's just not what's happening. Um, so that's he's trying to almost, I don't want to sound glib, but like project a self-fulfilling prophecy into the universe.
>> And, uh, it's kayfabe, as you said. I think that's a good way to put it.
>> Yeah. That's what Trump, Trump is trying to do. Uh, if you ever read the Steve Jobs biography, they talk a lot about the reality distortion field. And that's fine when we're talking about like a blue Mac. Okay. But that's not like a specific shade of blue. Yeah. But it was beautiful, by the way. What was the, I think it was called Bondi Blue? The Bondi Blue, uh, 1997 Mac. Gorgeous computer. All right. Thank you, Steve, uh, for forcing that. However, that's not what we're talking about here. We're not talking about a perfectly symmetrical cube computer, right, which he once insisted on. We're talking about geopolitics and, uh, geopolitics and trying to force a reality in which something in where he's already been deeply humbled and come at great cost to the US. So that's our little mini update here at the top. Anything else you want to say?
>> To be fair, he has not been deeply humbled. That would be impossible.
>> Um, well, yeah. I mean, maybe not publicly, but, uh, behind the scenes, I definitely, definitely think so.
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