Linda Robinson on Iran and Trump’s Threat, Matthew McGuire on U.S. Strategy, Lisa Diekmann on Yellowstone

Westwood One presents America at Night. Here's your host, McGraw-Millhaven. All right, let's get right to it. We got a busy night with some big news about two hours ago. It was announced that there is a two week pause, two week cease fire from Iran and from the United States when it comes to the situation in the Persian Gulf. And we've got a quite a number of guests lined up to talk all about it. A little bit later on this hour, the markets have responded positively. Futures are way up. Oil futures are way down. We are going to talk with a man who knows quite a bit about this, Matthew McGuire, the former U.S. director of the World Bank. He's also a hedge fund guy. So if it's chance to talk with him, that's a little bit later on. And then this first half of the first hour, we're going to talk to a senior fellow for women in foreign policy at the Council on Foreign Relations, Linda Robinson. Welcome to America at Night. Hello, McGraw. Glad to be with you. You betcha. You are a well respected national security expert, special operations. You've studied warfare. You've been written a number of books on all of this. Take me through what happened tonight. Take me through this 10 point plan. What do we know and what do you think? Well, thank you. It's late breaking news and I have to say, I think it's very good news that a ceasefire has been agreed by both sides, the U.S. and Iran. And Israel is also agreed to have a two week ceasefire. It's really only though the beginning of the real work, which is the diplomacy that it's going to take to get a real resolution to this very messy and complex conflict. But I think it's just critical to focus for the moment on the fact that after very heated and frightening rhetoric that kept ratcheting up an international crisis that has really developed in the region, really in economic and civilian critical damage has been done already. So it's time to take a breath and try to get back to the bargaining table. Sure. Certainly understandable. All good news. Anytime there's a ceasefire like this for two weeks, it is good news. What do we know? What do we know about the 10 point plan? Was it, did the U.S. agree to this? Did Iran come up with this idea? What are we learning tonight? Well, the intermediary course is the Pakistani prime minister, Sheba Sharif. He really brought the two together to the critical issue of simply ceasing fire, which is critical, but also the Iranians have agreed to allow safe passage. They say in coordination with the Iranian armed forces through the straight of Hormuz. It's not yet clear what exactly that means, but it is a guarantee of safe passage, which was the essential requirement in addition to this ceasefire on both sides that the president, a president Trump had insisted on. I think we don't really know how many further conditions because both sides had conditions that were really incompatible. I think the main thing to focus on is that all the parties have agreed to stop firing and the straight is supposed to be opened. And I think that gives the space to begin to see where there is an opportunity to get the administration security concerns addressed without some of the maximal aims that I think, frankly, are unlikely to be reached. Yeah. Always setting a deadline is a good negotiating strategy. I don't know about some of the other tweets and some of the other rhetoric President Trump had, but setting a deadline always makes people arbitrarily not whether you're buying a home, selling a home, or trying to end a war in the Middle East. Setting a deadline is sometimes a pretty good strategy. Well there were many deadlines, as you know, over these weeks of the crisis, but this deadline for 8 p.m. Eastern time tonight with the really very catastrophic level of bombing threatened appeared to do the trick in terms of the Iranians saying, yes, we'll agree to ceasefire. They are claiming, you know, they're claiming victory on their side and people can claim victory on both sides, but the point I think is really that the catastrophic bombing being threatened, especially there was a great concern. And I think among some Republicans as well over this threat to bomb civilian infrastructure or dual use infrastructure in some cases, power plants, bridges, and so forth. In fact, there were strikes on bridges today that were carried out according to the Israeli government by its forces. So we really walked, I think, up to the brink of having the kind of total warfare bombing other than military targets that would really have pushed this into a new level of catastrophe. You already have several million people displaced and so forth, you know, some 1600 civilians dead by some claims in Iran. So it's time for a pause and I think you will have your guest on later to talk about the economic impacts, but I think it's really important to understand how this is absolutely seized up all the economies of the Middle East. The Gulf states that are allies have been really crippled in their own economies and livelihoods. And of course, the energy supplies and prices around the world have been in crisis. So this is really, I think, a critical pause that we needed. Yeah, let's talk about that for a second. Linda Robinson is our guest. She's a senior fellow for women in foreign policy at the Council on Foreign Relations. She is an expert written number of books about this and the military and warfare. Let's talk about the economics of this. If the Strait of Hormuz is open, that's well good for the world oil prices, but also is it not good for Iran because they're now able to sell their oil. The sanctions were lifted on Iran. And unless something's new in this 10-point agreement, Iran's going to make a lot of money in the next two weeks selling oil. Are they not? Yes, and that has been the case as they have allowed for those watching closely. There have been some tankers that have come out in some ships. Iran, Pakistan, some other countries have been able to get their ships out. And there have been statements that some fees may have already been paid to secure that safe passage and sanctions lifted, as you mentioned, temporarily to allow that oil that was afloat to reach its customers in Europe and Asia. But what we don't, I think, have a clear picture is how much Iran is going to try to insist on conditions to allow this further. There are dozens, hundreds of tankers and other ships waiting to get out. Is there going to be some attempt to charge a fee for them coming through? And will sanctions be brought back to bear in a way that reduces what Iran's going to profit? I think some of this is still somewhat murky. And of course, we have the ongoing threat. If this ceasefire does not culminate in an actual permanent agreement, Iran can always go back to holding the straight hostage. There's nothing really, it's got that positioning along its coastline. It retains a firepower of various sorts. It retains the ability with its drones, missiles, small boats, and even just shoulder fire weaponry, as we saw, that took down our plane the other day. It has a way to continue to back the cost if a final deal is not reached. How much of this 10 weeks or two weeks, excuse me, can be used for Iran to sort of rebuild some of their defense mechanisms? Well, I think it is a given that they will be doing some of that as much as they can of that. I mean, they have suffered quite a lot of damage of various sorts, but by at least one report they may still have as many as half of their missile launchers. They no doubt have a good stock of drones left. They'll be trying to unburied, dig out some of the material and weaponry that's been buried in the bombing. So I think one has to assume that there's going to be greater amounts of their war-making capacity available to them two weeks from now, although there's a limit to how much can be done in just two weeks. I think though, I'd like to just segue into the big picture here though, because I think that the maximal aims, the real aims for security, and that also includes the key issue of the nuclear materials, the 970 pounds of enriched uranium that needs to be secured and in some way ensure there's no nuclear weapon made out of that. That's really the work of diplomacy. I think as you heard the war plans being discussed about what it would take to go in there militarily, and I had to just insist that people understand that's not a special operation. That requires hundreds of troops, heavy equipment, digging equipment, transport equipment, troops to secure the special operators, air cover. You just turn into really a full-blown military operation. If you were to try to do that militarily, it would be extremely high risk, and we might not achieve the objective, and we would certainly lose lots of lives. Linda Robinson, senior fellow for women and foreign policy at the Council on Foreign Relations. Before that, she worked as the director of the Center of Middle East Public Policy at the RAND Corporation. Linda, let's talk about the damage, but not the damage that was done to Iran. The damage between the United States and its NATO allies. What do you see that, and is it repairable? Yes, and I think that's a really important point, and I'm glad you brought it up. We do, I think, have two sets of allies that we need to include in this thinking. One is NATO, and that's a very critical part of our worldwide alliance system. We also have Gulf allies and partners that have been badly hurt and are rattled by this. But speaking to the NATO issue at the first account, our major allies have said this is not their war. They weren't consulted about doing this. They have grave reservations on a number of fronts, and particularly as these threats of wiping out Iran civilization and conducting these attacks on civilian or dual-use infrastructure that caused a lot of very firm statements coming from our NATO allies and partners, which include Canada as well as those in Europe. So I think what we have here is a deepening of a breach that's already been opened over other frictions earlier in the year. And I think I have to say, I am very firmly on the side of the allies being part of our security infrastructure. I don't want to see America going it alone in any way against the many threats around the world. So I think there's a lot of work to do to try to come back together around what's in first instance, a defensive pact. But we've also had NATO come and fight with us in Iran, support us in the counter-ISIS fight in Iraq and Syria. And we're always stronger if we have our allies with us. Lendor Robinson, I have about a minute and a half left. Look into your crystal ball. What are you going to pay attention to these next two weeks? What are you going to look at and what are you watching? Well, I think whatever critical role the Pakistani prime minister has played getting us to this point, we really need to form some serious negotiating teams to really get down into the details of these various issues, which really fall into three buckets or perhaps four. But the nuclear issue to me is absolutely central. I know a lot of focus has been placed on missiles and an incipient attempt to develop intercontinental or long-range missiles. But I think it's really first and foremost nuclear, second, the missile and other military capabilities and the proxy warfare that has been badly damaged. But Iran has not given that up. And finally, this straight of poor moves and a long term guarantee for the commons to be secured there. And it's not really feasible to do it militarily, in my view, because Iran has the high ground and we need to reach an agreement. And that's going to take some real expert diplomatic negotiators at the table. If right now, if you could take the Obama deal where they said they wouldn't develop nuclear weapons, would you take that deal now? I think it's important to use that as a starting point, but ask for extensions and ask for, again, the robust and even more extensive verification procedures, because no agreement is worth anything without that intrusive onsite inspection and technical verification. And it has to be done through diplomatic agreements. But I think, again, we've got world class negotiators that know the details and should be brought in in a very full fledged way to get this deal done right. Linda Robinson is a senior fellow for women and foreign policy at the Council on Foreign Relations. She used to work at the Rand Corporation. And that's about as good analysis as you're going to find anywhere tonight on a very, very busy night and news of a ceasefire for two weeks. Linda Robinson, thank you for your time. Thank you for your insight on a busy night and come back soon. Thank you, McGraw. Have a good night. You got it. America at Night, back in a moment. Live from coast to coast, this is America at Night with McGraw-Millhaven. A lot of this information is breaking just as we came on the air, but an announcement was made 90 minutes, about an hour and a half before the Trump-imposed deadline, avoiding Trump's threats of imminent devastation and whole civilizations being wiped off the face of the earth. It's a Pakistan broker deal. It was reached shortly before the deadline. The Strait of Hormuz will remain open, and we're starting to hear some of the points of the 10-point plan, including, it seems like, there is some type of end of the sanctions on Iran. The Strait of Hormuz will be open for the two weeks, and supposedly, and again, this is still sort of sketchy, but there are stories coming out that Iran would impose a Strait of Hormuz fee of $2 million per ship, which would split those fees with Amman. The other thing is that Iran would provide the rules of safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz. So those are some of the things that are just starting to sort of eke out. It's sort of happening in real time, and as the overnight news comes in and to our morning news is created and produced and found out, we'll have more and more on this throughout the night and, of course, into tomorrow and so on and so forth. Stay right there. We're going to talk to the former head of the World Bank because futures shot up, and gas futures plummeted on the news about this two-week ceasefire. We're going to talk to a man who knows quite a bit about the markets and what this is all going to do for the markets and what the markets are thinking. We've had him on before. Matthew McGuire is a former U.S. director of the World Bank and is an expert in global finance, economics, and international development. So we'll check in with him. And then next hour, it's National Park Day, and we're going to take it with do a deep dive into Yellowstone, Yellowstone National Park, one of the greats, first ballot, Hall of Famers, if you will, when it comes to National Park. We'll do that next hour. And then, of course, open phones. We can talk about this and the news of the day with callers from around the country. It's America at Night, McGraw-Millhaven, back in a moment. You're listening to America at Night with McGraw-Millhaven. 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America at Night is also a podcast. You can now listen to your favorite episodes wherever podcasts can be found. Big story tonight is that there is a 10 point plan that's been agreed upon with both sides. That story broke about an hour and a half right before we came on the air. So that's the one side of this, the military side of it. The other side is the markets and how the markets have reacted to this. Crude oil down below $100. The Nikkei is up about what four and a half or 5% gold and silver prices are up. The NASDAQ, the S and P, the Dow industrials, those futures are up as well. Crude oil futures are down. Gold is down a little bit. And believe it or not, Bitcoin has gained about 5% after the ceasefire has been declared. To talk about all of this is fast becoming one of our go to guys when we talk about the economy. Matthew McGuire, former US director of the World Bank. Matthew, welcome back to America at Night. Thanks McGuire. Great to be here. You got it. What are you seeing in the markets after the deal has been announced? Well, I look at it longer term. Right. Clearly people are relieved that we actually are getting some step back from what looked as though it was just a truly horrible precipice that we're on. So I think that's good. I think we have to look bigger picture though. Think about from you go back a year ago, inflation's up, mortgage rates are up, jobs are way, way down, they've collapsed, our deficit is way, way up. I'm not sure any of that has changed today. And so I think part of what I think about here is where does America stand in the larger global arena generally, including the markets, but also above and beyond that. And I think we're in a really, really dangerous place right now. Yeah. Talk about the oil futures for a second because it's been said over the last couple of weeks that gas prices in a gallon of gas that takes the escalator up and you walk down. So just because these futures are down, how was that going to appear at the pump for the next couple of days and or weeks? So it's going to take a while for it to come back down. Remember that part of what is happening here, a big part is damaged actual oil infrastructure. So if you think about previous disruptions in the oil markets, they could come back pretty quickly, but in this instance, we have actual facilities offline. So Qatar is the second largest natural gas producer in the world. 17% of their production they've said is offline for the next three to five years because it's been hit. Kuwaiti oil fields have been hit. Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi, there are a lot of places where we have stuff that's offline. The other thing to think about is that it takes a while to actually get those ships out of the Strait of Hormuz. Let's say that really happens. Well, okay, it's going to take a while for them to get out. But remember also a number of countries have just stopped production because they didn't have anywhere to put that oil. And so what's on those ships is great. We can get that out, but it's going to take a while for production to ramp back up for us to start moving more ships through that Strait. So this is a longer term play for sure. It's going to take a while for us to see normalization. One more thing I would say is that while we talk about gas pump all the time, remember all the other things that are impacted by this shutdown. Fertilizer, we've talked about you and I quite a bit. Remember that farmers are in planting season. They're not going to get the fertilizer quickly enough for this planting season. And as you know, last year we had an increase of 46% in farming bankruptcies in the United States. We've already seen huge damage. It's going to be even harder for our farmers. I could go on and on about how plastics are a petroleum byproduct and therefore our toys and any number of other things that we buy are going to be more expensive. Diesel is how we ship everything across this country. Our trucks are on diesel. Our tractors are on diesel. Those prices are up. All these costs are up and that's not going to drop quickly. So we're going to see the pain financially for some time to come. We're still hearing about what's in this 10 point plan. So with all sort of speculation as of right now, but it seems like Iran will continue to be able to sell oil. So in a sense, that's a boom for Iran. Is it not with these inflated oil prices? No question. And that's really the core of their economy. So yes, they will actually get strengthened. The other country, I think we've talked about this, then strengthened and will continue to be is Russia. And this is the one where I think we really have to take a step back and say, what's America's role in the world? Our vice president, J.D. Yovans has been in Hungary for the last day at a time when we are threatening to wipe a country off the board. The leader of Hungary, who J.D. Yovans was there to promote, has Bloomberg revealed a little earlier, has expressed fealty to Putin. He's a Putin ally through and through. So are we supporting someone who is through and through an ally of our biggest adversary who's trying to destroy NATO, who's attacking Ukraine and so on? I bring that all up to say, the backdrop here is that Russia was selling oil at literally a third of the price they're now selling it at. We took sanctions off of Russian oil. So Russia has seen their war chest completely restocked. They are benefiting more than anybody here. And that's the kind of conversation I think we should be having is, yeah, so Ron's going to do better. But what is America really promoting in the world? Are we promoting fascists like Orban and Putin? It just seems baffling that this is where we are as a country. Well, and also the stories that Russia was helping Iran and Iran was helping Russia with the drone. So there seemed to be some sort of French budding between Iran and Russia. Exactly. And I would put it a little more pointedly. Russia was helping Iran target American soldiers. I don't know how much more clearly we can say that they were helping Iran to target, which means kill American soldiers. And here we are, arm in arm, helping them and helping one of their biggest allies in Europe, Orban and Hungary. This is something that we have to take a step back from the immediate of the markets, the immediate of this Iran war and really ask, is that who we want to be as a country? Are we okay with that as ordinary Americans, given all of the challenges we have right now? Where does China fit in all this after five weeks of bombing? Oh, China is loving it. China is great. They are the big winner here because they're seen as the reliable partner for so many countries. They are not attacking countries that are not a direct threat to them. I will remind all of our listeners here that Tulsi Gabbard, the head of national intelligence for President Trump, said in front of Congress, or written testimony in front of Congress, was that Iran had no nuclear capabilities and was not trying to develop any. Stop and think about that. So we attacked someone who had no nuclear capabilities, wasn't trying to get them, and whose ballistic missiles never could hit America. And China is right now looking like the country who actually is invested in diplomacy, who's invested in trade, who does not attack countries that are not a threat to them. So they're really a big winner here. And I'll also remind everyone from an economic perspective, China, in spite of the trade war, their exports increased last year. Their economy is going gangbusters and is quite strong. And so, net net, they're looking really good right now. And again, I just encourage all of the listeners in America to take a step back and say, what role do we want to play in the world? Is this helping us? Is this making us safer? Is this strengthening our economy? Is this bringing down prices and mortgage rates? Is this addressing our deficit, our crisis and deficit? All those things right now, I think, are pointing in the wrong direction. And China is really, really happy to see that. Matthew McGuire, our guest, former U.S. director of the World Bank. Any indication of how the bond market is going to respond to this ceasefire? That's the big question we'll see. I'm paying attention to treasuries right now. And given some of these moves we made, America's always been the stable country that believed in rule of law and believed in independent central banks, the Fed, and so on. And so clearly treasuries have bounced around quite a bit. But I'm watching the Treasury market in particular. I think we'll know more, not just tomorrow, but in the next two weeks to three weeks to four weeks as people try to absorb where's America going long haul. And that's going to be a big, big tell. Over the last five weeks, they have gone in the wrong direction, right? They have gone up. No, that's right. That's right. Because people are concerned. Is America paying attention to its deficit? Is it paying attention to its structural budget deficits? And the fact that we now have $39 trillion in debt? Remember, we're paying more for a debt service, for paying back all of the people who have bought our debt. We're paying more for that every year, over a trillion dollars than we are for our defense budget. And if you think about that, the example I always use is, if I'm paying back more as the head of my house for my credit card debt than I am for my mortgage, I'm in real trouble. That's essentially where we are as a country. And so we've really got to grapple with some of these bigger issues. And if we don't, you know, bond vigilantes, as they say, or investors around the world, they'll do it for us. And it's going to be much less pleasant. Matthew McGuire with us, former U.S. director of the World Bank. I was going to ask you a lot more about this essay in New York Times, but of course the breaking news tonight, we had to talk about this ceasefire, but there was an op-ed piece of this essay in the New York Times, I think it was yesterday, and it said, it was quoted that headline was, this is starting to look like a slow motion bank run. And the conversation turned to some of the private equity giants and the annual return for investors and investors asking for their money back from the private equity firms. What do you make of this story about these stories that are being planted where these big time giant equity funds are starting to be asked for their money? There's been a lot of that, and it's been for a while. So that's something I would not actually blame on the current administration's policies. That's been something which has been brewing for a while. Yale University, which has been one of the biggest and one of the most innovative investors in private equity, sold about four or five billion worth around a year ago. And that's just because private equity hasn't returned what they had in the previous 10 years. We can get into the ways that their model might be challenged at this point. But think about private equity, think about private credit, and all the people have been running away from private credit. Right now, this is the question is where does capital go? And traditionally, where it goes is to a safe space like our treasuries, like the U.S. corporate bond market and places of that sort. Right now, I think the people are dashing around. You mentioned Bitcoin is up. I think that actually speaks to a nervousness for a lot of investors. They're not quite sure where to put it. So they're trying everything. Crypto is an interesting speculative asset, but it doesn't actually do much. You can't buy a whole lot with it outside of illicit goods. And so the fact that people are moving in that direction tells me that if people aren't quite sure where else to put their capital, and that's worrisome for long-term stability and long-term growth in America. Private equity firms, you're much smarter than the rest of us. They're kind of like banks. They can't have a run on a bank because the money's out there being lent. Is there a worry that these private equity firms, that there could be a run on some of these private equity firms? No, I think that's a little harder to see because they really have pretty strict contracts in terms of how you can get out of them. You generally have to sell to someone else who wants to step in and buy your interest in a privately held fund that they have. So maybe that quite as much. I just think what will happen is people may invest less than them over time, especially the big public pension funds, which are investing on behalf of our teachers and firefighters and others. They may look around and say, this isn't worth it. We just invest in public equities and do just as well without paying such big fees. Now that said, your overall point is the right one. They're a big player. They own an awful lot of companies in America. If they start to pull back and start to see some financial worry, then there are a lot of companies in America which people may not realize are publicly held, which may start to crumble. I'll give you one silly example. Phil's Coffee. Out in the West Coast, people love Phil's Coffee. What's private equity owned? And so if they start to really shake, then there are a lot of people who are baristas and people who like to go in those coffee shops and buy their cup every morning that things could change fairly quickly there. So it's just the things you don't realize until you start to turn these rocks over. And yeah, people ought to be looking at what rocks that we should be worried about as private equity is under more and more pressure. It's really interesting because I just know from the anecdotal stuff dealing with small businesses, they buy up heating and cooling companies. They buy up tree farms. They buy up rental properties. They buy up single family homes and they sort of come in and I don't want to say they're locusts, but they come in and they run it the way they run it. And they're not necessarily the small business that has the best interests of the neighborhood in their sites. Well, there you go, McGraw. Not only don't they have the neighborhood in their fair sites, but for example, you mentioned HVACs and there's definitely a lot of rollups going on in the HVAC space. Well, who owns those? Those are family owned companies. Those are people who are retiring, maybe two and three generations on who cared about the community who were really proud to say that we helped to run that hospital nearby. We helped to keep those office buildings and downtown Cincinnati rolling. And when these private equity firms take over, it's all about financial returns. They quite often load a lot of debt onto those companies and they pay themselves back that way, but then they reduce labor costs massively and they change the way that managers work with their employees and it becomes much harder for a lot of the employees of those companies to support their families and to have some security and expectation for whether it's retirement or future healthcare and all the rest. So yeah, it's a very different management model and they really have broadened out into really ordinary industries. I mentioned coffee, but it's your point HVACs, plumbing companies all over the place. They're really trying to do an awful lot in spaces that people don't typically think of as being run by big private equity trillion dollar companies on the East Coast. With all the things you talked about, right, the increase in mortgages and inflation and oil, the unemployment rate was stuck at 4.3 and they had a labor market that showed 178,000 jobs last Friday. How do you square that? That seemed like a really good number. It depends how you look at it. It's certainly been better than other ones. The question is, I think 80% of that or more was in healthcare. So what does it mean if you're not in healthcare? But also, without getting too, too wonky, I try to remind people that every year in America, 2021, 22 years ago, 3 to 4 million Americans were born, which means that we should be seeing about 300,000 new jobs every month just to absorb the people coming out of high school and college who are looking for jobs. So while 170 sounds better than the flat numbers we had or the 35,000, is it really absorbing enough people who are coming into the economy and trying to make their way in the world? And I think that's the real question we ought to think about is, people keep saying, the Dallas Fed recently put out a release saying, oh, and not so many people are coming to the labor market because there's lower labor force participation. But what that means is people are just checking out. They're staying at home. They're playing video games. They're not actually looking for jobs. That's not a good thing. We need those 300,000 Americans who are coming into the workforce every year to have real options and to have jobs that they think could lead to quality careers, could make them marriageable, could allow them to really do what they need to do for their kids and live the kind of lives that we're used to here. Matthew McGuire, former US director of the World Bank on a busy night where the markets have really turned the corner when it comes after the news of a 10 point ceasefire between the United States and Iran. Matthew McGuire, thanks. Your insight is invaluable. We love having you on. We look forward to the next time. Thanks for checking in. Thank you, sir. I'll see you next time. You got it. America at Night. Back in a moment. America at Night with McGraw-Milleven. Big news of the night. About 90 minutes before we came on the air, President Trump said that he has agreed to a two week ceasefire with Iran backing away from the whole civilization will die tonight if Iran did not reopen the Strait of Hormuz. He said the ceasefire was a subject to the Islamic Republic of Iran agreeing to a complete immediate and safe opening of the Strait of Hormuz. Several Iranian officials who spoke on a condition of anonymity to discuss the diplomacy said that Iran has agreed to the deal which Pakistan has negotiated. So the Trump administration has said that the ceasefire was because we met and exceeded our military objectives in the bombing campaign and was very far along in our efforts to reach a long term peace with Iran. So two weeks ceasefire announced about an hour and a half ago. All right, stay right there. We're talking about Yellowstone in our National Park series. We'll do that next hour. Our executive director is Alex Sinton. Our engineer tonight is Richard Good. I'm McGraw-Milleven and this is America at Night on Westwood One. Here's your host, McGraw-Milleven. In honor of the 250th anniversary of this country, early on we called the National Park Foundation and said, hey, we'd like to do a series on the National Parks. And the National Park Foundation said, great. And so in honor of the 250th anniversary, every other week we've been checking in with National Parks around other country. And tonight we are going to talk about possibly the granddaddy of the mall, Yellowstone National Park. And their nonprofit organization is called Yellowstone Forever. And the person in charge of Yellowstone Forever is Lisa Deekman. Lisa, welcome to America at Night. Thanks for joining us. Hello. Thank you for having me. How did you go from working at Goldman Sachs on the East Coast to being running the Yellowstone Forever organization? Well, to make a long story short, I've always loved the out-of-doors. And after my career at Goldman Sachs, I just said, no, not really that. I love the people that I work with. I love the work ethic. I'm not that interested in financial products. And what I really cared about was the environment and conservation. So I went back and got my master's in forestry and environmental studies from the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies. And that brought me to Yellowstone to run the Yellowstone Park Foundation in 1996. Holy mackerel. Yellowstone, was it the first? Is it the first National Park? The world's first National Park. Yes, it is. And was that the sort of kicking off point? Ulysses S. Grant named it and take me, but how the history of that happened? Because that had to be the sort of model, if you will, that everything else followed after Yellowstone? Yeah. I have been all over the world and I can tell you so many places when I go there, I say, yeah, from Montana, where? And I say, well, I work with Yellowstone at Yellowstone. Our park was developed because Yellowstone inspired us. So it is a model that has inspired National Parks of 433 other National Parks in this country and many others around the world. Let's talk about Old Faithful. That's probably the most famous part of the most famous National Park. Tell us about the Old Faithful Geyser. Old Faithful Geyser is in fact very famous. One of the things that Yellowstone forever, which is the official nonprofit partner of Yellowstone National Park does is we fund the Old Faithful webcam. So you can watch Old Faithful from the comfort of your own home or you can see it when you're in Yellowstone. And it is one of those things that is quite regular and that's how it got its name. It's very faithful. Is it? It doesn't go off every half hour on the half hour. So what do you tell people? Is it just indiscriminately? And what is it? Why is it so? What is it doing? Well, the thermal features of Yellowstone, there are more geysers and hot springs in Yellowstone than the rest of the world combined. And probably the most famous of them all is Old Faithful. And it is regular. And why it is regular is because of the internal plumbing system. And so when you go to the visitor center at Old Faithful, there is a sign that gives you a prediction for when Old Faithful will erupt, give or take some number of minutes, 15, 20, 25 minutes. And that's pretty regular. That's pretty amazing. Now, old geyser is probably the most famous, but really if that's all you know of Yellowstone, you're missing out on a whole bunch more, I would think. Oh, yes, my goodness. Yellowstone is a place of superlatives. Not only are there more geysers and hot springs in Yellowstone than the rest of the world combined, but it was the Yellowstone was formed by a volcano, one of the largest ever in the history of the world. And the caldera, which you can see when you come to visit Yellowstone, the whole of the volcano stretches 45 by three miles. So you have a massive caldera. You have all of the wildlife that were in Yellowstone hundreds and hundreds of years ago. Some people call it the American Serengeti, all of the elk and deer and moose and bison, and the largest and only free roaming bison herd in North America is in Yellowstone National Park. Wolves, grizzly bears, 98% of grizzly bears are gone now from the United States, but if you come to Yellowstone, there's a good chance you'll see a grizzly bear. And the trout fishing, which I bet you want to know about fishing. I do want to know about the trout fishing. You've buried the lead, Lisa Deekman. Tell me about the trout fishing. Well, Yellowstone, if you Google it, Yellowstone has three of the top 12 trout fishing streams in the world, not just in North America. So over a thousand miles of rivers and streams, 2,500 miles of free flowing water. And it is an incredible place to fish. The fire hole, the Yellowstone, Slough Creek, the Madison, it's an incredible place to fish for Westfield cutthroat, Yellowstone cutthroat, Erdick grailing. That's just a hint of what it's like in Yellowstone. Lisa Deekman with us. She is the CEO of Yellowstone Forever, which is the nonprofit arm of Yellowstone National Park. Is it overcrowded when you go? Do you have to sort of rub elbows with all the other fishermen and fisherwomen? Or can you sort of get out on your own and sort of enjoy the nature by yourself? A little bit of both. I think Old Faithful is usually quite crowded. But after Old Faithful goes off, it gets quiet real quickly. Yellowstone is the second largest national park in the lower 48 states. You want to guess what the largest is? Maybe you haven't talked to them yet. No, who was that? Who's the largest in the lower 48? Death Valley. Death Valley. The 2.2 million acres. I have been working with Yellowstone for over 30 years and I've never been there where it felt crowded to me. It's nothing like New York, L.A. or Houston, which are lovely cities. But when you get to Yellowstone, it feels expansive and you feel like there's... I don't... I never find it very feels crowded. We are just getting started. Lisa Deekman, our guest Yellowstone forever. That's our park that we're highlighting tonight on the 250th special here as we talk about national parks on American Night. Lisa Deekman, text lines open. 1-8442 McGraw. You have a question about Yellowstone? You want to have a question for Lisa? You can certainly text in the question. 1-8442 McGraw. America at Night. We're just getting started. Yellowstone is our topic tonight. Back in a moment. Celebrating the natural beauty of the United States, this is America at Night with McGraw Millhead. Let's take a stroll through the park on America at Night with McGraw-Millhaven. It is our topic of conversation tonight. We're talking about Yellowstone on our 250th anniversary of the United States and highlighting national parks each and every time we do it. The organization is called Yellowstone Forever. Lisa Deekman is our guest. Lisa, talk about Jackson Hole, the Grand Tetons, some of the other towns, West Yellowstone. Are they inside Yellowstone or are they technically outside of the park? They are outside the park, Gateway Community. So Gardner at the North entrance, West Yellowstone at the West entrance, Cody, Jackson Hole and Cook City in the Northeast. There's five entrances to Yellowstone National Park. And they all go through those towns then? Correct. Yeah. The Grand Tetons part of the National Park, Yellowstone? Nope. Our sister park to the South. Absolutely beautiful park, but separate from Yellowstone. But I mean, you can see them. I mean, you get quite a view of the Grand Tetons from Yellowstone Park. Do you not? On a clear day you can, especially from the top of Mount Washburn or any of the higher elevations in Yellowstone. Yeah. Talk about RVing, camping, cabins, hotels inside the park. Can you stay and camp in the park and how hard is it and how easy is it? Yes. There are plenty of hotels in the park. I don't know exactly how many, but those are operated by a park concessionaire and you usually need to get your reservations pretty early in the season. So that can be done online. And then the same thing is true for camping in the park as well as RVing. That's a reservation system online. So RVing is, that's a very popular thing to do, I would assume. Oh yes. For sure. How many people visit the park on a yearly basis? So Yellowstone is usually the second or third most visited park in the United States and last year visitation was over 4.7 million. Holy mackerel. Talk about one of the 10 greatest days of my life was a Thanksgiving weekend where a bunny and I drove up to Jackson Hole, stayed in Jackson Hole and then went snowmobiling all across the continental divide in stone, inside Yellowstone. It was majestic. It was beautiful. It was peaceful. It was more fun than two guys are allowed to have. Can you still snowmobile in the wintertime at Yellowstone? Yes, from West Yellowstone as well as from Jackson. And I agree being in Yellowstone in winter is one of the most special experiences. Every season in Yellowstone is special. The springtime is baby animals. The summertime is warm and wildflowers. The fall with the changing colors and then winter you feel like you're in a snow globe. And for people who don't snowmobile, there's cross country skiing in the park and there's also guided trips, snow coaches with various guiding companies as well as the park hotel concessionaire, which is Yellowstone Park lodges. Yeah. And it was interesting because it was obviously it's a snow culture. So the snowmobiles are how oftentimes people get around in the park normally. It wasn't an extravagant. It's just what people have to do to sort of get around. There was so much snow. Yes. Yes. The park rangers use the snowmobiles to get around in the park. And so it is a very good way to travel in Yellowstone in the winter. Tell me about Yellowstone forever stores. What are they Yellowstone forever operates 10 park stores in all of the visitor centers. So if you go to a visitor center in Yellowstone National Park, there will be an official park store and that will be run by Yellowstone forever. And the proceeds from the sale of the products in the stores go back to benefit Yellowstone National Park and fund projects that would not otherwise be funded by the basics that are covered by the park's base budget. And I would think that your organization Yellowstone forever does a lot of that. Tell me about some of the things your organization does and what you have some of the plans for when it comes to Yellowstone. Yeah, we have another thing that we do in the park is raise money to fund projects that protect preserve and enhance Yellowstone. What I like to tell people is you can go anywhere in the world and not speak the language. But if you say Yellowstone or Coca Cola, people understand you. What a lot of people don't understand is that the base budget just covers the basics in the park. We fund projects like Wildlife Research and Conservation. So we fund about 60% of the Wildlife and Conservation Research projects. We fund the protection of the cultural resources. If you come to Yellowstone, you can visit the Heritage Research Center, which is the only national park site that is affiliated with our National Archives. Six million items there. We fund native fish conservation projects and education projects for people of all ages, educational programs, distance learning, the old faithful webcam. So we fund a lot of projects that really have a big impact in enhancing the visitor experience, protecting the resources and taking care of the wildlife and giving the people who work for Yellowstone who dedicated their lives to the protection of the world's first national park the resources they need to do excellent work. How easy is it to run across a grizzly bear or an elk or a deer or some of the other extraordinary wildlife in the park? Is it guaranteed to see? Are you lucky if you see an elk? Tell me about the wildlife and the interaction with the humans. Yes. It's very likely that when you come to Yellowstone, you will see wildlife. There are over 300 bird species, trumpeter swans, which used to be highly endangered. We've funded the restoration of the trumpeter swan population in the park. I was in Yellowstone last year. One day I saw 14 bears. There are rules and regulations about how close you can get to the wildlife, but a lot of times you can just see it from your car. If you go out to the Lamar Valley, there's a really good chance you might see wolves that day. I enjoy hearing wolves how almost as much as I enjoy seeing them, it's really an incredible feeling to hear the howl of a wolf in Yellowstone. I've been there before McGraw and seen a wolf catch a fish. Oh my goodness. It was crazy. Where did you see the 14 bears? Did you walk into a cave when they were hibernating? How did you see the 14 bears? It was just one of those lucky days where we saw a lot of bears. You can spot bears many different places in the park. If you take your time and really just enjoy that experience, have some people in your car that want to be wildlife spotters and you see other people who are stopped and you think okay, the traffic is slowing down. There's a real chance you'll come to Yellowstone. One of the things you probably won't see is Mount Lions. We fund most of the Mount Lion cougar research in the park and recently we funded a film Guardians of Yellowstone. So you may never see the most elusive predator in Yellowstone, but you can watch the film Guardians of Yellowstone on PBS TV or maybe someplace close to home for you. Lisa Dieckman who runs Yellowstone forever. It's the non-profit friends group. We'll come back when I ask her the secret hidden gems. How do you get there? Give us some helpful hints on how to rent an RV. We'll get to all of that with her coming up here in just a minute. America at Night, we celebrate the 250th anniversary of this great country as we look at Yellowstone National Park. America at Night back in a moment. Coming to you from the heart of the nation, this is America at Night with McGraw-Millhaven. Lisa Dieckman is with us. She runs Yellowstone forever. We're talking about Yellowstone National Park. Lisa, let's do a little history. Did Lewis and Clark discover Yellowstone or find, I mean it was already there obviously and the Indians were living there, but what's the connection between Lewis and Clark and Yellowstone? You know, I don't think Lewis and Clark ever visited Yellowstone. I think they passed far to the north, but a member of their expedition, John Colter, is generally credited as one of the, as the first European American to discover and explore Yellowstone, the Yellowstone region in the early 1800s. Did you imagine? Yeah, oh I can't. But you know, it's still, there is so much about Yellowstone that is, if John Colter came back today, I think he would be impressed and say, you know, not a lot has changed here. And that's what makes Yellowstone, I think, really special is how authentic it is and how it has been protected for hundreds of years. And those stories of Yellowstone were brought back to Washington DC and when Yellowstone was designated a national park, the legislators who voted to make Yellowstone a national park had never seen Yellowstone before. So good on them. They took it on blind faith and thank heavens. Yeah, and so they didn't go to the Google Docs and look at the pictures from the Google Docs. No. Talk about the Native Americans and the history with the Native Americans and the park. Yeah, I mean, certainly long before John Colter came across Yellowstone, there are 27 affiliated tribes with Yellowstone National Park. And the one of the things that we have supported in the park is tribal engagement efforts, bison conservation and transfer program to tribes outside of Yellowstone. And also the Tribal Heritage Center at Old Faithful is something that folks can visit and members of the 27 associated tribes come spend time at the Tribal Heritage Center every year sharing their stories as well as their traditional art forms like beadwork, quillwork, dance, drumming, storytelling. It's really spectacular. So that's something that folks can experience as part of their Yellowstone trip. And we are absolutely committed to including the history of our Native tribes in Yellowstone and what it meant to them and to their culture. Yeah, good stuff. That's something in the text line. Texan, they want me to ask you about Colter's Hell in reference to Yellowstone National Park. What is, I'm afraid to ask, what is Colter's Hell? Yes, the geysers and boiling mud pots were dubbed Colter's Hell. So it's all of those 10,000 thermal features in the park is what Colter's Hell refers to. It's pretty, there's places called Dragon's Mouth and it does sound like Dragon's breathing and the mud pots are really unique and they look almost lunar. So that's the reason the Yellowstone was established was to protect the special thermal features of the park for future generations. Interesting. Okay. So we mentioned RVing earlier. I was at dinner on those last summer or something and I just sort of mentioned, I said, you know, I said, you know what I'd love to do? I'd love to rent an RV and go to Yellowstone and six people at the table stood up and said, I'm in, I'm in, I'm in. So give me a couple of helpful hints, Lisa. Can I fly into Cheyenne and rent an RV? Do I have to rent one from my hometown? Give me some helpful hints as the best way to sort of do the RV through the Yellowstone National Park. Yeah. I think that my advice would be you can, depending on how much time you have, a trip to Yellowstone is one of those things that's on just about everybody's bucket list. So whether you do it, if you do it in RV, you can do that from Salt Lake, whatever airport you pick, just make sure you have enough time. It really is hard to do Yellowstone in a day. Like I said, it's 2.2 million acres. You need a day just to see half of Yellowstone and even that is just scratching the surface. So I would say give yourself a couple of days. One thing you can do is visit Teton, Yellowstone and Glacier. A lot of people do that. But any national park is special and hopefully it includes trip to Yellowstone. So one thing I would say is not everybody is comfortable renting an RV so you rent a car or we have, as I think you might have heard, this is the 50th anniversary of the Yellowstone Forever Institute, our educational arm. And we offer day trips and multi-day trips and it is a really great way to experience the park for people of all ages and no matter what your interest. So it's a great way to kind of have that insider park experience on a Yellowstone Forever day adventure or trip. And then you can sit and kick back and enjoy it versus having to pay attention to the road while you're driving. Sure. Certainly understand. So sort of like a guided tour, if you will. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. And there's nothing better than a tour guide in a national park. If I ever get a chance, I think that's one of the greatest jobs of all time to sit there. First of all, you get the hat and the uniform, but then you get to tell stories all day long about it. Yes, exactly. Yes. Lisa, talk about one or two of your favorite places in Yellowstone that no one ever knows about. Give us a little helpful hints. Well, like I was saying a little bit earlier, when you get to the park, just enjoy the park. I can't tell you honestly that there has never been a day that I wasn't in the park where something special didn't happen. And so my answer is wherever I am at the time is the most special place in Yellowstone. So don't rush with Yellowstone. Enjoy it. Get curious. One of my favorite things to do is drive through the Lamar Valley and I see people parked at a roadside pullout with their chairs out just looking at nothing and everything and enjoying being a part of that beautiful environment. So I think every corner of Yellowstone is really special and that sounds trite. But yeah. Yeah. Well, it is Yellowstone and the views are gorgeous. Campgrounds, can you go camp wherever you want or do you have to be just dedicated to a certain official campground area? There are campgrounds in the front country. And when you stay at campgrounds in the back country, you do need to get a permit to do that. But, but, but permit, but there's not official campsites or are there official campsites? There are official campsites. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Interesting. I want to talk on and Lisa Digman with the big news back in the 80s with the wildfires that happened in Yellowstone because I was there shortly thereafter. I was there maybe in the early 90s, 91, 92, maybe with my with my snowmobiling escapades. And we drove through some of the lands that were devastated by the wildfires. And it was amazing to me how that part of the park snapped back so fast. Talk about the fires of the 80s and talk about any lasting damage and what those fires did to the trees and the brush and everything else. It's, it, I was there at the same time. And I remember thinking, gosh, you can really see because there were fewer trees, the views are spectacular. And one day those views are going to be gone. In fact, many of those views are now gone. But the many of the trees in Yellowstone or Lodgepole pine that regenerate with fire. And so there has been significant regeneration throughout the park. And it's really hard to see where those fires, but how many years ago is that now? 88, 98, yeah, 40, 40 years ago. 40 years now. Yeah, you can hardly tell at all. The ecosystem looks very healthy and fires will happen again. But that can be regenerated for the park as well. Yeah, it was interesting to learn that that's part of mother nature is the fires are part of mother nature. That's what mother, that's what nature needs to clear out the brush so that new trees can sort of grow again and grow strong. Yes. Yep. Yeah. Yeah. Really, really amazing. And it was really, I mean, it was just a few years later and you already saw all the trees and I was like, Oh, are you planting new trees? And I said, no, that's, that's natural. They, that just happened on its own mother mother nature. Lisa Deekman is, is one amazing thing. Is she not? Yes. Yeah. Definitely. I agree. Lisa, if somebody wants to join the Yellowstone forever group and your organization, how do they go about doing it? Yes. We, our website, easy to remember is Yellowstone.org to become a member or supporter of the Yellowstone forever. And if I could leave your listeners with one thing, it's that our uniquely American treasures, our national parks, their support and protection of places like Yellowstone makes a difference for today, tomorrow and forever. So Yellowstone.org is the place to go support Yellowstone and all of our other national treasures. And what's the website so we could watch the Geyser whenever we want? I don't have that right in front of me. You're killing me, Lisa. We can Google it. We can Google it. Right. We can Google that one. Old Geyser Yellowstone webcam. Yeah. And we'll find old faithful, old faithful webcam, old faithful webcam. Can you say, fly into Salt Lake City, rent the RV from Salt Lake City and then drive in? That's one place Jackson works to, Idaho Falls, Bozeman, Montana, whatever works best for your own itinerary. But those are just a few of the places where you can, where it can be your jumping off point to the world's first national park and an amazing adventure of a lifetime. And do I have to bring my own fly rods or can I borrow and rent some once I get there? I would suggest you can do both. And there's plenty of places in the Gateway communities where you can get a guide or rent a rod, but if you've got your own, I think those people are feel very comfortable with the rods that you're used to fishing with. Those tour guides are worth their weight in gold too. So it's all available out there. Oh, for sure. They know the flies. They know exactly where to go. And if you're making the trip to Yellowstone, that supports the local community and you're going to have a really great experience. Yeah, no, it sounds really good. Lisa Deekman, thank you very much for an enjoyable hour. What a great job you have. Thank you for doing what you do. Tell everybody at Yellowstone, leave the light on. We're coming, if not this summer, next summer, but it's a, it's a wonderful opportunity to talk to you and to hear about one of those gorgeous places. God's created right here in our own country. So thank you very much. Thank you so much. Have a great evening. Lisa Deekman, Yellowstone forever is the group. America at night back in a moment. America at night with McGraw-Milhaven, where the nation comes to talk. Join the nightly conversation, America at night with McGraw-Milhaven. All right. The big news of the night, we'll do open phones next hour, but the big news of the night is well, I guess it was an hour and a half, two and a half hours, about what, three and a half hours ago or so. It was announced that the United States and Iran have brokered some type of two week cease fire through Pakistan. And President Trump earlier tonight is talking on his social media channels about how he and the Pakistan prime minister and their army chief agreed that there was some type of agreement that they would delay the expansion of US strikes based on conversations with the Pakistani prime minister. Iran has also announced that they've agreed to this 10 point plan. Still, I'm not really all that comfortable to go and report on the actual 10 plans only because I'm reading some of it. It's happening so fast, having a hard time trying to find an actual credible source of what exactly is in this plan. But we are getting some broad strokes. And one of the broad strokes is that Iran is going to open up the straight of Hormuz. However, they do say that for a period of two weeks, the safe passage to the straight of Hormuz will be possible via coordination with Iran's armed forces. And with due consideration of technical limitations, we had somebody on from the council of foreign affairs earlier. She didn't quite understand what that meant. And if she didn't understand what that meant, I'm pretty safe to say that you and I have no idea what that means. It's also been reported that Iran is going to put a $2 million fee, a some type of toll, if you will, on the ships that are going through. Now, two weeks does not do much to get things back to normal. I'm assuming the hope would be, and I'm figuring out the hope would be that two weeks leads to four weeks leads to two months leads to three months leads to getting back, starting the road to get back to some type of normalcy. So it's going to be a while before it goes back to normalcy. But as of now, according to what I'm reading about some of this deal is that Iran will have a $2 million per boat fee. They'll split between Oman and themselves. And apparently the United States is going to lift all sanctions against Iran, which is a bit of an economic boon for Iran. And of course, we would not, the United States would not attack Iran. Iran would open up the other straight and go from there. The news, the futures oil futures sank to under $100. Brent crude futures fell about 6%. Futures on the S&P 500 rose about 2%. Bitcoin is up 5%. It's been a little bit of a rally here for the markets after walking back from the brink of total annihilation of a civilization. According to President Trump's tweets from earlier in the day. So that's the latest news from today. Next hour we'll take your phone calls. What are your thoughts? What do you think? What do you know? We can talk about this deal. We can talk about anything under the sun. We talk a little Yellowstone National Park if you want to. But I'm somewhat hesitant. Anyway, we can talk about it next hour. I'll explain my hesitancy next hour. All right, that's going to do it for this hour. Our engineer tonight is Alex Hinton. Our executive director is Alex Hinton. Our engineer tonight is Richard Good. I'm McGraw-Millian and this is America at Night on Westwood One. Westwood One presents America at Night. Here's your host, McGraw-Millhaven. All right, the ceasefire was announced, what, a little over three and a half hours ago. However, Fox News is reporting tonight as well as News Nation. There are two of the outlets I've found on it that there have been sirens going off over Tel Aviv and there have been sightings of cluster bomb and missiles over Tel Aviv after the ceasefire has been agreed to. So maybe the word didn't work all the way through the chain of command. Find that hard to believe. The interceptors got many of those cluster bombs, but after the interceptor gets the cluster bomb over Tel Aviv, there are right bomb fragments that sort of rain down onto wherever the bomb was over. So even though the interceptors sort of protect and save much of the damage, there is some collateral damage when the bomb that was broken up over the skies of Tel Aviv then rain down down. So that's some breaking news this morning. So we'll see what happens. This is obviously a fluid situation. It's fast moving. It was announced about an hour and a half before the Trump-imposed deadline. And now we're starting to hear from Fox News and others that there were some sirens going off and some cluster bombs that were shot from Iran into Israel after the ceasefire. All right, phone numbers. It's open phones. 1-8442-Meghra. 1-8442-6247-29. Thank you for asking. Text line, the throat and the voice are feeling much better. I still am a little nasally. Went to the doctor today and, yep, sinus infection. Spring sinus. Now I never got sinus infections as a young kid, but now that I'm older, clearly more wiser. The spring allergy seasons have been much more detrimental. It's gotten worse over the years. As a matter of fact, the thing was last year, I had such a bad sinus infection that I called my dentist. And I didn't know what it was, but my teeth hurt so bad. I called my dentist. I said, I think I need to see you. I think my teeth are falling out. I was lit. I had no concept of what a sinus infection was. And I called my dentist and he was like, I just saw you three weeks ago. Your teeth are not falling out. I'm like, no, seriously, my teeth are falling out. And he said, why don't you call your primary care physician? You might have a sinus infection. And I was like, oh, yeah. Hmm. I never even thought of that. So I went in today and yeah, so he gave me a shot of steroids. So if I'm a little buffed up tonight, now you know why. But I'm definitely on the mend and feel that so much more enjoyable to do the show when you, when you don't have your heads pounding and you can barely talk. So that's, that's a positive. 1-8442 McGrath. Thank you for asking from the text line. 1-844-262-4729. We've got Rob in New Hampshire. Rob, yeah, Rob in New Haven. I'm sorry, New Haven, Connecticut. Rob, welcome to America at night. Oh, thank you. That was quick. I'm saying, if I could, I ran a topic and these are, you know, maybe facetious. The red line Trump drew is turned invisible. And the second thing is the terms, I'm sure you must know this year ahead of the curve, ahead of me, I'm sure. I ran as dictating with the agreement in this little ceasefire. They want $2 million per, per full oil cargo ship to go through. Yeah. And Trump may agree to that. And the third thing is Vladimir Putin, the Russian president was just in the hospital with stomach pains from laughing so much. Yeah. Rob, look. I've read some of that online. I don't know how much of that is true. How much of that is hyperbole. How much of that is Iran saying that? I don't necessarily- Ask, ask, ask, ask. Look, look, look, look, look, look, I don't, I don't think being- I'm joking. I'm joking with you. I know, I know, I know. But, but, but, but seriously, I don't, I've read those same things too. I don't know if Iran is making that up. That was really what's agreed to. There's also talk of the, all of the sanctions have been lifted. We were talking to a woman earlier in the show from the council on foreign affairs and she alluded to the fact that the sanctions have been lifted. And we were talking to a guy, a former World Bank guy who said that, you know, this will allow Iran to sort of get back healthy financially. Of course, they're going to sell their own oil if the Strait of Hormuz is open. And with the elevated price of a gallon, even though it's come down, you know, this is going to be a economic boon for Iran and, and or Russia. So look, there was no easy answer. There was no way to get around it that at some point you had to declare victory and you had to have the Strait of Hormuz open. And the question was how you get there. And there weren't a whole lot of good options because Donald Trump, I don't mean to say this negatively, but he was really out of options. Did he really want to escalate? Did he really want to put troops in the ground? Did he really want to blow Iran off the face of the earth? Or was that a negotiating tactic? And he was desperate. He had to get some type of deal because I don't think he wanted to escalate. We're already at what six weeks on the war, five and a half, six weeks. So he had to declare victory. And you know, everyone's got to save face. The Iranians have to save face. The regimes, at least for the next two weeks is going to stay in power. So a regime chains off the table, unconditional surrenders off the table. But Trump had to figure out a way to get out of it. So the two weeks ceasefires, how it starts. We'll see what happens. Rob, thanks for the phone call. Appreciate it. Let's go to Scott and say hello. Scott, welcome to America at night. Yeah. According to the daily mirror online, which is a conservative newspaper in Great Britain, it says Trump backs down again in the face of Tehran's warnings early Wednesday. Let me see. Hold on. Well, don't read it to me. Just just just bear a phrase. Trump, Trump early Wednesday, once again, backed away. He was forced to accept the Islamic Republic's strategic conditions. They're still going to control the straight. Well, they're going to open it up. They're going to open it up. Yeah. They're not going to shoot at ships, but they're going to charge $2 million, $3 million. I guess $2 million. I've read $2 million. Per ship. Yeah. Trump caved. He caved. That's what happened. Let me put it simply for the MAGA so they can understand it. He caved. Yes, Scott. Thank you. Thank you very much for the phone call. Again, though it's that's being reported, I don't know how much we can take that to the bank. That's all I'm saying. It's it's fast moving. It's happening as we speak. We're still not getting all of the information. It's still being compiled. We don't necessarily know. It's not like Moses came down with the 10 commandments and said, here's the deal. So we're still sort of getting a piecemeal because it just happened, but it would be interesting if that were true, that if the sanctions were lifted and Iran is charging $2 million toll for the ships to pass through. All right. Let's let's do this. I got David and I got Tony. Hold on. We'll take your phone calls. I got to take a break. I don't get backed up from the bottom of the airbreak. 1-8442-MAGRA 1-844-262-4729. Open phones. We got some phone lines open. Text lines open. We'll get to all of that coming up. America at night continues back in a moment. Call now. 844-262-4729. That's 8442-MAGRA. That's 8442-MAGRA. By the way, we don't screen calls. Never have never will. We take them in the order in which they come. That's the best part of talk radio and that's the best part of America at night. David in San Francisco. Welcome to America at night. Hello. Thanks, McGraw. I was kind of interested in this whole thing. Who's it? They call it a tar baby, right? That whole thing about tricking somebody into fighting a tar baby. But for idea, across my mind, you remember a couple of months ago when Alex Pretty and the good woman got killed, Trump threatened to take away Medicaid from the entire state of Minnesota and it was going to happen in April. Did it happen yet? I don't believe so. I hope not because either vindictiveness of that guy now into Iran. Did you realize that the House of Representatives have been out of session since this has been going on that the House can't even raise issue of impeachment or the 25th amendment? Well, the 25th amendment has to do with the cabinet. Doesn't matter if Congress is in session or not. They're not going to, the Republican majority is not going to impeach Trump in the House. So that doesn't matter. That's how you feel. But the Republican Party and his base is very much the opposite of you. So we live in two different realities. There's your reality and then there's the reality of the House of Representatives. They live in a different reality than you. That's just the way the world is today. What's that? Well, if you, somebody was to be a fiscal conservative and they got sapped with a stock market crashes and oil prices screaming high and all of a sudden your supplies are cut off because of tariffs. I would say that the Republican Party as a business entity has so left the building. You know, the, if you're talking about some fool that is penniless and doesn't care if oil prices are high because they got a beat up car in the backyard on, on blocks, then that might be what MAGA is left to be. But the House of Representatives, look, look, I think the bigger, I think the bigger story is that Marjorie Taylor Greene and Coulter, Alex Jones, Tucker Carlson, those are the ones who are coming out critical of Donald Trump. That's, that's the story of the night for me or the last couple of days. Hey, David, I would recommend as I do so many of our callers, turn off the news to yourself favor, do, do me a favor, turn off the news, turn off the news. I got to go. Tony in Montreal. Thanks for joining us. Welcome to America at night. How you doing, man? Good. You have an ability to, uh, mollify many people with different opinions, which I appreciate. And that's why I listen and, uh, you give everybody a shot whether, uh, they say you agree with one side or not. Uh, you know, I think in terms of the person that's been calling from San Francisco, the, clearly there's a, there's a portion of the United States voters that hate Trump with a passion and no matter what happens, it's hatred. So I'm going to, I'm just going to say a couple of things because it was bothering me yesterday when I hung up because, uh, you know, a caveat is a warning, is a caution, it's a proviso, it's an admonition, it's a limitation or restriction. We always say caveat emptor, buyer beware, right? So I'm not saying buyer beware when it comes to Trump. What I'm saying is that when I mentioned yesterday to you, I went back and I did the research in full on the three people that I mentioned, AOC, Schumer and Jeffries. And every one of them had essentially the same message. We support the troops. We support the military. We hope they come through. But Trump is a madman. Trump overstepped. Trump did this. And then 11 articles from AOC speaking about impeachment and how mad this, this president is, I am sick and tired of that. Listen, if the gentleman, it makes a decision. He's the commander in chief, according to your constitution, he has to pull the trigger. He has to make the decision. It's called crisis management. And he is an expert at that. And he makes some great decisions. And I went through the litany of, but hold on a second. Hold on a second. Hold on a second. Hold on a second. It's not shocking that AOC says something derogatory about Trump. That's not news. It's not shocking that Jeffrey says something shocking. It's not. What's shocking is that Marjorie Taylor Greene has said the same thing as AOC. That's what's interesting that Ann Coulter is the one questioning and bringing up the other 25th amendment that Tucker Carlson, that that Alex Jones, these are people who were in Trump's camp. I'll give you the last word. AOC's that's not surprising at all. That's like saying, you know, Rush Limbaugh criticized Bill Clinton. He did it every day. That was his, that was his brand. AOC's brand is that, but Marjorie Taylor Greene and some of the other ones, that's more interesting to me than anything else. I got a minute, Tony. I'll let you finish. So what, what you're talking about is whether or not the Republican Party will be the isolationist party that it was in the 1930s up until World War two. And whether or not the isolationists and the people in the Tucker Carlson camp believe that America should just sit back and let the world forment. Trump believes differently. He's, he, he activated a thinking process where he said that if I don't eliminate this terrorist organization that is running Iran, we will leave this for another 48 years. It will cause further havoc to our children, grandchildren and our children's grandchildren. So I think that he made a calculated decision. It has disturbed certain portions of the mega movement, which is called democracy. And he's may lose certain portions of his support, but people like me who are in the middle believe that that was a correct decision. I don't think it was correct to go to Greenland, but I definitely believe it was correct to go to Iran. And I would, if I was the commander in chief, I would go a lot further than Trump because the danger of the Iranian mullahs is, is poison to the world. Tony, I thank you for your phone call. Have a good night. We got more phone calls and we got more text messages coming in. 1-844-2-Migra, 1-844-262-4729. I kind of tell you how much more enjoyable it is to do a show when you can actually talk and you'll have a splitting headache. Holy mackerel. All right. Stay right there. America at night, more to get to with open phones and open text back in a moment. This is America at Night with McGraw-Millhaven. What's on your mind? Call 844-2-Migra and be a part of America at Night with McGraw-Millhaven. Those that haven't been mentioned tonight that I think probably should be mentioned on the news of this ceasefire. One is that Marco Rubio, the Secretary of State, has announced that American journalist Shelly Kittleson, who was kidnapped from a Baghdad, street corner last week, she has been released today. Both US and Iraqi officials have said now she was abducted, kidnapped in Baghdad, which is in Iraq, but she was kidnapped by Hezbollah, which is backed by Iran. So an Iran backed Iraqi militia Hezbollah. Iran. So an Iran backed Iraqi militia Hezbollah, kidnapped the American journalist. She's a bit of a freelancer. She works for reporters without borders, believe it or not. Shelly Kittleson. And so now she is been released and apparently back safe and sound and out of out of harm's way. You have to assume that that was part of this negotiation. You have to assume that somewhere along the line. I don't know if it's an official 10, one of the 10 points. But clearly they said, look, we're not doing anything until you get this poor woman out of harm's way. So that's that's one thing's getting a lot of attention. I put Marco Rubio mentioned it and I wanted to pass along. The other one is this and that is where we're sort of assuming that Iran is going to somehow agree to this. Iran has a history of not living up to any of their agreements. And so, yeah, it's good news that they have a 10 day ceasefire. But let's not kid ourselves. We're dealing with people who are nefarious and who really can't be trusted. And they say they're going to keep the Strait of Hormuz open. They say all these things are going to happen. But what right? How much do we believe them? And how much are they going to adhere to no more bombings of neighboring friends and or Israel? So again, good news. But, you know, take it with a as Ronald Reagan, I would say trust, but verify, right? It's good news. But let's just sort of see if this thing sticks in holes and we sort of go from there. Let's go to write down the line. Tyson and St. Louis Tyson. Welcome to America at night. Hey, good evening. Good evening. I'm always amused when you have a mega call in and say how much they hate Trump. You mean like they hated Biden and Obama? I mean, really, about it with the nerve to go and talk about how much they hate whining and crying. It is true. They are different sides of the same coin, right? For some people in this country, Obama and Biden could do no right. And it's the same thing for Trump. For some people in this country, Trump can do no right. Obama could do no wrong. Obama could do no right. It's all at where I sit. It's it's hysterical because they'll the hypocrisy of both sides, you know, not giving the other one credit for anything. I just find it amusing, but whatever. Yeah, I'm amused by it, too. But now I want to talk about looking at the facts. I know you kind of kind of play the middle and not assign any blame. But Trump started this war and said unconditional surrender is all we're going to accept. And now we're not accepting that. It's really a wrong that's running the terms here. My understanding is they presented a 10 point plan and he said, OK, we can work with that. So I won't bomb you into non-existence, which we all of us knew was never going to happen anyway. So really, Iran is dictating the terms at this point. Would you agree with that? Well, I'm one, I don't know, too. Let me tell you what I do know. There is another report out tonight that the son of the Ayatollah Komeny is in some serious health issues. So we don't know at this point who's actually running the country. We don't know if it's more hardliners or as President Trump says, they are, you know, more, more, more in line with Western thinking. I guess I'm paraphrasing there. So regime change, as you said, right? He wanted he wanted unconditional surrender. OK, clearly, clearly that didn't happen to. We were going for a regime change. Clearly that didn't happen, even though they've gone after some of the heads of the snake. The snake just grew a new head, in a sense. We'll have to wait and we'll have to wait and see. You went and got the nuclear enriched uranium. Well, we, I guess, made it harder to find, but we didn't go in and get it. So what was the benefit if we if we killed the other head of the snake on the first night and we continued to bomb the sites in the first week? What did we get out of the last four weeks? So there are a lot of questions. We know that Iran is now going to make some serious money off of selling their oil. We know Russia was a beneficiary of this because they're now able to make money off of the higher price of oil. So as I said, from the very beginning, it is a sticky wicket and a spider's web. And to try and decouple from this is very, very difficult. And I I'll say this and I'll give you the last word. I've often in my 30 years of talk radio have come to learn that it is it is jovial. It is hubris to think that we can somehow extrapolate what the news of to this day will bring two weeks from now. You know, it could be a wonderful ceasefire. Could be the beginnings of a wonderful relationship with Iran or it could be headed for disaster. I don't think any of us know at this point. Yeah, I don't know what's going to result two weeks from now. But what I know, I think the goal right. The goal is though two weeks leads to four weeks, leads to two months, leads to sort of, you know, going back to quote unquote, some type of normal, you know, detente, if you will. Right. But the sticky wicket is here because he and Israel decided to make this maneuver. And so this is his sticky wicket, which he is now losing, unfortunately. There is a state the terms of the ceasefire. Yeah, right. So so what have we gained with with five weeks of bombing? Iran's Iran's sanctions have been lifted. Gas prices are higher. They've cut off the head of the snake, but a new new head is grown. And maybe they've made it a little harder to reconstitute their nuclear weapons, but they still have got the enriched uranium and they still have their leaders in place. And the Iranian people aren't less anymore safe or any closer to democracy. So there's and they're going to keep funding has below. I don't know what exactly was achieved here. Yeah. No, it's a legitimate question, Tyson. All, all legitimate questions to pay attention to. Thanks to the phone call. Let's go to Eduardo and Tampa. Eduardo, welcome to America at night. Yeah, good evening. Yeah, I have my doubts about this. I mean, even before your program, I I'm here and on the other programs where there's a missile or it's going over UAE and that region. Yeah. We and Fox, hold on. Hold that way. Fox was reporting earlier that there were some cluster bombs over Tel Aviv as well. So yeah. And this was after the ceasefire was agreed to. Yeah, I heard that on G and on the Chicago radio. Yeah, you're right about that. And it doesn't even include his bola or what about the Houthis? What about those two groups? So lots of questions. No question about it. Yeah. Yeah. Lots of questions. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, hopefully there is, you know, a permanent ceasefire because, you know, we're all anxious to get back to, especially here in Florida, when we was like 280 at the gas tank and, you know, if you remember the state of the union, if you remember the state of the union, President Trump was crawling about the fact that gas prices were down significantly. And yeah, we would like to certainly get back to that. That is for sure. Get back to that. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Eduardo, thanks for calling. Thank you very much. You got it. Let's try Dave in Chicago. Dave, welcome to America at night. Hello, McGraw. How are you doing, buddy? I'm good. Thanks for calling. You know, I first started faced the listen to America at night and I was like, who's this new McGraw guy? And I couple of times I listened to you. I was like, wow, this guy's really cool and he's smart and he's fair and he's even. And now I listen to you every single night. It's really good show. Oh man. Dave, Dave, you need to call in every night and tell me that same story. No, I appreciate it. Now, David, look, I really enjoy it. You're smart and you're, you're fair and you're a good guy and really like it. I wanted to, I was trying to get in last hour when you had the gala on about the Yellowstone. Yeah. So I wanted to tell you about my first experience. I've been here like four or five times and I don't know if you ever heard of the bear tooth highway. I've not heard of the bear tooth highway. Okay. I came from Chicago and I took I 90, which goes through like Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana. You go through the Custer, all that stuff. And then the top of Montana going down into Yellowstone, it's called the bear tooth highway and it's one of the most scenic roads and scary, you know, cliffhanger trips down and then you come in through the north of the park and you enter that way through West Yellowstone where Gardner, she, I think she mentioned Gardner. If you remember that. Yeah. Little town with little, it's got like little old rustic cabins that are like 100 years old. I stayed in there by myself. This was a trip I took by myself and it was just what an amazing place. You know, you've been there. You've seen it. And I just wanted to share that with you. If anybody's thinking about going and coming from here, I would recommend going through of course Teton entrance, Jackson all that's beautiful and wonderful, but the bear tooth highway is an extraordinary entrance into the park and it's just really good. And I'm going to continue listening to you every night, buddy. And I'll be calling you every now and then. Dave, I appreciate it. Call back anytime. Thank you very much for the, for the phone call. Yeah. No, I appreciate it. Look, starting a new radio show is talk radio is an acquired taste. Your first cup of coffee, you don't really like it all that much. Your second cup of coffee, you know, you got to, you got to sort of become accustomed to the cup type of coffee and then you might like it, right? Sort of like with Irish whiskey or, you know, a beer or something, right? It's an acquired taste. What's this new voice? Who's this new guy? So I do appreciate everybody giving me the benefit of the doubt and everybody gives me a legitimate chance to sort of, you know, get my legs under me and sort of trying, listen to what I'm trying to do, which is just to be interesting and just to tell stories. And the show is called America at night and America is a big place. It's messy. It's interesting. It's wonderful. It's sad. It's heroic. It's depressing. It's a million stories over 250 plus years and I get to sit and talk about all of it. And so I think everything's interesting and I try and bring a little bit of that to the show each and every night. And I, I don't, you know, lots of talk radio was politics driven and left and right. And you're, I'm going to throw tomatoes at you and you throw tomatoes at me. I don't care. I don't care who you voted for. I don't care. I don't care who you're going to vote for. I really just want you to vote, I guess. But you know, America is more than just what divides us. And so I appreciate you giving me a chance, David. Nice of you. Let's try Blake in Birmingham, Alabama. Blake, welcome to America at night. How are you doing, sir? It's my first time calling in. Well, I'd love to hear it, Blake. Thanks for calling in. Yes, sir. I know a lot of people talk about how the ceasefire didn't work. What's going to happen? Um, I will, 20 years ago, I was in the neighboring country and I can tell you how we don't do it. Uh, if you sit in ground troops in there, they're going to take off those uniforms faster than people that take off uniforms fast. Uh, and you might be, you're, we're going to be fighting in a certain, in a certain sea for 20 years again. So you're, you're glad he didn't send troops in. Yes. That's a terrible idea. I think a lot of people, I think a lot, I think a lot of people agree with you. Even the biggest MAGA people agree with you. Um, I think he sort of threatened it, but I don't think if you really, if you were to set Trump down and give him truth serum, I don't think he ever wanted to, to send troops in. Right. Um, since they're using human shields now with the threat of, you know, bomb and infrastructure, the only way to beat some people like that is you got to starve them out and make their people turn on them. Yeah. And, um, yes, and you need to support them with military and arms and all those other types of things. And I don't know if we were willing to do that either. So, um, regime change was always a difficult, even in the best of circumstances, it's very difficult. And then going and getting the, your rich uranium is going to take troops and boots on the ground. A very, very difficult, um, mission to do. So, you know, did we, did we bomb them a couple of years from getting a bomb? Sure. Probably. And you know what? If they get close again, four or five years from now, we bomb them again. Um, you know, you just keep bombing them, keep pushing it out. So, uh, they're, you know, a perfect answer. And the nice neat bow isn't always possible. Uh, Blake, first of all, or second of all, thank you for calling. Love to hear it. Um, thank you for your service to the country. I appreciate that. And you have a nice, nice sir. You have a nice night. Call back anytime. Tommy in San Francisco. Welcome to America at night. Hey, good evening. It's actually Marin County right across the bridge, but anyway, so I had a few things to say. One was, I was just kind of laughing when I'm thinking about it so early in this quote agreement that we don't even know what it is. And in general, if people think that they're going to outplay Trump, I just say kind of go ahead. I mean, he generally outplays most everybody. Number two, I've heard this David character from San Francisco many times before because I from around here and he's been banned from some, some other local war local. He's a complete PDF head case. Uh, and that's anyway. So but I'd like to ask you, you said something about giving people credit. Well, so, and you mentioned Obama and Biden. So can you tell me what kind of credit you want to give Biden or Obama for doing? Uh, well, I don't have any Tommy, I'm at a time. I, I, I don't have any time. I will answer. I can't answer that question. Call back when I have more time. I will say this, that Donald Trump loves to walk the tightrope. He loves the drama and oftentimes the man falls into a pile of mud and comes out clean on the other side. Is this one of those times possible? Did he avert massive, massive problems? Has he gotten lucky and continues to get lucky? And, and at some point you can't call it lucky. You have to call it, um, you know, style and or what it is. So yeah, no, I think Donald Trump, um, looks like he right came out clean on the other side, but the man, he loves his drama and he loves to walk the tightrope. Call back and I'll, we can talk Obama and Biden in the future. Uh, I got a break. America night back in a moment. Want to know what's coming up on America night? Text rundown to 844-262-4729 8442 McGraw for your daily show preview. Deliver it straight to your phone. Hey, I got no more time. Thanks to Lisa Deekman from the Yellowstone National Park and our guests in the first hour. Remember this whole show gets turned into a podcast. We're all fine podcasts are found. Thanks for listening. Thanks for calling. We'll do it all again tomorrow. Our executive director is Alex Hinton and our engineer as always is Richard Good. I'm McGraw Millhaven. Thanks for listening. And Colin and texting. This is America at Night on Westwood one. Vince Colonaise is redefining news talk. I'm Vince Colonaise host of the Vince podcast. I'm bringing you the truth beneath the headlines of all of the nation's top stories. In-depth interviews. We feature newsmaking interviews with the top guests on the whole planet. And I'll ask the questions you only dream of other interviewers asking. And a front row seat to the most important conversations of the day. It's a show with an obsessive focus on what's good for America. You are going to love Vince. The Vince show. Follow and listen on your favorite platform.