10/5/26: Iran Disrupts Hormuz Traffic, Yemen War Explodes, Trump Desperate Midterm Pitch

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Listen to NFL Cover Zero on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, guys, ready or not, 2024 is here, and we here at Breaking Points are already thinking of ways we can up our game for this critical election. We rely on our premium subs to expand coverage, upgrade the studio, add staff, give you guys the best independent coverage that is possible. If you like what we're all about, it just means the absolute world to have your support. But enough with that, let's get to the show. Good morning, everybody. Happy Monday, having an amazing show for everybody today. Bro Show, people live for the pounds. Good to see you, Ryan. Nice to see you, Sergeant. So we have Iran. We're going to start off a little finance bro knowledge from our friend, Ryan Grim, who's going to break down. Scott Besson to his, decided to rue his braggadocious comment where he said, I am the house now. And he's like, well, what I meant was-- How does it always win? He's like, well, the house doesn't always win, but eventually they win, right? It's kind of similar on top of some developments out of Iran, specifically on the economic front, their oil minister resigning. We're also going to talk about Yemen. So crazy events actually happening right now, as we speak, a Saudi-backed counteroffensive on the Houthis, while the Houthis are also encircling a strategic town. The United States actually apparently held a very high-level meeting over the weekend at Camp David, where Trump is mulling both escalation in Iran and direct military intervention in Yemen. Remember, he had originally greenlit the attack and then called it off actually while the aircraft were being fueled up. Then talk about midterms, absolutely shocking. Polling numbers coming out of the New York Times, Sienna, high-quality polls in multiple different battle ground races that find a huge problem for the GOP in Alaska, in Texas, potentially even Kansas. So we're going to look at all of that evidence. And we're going to steal, man, some of it a little bit. Ken Paxton, by the way, also another leaked audio clip, where he just keeps dropping Ls out here. Because he appears to face the toughest reelection campaign of any Republican actually in a battleground state, which is shocking, obviously, to be from Texas. So we'll break a lot of that down. We're also going to talk about this AI video case, man, Ryan. This is the one which has shocked me more than anything, where a person's, what is it? His conviction, his sentence was tossed out after they used an AI video in court where the deceased victim is depicted speaking in an AI-generated video to the defendant being like, I forgive you. I don't know how any of this even happened. They got a sentence eventually went to court. I mean, it's crazy. Apparently, it was even used by the judge in their consideration. So you get AI videos and boomer judges. And apparently, this is what happens. This is on top of a new company, which appears to have claims to pass, quote, the Turing test for a video. We will play you some samples you can make up your minds for yourself. Finally, I'm really excited to say this. Andy Jacobson, the author of Biological War, previously a nuclear war, a scenario. She's going to join us. She has been on top of this apparent lab leak of a form of what is it, pneumomic plague, which appears to have leaked from BSL-3 lab, already caused the death of one of the researchers in the city of Erkutsk, which is in Siberia. One of the-- From Rysk. Yes, yes, from Rysk. I actually read a book once, which heavily took place in Erkutsk. What is it? It's over the coldest cities in the world. You're among the middle of Siberia. Totally crazy, actually, place. The fact that such a place even exists on a permanent basis. Anyway, that's where they have this BSL lab, where it's like anti-plague research. And now somebody just died of plague. Russians locking down the place, already lying about what's going on. Many of us have seen this story before. And Annie actually specifically wrote about this plague scenario in her book. So we're really excited to be joined by her. And then finally, since it's just me today, and just no crystal to be like, are we sure we need to cover this deal I'd say this thing? No, I'm joking. She probably would love it. Anyway, Trump is-- She's because of the fighting with Tom Cotton. She'd have been formed. Yeah, right, exactly. Exactly. Every time I'm like, let's get the deal I'd say into the show. Let's get gambling in the show. Well, this time around, daylight savings-- I actually think rates. You guys can judge for yourself. Trump gave out Tom Cotton's cell phone number, because he's so upset with him for blocking permanent daylight savings. And I know everybody gets confused. We are currently in daylight savings. In November, when we shift, we will go to Standard Time. That means the TLDR of it is more light in the morning, less light in the evening. Ryan and I will discuss. People know where I fall. I said Tom Cotton. And Tom Cotton is a hard core warrior, has been in touch with his office many times over the years to provide research and just general advocacy on behalf of this crusade. And he does not appear to be buckling as of right now. But Trump, using all of his political capital, I said this morning, Ryan, between Trump's embrace of weed, porn, gambling, daylight savings, and war with Iran. I think he was sent by God to punish me personally. You personally? We personally, to be punished, which is karmic, I guess. That's karma. So anyway. And then finally, Ryan and I are going to do our AMA. So Ryan, take it away with our pitch. We actually have a very specific pitch for today. And speaking of punishing soccer, if we can actually go back to camera, too, if you notice-- Come up on me while we're right here. A little bit of light behind me right here. You see this? No light. Sorry, yeah. No light. Yeah, there's no light over here. So we desperately need your support at this time. Bonser a light. Yes, for the low cost. So yes, we have a practical short. And we need you to fix it. Go to bringpoints.com, do the month free, and help us out here. That's right. And secondly, a month from now, you might be lying in your bed, dying of pneumonic plague. That's exactly right. Would you want to spend every day from now until that day watching YouTube ads? Why would you want to do that? Yeah, why would you want to do that? You might be dying drowning in your own blood-soaked vomit in about 30 days. That's right. So you might as well-- Money means nothing in that scenario. So you might-- and by the way, you're not even spending anything. Because it's free. All right, you're a state. Well, you don't have to. You're a state-- that's right. We can reconcile all of this with your lawyers. Should the time come if we ourselves are not drowning in our own blood. All right, so with all of that, let's get to Iran. Turning now to Iran, we got Scott Bessent here, who is now walking back his whole "I Am the House Now" bragging when he said that the bond deals were going to go down. They ended up going up to the highest level in 24 years. Here's what he had to say. Last month, you told the markets, "I am the house now. They bet against you. They're a peril." Do you regret saying, "I am the house now?" No, because look, the health doesn't win every hand. The health plays the percentages. And look, that maybe they hurt some fragile egos on the Wall Street that I always had respect for the market. And I always tried to look and think like, what's the move after the move that, if you have an ego, you lose a lot of money. But the market swept back. No, it didn't. How did it slip back? The rates went up, but oil went up. I could say, OK, yesterday we had the first full allocation since we have expanded our treasury buybacks and rates collapse. There's nothing causal there. It was cool. Well, it was cool. The financial times, probably your favorite paper, said, "Besent fails to break fever in US bond market." What did you learn from that? Well, I learned that the financial times is anti-American, anti-business. And they have a fever. They're constantly trying to create a problem for the US. [BLANK_AUDIO] But let's leave that disgrace publication on one side. That disgrace publication on the other side. When he launched his economic D-Day against Iran, he did it in a op-ed in the financial time. Forgotten, that's right. He did. Come on, buddy. I only did. All right, break it down for us, Ryan. What does he actually say? I mean, he's saying it's not my fault because oil prices went up and when oil prices go up, then it pushes inflation through the economy, which creates expectations of a federal interest rate hike, which then drives up interest rates. So what do you want me to do about any of this? Yeah. That's basically his argument there. That's so funny. I mean, it's hilarious, too, because I am the House now. Was one of the most declarative statements issued by a U.S. wartime Treasury Secretary in what decades? I mean, it's just like, I am the House. I will fix this. This is my thing that it immediately fell apart and filled. Guess that makes me anti-American and what is anti-business for saying that. And the funny part is, too, is like presuming that he is part of the House. He's like, well, oil prices went up. I'm like, well, that's the House's fault, too, bro. That's the U.S. government's fault. Right. You've been manipulating oil prices for months now and you finally lost your grip on it. But yes, to say I am the House now and then to have the biggest run-up in interest rates in the quarter century. A kind of reshaping of the global financial system immediately after your claim is incredible. He goes on here. We can roll a two here. Again, what I've learned, that everyone in the market knows you don't win every hand, but you win over time. Everyone knows I'm a big basketball fan, big fan of John Wooten, big fan of Dean Smith. And how do they win? You trust the process. And you put a good process in place. Like what we can see with bond yields, that I would be concerned if we were having some kind of idiosyncratic rise. It's been a global rise. That U.S. market, U.S. bond performance since President Kamen has been the best in the world. So we are not seeing people sell treasuries to buy German bonds or Japanese bonds. And like I said, that I can't control the bond market. I can do is try to get people to slow down and think. There, he's basically saying the entire global financial system is broken. Right. Just hours. So that should make you feel better. Also, trust the process means, if you're the 76, you just stumble along for a decade and a half, and then you get LeBron James. So, best in is going to hire LeBron James to fix the bond market. It's so ridiculous. You know, this whole, it's like, when you said I am the house, what you're saying. By the way, the house is supposed to win. You know that, right? And yes, not just in the long run, but on a general day to day basis. So let's put eight to three, eight three up here on the screen, which shows another problem for, quote, the house. There, we spent the last couple of weeks actually talking about the legitimate, it appears fact that there was a lot more oil that was coming out of the street of our news. We're not believing the United States government. We were looking to independent analysts, Roy Johnston, to Kepler data, to all of these others. People still manning said, I especially trust Roy on this question because he really interrogates kind of the deep assumptions. And so, we've had him here many times on the show and he was validating much of this tanker trackers as well, Sal, obviously from what's going on with shipping. All of them though, in the last 48 hours have now been pointing out, attacks on ships have been resurging in the street of our moves. And you know, we covered many of these attacks, but there were additional ones that actually happened over the weekend. And after several days without reported attacks, UK Maritime on September 28 began to report their multiple different strikes. What was also interesting about all of these strikes, quote, are all seven were attacked near the narrowest part of the Hormous Strait and what we appeared to see is that they were shooting to kill this time around, to fully disable and to sink the ship. In addition, there was a tanker this morning, or at least to save it, whatever, they don't care what happens. Really what they're saying is, we're not- Well, we're not- Two million barrels of oil. Right, necessarily one at going under. I guess from what I had seen, and not a military expert, but trusting some of the people that I had seen previously, when they would shoot, it would be disabling a warning shot, like, you know, not something that was designed- With the golden engine room. Now they're going for the engine room. They're specifically trying to take the entire ship and- Just quibbling with sink. I don't think they want to sink it. You're right. I mean, it'd be a problem for them, right? It'd kill dozens of sailors and you sink a bunch of oil here. You're absolutely right. So this is kind of a controlled game all around- It's a dangerous game. I've seen- and don't forget, people have died, like, mutinian sailors, other people have died already in this conflict. From what I understand though, here is that there was another ship this morning, a Greek ship, where the IRGC came on the radio and said, "Listen, turn around or you're getting sunk." And they did. They actually did turn around. So, pretty significant in terms of what has come out- What I also saw was this fascinating- Actually, there's part of this analysis is there is a possibility that some of these tankers are secretly paying the Iranian toll. So there's a corollary to this where previously it looked like, wow, this is all because of the Iranian blockade, but apparently there are some indications that at least some portion of these ships may just be paying Iran under the table. In fact, I can prove it, and we can add this in post, Brett Erickson, an oil analyst, flag this. On September 17th, the Treasury Department announced some new sanctions, and this kind of slipped under the radar, no pun intended. But in it, it says, quote, "This is from the Treasury Department. Since June of this year, O-FAC designated that means sanctioned. Sanctioned, Hormuz Safe Marine Services Authority has used BitBank to transfer payments to the Iranian regime." So according to the Treasury Department, this sanctioned organization set up to receive money for letting tankers go through the strait has been sending money to the Iranian regime. So people are, according to the Treasury Department, paying Iran to get their ships through, and over the two weeks since then, you did see a lot more- Great point. And you know what I'm going through? This is part of the other problem where people celebrate just the oil getting through. Rory flagged this. He was directly quoted in the Wall Street Journal. He says, "Part of the surge may reflect or exporters rushing barrels out before new escalation. Golf oil producers are currently shelling $324 million for a roundtrip shuttle run in and out of Hormuz, which is $15 to $20 premium per barrel before the cost of insurance." I mean, so you've got a $15 to $20 barrel premium just to get this stuff out of Hormuz on a highly inefficient, highly expensive, just for the tankers themselves. Not to mention the what, hundreds of millions of dollars of U.S. naval assets, U.S. Marines and sailors of Black Hawk helicopters that are all trying to move these things through. When you still got oil at where it is right now, let me take a look at the current market price somewhere around about $102 a barrel, which reflects probably the situation happening in Yemen. But if you have it all here together, this is just not sustainable. And look, I always want to try and present some of the other parts of this. So this is to the Iranian strategy. Let's put A4 up here on the screen and Scott Stevenson actually put this quite well. One of the reasons why today feels so crazy is that currently, as we see from this graphic, if you're younger than 45, this is literally the first time in your entire life that you are experiencing real time, real rising interest rate. The last time it happened was 1960 to 1980, which fundamentally changes the physics of the game, as he says, in a way that many won't be prepared for. I mean, I guess the most easy way to understand it is a money's expensive, right? It's not cheap. And you could make an argument that the entire reason that we had the VC and technological rise of the 2002 today is because of cheap money. And there was an entire period, which is known colloquially as Zerp, like the zero interest rate phenomenon, where zero interest rate alone was responsible easily for multiple like giant buss like we work, for example, and like all of these other crazy investments. But now when we have money being so expensive, obviously it's disaster for normal people like us. And you know, what is it, mortgage rates are 7.2%, something insane right now. But I do think what he is pointing to is that when, when things feel insane in our economy, beyond just gas prices, but also including home and rising rent and all these other things, it's because you actually are living through a period of genuine economic history. And that gets to Iran strategy. They look at this and they're like, that's it. I need that number. Just keep going up. As far as the rate goes up, the more this economy will get strangled in the long run. Yeah. And with zero interest rates, it encourages taking risks so that that also encourages the kind of VC boom because you can't park your money anywhere and get anything more than like half a percent. Now you can park your money and maybe get five percent. Yeah. I mean, it's a decent return. And so when you're thinking about investing in this we work company, you're like, well, we could also just put put it away here and get five percent a year, which that compounds pretty quickly. Totally. And into very real money. So you're like, yeah, you know what, this, I'm not so sure about this we work thing after all. It's going to take a pass on that. And then you don't get the, what we've had over the last 20 years. Definitely. You know, the other interesting part of it is AI where, you know, the Trump administration needs AI to fuel the economy, but the AI, AI capital expenditure is keeping interest rates even higher. of these two fourths. courses, where simultaneously you need them, but you can't screw them and it's screwing everybody else over in the entire economy. Let's put A5 up here on the screen. Wanted to mention this, very strange. I think you could just put it this way. The U.S. clearly believes that whatever happened in that base in the U.K., RAF Fairford with the supposed terrorists and/or drunken diesel thieves, pick your poison. The only point is it seems that the Pentagon believes it, because apparently yesterday the Pentagon confirmed all B1 bombers have now left the U.K. While operational security precluded us from confirming the movement in real time, we can now acknowledge that all U.S. bombers that were deployed to Fairford have been re-deployed to their home stations in the U.S. and just to add to this, apparently as I understand it, what happened is that the B1s were taken out in such a harried manner that their aerial refueling had not even taken off in the United States, and that they were scrambled effectively out of the country. Perhaps they believed it was an imminent threat. For five guys with a bunch of gas tanks, gas cans. I don't know. I mean, I'm just saying whatever happened, they're terrified. So look, it's not a good look, right? We're running scared from the U.K., I mean, it's one thing to go run scared from Kuwait, that's gone, right? This already happened. All of our bases in the region have been destroyed by rain, any of these places. But the U.K., I mean, we're talking about the Northern Ireland, and we have a base there, and it was unthinkable that anything was going to happen. And you have to dramatically withdraw one of your most sophisticated bombers from there out of fear of attack. Just goes to show some of the strategy there with real issues. Football's back. Enjoy the NFL season while listening to NFL Cover Zero. We have storylines, predictions, and lots of silliness. When you meet people and you say your job's a sports announcer, it's always interesting to see what the first thing they say is. I did have one of the more difficult questions though. He sits next to me, and he sees I'm on my computer, and he goes, big sports fan. And I was like, yeah, actually, and he goes, we met my Jaguars this year. I realized like, no one's ever asked me that question ever about anything. And I was like, do you vote? In the NFL Cover Zero on the I Heart Radio app Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcast. Didn't catch the latest Roland Martin unfiltered podcast? Here's what you missed. And the argument is, do you want to win? If you don't win, you have no power. It's real. Those are the very people who I always say vote against their own economic interests, and they complained about the very thing they were seeing. It's wrong. Because of the issue of transgender athletes was not going well with a lot of black men. Roland Martin unfiltered. I went off. I said, this is exactly what I'm talking about. Y'all go scream at Chanel, but you don't want to see a black luxury company in the same back. Catch Roland Martin's daily commentary on the black information network. I'm Brett Coleman, and I'm Trevor Sikama. If you ever watched a game and wondered what really made the difference beyond the final score, that's exactly why we created NFL ProScroad got a man wide open, touchdown, straight hooks. Every week we use exclusive next gen stats insights and NFL content to break down the biggest stories, matchups, and moments from around the league. We go beyond the box score to uncover the numbers, the tendencies, and details that help explain what actually happened on the field. And don't worry, this isn't just a show for stats experts. We use advanced analytics to help tell the story behind the game, turning the numbers into insights that every fan can understand and enjoy. So whether you're a casual fan learning more about football or a hardcore fan who can't get enough analysis, our goal is to help you see the game in a whole new way. If you've ever wanted to know why a playwork, how a matchup was won, or what most fans missed on Sunday, NFL Pro delivers insights you simply can't get anywhere else. Listen to NFL Pro on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your promise. At the same time, like I said, so I just showed you in all the ways of U.S. Scrooge. You're running scared, you're removing the B1s, the Treasury Secretary's doing a Mayacolpa overlooking like an idiot saying, I am the house now. You've got the horrible rising interest rates, high oil shutting down the straight of our moves. Let's give the other side of the coin. Let's put a six. I'm actually curious where you think Iran's top security official now warns quote of a dire economic crisis. So this is the security chief and apparently came after the U.S. sanctions in a naval blockade. They say he made the rare admission on Saturday at a high level government meeting about how to stabilize the economy after the reall plummeted from the launch of the war in February. The decline is accelerated in recent weeks that has made imports more expensive and deep in long-standing costs of living crisis, which remember had sparked nationwide protests in December that security forces crush. Analysts now say that the U.S. blockade has largely prevented Iran from exporting oil depriving the country of its main source of revenue and making a fuel crisis. The oil minister apparently just resigned yesterday for quote personal reasons. Nobody really knows why. And in recent days, multiple private sector employees have taken to social media say they're quitting their jobs because their salaries can no longer be, can no longer support them. Obviously give the caveat. We have no idea what's happening in Iran. Stuff that you see highlighted on social media. I could guarantee you there's a bunch of social media posts could be organic, could be not. If you think, screw it, let's take it the hit because we're at war. So I'm not going to present that this is the only picture, but it is one picture inside of Iran that there are problems and their security chief is acknowledging that. The flights in and out of the country were one of the significant ways that with the straight closed, Iran is continuing its export and import operations. Obviously it has huge land borders so it can do that as well. But Trump's sanctioning of the airlines did have a significant impact. And yes, he is effectively choking the economy. The question though is, how does that tactic strategically wind up with them surrendering to you? Because what the U.S. has also done is taken the blame for the problems that are going on in Iran from the Iranian government over to the U.S. government and Israel. So the Iranians can say, look, we're at war, the U.S. and Israel are doing this to us. And they wouldn't be lying about that. That's right. I think we're all reading this new book on the Weimar Republic. And it just reminded me that, and I've said this a bunch before here, that I can't think of a single example of a country that saw itself in an existential war that surrendered because its economy was suffering. That's right. Thousands of Germans dying of starvation every winter. And the only reason they ever reached an armistice with the allies was because the generals concluded that it was militarily unwinnable. It was not that, all right, you know what, it's really bad on the home front. Now they try to blame it on them later with the whole stab in the back thing. But it was not the starvation. The German economy in the 19 Teens during World War I was way worse than the Iranian economy is, right? Now, I've heard no reports of people starving to death in Iran. People are suffering and are deeply unhappy about the situation. But I just don't see how this goes from A to B would be being, okay, we surrender. Yeah, there's this theory, and it's been around now for literally over 100 years before the First World War. I remembered the book, but I couldn't remember the name. It was called the Great Illusion. And he said, the economies of the major, this is 1910, this book is published, have become so financially and commercially intertwined, a war between them would be economically ruinous. And so the winner, for the winner as well as the loser, and thus it would likely not be, it would be impossible to be fought. And then- All of that was true. Yeah. All true. And yet they did it anyways. And then there were even people, I think. So I remember reading this, and what's the guy's name? He used to work for you, Huff Post, Keynes Biography, Zach Carter. So Zach Carter, his biography of John Maynard Keynes, I remember phenomenal book, I highly recommend it. Well, I remember in the opening, in parts of it, where Keynes was working, I think he was working in whatever the ex checker or whatever they call it over there, where there was a genuine theory. They're like, guys, the war is going to end because we're all going to go broke. And then they were like, well, you can just print money. You know, we could just go off the gold standard, and when it's an existential crisis, money doesn't matter anymore, man. Like, we're in the fight for our lives. I just think that's- We need to- And so that's my point, is that, like you said, things are bad any wrong. But look at another book drop I recently read, it was called the Battle of Berlin. I think it was something Berlin, the downfall by Sir Anthony Beaver. It's April 1945, everyone's like Germany's cooked. Guess what? They fought to the death, man. Because for them, it was literally existential. You had people that didn't even support Hitler, they hated the Nazis, basically they didn't support them previously. But by that time, they're like, okay, clearly this is all lies. It's like, well, you know, at this point, we're fighting for one reason to protect your wife and your daughter from being raped. And to make, because of that, we're all willing to put it out all on the line. People will literally fight and scratch and claw to the absolute death whenever it's at existential. Obviously, I'm not saying that that's where we are right now. But I think your point is so important that over the last 100 years or so, what compels surrender is absolute and total domination and pox, either occupation or an atomic bomb. That's it. And so, at this point right now, I mean, these people, I feel horrible for them, but they've got a long way to go before we start seeing rebellions in the streets and like the German, you know, for example, what member of the IRGC is going to come to the Iowa and be like, sir, we can no longer fight. Like they would kill him at this point. Yeah. And also, the Israelis and the Americans have made very clear that they have no interest in like bringing the Shah back and creating some like utopian, Iranian society. They're like, no, we want to carve this up, create a civil war and destroy your civilization. So people are like, oh, okay, well, that doesn't sound good either. Good point. All right. Last thing, I think here, that I mentioned A7, just a highlight, the Iranian oil minister quote, resigned for personal reasons. Don't really know anything about it. Supposedly he had, the reporting was he had tried to resign before and they wouldn't let him. No, no. I mean, he was in an impossible position. I don't know. The head of the National Oil Company is now the oil minister. Is it really? All right. We'll see. I mean, he knows what he's doing. Very likely, what they need is somebody who is innovative and they're like, okay, how much oil can you move by rail? How much oil can we get out through illegal means? How much oil can we put on a truck? What can we do to get things through? So it's, I mean, frankly, like this is. Victory barrels come bring your barrels to the barrels. I mean, in times of war, this is very common. In fact, I think we should have more of it like here where if you have a bunch of generals who literally fail within the first several months, you're like, okay, you're fired. Right. We need somebody. Why is our secretary? We are in a war. We're in a war of complete crisis. It's like, okay, well, then we have to cycle through as many people until we find somebody who is actually competent at their job. We'll see what happens over there. But all right, let's get to Yemen. Football's back. We have storylines, predictions and lots of silliness. When you meet people and you say your job is a sports announcer, it's always interesting to see what the first thing they say is. He sits next to me and he sees I'm on my computer and he goes, big sports fan. I realized like no one's ever asked me that question ever about anything. Listen to NFL Cover Zero on the I Heart Radio app Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcast. It's real. Those are the very people who I always say voted against their own economic interests and they complained about the very thing they were seeing. It's raw. I knew that the issue of transgender athletes was not going well with a lot of black men. I went off. You don't want to see a black luxury company in the same bag. Catch Roland Martin's daily commentary on the black information that we're 12 seats. Those are moving south. So if you Democrats, you don't wait to 23, you better be hitting the ground going to heart in the south now. And download Roland Martin unfiltered on the I Heart Radio app Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Britt Coleman and I'm Trevor Sikama. Have you ever watched a game and wondered what really made the difference beyond the final score? That's exactly why we created NFL Pro. Every week we use exclusive next-gen stats insights and NFL content to break down the biggest stories, matchups and moments from around the league. We go beyond the box score to uncover the numbers, the tendencies and details that help explain what actually happened on the field. So whether you're a casual fan learning more about football or a hardcore fan who can't get enough analysis, our goal is to help you see the game. In a whole new way. Listen to NFL Pro on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcast or wherever you get your podcasts. Turning now to Yemen, we were talking about the spiraling situation, not with oil, but this is actually one of the precipitating reasons why. Let's put this up here on the screen. So big news out of the weekend is that the top cabinet members huddled for hours at Camp David on Friday to discuss the next steps in the Iran War and the Saudi-Houthi conflict in Yemen. The highly unusual meeting was not announced by the Trump administration. And here's why I should scare you. The last time a similar meeting took place was June of 2025, days before Israel went to the war with Iran, the participants included the vice president, the secretary of state, the secretary of defense, the White House on-voice Steve Wichoff, CIA director, chairman of the Joint Chiefs and the Treasury secretary, quote, "Things were decided or at least deeply discussed." Whatever that means. Trump is reconsidering resuming major combat operations in Iran, quote, "Now I have to make a decision. Either Iran signs a deal or won't exist any longer." Obviously said that many times, but the more important thing that was discussed was direct intervention in Yemen when he was asked about what his next move would be. He said, "If I told you you would have a major story, but you'll see it's working out very well. Iran is not doing well." And then as of this morning, let's go ahead and start with some video, actually, that is breaking just this morning out of Yemen. We're going to start, guys, with the first I showed you where immediately yesterday the Yemeni government, backed by the Saudi government, has actually began advancing near the Babal Mandab straight as of this morning. This is literally coming out of them. Remember propaganda video, and that's a caveat, too, for the Houthis. They're like, look, we control Babal Mandab. There's no exact evidence of that, but it's a town, I believe, which is near the direct Babal Mandab straight. Because additionally important, really is the dedication of so many Saudi resources. So it appears Ryan, over 100 targets were bombed by the Saudis as of this morning. Put B2 up here on the screen. This is from the BBC. They announced, quote, "all out war to reclaim this land." I mean, one reason why is that you should be relatively skeptical, as you know, we've been watching this conflict for decades. The Saudis have been bombing and have been renouncing all out wars for like 12 years. It never actually works. And in fact, in the long run, the Houthis have gotten much stronger. They shocked the world, obviously, when they took over the entire Babal Mandab and apparently appeared to have been circling one of their strategic towns, apparently in Yemen, even right now, while all of this is happening. So yeah, what's your read on the situation? So what I'm hearing from the drop site newsroom here is that it does appear to be the case that they recaptured Dubab, which is a key area along the coast. They have not seized any of the islands, so they don't have control of the strait. This is the Saudi-backed forces there. They did take the airport nearby there, and apparently they charged down the coast with these, and across the coastal plains with heavily armored vehicles, which these are Saudi and UAE, but at this point, mostly Saudi purchased weapons, and they're also bombing the capital, Sanaat, at this point. So it does show that this is this group called the Giants Brigade, which is founded by the UAE, but they kind of switched over to the Saudi side. It does show that they have the capacity to hit back. Now, what this group of deep thinkers at Camp David came up with remains to be seen, but I would be very surprised if there was anything that they could put up on the whiteboard that they haven't already tried. As you said, multiple times over the past decade. Apparently, the U.S. now, according to reporting, we're back to refueling flights. - Right, which Trump quit in very controversial policy. - He quit in 2019 when there was a war powers resolution that actually Rokana and I wasn't messy, maybe even pushed an under pressure. - I think that Gates as well. - Yeah, oh yeah, I think that's right, yeah. And so they ended the refueling which was our most significant participation in the bombing campaign along with providing the jets and the weapons, the training and the maintenance and the targeting and basically doing everything. And so in May of 2025, Trump reached a bilateral ceasefire with the Houthis. And the Houthis have abided by it throughout the entire Iran conflict by not attacking the United States and the US has also abided by it by not attacking the Houthis. MBS has begged Trump to come back in. Trump doesn't want that smoke because enormous amounts of shipping go through the Red Sea. - Well, also our Navy is tied up in the street of Hormuz. I actually didn't even make the show. It's a huge piece of news. Third carrier is literally on its way right now to the straight of Hormuz. So even more, and I believe a few thousand more troops have been deployed there as well. So keep that in mind. I mean, that's one thing and we should flag here with this Camp David meeting. Every single time there's been a US military buildup under Trump, they've used it. It's never been for defensive purposes. I had a Venezuela. If you would just follow the naval movements, you're like something's gonna happen. And then lo and behold, something happens. Before, what was it? Midnight Hammer in June 2025. Three carriers in the region. Midnight Hammer. Then before the operation in February, you got three carriers in the region. There you go. You had all that war bombing that happened on Iran. So you could put, you know, every, they've given us no reason to say, oh, it's just for, you know, whatever for stasis operations. So if that were the case, then you wouldn't be cycling more material in the region. - Yep. And when Trump reached the ceasefire deal in May 2025, he said he was shocked at the amount of kind of pummeling that they were able to take. He's like, these guys are tough. It's one of Trump's funnier press conferences. He's like, I was planning this. He was planning this like 90 day war against him. And then like after 40 days, he's like, they're too good. Like they're their ability to take our MQ-9s out of the sky. They were, they remember a couple fighter jets fell off of aircraft carriers because the aircraft carriers were having to move so fast to dodge the ballistic missiles that were coming their way. And so he's like, all right, enough of this. And which was smart. - Yeah. - Yeah. And reach the deal. Okay, we won't shoot it, you don't shoot it with us. Imagine that. - But that's the problem is that for the Houthis, if we're back to refueling flights, if we are back to full support, and obviously, and all out war in addition to what's happening with Saudi Arabia, which is all paid for entirely by the United States, it's a question for them of how long they're gonna sit there and going to take it. Let's put B3 up here on the screen. Houthis have still been claiming some major attacks. So the New York Times actually shows to the extent of how much the United States is helping them. They say more than 200 US intelligence and military analysts are currently in Saudi Arabia, helping provide assistance to the Yemeni allies. In addition, what they point out is these claimed Houthi attacks on obviously strategic assets in Saudi. The most significant one is this morning, and I'll contextualize it, it is very disputed. So this morning at 4.44 AM, Eastern time, AFP, Ajeans from press, reported East West oil pipeline pumping halted after new attack. It was followed two hours later by a Bloomberg news report that says Saudi East West oil pipeline is said to be flowing as normal. Who knows? Aramco has nothing to say. They won't tell us exactly what's going on. I think you could say for certain that the Houthis did probably launch a drone at the East West pipeline, which previously they shut down for a week. They apparently attacked something called a pumping station, which is less critical than destroying the pipeline itself. Perhaps that's what it was. It was down, it was offer a few hours, something like that. But nonetheless, it shows the fragility of the oil system. And it's another one of these situations where I'm like, am I missing something here? Because this seems like a very obvious strategic problem that you have a country that is very rich and dependent on keeping its oil flowing in order to keep its cash flow going. And you have another country that is insanely poor, one of the poorest in the world and has very little to lose, but has a very impressive drone and ballistic missile program that can target the rich country's oil infrastructure. That does not seem to me to be the kind of scenario where if you're the rich oil country, you want to get into a forever war with the poor country that has nothing to lose and a ton of ballistic missiles and drones. So I genuinely don't understand what I'm missing and why they continue. I think the only thing I can come up with is that MBS rose to power on the back of being the defense minister in launching this war. And it would be such a blow to his prestige. Oh, they can never surrender. That he personally would get overthrown if he admits that he has lost this. And so he will take the entire country down with him before he does that. So maybe I get that. No problem with absolute monarchies. It turns out they're bad. Midterms, he's not so worried about the midterms. But before up here on the screen, just to show you some of the other things that are happening, that you may see somewhat of a decline or the very least a stoppage of the rate in the rise of diesel prices over the next month or so. And that is because the G7 agreed underdress to release up to 100 million barrels of emergency oil and diesel reserves. Note, I said here underdress. And that is because apparently this came as a direct result of Trump ahead of the midterms telling the G7 and specifically the European nations who are heavily reliant on the United States and out of Japan in there as well. They're like, look, you can use your SPR right now or we're just gonna do a diesel export ban. I don't think he ever actually would have done a diesel export ban, but they decided to basically bend the knee to the Trump administration. Why do you think they didn't want to do it? Oh, so according to one of the oil analysts, Havier Bloss, who I read, they wanted to save it for winter. Oh, wintering sense. Because they're heading into potentially a bad winter with diminishing diesel reserves. Remember, too, their heating system is a lot older apparently than ours, it's not a suppression. What, they're not, when I say less efficient, I mean, saying what it is is very reliant on all these imports, specifically from the United States or previously from Russia or from the Middle East. So Europe's like, we don't want to burn through all of our winter reserves to save you one seat in Iowa. Exactly right. And Trump's like, do it. They, yeah, so we basically forced them to do it. Heavily actually controversial decision, at least amongst the energy community in Europe, because they're like, no, we shouldn't do this. They're like, we need to wait. Who knows what we could be sitting with in November and in December, but they decided ultimately to buckle. So likely, this is kind of my guess, now that I can see the bigger picture. The diesel export ban and the pressure with the G7, they knew that if the war in Yemen escalates, that's going to send the price of oil dramatically up. So what they want to do is do this, in addition to put B5 up here on the screen, is apparently the U.S. is going to loan up to 40 million barrels of oil from the SPR, the very last batch from one of these global SPR release deals, is they're trying to cushion the future blow. Now, part of the problem with that is that the original SPR release was supposed to cushion the blow entirely, and yet the SPR is on what? The lowest levels since 1982 or something. Yeah, I think it's down to 280. It's like, it's from its inception. And it can only really get down to 250. Right, something about salt caverns and implosion. I've started to laugh. Or something, yeah. We know enough about this. I'm not learning anymore, I refuse. Yeah, that's right. I refuse to learn more about salt integrity. Salt cavern integrity. All I know is that the people who are knowledgeable tell me it's not good. And yet, even with all this, the national price of gasoline this morning, $4.36 gallon and diesel sitting around $6.32 gallon, the all-time high is $6.52. So only about 20 cents off of the all-time high, which was only like two weeks ago. So you could see here, it's not exactly trending in the right direction for everybody. Things hovering right around that for $3.35 gallon. And what they say is that if the E-SWI pipeline does fully go off, even with all of its craziness and hormones, which we just talked about, when you put it together, you are facing a very dangerous situation for the oil market and especially going into the November and December heating demand. And apparently we're very lucky. Something about El Nino means that we're not gonna have that many hurricanes this year. It's like one of the first whatever, like September's, there's no hurricane in the Atlantic and forever. So we're actually, this is a dream scenario 'cause at least the refineries and the Gulf are not currently under threat. So, I mean, who knows, I don't know. I mean, something crazy could happen and then you have a hurricane and there you go. We're gonna see it all over again. - Could also just end the war and give-- - Yeah, that's one of the frozen funds back. - Yeah, we could do that. It would be a lot cheaper. - Certainly would. - It's a lot easier to-- - It's their money, give them their money back. - Just give them, we're gonna be like, "Hey, here's $200 million and we're just gonna leave." And, you know, we wish you the best. Well, you're going to sign some fake agreement on IAEA. We'll just forget any of this ever happened. I actually think they would take that deal. They'd be like, "Okay, sure. All right. Let's do it." And that's it. But that would be smart. Obviously, for our country, it would save us a lot of money. I think it's what most people at this point would want. You're going to hold your nose and be like, "Yeah, it sucks to sign a deal with Iranians, although I'm not sure so many people would care at this point." But Israel, you're right, would not stand for that. So speaking of all that damage, let's get to the midterms. [MUSIC] Football's back. I did have one of the more difficult questions, though. And I was like, "Yeah, actually," and he goes, "We met my jaguars this year." I realized, like, no one's ever asked me that question ever about anything. And I was like, "Duh-woah." Listen to NFL Cover Zero on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. [MUSIC] Didn't catch the latest Roland Martin unfiltered podcast. It's real. Those are the very people who I always say vote against their own economic interests. And they complained about the very thing they were seeing. It's real. I went off. I said, "This is exactly what I'm talking about." Y'all gonna scream at Chanel, but you don't want to see a black luxury company in the same bag. [MUSIC] And download Roland Martin unfiltered on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts. Wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Britt Coleman, and I'm Trevor Sikima. If you ever watched a game and wondered what really made the difference beyond the final score, that's exactly why we created NFL Pro Stroke. Got a man wide open. Let's go, Cheehocks! Every week we use exclusive next-gen stats insights and NFL content to break down the biggest stories, matchups, and moments from around the league. Fires it out and the flat to Barclay, who beats one man, spins past another, leaps over a phone. If you've ever wanted to know why a playwork, how a matchup was won, or what most fans missed on Sunday, NFL Pro delivers the insights you simply can't get anywhere else. Listen to NFL Pro on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Turning now to the midterms, Trump continues to barnstorm the country and give the most inspiring pitch ever, which is, you may literally hate the Republicans running, but you have to vote for them, followed by some clownish behavior by the candidates themselves. Here was one example from Ohio, name checking Vivek Ramaswamy before he almost dropped a child. Let's take a look. Voting on voter ID go out and vote, even if you hate John, you said, even if you hate Vivek, Ramaswamy, you're going to go out, you're going to vote and then you're going to pull their triggers, but nobody hates them there. So freaking good. OK. Voting on voter ID. Wow. That's John voter ID is on the ballot. I'm going to say in his small defense, not that I'm some great fan of Vivek, you fought as a father or four, you know, when they go limp, it's real annoying. When they go limp and you're trying to pick them up, you're like, how does this 30 pound meat sack, you know, like you're trying to pick it. So I, you know, small defense there, but regardless, it's like, it's like they say in the courtroom, don't ask a witness. That's right. A question you don't know the ethics. Don't pick up a child that you don't know. If you don't know how they're going to react. And even if you do know them, even if you're a parent, they might still go, oh, yeah, literally no reason. But, you know, for Trump there, it's just the least inspiring pitch that you could possibly have. And it is funny because it fits this whole, I hate them, fits with some of the current polling. So let's go ahead and put, here's an amalgamation of the New York Times, Cianna Poll, we're just going to spend a lot of time on this. Let's put it up here on the screen. What they show in this summary is you have perhaps the most shocking number. It's not just Texas. It's actually Alaska. Although there are signs here. So they show Alaska, Mary Peltola, plus seven. And I'm going to get into that number specifically because there's some very interesting dynamics in that race. Then Texas, they have Talarico, plus five, Ohio, Sherrod Brown, plus three, Michigan, Elsiad, plus five. I wouldn't call that shocking, that one was pretty much expected. But here it is, Kansas tied, a tie race in the state of Kansas, Iowa, Henson, plus one. And then Ryan, I'll definitely lean on you for this, Collins, plus three in the state of Maine. Huge problem there for the Trojaxon campaign. Let's put C3 up here on the screen. This is Nate Cones, right up of the New York Times, Cianna Poll, I'll read from some of these. He says, on paper, the Democrats path to winning the Senate, November is very daunting. They need to flip at least two seats that President Trump won by 11 percentage points or more. No party is pulled off a similar feat since 2008. However, once you look at some of these new polls for Democrats, what they show is some of the breakdowns in some of the strength that the GOP has had over the years. Obviously number one is Trump. Trump himself is not on the ballot. And two, he also is dramatically unpopular whenever it comes to his approval rating. So they say across the five states, the President's approval rating is just 40% with 57% who have an unfavorable view. That is not much better than his ratings in recent national polls. And they represent a significant decline in his support since our last polls in these four states in June. Since then, his ratings have fallen by five net percentage points. There are two basic explanations for this. One is that his ratings will continue to slide everywhere, not just in these states. And another possibility is that he is suffering disproportionate losses in these five Republican states. Demographics alone are not a sufficient explanation. It's something more like greater exposure as we've hammered home on this show to high diesel prices in the farm bill. And I don't think I can stress that enough for the Kansas, the Iowa numbers is that these farming economies, when you're so heavily reliant, a swing in one direction. You don't have a tech industry or the government employment or some other like a diversified economy. When you are so all in on one thing, we know what that does whenever we've looked at Michigan, for example, in the past for auto workers, like GM goes down, the whole state goes bust. That's the biggest exposure that they have inside of this right. And the irony is that Kansas is also a manufacturing state. And bizarrely, this wouldn't be what you would think automatically, Trump's tariffs have actually really punished Kansas's manufacturing, but I didn't realize that either. Because there are so many of the inputs into the manufacturing capacity of the plants in Kansas are coming from overseas and then they're assembling things here, selling them here and then exporting. And so the two major industries of Kansas, manufacturing and agriculture are both taking a whack. Plus, there's plenty of trade with Canada that's messing them up. Plus, they cost the labor going up because you saw the Republican Center there complaining about ice raids in Southwest, Southwest Kansas. So I'm actually a little surprised that Kansas is even more in play than Iowa, but that's all within the margin of error. Exactly. And they didn't have Nebraska up there. No, they didn't. Which is interesting. They didn't pull that because Dan Osborne is not a Democrat, he's an independent. Exactly. But you throw in Nebraska, Idaho, being something that people have to worry about, Montana, there's an independent and a Democrat running in Montana. And the Democrat, the bottom is just completely falling out from her, she's going to end up being a non-factor by November. Montana is in play for Democrats as well. I saw that South Dakota, which is not in play, but it's normally like a 40 point, you know, romp. But Republicans are up by like 10 or something. Right. Exactly. So enough to win, but it's an indication that like the headwinds are fierce. What's important, actually, which Nate points out, and this is something which really does show in the polling, is that Democrats have something going for them, which is beyond Trump and even the structural, is a significant advantage in candidate quality. So, for example, in all five states that they pulled, more voters view the Democrat favorably than unfavorably, while more voters view the Republican candidate unfavorably, then favorably, a triumph for Democrats in reliably Republican states, because they have managed to find candidates who are both personally appealing and ideologically acceptable to a red state voter. I feel like that is so important, because the biggest problem the Democrats have had is being tied to their national brand. And ironically, the Republicans have the opposite problem, where even though some of them have broke a hint and breaks with Trump on Iran, Mike Rogers says, let's ban data centers, let's get out of the war with Iran. They're so tied to Trump and with Maga the brand nationally, it's like the Obama problem from 2010. No matter how blue dog you are, you're a Democrat, you're in the same party as Obama. So, now the Republicans have the same problem, where Trump's toxicity will drag down everybody across the board, because they can just point to that person wearing a Maga hat, that person appearing at a rally with Trump. Texas, they point to, is actually the number one problem in a nutshell. Put C-4 up here on the screen and I'll read a little bit from their analysis, for example, on Texas. Of all the polls, none capture the Republican challenge better than Texas. The Republicans are cooking with the same recipe in all five states. Texas, the one where Republicans have contributed the finest ingredients. The president's approval rating has fallen to just 38, you know he loved right now. Has fallen to just 38% amongst likely voters, the same as in our last national poll. Mr. Paxton is the least popular of all 10 Senate candidates that were tested. All of this is occurring in a state where Hispanic voters who swung hard towards the Democrats represent a large share of the electorate, while the GOP is spending hundreds of millions to try to bring down Talarico. So far, his candidacy appears essentially undamaged. His favorable ratings actually ticked up in June only 40% say he's too far to the left unchanged from 39%. And less than the 47% who say Paxton is too far to the right. If there's a glass half full interpretation for Republicans, is that the poll found a very favorable electorate for Democrats? If the poll is right about who will show up to vote, then many Trump voters, especially Hispanic and young Trump voters will stay at home. At the same time, any influx of Democratic leading voters would enter the electorate, and together that electorate jolts to the left. If the 2024 electorate did show up to vote, however, the race would be a dead heat. And so I do feel like that is a major problem. And the bigger problem for Paxton, he actually said it himself. It just keeps getting caught on leaked audio. So guys, let's go ahead and do C-7, let's take a listen. And which, if that always comes from other people a lot of times, which you don't control. So I have a little controller in my bucket, that's about it. In my little bit of time that I can go out and get to as many people as I can, but I've never been raised by thoughtless control over the campaign and like what issues are going to matter because it's all coming from DC and I don't control a message or what we're doing. So I can't, I have no, I don't have the ability to change anything, so I have to live with whatever I've got. So it is a challenge and it's, that's what the, hopefully this polling will help us figure out. The point is hard off. It works hard to get, make sure that we are maximizing every set so that people understand the difference between me. So people understand the difference between him and me, everything's being controlled by DC. Also, if any of you were watching the National Football League yesterday, you may have been a customer like me sitting in the Northeast, watching television and watching Ken Paxton ads and saying, what the hell, I was, I actually thought I'm like, did my YouTube TV forget that I live here? I'm like, do they still think that I live in Texas? What is going on? So apparently, this is so funny, no, it is a TV market problem. So this is from Edo Keith. If you're seeing political TV ads during football for elections far away from where you live, that's because at this stage in the cycle, it is less expensive to buy a TV ad during a regional or national NFL game than it is to buy locally because there's more inventory nationally. So it is more expensive to buy 30 seconds in Des Moines or Dallas if there's no airtime left there than it is to buy nationwide. So it was actually cheaper for the Paxton superpacks to blanket the nation than it was just to buy specific airtime on what was it, I guess, the cowboys and Texans, whatever that particular regional market was. So it was easier for them to just blast it nationally. I saw all kinds of reactions. People were like, I'm sitting here in Rosalind, Virginia, here in about Tallarico in Trance. I'm like, how is this even possible? I really thought it was a personal thing. I was like, I must be going crazy. I was like, YouTube TV must think I live in Texas again, even if I've lived here in like 16 years. But that's apparently what happened. That's a comically bad candidate too, and then to even hear, listen to him with his donors, been like, oh, it's not my fault. It's actually Trump's fault and we're trying, I guess, I'm being controlled from DC. What an incredible thing to say in October of an election year. Vote for me. I'm controlled by the people in DC. So funny. All right. Let's put what is it? See five on the screen. I do want to give a reality check. This is from Ryan Gerdusky. He says, if Collins survives, Dems need to flip three Senate seats in a double digit Trump state. Polls say it's a guarantee. Only eight races in the last 25 years have voted for POTUS by double digits and then flipped the Senate seat to the opposite party. A blue wave could be harder than it seems. I think that's, you know, it's one of those where I don't think we're presenting it as a foregone conclusion. Right. I think we try very hard on this show to be like, look, let's contextualize how crazy this is. Let's say one thing, we will obviously find out an election day. What do you think going in and this, especially with Troy Jackson, because you know him a little bit. You have a lot of good reporting on Maine. He seems to be really with in this one. He doesn't seem to be playing it well. Yeah, big time. And it is definitely possible that we could be up here on election night. And while they came really close in Kansas, they came really close in Iowa. Brown ran an amazing race in Ohio. They came so close, Dan Osborne ran a great race in Nebraska. He's losing by a half a point. Like, you could imagine Republicans kind of running the table on a lot of these and just holding off. Can I, yeah, let me pick up on that. One of the reasons why this is outside of Maine is this happened in Virginia. Remember with the redistricting fight is even though the Democrats won, Republicans came out like crazy to vote. This is when Trump was unpopular. And that's because for them, they were like, hey, you're literally going to strip us of all representation in our state. We're at least going to fight a little bit. You know, it's like we're going to come out and just be like, hey, we exist actually, you know, we're all going to come out to the ballot, the off year election. Some crazy, you know, national, or sort of statewide ballot. And they all came out to vote. And so I look at that and I just think this is just me being from Texas. The whole, like, it's a machine. The whole economy, the whole industry, everything runs on Republican governance. Like from the top down, from, from taxes to oil to the data centers, the power grid, I mean, it literally is a machine top to bottom that has not lost a statewide election since like I was, before I was born, like I'm trying to think Ann Richards, you know, somebody like that at a statewide, Lloyd Benson, these people are ancient figures. I mean, I talk about Benson, he was the last Democratic Senator. He's the guy who made that quip, I knew Jack Kennedy. That's how old he is. He's a, he lose serve with Kennedy, so I'm like, I don't know. I mean, I just feel like for the evangelicals, how much is it stake for them? I mean, their power because, look, the evangelicals, obviously, why do they care about the Senate? Anyone want to tell me you got a bunch of freaking 90-year-olds in the Supreme Court, right? So, Tallariko's not going to vote to confirm anybody whose pro life. I mean, look, I'm not saying you care or I care. I'm saying these people care a lot, and they will crawl over broken glass. So I don't know. That's why I have trouble. I have trouble with it. And to your point about Maine, it's quite possible, a bunch of these Democrats win and Maine and Susan Collins still holds on. Troy Jackson. What's going on? Let's just do this. So what's going on? Graham Platner won with the backing of 10,000 plus volunteers and, you know, huge small donor base. He was holding multiple events a day, all throughout. It feels like he met almost everybody in Maine, during his primary. And his volunteers were hardcore. I was there before the primary, and I was out there taking a walk and literally in the middle of the rain. He's like, "Hey, man, you want to talk about Graham Platner and have free eyes coffee?" I was like, "Wow." He's like, "Wow." Yeah, exactly. He's out here in the middle of nowhere, offering free coffee. Exactly. So, 10,000 plus, Maine is a small state to amass that -- those aren't donors. These volunteers, people who are out knocking doors, sitting in the rain, giving free coffee, just to hear a little bit about Platner, that Jackson campaign has sidelined them. Like, won't work with them. Why? They're toxic. They did this thing where they said anybody affiliated with the Platner campaign was -- and it was a kind of a top-down, not just from D.C., but from the kind of establishment wing of the party in Maine, that it became this jockeying for power, is it going to be a populist takeover of the party in Maine, or is it going to remain in the hands of the established Democrats, and they said, "So we don't want it?" It makes no sense at all, because obviously none of those volunteers are responsible for what Graham Platner may or may have done five or ten years ago, yet it got so bad that a couple weeks ago, when Troy Jackson jumped into this volunteer Facebook group to defend himself against this Rebecca Tracer investigation in New York magazine, the volunteers were so offended by how he was behaving. They were like, "There's no way that's Troy Jackson. Troy would never talk to us like this. This must be his DC staffers who took over his Facebook account." And they banned him from the Facebook group, the candidate kicked him out a couple days later. He was like, "It's me. That was me. Sorry." And there's been this Israel waffle where he called it a genocide under pressure, and then he was like, "I apologize to Jewish people for using that word." Like, "Dude, what are you doing?" I was like, "I don't get it." Well, you like Troy Jackson, or a lot of the progressive people like Jackson. They all seemed like he was the best option. I don't know. The whole thing, it stinks. Yeah. He came in and he was like, his defense basically is he didn't have a team. So he had to go with these guys, and he never thought, "Well, there was a team and a group of volunteers that just showed that they could win when he's at home." Doing what? Yeah. He was invited to give this like Labor Day talk that he gives every year at like the local library. And he's like, "Yeah, I'll do that again." And the whole world came down on him. Cheyenne Hunt is like, "How dare he Fox News does a bunch of segments on us?" He's like, "Fine, I won't do it Labor Day talk about the history of labor." I don't know. I think a lot of the segments we did around that time are not going to age very well for the Jackson campaign. I'll just leave it at that, all right? Let's continue to break down some of these other races, Ohio. I definitely wanted to mention this one. Absolutely interesting. AI and data centers is one of the number one important issues. For example, in Ohio, 3% of all voters may not sound like a lot, actually a ton compared to a national sample, said that AI was the most important issue whenever it came to their vote. They said Shared Brown, who is leading hosted by some three points, has been the epicenter of the backlash over data centers. And Brown was, quote, an early mover to capitalize on the issue. I also think Shared Brown, when we talk about candidate quality, I mean, this guy has always just been massively out of step for all Democrats like nationally, like pro union, pro tariff. Even when he wrote some book in the '90s about steel and how important it is, like this is just a, you could say whatever you want about, oh, he's a Lib and, you know, I don't know these. But like, you can't deny his actual credentials and the time that he spent in the state. I know this for a fact from having like observed these issues. Like his team would go to bat, would go to war with the Biden administration over, you know, manufacturing. And so they actually walk the walk. I'll give him, I'll give him credit for that. Yes. He, like, I remember, we did something, we used to do it. Huffington Post, like fashion, just as a joke, like fashion stuff around the state of the union. Yeah. Shared Brown, I was like, oh, yeah. Union made shoes, Union made pants. That's right. Yeah. He's a real deal. And you can't, you can't hit him with the culture war stuff. It just doesn't land. And also when you, when you have built up that trust over the decades that this is where you stand, when you come out and say, I am against the data. Data centers here, people believe you. That's true. Whereas when Mike Rogers and Michigan is like, all of a sudden, he went from pro data center to anti data center, people don't, I don't, I don't think they actually internalize that you're going to stand against them. That's everything. They think that you're just saying it. With Brown, they're like, oh, if he says he's against this, and it was probably a hard thing to do because the unions are generally for them. It's fascinating, you know, even continuing, like with some of this, the number one thing. And oh, I wanted to return to Alaska. That was important. Make sure I do. Let me put C6 up here on the screen. This was a flag from Nate Cone. This is in context of a discussion that he was having. Basically, what he says is Democrats are now very strong with low propensity voters in our polls in the 24 primary Trump plus to recall Peltola plus five, no 24 primary, Trump plus 16 recall, Peltola plus nine. Now he caveats this, he goes, look, I should remind everyone this is one cross tab in an idiosyncratic race, an extreme pattern doesn't extend to the Senate control question in Alaska. And I just think the flag that he's making there, where this is the open question of this entire thing, is this the same polling error that we've seen in the Trump era, which is basically low propensity voters. They don't show up in our polls to the extent that they do. They're massively under-sampled. And then come election day Republicans win by much more than ever, you know, ever thought except for that one time in 2022 when Democrats overperform or are, is this the first time some of the bros and the Hispanics who, you know, like these lower propensity younger voters just kind of check in, check out at a vibe based level on politics. Are they actually turning on Trump and are they going to come out to vote in a midterm election? You know, even if they don't come out to vote at all, that it is obviously an affirmative choice, then if they did come out to vote in 24 and it would work out for the Democrat chances. That's something he picks up on. It'll be one of the biggest questions on election night. And by the way, that is the difference between what you said, Ryan, is between, because one easy possibility on election night is, you know, looking at this New York Times, CNN thing, we could live in a world where Susan Collins wins Maine and then Talleriko wins in Texas, which there's two huge seismic events. But like he said, Ohio, Huston by point two, recount territory, L.S.I. had even wins Michigan, but that was like relatively expected in Iowa, you know, hinted by point five. Kansas, I don't even remember who's, what's the guy's name? Adam Hamilton. Yeah. So he's like, he wins by two point three. Oh, you mean, what's his name? Roger, Roger. Roger, Roger. Yeah. Dr. Roger Marshall. Dr. Marshall. Peltola. Well, that one's totally crazy because of rank choice voting. So it'll take a little bit longer. But you could see this universe where that's the universe where the Republicans get scared or some of these lower propensity people just simply didn't show up even in Democratic enthusiasm. And then you could also see actually in a blue wave what happens is you don't fully capture all of the energy and then it moves on the other side of the curve. So I wouldn't rule out any of this. I just think, I do think Ryan's point is really important and well taken and it does show the extent, I mean, I think it's highly possible just to return to Maine for a second. I think it is highly possible that the decision to House Platinum would be maybe one of the most consequential decisions and it's like full embrace of me to hysteria which hunt leads basically to the loss of Democratic control of the Senate. I think a lot of people should ask questions if that happens. I really do because not only in the media campaign of the way it went down, but then that whole, remember the Maine Democratic Party, they're like, we decide who the nominee is. Not Platinum. Not Platinum. Yeah. Nobody associated with Grand Platinum will make a, you know, influences decision and then they all seem to be like fine with Trojax and now he's acting weird, controlled by DC. I think it's on them if it comes down to it and the Republicans retain control. It's going to be, yeah, it's got this, it's going to be an interesting couple of weeks. Very crazy race, but currently all things pointing in the Democratic direction. Who knows? Everything. Lots of things within the margin of error. Like I said, if these polls are, I think it's highly possible just lasting on this that these polls are all correct every single one of them and that means it becomes a catalyst for Republicans is that people in Kansas are like, hold on a second here. They're like, we can't be living with Democrats, you know, in our Senate for six years. We got to come out to vote. We're previous year like, whatever. So we'll see at the very, this one caller to Emily's program said, you know, look, I voted for him three times, but it's going to have to get worse before it gets better. So they're already rationalizing voting for Democrats and knowing that they don't like them. And it's going to be bad. But the medicine is, you got to take your medicine. You got to take your medicine. So the country needs Democratic rule to return. Yeah. I guess. You can make an argument for that. Okay. All right. Let's get to AI video. I'm Emily Abadi. On the hurdle with Emily Abadi podcast, I sit down with the lead athletes, record holders, coaches and everyday runners to impact the mindset behind pushing through when things get tough because the discipline, grace and grit you build out there on the pavement. 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