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Speaker 1: Hey, Michael, just wanting to let you know that you

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Speaker 1: aged well.

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Speaker 2: You're more handsome now than when you were younger. Great job.

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Speaker 2: That creeps me out.

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Speaker 3: That wasn't your wife. No, I mean arguably you are

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Speaker 3: in much better physical condition than you were twenty something

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Speaker 3: years ago. You were the fuels or your door boy.

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Speaker 3: Then you're actually pretty you know it now?

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Speaker 2: Yeah? Who was that better? Yet?

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Speaker 4: How do they know? How do you know? So let

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Speaker 4: me give you an honest, clear eyed summary about this

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Speaker 4: conflict where it stands as we start the work week.

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Speaker 4: The good news is from our own strategic standpoint. That's

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Speaker 4: the news is substantial. The man who ran Aran for

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Speaker 4: thirty seven years, who built their nuclear program, who funded

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Speaker 4: every proxy group from Lebanon to Yemen, who massacred his

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Speaker 4: own people by tens of thousands, is dead, and in

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Speaker 4: addition to him being at room temperature, more than forty

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Speaker 4: of his senior military and security commandos are dead with him.

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Speaker 4: The Uranian air defenses are being systematically stripped away. The

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Speaker 4: Navy is being literally sunk. Its missile infrastructure is being

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Speaker 4: destroyed by B two bombers. We've suffered four, I think

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Speaker 4: combat deaths. Four too many obviously, but no catastrophic military reversal.

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Speaker 4: And the hard news is equally real. The strait of

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Speaker 4: her moves is a war zone. The ships are being sunk,

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Speaker 4: the global oil supply is disrupted. Then markets have not

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Speaker 4: yet fully priced that in. But we still produce more

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Speaker 4: liquefied natural gas, natural gas, and oil than any other country.

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Speaker 2: In the world.

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Speaker 4: We are the world's largest producer of all of those.

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Speaker 4: So there will be shocks and there will be price increases,

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Speaker 4: but it will be and I know this isn't company.

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Speaker 4: Anybody doesn't see any gas price increase because that ripples

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Speaker 4: through the economy. Nonetheless, I think it will not be

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Speaker 4: nearly as bad as what we expected.

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Speaker 2: Has be. Law open the second front, and that does

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Speaker 2: bother me.

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Speaker 4: Iran struck a synagogue, killed nine civilion, Saudi Arabia's oil

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Speaker 4: refinery is hit. A British base in Cyprus was hit.

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Speaker 4: Iran is still trying to retaliate and in Trump's own words,

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Speaker 4: potentially for four more weeks. And the central strategic bet

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Speaker 4: that the Iranian people would rise up and take their

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Speaker 4: country back has not yet been validated on the ground

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Speaker 4: in country, the regime security forces of the IRGC are

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Speaker 4: still shooting at celebrants in the street. The Internet is

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Speaker 4: cut to four percent of normal levels. Inside or wrong,

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Speaker 4: the IRGC. IRGC still has weapons, They've got money, and

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Speaker 4: they they've got the motivation to fight. What's the motivation

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Speaker 4: for them to fight?

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Speaker 2: Power?

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Speaker 4: Stay in control? One of them takes over the country.

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Speaker 4: But here's what I believe. This is day three of

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Speaker 4: what will likely be a four week maybe less, maybe more,

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Speaker 4: but generally speaking about a four week operation, and the

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Speaker 4: opening phase achieved more than I think anyone expected, including

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Speaker 4: killing the Supreme leader. The middle phase will determine whether

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Speaker 4: the IRGC's command strugure collapses or does it consolidate. And

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Speaker 4: in the final phase, whatever that looks like will be

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Speaker 4: a negotiation, not a surrender ceremony. Iran will choose a

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Speaker 4: new leader. That leader will face a destroyed military, a

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Speaker 4: collapsed economy, a furious population, and an American president who

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Speaker 4: has demonstrated I will do what I tell you I'm

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Speaker 4: going to do. So the question is whether that new

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Speaker 4: leader is rational enough to take the off ramp that

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Speaker 4: Trump is already signaling is there for them now. I

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Speaker 4: said Saturday morning that this was either the most consequential

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Speaker 4: foreign policy actions since September eleventh, or the opening chapter

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Speaker 4: of a conflict with no defined.

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Speaker 2: End three days later.

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Speaker 4: I still believe it is both, because the Iranian regime

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Speaker 4: is mortally wounded now. But whether it dies quickly or slowly,

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Speaker 4: and then what replaces it is the story of the

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Speaker 4: next several months, and it could be even story the

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Speaker 4: next several years. Probably the Let's talk about a chess

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Speaker 4: game that's going on. Brett Bear Fox News had a

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Speaker 4: private one on one interview with the President today. I

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Speaker 4: heard him talking about it this morning on the way in.

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Speaker 4: So let's start with that for a moment, and let's

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Speaker 4: start with what Brett Behar got out of the President,

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Speaker 4: because when you read between the lines, I think it

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Speaker 4: is the most significant intelligence disclosure of the entire operation

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Speaker 4: and that operation, and the disclosure I don't think was accidental.

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Speaker 4: Trump told Brett Behar that Iatola Kamina was meeting with

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Speaker 4: his inner circle for breakfast on the morning of the attack,

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Speaker 4: and of course they thought they were safe because it

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Speaker 4: was broad daylight. Trump said to Bear quote, we were

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Speaker 4: shocked when we heard what was going on. We knew

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Speaker 4: exactly what was happening and where he went on to

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Speaker 4: say again quoting it was forty nine leaders that were

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Speaker 4: taken out. That was going to take four weeks, we

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Speaker 4: thought to get rid of the Uranian leadership. And it's

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Speaker 4: always you know, if they hide, it's a lot longer

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Speaker 4: than four weeks, and they would have been hiding.

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Speaker 3: Once.

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Speaker 4: You think like a lawyer for just a moment, because

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Speaker 4: every single word of that answer is pregnant with meaning

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Speaker 4: we knew exactly what was happening and where. That sentence

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Speaker 4: cannot be explained by satellite in they alone. It cannot

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Speaker 4: be described by anything other than human intelligence. You cannot

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Speaker 4: watch a breakfast meeting in real time from outer space.

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Speaker 2: You cannot know.

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Speaker 4: Who is in the room at what hour, or what

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Speaker 4: part of a room, or if they've even left a

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Speaker 4: room in a building to go somewhere else in the

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Speaker 4: building from a satellite. So that sentence, we knew exactly

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Speaker 4: what was happening and where describes human human intelligence agents

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Speaker 4: on the ground inside the country, feeding real time targeting

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Speaker 4: information to both US and Israeli forces, the CIA and

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Speaker 4: massade in all likelihood both. I don't think that's speculation.

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Speaker 4: That is the only logical reading of we knew exactly

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Speaker 4: what was happening and where. So I think Trump just

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Speaker 4: public confirmed whether he meant to do it or not.

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Speaker 2: Who Lord knows?

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Speaker 4: Who knows that the United States and Israel have human

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Speaker 4: intelligence assets operating inside the Islamic Republic, and not just

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Speaker 4: operating inside the Islamic Republic, but operating at the highest

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Speaker 4: levels and in real time. That is a stunning revelation

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Speaker 4: around security apparatus. The very IRGC that exists to prevent

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Speaker 4: exactly that kind of penetration was completely and totally compromised.

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Speaker 4: But then there's a second revolution revolution revelation. The forty

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Speaker 4: nine leader killed number was not a target list, it

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Speaker 4: was an opportunity. Israel media is reporting that the Israeli

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Speaker 4: Air Force eliminated thirty high level officials in the first

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Speaker 4: thirty seconds. Now, these weren't thirty pre planned individuals executed

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Speaker 4: sequentially or even simultaneously in different locations. These were simultaneous

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Speaker 4: precision hits on a group of leaders who happened to

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Speaker 4: be gathered together because somebody on the inside told the

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Speaker 4: Americans and the Israelis where they would be. So the

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Speaker 4: entire first phase of the operation was intelligence driven. It

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Speaker 4: was not just firepower driven. And that distinction matters enormously

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Speaker 4: because it means the planning was not just about bombs.

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Speaker 4: It was about betrayal, betrayal of the regime by the

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Speaker 4: people within it. And then there was another revelation. The

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Speaker 4: third revelation was ahead of schedule. So Trump confirmed to

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Speaker 4: CNBC that the operation was ahead of schedule and moving

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Speaker 4: along very well, a four week operation that already achieved

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Speaker 4: this primary target, the Supreme Leader himself on day one

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Speaker 4: is just had a schedule. It's running laps around the

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Speaker 4: original plan. Now the reason is simple. The intelligence was

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Speaker 4: better than even the planners had expected. When Kammenay gathered

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Speaker 4: his inner circle for a breakfast meeting in broad daylight,

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Speaker 4: thinking himself that, oh, I'm pretty safe, he walked into

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Speaker 4: a kill box that American and Israeli intelligence had already

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Speaker 4: mapped out. The operation ran ahead a schedule because the

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Speaker 4: target cooperated unknowingly but nonetheless cooperated. He cooperated with his

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Speaker 4: own elimination. But now the succession question, and this is

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Speaker 4: where it gets constitutionally and strategically fascinating, because by Trump's

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Speaker 4: old A mission, plans for succession and Iran after Kammene's

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Speaker 4: death were complicated because multiple would be successors were also

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Speaker 4: killed in the opening strikes. Now we've identified Kammenae's potential

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Speaker 4: successors on Saturday, but several of them are now dead,

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Speaker 4: which means the United States and Israel were not just

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Speaker 4: targeting common A, they were targeting the successor, the succession chain.

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Speaker 4: They were trying to create a vacuum, a vacuum so

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Speaker 4: deep that the clerical system cannot simply regenerate itself with

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Speaker 4: a new hardliner and just continue on as before. Now,

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Speaker 4: whether that strategy succeeds depends on factors that I'll talk

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Speaker 4: about in a second. But I want to talk about

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Speaker 4: the Gulf Cooperation Council, this the GC. I'm gonna refer

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Speaker 4: to it as the GCC. The GCC is essentially a

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Speaker 4: in our vernacular, let's call it a trade association many

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Speaker 4: United nations, a cooperative agreement between the Arab States, Oman,

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Speaker 4: United Arab Immirates, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, the usual suspects. Fox

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Speaker 4: News is reporting that the GCC is now actively and

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Speaker 4: offensively taking on Iran. That framing is directionally correct, but

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Speaker 4: I think it requires a little more precision, because the

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Speaker 4: full picture is actually more interesting than the headline. Here's

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Speaker 4: what is unambiguously true. Within thirty six hours of the

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Speaker 4: start of Operation Epic Fury, Iran had attacked every single

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Speaker 4: member of the Golf Cooperation Council. They had hit international

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Speaker 4: airports and at least three active ports. They crippled international travel,

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Speaker 4: They disrupted oil shipments. Iran fired more than one hundred

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Speaker 4: and sixty five ballistic missiles at the United Arab Emirates alone.

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Speaker 4: The UAE intercepted one hundred and fifty two of them.

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Speaker 4: Thirteen or so fell into the sea, but they still

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Speaker 4: suffered civilian casualties. Kuwait intercepted ninety seven ballistic missiles and

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Speaker 4: two hundred and eighty three Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain all targeted.

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Speaker 4: It is now hard to imagine that the Gulf will

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Speaker 4: return to the previous path of detunt with the regime,

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Speaker 4: with Iran in general. Tehran's reckless strikes appear to have

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Speaker 4: calvinized the Gulf. They brought them together, maybe temporarily bring,

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Speaker 4: you know, bridging the deepening tensions between Saudi Arabia and

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Speaker 4: the UAE. Iran did something, truthfully, decades of American diplomacy

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Speaker 4: could not do. It unified the Arab guild states against

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Speaker 4: it in a single weekend, and against a common enemy

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Speaker 4: that they wanted to you know, hey, hey, hey America,

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Speaker 4: would you would you we gonna We got a crazy

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Speaker 4: uncle and he keeps showing up at dinner. Could you

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Speaker 4: do something for that? And we know we're supposed to

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Speaker 4: hate the Jews, but could could you do his favorite

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Speaker 4: because could you and those Jewish guys kind of get

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Speaker 4: together and maybe do something for us? You know, it's

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Speaker 4: all under the table. It was all kind of just

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Speaker 4: this quiet day, talked Prince MBS, always telling Trump, you

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Speaker 4: know he listen. You know we we'll back you, but

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Speaker 4: I can't say anything publicly. Well now, Saudi Crown Prince

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Speaker 4: Muhammed bin Salmon, while he privately conveyed anger at the

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Speaker 4: scale and the timing of the US strikes to the

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Speaker 4: to his golf allies, and he told them to avoid

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Speaker 4: steps to cond trigger a broader response from tehranor it's proxies.

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Speaker 4: The Saudi Arabi truly is walking to tightrope. It is

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Speaker 4: now publicly condemning a reigning aggression, calling it blatant aggression,

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Speaker 4: privately urging caution because NBS does not want his oil

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Speaker 4: infrastructure to become another theater of war.

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Speaker 2: Now over at.

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Speaker 4: Breaking Defense, one expert said that if any attacks continue

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Speaker 4: throughout this week, I would expect the Gulf Arab States

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Speaker 4: to eventually participate in counter attacks on Iran. The UAE

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Speaker 4: in particular would be the one to watch. They need

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Speaker 4: to restore some kind of deterrence against the Iranians, and

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Speaker 4: sitting passively by and using up their air defenses are

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Speaker 4: not going to accomplish that. I would say, Yeah, that's

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Speaker 4: a pretty accurate statement. I would say it a little

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Speaker 4: more precisely. The Gulf Cooperation Council is fully defensive right now,

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Speaker 4: is being pushed toward offensive operations by Iran's own provocations,

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Speaker 4: and is at a minimum allowing and likely expanding US

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Speaker 4: operational freedom to conduct offensive strikes from their territory. The CSIS,

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Speaker 4: the Center for Strategic and International Studies concluded this weekend that

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Speaker 4: over the long term, the GCC countries are now moving

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Speaker 4: toward a more formal integrated air defense system. So the

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Speaker 4: Arab world just got its version of NATO's Article five moment,

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Speaker 4: except Iran was the aggressor and Iran is the one

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Speaker 4: that made it happen, and the struggle the strategic bottom line.

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Speaker 5: Next, Good morning, Michael Dragon, this is your fav uber.

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Speaker 5: You know what I love about this conflict that I

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Speaker 5: think is beautiful. Actually, I see people all over the world,

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Speaker 5: even in Iran, are celebrating, but they're celebrating with American,

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Speaker 5: Israeli and Iranian flags. I think that's just awesome.

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Speaker 2: Awesome. You guys have a good week, and we've brought

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Speaker 2: the Arab world.

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Speaker 4: Fully into our sphere, which brings me to what I

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Speaker 4: want to mention earlier, the strategic bottom line spent years

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Speaker 4: and billions of dollars all trying to cultivate the policy

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Speaker 4: of Arab detante. The twenty twenty three Saudi Iran normalization

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Speaker 4: deal that was broken by China, that was.

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Speaker 2: The crown jewel.

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Speaker 4: In only seventy two hours of retaliatory strikes, the arraigns

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Speaker 4: destroyed every single bit of that diplomatic goodwill, every single bit.

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Speaker 4: The Arab states they have been slowly drifting toward Beijing's

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Speaker 4: orbit as part of exactly the strategic architecture that I'm

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Speaker 4: about to discuss, have now been violently pushed back into

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Speaker 4: alignment with Washington. That is not a small thing that

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Speaker 4: may in the end be the most consequential geopolitical consequence

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Speaker 4: of the entire operation. I said to someone earlier that

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Speaker 4: I thought China's response was tepid. I think that's the

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Speaker 4: perfect word, and the specifics of what they said and

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Speaker 4: did not say are worth you understanding in precise detail.

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Speaker 4: China's Foreign Ministry spokesman said that US Israeli strikes quote

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Speaker 4: have no UN Security Council authorization and violate international law.

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Speaker 4: Foreign Ministry also went on to say that China is

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Speaker 4: quote deeply concerned over the regional spillover close quote and

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Speaker 4: then finished China quote believes that the sovereignty, security, and

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Speaker 4: territorial integrity of the Gulf States should likewise be fully respected,

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Speaker 4: and they urged the parties to stop the military operations.

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Speaker 4: Think about that carefully. China condemned the US strikes and

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Speaker 4: then immediately condemned the Iranian strike on the Gulf States in.

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Speaker 2: The same breath.

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Speaker 4: In the same statement, when China says the sovereignty in

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Speaker 4: the territorial integrity of the Gulf States should be fully respected,

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Speaker 4: they are telling their proxy, the Iranians, that firing one

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Speaker 4: hundred and sixty five ballistic missiles at the UAE was wrong.

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Speaker 4: That is not how you defend a strategic partner. That

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Speaker 4: is how you signal to the Gulf states who by

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Speaker 4: enormous quantities of Chinese goods and sell enormous quantities of

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Speaker 4: oil to China that Beijing is not going to sacrifice

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Speaker 4: its economic relationships to defend a dying regime. Now, when

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Speaker 4: asked directly whether China and Russia were considering providing military

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Speaker 4: support to the Iranians, the Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman declined

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Speaker 4: to answer, not once, but twice the question was asked

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Speaker 4: by an Adula agency. The spokesman gave a non answer

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Speaker 4: about phone calls and new in meetings, but not one

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Speaker 4: time did China say we will defend Iran. Not once

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Speaker 4: did China say we are considering our options. They said, hey, yep,

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Speaker 4: call the Security Council. That's that would be the diplomatic

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Speaker 4: equivalent of saying our thoughts and prayers. And Russia their

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Speaker 4: response is even more telling, not by what they say,

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Speaker 4: but by what they omit. Russia condemned the strikes, and

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Speaker 4: then Russia that's the fighting. The Ukrainians called for an

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Speaker 4: immediate cease fire, and then Russia did nothing.

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Speaker 2: Nothing.

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Speaker 4: All the analyst irees say that Russia is not in

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Speaker 4: any position to give more meaningful material support because of

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Speaker 4: years of grinding war in Ukraine, having hallowed out the

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Speaker 4: Russian capacity to project power beyond its own borders. So

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Speaker 4: here's what this tells us. And here's where we get

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Speaker 4: to the argument that I've been building since Saturday.

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Speaker 2: I think.

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Speaker 4: This was always about China, and now all the soul

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Speaker 4: called expert class are saying it openly. When I told

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Speaker 4: you more Saturday morning, which, by the way, it's up

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Speaker 4: right dragon. The podcast from Saturday is up if you

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Speaker 4: want to hear it. When I told all of you

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Speaker 4: nationally Saturday that Venezuela Iran and their strategic sequencing of

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Speaker 4: this administration's military actions were not random, that they were

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Speaker 4: chess moves against China, I said it.

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Speaker 2: You heard it.

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Speaker 4: Now the analysts are saying it in writing, and the

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Speaker 4: evidence from the past seventy two hours has made the

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Speaker 4: case even stronger. A senior fellow at the Hudson Institute

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Speaker 4: published analysis that says this Trump didn't launch Operation Epic

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Speaker 4: Fury only to push only to punish Commonade for his massacres.

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Speaker 4: He launched it because every year Washington spends managing Tehran

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Speaker 4: is another year that Beijing buys in the Pacific, and

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Speaker 4: the administration has decided the trade isn't worth it anymore.

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Speaker 4: So let me walk you through what I've put together

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Speaker 4: is a three part argument because it is precise. Quite frankly,

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Speaker 4: I think it's compelling. First is energy. China imports roughly

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Speaker 4: seventy percent of its oil. Most of that transits the

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Speaker 4: Strait of Malacca. Now in a Taiwan contingency, those sea

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Speaker 4: lanes become contested, so Beijing will need alternative energy sources.

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Speaker 4: And they had planned to look westward to the Iranians, Russia,

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Speaker 4: and any ghost state willing to sail outside the dollar system.

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Speaker 4: If the Middle East has already drifted into beijing economic

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Speaker 4: orbit by the time that crisis arrives, then China begins

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Speaker 4: the confrontation with a strategic in the reserve that our

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Speaker 4: military planners cannot disrupt. So Iran was China's primary discount

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Speaker 4: oil supplier. China purchased more than eighty percent of Iran

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Speaker 4: shipped oil last year, accounting for more than thirteen percent

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Speaker 4: of all crewe China imported by sea. China was buying

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Speaker 4: all of that at huge discounts because of US sanctions

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Speaker 4: on the Iranians paying Iran in the Wan bypassing the

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Speaker 4: dollar system entirely. That relationship was the cornerstone of Iran's

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Speaker 4: economic survival and also China's energy security strategy. Operation Epic

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Speaker 4: Fury is the first American military campaign that is starting

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Speaker 4: to sever that asset. So energy number one. Second attrition.

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Speaker 4: Every dollar that we spend defending red sea shipping lanes

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Speaker 4: is a dollar that's unavailable for submarine production, Pacific basing,

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Speaker 4: or Taiwan contingency planning. Every carrier group station in the

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Speaker 4: Gulf of Aden is a carrier group that's absent from

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Speaker 4: the Western Pacific. This really scares me to death right now.

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Speaker 4: But China's economy right now prevents it from doing anything.

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Speaker 4: So we're in a incredibly tight timeline here. Every carrier

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Speaker 4: group station in the Gulf of Aiden, as I said,

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Speaker 4: as a carrier group that's absent from the Western Pacific.

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Speaker 4: So the Uranian proxies, armed with Iranian weapons and supported

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Speaker 4: by Iranian intelligence, function as a mechanism of American strategic attrition,

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Speaker 4: and the costs fall entirely on Washington mean al Beijing

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Speaker 4: accumulates all these strategic gains, The Houthis cost the US

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Speaker 4: Navy and estimated one billion dollars in defensive munitions in

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Speaker 4: twenty twenty four alone, just shooting down Iranian supply drones.

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Speaker 2: Every month, the.

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Speaker 4: Huthi's attacked red sea shipping, China's competitor for those trade routes.

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Speaker 4: The Gulf Arab States suffered economically, which drove them toward

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Speaker 4: Chinese alternatives. Iran was China's military contractor for regional attrition.

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Speaker 4: That contract, you might say, it's now being terminated, so attrition, energy, attrition.

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Speaker 4: And third, the coalition that defeats China depends on the Gulf.

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Speaker 4: This is the argument has received the least attention and

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Speaker 4: I think deserves the most.

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Speaker 1: Let's look at the legacy media's negative coverage of the

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Speaker 1: murderous dictator Ayatola Kamani eighty five percent people who shared

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Speaker 1: worse than him in negative coverage. K Junior, jd Vance, Elon, Musk, Cash, Fattell,

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Speaker 1: Christi Now Tulsea, Yabbert, Pete Hegsath has one hundred percent

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Speaker 1: negative coverage and Trump has ninety two percent negative coverage.

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Speaker 1: Absolutely insane and wrong.

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Speaker 2: It tells you their perspective. Quite simple.

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Speaker 4: Not shocking. I mean sad, infuriating, but not shocking. So

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Speaker 4: let's get back to China. The brutal reality of China

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Speaker 4: is they have spent a decade building exactly the kind

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Speaker 4: of relationships that I'm talking about. Because if China invades Taiwan,

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Speaker 4: which would spill over because of defense agreements between South Korea, Japan,

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Speaker 4: the United States, the Philippines, Australia, everybody in the in

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Speaker 4: the Pacific, they're going to need energy. They don't produce

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Speaker 4: enough oil and gas for their military, and the economy

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Speaker 4: right now is in the cropper. So the twenty three

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Speaker 4: Saudi Iranian normalization deal that was broken by Beijing wasn't

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Speaker 4: just a Middle East peace initiative. It was China inserting

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Speaker 4: itself as the indispensable diplomatic broker for the world's most

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Speaker 4: critical oil producing region, precisely so that Saudi Arabia and

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Speaker 4: the Imiordis would think twice before sanctioning China at the

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Speaker 4: request of the United States. That was Beijing's master stroke

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Speaker 4: in the Middle East, and in the past seventy two hours,

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Speaker 4: the Iranians destroyed it by firing ballistic missiles at every

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Speaker 4: Gulf capital as Taiwan News reported just this morning, citing

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Speaker 4: the Hudson Institute analysis, removing Iran's Islamic Republic government is

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Speaker 4: tantamount to re moving one of China's chess pieces in

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Speaker 4: its Taiwan playbook. Now lay on that what we already

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Speaker 4: knew about the China US diplomatic calendar, the timing of

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Speaker 4: Operation Epic Fury, approximately six weeks before a scheduled Trump

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Speaker 4: visit to China, introduces a strategic signal aimed at asserting

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Speaker 4: unilateral US power projection at a capacity that's incredibly high

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Speaker 4: before even walking into high stakes great power negotiations. Trump

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Speaker 4: is about to sit across the table from Shijingping, and

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Speaker 4: he just demonstrated to she in real time what American

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Speaker 4: and Israeli intelligence and military power can do when it

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Speaker 4: decides to act. All she could do was sit and

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Speaker 4: watch as the United States on a Saturday morning, kill

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Speaker 4: the supreme leader of a nation that she regarded as

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Speaker 4: a closed partner, destroyed that nation's military command structure, sure

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Speaker 4: sank its navy, isolated it from every neighboring country, all

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Speaker 4: before lunch in Beijing.

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Speaker 2: Now, analyst at Chatham House notes.

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Speaker 4: That Beijing might seek concessions on issues more directly related

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Speaker 4: to its interests, such as Taiwan in trade, in exchange

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Speaker 4: for its significantly watered down messaging on Iran translation. China's

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Speaker 4: tepet statement I told you about is not weakness. They're

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Speaker 4: just using it as a bargaining chip. Beijing is actually

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Speaker 4: signaling that it will not go to the mat for Iran,

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Speaker 4: but it's expects something in return.

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Speaker 2: When Trump lands in Beijing.

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Speaker 4: Next month, that's something, maybe a softer post on Taiwan,

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Speaker 4: maybe teriff relief made, have some sort of technology transfer restrictions.

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Speaker 4: The Iran operation has already become currency in our US

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Speaker 4: China negotiations. That there's one more dimension, and that ties

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Speaker 4: Venezuela to the Iran chapter to the China chapter in

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Speaker 4: a way that you know what, you can hold your

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Speaker 4: heads as a single coherent argument. By targeting Venezuela and Iran,

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Speaker 4: Trump's not just playing checkers, it's playing chess. Venezuela denied

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Speaker 4: China it's primary source of heavy crude in the Western Hemisphere.

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Speaker 4: Iran was China's primary discounts oil source in the Middle East. Now,

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Speaker 4: if the Uranian regime falls, it's not gonna be too

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Speaker 4: long before Trump could say checkmate to the Chinese if

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Speaker 4: they're stupid enough to try their hand at an invasion

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Speaker 4: of Taiwan, because China would begin that conflict with its

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Speaker 4: two primary alternate energy sources neutralized, and China would be

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Speaker 4: facing a Gulf Arab coalition that has just been violently

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Speaker 4: reminded why it needs us and not China. We are

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Speaker 4: still the world's largest economy, are still the world's most

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Speaker 4: lethal military. So if I was to explain to somebody

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Speaker 4: over dinner tonight, I do it in a certain way,

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Speaker 4: and I'll tell you about that two things next, how

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Speaker 4: you explain this to your dinner friends and to the

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Speaker 4: War Powers Act?

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Speaker 2: Oh No,