4/15/26: Troop Surge To Iran, Dire Economic Warnings, JD Vance Begs Voters, Italy Clashes With Israel

This is an I Heart podcast. Guaranteed human. This is Jana Kramer from Wine Down with Jana Kramer. Every Mother's Day, I tell myself I'm going to be more thoughtful than flowers because flowers are beautiful, but they don't last. In my house, everyone always ends up in the kitchen, friends, family, the kids. And I love having things around that spark conversation and feel special. That's why I love the Lenox Spice Village and your mom will too. It's a set of 24 hand painted little houses that are actually spice jars. And I swear people notice it the second they walk in. It's charming, it's nostalgic, and it somehow makes even everyday cooking feel a little more fun. And here's the best part. It actually gets used every day. Whether you're starting the full set or helping her complete one, she's loved for years. There's a whole world of spice village to explore. This Mother's Day, give her something she'll treasure long after the card is put away. Trust me, once you see it, you'll want one too. Find the full collection at Lenox.com slash spice village. Spring weekends are my favorite. The grill is fired up and we gather around the patio table. Before everyone arrives, I stopped by my local Total Wine and More to pick up a few bottles of wine with such a wide selection. It's easy to find something for everyone to enjoy. If you're not sure what to pick, their team can help you find what you love and love what you find only at Total Wine and More curbside pickup and delivery available in most areas. Visit TotalWine.com to learn more. Spirits not sold in Virginia and North Carolina. Drink responsibly. B-21. Discover a spectacular island destination with crystal blue seas, endless sunshine and the cool Bahamian breeze. Bahamar, located in Nassau, Bahamas, offers your choice of three luxury hotels. The richly refined Rosewood, the playfully hip SLS and the stylishly modern grand Hyatt with over 45 restaurants, bars and lounges. Bahamar serves up delicious dining from world-renowned chefs like Daniel Balloud and Marcus Samuelson. Nightlife venues like the new Jambotis Jazz Club and the Caribbean's most luxurious casino at Bahamar, you'll find every pleasure under the sun and one of a kind experiences for the entire family like Bahabay, our 15 acre lush tropical water park, interactive wildlife experiences, including our daily flamingo parade, world-class golf, tennis, spa and so much more. Visit Bahamar.com today and discover a vacation destination where memories are made for a lifetime. Bahamar, life spectacular. Hey guys, Sagar and Crystal here. Independent media just played a truly massive role in this election and we are so excited about what that means for the future of the show. This is the only place where you can find honest perspectives from the left and the right that simply does not exist anywhere else. So if that is something that's important to you, please go to breakingpoints.com, become a member today and you'll get access to our full shows, unedited, ad-free and all put together for you every morning in your inbox. We need your help to build the future of independent news media and we hope to see you at breakingpoints.com. Good morning everybody. Happy Wednesday. We have an amazing show for everybody today. All right, hit it up. There we go. Fascist. We almost put the arm in an interesting way. The Roman, as Elon would say. Roman salute. Here, Fascist points with Sagar and Emily. Gotta keep the arm down, right? You gotta keep the volume down, man. The volume? What? 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 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 the vice president at an event yesterday with TPUSA did not look good for him for the administration, basically a stadium, which was like, what, a quarter full? What would you say? I mean, look, bad, bad, bad look. Yeah, it was bad luck and giving some pleas to younger conservatives to not flee the movement. We'll see how it works out. Europe, this is a fascinating story. So we covered the Pope, Freikus yesterday. It turns out now. Freikus, OK. Yes, yeah, it's a good, you know, we're a peperal SAT verbiage in here. So we had the Pope Freikus yesterday, which we thought it was over. Well, no, it's not over. So the Italian 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. Shiael Ben Afrime 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, 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 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's one of those like true crime people and she really delves into the details. So it's much better than to hear from an idiot like me. And then of course, everybody's favorite, Professor Robert Pape, the escalation trap, will be joining us at 10 a.m. to break down. I think not only just these latest troops 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? Yeah. But it needs to be clean. What's your 50 million? 50 million. 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. I should do it as a Mr. Beast type character. Crystal's 2.5. I'm 2.22. We could stop right there. 2.22. Yeah, that's good. Like nice, clean. I like 2.0, but then immediately went up to 2.01. Thanks to you. I think you're the person who gave you and Ryan our baggy. And I was like, no, you got to stop. We have to stiffen 2. All right. Let's go ahead and hit it. Let's get to the mini-block. So turning now to these ground troop news. I'm going to put this up here on the screen. Washington Post, Dan Lamath 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, a 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. The 82nd Airborne is already there and you've 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, 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 to not have all these forces and not use them. You could say it is a deterrent defect and it certainly has been in U.S. 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. So they're saying that... And templates while she's talking. Yeah, we can pop that up on the screen. 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 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 day was at this in principle agreement? Is that what he was telegraphing in the watch the next 48 hours and how significant actually is that? Let's break it down. So this is an AP headline. It comes from Cairo. So always take a look at the date line. It says mediators moved closer Wednesday to extending the ceasefire between the U.S. 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 U.S. does not lift its naval blockade. So that's all we got. All right. No, the date line. 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 has pretty good relations and has been on the phone quite a bit, both the U.S. and with Iran. Yeah, but even that you've got a mediator here saying in principle and 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 just saying, 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 mean, something tells me this time he actually does want to deal because he's panicking a little bit. He seems to spoil the economy, but you never know. You know, he kind of seemed like he wanted to 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 attache defense attache. That's nothing like we need to be talking serious civilian and military nuclear scientists, the 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 it. Okay. From the supreme leader, it probably takes two or three days just to talk to him like bin Laden in the courier, 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 detail. Exactly. Well, what is Israel's masterpiece? Every single time they slither in and they're like, oh, well, what we'll do is this one particular red line, that's a violation. And then they try to move it and move in and they work on Trump, some bad faith stuff. And the 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 a flag for everybody is 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 U.S. 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, 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 Sencom, they have all turned around. Nobody knows if that's true. Remember our segment yesterday? There's a lot of contradictory evidence, but Sencom says the U.S. 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 storage before they have to do the same thing the Gulf did and turn their refineries down, which would be a devastating blow to their economy. So that's the 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 the Red Sea and the Babamandeb straight through the Houthis and their proxies, which is why, as we reported to everybody yesterday, a U.S. carrier has to sail not through the Red Sea as it normally would, but all the way around Africa costing hundreds of millions of dollars and delaying their arrival by, I don't even know, I think it's like two weeks of sale 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. It's just that's just not what's happening. 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 it's KFAB, as you said, I think that's a good way to put it. Yeah, that's what Trump Trump is trying to do. 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. OK, but that's not like a specific shade. Bring it back. Blue. Yeah, but it was beautiful by the way. Yeah. What was the I think it was called Bondi blue. The Bondi blue 1997 Mac. Gorgeous computer. All right. Thank you, Steve, for 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 wants his system on. We're talking about geopolitics and 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. Well, yeah, I mean, maybe not publicly, but behind the scenes. I definitely definitely think so. Agreed. This is Jana Kramer from Windown with Jana Kramer. Instead of giving your mom something that fades, give her something that becomes part of her home this Mother's Day. The Lenox Spice Village is a set of 24 hand painted little houses that are actually spice jars, perfect for anyone who loves to cook, entertain or enjoy the little details that make every day life special. As a mom, I love gifts that help turn ordinary moments into memories, charming, timeless and meant to be used. This is one of those pieces she'll treasure. And once you see it, you'll want it for your own home, too. Find the full collection at Lenox.com slash Spice Village. During weekends before the barbecue starts, I like to stop by my local Total Wine and More to pick up a great bourbon. Find a favorite or something new for everyone to enjoy. And knowing you're getting the lowest prices makes it easy to grab an extra bottle to share. Not sure what to pick. Their friendly guides can help. Find what you love and love what you find only at Total Wine and More. Curbside pick up and delivery available in most areas. Visit TotalWine.com to learn more. Spirits not sold in Virginia and North Carolina drink responsibly B21. Discover a spectacular island destination with crystal blue seas, endless sunshine and the cool Bahamian breeze. Bahamar, located in Nassau, Bahamas, offers your choice of three luxury hotels, the richly refined Rosewood, the playfully hip SLS and the stylishly modern Grand Hyatt. With over 45 restaurants, bars and lounges, Bahamar serves up delicious dining from world-renowned chefs like Daniel Balude and Marcus Samuelson. Nightlife venues like the new Jambotis Jazz Club and the Caribbean's most luxurious casino. At Bahamar, you'll find every pleasure under the sun and one of a kind experiences for the entire family like Baja Bay, our 15 acre rush tropical water park, interactive wildlife experiences, including our daily flamingo parade, world-class golf, tennis, spa and so much more. Visit Bahamar.com today and discover a vacation destination where memories are made for a lifetime. Bahamar, life spectacular. Alright, inflation, shall we? Inflation. We have Donald Trump. He gave an interesting interview here with Maria Bartriomo. Here he is saying that the Iran War is closer than ever. And guys, let's just run it concurrent with him talking about inflation. So let's take a listen to these two clips. I had a divert because if I didn't do that, right now you would have Iran with a nuclear weapon. And if they had a nuclear weapon, you would be calling everybody over there, sir, and you don't want to do that. Well, you keep saying was, is this war over? I think it's close to over. Yeah, I mean, I view it as very close to over. You know what? If I pulled up stakes right now, it would take them 20 years to rebuild that country. And we're not finished. We'll see what happens. I think they want to make a deal very badly. Is that going to be enough to offset the increase in gasoline prices? It will be because gasoline is coming down very soon and very big. So you think gas prices will be lower before the midterm elections? I think they'll be much lower before midterm, much lower. Yes. OK. Now you've suggested. I mean, that's one of the assumption that we stop a country that cannot have a nuclear weapon from if you give Iran a nuclear weapon, you want to see bad stock markets, you won't have a country. The world will be blown up. You can't do it. You cannot do it. So on the assumption we have that settled, hopefully long before that and maybe almost immediately could be very soon. Could be very soon on the assumption that we have it solved by them. Yeah, I don't think so. So it's what's today's date? It's April. All right. So the midterms are in six months. What we know from right now is that the amount of oil backlog and just shock generally to production is a minimum of three to four months before things can somewhat resume to normal. That's if things end today. All right. So not some like, oh, in the future and all of that. So we have 27 percent cut from OPEC. Let's put what is it? Can we just pause? Because that was happening. I went and pulled up with Donald Trump, actually told Maria Bartiromo herself two days ago on Sunday Morning Futures. She asked him the exact same question. Do you believe the price of oil and gas will be lower before the midterm elections? This was Donald Trump's answer. I hope so. I mean, I think so. It could be it could be or the same or maybe a little bit higher. But it should be around the same. I think this won't be that much longer. He's saying in two days ago, an interview with the exact same person to the exact same question, maybe actually be higher. And then two days later, he's like, no, no, no, no, it'll be much lower. It's coming down soon. Right. And let's put a what is a six on the screen just to give everybody an idea. We still remain at $4.11 a gallon here nationally. And I mean, in some ways, the national price isn't really like reflective. If we take the major population center, so let's take like what's the biggest population in the country, California, they're paying 587 a gallon. Next is what Texas, right? So they're paying 376 a gallon, Florida, 414 a gallon, New York State, 412 a gallon, Pennsylvania, 413 a gallon. I mean, if you actually look at the most populous states in the country, it's actually higher in most cases, except for Texas, where all the refineries are from what the national average is. And, you know, even the Pacific Northwest is just getting absolutely hammered. But also, you know, the entire Selicorridor from everything I'm seeing is well over $4 a gallon on top of Florida. And so, yeah, like maybe like more rural states or, you know, North Dakota or Nebraska or 360 or something. But the vast majority of people are paying well into four bucks a gallon, which is at this point, I saw a gas analyst say that they have spent tens of billions more on gas than if this war had never happened. So it's not just about the cost to the United States, which is probably what? I don't know, 50, 60 billion just in sheer hard cost from what the Iran war has cost. Think about all the money out of our pocketbooks that has just spent on gas, not to mention everything else, right? And so with inflation, it's really pernicious. Let's put A1 up here. This was from the IMF. They say that the Middle East war will slow global economic growth. The conflict will fuel another bout of inflation. War in the Middle East has upended the global economy. And they say specifically they have downgraded all growth force class globally, exposing the economic fallout. Quote, the global outlook is abruptly darkened following the outbreak of war in the Middle East. The war interrupted what had been a steady growth trajectory. Here's the kill shot. In the best case scenario, the fund expects global growth to fall to 3.1 percent this year from 3.4. That is down from the 3.3 that the fund projected in January. And it is also lower than 3.4 growth that it was prepared to project before the war broke out and oil shipments across the Middle East happened. Now, of course, GDP growth and all of that is not everything as we've covered ad nauseam here on the show. But I think in this case, what we do know is that it's going to hit specifically the consumer sector, which is the lifeblood of the US economy. We'll see what happens with the Fed too. Right. Big, unopened question. How are you going to affect rates? They're almost certainly not going to cut rates. What's the mortgage rate at today? Like 7 percent? It's up there. It's an unanswered question for Trump when he, yeah, that's. Disaster, right? And then his own guy, what is it? Kevin Warsh, I think is before the US Senate. Sometimes soon his vote is supposed to happen. He's going to face significant questions over. He may not even get confirmed, as I understand it, because he has problems with what's his name, Tom Tillis. Is that right over at North Carolina? So there's that. There's also, we had to comment on this. We talked yesterday about the Doordash grandma Grimm sentence here in the US. She was brought to the Oval Office to talk about how she greatly she has benefited from no tax on tips. You ask me, you hear a story like hers, that story shouldn't be their period and definitely shouldn't be helped by no tax on tips. Let's take a listen to her. My tips were over half of my income from last year. So that's a life changer. Yes, it is. It is. And when, you know, like I said, when you're dealing with someone that has gone through cancer and, you know, you love them, you don't want to lose them. So you do everything that you can. And, you know, you go through your life savings, but this no tax on tips. And the help from Doordash is life changing. I mean, God bless this lady. But, you know, for me, it's like, what kind of society we live in here? Ladies delivered Doordash grandma, who was talking about her husband's cancer treatment blowing out her life. So this is, this is sick. Right. Well, and Trump was just positively gleeful about the entire thing. And this is, I mean, he's, he's supposed to be a shock to the system. That's how he pitched himself to the American people. And here he's doing essentially a Doordash commercial because, you know, she's emblazoned with the Doordash logo and God bless her. She is amazing. I love her. Yeah, she's not complaining. I know, exactly. So she was a good sport, but bigger picture. You're like, come on, man, like we shouldn't even Doordash grandma should not be a sentence I'm ever uttering. Right. And like some of the Trump people were, he, he tipped her 100 bucks. Like, oh, that's so disgusting. Scrim. Yeah. It's so disgusting. The sit. But this is the point that you're making is that it's a symbol of a really broken system and to see him just gleefully enjoying that symbol of a broken system was, it was pretty gross. I, yeah. I mean, look, you could choose just to be a couple of different ways. I think, you know, we were talking about earlier and I was like, you know, my heart breaks every time you see an older person just delivering a Doordash, just cause you're like, man, like, look, I don't want to be very clear. Like, I'm not saying there's no dignity or anything in that, right? Like if you need money and you're working, like I got all the respect in the world, but I'm saying what kind of a system is it where people who are of retiring age have to do it to pay for their husband's health care, right? For cancer treatment. That's where I have a real problem. And yeah, with Trump, I mean, they're talking about no tax on tips. OK, I mean, look, I'm not going to begrudge anybody for saving $11,000 on their tips, you know, and which I believe is the maximum amount that a lot of these workers get. I think that's great. However, what do we also know is that, yeah, health care premiums, which in a 24, 25 percent, I think on Obamacare and even generally for most people, especially if you're not W2 and you're 1099 and you have to have some semblance of health care outside the system and you have a higher deductible. I mean, I remember, what was it like? They were talking about $5,000 baby checks. Do you remember this discourse? They were like, we're going to give $5,000 to everybody. I'm like, yeah, that wouldn't even cover my hospital deductible. You know, like literally would not even cover the deductible that was hit whenever I had a child for a deductible. You know, for I'm not saying you wouldn't take it. I think everybody would take it. But let's be honest here about what the overall effect is. So, well, yeah, this is a sick to me. Again, sick system, DoorDash Grandma shouldn't exist. Like there shouldn't be a DoorDash Grandma. You know, DoorDash Grandma should just have like the ability. I mean, we know this from I know a lot of people. I talk a lot of trash on boomers and on property tax, etc. But, you know, I think I'm I think everybody knows I'm definitely not talking about these people and the vast majority of people. What is it? 50 something percent of elderly US citizens rely almost entirely on social security. Like that's really grim, right? I mean, something has gone very, very wrong if you don't have a dollar to your name, except the Social Security check, which is coming your way every month. Well, it may not ever come the way of people are age who are paying into the system. So, yeah, and we're wildly I mean, like we're wildly overtaxed. So I think that I'm talking as a country, not certain people who are wildly undertaxed. But this is to the point about how bleak it is. This woman is now in a position to just as she said, she wants her husband to live. Like that was when she said that she was like, you care about them and you love them and you want them to live. And Donald Trump has this tweak to the system. I like no tax on tips when you have a divided Congress. You have a really hard time doing anything but tweaks. So I think that's great. Republicans have zero, zero, zero, zero interest in fixing the health care system. So that's to me is just an actual layer of grossness that you're kind of celebrating what is good, but is ultimately a tweak without having any interest in fixing the system. And these gig economy companies are to the extent they are actually profitable. Not all of them are. They are just propped up by cash infusions that may not be sustainable. And you have millennials getting used to having 60 something year old boomers trying to pay for cancer treatment, delivering them McDonald's like she gave to Trump for $30 for a couple of burgers. It's not a sustainable system. It's not a good system, but it's not a sustainable system either. I agree. Let's put A3 on the screen just to show you some of the more vulnerable Americans, what they're getting hit with right now. This is from the Farm Bureau. They just released this yesterday. Quote, most farmers cannot afford fertilizer. An overwhelming majority of America's farmers who responded to a nationwide survey say they cannot afford to purchase enough fertilizer to get them through the year. Percentage who purchase fertilizer very significantly by region. They say that 70% of respondents say that fertilizer is now so expensive they may not be able to buy all the fertilizer that they need. More than 5,700 farmers, both Farm Bureau members and nonmembers from every state took the survey. Eight in 10 in the southern USA, they can't afford all the supplies followed by Northeast and West at 69 and 66, respectively, compared to some 48 of the farmers in the Midwest. So obviously this will have huge impact. But what they say specifically here is that all of this traces back to the Iran war. Spring planting decisions depend heavily on access to fertilizer and diesel fuel. Both of which have been impacted by geopolitical risks since the escalation of tensions in the Middle East. Nitrogen fertilizer prices have risen more than 30% while combined fuel and fertilizer costs have increased 20 to 40. Urea prices have increased by 47% since the end of February, marking the largest month to month percent increase in the price of urea in history. These increases are occurring when producers were already facing tight margins for many consecutive years. So remember, food inflation was already one of the worst things that was hitting the US. And then you have this fertilizer problem, which will directly show up in the price of food, I don't know, what, six months, probably? And even some of the spot prices for things in that you will see in the grocery store are already increasing dramatically. A5, please, can we put it up there on the screen? This is about the price of beef. So the live cattle wholesale price in Chicago. I feel like I'm 1800s. While everyone is rightfully focused on gasoline and oil, this is Javier Blas writing, the meat market is not giving a respite. Live cattle wholesale price in Chicago have now reached an all time high surpassing last October's peak. So you could see that pretty high peak that happened in October of 2025. That's when the Trump administration was kind of throwing a lot at the cattle problem, but you could see they only got a marginal decrease. In the overall price far higher than where things were back in 2020. And then just take a look there at where things are right now. So I mean, this means good for the big guys. Yeah, exactly. It's great for the big meat packing households and for everybody else. But I mean, if you just take a look at this, like the vast majority of food at home inflation is apparently now running some 3% year over year wages are at 2.4. So there you go. What food is wiping that out? I saw another chart yesterday. I don't think we have it. Which was just about Kimlin of inflation from January of 2021. It's 21%. I mean, that is a one fifth overall increase in a five year period. That's why I mean, people talk about sticker shock. And the thing is, I've always felt this about sticker shock. You don't absorb sticker shock month to month. Like I told that story about McDonald's about going to McDonald's and, you know, getting a medium fry or something. And it was 459. And I'm like, I'm like, wait, what? Like, yeah, you know, this because this is not, you know, I don't do this. Probably the first medium fry I've bought in like years. And I was like, whoa, man, like in my head, that's 99 cents. Like I'm like, what the hell is going on? We print 450. Not. But yes, I did use the app for all the trolls that are in. You get trolled about not using the app. Yeah. Well, because one time I paid like $20 and then all these people were furious. They're like, I have to use the app. I'm like, okay, I'll use the app. You gave them all my data. You know, now I get 90 notifications a day about free breakfast. And also fine, you know, I did it all apparently still to pay for 59 for me. Right. I'm like, what the hell is going on here? But I feel like that's what most people just remember. You know, those viral images every day of like old Chipotle prices from in UNI or in college, right? They're paying like $8 and now you go and they're like, oh, we have a new sauce. And it's two. You're like, whoa, like, you know, the bowl is like 14 bucks. And you're like 16, 17, $18 with tax. It's madness. Yeah. No, I went to Chick-fil-A the other day and I couldn't believe the bill for like two basic. Yeah, it was shocking. Yeah. I same thing. I don't get. So what's the price now? What's what's like a spicy chicken sandwich go for these days? You think I have this on top of my head? I'm just thinking. I'm just thinking. So in my, I'll tell you what I think it should cost. Four bucks. I think it should cost four bucks for the meal or for just the sandwich sandwich. Oh, interesting. I'll tell you again, this is what I would remember. Maybe I'm maybe again, maybe I'm being delusional. Let's see what it's running for right now. It's all right. It's between five thirty nine and six ninety nine. This is according to Gemini. There you go. All right. Six ninety nine. All right. Oh, it sucks out here. Last thing message from Senator Roger Marshall, GOP senator. Here's what he says about gas prices. Let's take a listen. Good news is we're the leading producer of oil in the world. We're we're exporting more than we're importing. We're not standing in lines that overall wages have been going faster than inflation under this president. Here it is. It's going to be tax day very soon. And then bad Americans are going to get an extra thousand or fifteen hundred dollars rebate as well. So I'm sorry. The gas prices are going up. But help is on his way. And your national security, yes, is even more important than your pocket book. So actually the AP did an analysis of this, interestingly enough, showing that with gas prices, where they are right now, if it holds steady through the rest of the year, the average tax refund is going to be or they actually the average tax savings be totally erased by the increase in gas prices. Yeah. So to Roger Marshall's point, that doesn't even check out. I can't the sentence that came out of his mouth. I'm sorry that gas prices are high. Yeah. Good luck with that. Good luck with that, dude. The midterms. Yeah. I mean, look, this is like the most ridiculous and it's so crazy to me how not can you name a single Republican off the top of your head, not name Thomas Massie, who has said anything even remotely interesting about this war and about the overall effect. Anything that hasn't reiterated this. I mean, you know, I saw something today. Tim Shee, who's the Montana, the guy who shot himself, right? And allegedly forgot about that. He claimed what did he say that it was about whatever. Megan Kelly basically nailed him dead to rights on that one. But he came out to me about the blockade of the blockade and he's like, what a judo incredible move. And you're like, dude, like, is this really, is this really, you know, like, I don't think he's a stupid person. I really don't think he's a see. Yeah, I use like a former naval. I think he's a former operator of some special forces or something. I don't think he's dumb, right? And it's like, they really default to the lowest IQ level of defense and everyone's like, just sitting there eating this slop soup as if it's, you know, a reasonable political thing to say. You would you genuinely would think that people interested in their political future could come up with something better than this nonsense. But apparently that's how indefensible the entire thing is. He is so crazy. So he is a seal. And also I found this AP trajectory. They say, according to the SSA press, quote, the average household would pay seven hundred and forty dollars more in gas this year, nearly equal to the seven hundred and forty eight increase in refunds that the tax foundation, which is conservative, roughly, has estimated the average household will receive. Boom, gone. Sorry, Roger. Yeah, literally dead. Right. Exactly. And that's just now. And that's also just gas. That doesn't even actually account for how the gas prices are trickling into everything else that you're paying for. Yeah, I mean, you know how everybody always does like the Thanksgiving dinner inflation index. So what you do, I mean, honestly, with the beef thing, let's think about it. It's all summer. So it's barbecue season. It's like how much more cumulatively, if you want to do burgers or something like that, are you going to pay? Because it's not just a one time dinner event. It's an entire season of where this is a significant increase in uptake. I'm going to guess probably at least a few hundred bucks, I think, per household compared to normal. So yeah, there you go. And what is on top of gas? Just last thought, what does this do for Trump's tariffs? What is he? How does he deal with tariffs if he has price increases like this steadily going into them in terms of does it crush his tariff agenda? Yeah. Wow. More uncertainty from that. There you go. All right, let's get to polling. This is Jana Kramer from Wine Down with Jana Kramer. Every Mother's Day, I tell myself I'm going to be more thoughtful than flowers because flowers are beautiful, but they don't last. In my house, everyone always ends up in the kitchen, friends, family, the kids. And I love having things around that spark conversation and feel special. That's why I love the Lenox spice village and your mom will too. It's a set of 24 hand painted little houses that are actually spice jars. And I swear people notice it the second they walk in. 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OK, I understand that. I also know that we've secured the border. We've lowered housing prices now for eight months in a row and there's going to be more to come beyond that. We've made America energy dominant, which is lowered electricity costs and things like that. We've made it so that we have the lowest murder rate in 127 years. I'm not saying you have to agree with me on every issue. I'm not saying you have to agree with me on every issue. What I'm saying is don't get disengaged because you disagree with the administration on one topic. Get more involved. Make your voice heard even more. That's how we ultimately take the country back. It's not by you. You know, if you get five things you want and one thing you don't want, I see way too many people, especially in sort of the online conservative, you know, Twitter sphere who say, ah, you know, there's no point. No, no, no, no. I wonder if he's actually working out some of his own personal feelings and that answers. He's like, I see way too many people thinking if you get everything you want, but one thing is bad. You know, they just check out. This is basically what is this vote red? No matter what's the moniker for Republicans vote red. Vote red. I'm not clever enough to come up that on my own. But yeah, I mean, this is a version of what I have heard my entire adult life is, yeah, you voted for X, Y and Z. You got D. You should be grateful for D. Yes. Uh, and we will continue to fight for X, Y and Z. And that's why you have to come out and vote in the midterms. And look, I mean, if you were a died in the wool Republican, he's not wrong, but most people are not like that. And that is the problem that these politicians. Well, the coalitions you need to win elections. Yes, exactly. The coalitions who need to win elections, by and large, you tell me if I'm wrong, are mostly single issue. Most people are not like, they have not sat around a long time. You have like kind of a vision of like how you want society and everything kind of stems from that. There are when people go to the ballot box, like I'm pissed off about gas prices, what inflation, what we just talked about. He said he was going to lower gas prices. Boom. Cool. Easy to go. AOC Trump voters, who we interviewed after the election and the Zoran Mamdani Trump voter, who are those types of people pissed off about intervention in the Middle East, pissed off about inflation, decide to vote Trump. How to period. There's really not much else to the entire story. Yeah. Right. Or we, I think we did a segment here, man, long ago about IVF. And there were, I would say several thousand, tens of thousands of Americans who voted purely because Trump said, I'm going to make IVF free. Yeah. That was it. Like they genuinely, a lot of people actually are single issue. So when he says stuff like, I know a lot of people are upset about our, you know, our inner policy in the Middle East, however, you can't ignore all of these other things. I don't think he gets that a lot of people don't care about any of that. Like anti-war, I'll tell you for me, I would say probably say my number one position, not, and when we say anti-war, obviously that's complicated. But I would say anti-regime change war in the Middle East. Can we narrowly define it to that category and or ending the war? So you support this war because it did not change the regime. Good point, even though that was the intention from the very beginning, open ended conflicts here in the Middle East. That I would say I was probably going to say my number one priority, number one, whenever the election came around. And I don't think I'm alone in that I'm hyper realistic and cynical. I understand how political coalitions and all of that work. But for me, and I do think also for a lot of other people, when you were to combine that with multiple other betrayals and or lack of promises with the general knowledge of the country going down the pipe, you can't help but say, yeah, no, man, that's not happening right now. Right. Yeah. And we have some information here from Harry Anton to get to on how people are actually reacting, because to your point, Trump campaigned as the man who would not be George W. Bush saying we aren't the world's policeman and then very much becoming the world's policeman. Barack Obama campaigning on hope and change and then continuing a lot of neoconservative policies just with different framing. Trump said we're not going to do that. I'm not going to be like that person. I'm not going to. We're just not doing it. And so to see him doing it, I think, is going to have an added effect or an added and it will fuel the dislike or the lack of favorability that the public has with Trump. So let's turn it over here to Harry Anton, who's looking at an average of CBS, CNN and Fox News polls on Trump's numbers here. It's the group that helped put him in the White House in 2016. And then again, in 2024, the group that shifted tremendously from 2012 to 2016 and put him in the White House. We are talking about non-college white voters and he is sliding right into the water. This is a rut row moment to quote the great Scooby Doo. Trump's net approver rating with non-college whites. Look at this. In February of 2025, it was plus 32 points. Down it goes. Look at Johnny. Johnny is just shocked by this number. And now it is minus two points. That is a 34 point shift. And I will note this is an average of polls. This is not just one poll. I've averaged three different polls here, three big pollsters. And what we see is Donald Trump actually underwater with non-college whites. Of course, put him in the White House. Really moment? Yes. Really, John, let's talk about the economy. It's the economy is smarty when I'm talking with Mr. Berman, just take a look here. I mean, again, look at this on the economy is net approver rating non-college. You go back to February, 2025, he was 26 points above water. Look at this shift minus 15 points, 15 points underwater with non-college whites. When it comes to Donald Trump's net approval rating on the economy, that is an over 40 point shift away from the president with a key core group of his. What about the war? What about the war? Well, the war ain't helping him because just take a look here. Non-college whites net approval rating of US military action against Iran minus five points. You think that's low? Come over to this side of the screen. How about Trump on Iran minus 13 points? A very unlucky 13 indeed for the president of the United States with a key core group of his, it turns out he's alien in a lot of folks with this war, not just the polls. Let's talk about a state that Barack Obama won in 2012 and Donald Trump has won easily in 2016, 2020 and 2024. How about the great Buckeye state? The state of Ohio, where of course, Sherrod Brown is the likely Democratic nominee. Take a look here. Chance that the Dems win the Ohio Senate race according to the cash prediction market. On John one, it was a 37 percent chance. Not too bad. You come over to this side of the screen, up like a rocket, up to 60 percent chance that in fact the Democrats win the Ohio Senate race, which of course was the state that Donald Trump won by double digits under two years ago. Donald Trump's chances are sliding. Wow. Those numbers are unbelievable. I just about I disavow his inclusion of calcium there, though. Yes, of course. Shame on you for doing so. But thank you for saying that. Yes. But non college whites, when Trump put up that famous graphic, they're not coming after me, they're coming after you and I'm just in the way. That's really who he was talking about in his base, people who feel disempowered. And I think that's why as we were just talking about this is going to plunge. It's not just pure disagreement. It's also what feels to people like a total visceral breach of trust. It's like a breach of contract situation where he told them X, Y and Z. Those in Andrew Schultz and Rogan, he said to their faces, no new wars. And they picked up on that. Yes, of course, going back 30 years, he's been hawkish on Iran. But when you combine those two things to the average American, they thought he was just going to be so hawkish, peace through strength. We didn't get into a war with Iran. There's a difference between being hawkish and preemptively bombing. A hundred percent of diplomacy. There's actually a massive difference also, also without the approval of Congress. And look, politics is ultimately a game of it's a zero sum game, and especially the public's attention, and that's why the economy piece here, we just did a whole thing on inflation. We haven't had the time to cover it as much in detail as we would want to. Why? Because there's a damn war going on. Right. So what does it look? That's literally life or death that affect everything. So I don't even begrudge us for not covering it. But that's how the political attention works, too. So you wanted all of this no tax on trips tips news cycle that came out from yesterday. What did you get? The only clips that came out of that press conference were on the war. Same with Maria Bartiromo. It's all on the war. If you turn on the news, if you are, you know, even remotely engaged, all you see is war, war, war, war, war. And every day that the war is going on and the attention of the policymakers on the war, it's not on you and it's definitely not on the issues. And if it is on the issues you care about, it's actively making it worse for where things are today. So that's why it is a totality of a total disaster. Yeah, I mean, again, I forget who pointed this out, but it's so obvious. Joe Biden and Kamala Harris basically lost that election over immigration and inflation. So the Trump administration is very confident about having closed the border. But if inflation then goes up and you were the anti inflation guy, also the anti war guy, arguably, boy, you are in an especially tough position. And they'd already lost the country on immigration long before this entire war even happened. Great point. And yeah, look, I mean, their belligerence and confidence and destroyed the project. I don't know if you've been watching. Have you seen Tom Steyer and his new platform? Yes. Yeah, I mean, that's the reality. That's that's the future now. OK, that is the future they create now. Will we eventually swing back? Yeah, I hope so after I read some stuff like that. But you know, I read that conservatives are outraged. I'm like, you guys created this like in the same way that you know, how liberals are like pearl clutching over mass deportation. I'm like, yo, that's on you. OK, you guys let the border open. You created a situation where a candidate could stand in front of that sign and then win the popular vote in the next election. It works both ways whenever it comes to the pendulum. All right, so don't be complaining. Whenever you see Tom Steyer, what he says, like taxpayer funded, basically legalizing every illegal in all the state of California. I'm like, yeah, you know, I knew this was going to happen. And that's that's on you at the end of the day. That's so true. Let's put the next one up here. Israel is such a big, big part of this. Here is Harry Antin breaking it down. The under 50 men and their support for Israel. Let's take a listen. They have very much shifted away from Israel. Look at this net favorability of Israel among men under the age of 50. In 2022, not too bad, but not too hot to try it either at minus three points. By 2025, again, down we go minus 22 points. That is just that is a 19 point shift in just three years time. But it gets even worse. Look at this for Israel minus 47 points. That's a 44 point shift away from Israel on the net favorability amongst young men who, of course, shifted massively into the Republican column back in 2024, and they have been shifting away from Israel over the last four years. So what do you what do you take away from that about? You know, it's like, I don't know, it's like the White House. And this is where JD is a little bit too self aware. He has to hug the president, but he can, you know, he can read whenever it comes to this Israeli favorability. He's in the zeitgeist actually. It's he's too you know, he's online enough to see like this is a real problem. And you can all see like this. And again, for all the talk, what do we hear from the Neocon pro-Israel podcasters podcast? That's not representative. Every one is that representative? OK, what does that tell you in terms of so? Yeah, they may not be self identified Republicans anymore. They were at some point or they cast their vote for Donald Trump. By the way, when they talk about that, they're just talking about podcasts they don't like. Right. Right. They're not talking about Dan Bongino. Right. So they use podcasts as a slur for Dave, but they don't use it for Dave Smith, but not for Dan Bongino. Yeah. And also, what is Bongino's? Look, you know, not to get into a ratings pissing contest, but like, let's be honest here, all right, in terms of the national average. Yeah, like, yeah, I'm just look, I don't usually do that, but like, let's take a look at the charts, brother. I'm we're not number one, but we're definitely not number 90 or something like that. Well, I just want to say, Ezra Klein had this very controversial column last week about Hassan Piker. But no, you're dragging me in. No, no, no, I'm not. I'm actually not. This is I promise. Yeah, yeah. There was a paragraph in it that I thought made a point very well that gets to this polling, right? So there's panic about this polling because it seems like every week we're getting polls just like that. And people who are upset that Israel is losing support in the United States blame Hassan Piker. They blame the quote, podcasters. They blame anti-Semitism and bigotry. And that's what they point to. Ezra Klein wrote, quote, this is not the result of an international PSY op or a profusion of memes. The Israel that young people know is not the Israel that older people remember. It responded to the savagery of October 7th by flattening Gaza in a brutal campaign that killed at least 70,000 Gazans, taking control of more than half of the territory and hurting Gazans, more than two million people into the remainder goes on and on. The Knesset just voted to legalize hanging as a punishment for Palestinians who are convicted of killing Israelis and terrorist attacks, settler violence, etc. That's the point for this is the substance, right? If you want to actually explain why the polls are moving, media has been democratized and Israel is. We just went through this brutal, several year long post October 7th war that people saw in this democratized media. So you cannot continue to just blame your this will. We will be sitting here a year from now looking at numbers that are even worse if people don't reckon with Ezra out there. Yeah, and I think there's several ways to disapproval of Israel. So like for the left, a lot of it is just like purely on moral grounds, which is fine. Yeah. But you would for me, you know, I went to Israel. I was like, oh, it's nice. You know, I liked it. A few things made me uncomfortable. I was like, yeah, it's a little weird. Are you getting rosually profiled? You're like, OK, but it's our own society. So be it. You know, you do what you want to do. You come back over here. You don't really think about it. There was no real reason. I wouldn't say question it. I was like, you know, I never all this stuff about like worshiping Israel always made me super uncomfortable. But I didn't have any connection to it. And then you would say like one thing I remember the first time it ever happened to me was we I think we did a segment here. It was like back in twenty twenty one Israel, like flatten some apartment building in Gaza. And I was like, hey, you know, that doesn't seem cool because we're giving weapons. And also just so everybody knows, the George W. Bush administration used to criticize Israel for flattening buildings. So that's fine. You know, I was like, this seems totally acceptable. Oh, my God. That was the first time I was like, oh, boy. And I said, did you just listen to what I said? I said the George W. Bush administration. But that was you know, that's that's when I first encountered this brigade. And I was like, wow, these are some of the nastiest people on the planet. I no longer care at all. And, you know, there's an entire army is twenty twenty one years ago. And I'm sure you found this as well. Like at a certain point, you just have to stop caring because there's an entire army of people who are like dedicated to taking down your and my character like on a daily basis. And you're like, wow, you know, first of all, you're obviously you know, somebody's paying you for something. And I don't even think we're all that relevant in terms of. You don't even need to get the money. Right. Or they're just so delusional. But but but what they don't realize is that like, you know, for people like us who are financially outside of the system, I'm like, look, I'm just going to keep going. You know, at this point, now I'm in. You've tried to destroy all of my relationships. And I think that is how it has worked for a significant number. And we've seen it with Megan, we've seen it with Tucker. We're just talking about the right on the left. The same cleavage has happened. We actually have this. This is fascinating from before. To be fair, this is from J Street. J Street. How would you describe J Street? Like a liberal, quasi Zionist. It's very hard. That's a progressive alternative to APEC. Right. Mac, you can chime in here. Give us a lefty perspective. APEC. APEC. Why? Right. Because they describe themselves as like a pro-Israel, pro-peace democracy. But it has long held like a very weird position of like liberal Zionism on college campuses, like as a counter to APEC. And it seems I don't really know what to make of them. But regardless, here's what they say. 40 percent of American Jewish voters say that they are less likely to support a Democratic primary candidate if they've been endorsed by APEC. Two thirds, thirds oppose APEC spending money raised by Republican donors and Democratic primaries, according to this new polling released by J Street. Keep that in mind, of course, that it's coming from this group, as I understand it is really trying to navigate these difficult waters of like maintaining Israel's quote right to exist, which is a ridiculous term, but also trying to navigate like Democratic politics. Nonetheless, when you say 40 percent of Jewish voters say that they're less likely to support a primary candidate endorsed by APEC. Who's APEC really working for? All right, because they try to conflate all Israeli criticism with Jews. And then if you criticize APEC, they say that's anti-Semitic. Well, by that definition, a bunch of American Jews are anti-Semitic, but you're not supposed to actually dig too deep into any of it. Well, no, but they would say yes. Oh, yeah, right. Is that they are anti-Semitic? Yes. OK. All right. Makes a lot of sense. Yeah. Yeah, I don't know. The entire thing just seems just seems like preposterous and obviously falling apart like on its own logic. But that maybe is the point of this entire thing. So take it for what you will. The vice presidents, please and warning to young voters to not leave something that's just I, you know, I'm only 33. I'm going to turn 34 next week. I have literally heard that from a politician every, you know, every single election cycle. It's like, yeah, but you just got to vote a little bit more. Yes. A little bit harder to get you. And there's some truth to it, like at a bigger level. But, you know, I just feel like people are sick of it. Like when you have so many years of people not delivering on major, like big flagship promises, you're just like, I don't care anymore. You know, at the end of the day, Trump was shocked to the system. You didn't shock it. You made it stronger than ever. I'm like, no, I'm out. Yeah. If people think Trump is bad, it's going to get worse because it should like Trump should have been a message because people voted for him to do something different. He's continuing to do the same thing. What's going to come after Trump will be worse if you don't address the underlying concerns of the populists who put him into office, freaking health care. Like do something, do something. It's crazy. Inflation actually getting worse. I mean, over and over again, just a disaster. We could put this last element up on the screen from the Associated Press. Trump promised tax relief, but polling shows most Americans still think they're overpaying. Yes, absolutely. Yeah, you said that. And it's very important because when people say here, you say we're overtaxed. You're saying that the system overall is overtaxed, but that a select group are dramatically undertaxed. And that's why the rest of us are all overtaxed. That's the stuff that drives me insane. Like we're a small business here. We spend inordinates amount of money on tax compliance and all this other bullshit, frankly, like if you think you're just prepping the show is easy, like I would take this any day compared to all of the nonsense that we have to deal with behind the scenes. But I know for a fact, based on all of this compliance, that there are ultra wealthy hedge funds and venture capitalists out there who do the same thing, but use it to save crazy amounts of money on the carried interest loophole and all of this other like crazy tax manipulation. Peer toil with the IRA. No, yeah, the Roth IRA, like buying stock stuff where it's frankly is legendary for retirement. It is. It is. But yeah, it should obviously be a lease. It's preposterous. It's preposterous. Somebody could have five billion dollars, no tax or the amount of loopholes that exist at the point one percent or point two percent tax bracket. While what is it? You know, the average person is just throwing money away in these in these FICA taxes, praying that one day they're going to get their social security. And then they get audited and they have to spend and then they get audited. And then it's three thousand dollars fighting an audit. We could go on forever, like in terms of the tax system. So like, yeah, while I do, I think it's good, you know, no tax on tips and all this stuff, it scratches the surface for where things are. Even in FICA caps, you know, you ever look at that and you think of and, you know, I get it. It's annoying and people get upset about it. But when we talk about social, nobody's ever like, hey, should we raise the cap on FICA? You know, I mean, the cap's been there for years, right? Like what? What is it? One sixty eight, something like that. Two fifty. Making plenty of money at two fifty. Yeah. Most people are. What percent of Americans are even making that? Nobody even thinks about that. And of course, those people would riot because they feel poor because that's how bad the economy is right now. So I get it from their perspective. But yeah, we've just got to figure out a way. You know, these people were rolling around other ten, fifteen million dollars a year who have done everything to rewrite the tax code. Like they pay nothing in comparison to the average, you know, actual wage earner. The WT earner at this point is the most screwed person on the planet. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Like literally, because if you're if you are a waiter, then you get no tax on tips. And if you are a business owner, you have some things that you can work through. But if you're just some W2 guy out there, you got nothing. You're doing everything right and you're getting screwed left and right. Yeah. Yeah. And you then wait, wait until those people don't get their social security. I mean, seriously, I always say the enduring image of second Trump term and maybe Trump's entire political career is his second inauguration, where he has all of these like billionaires behind him. And at the time, the image he's trying to project is I have conquered you. You hated me. I have conquered you. You are now my minion. But I think to a lot of voters that image illustrates the opposite, that he was conquered by them. So that's a huge problem for him going forward. If people keep feeling this inflation going up war, I mean, good luck. This is Jana Kramer from Windown with Jana Kramer. 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Like our 15-acre tropical water park, wildlife sanctuary, world-class golf course and so much more. Visit Bahamar.com today. Let's get to Europe before we hit all of the guests that we have lined up for everybody. So let's start here with Italy. Let's put this up here on the screen. Donald Trump says that Georgia Maloney lacks courage. Now what in God's name could this man be talking about? They say, Donald Trump has slammed his erstwhile ally, Georgia Maloney, over her support for Pope Leo and Rome's refusal to allow US war planes involved in the attack on Iran. However, in a new interview, telephone interview with the Italian newspaper, the president accused the Italian Premier of cowardice because of her comments whenever it came to his beef with the Pope. He says, your prime minister is doing nothing to get oil. I'm shocked by her. I thought she had courage, but I was wrong. Spokesperson from Maloney's office declined comment. Trump's attack comes less than 24 hours after Maloney said the president's attack on Pope Leo was, quote, unacceptable and he lashed out at the pontiff on Sunday night saying he was weak and terrible. He, others are saying that when asked about Maloney's comment, Trump told the Italian paper, it is her who is unacceptable. Now, why is Trump having such beef with the Italian Prime Minister? It's not just over all of this with the Pope. There's a lot of underlying tension over Iran and Israel. So let's put C2 up there on the screen because this came on the very same day. Italy has suspended defense packs with Israel, further straining ties. The move by Italy once considered a, quote, strong ally of Israel, reflected growing anger over Israeli aggression in the Middle East. And Trump openly criticized Italy's stance on the war. There is a 2005 defense accord that was ratified between the Italians and between the Israelis, quote, cooperation between the two countries in the area of defense industry procurement policy, importing, exporting military equipment, exchanging technical data and other forms of military collaboration. It has been renewed every five years and was set for another renewal as of this month. However, opposition parties have put pressure on the government for over a year to suspend the renewal. And Marco Grimaldi, the opposition lawmaker, said the decision was a victory for those who had protested Israel's military offensive in Gaza over the last three years. So this is a real break, not only for the Italians with Israel, but with the United States. And huge. Never thought I'd be sitting here white knighting for Italy, all right? And Europe, as people know, my feelings on the continent and of the many American tourists who choose to go there over literally anywhere else. But it is what it is. Oh, this is your worst take. What? Well, my worst take is that people should really go anywhere else. Go to Italy. Yeah, go to Italy so that you can hang out with other people from like San Francisco. Or Philadelphia. Yeah, that's smart. Let's go sit in a cafe and order spaghetti. All right? Yeah, phenomenal. Anyway. I made that my ringtone. Yeah, yeah. Spaghetti. OK, so coming back, what we do know at the very least is that Europe and a lot of these nationalist leaders. So we've seen the AFD in Germany. We've seen now Maloney. We have seen Hungary and even this new leader in Hungary, Magyar. All of them are charting their own course, right? And I think what people misunderstand about national, particularly Trump, is when Trump says we have a nationalist alliance, I don't think you understand what the word nationalist means. Nationalist means putting your own country's interests first. And so these are actually the exact type of leaders who are like, hey, man, you're creating a problem for me. And so if you create a problem for me, I'm just not going to join you in continuing that I have to look out for my own nation's politics. And remember with Italy, you have huge US bases there. A lot of Afri-Com assets I know that are used from Italian American bases in Italy. You also, of course, Italy, pretty vital, I would say, member of NATO, not from a defense perspective, but geographically in terms of where they are in the alliance. Of course, they have massive economic and defense problems. So I'll put that to the side. But the point remains that generally, if you were to ask yourself, who's more important? Again, this is coming from the guy who doesn't even like Europe. If you were to ask me, who's important, more important, Italy or Israel? Who am I picking? OK, whenever it comes to that one. And again, that's coming from me. So you can see how this break and this total alliance with Israel has now fractured critical alliances with Korea, with Japan, with the UK, with Australia, with it. Like, why would we do this? And, you know, I am an advocate of more relations and better alliances with Asia, much more so over Europe. But even here, just to look very rationally, why would you choose the interests of this small country which keeps dragging us into all of these conflicts? And is fracturing our alliances and is destroying our honor and our moral character over all of these other countries? Which we have longstanding and good relationships with at times overbalanced, but still, you know, they still net out a little bit in the US favor if we wanted to. It seems like madness to me. And nobody, everybody just seems to be totally OK with this, right? From the pro-Israel side here in America. I just don't get it. Well, he doesn't have to pick these fights either. I mean, I think that's what's extra ridiculous is that he can, and your point about the nationalism is important because there is a wave of nationalism. And you see it even among some leftist leaders like Sheinbaum in Mexico, who is constantly hammering their own sovereignty, what they're most sensitive about. And actually, even Mark Carney, somebody who's center left, what they're most sensitive about is the United States appearing to encroach on their sovereignty. And then them looking to their voters like they've allowed their sovereignty to be encroached upon. And that is nationalist. They might not call it that, but it really is actually nationalism. And so, yes, you know, there's there's been much written about how Trump has undermined other kind of right wing nationalists and the causes, whether it's whether it's Pauli Ebb or perhaps now this is a boost to malolence. He screwed them. Yeah, absolutely screwed them. Yeah. In Canada, it's shocking. I listened to that guy, Pierre Pauli. How do you say Pauli Ebb? Yeah, I'll choose not to say it. But I had to ask a French professor. Did you get it right? Is he Quebec, Quebec? Yeah. OK, all right. I know that he likes it. I have a long saying beef with the Quebec. Well, you have a long standing beef with the Quebec. Can't stand them. Can't stand them. Sorry. Sorry. Do they know about this beef? I think so. I've mentioned it here before. I said I never want to annex Canada because I don't want the Quebec. Well, I don't know. In our country. All right. So I want Australia. This is my new thing. I think I like it. I like it. All right. C3. Let's put it up here on the screen. This is inside of Israel. Yair Lapid, Italy's decision to suspend the security cooperation agreement with Israel is yet another embarrassing failure of the prime minister and of the non-existent foreign minister. Maloney is not a left wing progressive European leader. She's in the right wing conservative camp and understands the need to fight terrorism. The government has failed to advance Israel's interests even in the face of people who are supposed to be friends in our natural allies. So this is from the Israeli opposition here. By the way, people who support the war. Right. So it's not like these are some blue-haired leftists in Tel Aviv. This are inside of Israel. They're recognizing how much of a problem this is. This is also a bigger problem with Europe. Now, let's be clear with Europe. These are complete and total slaves at a legal level to Israel. They have all of these BDS laws. They arrest people for... If you think it's bad in America, it's way worse in Germany and in France where they're basically criminalizing any Palestinian protest. But even for them, right? Let's put C4 up here on the screen. You have this new tweet from the chancellor of Germany. He says, I am deeply concerned about developments in the Palestinian territories. In my phone call with the prime minister Netanyahu, I made it clear there must be no de facto annexation of the West Bank. So this was responded to by the Israelis in a shocking manner. Let's put C5 up here. So this is Smotrich, right? Israeli minister. He says, on the eve of Holocaust Remembrance Day, the German chancellor should bow his head and apologize a thousand times on behalf of Germany rather than daring to preach morality on us, on how to conduct ourselves against the Nazis of our generation, who murdered, raped, slaughtered and burned women, the elderly and children, and the most horrific massacre perpetuated against the Jewish people since the terrible Holocaust. We will not accept instructions from the hypocritical leaders in Europe, a continent that is once again losing its conscience and ability to distinguish between good and evil. Mr. Chancellor, the days when Germans dictated to Jews where they are permitted or forbidden to live are over and shall not return. You will not force us into our ghettos again, certainly not in our own land. Our return to the land of Israel, our biblical and historical homeland, is the answer to anyone who tried or tries to destroy us, and we do not apologize for it a single moment. Now let's remember, this is only in response to something that says, I am concerned about developments in the Palestinian territories. I made it clear there must be no de facto annexation of the West Bank. That's what that was in response to, alright? So, alright, you could draw your own conclusions about how unhinged their society is right now. But again, it just goes back to what we were talking about in the polling block, and how if none of this is grappling with what just happened in the last several years that turned people away from supporting Israel and saying that they're supportive of Israel, there's actually a better way, they're not even making their argument in a way that's going to help them. They're making an argument in a way that's going to hurt them in the long run. So, it's not even, that doesn't even have to be the way that it is. Like, you could actually try to treat people as rational actors and say, huh, I'm not dismissing you as a bigot or an idiot who's been brainwashed by podcasters and TikTok. I actually want to deal with your concerns, because I believe that you're a rational actor, but no. Discover a spectacular island destination with crystal blue. It's a great place to be. You can find a lot of things you want to do, but you can't find a place to go. You can find a place to go to, and you can find a place to go to. You can find a place to go to, and you can find a place to go to. You can find a place to go to, and you can find a place to go to. You can find a place to go to, and you can find a place to go to. Discover a spectacular island destination with crystal blue seas, endless sunshine, and the cool Bahamian breeze. 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