Chapter 1: What are the implications of Trump's cabinet meeting?
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Head to join.whoop.com slash politics to get started with Whoop today. Hello and welcome to The Rest Is Politics US with me, Katty Kay. And I'm Anthony Scaramucci. Good morning, Katty. Good morning. I think we're both a little sleepy. I went to watch Wendell Pierce in Othello here in Washington last night. I highly recommend it.
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Chapter 2: How is Trump influencing the Republican Senate primaries?
And that's what's mystifying is why is the market... I mean, I get that people trade volatility. That's what they've been doing right up until now. But you're right. There now seems to be something a bit different this week, which is a long-term expectation that inflation is coming down, oil prices are coming down.
And what, just because there are alternative routes out of the Straits of Hormuz, because a few ships are making it through? What's the calculation there from the oil markets? Why do the oil markets seem to have decided we can live without the Straits of Hormuz when I'm speaking to oil traders, as I said earlier this week, who are telling me June is crunch month?
Yeah, listen, I've said that. I've said that we're going to run, if we keep this up, we're going to deplete our reserves. They'll leak out a little bit more if they have to, to try to control price, try to get people through the summer. But by the midterms, you're going to be really a lot of pressure. The market will have gotten things wrong.
But what I'd like you to address, though, Kat, is my view of the situation is that Iran is likely to open the strait a little to avoid economic and diplomatic isolation. But I also feel like they want to preserve their...
And I think they want there to be some ambiguity and they want some psychological control over the Gulf shifting, particularly as it relates to our partners in the Gulf, you know, on the Saudi Peninsula side of the Gulf. And so I guess what I'm saying is this is a nightmare.
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Chapter 3: What recent deal is being discussed between the US and Iran?
This is not a... And Trump is, I guess, back to the delusional stuff about the reflecting pools and stuff like that. What Trump is saying is not happening on the ground. And there's no incentive for Iran to... to do what Trump is saying. Oh, we're just going to reopen the Strait and there'll be no economic reparations for us and you can pound on our country and we're fine with it.
And we'll give up our nuclear program. No, I mean, quite the opposite. They're going to try and go for a nuclear weapon, I'm sure, as soon as we got through this stage. I mean, look, The Iranians are working on a 47-year time process. Trump was bored after 47 days and wanted to get back to his legacy. And the American people don't like paying high gas prices.
So you've got different time imperatives there and time pressure points there.
Chapter 4: What does the proposed US-Iran deal entail?
And however much Trump wants to say this is over, I think the curious thing is the degree to which the markets seem to be agreeing with Trump that this is over. And yet there's the long-term prospect, well, Iran has now discovered that it can afflict an enormous amount of damage by closing the Strait of Hormuz. So even if it opens it next week, what's to stop it reshutting it again?
It would take American military presence. So we're going to have American military forces parked in the Gulf for what, the next five years, just in case Iran decides it is in a weak position or is getting threatened and wants to shut the strait again?
You know, Caddy, number one, it's so well said, but number two, just for the Americans that listen to our show, the Europeans already know this, but for the Americans listening to our show, let me give you a newsflash, okay?
Turn off Fox News for a second and recognize that this is a 5,000-year culture in Persia, and you're at war with them, and if they have to eat dirt, they're going to eat dirt, right? I want to read you these numbers and tell me if the American citizens would tolerate this. You have 40 to 50% food inflation on all basic items, rice, chicken, cooking oil, medicine, imported goods.
You have certain staples since the war started have gone up 200%. Youth unemployment has skyrocketed and the real has been devastated. And yet these people... are locked in. Well, this is because it's an autocratic state. Would the Americans be locked in?
No, but that's the difference between a democracy and autocracy. The Iranians hate this. They've been suffering for years financially. Sanctions have really hurt them. Now, of course, on top of this, they have the insecurity of the bombing starts again. They may lose their kid in a school or their neighbor could be killed or their parent could be killed, but they have no recourse.
And the idea that Netanyahu was pumping into Trump's ear that the Iranian people would rise up and overthrow the regime, that is the one thing I think we've all realized with certainty over the last three months is that's not going to happen. They're far too oppressed. They don't have weapons.
At the moment, they're terrified and keeping their heads down and just trying to make it through the next day, which means that the Iranian regime has absolutely no interest in responding to public opinion. They don't need to. The Iranian regime doesn't have a problem with public opinion, unlike Ken Paxton, who is going to have to run with a population that is pissed off about gas prices.
Okay, so they finally bring somebody into the White House that's a State Department veteran of Middle Eastern affairs. They have some left. Wow, I didn't know. And they go to Trump. They go to Trump.
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Chapter 5: How is Trump's loyalty affecting the Republican party?
And if it's a year from now, will there be tolls? Will the Iranian government be charging access tolls to tankers and other material coming through the Strait?
As we sit at the moment, I think that's still a strong possibility. I don't know that the Gulf states can tolerate it.
So me too. But if you watch certain programming here in America, it's rah-rah and Trump is the guy and he's going to prevent them from getting a nuclear weapon.
Okay, let me just read you what Hegseth said yesterday. This was fantastic. This is Hegseth in that cabinet meeting that we began with. If you look at Washington and Lincoln, these are two men that faced monumental tasks and stood up in historic fashion and delivered for the American people.
When you step back and look at 47 years of what Iran waged war against us and our people, there's only one man over the course of both presidencies who had stood up and said they will never get a nuclear weapon again. Trump then went on to say he is out of central casting and he loves war. Hegseth then super weirdly compared the Iran war to the reflecting pool.
You're the only one that could do the Iran war and the reflecting pool. Everybody else has spoken about it, Mr. President, but you are the only one that is strong enough. That is what he's hearing from people around him, and that's what he's hearing. You're right on Fox News that no one else in 47 years had the courage to do this. What they are not hearing is
is this new report from the Center for Strategic and International Studies that came out this week showing that America has used up so many missile interceptors, Patriots and Thads, that their stocks won't be replenished until 2029 because the factories can't build them fast enough. We are looking at a position where we go back to the status quo ante,
As it was on February the 26th when negotiations were ongoing around the nuclear program because that's what this is going to be, a long negotiation. The Obama team took 20 months to negotiate the JCPOA. It's not going to be quicker than that. We're going to have a long negotiation about the nuclear program. They reopen the Strait of Hormuz, but they probably get some kind of toll.
They call it an environmental cost, but they get some kind of financial benefit from it. In the meantime, it's cost America and the global economy close to a trillion dollars. People are reckoning for America at the moment in terms of economic cost. We've depleted our interceptor and missile reserves. I
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Chapter 6: What challenges does James Talarico face in Texas?
Now, the thing about it that blows me away is you could say, oh, that's just pure on narcissism. And there is obviously an element of that, but no, it's more than that. This is about, hey guys, I'm here to aggrandize myself. Caddy, did you read in the Washington Post that he wants to put his face, a living president, on the $250 bill? So he wants a $250 bill from the Bureau of Inquiry.
Washington Post showed the picture of the prototype of the bill in celebration for the 250th anniversary of the country. But no one wants to go to the mall. He's got Milli Vanilli, Caddy. going to the mall to do the concert. What is he doing? All of the major celebrities, all of the major people, the boss.
Well, that was the case to his inauguration.
It's literally, hey guys, you better pay attention. I got two years left to grab as much as I possibly can. And what did he say at the cabinet meeting, Caddy? Don't care about the midterms. You hear him say it?
Yeah, he said exactly that. We've been saying on this program for months now that he doesn't care about the midterm elections. He doesn't care about whether if the Democrats do manage to take the House, do manage to take the Senate, it could lead to a whole slew of problems for him. Legally, he'll just pardon himself on the way out. So he doesn't care about that.
And I think it's important what you say, Anthony, that it's about a multitude of things. It's about legacy. He wants his name on everything. He really is going to push ahead. You had a scathing editorial this week from the Wall Street Journal saying, is this really what you want your legacy to be?
Making money for your friends, having an arc to Trump, and having your name on the Kennedy Center and repainting the reflecting pool and having a new ballroom.
I'm going to respond on behalf of Donald Trump as his former communications director. Yes, absolutely.
Yes, that's what he wants.
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Chapter 7: Can Texas turn blue in the upcoming elections?
You know what I mean?
It's more possible now. I'd put, by the way, Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins on that serial kill list, too. I think they're on that list as well because they've crossed him one too many times. But look, if you look at it, you've got... North Carolina, Maine, Ohio, Alaska, guys, we're going to be talking about these states a lot more now. So it's worth us just mentioning them.
And if it's a bad night for Republicans in early November, then you could probably put Texas, maybe even Iowa on the table as well.
and certainly Donald Trump endorsing Ken Paxton, who has, let's quickly run through what he has, a 2023 impeachment by a Republican-led Texas House, by the way, on bribery and corruption charges, a pretrial agreement over securities fraud charges, and a very recent ugly divorce in which his wife is alleging adultery. That is what Ken Paxton has to overcome.
James Tallarico, it seems, just has to eat a lot of barbecue on camera, ideally, because he's going to have to push back against the Republicans who are already painting him as too woke. I think one day Texas will elect again a statewide Democrat. They haven't done so since before James Tallarico was born. I've been told by people who are down there, look, it's going to happen.
It'll seem impossible, a bit like revolutions, until it does happen and then it will seem inevitable. It will take a terrible Republican candidate and a really strong Democratic candidate to flip Texas and all of those wonderful Electoral College votes that it has one day in the presidential column from Republican to Democrat, I'm not convinced Tallarico meets the standard.
As you and I have discussed before, yes, he's a Christian who's been in seminary, who wears his faith on his sleeve. That goes down very well in Texas. He comes across as a very mild-mannered. He's actually pretty liberal. He's more on the populist economic wing. Mind you, Ken Paxton Hardly a conservative when it comes to business affairs, right?
The business community, my understanding, Anthony, you'd know more about this than me. They don't like Ken Paxton at all because of all the lawsuits he's brought against big companies.
They also think he's corrupt. But I guess this is my question for you, Katty. Is corruption on the menu? Because Trump says it isn't. When people say, well, you're doing this, you're doing that. Trump's like, well, first of all, I can do it. And secondarily, people don't care. And is he right, Katty?
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Chapter 8: What are the potential outcomes of the midterm elections?
It's going to be a very interesting midterms and we are going to be traveling around the country talking about the midterms. We have a live tour coming up in October to take your questions and talk about what we're seeing in the elections. It's going to be very timely because it's just before those midterm elections. Don't forget to grab your tickets.
You can get them at therestispoliticsus.com or click the link in the episode description and you'll find out where we're going to be and when. We'd love to see you there.
See you next week.