(5-6-26) Ep. 203: Epstein Subpoenas Ignite Hill Meltdown, While Trump Freezes Project Freedom & Much More.

Today's Articles:

(The Gateway Pundit) - Congress Grilled on Epstein Files as Palm Beach Hearing, Bondi & Gates Testimony Looms—Lawmakers Demand Full Subpoenas, Stumble on Podesta. (The Gateway Pundit) - Rubio Fields Questions From Reporters in Epic White House Press Briefing. (The Hill) - Trump announces pause on Project Freedom. (The Associated Press) - US and Iran appear to move closer to ending their war as Trump threatens more bombing. (Oil Price US) - Pakistan opens Iran land corridors as region scrambles for routes beyond Hormuz. (Financial Post) - Key U.S. yield at 5% highlights mounting pressure in bond market. (Fox News) - 'Clueless' socialist mayor in hot seat after video of 77-year-old beaten in downtown Seattle goes viral. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Due to the graphic nature of this program, viewer discretion is advised. Thank you for tuning in here. Today's groundbreaking news right here in America and across the board, where the facts are facts and hard truths thrive. Let's begin the best step of radio, informative, uncensored, unapologetic, and ready to go. Folks, halfway through our week, Wednesday, let's get right down to Brastex. I don't have any time to waste it. We've got so many very, very important articles I want to discuss with everybody. Let's break down my first article. This is on the Gateway Pundit. Now we have some major breakthroughs coming in with the Jeffrey Epstein scandal. They're going to be scheduling three different hearings coming up beginning on May 12th, a Democratic field hearing in Palm Beach. Then former Attorney General Pam Bondi will have an interview on May 29th, and then Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates of Hell will be testifying on June 10th. The Palm Beach hearing, this is going to be led by the Oversight Democrats and ranking members, Robert Garcia out of California, will be conducting this interview. And they are going to be featuring testimony from Epstein and Maxwell Survivors. And they will be examining how the abuse has continued in the very location where Epstein's crimes were first committed and came to light. I want to pause for a second here because this is what I've been telling you all along. Now, of course, we all want transparency. We all want people that have wronged people, done illegal acts to people, committed crimes against people, to be charged and, of course, found guilty of them. I don't think anybody could disagree with that. I don't know anybody that would. But what have I been telling you from the start? This is how you build a case. This is what the DOJ should have been doing last year. And obviously previous to that, under the Biden administration. You need to get these survivors, they're at these locations. If anything happened to them, if they were abused in some way, if they were trafficked in some way, if they were assaulted in some way. You figure out who was doing it. You corroborate their stories with other people. Maybe they saw other people getting assaulted, or getting abused, or getting tortured, or God knows what else they saw. This is how you build these cases. This is this should have been done many, many years ago. But here we are in 2026. Regardless of all that, this is the step in the right direction, I think. This is where we need to go. We need to get people that are still alive, and there were roughly about 1,200 victims, so-called. But this is how you build a case. There's only about 200 left. You get those people, you figure out who they what they saw, who they saw, where they saw it, and you corroborate evidence, and then of course you build a case against that individual. Or individuals, I should say, in this case. Because I don't believe for a second it was just Maxwell and Epstein by themselves. I believe this was a full-on cabal of people that were doing these illegal acts to people. And probably some very prominent people that we all know about. Now, all three of these events are now going to be feeding into the Republican-led House Oversight and Government Reform Committee and this ongoing probe of the Justice Department's handling of the Epstein case because obviously they're not complying with the Epstein Transparency Act and high-profile connections. They're not doing that. Pam Bondi made a massive blunder on this. That's probably one of the reasons why she's gone now. But Bondi has got to be expected when she has her own testimony to face the questions about why there are all these redactions. Why haven't we not been given the remaining three million pages? What's in these three million pages? If it was just Maxwell and Epstein, why are you redacting all these people's names and what they did? Let's let the people know what took place. Now, Bill Gates, wonderful Bill Gates, folks. Oh yes, the philanthropist, so called. I call him Bill Gates of Hell, but not just me. Gates is now slated to be questioned on his flights aboard Epstein's private plane, and of course, documented ties to Maxwell. What did he know? Again, I take very little about these individuals that are getting questions. The same thing took place with the Cleanse. Did I expect them to come and say, Yeah, we're guilty. Yeah, I saw this and that. I mean, come on, folks. Nothing's gonna happen when Bill Gates goes and testifies. But what can happen is if we take these living victims and we figure out what they saw, and if Gates did anything to them, or if we can prove without a doubt that they were in the same location when these horrendous acts were taking place, and Bill Gates was there, then you could build a case against somebody like that. I mean, this is a guy who was having dinner with Epstein regularly, was fraternalizing with Epstein, so was Bill Clinton, too, by the way. Now, to act like, you know, they they don't know what's going on, they're they're babes in the woods, I think is completely ridiculous. Now, yes, maybe someone who associated with him, Epstein, I should say, in a very minor way. Maybe they took a plane somewhere around the world. Uh, that's something a little different. But what we're talking about here is people going to these locations where he lived constantly where this abuse was taking place, where these rooms were bugged with video and recording technology. And by the way, why hasn't any of that been released, too, by the way? We know that there's several photos. We know that there's got to be lots of video evidence. What's on these hard drives? What's going on here? How come we're not being told about any of this? And why would somebody bug a room all over his suites and his flats and what you call his mansions all over the world? Not just simply down in uh Little St. James, but all around the world he had places. Why would he bug all these locations? Why would he bug all these rooms inside of his house? It doesn't make any sense. Unless, of course, it's what I have always suspected that there's some type of blackmail ring going on with this. And if so, who is he blackmailing? And for what purpose? And what is the end result of all this? We need to have these questions answered, folks. So, and by the way, it might not all be simply just minors. It could be also younger women just getting assaulted, too. Uh prostitution, trafficking, you name it. That's enough to bribe somebody, right? That's enough to blackmail somebody, I would have to say. Very prominent people don't want that information to get out that they've been doing those things, or drug use could be another thing on that information that in this recordings and pictures. All these things should be brought to light. And especially if they're members of Congress that are sitting in Congress right now. We should know about this. We should have known about this. So for Trump to say this is a Democratic hoax, are you still talking about Jeffrey Epstein? Of course we are. Because we need to know what happened to these, first of all, what happened to these 1,000 victims that are no longer living? What happened to them? It's a bit odd, don't you think? Do they all die just suddenly? What took place? Did they all commit suicide? What's happening here? We need answers to this. And again, I'm glad to see it's uh you know a nonpartisan issue. I'm glad to see both sides of the aisle are coming to and saying, listen, we need to get to the bottom of this. They should be subpoenaing everybody who has been associated with Jeffrey Epstein. But most importantly, talk to these victims. Take them seriously. Figure out exactly what took place. When were they there? When were some of these high-profile people there when they saw these acts going on? This is the way you build a case. And by the way, they have this evidence too. If you have the recordings, the the video recordings, the pictures, you have evidence. So I'm really interested to see why they haven't released these last three million pages of documentation, what's on them, whose names are you redacting in a lot of this information we've already seen where we've been looking at things and going, wait a minute, they're referring to murder. They're referring to rape. They're referring to children. And God knows what else. Sacrifice. I mean, it was disgusting, despicable. And yet no one else has been arrested this entire time. Again, I said it before, this was the beginning of the downfall of Trump. You don't come out and run on, we're gonna release the Epstein finals, we're gonna hold people accountable. Then when you're asked about it, you say, well, who really cares? Doesn't matter. You're still talking about Jeffrey Epstein? Yeah, of course we are. This shouldn't just be something that we let go, folks. By the way, we're not letting this go. I'll be the first one to say this, even though I know I'm not, but we are not letting this go. We are gonna get to the bottom of this, one way or another. We need to release all the files. And by the way, the president has signed the legislation to allow that to take place. Now, President Trump is styming this process and won't let all the files be released, whether it be his name's on it or he's covering for people. I don't really care what it is. The pages need to be released. We need to know what's going on here. That's what he ran on. Let's get to the bottom of this. And by the way, Nancy Mace on the Republican side is one for saying that she is all for exposing everything, by the way. She's even for holding Pam Bondi in contempt, in which Pam Bondi should be, because she did not follow the law. What was interesting about this whole process, on January 3rd of this year, you know, the day we went into Venezuela to extract Maduro illegally, by the way, under the most bogus charges whatsoever. That's another topic for another day. But that was the day Pam Bonnie was supposed to explain to us why she hasn't released all the files. Yet that never happened. So, of course, Pam Bonnie should be held in contempt of court. Of course she should be. She's broke the law. So let's get to the bottom of this. Alright, let's move forward. Let's interview the right people, the right victims, give them, of course, the protection they need so they can be forthcoming and explain what exactly took place. And by the way, the DOJ has these documents. They know exactly who is talking to who. That's why they're redacting certain names. So Pam Bonnie needs to explain us everything about why she did this. So it's not just getting a binder with page after page with full redaction on it. Completely meaningless. But we need to know exactly when she released the second batch, right? Of the, I think it was about uh three million or so. Where what why are they redacting all these names? What would what is your purpose of this? What's the point of getting this information and setting it out if you're redacting very important names of very important people? People that have not yet been held accountable. That's another question we have here. Pam Pam Bondi knows all about this. She was one of the people in charge when he was first arrested in Florida. So this is not anything new to Pam Bondi, by the way. Let's see if Todd Lanch get to the bottom of this, by the way. And unfortunately, we've been told, well, it's been alluded to, I guess we'd have to say, that they're probably gonna have the statute of limitations for little Dr. Anthony Fauci to run out and expire next Monday, which I'm very, very unhappy with, by the way. This administration was supposed to talk about transparency, accountability, draining the swamp. What are we doing? You're not draining the swamp when you let little creeps like Anthony Fauci run roughshod, run free, destroy the entire economy back in 2020? Lie to Congress and we're letting him go? Why do we have rules over? Why do we have laws? You know, if we're gonna let people act with impunity, they act like this, like the things that we're reading in these Epstein emails in files, what's the point of having laws? If we're not gonna protect the most vulnerable population, children and young women, what's the point of this? I mean, it's it's we have it red-handed, folks. These people are caught red-handed. We have the evidence, we have the survivors, and yet nothing at all has been done. You've been told it was Epstein and Maxwell, it's just these two, Bonnie and Clyde, he's dead, even though I don't believe that for a second, and she's in jail right now. Getting moved around at different locations. This has got to stop. This has got to stop too. And by the way, this article is great too. It also talks about some other issues as well. One of the parts I thought was really interesting on this article says, when pressed on the John Podesta and the 2016 Wikipedia links in emails referencing spirit cooking, along with an ordinate use of terms like pizza and hot dog and other wording, for example, flagged by the FBI as potentially consistent with a pedophile slang. Multiple members admitted that they were completely unaware. Hmm. Unaware. So again, this just goes to tell you this is something that's been in the foreground for quite some time. People have known about this for quite some time, and yet nothing has been done about it. And this something needs to be done about this. We cannot let this go, folks. I'm gonna tell you this again. We cannot let this go. There's a reason why we have a House Oversight and Accountability Committee. And okay, let's just say they don't know what these words mean. Fine. You can go look on the internet to see what they mean, fine, do it. But we we need to understand what's going on here. So if we have people that are writing these emails and they're using this coded language, you know, this cryptic term o terminology, we need to get to the bottom of this. What does this mean when you're referring to pizza or this or that or hot dog or whatever the term might be? We need to figure this out because a lot of these words have been used multiple times by multiple people amongst emails. So let's get to the bottom of this. Let's figure something out. I don't care what gets taken down, that's the whole point about all this. I don't care if it takes down Congress or Hollywood or the elite. I don't give a damn. We need to have justice for people that are survivors of sexual assault and have died as a result of sexual assault and abuse. That's not acceptable in a free world, folks. We love to pride ourselves that we're a free nation. Okay, fine. Let's let bad guys go to jail, despite of who they are, how much money they have, or how much of a reputation they have. It's ridiculous. Through and through. Let's get to the bottom of this. Let's end this nonsense once and for all. Let's see what we can do there. Let's see if Todd Blanche has the uh stones to do it, though. That's a big if, I have to say. Now, on another front yesterday, we had Marco Rubio taking up the lead as, well, I guess Caroline Levitt now is on maternity leave, so they had Marco Rubio come out yesterday and do his thing. And I love it, he's a DJ on Saturday. Now he's he's the new press secretary. Before he was the viceroy of Venezuela, you know, he's the national security advisor, you know, in name only. And he's also the Secretary of State. Even though he doesn't go and make negotiations, they send Whitkoff and Kushter to do all the work for him. Which is very interesting, I'd have to say. But I'm going to break down some of the things that he was talking about yesterday. Much of the conversation relied on the newly founded Project Freedom. And I'll let Rubio explain it in his own words, exactly what this is and why we're doing it.

SPEAKER_00 16:16

Let's start off there today. The weekend the president announced this project uh freedom, and the goal of it is to frankly, if you want to talk about it, it's to rescue like almost 23,000 civilians from 87 different countries that are trapped in inside of the uh of the Gulf and left for dead uh in the Persian Gulf by this Iranian regime. You know, for more than two months now, these innocent sailors and commercial crew members have been stranded out at sea because Iran is conducting something. It's not just criminal, it's criminal for sure, but it's desperate and destructive, this blockade of the Straits of Hormuz. Nations from around the world, the overwhelming majority of whom are not even engaged in any military hostilities, are now at risk not just of losing their cargo, uh, but the lives of their own citizens because of this blockade. These ships, you know, you don't leave a ship out there for this long. You start running out of food, you start running out of potable water, essential supplies, and they're at the mercy of this piracy. What it is, it's piracy. And uh and and uh not only that, but some of them have seen, you know, been opened fire on and rained down senseless attacks on several civilian ships already. So here's the problem with Rubio.

SPEAKER_01 17:23

He talks a big game, but he alludes to the most important part about all this. Number one, none of this would be happening if the US and Israel did not go in and invade and attack and kill the supreme leader of Iran. That's the only reason why this is taking place right now. They said if we we are attacked by you amid negotiations, which again is a violation of international law, by the way, it's perfidy. We met in good faith, and by the way, the Pakistanis were very upset about that as well. They felt, hey, we're making progress, we're gonna meet again next week, and then of course, on that Saturday, Israel and the U.S. decided to bomb them and of course kill the Ayatollah, many members of his family, many members of the military. And they said, listen, we'll close down the Strait of War moves, we will put that chokehold. Now, these Gulf Arab states are aiding and abetting you to attack us, and we don't give a damn what takes place. It'll be on our terms now, and they've made good on their commitment to that. But here on the Hill yesterday evening, it said here that President Trump announced a pause on the U.S. Operation Project Freedom on Tuesday evening, based on a request from Pakistan and other countries, but added that the U.S. naval blockade of ships in the Strait of Hormuz will remain in place. So, we're here to save everybody. These are allies, these are people that are held against their will. No doubt about it. But the reason why they're not moving is because the insurance brokers, the insurance companies, for example, Lloyd's of London, are saying, listen, we're not going to insure you if you try to traverse this strait and you get sunk and lose everything on board. We're not going to do that. So it's null and void. Okay? We're not going to do this. So it's not necessarily Iran doing it. It's the insurance company saying, you're staying put right now until we get this thing figured out. That's the way this is working. And by the way, the ships that have coordinated with the Iranians have traversed the strait. They haven't been sunk. But the ships that they attempt to stop, for example, the ships that they turn around do not go through. So we could say that their navy is depleted, we could say that their air force is no more, their economy is in shambles, we'll get to that momentarily as well. But listen to this. Why? Again, if President Trump has the strong hand here, he's holding all the cards as he keeps saying, we've won the war, why is he not allowing the these ships in the region, which are many of them too, by the way, to cross the strait? Why are we not aiding and abetting that? Because obviously, if these ships start to get hit with missiles, with drones, it's gonna be a lot of problems. And it will stymie any type of peace negotiations if that even happens moving forward. I don't think we'll see any sort of final agreements on really what's taking place for quite some time. And by the way, I I found some information out yesterday. I I don't want to say this is definite, but I I found certain information yesterday. I'll just put it that way, from a member of the intelligence community, I won't say who, but this person has made it very clear that they received information from a contact from inside the UAE that has given them a report from several sources saying that the US government will now be attacking Iran in the next upcoming days. There will be another strike taking place. So, will that happen? Again, I've been telling you for a while now. I think they're we're going to attack again. I uh the ceasefire means absolutely nothing. Despite it being put on pause, it really means nothing. Any side can attack at any point. And with this naval blockade, which is an act of war, by the way. That's another thing Rubio doesn't talk about. We were in a ceasefire with them. They were allowing ships to go through, and then all of a sudden we put a blockade there. I mean, again, it doesn't make sense. So you're gonna put a blockade on the strait that's already been shut down? You're gonna stop ships from China going back and forth? So any ship can go through now, but except for Iranian ships. Yeah, that's gonna go over really well. Especially amid negotiations yet again. So I don't see the purpose of that, I don't see the validity of this. I don't even know if we were setting any ships through, to be honest with you. The Iranians said no, we said yes. It's up in the air at this point. But notice how quickly this all fell apart. If our goal is to rescue these people that are stranded inside the Gulf, why would we stop that all of a sudden? Especially if it's an illegal act. Anyways, let's let Rubio continue on. He keeps talking about Operation or excuse me, Project Freedom that's now since fallen apart. Let's listen to him yet again.

SPEAKER_00 22:13

There's no shooting unless we're shot at first. Okay? We're not attacking them. We're not. But if they are attacking us or they're attacking a ship, you need to respond to that. You're not gonna let some fastboat come up on a ship and shoot it up. We're gonna respond to it. And we've been successful at it. I don't know what the exact number is, but I know a number of those fast boats have now been targeted and will continue to be if they pose a threat to our forces. We'll shoot down drones, we'll shoot down missiles. But it's defensive in nature. This is defensive. So if you hear stories about attacks and launching of firing back and forth, it's not back and forth. We are only responding if attacked first. This is a defensive operation, and that's what's occurring here. It's not a defensive operation, though.

SPEAKER_01 22:50

We're in a war right now. This is what doesn't make uh again, this doesn't register to these people. We are in a war with them. We attack them. That's why the strait is shut down before the war was wide open. So again, I don't understand where he gets up with his stance and says, hey, listen, we're not attacking anybody. Yes, you did. You struck civilian sites. You've killed innocent civilians inside of Iran. So don't give us this nonsense about what's going on. The whole reason why the straight is shut down is because of what we did and what Israel did on February 28th, through and through. None of this would be happening right now unless we had not done that. So we need to make this very, very clear. This is a result of what we did, our actions in the region. Not because Iran is just holding the world captive out of the Persian Gulf. Rubio went on to say, during his wonderful press conference yesterday, by the way, he started talking about international waters again. And by the way, Rubio is a lawyer, so again, I'm not sure how he doesn't understand what the word international waters actually means, but he gives it a shot right here on clip three.

SPEAKER_00 24:02

This is an international waterway. Okay, this is an international waterway. And international law is very clear, and I love it because everybody always talks about international law on this. International law on this is very clear. International waterways, no country can control them. There is no international law that allows you to say, I'm gonna put mines in an international body of water, and I'm going to blow up ships that don't listen to us and try to go through. That's what Iran is doing. This is a criminal act, and someone needs to do something about it. Something needs to be done. It's completely illegal, completely illegitimate, and completely unacceptable. And that's why the United States military is guiding stranded commercial ships safely through the strait and is working to restore freedom of navigation and putting an end to these efforts to glow to hold the global economy hostage. So far, as a proof of concept and as a proof of function, two U.S. flag merchant ships have successfully transferred the Strait of Hormuz in the first stages of this project, and they're now safely on their way. The U.S. military is deploying the necessary assets to extend this defensive umbrella over commercial shipping. But there should be no mistake. And as I said this already, this is a defensive operation. I want to reiterate that point. This is important to understand. If no shots are fired at these ships and no shots are fired at us, we're not firing shots. But if we're fired on, we will respond and we will respond with lethal efficiency.

SPEAKER_01 25:18

So, in other words, if they defy the Iranian calls to turn around, if they do that, um, and they attack us if we continue to go on, then of course it's they are attacking us. Not we are defying what they say. And let me make one more point very, very clear. To Marco Brubio and to anybody else who's telling you this major lie, by the way. International water begins 12 miles beyond your shoreline. So many of you you will recall last week on the show I was talking to you about offshore drilling. And Gavin Newsom was trying to put a halt to everything that was going on, saying the state of California is not going to allow this type of marine drilling. Okay, fine. But what they failed to mention is that anything beyond the 12 miles has nothing to do with California anymore. Nothing to do with it. It's international waters. So they can set up shop and they can do offshore drilling there. Gavinus has no say in that anymore. And now that would be part of the federal government. So the same thing applies here. This is a very narrow strait. It's only about 21 miles long, okay? From the Iranian border all the way to the Omani border. And by the way, the Omanis are on board with this too. So 12 miles out from the Iranian shore, that is Iranian water in international law. So they're not violating it. Let's be very clear about this. And by the way, the Omanis have agreed to this too. That's why Raji went and met with their Omani counterparts in just over the last weekend. Because they're going to be diving up this money amongst each other when they collect these fees, and that's the way it's going to work from now on. The Omanis are on board with this. They're not defying what the Iranis are doing. They're very much in line about what is going on here. So let's not ignore what's going on. This is the rule of law. They control everything out to that shoreline. I could say it's unfair because Iran controls it. Well, that's where their country is. Okay? The Omanis are on the other side of the Gulf. And they're controlling that side of it. So they will, in joint effort, control what takes place coming through the Strait of Hormuz. They're going to collect fees from now on, control the waterway. That's not international waters. They're not like out in the middle of the Arabian Sea running ships down saying you owe us two million dollars. That's not what's taking place here. They're controlling the strait because they, their shores are right where that's taking place. So again, it's not violating international law. Now we can argue the scruples of it. Is it fair that ships have to come through and pay a toll? Well, I don't know. Is it fair that Egypt now controls the Suez Canal? They can say, well, they built the Canal Gerais, but again, that's a national waterway, right? We traversed that not too long ago. We had to pay a fee to get through there. To get through the Red Sea. Let's say Yemen wanted to go north and send stuff to Europe. They gotta pay the Egyptians, right? So again, that's their waterway. They control it. They control that access point. Okay, fine. We've seen this all over the world, too, by the way. They're not violating international law. That's the key point about this. And by the way, the ships that pay the $2 million in Chinese Yuan, moving away from the petrol dollar, which again is very devastating to the Trump administration, too, by the way, are able to access that. But then we we come back to the original point. The Kuwaitis, the Saudis, the Bahrainis, the Qataris, and the Emirates, they were all coordinating with the United States that was actively bombing Iran amid negotiations. So, in a way, they're very much at war with the Iranians as well. They're aiding and abetting the United States and Israel. Letting them use their airspace, letting them use their bases, used to attack and of course kill many Iranians in the process, destroying their country. And this sneak attack that took place on February 28th. So this is why the Iranians are saying this. They're saying, okay, fine. You're gonna act like this, we'll shut you down then. Have fun with that. Now, I don't like that. I wish it didn't happen, but that's what took place. And they made that very clear before this took place. They said, if you attack us, we will close down the street of Hormuz. We will do that. And now they have the Omanis on board with them. So good luck getting that taken away moving forward. It's not gonna happen. Now, Rubio goes on to talk about the Iranians making a choice. What's the right choice they can make here? Listen.

SPEAKER_00 29:53

It's important for them to make a sensible choice and the one that's right for their people. The president, our president, has proven time and again that his preference is peace. But Iran must accept the reality of this situation and come to the negotiation table and accept terms that are good for them but ultimately good for the world. The diplomatic path, if there's a real diplomatic path, I'm not always going to be one, but if there's a real diplomatic path and we continue to explore it, Steve and Jarrett are working on that very hard. If there is one there, it could be one that leads them to reconstruction, to prosperity, and to stability, and to not posing a threat to the world. The alternative is growing isolation, economic collapse, and ultimately total defeat. I know what the right choice is for Iran. I hope that the people over there making decisions will make the right one. The last point I would make, and it really is important for them to understand this, is uh they really shouldn't test the will of the United States, at least not under President Donald Trump. He has proven time and again that he will back up what he says. And if they test him, ultimately they will lose. The hard way, the easy way, the long way, the short way, they will lose.

SPEAKER_01 30:52

So we have Rubio now making these idle threats again. Uh again, the right choice. You know. So what he's saying essentially is you need to listen to what we say, come to our terms, otherwise, this will go on and don't test our might. Well, the Iranians have said time and time again, go ahead, do it. Well, this isn't me in favor of Iran. I'm just saying this is what's taking place. These are the facts, folks, and we can't get around the facts. If we had the willpower, the strength, and the ability to wipe them off the face of the earth, which is what the Trump administration wants to do, along with Netanyahu in Israel, we would have done it already. But we didn't plan it accordingly. That was the first problem. We thought that the government would collapse, we thought after three days the people would rise up. That didn't happen. So we tried in the beginning of the year, we tried to take down the Iranian real, that didn't work. There were economic protests, we know that, took place. It was then hijacked by the Kurds, the Beluches, and the Mujahideen Al-Khalqs, the Mec, if you will. That didn't work. And now we tried this bombing. We tried taking out the Ayatollah ourselves. We killed the man. Again, amid negotiations, we were having negotiations with them. That didn't work, so now we tried to continue to bomb them. We've bombed their military installations, we bombed their civilian sites. We're now threatening to bomb nuclear power plants, we're threatening to bomb energy infrastructure, oil wells. And the Iranian people now are going out to these sites and standing there. Again, which would all be war crimes on the United States. We're out of options to target. And in the process, we also have killed 168 young schoolgirls, by the way. We've killed 20 different females on a volleyball team in a gymnasium because Pete Hegseth refuses to, again, do the right things for rules of engagement. He refused to do that. This is where we are in this war right now. So now we're talking about stopping the Iranians from accessing various ports now, right? We'll let everyone else come through, but you're gonna stay put until you agree to our terms. And if you don't agree to our terms, you'll feel the might of us if you try to get past us. Now let's keep in mind our stockpiles have been greatly diminished throughout all this. We haven't made the dent that we have hoped for. We thought, again, the economy would fall, the government would fall. None of that is happening, though. None of that's taking place right now. And I think it's very, very important that we understand exactly that this is nothing more than idle threats. Now we're getting the different types of rhetoric coming out of the beltway right now. President Trump is now saying that he has now sought to pressure Iran with new threats of a new wave of bombing if a deal is not reached. So now we're gonna just continue to threaten them. Open the strait or else. If they don't agree, the bombing starts. This is what President Trump just wrote. How are you gonna get anyone to negotiate with you? If you're end result is that, first of all, bomb you into the Stone Age, wipe you off the face of civilization. Right? I thought we were there to save the Iranian people, folks. I thought that that's what Rubio just said. We want to make it great for the Iranian people. So they have a government that works for them, okay, fine. Then why are we talking about bombing them into the Stone Age? Why are we talking about wiping out an entire civilization? That's genocide talk. That's ethnic cleansing, is it not? I think it is. Now, thank God that didn't happen, but what do we think to accomplish with this type of rhetoric? If they don't agree, the bombing starts, they're ready for it. They've been anticipating this for quite some time, by the way. So Trump can take to social media, he can say these things. Again, I the Iranians are not phased by this. They're ready to continue this war, should should they need to. Based on everything I've been reading on the Iranians, they're ready for everything here. And again, I don't know how things are gonna go moving forward if he keeps this up, what his talks with Xi will be next week when he goes to visit China right now. Uh I imagine we'll talk about Taiwan, certainly the Iran war, certainly about technology and trade, and of course the sanctions Trump is putting on the Chinese, along with the tariffs. But the Iran war is crucial, and that's why Arachi is going to China right now. To make very clear their line in the sand has already been put in place. They're not going to cross it for anybody, and they're not going to back down. So we could bluster all we want. We could do that. We could write online, hey, we'll wipe you off the face of the earth, we'll wipe you off, you know, your 3,000 year, 5,000 year civilization will be no more. Go write all that. They don't care. They really don't care. Um, you know, this this is the truth of the matter. They do not care. So it again, it's deeply distressing to see all this, that this is not going to be conducive to a proper means of negotiations. They've let it be known. They're the ones holding the cards. They control the strait, despite what everything they tell us. And Operation Freedom, less than two days, is completely fallen on its face. We're not escorting any ships through the strait. No ships are going through. On Tuesday, nothing went through. So, what did we even achieve with all this? Well, we could say we've created this. It sounds good, right? It makes people investors in the United States and all over the world think, oh, good, good, the ships are coming through now. Fantastic. That's where you're saying the oil prices start to alleviate right now. It's not going to last, though. Simply isn't gonna last very long. And let me just make one more very, very important point, ladies and gentlemen. We talk about crippling the Iranian economy. We say, look at we've we've stopped these ships from leaving port, their storage facilities, for example, for the oil, they're full, they can't do any more, they're in trouble very, very soon. And it's only a matter of time before the Iranian system collapses. Now, we could say this, and it sounds good. We'd think, hey, we'll just wait them out, right? Maybe that's what Trump believes. I don't know. Maybe that's what Scott Basson's telling him. Not gonna happen. Let me explain to you why that is, just so we understand where we are. Iran has more ways to transport their goods and what have you, their cargo, than through the Strait of Hort Moose. They don't need to use all these ports. Let me explain to you why that is. Pakistan itself, just the country of Pakistan, which borders Iran to the west to the east, excuse me, has opened up six overland transit routes to move shipments into Iran, aiming to clear more than 3,000 containers stranded at various ports, as disruptions and the straight of hormothes continue to put a choke on the maritime flows. So, right off the bat, that means they could ship into Pakistan, they could trade with Pakistan, they could continue to ship into India, for example, if they would like to do that. That's very, very crucial. They can also get food and resources into the country, should they need to, if those access points are blocked off. So that's one thing to look at. They can get lots of shipments in from Pakistan. No one's gonna stop Pakistan, right? Or will we? God only knows. But when we look at where we are right now, allowing uh third country cargo to transit through Pakistan ports and overland corridors into Iran is something that is very, very realistic. This could take place very, very easily. So we've got land routes between Iran and, of course, into Eastern Asia. Let's just make that very, very clear. Here's the second part of all this. We have to understand that China itself has different access points into Iran as well. So, for example, they have different international routes, these railways that they've put in place with China. So Iran is not blocked off even from China. With China, they have the Belt and Road initiatives. I've talked about this on the program many times in the past. This railway that goes through Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, going from Tehran itself into eastern China, curtailing roughly the 30, 40-day maritime travel. And then they reduce that down to 50 days. So now we can get goods into China from Iran in about half the time, roughly. So if they had to go shipping, for example, oil, they don't have to put it out to their ports, they'd have to put it on Kark Island or Keshir Island, I think is the other island in the Persian Gulf they utilize. It's just one of many ports, too, by the way. But they can just put it on rail and ship it that way in half the amount of time. So they can get things to Beijing or Shanghai or wherever it needs to go. They can do use it that way. They can circumvent the Strait of Malacca, by the way, that the U.S. desperately wants to put military bases within to control, as it is a very, very important straight. So the Iranians can't control the Strait of Four moves, but we're gonna try and control the Strait of Malacca. That's amazing. Um that's what we will like to do, though, but that would be us controlling the trade routes. Because if you didn't if you can't get through the Strait of Malacca, then you gotta go all the way around Indonesia, and that's very, very time consuming, but extend the travel time, uh, going into China and other parts of Eastern Asia. So there's that. And then of course we have our friends, Russia to the north of Iran. They can use the Caspian Sea to get to Russia and trade that way and get goods and services from, again, all these countries, from Pakistan, from China, from Russia. It's not impossible, folks. So they're they're not cut off. They're in a very, very advantageous part of the world where they have different access routes. They don't just have maritime travel, they can use other means to get goods into the country and get goods out of the country. So their economy is not just going to collapse because we've shut off supposedly this access with this naval blockade that is roughly 500 to 700 miles in the Arabian Sea away from Iran, from the Strait of Ormuz, and all they have to really do is turn off their transponders just to try to get through, anyways. So let's make all this very, very clear. So we understand exactly what position Iran is in. So they can talk about the economy is gonna go, you know, bankrupt soon, they don't have access points, if we just keep this blockade here, we'll keep it going. We know that 150 ships since uh uh excuse me, since April 15th have traversed, just coming from Iran. These are Iranian flagships or ships associated with using Iranian ports. 150 ships since that naval blockade took place. They don't have a very good track record for that's about seven, eight ships every single day leaving Iran and moving on its way. And again, we could talk about what if China were to be stopped, or what if Indian ships have been stopped, or anywhere else, Japanese ships, South Korean ships, what happens if they get stopped? Again, all you do is turn off your transponder and they're making their way through. By the way, you could look at this in real time too online if you don't believe me. So that's where we are with this. So I don't think the Iranian economy is going to be in collapse anytime soon. I really don't believe that. So I think this is something we're we're telling ourselves just to make ourselves go, oh, good, good. It's almost over. Just a couple more weeks. Give it a couple more weeks, their economy collapses, their government will collapse, we win, we choose who will now lead the country. There's no more nuclear bomb. That's another thing Rubio kept talking about time and time again. Nuclear bomb, nuclear bomb, nuclear bomb. My guy, I almost got sick yesterday listening to it. The guy makes point after point, but they're lies. The Iranians don't have a nuclear bomb. They are not working for a nuclear bomb. Our intelligence tells us this. So, how can he sit there and just talk about a nuclear bomb as if it was going to happen on March 1st, that they were going to start using nuclear technology? Or they were weeks away. We've heard this for the last 35 years from Netanyahu. They're weeks away, they're months away. Oh my god, next week it's gonna happen. We gotta do something right now. Forget the fact that they have two different fatwas in 2003 saying they're not gonna build a nuclear bomb. That is the truth, folks. And if it wasn't the truth, I would obviously tell you this. But this is what they've been saying time and time again. They're not building a nuclear bomb. So Rubio just has to say it over and over again yesterday. We can't let them have a nuclear bomb. We had to go ahead and do this. We have to do this. We can't let these madmen get a nuclear bomb. What would that mean for the world? They're gonna hold the world hostage. Look what they're doing inside the Strait of Hormuz and the Persian Gulf. Look what they could do if they had a nuclear bomb. They don't want a nuclear bomb. They made it pretty clear they don't even need a nuclear bomb. Look what they can do with just with their ballistic missiles. And by the way, we haven't even seen a lot of their newest technology with that. So let's make all this very, very clear, folks. The Iranians are not building nuclear bombs, so from the start of this, there was no imminent threat. So that already makes this war illegal. The second thing we have to talk about is that the straight-of-for moves would be open had we not invaded. So that's just a part of this that could end right away if we just stop this war. And come to the realization that, yes, we'll have to probably remove some of the sanctions on Iran. We'll have to do that. But the other point that's very important is that they control what's going to go through it. So they will charge their fees. They'll switch over to the Chinese Yuan. That's going to be a thing. You'll have to pay the $2 million in Chinese Yuan to get through. And they will make a lot of money off this. They will. And again, I think the United States needs to come to that realization that the Iranians are the ones holding the cards. They are not going to capitulate to the U.S. demands. They've made it very clear they're not going to do that. And Trump has got to accept defeat, unfortunately. That's what's going to be the takeaway from this. Now maybe he gets a nuclear deal like similar to the JCPOA that they will agree to. That they've already agreed to in the past. Rubio alluded to that too. He said, well, they just agreed to it last year. We wouldn't be here. But they did agree to it last year. And we ended up bombing them still. Well, excuse me, Israel bombed them. And of course, we went in afterwards. So, folks, I wish I had better news on this front. It does seem that this war will go on, and we could expect this war to go on very, very soon. And as a result of it, our economy is struggling as a result of this. So let's move on to another very, very important article that I think you'll all find very, very interesting out of the Financial Post. When we look at our economy and where we are right now, we talk about the Iranian economy, look at our economy. We're headed towards dragflation, folks. That means high inflation rates and low economic output. That's not conducive to a healthy economy. And one of the indicators of this right now, we're seeing a yield on the 30-year U.S. government debts hovering around 5% now after breaching the key level for the first time since July at the start of the week, suggesting that there is pressure in the world's biggest bond market and it's not letting up. So what does this mean now? What is this telling us that our our yields are going up? A rise in the 30-year yield for the U.S. Treasury bonds towards 5% signifies a couple things. Number one, we have a sign of stress in the economy. We have inflationary concerns, which I've told you before, they're gonna go rise. We're already seeing it rise to 3.5%. It's probably likely to get to 4.2, 4.5% by the end of the year. Mark my words, especially if this war continues on, it'll get much, much worse. And you're also seeing a reduction in confidence in the long-run fiscal outlook. That's what this is telling us. So while we see the oil prices shifting around, you know, they drop sometimes, they go up sometimes. But we're seeing right now is a volatile market. We we can't get around that right now. And one of the other problems we're seeing right now, we're seeing these dump-long duration bonds. And this is something we we need to be very, very worried about. And especially the fact that China's no longer buying up our U.S. Treasury bonds. That's something else to look at. They used to buy a lot of our debt, they're not doing that anymore. And they're slowly starting to sell that off. That's gonna be problematic, folks. That allows us to live the way we live here in the United States. So I think we're headed for times that we have not even seen or even lived, many of us. We're gonna be in a world where the economic world is gonna be turned upside down, is what I'm trying to tell you. Hey, we look at things like the U.S. fiscal deficits, the debt trajectory, uh, the uh the possibility that you know we we have to go default on our national debt. Um, but you know, this this is very, very unstable right now. So I want to make this very, very clear to everybody who that's listening that we are headed for times of uncertainty. And again, we hit 5.03% on Monday. Yeah, that yield's starting to get up there, folks. And you know, we have fears about the budget, we have fears about the growing debt servicing costing the United States government lots of money. We have an out-of-control spending budget. We're now talking about spending $1.5 trillion in national defense just next year. So instead of investing in infrastructure, education, healthcare, things we should be investing in, we're talking about ramping up for more war, which reflects greatly on the Wolfowitz doctrine. You can take that as you will. Now, we've seen implications for other financial markets and the real economy potentially rising mortgage rates, and again, hurting consumers in that sector as well. So, why do I tell you this? Because this is something we need to look at. This is something no one else is paying attention to. We're looking at oil prices right now, and again, I understand people think that the drop in oil prices means okay, recovery is right around the quarter. But it's not for reasons I laid out for you yesterday. Just because, let's say the war ended today, that doesn't mean tomorrow we're gonna have just this expansive outflow of ships coming out of the Strait of Hormuz. It's not gonna be that way. A lot of these refineries in the Persian Gulf have been offline for quite some time. It takes a while to get that process up and running in. Months, sometimes even years. We saw that with the Keystone XL pipeline right here in the United States. Biden shut it off. Now Trump turned it back on, and that was wise to do that. But it takes a while to get going. It doesn't just turn on like a light switch. The process itself takes a lot of time. The oil that we had in circulation right before this war began has finally reached its final destination. That means it's gone through the refineries, it's gone through all this process. The oil coming in now is that ultra-expensive oil. That's $30, $40 more right now. And that's going through much more costly logistics. So those prices are going to go up. So all signs are pointing to higher inflation than the market has been historically expecting. That's what this is telling us. And as a result of it, we're seeing our bond yields going up, we're seeing our oil prices going up, we're seeing inflation go up. And as I told you before, I think gold is going to be the winner in the end of all this, ladies and gentlemen. I think you're gonna see gold hit 6,000 in the near future. We'll probably see that. I think we'll probably see that at some point. So that's why I'm saying all this to you, folks. I hope you understand this, but this is where our economy is headed. We're not headed for better times. We're headed for more troubling, volatile markets, and that's not gonna be good for we, the American consumer. We'll break that out more on Friday's show when we go over our weekly economic report, as always. But I wanted to tell you midweek exactly what's going on because no one else is telling you this. If anyone starts talking about buying Yelse, let me know. I don't think anyone is gonna be talking about this as of right now. Alright, folks, I want to shift over to another very, very important topic right now. I want to talk with you about what took place in Seattle the other day, and it brings me no joy to talk to you about this. But this illustrates where we are as a society. You know, we can talk about economic woes and how well we're doing economically. That's fine. But what I saw yesterday online made me sick to my stomach. This is indicative of a society that is in the decline. When we see a 77-year-old man beaten down in the streets of downtown Seattle, and no one even does anything to stop it. And there's several other people around. They do absolutely nothing. Absolutely nothing. I don't have words for this. I really don't. I almost couldn't believe it. Now, Seattle's socialist moron mayor, Katie Wilson, is now facing some fierce blowback on social media after a 77-year-old man was seen in on video camera being beaten by two pieces of human excrements in a crime that was captured on a closed circuit television camera nearby. A tool that Wilson has denounced in the past as something that makes communities feel unsafe and more vulnerable. Okay. Now we can all agree that we don't want to live in a police state. I agree with that sentiment. I do. Don't think I don't. But the idea that these acts happen on these cameras, and it obviously shows what's going on in society. It does. Now the elderly man was walking down the street in downtown Seattle last month when two men walking by him stopped him without any provocation, they threw him to the ground, they beat him, and they uh looked like they robbed him afterwards, looked like they took something out of his pocket as he lay there on the ground. Now, one of the pieces of human trash, Ahmed Asman, 29, was later charged and was arrested with second-degree assault. And police are looking for the second suspect, the other piece of garbage that was with him that also took place in the attack. Osman was reportedly booked into jail the night of the assault and then released back out of the streets before a bail hearing. So he can go do it again! Isn't that wonderful? No, doing it once wasn't enough. How do you release garbage like this to our streets? It wasn't that long ago. I'll remind some of you. Where a woman was standing at a crosswalk, and another piece of human excrement was wielding a two by four with nails bolted into the end of it. It was put together as such. Something like you'd see out of the Middle Ages. Yeah, swinging around, she turns, he strikes her right in the eye, causing complete blindness in her eye. This is an old, I believe this woman was 75 years of age. And that man who did it was well known to the police. This is a a process that takes place time and time again. They get booked, they get released right away before any type of bail hearing. So what? This guy can go do it again? His friend can go out and do it again? How are they gonna arrest the other guy now? I mean, this this is unbelievable. These people are attacking elderly citizens. And I'm not making race an issue on this case. Obviously, we know it was a white man getting attacked by two black men. Okay, but obviously, if the roles were even reversed, it's still the same horrific accident that took place. Or incident, I should say. It's not an accident, they meant to do it. This is the problem, though. It doesn't matter your race. But what we're seeing shouldn't be taking place. People like this do not belong in civil society. They don't belong on the streets to go do these things. If an elderly man is walking down the street, I don't care what race they are, if two young men go and attack that person, they don't belong on the streets. I hope everybody can agree with me on that. That these types of people are not safe to be around. They don't belong in society. A man carrying a two by four with nails hammered in the end of it, don't belong in civil society when they strike an elderly woman right in her face, almost killing her. Oh, it was horrible to see that too. Absolutely horrible. But no outrage. No outrage in the media. Can you imagine if the races were reversed, though? We would never hear the end of it. We'd never hear the end about white supremacy, white fragility, white guilt, white this, white that. Everything is white, whiteness, too white. And I don't mean to get on a tirade about race, ladies and gentlemen, but we need to hold people accountable. It doesn't matter what their race is, they need to be held accountable. And I'm wondering why they can break this man's arm? Break his knee? Have facial trauma? This is a 77-year-old man, folks. And yet they release this guy. So so what, he can do it again? Harm somebody else? Harm you, your child? Maybe even murder someone, who knows? We don't know what this guy's capable of. If you would go and attack an elderly man walking down the street to rob him, what wouldn't you do? It's very troubling when we see young people attacking elderly people like this on the streets of America. Now, my answer to all this is you have to take these people off the street. That's the only way you solve this problem. You cannot release people back out into society like this. They don't belong in society. We've seen this time and time again. Irana Zeruka. Same thing happened to her. Guy behind her, this insane man. But he knew exactly what he was doing. Stabbed her in the neck multiple times, she bleeds out right then and there. Guy had been arrested, what, 15 times? 20 times? Back on the streets? We see this time and time again. None of this needs to be happening. That's what I'm trying to get at, folks. None of this needs to be happening. But here we are, we see this over and over and over again. And I again, the answer to this is you know, I don't know if we need more CCC of CC TVs, but what we need to have is uh just like I said in my first article today with you, we need to have accountability. Doesn't matter what you look like, where you came from, doesn't matter. But what should be done is there should be some outrage for this. Where's the outrage for this old man? Where's the outrage for this elderly woman that had a two by four with a nail strike her right in the eye, causing blindness? And the cops go, yeah, we know who this person is. Yeah, he usually punches people. Uh-oh. Today he hit someone in the face with a two by four with a nail in it, causing blindness. What are you gonna do next when they kill somebody? Oh, well, you know, he usually punches people. I didn't know he was gonna kill somebody. These judges, this the law enforcement in these cities, these blue cities and these blue states with these blue governors. Uh, this has got to stop, folks. Well, we can't have things like this happening in civil society. It's not gonna work. Simply just isn't going to work. Now, what's the answer to this? As I told you before, we have to get these people out of the streets, we have to stop this from happening, and the only way you stop it from happening is if they are removed. That's the only way to get around this. And again, I wish I had something more positive to say, but we can't allow this to continue to happen. That's first and foremost. Is this has gotta stop. On the streets of America, this should not be happening in 2026. This type of violence against especially our elderly population and women, like we're continuing to see time and time again. This has gotta stop, folks. I hope we all can uh agree on this. So I wanted to bring that up, obviously, to share that with you so you understand too. You gotta be safe, folks. It doesn't matter where you are anymore, you gotta always watch your sex, you gotta watch your back. You gotta know the situations you're in. Traveling groups if you need to. But always be safe out there. Doesn't matter who you are. Folks, thank you again for being here today. About it's time to go over some more of our greater tomorrow. Enjoy the rest of your day. I'll see you back here tomorrow for more rubber videos on the next Marco tradition. Till them be good. Stay busy. God bless you.