09-08-26 Part One - Iran, Clancy and the Trump Account

Red Eye Radio

Dan Mandis hosts Red Eye Radio, covering escalating tensions between Iran and the U.S., rising gas prices due to Middle East conflicts, the

Key takeaways

• Iran is escalating military actions through its proxy Houthi rebels in Yemen, attacking Saudi Arabia and raising regional tensions.
• The U.S. continues to escort ships through the Strait of Hormuz despite Iran's threat to create an exclusion zone, but gas prices remain high.

Main topics

• Iran-U.S. tensions and military escalation
• Gas prices and energy supply concerns

Notable quotes

"Iran is at their last days... they need to negotiate while we still have something to negotiate with."

Conclusion

The episode underscores growing geopolitical tensions, economic pressur

Transcript preview

Speaker 8 (0:07) Now, it's Red Eye Radio, with talk about everything from politics to social issues and news of the day. Whether you're up late or you're just starting your day, welcome to the show. From the Relief Factor Studios, for Gary McNamara and Eric Harley, here is Dan Mandis. Speaker 1 (0:26) Appreciate you listening to Red Eye Radio. 866-90-RED-EYE is the phone number. 866-907-3339. Follow me on the socials, if you would, at DanMandisShow. And as I usually do when I fill in for Gary and Eric, and it's always an honor to fill in on Red Eye Radio, I've activated the text line that I use for my local show in Nashville, Tennessee. I'm a morning host. Supertalk897WTN, if you can't. Call in. You can always text in 615-737-9986. I feel like I've got three days of news to get through in this radio show. So let's get right to it. The latest on Iran. This has now come down in the last it looks like the last hour or so. The headline is scores wounded as Iranian backed Houthis attack Saudi Arabia. So this is an obvious escalation. And throughout the morning, we'll talk a little bit about Iran as they continue to escalate. I believe that what's happening with Iran is that it is an escalation on their part. But what they're really trying to do is this is sort of a last gasp, if you will. But here's what happened with Saudi Arabia. Saudi-led coalition forces are vowing a resolute response to a wave of attacks from Yemen's Iran-backed Houthi rebels early Tuesday morning that they say Saudi Arabia says wounded at least 73 civilians. They say that they described the attacks as senseless, saying Houthi forces had targeted civilian and economic sites. And so this is something now that the Iranians and the Houthi rebels, because as you know, the Iranians back the Houthi rebels. And so this is, by and large, an attack by Iran on Saudi Arabia. This is Iran attacking our interests in the Middle East and our allies in the Middle East as well as this war continues. They say despite efforts to stay clear of America's war with Iran, Saudi Arabia faced missile attacks from the Houthis. back in July, ending a four-year de facto ceasefire between the rebel group and the kingdom. They do say that women and children were among the wounded in Tuesday's attacks. And so they say the attacks constitute a blatant violation of the kingdom's sovereignty and a direct threat to the security and the safety of its citizens and residents. Well, this isn't a surprise, folks. I mean, if I were... Saudi Arabia, I would do everything in my power to help the United States end this war, because this is the kind of thing that Saudi Arabia is going to have to face because Iran, as I said, a couple of things are going on. Number one is that here we are coming off of a Labor Day weekend with gas prices escalating, gas prices continuing to go up. But. Also, there were some articles in, I think, the Wall Street Journal. I think the other one was Reuters, where they're talking about how this really is for Iran. They are at their last days, if you will. The Iranian government, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard, word is that inside the Iranian government, you do have now some members of the government trying to convince the Islamic Revolutionary Guard there in Iran. This is over. And we need to right now, what we need to do is we need to negotiate some sort of a settlement while we still actually have something to negotiate with, because the longer that this goes, the worse it is for the Iranians. President Trump over the Labor Day weekend, he posted a meme and it was a great meme where it was. basically the entire Iranian Navy, and it was at the bottom of the sea. And it had the Iranian flag on it and everything else. And so this is, you know, the President Trump, as you know, our president, also Troller in chief. So let me just go through some of the things that we've seen over the last couple of days related to Iran. So, again, coming off Labor Day weekend, oil and gas prices, of course, do continue to skyrocket. That is bad news for the Republicans heading into the midterms, as everyone knows, is also bad news for you. For us driving around this evening, for you truckers out on the road as well, clearly bad news for you with the price of diesel continuing to go up. There's more news regarding Iran over the last several days, you know, just to get you caught up. Speaker 6 (5:20) Iran says it's going to create an exclusion zone in the Strait of Hormuz. They want to control what ships enter and leave the strait. What they're not saying yet are any details as to how they plan to enforce that zone. So Speaker 1 (5:32) this was on Fox News over the last, I don't know, 24 hours, I think. So the Iranians, of course, you know, they're talking big as they are now announcing this, as you just heard, this new exclusion zone. Basically what they're saying. is that they're going to be expanding their control over the Strait of Hormuz. You heard Steve Harrigan there with Fox News saying, well, they're not telling us how they're going to do this, just that they're going to do this. Now, realize that part of this is just, you know, perhaps Iran doing what Iran does. They saber-rattle, but, you know, certainly as Saudi Arabia found out. Iran does have the ability to do what they need to do, which is, of course, fund and control the Houthi rebels to go after our allies in the Middle East. So, you know, they do have obviously some teeth behind their threats. So this could be saber rattling. They do have to portray strength to their people in Iran. They just they're not really saying how they intend to expand that control. Now, the good news. is that, yes, we have been able to get some tankers through, escorting them through the Strait of Hormuz with our military. That has been an ongoing conversation. That is obviously a very good thing. But what has become clear, and if you had to get gas over the weekend like I did, you know this firsthand, is that, yes, even though we've been able to escort ships through the Strait of Hormuz, we are still... They say at record highs as far as gas prices go this Labor Day weekend. So regardless as to what the president says, and, you know, he says this often that we're not getting enough oil through our the Strait of Hormuz, that the president obviously would have to acknowledge that. The president also, though, says that, yeah, you know what? We have complete control over the Strait of Hormuz. Clearly, we don't. He does say on the one hand that, yes, it is still restricted. But he'll, on the other hand, definitely say that we do have complete control. Oftentimes, President Trump talking out of both sides of his mouth. One of the things I believe the president is doing is he is talking about how we control the Iranian ports, while at the same time saying that we do have complete control over the strait. We clearly don't. We still have severe restrictions on the number of ships getting through the Strait of Hormuz, but this is what the president does. I don't know about you. It's been a little frustrating for me watching this whole thing take place. But here's what we know. Despite the president saying that we have control over the Strait, gas prices are still way high. As you probably know, it takes a while for what is going on in the Strait of Hormuz to hit the gas tanks. We all know that. So we'll have to see ultimately what happens. The Daily Mail has a great story on how the United States was able to clear the Strait of Hormuz of all of those mines. And so it does look like the Strait has been cleared of a lot of these mines. We'll get into some of the details on that incredible story. later on in the broadcast. But, you know, there's no doubt about it that we as Americans are suffering and we need to figure out a way. Donald Trump needs to figure out a way to lower gas prices. Over the last couple of days, Iran has launched ballistic missiles at our U.S. warships. This happened again over the Labor Day weekend. So we blasted three, not one, not two. but three of their oil tankers. This Speaker 6 (9:21) move by Iran comes after the U.S. hit three Iranian oil tankers on Saturday. The U.S. attacks were in response, retaliation for an Iranian attack. Iran tried to hit... Two U.S. ships, warships in the region. While that attack failed with ballistic missiles, many saw it as a dangerous escalation because it was not commercial shipping being targeted, but U.S. warships. And U.S. officials continue to say that they are escorting more and more ships through the strait each week. Speaker 1 (9:49) Yep. And that is part of what I was mentioning earlier. We got a lot of ships. Apparently now they say more and more that are getting through the strait. But so far we're not seeing. an impact on our gas prices as they continue to go up. They continue to rise. And this is why I believe that this Venezuela oil deal that we have with Venezuela that we're working on is so important. Now, not everybody agrees with me. This is one of the things that I've noticed about the Venezuelan oil deal is that, you know, some conservatives think that this is a great idea. And I'm going to say that's me. Speaker 1 (10:30) Others think it's not a great idea, and that's fine as well. We will all have to agree to disagree. I respect everyone's opinion. But here's the reason why I like the Venezuelan oil deal is because the more powerful Venezuela becomes, the more powerful that we become in the oil producing business. The more we neutralize Iran, the more we neutralize the Middle East. And I do believe because some people are saying, how is this America first? I believe that it's America first because this makes America stronger. It does. Did you see what Reuters reported? Big Saturday article on how Iran's leverage is weakening big time. Part of that weakening leverage is that the more that Venezuela continues to work on getting more oil out of the ground, years from now, this is not going to help us today or tomorrow, but years from now when Venezuela hopefully. is up to full oil producing power that will denigrate Iran's leverage in the Middle East, because they're the ones that are politicizing the Strait of Hormuz. And so, yeah, over the weekend, big Saturday article, Iran's leverage is weakening. We know that their economy is in tatters. The global oil market has begun to adapt to this disruption, especially their weaponization of the Strait of Hormuz. And so part of what The Wall Street Journal and Reuters and other places are reporting on is that the longer that this thing goes on, the weaker. Iran's grip on the oil market becomes. This is Energy Secretary Chris Wright. And he says, yeah, we got this. We Speaker 3 (12:17) know every ship, the name of the ship. what it's carrying, you know, in these convoys we're pushing. So we did indeed get just under 18 million barrels of crude in a 24 hour period earlier last week. And the running average right now is over 9 million barrels a day. And Speaker 1 (12:35) that's good news. Obviously, we need to figure out any way we possibly can to. lower gas prices. And again, the thing with Venezuela, that's not going to help us for years down the road. I'm going to talk about the whole Venezuelan oil deal a little bit later on in the program. I just kind of want to give you sort of an overview of what is going on with Iran. So we do now have Reuters, The Wall Street Journal, both saying, yes, Iran's top political leaders, they are now being urged to end the war. They have to do it without looking. like they lost. That is incredibly important to Iran and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard. But they do need some sort of an off ramp. And that's probably what Donald Trump is going to consider at some point is, OK, how do I help Iran get out of this mess so that we can just end this? Speaker 1 (13:28) And that's what Donald Trump needs to do to help lower our gas prices. Iran does need this off ramp. They need one, I would say this before their country simply implodes because Iran, I mean, everybody knows what is going on with their economy. We have just decimated their economy. Thank you to Scott Besant. The more where we are able to get ships through their blockade while we're able to block their ports. We do untold damage to their economy. So more ships getting through the Strait of Hormuz as their ports are blocked and their economy is being obliterated by the United States as we go after not only their economy, but we also sanction countries that are trying to do business with Iran. And we are definitely on the right track. I'm going to tell you that I've been very pessimistic on this war for a long time. Tonight, I'm starting to feel actually more encouraged. Coming up, some great words of wisdom from none other than Senator John Kennedy. I love what he had to say. The phone number 866-90-RED-EYE, 866-907-3339. If you can't call in, text in 615-737-9986. Got a lot more straight ahead. This is Red Eye Radio. Brought to you by Hotshot Secrets. Speaker 5 (14:46) Hi, I'm Jen Loomis, a transport safety expert at J.J. Keller. At a roadside inspection, inspectors may ask to see supporting documents. 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The phone number again, 866-90-RED-EYE. And if you want to, if you can't call in, you can text in. And I got to tell you, 615-737-9986. And the discussion about Venezuelan oil and whether or not this is going to be good for our economy. Number one, yeah, I believe that it will be. It's a long ways down the road. Trust me when I