00:00As you consider that conversation with the admiral, what does the president see as options we have right now, if
00:07not diplomacy?
00:08So the president does not have great options moving forward militarily, Joe.
00:13You have reports of the chairman of the Joint Staff, General Cain, being very concerned about stockpiles.
00:21Now, the president just said, I think on Air Force One, he counteracted that.
00:24He said mid-range munitions are fine. I'd like more.
00:28Or you have Admiral Cooper saying, we can go back and keep hitting these things over and over again.
00:33It's not working. We need a new strategy.
00:36The air campaign is just not going to produce those results.
00:39But the president has really bad choices.
00:41He doesn't want to do a ground campaign.
00:43He doesn't want to introduce land forces.
00:46Our munitions stocks are critical.
00:48And the diplomacy part, you're certainly hearing the president talk about talks.
00:53You're hearing the Iranians saying there are no talks.
00:56They are exchanges of messages.
00:58But I think the Iranians are going to hold out and wait for that price of energy to go up
01:03to make those options more unappealing.
01:06And then forcing the president to acquiesce to additional Iranian demands.
01:11I hate that we're in that position, but that's where it feels like we're heading.
01:14Well, is it because Iran is simply so effective at hiding its missile stockpiles, for instance, and its drones were
01:21repeatedly hitting the same targets because they're digging them out and pulling launchers back out from underground?
01:26Is that the essence of this?
01:28I think there's two parts.
01:29It's definitely the underground, and these are fast boats.
01:32These are small things.
01:33They're very hard to target.
01:35I think the other thing is the Iranians are able to reconstitute these cheaper, faster, effective drones and missiles.
01:44And this is the problem that we're facing.
01:46Our reconstitution times, particularly with our high-end munitions, they can take two to four years, five to seven years.
01:53This is why there's sort of panic in the ranks here.
01:56The air defense capabilities, the Patriot missiles, the THAAD, that long-range, it takes so long to replace them.
02:03There's now a global shortage.
02:04And that really puts to question, you know, could we protect against attack in the Pacific theater, in the European
02:10theater, now in the Middle East?
02:12So this is why this is such a bad position strategically.
02:16Enter Ukraine.
02:17I don't know what to make of this.
02:18I know that President Zelensky will be in town for Lindsey Graham's funeral tomorrow.
02:23But to learn that Ukraine fired on an Iranian commercial vessel in the Caspian Sea is quite remarkable.
02:33Iran says this killed a sailor.
02:35Iran has summoned a Ukrainian diplomat to register protest here.
02:41Did Ukraine just get involved in the war with Iran?
02:43Or where was this boat going?
02:44Well, Iran has been involved in the Ukraine war for many, many years.
02:48Supplying Russia.
02:49A hundred percent.
02:50And this is where, first of all, I think this attacked a couple of things.
02:54It continues to demonstrate Ukraine is really developing impressive military capabilities.
02:59It can reach there on its own.
03:02So huge, huge gains there.
03:04I think on the eve before President Zelensky does come to Washington, he'll meet with President Trump, attend Senator Graham's
03:12funeral.
03:13You know, President Zelensky is saying, I have some cards to play here.
03:16I can be of assistance to you.
03:19And then the third is, honestly, as what Zelensky has been saying all along, the conflict in Ukraine is the
03:26demonstration of this axis of evil, what you're talking about before we came online.
03:30You have now suggestions that North Korea is going to introduce 30,000 troops on the Russian side to fight
03:37in the war in Ukraine.
03:38This vessel allegedly was carrying components and parts to go to Russia to help Russia build additional ballistic missiles to
03:47be used in Ukraine.
03:48You have China providing intelligence components potentially to Russia.
03:54So all of these are interconnected.
03:55You cannot separate one theater out.
03:58So this was a really, I think, hit all of those themes of Ukraine's really producing some serious weaponry that
04:06we, I think, hopefully can gain access to.
04:09Mentioning that this is a part of Ukraine helping the United States out with this alignment.
04:14Yeah.
04:15Were you in the Bush administration for the axis of evil speech?
04:18I think I was in the first term.
04:19Wow.
04:20History is rhyming or something for you here.
04:23OK, this is brilliant politics on Zelensky's part, right?
04:28He can come here and say, hey, NATO's not helping you out, but I am.
04:32Does the president say thank you?
04:34Will he ask the president to say thank you?
04:36Well, yeah, fair enough.
04:37Back to that infamous Oval Office.
04:38No, I think what President Zelensky is doing, and you had, of course, this extraordinary moment over the weekend with
04:46Laura Loomer,
04:47an influencer for the Republican, she's just transformed her view on Ukraine.
04:53You have, you know, the U.S. Army co-production of Ukrainian drones, the license for the Patriot missiles,
05:01the meeting that happened at the NATO summit.
05:02You are seeing a change.
05:04We are shifting into a much more supportive role.
05:08And I think, again, President Zelensky is here to honor Senator Graham, who was a huge advocate for Ukraine,
05:14fighting Russia, the Graham-Blumenthal bill.
05:17So in some ways, it is absolutely fitting that President Zelensky honored that.
05:21But this relationship is changing, and I hope the White House really gets on the side of Ukraine to support
05:27him.
05:27Are you about to tell me the war in Ukraine is going to end before the war with Iran?
05:31No, both are going to continue to endure.
05:34They're similar because both sides are in really for survival mode.
05:41I mean, this is, we have to watch Russia's escalation.
05:45Putin, you're starting to now see that Putin is feeling the effects of both the Ukrainian strikes.
05:53If the sanction bill goes into place, it's more of a tariff bill than a sanctions bill,
05:57but that could add additional pressure.
06:01There's some movement there that I think we need to watch.
06:05And Russia and Iran are similar.
06:07They also want to press huge advantage right now and are helping each other do that.
06:13So I think, unfortunately, I think both are going to continue on for the foreseeable future.
06:17Hope not, but that's the way it feels.
06:19Pretty interesting to see the president's posts on Truth Social from over the weekend.
06:23To your point, he indicated that we were in deep talks with Iran.
06:26They've suggested otherwise.
06:29The imagery he's posting on social media would not indicate someone who's advancing to the peace table.
06:35There was one AI-generated image, one that portrayed a strike on CARG, as it said.
06:43A different image showed the president on the helm of a naval ship wearing a hat that says F-A
06:50-F-O.
06:51Another, he's on board an Iranian oil tanker with the American flag, and it says,
06:55it's our oil tanker now.
06:56Does this stuff resonate, that the bravado resonate in Tehran?
07:00No, I don't believe it does.
07:03I think they interpret this as continuing their actions or continuing to get under the president's skin.
07:09Okay, so they think they're winning when they see that.
07:11Well, I think they're going to continue to press their advantage.
07:13Look, they too, the inflation is running very high in Iran.
07:17It's not that they aren't feeling the effects of a five-month conflict,
07:21but they feel that they have the leverage.
07:23They still control the Straits of Hormuz.
07:26Now their proxy in Yemen, the Houthis, are squeezing the Red Sea.
07:30This is putting massive pressure on Saudi Arabia.
07:32Even though we've had this two-day pause, which we're thankful for that pause,
07:37you have Iranian proxies in Iraq now attacking Saudi Arabia, Jordan.
07:42And so this isn't stopping, and they're targeting energy infrastructure.
07:46So they know the pain point is the price of energy.
07:49They know the pain point.
07:51If they can hang on longer, they believe that they can get more concessions from the U.S.
07:58It's just we're not in a good strategic place, and Iran's going to continue to press advantage.
08:05So what does this new front in the Red Sea mean?
08:06You made reference here.
08:08We've got Iranian proxies bombing Saudi Arabia now.
08:12Yep.
08:14This is escalation.
08:15And if we have another choke point, where does it leave the U.S.?
08:19So this is where, really, the last five months, when the strait really closed down,
08:24you saw a diversification of trying to ship out by land, pipe it across to get to the Red Sea.
08:30Even northern pipelines up through the Mediterranean.
08:34And it has helped.
08:35But the Saudis, by diverting to the Red Sea, created another pinch point.
08:40And the conflict in Yemen for many years, and if you recall, even in the Biden administration,
08:46the Houthis were taking action in the Red Sea from 2324.
08:50Our naval, we couldn't stop them.
08:52We reached a pause.
08:54But this is now, the Saudis are getting this on both sides.
08:59And it will continue to really challenge.
09:02What I'm worried about is some of the drone attacks on some of these major refineries and points.
09:07It's product.
09:08It's diesel.
09:09It's jet fuel.
09:10That's going to really feel the pinch now.
09:12Really interesting.
09:13So this squeeze play is ratcheting up the price for the United States and our allies.
09:18Yeah.
09:19President Trump has made his way to Michigan to a GM vehicle testing facility where he's just shaken some hands
09:25and talking.
09:26But it looks like Mary Barra from at least where I'm sitting from across the room.
09:30He'll be speaking to the issue of affordability with some GM workers a little bit later on here.
09:36Indeed, spending some time with the CEO of General Motors, which had a stronger than expected beat and raise quarter
09:42last week.
09:43And the stock has been chugging higher.
09:45This attention from the president today might well help the president in his effort to convince folks that affordability is
09:53the issue on his mind.
09:55And as we consider the impact here, you know, you're talking about the pipelines, Heather Connolly, across Saudi Arabia.
10:01I think it was Javier Blas who tweeted over the weekend, they need a bypass for the bypass now.
10:05I don't know if you can pipe around now two choke points.
10:08And so as we look at $4.11, these prices could keep going higher.
10:15Absolutely.
10:15And again, China, and Javier has been doing amazing reporting, China is still pretty off the market.
10:21They have, I mean, if they begin to increase, that's really going to drive price up.
10:28I think, Joe, we also want to keep our eye on the future.
10:32As Europe, the United States drains its strategic petroleum reserves, Europe is going to be at an all-time low
10:38in their storage capacity before they enter winter.
10:42You're watching, obviously, these wildfires in Europe, drought, hydropower now is gone.
10:48I mean, this could really set up a huge challenge in the fall.
10:52Food insecurity, water insecurity, energy at lows.
10:57We just, we better buckle in.
10:58This is going to be a massive challenge.
11:00Sounds like the start of a Mad Max movie, Heather Connolly.
11:02I don't know how we're going to get out of this, but at least she's still smiling, right?
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