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Breaking Afternoon Updates with Ben Meiselas 9/24/2026

79m 23s

Breaking Afternoon Updates with Ben Meiselas 9/24/2026

The transcript critiques the current U.S. foreign policy under Donald Trump, highlighting its irrationality and harmful consequences. During a state visit with Xi Jinping, Trump’s chaotic behavior—such as wearing excessive clothing and reacting with pain to a flyover—is contrasted with Xi’s calm, composed presence, which underscores a stark difference in leadership. The discussion centers on the Thucydides trap, a historical warning of conflict between rising and declining powers, with Xi emphasizing peaceful coexistence. Meanwhile, the U.S. escalates tensions by threatening sanctions on Iran and proposing an export ban on diesel, a policy that economists argue will only raise prices and disrupt global supply chains. The war in Ukraine intensifies, with Russia deploying advanced drones and missiles, while Ukraine faces constant bombardment. Iran’s leaders consistently call for diplomacy, rejecting threats of war, while U.S. officials use degrading and incoherent language. A key proposed solution is for the U.S. to withdraw its aircraft carriers from the Strait of Hormuz, signaling a return to diplomacy and opening the strait to restore trade. The commentary concludes that the current leadership—especially Trump—acts with poor judgment, flawed economics, and dangerous rhetoric, undermining global stability and trust. The analysis calls for rational, fact-based foreign policy grounded in international norms and mutual respect.

Transcription

12148 Words, 67103 Characters

English
Welcome to Ben on Breaking News. I'm Ben Myselis and this is your breaking news. The Thucydides trap, President Xi Jinping of China in the White House looking at Donald Trump during this state visit. As Donald Trump is showing him the, I don't know, the cemented walk of fame thing that Donald Trump created this fake golden monstrosity where he mocks former presidents of the United States and thinks that looks strong while I think Xi Jinping looks at it not laughing at the images but just how we can pathetic the United States looks where they have to attack former presidents the way Donald Trump does. That's what Trump's doing, but Xi Jinping's talking about the Thucydides trap, this idea that the declining, I mean, he says it to Trump's face. The Thucydides trap was basically a concept of Thucydides. It was reframed in modern times to talk about this concept of China's rise, the United States decline and how the declining power may have an inclination to start wars or conflicts with the ascending power in this case China, but you just need to back off and let the ascending power rise. And that's the Thucydides trap, if you will, it referred to Thucydides who wrote about the Peloponnesian War. Athenian, he was talking about the rise of Athens, scared the existing powerful entity at that time Sparta and led to the Peloponnesian War, which lasted over two decades. And while Sparta temporarily won the Peloponnesian War in the short term, Sparta ended up being long term degraded and you had everybody loses in the Thucydides trap. So anyway, you have Xi Jinping talking about that and you have Donald Trump just freaking falling over Xi Jinping. It was such a bizarre thing from the posts in the morning about how good Xi Jinping looks and how handsome he is, he looks vibrant, he looks strong, he looks fit, he looks better than ever. And madam, Xi, Xi, of course, beautiful, Xi's beautiful, he's strong and tough and powerful and meanwhile, when Donald Trump greeted Xi yesterday at joint base Andrews in Maryland, it's like 65 degrees, maybe even a little warmer. Trump full coat, dude wearing gloves like it's 30 degrees, probably to hide his hands that are rotting. And then Donald Trump does the flyover, you all saw that right by now. Midas was one of the first, I think we were probably the first to clip that because all of the right wing propaganda counts like look how tough he looks. And Donald Trump's reaction to the loud noise of the B1 that flew over Trump was in agony, Trump was in so much damn pain in his face, Winston, the notable control variable group here, if you will, is if you look at Xi's reaction, doesn't move, doesn't blink, just. It's loud, but you know, it's it's a plane. Donald Trump, you would think that it got like where he was was like bomb me, just watch for yourself what took place, let's play. Now, one of the signs of dementia, I'm just giving you my opinion, of course, loud noises, the auditory process is all garbled. And the pain, at least again, giving you my opinion and for I've spoken to people who are in the field, you know, they can't diagnose obviously without actual diagnostics. They're very careful and cautious about that. And so, you know, there, that was his reaction, just a painful and it's because of all of the kind of inputs and processing, it was very telling right there. I'll just show you what Trump looked at, like look how he looked, like it was 64 degrees, I think we've got this clip also, let's play. Right, I mean, it was, it's not winter, I mean, you know, I was thinking like was it is a back halt now, it's like 65, it was like 65. Then, you know, today Xi Jinping talked about the Thucydides trap that I just mentioned, here's what she said, let's play. Killer dialogue and improve mechanisms for crisis communication and prevention. The Thucydides trap can be overcome. Well, what deals were being worked out today? Well, you did a big deal, maybe something, I don't know, the American economy is just getting crushed right now. Diesel surging even higher, you saw the price of crude, went up vertical, vertical today as Iran struck more tankers yesterday as the Houthis were able to strike lots of refineries and tankers and pipelines and Saudi Arabia everywhere from Yanbu to Abkhiaq to further south as well. You know, so all these edges on is what I was thinking about, more southwest type, mocha, maca, other areas over there. So anyway, so what deal, Donald, Xi Jinping was proud to announce, by the way, I'm happy for this development, I suppose, but not exactly great deal making on other fronts pandas, folks, they're coming to the Atlanta Zoo, here, let's play. Panda has been an envoy of friendship between the Chinese and Americans, here, I have a piece of good news. In a few days, two pandas, Ping Ping and Fushuang will come to their new home in zoo Atlanta and meet with the American people. Ping Ping and Fushuang, I'm very glad that Ping Ping and Fushuang will be here, if I'm in Atlanta, I'll probably stop by. Maybe give a little fist bump to Ping Ping, but this is what we're doing over here. I mean, for Xi Jinping, I mean, do you see that they're trolling us? Like do you see that they're coming in here, talking about Thucydides trap and pandas and all these things, and Donald Trump's out there saying how good-looking Xi looks and how strong and fit we're things to say. Just odd behavior. We'll get back into what happened today, but I want to zoom out, talk about the global landscape, and then we'll zoom back in because at the United Nations General Assembly, one of the things that Rubio was very proud to announce, very proud, was the invitation of Putin to the G20. Putin to the G20, where's it going to be? Doral, Miami, one of Donald Trump's clubs or resorts or whatever you call him, over there, and so Rubio announces that, very happy, and Putin responds, well, we've received the offer, we will deal with it through diplomatic channels. That was their response. Meanwhile, you had Russia's foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, say, at the UN Security Council yesterday, the special operation is not going to end anytime soon. That's what they refer to the invasion of Ukraine. We're going to keep going. There's no sign of peace anytime soon. We heard Zelensky speech as well yesterday. We covered that, but we're seeing massive escalation in the war in Ukraine, from Kiev to Odessa to Zepresia. Russia has built massive stockpiles of its ballistics and different types of ballistics and cruise missiles. We cover them every morning from the Iskender's to these North Korean style. There's a whole array and cadre of ballistics and cruise missiles that they're using, but also the drones have gotten much more advanced in a very short period of time as well. They, the Shahed drones, which were advanced for the time, Ukraine developed anti-drone interceptors to stop the Shaheds. A lot of them, and they would have like an 85% to 90% drone interception rate, but Russia's been able to do these kind of new jet-powered drones, and also the Shaheds have become more advanced, and they're much harder to strike as well. Also, there's a lot more of the drones that are reaching their targets inside Ukraine, and Russia's stockpiling all of these ballistics and all of these cruise missiles using some now in concert with the drones. But even Zelensky said during his speech before the General Assembly, "We're preparing for a very dark winter ahead," Trump tapping Zelensky along promising he was going to get interceptors, patriot interceptors, fads, and that never materialized. Zelensky really never got the interceptor licenses either. and Russia was aware of this. I mean, go back to the phone call that Putin had with Trump on July 4th. On America's 250th, Putin spoke with Donald Trump for 90 minutes, what, that nine, 10 days later, Donald Trump met with Zelensky at the NATO summit, publicly announced that interceptor licenses would be given to Ukraine. And I speculate, I wonder if that's what Putin and Trump were talking about. Just say you're going to give these to Zelensky, tap him along for a month, let us build up our ballistics, let us build up our shaheads. You have, Putin had always been saying, we'll be able to take all of Donetsk, we'll be able to take over the whole area, which has never materialized what Putin said he was going to do. But now are we seeing the implementation of that conversation back on July 4th? I just want to share with you what a day in the life looks like of someone living in Kiev right now. So you know, and I know when I grew up, I'm sure when you grew up too, you know, coverage of war on TV. I mean, we never wanted to be in wars, but it was what the media was what news covered, they would pride themselves on having reporters in war zones, right? So we would get the visuals, and we can see what was happening, right? They would embed the reporters. By the way, we do that at the Midas Touch Network, right? Go to drone hunters of Kirshan. It was a documentary, a short film that we put out, Ken Harba from the Midas Touch Network, he runs Midas Defense. On the front lines, he was embedded. And he was shooting drones that were trying to kill him and trying to kill Ukrainians. He was there on the front lines, bringing that to you. Go watch drone hunters. Midas Touch film. But in addition to that, I think it's important, especially with all the open source video that's out there about what's happening, that we showcase that what this means, it's not some abstraction, right? When Donald Trump sends Whitkopf and Kushner, who be clown themselves in the United States, when they go to Moscow, when Whitkopf's like, "Oh, it's such an honor, our potent obey with you." And then they go to key for the first time and they visit in Moscow nine times before that. And they said, "We're confident that Putin wants to make a deal," and he's told us that, and when we view this as a business transaction, as a win-win, and we can make a great real estate deal between Russia and Ukraine, and then you hear what Rubio's been saying, and how Rubio's like, "Well, we want Putin to be at the G20, we want him to be at the G20." I just want you to think about it from this perspective as well, though, too, right? You have Besson to announce economic D-Day and said, "If anybody does business with Iran, we're coming after you." The most serious and severe secondary sanctions, while China's made it very clear they're doing business with Iran. And then Besson's like, "But you can't let their planes inside." And China's like, "We're going to let their planes inside." Right? "You have Russia doing all of this business with Iran." And what Besson said was economic D-Day, economic D-Day. You can't do business with Iran. The countries that do the most business with Iran seem to be getting the most concessions out of the, just objectively, out of the United States right now, getting the most concession. And especially China gets the biggest state visit of anybody right now. Where Donald Trump rolled out the red carpet for Xi and had our air personnel or air force personnel and our army personnel get down on their knees. Did you see this video? I think we got the video salty of them getting down on their knees for Xi and they were on the red carpet and they're scrambling and they're pleading up the different, you know, specks of dirt so that it's perfect when Xi's there. Let's watch for yourself. So I don't look like it. Let's fight. (machine whirring) There's a question that I have. I think it'd be odd even if you hired a contractor to do that and to get down on your knees like that for a foreign leader. But like why was, that was our army personnel there before it was air force personnel had to bring the red carpet? Like why, and by the way, we saw this when Putin arrived in Alaska also. I mean, our service members got down on their knees for Putin's arrival to lay out the red carpet. Why, why, even the visual of that is so conscientiaking for an American that that's what you're doing, you're having our service, couldn't you hire somebody else to do that or plan that and again, I think nobody should have to do that. But like you're gonna have our army get down on their knees like that and clean it with their hands. I mean, what kind of bizarre hazing ritual is that? I mean, it's some strange stuff. Anyway, I digress, I wanna share with you though what it's like, what's happening in the world right now, right? I mean, I try to bring as many images as I can to show you what's happening in Gaza, what's happening in Lebanon, what's happening in Syria, what's happening in the Middle East. As a result of Netanyahu's genocide and atrocities, try to show you what's happening there. So in Donald Trump's like, oh, there's a ceasefire or there's a stop at stop the BS, right? We bring in the war footage of what's happening in the catastrophic war. I constantly show here are the little girls who are slaughtered in Minab, here are the little children slaughtered in Lamarid, which was the sports hall, here's the family, here's, we show you the footage, we show you what's actually happening. So you can see for yourself. And here's what's happening in Kiev. So I'll show you some footage right here. This is yesterday, during the day in Kiev, every day is like this now. This is what every day is basically like in Kiev. Let's just play one. (crashing sound) Play the next one. (crashing sound) You can play the next one also. (crashing sound) (crashing sound) Play the next one. (crashing sound) (crashing sound) I mean a constant bombardment of drones and ballistic missiles, and I try to bring you the coverage every morning. The strikes in Ukraine, the strikes in Russia, and increasingly what we've been hearing from European leaders, Baltic leaders, just leaders in the region in general, who are saying that they believe that there will be hybrid warfare in the form of potential drone strikes in areas that may be, whether it's Estonia or Romania, or in certain European countries, there's been reporting that the CIA has warned European countries of the possibility of this hybrid warfare taking place with potentially even like drones, striking areas, like whether it's in Estonia, whether it's in Romania, whether it's. I mean, there already have been incidents. I mean, in a German airport, there were drones of Russian origin that were allegedly found over there. In Romania, there have been tankers that were hit in the waters and Romanian territorial waters, but Article 4, Article 5, wasn't invoked because NATO realizes that Donald Trump's not going to abide by Article 4 and Article 5. So Russia's testing and probing, Article 4, Article 5, and whether even Article 4 consultation of NATO would be invoked and it hasn't. You know, we've even seen, you know, drones that land in Poland, and of course, there's a lot of also sabotage activity throughout the region that is taking place that obviously seems to be in connection with the war. So by the way, here at home, we've been covering this as well. There's been numerous hacking incidents that have taken place where the FBI has been hacked. You know, there's a recent hack by a group called, I think it's called Shiny Hunters, and they've been able to hack all the personnel information of FBI agents, including a team within the FBI FBI. That's one of the FBI's of elite hacking units and this hacker group, they first of all, they posted that they were able to do the hack. They got all the information. The FBI's response was basically like an AI response with like those dashes. It was clear that they used AI to like write their response. But there's packs like that. And then we also have seen what in Minnesota, dozens of water treatment facilities in Michigan in about seven other states. There have been hacks that lots of people wonder if it's Hondala, the Iranian hacking group or other groups associated with Iran. But just think about it. You know, if you have this group that's able to hack the FBI, think about all the other foreign governments that have been able to hack the US equipment. I mean, you have China. While this trip involving Xi Jinping, a few data points that we learned about as well, first off, they've got access to F-35 equipment that they didn't even have to hack. It seemed basically like the equivalent of UPS sent F-35 parts from Australia that were supposed to go to the United States to Hong Kong, which then found their way, of course, to Beijing to reverse engineer it. So it was just giving them the F-35 parts, okay. And then China also made it very clear that they stand with Iran. They made it very clear at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization if you expect. They made it clear at the BRICS meeting if you, whatever that was, two weeks ago, week and a half ago. We were covering that here. But we, while Donald Trump's talking about this, you know, the presidential walk of fame with the ridiculous photo of the auto pen and where he mocked Obama and all of that, here's what China's foreign ministry spokesperson is saying regarding Treasury Secretary Bessons, threat that China should not, or any country should not be allowed to allow Iranian planes to land in their country here. Play this clip. Good afternoon, question from AFP. I know I ask about this yesterday, but the US has threatened to punish countries that allow Iranian flights to land on their territory from today. Can I ask if China will keep receiving and accommodating flights from Tehran? Thank you. China's position is consistent. We firmly oppose elicit unilateral sanctions without basis international and the lack mandate from the UN Security Council. Next question. Yeah, I mean, they're making it very clear. Solteri, do we have the video of Rubio inviting Russia to the G20? If we have that clip where he says, you know, Russia is going to be coming to the G20. Let's play that clip. Or the people you might have some issues with. So we've invited President Putin to the G20. We think it's an opportunity for him to engage not just with the President, but with other world leaders. We hope that's an invitation he'll accept. There's an opportunity in December if that happens. And there's another opportunity for them to meet. And there's a purpose behind the meeting that that would be good. I'll show you this as well. This is Rubio saying, look at the international system right now. Let's play it. Yeah, look, I mean, the international system is not in good shape right now. And these international norms, people talk about, I think the limits of international norms is your national interest. At the end of the day, the President, and I reflected this going back to the very beginning, the view of this administration is that the number one obligation of every government is the national interest of their country. Yeah, we understand that. But also the national interest of the country can't be viewed in a vacuum or connected to an international system. So if you want to understand why is the price of oil surging? Why is the price of gas surging? Why is the price of diesel surging? Why are Treasury yields the way they are? Why is the mortgage rates the 30 year fixed over 7%? Why is it that all of this massive inflation is happening? Why does Oracle need to claim a force measure? Why did all of these middle of these countries have to declare force measures on certain other critical products that come out of the Middle East, which we rely on here in the United States, which increases the price here? Why is all of this happening? Why are our ranchers being screwed and our farmers being screwed? Why don't they have export markets the way? I mean, I heard Xi Jinping talking about pandas, but they're still not buying soybeans at the rate they were under former President Biden. So Donald Trump can think it's funny to show Xi Jinping a copy of an auto pen on the walk of fame and mock the former president, but under the former president, China was buying double the amount of soybeans. And we don't have to think about soybeans. We didn't have to think about Potash, you know, and no, Belarusian Potash. You know, why are all of these things happening? It's because the Trump regime has pursued this idea that we can be completely isolated. We can treat all these other countries like crap. We can go and invade places without consequences and repercussions and there are consequences and repercussions. So when we come back, I want to talk more about that. I want to talk about the consequences and repercussion of the catastrophic war. And you know, now the Trump regime is mulling over. They say they're going to do it. We'll see, but it could be disastrous and export diesel band, which sounds like, okay, well, we're going to, that'll be great. It'll lower the prices here. It'll probably raise the prices, not just of diesel, but of gasoline as well. And some of the other stuff that comes from a barrel of crude and we have to understand them. What is a barrel of crude? From a barrel of crude, you get diesel, you get gas, you get jet fuel. How is that made? And why would it be harmful to refineries? I'm not cheering on the refineries here. I'm just saying if you changed the ability of refineries to reach export markets and you have the government control that precipitously and it just happens in this emergency setting, it can have a cascading effect that could result in prices actually going up and then losing long-term export markets because people aren't going to do deals with companies. If ultimately the Trump regime or a future presidency is going to say, nope, we're not going to send it over abroad. All right, let's take our first quick break of the show. We'll be right back. We've got a lot more to discuss the one we're back. I never realized how much I needed a power bank until I actually had one. Now, I don't leave the house without it, especially with the new phones coming out. Your phone isn't the only thing that deserves an upgrade. That's exactly why I've been loving ridges five and one travel power bank. 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And this one and that one, that there were productive mediation, conversations taking place and things, that there may be a phase settlement that was reached the usual bullshit. The usual bullshit. And what happened, there was a slight dip for a moment in the oil prices. It didn't impact us because that's not the way oil ultimately reaches the gas stations that we're at and becomes gas, because we're dealing with the price, the futures price, and then we have to look at, okay, from the price of crude, now what are the refiners charging? When they send out the refined product, when they send out the gas and the diesel and the jet fuel, the difference, the delta, between the gas and diesel, and the oil from the barrels of oil that we talk about, right, when we talk about, what is it, $75 to $100 a barrel, $107 a barrel, you know, is turned into gas and diesel and jet fuel, the difference between though the paper cost of the barrel of oil and the refinery price, that's called a crack spread. I've been talking a lot about that now for months to kind of warn you for this moment about what was going to be happening. We'll get there. I want to talk about the export ban, what that actually can mean. I did a whole video on it, which I think was very detailed where we really broke down, okay, what's in a barrel of oil and what does it mean? No. But Sebastian Gorka, top person in the Trump regime, he's been giving interviews, and here's what he had to say. Let's play this clip. When he sent that first letter to the former Ayatola, you can't have nuclear weapons. I mean, think about everybody's obsessing with the price of gas. This is much bigger than the price of gas, and think about what would happen to the price of gasoline if those missiles were nuclear-tipped, the idea that you're experiencing problems now, it would be just absolutely incompatible to what would happen if an islamo fascist regime that literally has been at war with us since they took our diplomats hostage in the revolution of 1979, since they killed all those Marines in the Beirut bombing, since they supplied these squash-head IED technology to the sheer militias in-- - What would happen? Islamo fascists gonna say words? Islamo fascists? Islamo fascists? Why do people even care about this oil? Why do you care? Because we're suffering, man, this isn't a political frickin' talking point. People are really suffering right now. People can't afford things. People can't afford rent. They sure as hell can't afford homes right now. People can't afford gas. The price of everything. When you go to a supermarket, it's again, it's unaffordable. People have had their health care ripped away, and you're out here, islamo fascist, islamo fascist. I mean, you know, Trump and Netanyahu went into Iran invaded, slaughtered children in Minab. They're still covering it up, the war crimes. They still refuse to take accountability. It doesn't shock you when it comes to Trump and Netanyahu, genocide, Almaniacs, Lamar, little children. And by the way, we're slaughtered there at a sports hall. And the US tried a new weapon to kill those children in Lamar. They used these tungsten pellets and this weapon that the missile, right when it's above its target, it opens and it disperses tens of thousands of these tungsten little pellet balls. And they tried it out on the sports hall in Lamar. And killed over a dozen children in Lamar. And then in the recent escalation about a month ago, they dropped bombs on a wedding in Syrac. And you know, like, oopsies, no, it's not. These are freaking war crimes right here. And as a result, the Strait of Hormuz is closed, which everybody warned Iran would close the Strait of Hormuz. It's not a shock. You know, I heard Marco Rubio saying recently, if Iran got nuclear weapons, they would control the Strait of Hormuz. They're going to control it right now. They control the Strait of Hormuz now. On Surala, the Houthis control Bob Milmandab Strait. They control all of Western Yemen. Today, one of the other reasons why you see the price of oil surging, and thus the price of gas and diesel surging, is the Houthis successfully struck more sites in Saudi Arabia. Again, they can do this at will at this point. It kind of really demonstrated how reliant Saudi Arabia is on the United States. And when the United States security umbrella is broken, Saudis ability to project any strength is severely hampered as well. And it's also, you know, people say this too. It's like, so if you are in the Saudi military right now, like what-- you're fighting for MBS? Like you're fighting for-- like Netanyahu and a security umbrella based on protecting Netanyahu's, like-- that's what you're being asked to die for if you're in the Saudi army right now. I mean, that's, I think, an issue in terms of the morale and what we're seeing in the war between the Houthis on Surala and Saudi Arabia. Also, just should be noted historically, and especially now, the Saudi royal family keeps their military intentionally very weak because they're terrified of coups. So they make sure they have a weak military. They depend on the US arms to enrich their royal families. And then that money basically swish swashes back and forth between the American oligarchy and the Saudi Royals. And it goes back and forth. And the Saudi keeps a weak military, with the ideas that the US would have protected it, and now we're seeing what happens when you have a Trump. What happens over there? Treasury Secretary Besan, though. He goes on state regime media, of course. And he says, folks, it'll all be OK soon. He says, because Iran will cry uncle soon. He goes, they're going to cry uncle. You're going to cry uncle? There's a way you're giving nuggies. We're going to cry uncle. You're going to give us swirly. Who the hell is this guy? What do you mean they're going to cry uncle? Why do we have people talking like this? Did you see the video I did on Admiral McCraven? If not, go back and watch it. I did a video of Admiral McCraven's speech at the LBJ Center. It was great. It was in Great Texas. It was a great speech. And he was-- I don't even have to ask. I don't even know what political party McCraven is. I don't care. This was an adult. This was a grownup. Did I agree with him on everything? He said no. But I said, that's a leader. That's a grownup. That's an adult. That's someone who leads men and women and people and war and in-- and it's like, I'm going to make them cry uncle. This is Besson. I'm going to make him cry uncle's, what he said about Iran here, play this clip. In terms of constricting and cutting off the financial oxygen to them. And I don't know whether it's going to be a week, a month, or two months, but they're going to yell uncle. And the goal here can be one of three states of the world. One, the regime turns on each other, not impossible. Two, we get some kind of uprising for the Iranian people. They probably killed 50,000 of their own population. So very, very difficult. And then three, to get the Iranians, to if they want to make a deal, to stick to the deal. As President Trump said at the beginning of August, he didn't think the Iranians were ready for a deal. We gave the MOU a try on June 3rd. And then the Iranians, a few weeks later, began firing the on ships in the strait and being very aggressive. And this time, if there is a deal, I guarantee they're going to stick with it. I mean, it's as stupid as people. These are the dumbest, dumbest people. That's the lesson. The lesson that you've learned since invading in late February. The lesson now, September 24th, is they're going to cry uncle. If we torture these civilians of Iran more, and we focus on inflicting pain on civilians, that will make the civilians like us more. You know who says things like that, the Epstein class. Predators say the predatory people say things like that. If we just inflict more pain, then maybe they'll love me. Maybe they'll like me then. No, you've actually made the Iranian people more against the United States. When you started this catastrophic war, and you blew up the elementary school in Minab the sports hall in Le Mans. and picked a number of other sites that don't get enough attention, where innocent people were actually killed. And then you beamed your face or trumps face and Netanyahu's face and said, "Everybody, we're here." You don't think they look at what Netanyahu did in Gaza and say, "We don't want that here in Iran." You don't think they look at what Netanyahu did in South Lebanon. And they root in the area and say, "We don't want that in Iran." And even if the people are against the Iranian regime, even if they're against them, they're more for them than Netanyahu. And when you bring the people together by torturing the people, you're not building love for yourself. It's the exact opposite. I don't understand how we could be run by literally the stupidest fucking people, excuse my language. But these are the dumbest fucks in the world. I can't excuse my language. I watch these people and I'm like, "Why are they?" I go, "It's not a Republican or a Democrat or an Independent." I'm like, "These people are just idiotic. Just give me smart people who can actually be thoughtful and plan and say intelligent things." I don't even know what the hell that even is right there. And it's like when they talk about the export ban on diesel. The export ban on diesel. That's going to solve the issue. It's like the stupidest thing you can do. And all you have to do is take one course and show up in your first day to economics 101. Okay, you show up and they teach you about supply and demand. Right? And what happens if all of a sudden you decrease the supply of something? What will happen to the potential price when there are supply shocks? Hint, hint. When you blow stuff up, like you do in a war and you have less of the ability to transport oil and the pipelines are destroyed and the entire straight of horror moves is shut down and you have all of this, hint, what is happening to the price? And guess what? Whether the Trump regime wants to admit it or not, oil is sold on an international market. It's why we talk about Brent and WTI. And there's lots of other grades we could be talking about as well, but there is an international market and guess who was the president who resulted in the United States making a shit ton of money off of exports of oil or exports of diesel rather. Who was that? Obama. Obama stopped basically a 40 year ban or a 40 year serious limitation on US exporting diesel abroad and started having the US become a major exporter of diesel. Obama, he didn't have to say drill baby, drill, it was an Obama and it was done on a bipartisan basis, you know, at the time looking at the global landscape. And the US accounts for what 15, 20 plus percent of the global diesel market biggest exporter of diesel out there. So if the US does an export ban of diesel, then what will happen? Well, you will create an immediate supply shock even more than before on the price of diesel internationally. And guess what? The US also imports diesel, international diesel. So the states that import a lot of international diesel, guess what's going to happen to that? The prices are going to go higher. But guess what also happens as well? Well, maybe we should look at what we even mean when we talk about a barrel of oil. What's a barrel, a barrel of oil doesn't get converted into pure diesel or it doesn't get converted into pure gas or pure jet fuel, right? The barrel gets sent to where a refinery, what does a refinery do? Refines it into what? Into oftentimes it's referred to as kind of a 321, but you have gas and then you fill up your tank with gasoline. Diesel, right, trucks and lots of machinery and heavy industry, right, relies a lot on diesel agriculture, diesel. So you get from a barrel gas, you get diesel, you get jet fuel, and there's other things that you get, but those are the main things that you can extract. So if all of a sudden you put an export ban on diesel, what's going to have to happen is the refineries are now going to have to adjust because they're now losing an export market. And so they then have to figure out, well, what should we be making in order for us to keep our businesses running here? And so do we now have to decrease because we can't sell this anymore, so why would we make excess? And it's not like this diesel can easily just go everywhere. It's not like it's just immediately gets to go everywhere else, you know, in the United States. So what else has to happen? Well, then if you start lowering the ability for you to refine diesel, it also impacts gas. So what could potentially happen? The price of gas can go up because the supply of gas decreases as well. So it ends up hitting you everywhere, basically. And by the way, you don't take my word for it. This is actually a week ago, a week ago or so. Energy Secretary right, I think we have this clip salty and he was speaking and energy secretary right was talking about this exact issue. And he was saying, look, here is, here is the issue, we'll get that in a second. But in the meantime, we pulled that up. Let me show you with mbgala buff posted around parliament leader mbgala buff posted this earlier happy 5.1% 10 year America celebration emoji. Celebrate. It's the floor two years out. You wanted Iran drag back to 1970s. Nobody told you Iran isn't for arrogant amateurs will return you to 1970s rates plus high gas prices, diesel shortages and bell bottoms. Enjoy the nostalgia and he post this graphic again of wild e coyote. I think on the left that's that photo of that magazine that's been going around and it's best in saying, I'm the house, I'm the house. But what happens is these treasury yield soar and these treasury yield soaring means the government has to be paying a lot more money to service the debt right they have to give a much higher return a much higher yield on the bonds that are being sold. Because people don't view the United States as reliable and predictable anymore and that puts us further and further into debt and the 10 year yield is just like a direct as a direct vertical line up at this point the 30 year yield is a direct vertical up right now and this impacts you in all of your day to day borrowing and makes it very difficult. Then you layer, then you layer on top of that. The fact that interest rates are up as well and we expect another interest rate hike and you know clearly Trump and best and this crew of idiots they just don't have a plan they don't know what they're doing they're just dumb they're not they're they're just fraudsters they're con artists and I know you don't like me saying con artist because artist they're just like cons they're frauds and they don't know what they're doing and so like we just need smart people like to come up with like an actual plan to get us out and these people are just dumb. Here's what energy secretary actually you know what we'll take our last quick break of the show and I'll show you an energy secretary right had to say get your copy of WTF America right WTF what the F is this. What the F is this the way out of this hell and back to democracy did you get your copy comes out October 20th but pre order now if you can all right let's take our last quick break of the show. We'll be back I want to show you that clip of energy secretary right I'll show you what else went on in the UN right back. Life insurance we all know we need it but we keep putting it off because we think it's complicated or expensive or that will live forever stop telling yourself you'll handle it later and take care of it today with select quote in 15 minutes you could have coverage that fits your life and budget here's what makes select quote different their license insurance agents work for you not the insurance company they compare options across multiple carriers to find you the right coverage at the lowest price they've been doing this for nearly 40 years and have helped over 2 million people find coverage even if you have health issues they can help high blood pressure diabetes heart disease their agents know which carriers will give you the best rate for your specific situation. If you're healthy, they can get you same-day coverage with no medical exam. 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He was saying what I was saying, you know, and it's not a complicated concept of supply and demand, you know, which is if you ban the export of diesel from the United States, you create a supply shortage and that could run up the prices when we import diesel from other countries and it can cause our refineries to basically slow down, which would also lead to less gas, which can then jack up the price of gas and it could have a cascading effect even if it may provide temporary relief for a very short period of time in the long run. It could create problems and I'm all for coming up with solutions and I think it's important that we actually have these kind of detailed discussions, but they should be fact-based and methodical and come and not like this crazy shit that we see every day from this Trump regime. So let me show you first what energy secretary right had to say. This was a week ago here. Play this clip. Some people have watched the supply shock to the American markets and said, well, we need to keep more of the US supply here at home and have advocated for things like export tariffs or export bands. Why does the administration think that those would not be proper solutions and wouldn't actually lower prices? It's just an amazingly interconnected network around the world. Fortunately, the United States is in a great position. We're an exporter. We supply the world with diesel, but often we get gasoline from the rest of the world. We consume a larger percent of gasoline out of each barrel of oil than a barrel of oil yields. So if you said, hey, diesel prices are really high, let's stop exporting diesel from the United States. Pretty quickly, our refineries would have to refine less because what would they do with the diesel? We could fill up storage in two or three weeks and then we'd be producing less gasoline and we'd have more expensive gasoline right away. So it's a global interconnected system. The thing we need in with prices are high is more supply. We need to do everything we can to grow supply. And if you start putting barriers on flows pretty quickly, you will reduce the production and you'll have less supply. We need more supply and not less supply. Supply and demand. And if you didn't do this catastrophic idiotic war in Iran, the straight-of-horn moves would be opened like it was before. And Obama had a deal with Iran, the JCPOA, Iran's supreme leader who we murdered along with his daughter and his granddaughter and his son-in-law and his family while they were having dinner together. A little grand kid got killed in this Israeli Netanyahu Trump strike. You know, we would not be in this, there was, by the way, there was a fatwa against nuclear weapons. There was an Iranian religious edict, a fatwa against from Ayatollah Khamenei against nuclear weapons. And there was an international mechanism. Look, you know how easy it's not a complicated situation right now to actually resolve what's happening in the straight-of-horn moves. You want me to solve it? You ready for everybody? Everybody, are you ready to solve what's happening in the straight-of-arm moves? You ready? Leave. That's it. It's actually a very simple solution. You take the aircraft carriers that are there, the USS George H.W. Bush and the USS George Washington are the two ships that are doing the blockade of civilian tankers and they're preventing Iran from getting food and medicine and things. The same thing that we're doing with Cuba, that's impacting the civilians. We're attacking civilians. We're starving civilians, but here's how you resolve the situation right now in Iran. This catastrophe, what you leave, you take the aircraft carriers and here's what you say. You say, okay, we're calling your bluff. We've removed the aircraft carriers. We're gone. Okay. Now open up the straight-of-horn moves. Then what you do is you go to the international community and you say, look, we left as a sign of good faith. We're out. Now we believe that this is what the argument would be, whether you agree with it or not, I'm just giving you an argument. We believe that international law should not allow fees or tolls to be charged. If Iran wants to charge some voluntary fee, that tankers agree that these VLCCs and other tank that they can do that, but we don't support that. We will now go back and rally an international community in the event Iran continues to shut down these straight-of-horn moves while we're gone. And so Iran would then have to make the decision. Okay. Well, what do we do? Like, at this point, they're gone. They said they would leave. Are we now going to not open up the straight-of-horn moves until we get $13 billion of unfrozen funds? Are we going to stand on that? Or what are we going to do? And I think it would put pressure on them to basically say, hey, well, we're going to open up the straight-of-horn moves for at least three months while we'll negotiate all that. As you know, we can shut it down again, but you left with your aircraft carrier. So the simplest solution is the U.S. leaves. And ultimately, if Iran does what it didn't do, be like, we know what happened before the catastrophic war. The straight-of-horn moves was open. Iran did not assert that it controlled the straight-of-horn. So we actually know what existed before. It was when Trump and Netanyahu invaded that Iran said we're going to control the straight-of-horn, but so take your aircraft carriers and leave. And then if Iran keeps it closed, then try to, I don't know, actually do the work of what U.S. used to do, you know, rally other countries and bring people together and say, hey, that's not right anymore. It's actually the simplest solution in the world. And by the way, Iran telegraphs it when they give their speech. They're like, dude, just treat us with respect and dignity. Just treat us like a country. Treat us like we're living people. Treat us like we're part of humanity. I understand you feel like it's Y and Ziva. But stop saying you want to kill us all and you want to blow up the civilization. We're not going to deal with you. We can't do deals with people who say they want to murder us all and who say even if we do a deal with you for a little bit of time, we're then going to kill all of you. I mean, it's, it's, it's crazy. We don't, we don't, we're not able to deal with that. So that's the solution. It's actually very simple. It opens up the straight of Hormuz and it's done. That's it. It's, it truly solves everything. But you know, you got this demented guy in the Oval Office. I mean, you saw this when Donald Trump was with G. You saw it with Donald Trump. And you have, she talking about Thucydides trap and you have Donald Trump saying she's an expert on stone and he loves, he loves the decor outside of the White House. I'm like, what are we watching here, folks? What, what is this here? Play this clip. I'm very good. We had a great meeting and he is great. Tristan's grand. He likes, he likes granted. He's an expert on stone, aside from many other things. And he loves good granted. Thank you very much. What the hell are we talking about? What is that? What is that for real? That's the United States of America. Yeah, it is. It's sad. I don't know what the hell that is. It's not funny. Sick. He likes granted. You know, those G, G likes granted, dude, G is out there just punking you. Just punking you, you know, just thinking about this time period. I mean, the humiliation ritual that we're put through as a nation because of this loser. It's ridiculous. Go back to the UN General Assembly. Let me just share with you yesterday Iran's president, Posseskin, echoing what I said. Here's what he's in addition to holding up photos of the little girls slaughtered in Minab and Lamar and the teachers who were slaughtered and all that. Here's what he had to say. It's what Posseskin said. Let's play it. Iran must be understood by Mr. Trump and those who seek to bully us that we are ready for dialogue and diplomacy and negotiations without accepting the language of force. I truly appreciate your time and presence here. May God bless you all. Like, like, saying it, like, just literally telling it gets not this is not a actually a complicated situation to resolve. It is because we have these loser idiots in the White House is actually not. We shouldn't have done the catastrophic war. You still have Iran's president saying, like, you can't see that as an overture. Seriously, you don't realize what he's saying right there. He's saying, just stop saying you're going to blow us up to the Stone Age and you're going to eradicate our civilization and treat us with respect, stop using the language of bullying, stop talking like that. And we can try to, you know, we can try to reach some resolution. He's just saying it out loud. But then you have, like, Bessett, oh, we're going to make you cry, Uncle, I'm going to give you nuggies, and I'm not going to be satisfied until I give you a wedgie. There's going to be nuggies and wedgies and you're going to cry, Uncle, and there's going to be swirlies. What are you saying? What are you saying? What are you saying? Like, crazy people, just literally, just, just, you heard what Bessett said. It's, it's not. You had Donald Trump. You like Stone. It's like we're run by the stupidest people, not, not political, just these are the stupidest people in the world. I mean, did you, uh, Republican Senator Kennedy, you see his take on all of this, Magger Republican Senator Kennedy, he's like, they're reptiles. They're like, they're like reptile hookers with the same damn dress. They're hooker reptiles. These awesome hooker reptile reptilian, I'm, I'm, I'm like, they're hooker reptiles wearing the same dress. What you're talking about, just take the aircraft carriers and leave the Arabian Sea and let's get oil prices down and let's get treasury yields under control. Yeah, they're hooker reptiles. We have like literally the dumbest people because like crazy humans, he's like, like, he's a crazy people. Listen to what he says. You're playing. I think that the people running a run are reptiles, um, and they're part of a colony of reptiles. China, North Korea, Russia, and as I said, a run. The chief reptile, the quarterback, is President Xi and China. You can't trust any of them. All four of them are the same. It's like the same hooker in different dresses. They all lie like time share salesman. You can't trust them. I wouldn't turn my back on any of them, even if I thought they knew they were two days dead. I've lost the sentence, okay, Iran is a reptile. The king reptile is apparently really good with stone. He's at the White House and Donald Trump makes our Air Force personnel and army apparently bend down on their knees for the king reptile amongst multiple reptiles. And also the reptiles are hookers and they wear same hooker but different dresses and they also sell time shares. So I wouldn't turn my back on these Iranian reptile multi-faceted dress hooker time share salesman. And thus, we wonder why America is declining the way we are. He's good at stone. He's a really good at stone. Here's Salty. Play that clip of Donald Trump greeting Xi one more time with the B1 Lancer. She has his normal face. And then the B1 Lancer flies. It's a loud plane objectively, the B1, but you arrange the fly over and it isn't if it. And then Donald Trump's like, he's stupid. I mean, watching this, I just genuinely don't get what the hell is happening. What is going on here playing this clip? Oh my God. Salty, do we have the video for moments ago when Israel is ambassador to the United Nations. This guy who goes on state regime media all the time, he goes on Fox and he's like, he's always like, we're going to blow up the wrong. We're going to come to stride Iranian regime. We're going to stride Iran because every day he's like, it's like, okay, I get it. You want to destroy Iran? I get it. I get it. You want to bring us into endless, I understand. You understand? So this guy, he walks up, everything's like a gimmick. It's like some weird shit. And he walks up with a star link in his hand to the Iranian delegation or to the Iranian ambassador to the UN. He's like, if you want to, you want to starlink, I'm trolling, you want to starlink. And the Iranian guy is like, not even looking at him, like, what are you doing? What is this? Seriously, what is this? And by the way, this kind of sums up everything in a way. It's like, what are you doing? Why are you provoking? Why are you going up and doing that? And it doesn't look strong. It just looks freaking weird and deranged and predatory. You're watching what just happened moments ago. Let's play it. I thought it's appropriate to give you the star link, if you heard the Prime Minister. It can be very useful for you to allow the Iranian people to get their freedom after what you did to them. So you want to take it and deliver it back to Tehran? It can be very useful for you, anyone. We love the Iranian people and we pray for the regime change there. It will come that day. That's what you're doing. Like that's what you're doing. And then you have Netanyahu devoting his speech to attacking Mamdani. You saw that and he calls New York City Mayor Mamdani anti-Semitic, Mamdani, this and Mamdani that Mamdani Mamdani. It's like Mamdani is a popular mayor. He's delivering for the people of New York City like, I didn't hear a single other. Unless you did, tell me for real. And then you wonder why people walk out of Netanyahu. You wonder why, I mean, obviously in addition to the genocide in Gaza and slaughtering people who have been on, but it's like, you came into the United States. You're in our country. What about America first? And you're in the United States of America in New York City, a proud city. You're in New York City. No other world leaders out there attacking the New York City Mayor. The hell are you to attack the New York City Mayor? And then say the New York City Mayor is anti-Semitic when the New York City Mayor mayor is not anti-Semitic and inject anti-Semitism into the New York City mayor this or that because the New York City mayor stands against genocide in Gaza. And by the way, even if you think this way Netanyahu about mayor Mamdani, which you're wrong about, you come into our country? I mean, could you imagine if Xi Jinping was like, you know who I really don't like mayor bass of Los Angeles? You know, you know, I really don't like, I don't like this governor of whatever, you know, I don't like the governor. I was like, well, you're not from our country. You have no right to standing, whether I like the mayor, I don't like the mayor, or whether it's a Republican or a Democratic who, you know, you're a foreign leader. This is America. Don't come in and lecture me about the leader. Like, who are you? Right? I mean, it's it's it's it's if to me, even if you don't like Mamdani, you should not want a foreign leader, whether it's the leader of Israel or any country to come in here and attack other like people in the United States who, you know, who are not in the world for a like this, right? How is this here? Watch, I'll show you one clip of Netanyahu saying Matt here, play this clip. You refuse to conduct any of that. You falsely, repeatedly accuse Israel of genocide. Mr. Mamdani, you try to stop me from coming here. You tired? You try to silence me. Well, you can't silence me. You can't silence the truth. And here's the simple truth. Here's the simple truth. Israel didn't commit genocide. Israel prevented genocide. And that's exactly that's exactly what Mr. Mamdani's Hamas buddies would have done to us. Had we not stopped them? Mr. Mamdani's Hamas buddies. I mean, who the hell are you? The hell are you to come into New York City and attack the New York City mayor and defame the New York City mayor like that at the United Nations? And then you wonder why you're despised amongst a lot of other reasons, but that's that's your behavior. And didn't she? I mean, isn't it just so interesting? Perhaps not the right word when you looked at like fat Elvis Javier Malay, the Argentine leader. I mean, the guy's looks like he's out of, you know, you saw the way that guy like looks. He's got like the hair that looks like he's got some like, you know, he came out of a bathtub with a toaster oven in it. It's like, I hate the United Nations. This globalist scumbag, you know, you've got like that guy saying that, right? You've got Netanyahu behaving that way. And then by the way, Javier Malay was also saying yesterday like, I love being in this club with like Israel and the United States and Argentina and, you know, and you've got Trump. We need to stop globalist organizations like UNESCO, like the United Nations, like scientific research, you know, arm. We want all of you to make sure that you get out of the terrorist ICC, the international criminal courts are terrorists. I mean, while we learn here more cover up deaths in that people killed an action in Trump's catastrophic war in Iran, we learn that there were eight suicide attempts on the USS Abraham Lincoln alone. You have all of this, all of these hacking incidents taking place here. You have our country, you know, suffering, you know, in the United States on a day-to-day basis. And this is what Trump's doing and what I am and having she here and rolling out the red carpet and making our service members go on their knees and talking about the stonework and then freaking talking about hooker reptiles, reptile hookers, condo salesmen, time share salesmen, and then Netanyahu attacking mom Donnie. That's why I called the book WTF America. I mean, these people, these people are lunatics. And WTF, like, how did we get here and how do we get the hell out of here? And I do think there's a way out of here. And I think the way out of here, though, is understanding that this ain't a game. This ain't reality TV. And when politics is framed as this team and that team and, you know, who's going to win? Winning doesn't matter if the winning side is another version of the other side. Winning doesn't matter if you're going to win temporarily and then go right back to a worse version of what existed then before. If you're just catapulted to the status quo, and then politics is treated like the Metz versus Yankees or the Lakers versus Celtics, that's deeply problematic. And that's at the root of the problem because we no longer think about any of this as values and principles. And we have to get back to that and understand the more existential question about why do we even have politics in the first place? And what's the goal of all of this? It's not for us to be non-consensual extras in a dystopian reality show. Where we're all like feeling like, who are these people? Stop doing it. It feels like we're in an escape room at this point. And we're all just trying to get out of this madness while the Trumps and the Javier Malays and the Netanyahus and all these crazy lunatics are out there inflicting suffering. You know, what's so notable is I've been able to have conversations and interviews with people from other countries far and wide, whether it was inside Iran or inside Yemen or inside Canada or in Europe or in South America or I've had conversations with people in Ecuador and all over and what we recognize is that we have shared humanity. We really do and people want to just be able to live with other people. I think at its core and peace, but we have all of these demagogues and hateful disgusting weirdos and lunatics out there who keep bringing us and dividing us and putting us on these paths. And we saw that in a display like I think this week we see it more than ever. What I hope in this election, what I hope the message it sends more than this political party winning or that political party winning, which is important though for a system of checks and balances. But I hope the message that's truly being sent is that we aspire to some core values and principles beyond the gamification of I win so you lose. I want us to win. And when I say us, not just as Americans, as people who share this earth together for a short period of time together. So we pass to the future generations a better world. That's it. That's what this is all about. That's what it's all about. We have to recognize our collective agency what we can accomplish. And that's what we'll be able to do together every damn day. I don't say this to sound corny. I truly believe in this to my core. And this doesn't get talked about enough. But I know that this is how you feel. I know this is the feeling how most people are, right? Whether you're here in the United States or Canada or in Yemen or in Iran or in Asia, whether you're in China or South Korea or North Korea, whether you're in Mexico or Ecuador, whether you're in Greenland or whether you're in Nigeria or South Africa or I could keep on going and name every freaking country. But the point remains, I think we genuinely want to live in peace. We want to smile. We want to have hobbies. We want to actually live productive lives. That's what we want. We want to get out of this hell. We want to get out of this madness. Anyway, that's where you watch the show with my brothers tonight. We'll focus more on some of the news we miss. But the book is called WTF America. Go get it right now. The way out of this hell and back to democracy, it comes out officially October 20th. But if you were planning on buying, which I hope you are, do the pre-order. The pre-orders are really important and they help a lot to plan. Are we going to travel here? Where do we go to? So please pre-order now if you can tell others about the book. I want to keep that momentum going. It's almost October 20th. It's wild. Anyway, I'll see you tonight with the Brothers Show 80s Stern 5 Pacific. Grateful for you as always. Thank you. Love you. Shout out, Midas Mighty. Thanks, everybody. Wanna stay plugged in? Become a subscriber for our substack at MidasPlus.com. You'll get daily recaps from Ron Phil Kowski, add three episodes of our podcast and more exclusive content only available at MidasPlus.com.

Podcast Summary

Key Points:

  1. Xi Jinping addresses the Thucydides trap during a state visit, warning of conflict between rising China and declining U.S. power, referencing historical patterns where both sides suffer.
  2. Trump’s behavior during the meeting—wearing heavy clothing, reacting with visible distress to a flyover, and mocking former presidents—is contrasted with Xi’s calm, composed demeanor, raising concerns about cognitive or mental health issues.
  3. China supports Iran diplomatically, defying U.S. sanctions, while the U.S. threatens to punish countries allowing Iranian flights, highlighting a deepening geopolitical rift.
  4. Escalating war in Ukraine, including drone and missile attacks, and Russia’s buildup of military assets, signals a worsening conflict with no immediate end in sight.
  5. The U.S. export ban on diesel is economically flawed, as it creates a supply shock, raises domestic and international prices, and disrupts refining operations, worsening inflation and energy costs.
  6. A proposed solution to the Strait of Hormuz crisis involves withdrawing U.S. aircraft carriers to signal goodwill and force Iran to reopen the strait, restoring international trade and easing oil prices.
  7. Iranian leadership consistently calls for diplomacy and respect, rejecting threats of force, while U.S. officials use degrading rhetoric and policies that exacerbate global instability.
  8. The rhetoric from Trump and allies—such as “cry uncle,” “nuggies,” and “wedgies”—is criticized as incoherent, irrational, and indicative of poor leadership, undermining global stability and trust.

Summary:

S. foreign policy under Donald Trump, highlighting its irrationality and harmful consequences. During a state visit with Xi Jinping, Trump’s chaotic behavior—such as wearing excessive clothing and reacting with pain to a flyover—is contrasted with Xi’s calm, composed presence, which underscores a stark difference in leadership.

The discussion centers on the Thucydides trap, a historical warning of conflict between rising and declining powers, with Xi emphasizing peaceful coexistence. S. escalates tensions by threatening sanctions on Iran and proposing an export ban on diesel, a policy that economists argue will only raise prices and disrupt global supply chains.

The war in Ukraine intensifies, with Russia deploying advanced drones and missiles, while Ukraine faces constant bombardment. S. officials use degrading and incoherent language.

S. to withdraw its aircraft carriers from the Strait of Hormuz, signaling a return to diplomacy and opening the strait to restore trade. The commentary concludes that the current leadership—especially Trump—acts with poor judgment, flawed economics, and dangerous rhetoric, undermining global stability and trust.

The analysis calls for rational, fact-based foreign policy grounded in international norms and mutual respect.

FAQs

The Thucydides trap is a historical concept describing how a rising power may provoke conflict with an established power. In the context of U.S.-China relations, it suggests that China's rise and the U.S.'s relative decline could lead to tension or conflict. However, the theory argues that the best outcome is for the rising power to grow steadily without provoking confrontation.

Xi Jinping remained calm and composed during the visit, showing no visible reaction to loud noises, such as the flyover, while Trump appeared visibly disturbed and in pain, prompting commentary on possible signs of cognitive decline.

The announcement that two pandas, Ping Ping and Fushuang, will be sent to the Atlanta Zoo symbolizes a gesture of friendship and soft diplomacy between China and the U.S., aimed at building goodwill amid geopolitical tensions.

The incident raised questions about the propriety and symbolism of such a gesture, with critics suggesting it reflects an inappropriate display of deference and possibly outdated or humiliating traditions in diplomatic protocol.

An export ban on diesel would create a supply shock, leading to higher international diesel and gasoline prices. It could also reduce refining output and negatively impact global markets, as the U.S. is a major exporter and part of a globally interconnected supply chain.

Houthi attacks on Saudi oil infrastructure and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz disrupted global oil supply, contributing to surging oil prices and affecting fuel costs worldwide, especially in the U.S. and Europe.

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