10/12/26: Houthis Strike Saudi Airport, Trump Invents Fake Ukraine Ceasefire, Trump Ridicules His Own Supporters

Good morning, everybody. Happy Monday. We have an amazing show for everybody today. What do we have, Crystal?

Indeed we do.

A lot's going on in the world. So the Houthis continue to strike the main airport in Saudi Arabia, causing all sorts of death and destruction problems for that country. Trump is now considering joining that war as well. So we'll bring you all of that He's also announcing a deal to buy diesel from Russia and lying apparently about an energy ceasefire between Ukraine and Russia. It was debate night down in South Carolina's unexpectedly competitive race. We'll take a look at what happened there and also a bunch of new polls and some new comments from Trump saying basically he could say any dumb crap he wants to and his supporters would still cheer him. Sort of the latest iteration of the I could shoot someone on Fifth

Avenue and would maintain my support. We've got new warnings coming out from the financial sector about the potential collapse of the AI bubble.

And we have an.

Author on today who wrote a fantastic book about the Weimar period in Germany. We're going to be asking him if he sees any parallels with America of today and digging into some of the relevant history there. So looking forward to that one as well.

I'm really excited to talk to Victor. We both read his biography of Lenin. He is, in my opinion, one of the best historians who is writing history. popular nonfiction today. It's really hard to do. You drive through the historical record, you compile it, you make it readable. One of the hardest tasks for a modern historian. He's already done it once and now he did it twice, which is genuinely so difficult across disciplines. Thank you to everybody who is subscribing to the show, breakingpoints.com. We have a new little pitch for you. And here it is. If 1,000 people sign up by election day, all right, And as of election day, let's say the end of election.

Day, okay?

We're going to very clearly define the terms. 1,000 people sign up. Not only will Ryan Grimm be going to a fish show at Madison Square Garden, which is around New Year's Eve and New Year's Day, but two of those people, or no, sorry, one of those people who signs up will be allowed to attend with Ryan and they can bring their friend, a spouse, whoever they want.

Ryan has agreed to this. We've already spoken with him. about it, but a thousand people have to sign up. So again, to clearly reiterate, Ryan gets to go to the fish show at Madison square garden, which is apparently a big deal in the fish community. And one of those people will also be able to go bring a friend or a spouse and I'm paying for the tickets.

And this time around, Ryan is not going to be a homie. He says they have to be the most expensive tickets in the whole house. So if that's what you want, if you want to go on me, if you want to go, but I made that up. He didn't actually say I said it. But I agreed with Ryan that we would send him to the best seats that are in the house. So Ryan gets to go and you could possibly get to go with Ryan and bring whoever you want. So if you want to be that person, breakingpoints.com. Don't make him miss out. Apparently Madison Square Garden, it's a really big deal in the fish community.

Apparently we have a lot of fish heads that are in our audience. So let's see. Let's see if this can all work out. A thousand people, breakingpoints.com. We will pick one of those people completely at random. And of course we'll send you and email. So take advantage of that. If you want to, you can go for Ryan. Oh yeah. It's, it's, I mean, it really is a racket for the whole business.

So it's like, well, that's true too. I mean, yeah, that is true, but I love the part where we cleared it with Ryan.

Yeah.

We really had to twist Ryan's arm to be like, Hey, you want to go to the fish show of Madison square garden, uh, on us? No problem. I mean, so yeah, we talked him into it. It took a lot of coercion, but he has agreed to attend the fish show at Madison square garden with, uh, one of those who signs up and their friend.

You and I are always joking. You're like, you actually would have to twist my arm to get me to go to that show. But for Ryan, you don't have to. So there you go. And again, I will be paying for those tickets if you want to be one of those people. All right. In the meantime, please hit subscribe to our YouTube channel. If you're listening to the podcast, please share an episode with a friend. But as Crystal said, we have some genuinely shocking news that's been happening over the last 48 hours. We could start with some of this video. It appears that the King Khalid Airport in Saudi Arabia is has now been completely shut down after shocking missile attacks that have hit the main terminal, killing

now 14 people that have been confirmed and injuring over 300. So you can see, I mean, everyday type of scenes in a normal Middle Eastern airport, people queuing up for a line, immediately blowing, you know, there's fire, there's smoke, they're everywhere, direct hit appears potentially on an aircraft, absolutely, you know, oil depots, that are there on fire. I mean, I don't think it is an exaggeration to say these are some of the most shocking scenes that have actually come out of the Iran war so far, because this is the most crippling damage that any airport has actually taken throughout, despite the Iranians initially attacking Dubai International Airport, Bahrain Airport, and others. Nobody has ever scored this amount

of direct hits. It has completely shut down the airport, airlines canceling their flights, travel advisories going out across the world. Let's go ahead and actually put A2 up here on the screen, which details the damage itself. They say Saudi Arabia says, again, this is an older report, 12 killed, 300 wounded in the Houthi attack on Riyadh. Operations have been suspended as the authorities say that the victims include four Saudis and actually eight foreigners as well, including a U.S. citizen.

This has prompted embassies around the world, to warn their citizens not to go to Saudi Arabia or to be cautious when they're inside of Saudi Arabia. Obviously, it is a massive blow to the prestige of the Saudi kingdom, which long held itself up along with Dubai as a major international center for commerce. The Houthi attack here is going to cost the kingdom literally tens of billions of dollars just in terms of immediate commerce. But more importantly, you can actually see the prestige and the spiral that has happened because several things have now been revealed here, Crystal.

Number one, Riyadh is no longer safe, right? Is that the Houthis have the ability to strike Riyadh, some of their most important targets if they want to. Number two is, remember, Saudi Arabia's air defense systems are entirely supplied by the United States. So this is actually a big blow to U.S. defense systems or even worse potentially for Saudi Arabia. They're in full-blown rationing mode and they have to decide whether what to shoot down and what not to. And in this case, if you knew something's heading for your airport and you choose not to shoot it down, that means that you're in very, very dire straits. And then three, do not forget that the United States is deeply enmeshed in this conflict. 200 Americans, military and intelligence analysts, are

on the ground actually assisting the Saudis in their campaign, both to defend themselves and to help strike Houthi targets inside of Yemen. And so to take this prestige, this blow, to the image of Saudi Arabia, to the United States, to its defense equipment, and to see scenes like this, I mean, it's genuinely shocking. And it's also, in my opinion, kind of criminal on the Saudi authorities' behalf because this airport should have been shut down just a long, long time ago. And many of these deaths never should have happened in the first place. People should not be flying out of this airport. Period. End of story until there's some sort of a ceasefire.

Yeah, well, and that exposes how damaging this whole situation is to the ruling leadership in Saudi Arabia, because it really strikes at.

Their social contract.

The fact that they kept this airport open so long shows you how important and significant this is to the entire social contract that they're operating on in Saudi Arabia, where it's basically like, you know, you, if you're a citizen there, you have to live under this like repressive authoritarian regime, but you don't have any democracy, but you're going to be well off, you're going to feel safe and secure and like you're in this little oasis apart from any other turmoil in the region. That is completely destroyed.

And now you have, let's put actually a five up on the screen because this speaks to the destruction of the Saudi image and how damaging this is going to be. So you had a number of oil chiefs who are pulling out of this Riyadh Energy Congress. BP and others are skipping the World Petroleum Council. After you had 12 killed in the Houthi attack, by the way, one of those who was killed was an American national as well.

So all of these CEOs were meant to be flying into Riyadh for, you know, staying at the Ritz Carlton Hotel for this big conference. And now they're all pulling out and the airport is completely closed. We can put the A5B or A5 up on the screen about how few options the Saudis have here and what a bind they're in. Ultimately, they're caught in an escalation trap. We talked to Robert Pape about it on Friday. And same as, you know, Trump is in this complete quandary that he himself made the Saudis have created. a similarly disastrous situation for themselves. Because you'll recall, there was actually a ceasefire between Saudi Arabia and the prior Yemeni government and the Houthis.

And this was breached when there was an attack on the airport, main airport in Yemen. And the Houthis blamed Saudi Arabia, I think, with some justification for that attack. And that's how we end up in this situation. Now, what do you do? You can't walk away if you're Saudi. That would be completely humiliating. You know, this ragtag... group in Yemen, the poorest country in the region. But at the same time, so that would be completely humiliating. At the same time, you seem incapable of actually defeating them. So, you know, again, it's really echoes the quandary that Trump has dragged the U.S. into here as well, where there are no good answers, no good solutions here. And the Houthis in some ways being a lot more bold than

the Iranians have been, you know, willing to exact this very high cost Saudi Arabia in order to accomplish their war aims.

Absolutely. You know, Trita Parsi is making some excellent points this morning. He's doing some interviews in foreign media and he says, you know, one of the problems with Saudi Arabia is now they have horrific options on the table. The main goal of MBS is to get the United States military to come in and basically finish the job for him. Now, obviously, that's very flawed because we've tried that twice and we failed both times. And it's Trump himself that had to waive the white flag of surrender, and ultimately do a ceasefire with the Houthis. The main reason that we're not involved in this conflict is because we do not want a two-front war, basically, both in the Strait of Hormuz and in the Bab al-Mandeb Strait. Well,

as Trita points out, Trump is unlikely to offer any assistance to Saudi Arabia as long as Riyadh will not allow its airspace to be used by the United States for attacks on Iran.

Why?

Because at that same time, Iran would then strike Saudi Arabia. So Saudi Arabia is struck in a double vice. It cannot allow the United States on its territory without the Iranians also attacking as well as the Houthis attacking them. But they also want and desperately need the United States to come and enter the conflict directly on their behalf.

Trump was even asked about it and he kind of brushed it apart. in my opinion. Let's go ahead and take a listen to Trump's reaction at the White House when he was asked immediately after the airport attack. Let's take a listen.

You could see he's saying, you.

Know, oh, we just found out about it.

We'll move very quickly. A lot of bravado. There's been really no action here. And it just shows the desperation.

Of You know, guys, I had immediately skipped over this, but let's put a to the V.O. just to show people what's happening at the same time in the Strait of Hormuz, because this ties directly in is that the Iranians, meanwhile, are continuing to pummel the Strait of Hormuz with direct hits on the engine rooms to shut down, to disable.

any ships that are trying to run their own blockade of the Strait of Hormuz. Now, why does this matter? Because you will recall that previously, the United States had a policy of tanker for tanker, that for every tanker that Iran disabled, that the United States would take out one of Iran's tankers. Clearly, Iran simply did not care about that. The United States has not struck a single one of those tankers in the last 13 days, despite some 16, 17 ships now that have been disabled and that have been directly hit by the IRGC. And so Trump is really running scared ahead of the diesel and the oil markets, as we'll talk about a little bit with Russia. But just to give people an idea, Brent crude futures as of this morning are sitting around $ 106

per barrel, all as a result of this Houthi shutdown, or these Houthi attacks, and of course, Iranian pressure in the Strait of Hormuz. At the same time, some news continues to come out from this world Petroleum Council. Nobody's there except for the Saudis, but it's the Saudis themselves that are making the news. A4B guys, please, just so I can show people these latest comments. So what you can see here is a summary of the Aramco CEO, the Saudi state-backed oil company, who is sounding the alarm.

And what he says is that, quote, globally, the squeeze on crude oil is serious. He says that what's making the challenge even worse in the refined fuel prices is Commercial onshore inventories are now, quote, well below 6 billion barrels, and they are the last available buffer. So you will remember, we talked a lot about this at the time, is that when you shut down a refinery, or sorry, you don't ever want to shut down your refineries, or even really shut down production. So you need a lot of storage.

Oil storage is what gives flexibility, price stability to the market. And what they're saying is that the commercial onshore inventory globally of some 6 billion barrels is just simply not enough. And this is according to the CEO of Aramco. He says that the vast majority of these barrels are locked up and that until Hormuz fully reopens and confidence returns, the pressure across the energy chain will only intensify. And then finally, his most stark warning is that refilling inventories while meeting demand could take up to two years. What I think is important about his comments is that you can start to read between the lines from Aramco and from everybody else in terms of the panic. Now, I will say one of the comments he said today is

like Saudi Arabia doesn't have the word fear in its dictionary, which I checked. It does exist in Arabic, so I'm pretty sure it does. But the real thing is, is that behind the scenes, we only know a limited amount of information that is coming out of Saudi Arabia. We didn't pull this element, Crystal, but I flagged it to you yesterday in our editorial call. The Indian embassy actually put out an interesting warning to Indian citizens. It did one of those classic, you know, Indians are advised in Saudi Arabia to be watchful and of civil aviation guidelines and to take cover. But it also said Indians are advised to not circulate videos and photos of what they see.

And if you've never been to the Gulf, you would know that South Asians, like Indians and Pakistanis, who are basically like slave labor over there, are the people who are staffing these airports, these oil facilities. And many of them had whipped out their phones, let's say in the early days of the war, and they've recorded it like, oh my God, not to try and help Iran or anything, but just to show people what's happening. The Indian government now basically telling them, do not do that, because if you do, you're gonna get arrested, you're gonna be in violation of these guidelines. And there's been multiple reports from Houthis and elsewhere saying, that the damage that we see at the international airport, that's only coming out because that's

what's leaked. There has, according to them, been a lot of damage inflicted on the Saudi oil infrastructure itself. So just I want to put that out there and remind everybody, we really don't know what's going on inside of Saudi Arabia because of the total information lockdown that's happening in the country right now.

Yeah, it's an authoritarian country and they are bound and determined to keep as little information from coming out as possible. Put the last element up on the screen because it speaks to this as well. This is the claim from Ansar Allah or the Houthis of what they have struck just over the past two days. So the airport again today, that's the King Khalid Airport, the main one in Riyadh.

A Shigadam gas facility, Aramco's Tanajib oil refinery, King Fahd Airport in Dammam. This analyst says it's very clear at this point Saudi Arabia is not safe and Ansar Allah is striking both airports and energy infrastructure at will. As I told the Washington Post yesterday, the Houthis can and are striking deeply into Saudi and hitting critical energy infrastructure.

And the Houthis have less valuable infrastructure, so they are going to continue to wreak havoc on the market. Beyond this, I also spoke to Politico on Friday to highlight how obviously defense lifts Saudi is. It's a remarkably dangerous gamble on the Saudis' part. Saudi Arabia has demonstrated remarkably little ability to prevent the Houthis from striking critical energy infrastructure across the kingdom. And obviously the Saudis' entire security architecture is based on us coming to their defenses. And when this all kicked up with the Houthis again several weeks ago and they came to Trump and said, hey, can you help us out? Trump said, absolutely not. Now he's floating the idea maybe he will. But I think it's

unlikely because he's already got enough trouble on his hands just dealing with the Strait of Hormuz and what he's– the mess he's created with Iran. So this is really– It's undermining the entire security architecture of the region. It's undermining MBS and the existing Saudi regime. It's broadened now the Iran war fully into a regional war, even though obviously the Saudi Yemen conflict had predated the Iran war.

These two things are now inextricably merged together. And as we sit here wondering whether there is going to be a spin up in the Iran war portion of this before the midterms, It's worth remembering that last time we were watching the war unfold, we were saying, oh, when are the Houthis going to enter the fray? What would that do? Well, now you have the Houthis fully engaged.

So if we return to a full-on war with Iran, it's going to be in certain ways on a larger scale than it was previously. And that'll have significant implications in terms of death and destruction and certainly in terms of the global economy as well.

Absolutely. You know what's fascinating, too, is you just spoke about how the Houthis are actually being more aggressive than the Iranians are. Per Trita Parsi this morning, there actually is some incentive for the Iranians to try to tamp things down. That's part of what's frustrating things here in the West is everyone's like, oh, the Houthis act directly on command from Tehran. No, they don't. OK, they're allies, but they have their own distinct interests.

Right.

And so in this conflict, guys, there's a final element that I want up here on the screen, literally just breaking. is that Iran is now offering to actually mediate between Houthis and Saudi Arabia. Apparently, the Saudi foreign minister called the foreign minister of Iran yesterday and was like, hey, I need you to get a handle on this. I need you to come in and tell these guys to cut it out. And Iran is now directly offering to mediate.

So apparently part of the reason why, per Trita Parsi, is basically that it doesn't want the current escalation to get out of control in the region because they have a regional ceasefire going on with Dubai and with Saudi Arabia, or with the UAE, Bahrain, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia. Basically, you don't strike us, we don't strike you, as long as the United States doesn't continue to pummel our territory.

The Iranians like that arrangement because that means they only have to keep their military firepower trained on the Strait of Hormuz. So the Houthis are actually dragging them into uncomfortable territory. So it demonstrates that this is completely out of control of every one act. The Houthis are acting in their direct interest. They want their territory and they don't want to be bombed. Tehran does not control them, despite whatever fantasies the United States or Saudi Arabia or any of these people may have. Iran also has its own interests. It wants to fully focus all of its attention on the straight of Hormuz, where they don't have to take a lot of damage and they can continue to bleed the U.S. empire. The U.S. empire doesn't want

more conflagration really anywhere because they want energy prices to remain stable. So differing interests by all of the different parties in the conflict make the system dramatically more unstable and make it less likely, in my opinion, that any sort of stasis can come. Because even if things are calm between Iran and and the Gulf, and the United States, or relatively to where the war was, the Houthis continuing to fire against Saudi is like the Z factor in energy markets. And as you just said, if those two things combine, then we're in an entirely new different energy market with a lot of constraint heading into winter. We just had our hurricane make landfall in the Gulf. I'm sure some of you guys saw some of the damage

devastating for Alabama. It doesn't appear to have yet caused too much damage yet to refineries but we're still early relatively you know in the season and so it could happen again and that's all it takes i was just reading we're going to talk about midterms this morning heating oil in the price of maine for this season is now 80 more expensive than it was the last year seriously i mean so many portions of our country specifically like the very far north east uh which are more off the grid still relying on heating oil or fuel oil i mean it's basically just diesel i And it is devastating for those households, just to bring it back home here to the United States. Let's take a look now at the situation between Russia and Ukraine. Now, to

set the stage, if you've been watching this show, you're very well aware that Ukrainian strikes on Russian diesel refineries has been crippling the Russian economy and has been significantly tightening the diesel market in the United States. Of course, the United States is the one who sells these weapons, gives intelligence and supports Ukraine. Ukrainian government. And so I think it was only a matter of time before Trump basically woke up and realized, hey, this is a little bit of a problem on top of the disastrous war that I'd already launched. So with all of that, he then struck a secret deal, it appears, with Russia. Let's put this up here on the screen, which really set off a firestorm. Here's Trump's statement that came over the weekend.

I have just concluded a highly successful discussion with President Vladimir Putin of Russia where it was agreed that Russia will immediately supply over 300,000 tons of diesel fuel to the American and global marketplace, another 500,000 tons during the month of November, and additionally, a million tons immediately thereafter. Additionally, based on the condition of their diesel refineries, Russia will then deliver within a short period of time, 3 million tons of diesel. Between our total control of the Strait of Hormuz and this great procurement of Russian energy, diesel prices for Americans and indeed the world will be coming down in record numbers and fast, lower prices for Americans, especially our great farmers, ranchers, and truckers, my greatest priority.

This is a very big and important deal. Well, what's a little funny about that is if you actually take a look at the numbers, which we will now, let's put B2 up here on the screen from Gregory Brew, who's a fantastic energy analyst. He says, Trump's solution on a diesel prices is get more diesel from Russia for what it's worth on a monthly basis 300K tons equals 74,000 barrels per day. The U.S. currently produces 3.6 million barrels per day of diesel, of which about one third is exported, coming roughly to, I don't know, a few percent of what is out there. And so very clearly, this was about something a lot bigger than just the numbers coming from Russia. A lot of this really comes down to the war in Ukraine itself. And if you

want to add on to the stupidity of this alleged deal, let's put B3 up here on the screen. These are from sanctions analysts who I follow. And so in the sanctions world, everybody was kind of mystified because literally mere hours before the alleged Russian diesel deal, Trump had actually signed the Lindsey Graham Sanctions Act on Russia. And as they write here, when Trump instructed Besson to greenlight diesel imports without the authority to do so, he actually put the United States Treasury and CBP in an impossible legal bind.

A OFAC license cannot override federal statute, OFAC being the Office of Export Control, right? So Congress took that power away from the Treasury in this current case, specifically enacted by a blanket ban that they had passed. And so even if Treasury claims that it can somehow license its way through this diesel deal, any move significantly altering Russia policy requires a mandatory 30-day notice to Congress and a statutory freeze before taking place. So the end result is that if a Russian tanker arrived on U.S. shores before the election, the CBP would be legally barred from clearing its cargo. So not only if the deal went through, would it be a minuscule fraction of what the United States already produces. But also, because Trump passed the Lindsey

Graham legislation and all of these other stupid Russia sanctions that are currently on the books, he's not even legally allowed to clear the cargo on US shores. All of this demonstrates just the absolute panic that is currently in the White House. Obviously, it's much more of a messaging problem, both in terms of the United States and the crunch currently happening for the diesel market and for farmers, which is currently throwing the Midwest elections into toss-up territory. But bigger picture, it just shows the sheer stupidity and lack of coherence for a strategy both around Russia and Ukraine, which he promised he would have done almost 18 months ago at this point. But also just the stupidity also

of signing these sanctions bills and at the same time now trying to get yourself out of this Russia and Russia-Ukraine problem and trying to force some fake ceasefire at the very same time.

Yeah, I mean, it's got to be the most chaotic foreign policy in history. You just were bragging about increasing these tough sanctions on Russia. And then five seconds later, you're like, oh, we did a deal with Russia. Now we actually want everyone to because it's not just about us. We want everyone, including the Europeans, to buy Russian diesel because we're so freaked down about the price of diesel.

By the way, I was reading about this to soccer. So apparently they've been spotted. hundreds of Iranian oil trucks in Russia. And Russia's oil refining capacity has been significantly diminished by Ukrainian attacks on their oil facilities. So it is entirely possible that some of this oil that enters the market is actually Iranian oil. So there's really no way to tell the difference once it's in the market.

So that is also a possibility of what's happening here. It does remind me of Early in the Iran war, when initially because of concerns over gas prices, the Trump administration actually desanctioned the Iranian oil so that that could flow into the marketplace. And then they reversed themselves and did the blockade of the blockade. So the whole thing just smacks of complete chaos, incompetence, lack of foresight, lack of planning and grasping at straws. Yeah, I think this is best seen as Trump's latest attempt to sort of jawbone and manipulate the market so that you don't have another major increase in gas prices before the midterm elections.

The actual impact of this deal is probably going to be minimal both here and abroad. But maybe it will at least do something to help the markets stay at around the $ 100 a barrel for Brent crude that we've been at for a little while here.

Right, exactly. And that is the biggest problem around all of this is that there is no coherence. You know, remember, and just people know my feelings about the conflict in Ukraine. I think this all should have ended a long time ago. I don't think any of this is doing the world good between Ukraine and Russia and the rest of the entire globe, including the Europeans who themselves are paying very, very high diesel price. But let's put that all aside.

And let's just remember that Trump had said previously, we're going to stop the entire war in 24 hours. That not only did not happen, he has funded the Ukrainians, he has continued weapons deliveries to them. The Europeans are allegedly paying for it and all of that. But in the same way that we're fueling the Israel crisis in Gaza about what's happened, we're fueling the war in Ukraine as well. We provide them a ton of intelligence, the Pentagon, And the Ukrainian security service are enmeshed like this. This is a proxy war of the United States. Trump was responsible for this from the day he took office, and it continued to happen. We had that Anchorage summit. Literally nothing happened as a result. And the Russian economy has

been taking a beating, which they've responded to the Ukrainians by destroying as much of their energy infrastructure as possible. And so this is exactly the problem, is that you wake up one day and you're like, oh my God, this is causing a problem. Let me panically try and change things. And of course, Russia and Ukraine have their own interests in this conflict. Ukrainians want to shut down the Russian diesel economy because it's the lifeline of their war machine. Russians want to make life as difficult and impossible as possible inside of Ukraine so that the morale breaks for their population. With all of that said, obviously, Ukraine also wants to punish the Russian economy because it's the lifeblood of the war machine. And as you can

all see, overnight, Ukraine actually targeted Russia's largest oil storage and pumping facility, And that was also immediately met with cruise missile attacks by the Russians on to Ukraine. And that is what sets the stage for this alleged ceasefire. So let's put B7 up here on the screen, where yesterday Trump put out this statement saying, effective immediately, there is an energy ceasefire in the war between Russia and Ukraine.

Both parties have agreed, do not break it. Thank you for your attention to this matter. The attack I just showed you literally happened right after that. And Trump was even asked at the White House specifically about what Zelensky was doing in Russia. And here's what he had to say. B5 guys, let's take a listen.

Zelensky could have settled this war many times, many, many times. And he chooses not to. It's very difficult. It's a war that should have never been started. If I were president, if the election weren't rigged, I would have been president, and that war would have never started. But he could have settled it many times, and he chose not to.

We said, you can do whatever you want to Russia. Don't hit the refineries, because that's a world problem that's caused. And he wants to make problems for the world. He wants to make problems for our farmers, our ranchers, with diesel fuel, because Russia supplies diesel. a large portion of the diesel fuel throughout the world. And we told him, do whatever you want, but don't hit the diesel fuel, because there's a big problem, a big shortage. And what does he do? He goes and hits the diesel fuel.

He can do whatever he wants, but he can't do that. And you know what I suggest? I suggest they get a new leader who can make a deal. because he could have made many deals that, for some reason, he never does. And let me go a step further. If I were president, you wouldn't have ever had that war. That war would have never started. There was no reason that that war with Ukraine and Russia started. It started due to incompetence. It should have never started. You wouldn't have lost 30 percent of your country already. You've lost 30 percent of your country, and you've had over a million people killed. Between the two of them, over two million people killed. That's a war that should have never started.

And I think it's time for Ukraine to get a new president.

Time for Ukraine to get a new president. You know, maybe you could have called and pressured for that a while ago. By the way, Zelensky himself is not even that popular in Ukraine. He's been mired in corruption scandals and problems for years now. But this is only likely to help him if there were to be some sort Here is Zelensky's response yesterday when asked about all of this and ceasefire and elections. Let's take a listen.

If they want energy ceasefire, we are open for this.

Don't attack us. Don't kill our children.

We will stop attack your diesel. And I think it's fair, fair deal. President Trump said that we need, Ukraine needs new president. So first of all, with all respect to President Trump, it's up to our society, up to our people to choose one or another leader. Yes, we are in war and now to do elections is really difficult.

Not only that it goes absolutely not secured and it goes out of our law, out of our constitution, but the main thing is to have security infrastructure for this. to give possibility people to vote.

Of course, it's up to.

Ukrainians when to vote, how to do it, and to choose one or another person. But if to answer on this question, I know that Putin wanted very much to change the president in Ukraine.

I understand it.

And if President Trump really wants to have some changes during elections, I also shared it with his team.

So please tell Putin.

Give us two months, 60 days of total ceasefire, 60 days, and we will organize elections. Of course, we will be ready for any choice of our people, exactly Ukrainian people.

So that was Zelensky's response there. I mean, Obviously, Russia rejected the ceasefire. They immediately put Kyiv into a blackout. Let's put B9. Here's some video that actually put from Kyiv just yesterday, hours after the alleged ceasefire, where you could see pretty significant blackouts across the city. Some places had limited amounts of power. Many of the power stations, energy infrastructure continued to be hit by Russia, including devastating cruise missile attacks. I don't want to whitewash Any of this, obviously, the Ukrainian attacks on the diesel and Russian ships in the Black Sea and all of that had happened and then diesel attacks continue. And so neither seems at interested literally whatsoever. And I think what we stack this on

top of what's just happened with Houthis in Saudi Arabia is you continue to see a United States that is not in control. And losing that poll power position, it really does happen very quickly. I mean in many ways we weren't all that in control, but the illusion itself is what mattered. And to have a direct US beneficiary like Zelensky, whose entire existence is reliant on the United States of America, in some ways it's like out of the BB playbook. and others, is that you can kind of just do what you want to do. Because in the long run, they're not actually going to do anything to you. I'd be remiss if I didn't mention B8, because there's some threats that are currently happening behind the scenes.

The Trump administration is currently threatening to stop the procurement system that provides Ukraine with weapons to press Kiev to halt its deep strikes on Russian energy infrastructure. This happened on Saturday and on Sunday, and that the U.S. is lobbying the European capital's to try and end these attacks on Russian oil refineries. But don't forget that at the same time, just weeks ago, Trump was also openly musing and is very close to approving this Patriot missile deal for production inside of Ukraine as well. So there is no coherent policy, nothing whatsoever behind all of this, Crystal.

Yeah.

And I mean, from the Ukrainian perspective, in a certain way, they have an incentive to cause problems for us with the global market as well. That keeps us engaged, that, you know, could put pressure on us to put pressure on on Russia to try to resolve the conflict in Ukraine's favor. So they have their own incentives here. But I do just want to go back to it. So it's it's genuinely it's almost impossible to not grade Trump on a curve because of how many insane things he does literally all the time and his administration does all the time. Can you imagine if any other president had just invented a fake ceasefire and announced it on social media? Like, that's what happened. Both Russia and Ukraine are like, this

is I mean, you know, Zelensky, because he's got to manage his relationships, trying to be a little bit diplomatic about it and be like, well, we're open to it if Russia will agree. But the reality is Trump literally just invented this ceasefire out of whole cloth, lied about it and posted it. onto social media. That is crazy behavior.

And I need the media to stop being so gullible too and taking his word for things when he just pops off and announces things and then they just go, oh, I guess there's an energy ceasefire. No, there's not. You cannot believe a word that this man says. In fact, if it's coming out of its mouth, it's more likely that the opposite is the case versus whatever it is that he's saying. So This is the behavior of an insane person, of a desperate person, a person who has no plan and is completely grasping at straws here because he's trying to save his own political ass here ahead of the midterms. Again, it goes to This idea that has been floated of and Trump has pushed, I don't even really care what happens in the midterms. Obviously, he

does care what happens in the midterms because he's doing completely desperate, pathetic and insane things just to try to keep the price of oil down a little bit in advance of what looks to be a disastrous midterm reckoning heading his way.

Absolutely. And, you know, you can continue to look. Diesel prices, nothing is there. Also, don't forget, you know, the entire Congress, the bipartisan support. of these Russia sanctions is there. You already have multiple Republican senators who say Trump needs to reverse course on buying any of this Russian diesel, not that he would make any difference to all of us.

So look, no coherence, no strategy, and the world continues to burn. So I guess that's a pretty good way to transition to our midterms.

So as we get closer and closer to actual election day, Trump had a pretty interesting message to his own fans at a recent rally. Let's take a listen.

No, it's true.

No, there's such love.

It's like, like, I.

Mean, it's amazing. When you stand up here, it's just like the love. I could say the stupidest things and you'd clap. You know, I love you so much. But we don't say the stupidest things. We say things of common sense.

I could say the stupidest things and you'd all clap. And then guess what, Sagar?

They all clap. They clapped.

It's absolutely incredible. Although, I mean, there are a lot of signs that the diehard MAGA base has dwindled now completely. to a much diminished cult-like following at this point. But for those people, he's absolutely right. Anything he says, no matter how contradictory, no matter how many times he said he wouldn't start a new war, and then he starts a new war, no matter how many promises he breaks or How high the gas prices get, they will still stand there and clap for whatever dumb, ridiculous shit that spews out of his mouth.

And that's well, so that was part of what I want to talk about, because for years that actually is the case, right, is that it's not just about the people at the rallies. It's that a lot of people are. And I actually I don't know if the clap is per se, but. You remember in the Biden era, the I did that stickers with Biden and the I could use mean tweets right now was like a real conservative meme.

I think with cultural power, as in, look, a lot of ridiculous shit. But 2019 was a lot better than the year 2023 or the year 2022. This time around, you get all of that baggage and you also get increasing inflation, a disastrous war and all the problems that we currently have in our society. ramped up to 10.

I mean, I was looking at the 30-year mortgage. It's like 7.2% now. It's absolutely insane. So there's a part of that where I don't think it necessarily will come off as insulting to people who are at the rally because they're bought in. But I do think it will come off dramatically insulting to a lot of previously identified, quote, MAGA Republicans who were in it not for a Trump cult of personality, but for various different reasons, either cultural, economic, whatever.

What say you? And you and I remember we've talked about those anecdotes of people who were like the Trump super fans, people who went around Congress and harassed members of Congress who were supporting Trump's impeachment, only to now come out and be like, actually, I would support Trump's impeachment.

People who spent like, you know, tons of their own money going to Trump rallies across the country now being dramatically disillusioned. When you take independent voters and even some of the Trump faithful and you continue to narrow it down, I don't think it comes off as strong in this midterm election in the way that things continue to trend than it would have previously whenever the whole Fifth Avenue point, what he was trying to do was make it a persecution complex around the media. It wasn't just about the people, but it was also about him. There has not been this part of identification of him himself with the movement, I think, in quite some time. So I saw it.

It's a clarifying comment in terms of how the people there react. But it is still also the exact type of thing which could reveal the fracture, which for 10 years now, everyone expects to happen, but it didn't happen. And of course, we still don't have evidence of that. But things currently are trending in that direction from what we can see right now.

Yeah, well, and as evidence of that, you have now a race in South Carolina, which is not a done deal. Now, you would certainly still bet on Darlene Graham to succeed her brother, Lindsey Graham. By the way, she changed her name so that she could keep the Graham name so everybody would know. You didn't know that. Yeah. She changed her name for political purposes so that she would be connected to to Lindsey Graham in this quest for the Senate.

She's put into place here by Trump. literally no political qualifications just because she happened to be related to Lindsey Graham and Trump plucks her out. And you have this very difficult year for Republicans and polls that are showing things are relatively close. Let's throw in the caveats. We previously had a race in South Carolina with Jamie Harrison versus Lindsey Graham that also, according to the polls, was close.

It was not close in the end. That certainly could happen here as well. So I definitely want to put this out here. However, you had a debate last night in South Carolina between Darlene Graham and And Annie Andrews, who is the Democrat. And Darlene Graham in a very red state is a lot of ways on the back foot trying to defend the Trump's policies, defend the war in Iran in particular. Let's go ahead and play C5 so we can get a sense of how all of this went down.

Let's talk about the war and the fact that you say that I just want to continue war. Let's not forget how this war started under the Democrats with Iran almost having a nuclear weapon.

Thank you.

No, and I do not support the war with Iran. Already 21 American service members have been killed. And we recently learned that eight sailors aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln tried to commit suicide. We've also spent 50 billion American taxpayer dollars on this war. Again, money that could have been invested in our infrastructure, health care system or public education system. And the war is the exact reason we now have record high gas and diesel prices. Farmers are getting crushed and everything costs more. My opponent is the only one on this stage who had the opportunity to vote to end the war. But three times in a row, she voted to continue it. And several days after one of those votes, she had the audacity to walk out

onto this stage and admit that national security isn't really her thing. South Carolina, if your surgeon said that appendectomies aren't really his thing, would you still hand him a scalpel?

No.

So why would we hand Darlene Graham a full term in the U.S.

Senate?

She is unserious and unqualified.

I think that everybody wants the war in Ukraine to end. We will all be safer. when the war in Ukraine ends. Again, I was so proud to get the Lindsey O. Graham Sanction Russia and Iran Act of 2026 passed through the Senate, through the House, and signed into law by the President with the overwhelming bipartisan support, 86 to 11, with the help of my Senate colleagues. It gives the President tools that he can use, if he so chooses, to end the war through economic sanctions. So that's up to him as to whether or not he wants to use it or whether he wants to use something else. But I think the purpose of it is to bring down the gas prices and ultimately end the war. And when the war ends, gas prices will fall.

That is true.

When the war ends, gas prices will fall. But you can see the bind that Darlene Graham is in and how even in a very red state like South Carolina, where, you know, Trump is underwater as he is in almost every other state, but he's a lot more popular there than in most places. Annie Andrews can just straightforwardly criticize the war. We shouldn't be in it. It should end.

This is causing all kinds of problems. It's the reason why your gas prices are high. And Darlene Graham has to resort to this ridiculous argument that the war somehow started because of the Democrats, which I don't think literally anyone will buy or believe, even the most diehard believers.

Darlene, your brother worked with Democrats to make sure that that war continued as long as possible. But you probably don't read the news enough to even know any of that. And I think that's what is the most disgusting, ridiculous part of all of this is that Trump uses his cult of personality to push Darlene Graham over the finish line in the primary, not even dramatically successfully. Emily had told me that her sources in South Carolina were like, look, if Darlene Graham had just lost, this would be the easiest cakewalk election of all time. But now we have to put $ 5 million in this race for no reason.

We have a limited amount of money, obviously. in the finite pool. We're shoring it up for insurance purposes. As you said, it's probable that she would win. I wouldn't put a whole lot of money against it, but we shouldn't even really be talking about it. The caveats of polling and all of that remain is that in 2020, this was allegedly a close race and Lindsay won by some 18 points. But I just don't expect that margin.

And even if she does claim a victory here, the fact that they had to spend money, that they got national media attention, and all of that is itself drawing away from much more competitive races around the country. We should put, what is it, C2 up here on the screen. This is the latest poll that came out from Trafalgar Group. Remember, a very Republican pollster in the Texas United States Senate, where they have Tallarico at 47% and Ken Paxton at 43%.

I mean, I just don't think that we can emphasize how crazy this is because these are Republican pollsters, Trump pollsters, people who are actually quite accurate in cases going back to 2016. And we just have more evidence here of Tallarico being up. I am looking currently at the RCP average, which remember doesn't do weights. It includes partisan pollsters and all of that. There is not one single poll that has been released since September 14th that has Tallarico either tied or that has Ken Paxton, who is leading in this race. Not one. Literally every single poll released from September 14th that is included currently in the RCP average either has Tallarico leading, and then there is one poll

from UMass Lowell that has him tied. And so everybody likes to talk about 2018. I covered that race extensively, Beto O'Rourke. Beto O'Rourke, the hope of Texas, was that he would be able to outperform what he was able to show, which was roughly two to three points within the margin, which made it a tight race in Texas.

Ted Cruz wins by about two points in the state of Texas. If we then put the same supposition here There is not one that has Tallarico not winning. And so it's very possible. I want to be clear that Republicans come home and they're like, look, we just can't have a Democrat that represents us in the United States Senate.

I want to be clear that it's an incredibly possible scenario. Ken Paxton, you wins a squeaker by 0.8 or even 1.5 in a crazy universe just because so many people came out to vote and there's a ton of money being spent by MAGA Inc. and all of that, etc. But With three weeks to go, the war getting worse, diesel and all of that, where it is, I'm not currently seeing it. I'm starting to really believe in a Tallarico victory.

Yeah.

Well, and this is another one where Trump's intervention really screwed over the Republicans because he intervenes on behalf of Ken Paxton. Ken Paxton ends up winning the Republican primary over John Cornyn. I don't think there's any guarantees that Cornyn would have won, but I think everyone believes he would have been a much stronger candidate than Paxton, who's beset with all kinds of scandals. And even Trump can't bring himself to like wholeheartedly endorse. He always does is like, you may not like how he looks. You may not like how he talks. You may not like him when he does his interviews. He knows he's a dreadful candidate and people don't want to hear from this guy and find him morally repugnant. He's having to have his ex-wife,

who he cheated on, go on TV, won't even say his name, but it's like, I'm going to vote for the Republicans. I guess you guys should, too. Like, that's the state of affairs. Um, in this race with these candidates and to bring it back to South Carolina for a moment, the other, the other reason why you should believe that there is something real going on here. We can put C7 up on the screen. This got a lot of attention. This guy, Barton Swaim, uh, he was actually, he's a Republican. He's from South Carolina. He was a longtime speechwriter for Republican Governor Mark Sanford, including I think he was an aide to him when the whole like hiking the Appalachian Trail thing happened. But in any case,

he says, listen, it could go blue. And the reason is because Annie Andrews is actually out campaigning and Darlene Graham is not. She has no public events. This was the only debate that they're, you know, the only remaining debate that they're doing here because she is not confident on her feet. So she's not out there trying to earn the vote of South Carolinians. And I do just think that there is this natural human disgust at the fact that this was handed to her just out of nepotism and not out of merit whatsoever. So we'll see how that ultimately goes. But to go back to your point, Sagar, about Trafalgar, like in previous cycles... Trafalgar had very different polling than the sort of traditional mainstream outlets where it

was like, OK, you know, you would have a poll that showed Democrats in range in Ohio and then Trafalgar would be like, absolutely not. You're going to lose by 10. And Trafalgar was right. You know, there were a lot of these instances where they were picking up on something, especially with regard to Trump voters that other mainstream pollsters weren't, or at least that's what it looked like in the results.

Now their polls look very much like what the other pollsters, the sort of results that the other pollsters are getting. And we haven't seen as big a polling misses in midterms as we have when Trump is on the ballot. he seems to really be the confounding variable. That being said, you never know, but that's effectively what Republicans are banking on at this point is that there's some sort of major polling miss going on, or maybe there's all of the money that they have, the money advantage that they have, maybe that pays off down the stretch, or maybe there's some crazy thing that happens here in the last couple of weeks that totally shifts the political narrative. But those are the sort of like desperate hopes That they're down

to at this point when Texas is looking really bad, when Democrats are not putting money into Kansas, Kansas is looking very real as a possibility.

J.D.

Vance had to go and campaign in the state. A bunch of former Republican governors of the state have endorsed the Democrat. That one looks like it's very real. So, you know. If you're looking at the concrete measures, things like voter registration, things like the early vote, obviously the polling, it's looking pretty grim for Republicans. And they're having to hope for some unforeseen factor or act of God to come in and intervene at this point.

That's what I continue to look at. where RCP average, and like you were just talking about with Trafalgar. The thing is with Trafalgar is we all knew. We were like, okay, Trafalgar, you can always expect them generally to come in more on the Republican side. Well, they have Tallarico by three. They actually have Tallarico more bullish than some of the mainstream pollsters that have even polled this race. So just to show you how that works. Let's put Rasmussen as well.

C3 up here on the screen.

Another Republican pollster.

Another hardcore Republican pollster. pollster, a longtime staple in the Trump community. Well, let's take a look here. This is their Senate polling. North Carolina, Cooper plus seven. Iowa, Turek plus four. Ohio, Brown plus three. These are all Democrats for the record, if you're just listening. Maine, Troy Jackson, plus two. Texas, Tallarico, plus one. Georgia, Ossoff, plus nine. Minnesota, Flanagan, plus three. Michigan, El Sayed, plus three. Alaska, tied. South Carolina, Graham, plus four. Which, by the way, if you win by plus four and you previously, your brother, won it by plus 18, I mean, you know, a moral victory, I guess, for the Democrats, but still pretty devastating, I think, if that's all it comes down to. And I think, continue

to look at all of these numbers and understand You know, to me, it seems crazy to say, but Texas, I wouldn't say it's a foregone conclusion. Republicans are going to continue to fight there. But the candidate quality problems that beset Ken Paxton are so devastating. I'm not so sure if they can be overcome. It seems like Iowa and Kansas would be the battleground where you fight and then you just hope and you pray for Susan Collins to do her Susan Collins thing and for Troy Jackson to nuke his candidacy somehow. in Maine and that she wins by some sort of a sweeper because right now it seems like Maine, if they can just hold on to some of the Midwest, you know, those, uh, those States.

And obviously I didn't even mention Nebraska. If Dan Osborne also was able to pull out some sort of shock victory that could throw a wrench in this entire thing. But you know, they're, they're starting to have to make very difficult decisions and just really pray, you know, for, for some sort of a tie, a 50, 50 or something, and potentially have Susan Collins. Cause otherwise they could really be in big trouble, especially with Alaska, which is right there.

I think you've talked about this before. People do not appreciate the inflation crisis in Alaska. Alaska is expensive. It's expensive in normal times because everything has to be shipped there and the Jones Act and all this other craziness. Diesel and just general food price in Alaska is insane, beyond crazy. Then you have all kinds of other confounding variables that are in the state rank choice voting being you know, something crazy as well. The Libertarian apparently on the ballot. Things are looking very good for Mary Paltola right now.

She shared a picture of some of the prices in rural Alaska at the grocery store. And we should have pulled it. It was insane. And to your point, it's always more expensive there because of how difficult it is to get the goods in. But it was like a roll of paper towels for 20 bucks. It was absolutely crazy, crazy prices. The like, Tide Pod container for $ 50. That was the level of insanity that these things were. Everybody was in the comments like, literally, how does anyone afford to live there? How does this work out? And those are the sorts of things they're facing there. Man, you talked earlier about the heating oil. That is a major, major issue there. You kind of go state by state and you look at all of them. And in Michigan,

you've got issues with the tariffs. Obviously, everywhere you've got issues with gas prices. Down in Texas, the Latino swing has been massive, which seems to be a combination of upset over the economics and also over some of the mass deportation policy. There's been a real flip in terms of the orientation towards the immigration policy there. So you sort of go state by state and each state, Kansas, Iowa, you've got the issue with farmers, with the tariffs, obviously also gas prices, diesel prices. State by state, each one has its own unique reason why they are so disgusted with what's going on and why you could see this significant flip. Let's put C4 up on the screen. I'll be honest with you. I'm very, as you know, skeptical

of this type of polling where you ask people like, OK, if this happened, how would you feel about it? Because I think people are very bad at explaining why they do what they do, why they vote for the candidates they do, why they like the policies that they like. I don't know that we have a deep understanding of our own minds in that way. However, put this into the pot of the sort of data we're looking at.

Politico wanted to get at, OK, let's say that the Iran war ends. Let's say gas prices drop by a dollar a gallon between now and Election Day. Is that going to significantly change the political landscape? Basically, the answer was no. The plurality of people in each instance, you know, with the Iran war being declared that it's over, with inflation going down, with gas prices down by a dollar a gallon, they're like, this is not going to affect my vote. And so what they're trying to get at here is effectively that No October surprise is going to change things that much. All of Trump's desperate, I'm going to do a Russian diesel deal, and I'm going to try to have some declare mission accomplished with Iran. All

of these things that he's trying to do may not really even change the political landscape that much. And I think that that's true, because if you look at, not based on what people are saying in this poll, but if you look back at the Kamala Harris-Donald Trump election in Inflation was actually coming down at that point, and yet she still was very much punished for being part of the administration where prices had gone up so much.

So people are not going to just immediately forget all of the pain that they've been put through over all of these months. They're still going to continue to be disgusted at the decisions that were made and the choices that were made that put them in this very difficult position. So in a lot of ways, I do think the cake is kind of already baked at this point.

I think that's a great point. And I remember how much we criticized this at the time. They were like, well, the rate of inflation has slowed. I'm like, guys, groceries is 20% more expensive than when you took office. Like, shut up. You know, nobody wants to hear about the decline in the rate. And yet we have seen Trumponomics do the same thing as Bidenomics over time. They continue to point out, they're like, well, the rate of inflation actually has gone down. And they're like, well, if you take out, you know, the Iran war, then actually goods would be You know where it is right now. It's just the same type of ridiculousness. Is gas more expensive today than when you as a result of decisions you

made as president? Yes or no. OK, then you're going to suffer. In fact, you're the most culpable because you launched a war of choice and it made things much worse. for everyday citizens. At least Biden had Russia invade Ukraine, which was not directly his fault, where Trump decided to do this. So you add all this together, and then the tariffs as well, which were obviously executed disastrously, the same chaotic type of nonsense that's proved in tremendous business uncertainty into the market, and specifically has hurt parts of these Midwestern and states, farming states in particular, which is what's putting them in such a bind. I do want to mention this. It literally just broke because it shows

the internal thinking of the Democrats. Let's guys put this up in post-production. These are current money moves. The Democratic Senate Majority PAC has just announced it is scrapping all ads for North Carolina, and it is adding $ 7 million into Ohio, $ 2. 5 million into Iowa, but look out for this number, $ 5 million into Kansas. So if you read between the lines, clearly the bomb in Ohio is to shore up Sherrod Brown. So that one, they think this is a winnable race. $ 2. 5 million to Iowa, they're like, maybe, but we're not 100% sure. But the bomb here is the $ 5 million in Kansas, because according to these numbers, they're making it clear this is additional money that they're pumping in to the state And they're making it seem,

according at least to their polling, that Kansas seems to be more in play even than Iowa, which I would never even predicted going into this. So look, the caveat remains, just because these are national campaigns, $ 100 million organizations with a lot of money, they don't always know what they're doing.

The Hillary campaign spent a billion dollars and they literally didn't visit the state of Wisconsin, right? So it's not exactly a one-to-one, but it shows their internal calculus and thinking going into the final days of the election. And it will either be, you know, incredibly smart strategic decision or foolhardy hubris, which everybody looks back on and says, you people are a bunch of idiots. Literally, I look at them as 50-50 in terms of likelihood for how we might be talking on election day.

I think what you can say about Kansas is that both Republicans and Democrats think that it's real. Now, whether that works out to be the case on election day, we will have to wait and see. But You had J.D. Vance going into the state to campaign for the Republican Marshall, who has a lot of problems as a candidate. You know, there's been all this stuff dug up about how aggressively he pursued people who owed medical debt to his practice, how he charges a higher interest rate on unpaid medical debt than almost literally anyone that you could possibly find.

Those things have seemed to really hurt him. in the eyes of the voters. And as I mentioned before, you've got Republican governors who are endorsing the Democrat against him, which is pretty wild to see too. And then the Democrat Hamilton, he is the pastor of the largest Methodist congregation, I think in the country, but certainly in Kansas and has, you know, so he has a lot of sort of credibility of being a very visible community member and being very connected to the values that a lot of Kansans share.

So you've got a, you know, a candidate quality mismatch and a Kansas that I didn't realize this, but Logan has been pointing out to us has been steadily moving a little bit more, you know, to toward the Democratic or toward the purple side. And this perfect storm of add on top of that, all of the problems that farmers are facing and all of that discussed. And it appears to have made for a situation where there is a genuine possibility. At least Democrats think that and Republicans seem to think that as well, judging by how they've rushed in to try to shore up Marshall's campaign.

Yeah, I mean, I don't know a ton about Hamilton, but the numbers bear out for him. It's a huge, you know, United Methodist Church, 25,000 people across nine locations, online television services. He had a book covering Christian faith where they had sold more than a million copies, you know, from him and his press. I mean, that alone, if you were to just say, like, what's the, you know, on paper, who's the type of guy who could win the state? That would be it, right? You know, in a crazy election situation. And with Roger Marshall, like you said, some of the attacks, you know, Roger Marshall, he's like a fine candidate. He's one of these typical candidates from a deep red state where, you know, they don't go

through all that competitive elections, you know, to the extent that there's any oppo done. It's usually done at the primary stage. They kind of, you know, just sit out on an island in the Senate. They kind of, it becomes a sinecure for them where it's not all that competitive. These are actually the type of candidates which can be the worst in a competitive race because they're not used to it at all. They're not Pennsylvania. They're not Michigan.

or any of these places. So it's a bad mismatch. You got the money problems also that are besetting them. I don't know. It might be Kansas and Iowa. Obviously, Texas and Maine, those are up there. Those are exciting. Those are going to be the ones I'm going to watch the most closely. I'm just so fascinated by the demographic shift, whether it's big city, rural, who's going to come in where, because that's going to be the genuine story of the Trump era. If he loses, the people who Republicans have been winning for 25 years.

That will be so completely insane. Like it's one thing for the Latinos of South Texas who have, you know, these people can't make their mind up. They're voting Hillary, Trump, Biden, Trump, you know, like over and over again. It's one thing for people who are a genuine swing demographic. It's a whole other for lifelong constituencies to shift their vote entirely and shift away the legacy of decades, really, of Republican governance in the state. I think that would be the biggest, most shocking story of the night for me. if we actually start.

If there's one thing we've learned, don't take constituencies for granted. I agree. You know, I think Democrats made this mistake under Obama thinking young people would be solid forever, thinking that Latinos would increasingly be vote more like African-Americans where it's, you know, just this solid block for Democrats can't take constituencies for granted. And that doesn't mean like all of rural America is going to shift to the left, but you only need we're talking about a game of inches here, right?

You only need a little bit of slippage, a little bit of people staying home, a little bit of people who are, you know, consider themselves independents who genuinely changed their minds and their views to have a significant political realignment. So we'll see if it's that sort of election or if it's a typical midterm like blowback, we're unhappy with the party in power, we're gonna vote for these guys this time. And that's really, to me, the question at this point.

I agree. I did see a Republican pollster this morning Patrick Graffini, he's like a respected guy. He said his base case is that the toss up races go Democrat and at a national level, it'll be a huge problem. But that in a lot of the deep red states that most of the Republicans will win. I was like, huh, OK.

I mean, you know, first time I've seen anybody put that in terms of their prediction. So I'm curious to see if he's right, because like you said, that would be a more normal midterm backlash as opposed to an unprecedented, 19, I forget the year, 1932 style wipeout, something like that. So we'll see. It's going to be very interesting.

10/12/26: Houthis Strike Saudi Airport, Trump Invents Fake Ukraine Ceasefire, Trump Ridicules His Own Supporters

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