Wishful thinking? Trump trying to 'manifest' new peace talks with Iran

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Tonight, President Trump says the next round

of peace talks with Iran will probably happen this weekend.

We're thinking stand as Israel has agreed to a 10-day ceasefire

in Lebanon.

Then, money power politics.

The President tries to highlight his tax policy

as Americans deal with inflation and high gas prices.

Plus, we reporting on the sports betting industry

spending over 40 million bucks to influence elections.

What it could mean for regulation at the local level.

Because the 11th hour gets underway on this Thursday night.

Good evening.

Once again, I am Stephanie Rool.

And look where I am live from Washington, D.C.

and Checker Calendar.

Because it is now the 48th day of Donald Trump's war with Iran.

Today, yet again, we heard the same optimism from the President

that this thing is going to end soon,

saying he might not need to extend the two-week ceasefire

set to expire next week.

And I'll tell you something.

I think the blockade has been more powerful than the bombs.

I think we will have an agreement between Lebanon

and they're going to take care of us probably.

But they're going to be working on it right now.

But we'll have an agreement between Israel very importantly

and Lebanon.

How much longer will Americans continue to see these high gas prices?

Well, they're not very high.

In case you couldn't hear over that helicopter

when the President was asked,

how long are we going to see these high gas prices?

His answer was, well, they're not very high.

Please note, the average gallon of gas in the United States

currently costs $4.09.

That is almost a full dollar higher than one year ago.

We did on the positive front see some movement today

when it comes to Israel's attacks on Hezbollah and Lebanon.

Trump announced that the two countries agreed to a 10-day ceasefire

and it began earlier this evening.

They continued Israeli attacks in Lebanon

have been a big obstacle in both the ceasefire and Lebanon

and in reaching an overall peace deal.

This morning we heard from the Pentagon

and Pete Hegseth himself.

He began speaking to Iran threatening the possibility of more attacks.

Watch this.

We are locked and loaded.

On your critical dual use infrastructure,

on your remaining power generation,

and on your energy industry.

We'd rather not have to do it,

but we're ready to go at the command of our president

and at the push of a button.

This blockade, which the Chairman will detail this morning,

is the polite way that this can go.

Let me be clear, this blockade applies to all ships

regardless of nationality heading into or from Iranian ports.

The U.S. action is a blockade of Iran's ports and coastline,

not a blockade of the Strait of Hormuz.

The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs went on to say

that American forces would pursue any Iranian flag ship

or ship trying to help Iran even in international waters.

All right, we have a lot to get to.

Let's get smarter with the help of our lead-off panel tonight.

Damien Paleta is here.

Wall Street Journal's Washington coverage chief

and author of its politics newsletter,

my dear dear friend, Leon Caldwell,

chief Washington correspondent for Puck News and Tom Nichols,

a staff writer for the Atlantic and Professor Emeritus

at the Naval War College.

All right, Damien, the president says

that new peace talks are probably going to happen over the weekend.

I'm not saying he's not telling the truth,

but I will say that this boy has cried wolf many, many times.

So what do we actually know?

I think he's trying to manifest talks over the weekend.

It wasn't that long ago that JD Vance went to Pakistan to have talks.

He was fairly there for maybe 24 hours.

He came back with no deal.

They thought there could be talks this week,

even they said as soon as today, that didn't happen.

I think he wants these talks to happen quickly

so that this can all get behind him and gas prices can keep coming down.

He keeps saying there's a deal almost here,

but we haven't heard anything from Iran.

They seem willing to kind of wait this out.

So the more he keeps talking and coming up with blockades

and he keeps threatening,

the sense of what the actual White House's approaches here.

Tom, the three Musketeers, last time around,

JD Vance, Steve Whitkopf and Jared Kushner were the lead negotiators.

Are they the right people to negotiate complex issues

about the future of a nuclear program

and a key global waterway?

We've heard it over and over that Steve Whitkopf,

an incredible real estate tycoon, Jared spearheaded the Abraham Accords,

but this is serious stuff.

Are they really the right people?

No, that's an easy answer.

No, they don't know what they're doing.

They don't understand the issues.

The only possible thing that could recommend them as negotiators

is that they're close to Donald Trump.

There is no process here.

We are rumored to have a secretary of state

who normally would be involved in such things,

but he seems busy doing other things.

Their best argument is, whatever we tell you

is something that Donald Trump,

that we speak for Donald Trump.

But in terms of actually understanding these issues,

negotiating anything, being able to understand

the complexity of the technology

or the diplomatic issues involved,

of course not.

I mean, thanks for the softball,

but that's an easy, easy answer.

Thanks for the softball,

but that's an easy, easy call

that they really shouldn't be involved in this at all.

We shouldn't be where we are right now.

This war shouldn't have started the way it did.

It shouldn't have progressed the way it did.

And everybody's just playing catch-up now.

That's the best you can say as well.

They speak for the president because

at least one of them is the president's son-in-law.

There's something that you said there

that I think is worth repeating.

You didn't say that the war shouldn't have started.

You said that the war shouldn't have started the way it did.

And is this a problem with people

sort of getting misquoted or misrepresented

when people take issue

with the way the war has been handled?

They were immediately labeled,

oh, are you on Iran side?

You think Iran's a good guy?

You're not saying that they're a good guy.

You're saying it's the way this was executed.

Is that right?

Yeah, I mean, I was not in favor of

Iran because I thought we had many other

alternatives for dealing with Iran.

You know, I hate to bring in

the just war tradition

with all of the fighting going on with the Pope.

But we were not at a point of last resort.

But if the president decided

that he had information

that Iran constituted an unacceptable

and imminent threat to the United States,

then he should have told the people of the United States

told our allies,

made his case to our closest allies

into the country, into the Congress,

and then actually had a plan

for what was going to happen next.

Instead, Donald Trump plundered into this

thinking that, you know,

four or five days of bombing

was going to bring down the regime

and then magically things would just get better.

And, you know, he'd be having a victory parade.

And without that, he's lost.

And I don't think any of his negotiators

know what to do next, because I don't think they know

what he wants at this point.

This war has had 10 different rationales

at this point.

Well, let's stick with, with, with communications.

Because today, Leanne

Russo, the on-be director,

declined to give even an estimate

for the cost of the war.

And you heard that sound bite of the president

just a moment ago where he said

gas prices aren't that high.

Those two sound bites alone

feel like a ready-made ad

for the Democrats come the midterms.

How did members of the GOP

on the Hill feel about this?

Who have been pleading with the president

start talking about the economy

and economic issues that the American people face?

So, Republicans on Capitol Hill

have been wanting the president,

as you said, to focus on the economy.

What they also want is,

with this war, they want the president

to come and explain to them

or at least his advisors

to give the Congress information

about what is happening

and details that they are just not getting

from this president,

including the very basic things

of the cost of the war.

Yesterday, for a Puck event,

I sat down with Senator Todd Young,

a Republican from Indiana.

It was a super fascinating conversation

because he's a member of the intelligence committee

and I said,

did you see any intelligence

in the committee that would mean

that this war should happen now?

He essentially said no,

but he said,

but we are in this war and that

and we have to finish it.

We have to end this in the appropriate way.

And so, because many members will

privately say,

and Todd Young publicly say

that the war probably should not have happened now

in this way,

their hands are tied.

The president has gotten them into the

gotten the United States into this

and so they feel like

it has to be finished in some way.

But now what they're demanding

is details,

an action plan,

an end plan,

what happens next and the cost of the war

and they're not getting that.

Meanwhile, an election is in six-month stuff

and they would so much rather be talking about the economy

and how to reduce the cost of living

and not hike house prices.

How about details on this meeting

that happened between the leaders of Israel

and Lebanon?

But besides the president telling us

it's a possibility,

is there any concrete evidence

that this is on the agenda?

Well, I mean, it didn't say Hezbollah

and they're kind of key to this whole thing.

It's one thing for Lebanon to meet with Israel

which would still be a big deal.

But you need Hezbollah to agree

to kind of put their arms down

and so far they have not done that.

All they've done is acknowledge

but this is way more complicated

than he's making it out to be.

And as you all were saying,

he still has these Iran talks

that we don't know is going to happen.

We're about a month away from Memorial Day.

Peak driving season is almost here

and if they have gas prices at 409

and going up,

that's a huge economic nightmare

and political nightmare for the Republicans

heading into the summer

with just months to go before the midterms.

Tom, what's going to be the biggest obstacle?

Tom, is it the Strait of Hormuz

or the Israel-Lebanon conflict?

I think the biggest problem

is that the White House can't decide

which thing it wants to bring this to an end.

No matter how they do it,

all of their options are terrible.

That's the biggest problem now for the Americans.

That no matter how this ends,

because remember,

what Donald Trump wanted

and he said it was unconditional surrender.

That's not going to happen.

So, what are we willing to accept?

A piece of paper that says,

Iran forcewares nuclear weapons for some period of time?

Well,

the Iranians said that years ago

in the JCPOA,

would that do it?

Would it be opening the Strait of Hormuz

in some way that makes Donald Trump feel better

about having had to close it?

You know, you can't negotiate

unless you know what you want

and this goes back to the problem of

who the negotiators are,

what this war was about

and what we, the United States

are willing to accept

to bring it to an end.

So, any of those things that you just brought up step,

those could all be sticking points

or none of them could be.

This war ends when Donald Trump says,

okay, we accept something

because otherwise

they're just going to keep going back

and dialing through things

and the Iranians

seem to have a lot more patience for this

and a lot more pain tolerance

for this than we do right now.

All right, let's talk about the Pope

because the president continues

to go after the Pope

and it's like he's trying to convince the American people

that Pope Leo

is pro-Iran having nuclear weapons

which obviously the Pope has never said.

Is there any part,

is there any faction of this White House

telling the president,

let's stop this,

this is not a political win,

I almost said a moral win,

like this makes no sense,

you must stop doing it,

anyone holding him back.

So far no, although it was interesting to see JD Vance

who's sort of a new Catholic,

he put in a really awkward position

of having to defend the president against the Pope.

I think one of the things that's done on me today,

this year we've seen the president's

the make America healthy again movement

is upset about pesticides

and it's causing a real problem.

The America first movement is upset

about Venezuela and Iran

causing a big problem.

And now we've got the conservative Christian community

really upset about some of the, you know,

the Jesus thing on transsocial

and now he's going after the Pope.

It seems like he's kind of picking fights

where he doesn't need to be picking them right now.

The issue, one of the big issues with the Pope

among others is you can't tear off the Pope.

You can't tear it against his enemies.

They don't work against the Pope.

And so he's kind of grasping and straws

and I think the longer this goes on

and he's focused on the Pope,

the bigger problem he's going to have with his base.

And Pope Leo is not backing down.

Today he repeated, blessed are the peacemakers

and he said the following.

Woe to those who manipulate religion

and the very name of God

for their own military, economic

and political gain,

dragging that which is sacred

like what is going on here?

In terms of,

has Trump met his match

in terms of a more popular leader

of a major religion

who refuses to say quiet.

I feel like Catholicism

hasn't had this much, and I'm a Catholic.

Has not had this much mojo

in my lifetime.

Yeah, I'm a Catholic too.

And yeah, it's absolutely fascinating.

But Damien, I think you said it exactly right.

The Pope doesn't have anything to lose.

He is saying this stuff

from a moral standpoint.

He said his perspective

is extremely different from the Presidents.

But the Presidents is trying to hurt the Pope.

He said that he was going to cancel funding

for Catholic charities in Miami.

That doesn't hurt the Pope.

That hurts the people

who were the beneficiaries

of Catholic services in Miami.

And so the President

has absolutely met his match.

He cannot back down.

And the Pope doesn't seem

like he's going to either.

It's a fascinating moment in time.

Also in a year when actually

more people have converted

to Catholicism,

then they have in decades

in the United States.

So it's just, it's kind of mind-boggling

why the President is doing this.

But the President never backs down

from any fight.

Guess what? He ended up making Catholicism cool again.

Who would have thought

that Tom, you wrote about JD Vance

telling the Pope to be careful

when talking about religion.

Damien just mentioned it.

He's about to release a book

about his conversion

to Catholicism seven years ago.

What does this tell you about our Vice President?

First, let me say,

worst book launch ever

by picking a fight

with the Pope.

Just as you release your memoir

of converting to Catholicism,

it tells you that

the people around Donald Trump

and particularly JD Vance

have no moral center.

They have no core.

They are hollow people.

If picking a fight with the Pope

is what you have to do

to remind the boss

that you're a loyal soldier,

and Vance picked it

in the dumbest way possible.

It's basically going

after the Pope about the

just word tradition

of which St. Augustine

is one of the founders.

Vance decided to lecture

the first Augustinian Pope

about the teachings

of St. Augustine,

but it shows you how

craving and how hollow

these people are.

It tells you something about our politics

that only at this point in history

could the Pope quoting

the gospel of St. Matthew

be taken as a challenge

to the President of the United States

and have the Catholic Vice President

chime in

against the Pope

and the simple lessons of the gospel.

It's really disheartening

and tragic moment

and I think

it's not one that JD Vance

is going to live down easily.

Before we go to break,

I do want to ask you about somebody else

who's speaking out every day.

Pete Hegseth,

today he used the Bible

to bash the free press

and then he attacked our allies

for relying too much on America

to what he says to do the heavy lifting.

Tom, you watch these briefings every day

so do we. Can you help me understand

what exactly is the point?

Because yes,

given the war in Iran,

he is putting on a show for Donald Trump,

and then we actually get the information

from General King.

I think Pete Hegseth

is having some kind of breakdown

in public.

His press conferences

are getting weirder and weirder,

his rhetoric is getting stranger.

He never actually delivers information.

He always sounds like he's

reading the flag day proclamation

in the high school auditorium

That he's he's tried very hard to memorize the night before you know, and that's

That to have that kind of problem and that kind of again, performative

Fieltee in a cabinet secretary's one thing

But the one cabinet secretary where you can't have that where you need someone that the American people can trust and feel like

There's a steady hand on the tiller is the secretary of defense and and we just don't have that now

The president is unstable the secretary of defense is unstable and we're in the middle of a war with 92 million people and that is a really

I think unnerving thing for a lot of Americans as it should be

Unnerving is right. All right. That is a great way to start off the show tonight. Why?

Because Leanne's here. She's one of my favorite guests

She's brilliant because Damien's here and I learned tonight that he's awake for us dad and Tom

Because sometimes but not every time his cat Carmen joins the show tonight. She didn't but luckily Tom delivered

When we come back after the break with every day Americans feeling the squeeze on their wallets

At least those who are not invested in the markets because we've got two economies

The president tries to sell a bright spot in his economic agenda

We're going to find out what he thinks it is and if the American people are actually feeling it

We're going to get into it and later

When you look at the toll from the war and now optimistic the markets are something is not adding up

So we're going to turn to former Treasury Secretary Bob Rubin for some answers the 11th hour just getting underway on a big Thursday night in Washington

You're more than just one thing you're the boss

Hey, Google. What time is my meeting with Tim today the athlete?

A class wrecks me the ringleader and

We're good and always their mom

Everyone in the all-new Mazda CX-5

More to move every side of you

Learn more at Mazda USA.com

Google is a trademark of Google LLC sequences shortened and simulated

Here's a shift worth noting better health care is care that meets patients where they are

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You know what time it is money power politics

President Trump traveled to Las Vegas today where he hyped us policies like no tax on tips

And supersized tax refunds ahead of the midterms watch just a bit

After four long years of brutal inflation under Biden and congressional Democrats you deserve every single penny that you're getting now

Because you had a suffer you suffered under President Trump

We are celebrating how much more money hardworking Americans will keep not how much the government will take

The average refunds this season's over four thousand dollars

And here in Las Vegas many workers have reported refunds of

five six seven eight thousand

Dollars or more it is clear that workers and families are feeling the benefits

Now the president said the average refund is over four thousand dollars

The White House has previously said average refunds would rise by about one thousand after the president's big beautiful bill

But for facts sake as of this month

IRS actual data shows the average refund is up around

$346 compared to last year that is just enough to cover half of the extra

$776 tax payers could spend on higher gas prices this year or

The extra $600 they could spend this year on Trump's latest tariffs that is according to experts

My dear friend Brandon Greeley is here. He's a contributing editor for the financial times and Natasha Stern

former treasury official and Yale law professor mr. Greeley

These refunds were supposed to be Trump's ace in the hole for the midterms

They were compared to remember during COVID those stimulus checks that Donald Trump signed his name to

They had a huge positive political impact on him

That's not what we're seeing here

People meet more right now

There's something strange going on that economists are trying to figure out

Which is that the hard data that we have about the economy is kind of fine

It's not great. It's not awful, but it is fine unemployment earnings are strong. Yeah, unemployment growth

It all nothing nothing stands out as good or bad

But the mood is bad the surveys are bad people's economic sentiment is down. So we're trying to figure out what's going on

One group of economists has people are stupid. They don't know how good they have it

I don't think that's right

I think what's going on right now is people are uncertain you cannot make plans as a business when you're uncertain

We've learned that yesterday the beige book this these are businesses reporting to the Fed

They basically said we don't know how to hire right now

We can't hire right now because we're not sure what's going on. Okay, but we don't know a question

The beige book didn't need to tell us that imagine you're running any business in this country in the time of a tariff

Of course, but the the challenge right now is uncertainty you cannot hire you cannot fire you cannot make any plans

And you can't do the great American thing of investing and expanding when you don't know what's going to happen right now

And what we did with the war was we took an old source of uncertainty which was tariffs and we replaced it with a new source of uncertainty

And I think that's what's dragging on sentiment even though everything else looks like it's fine and

The tax on tips is not going to get us there. No Natasha. The White House is still struggling to stay on message about gas prices

One day Trump says they are not coming down before in the midterms another day

He says gas prices. Well, they're not very high at all and to Brendan's point voters just want certainty

So they can plan their lives when it comes to the economy and their personal finances

Is this projecting confidence because the thing that's so important

Is if you own your house if you are long the stock market that's a very very different picture for people who don't

When you own hard assets like that you have certainty to lean on

That's not the case for millions of Americans

Totally and even if you take something that you sort of try to market as being really great for a wide subset of the American people something like the administration is touting with no tax on tips

It turns out put a policy like that only affects something like

Exempt something like 22% of tip workers who are just a subset of workers because they don't even earn enough federal income to be eligible for income taxes

And so they are getting hit by these terrorists and they are getting hit by these sky high gas prices that are up over a dollar on average nationally in the last six weeks

But they're not getting any real tax relief from this legislation and so I think there is both this uncertainty element

That is very large and moving on the American economy

But there's also this reality that if you look around

I mean Brendan is right on by many measures the economy is doing well

But we had our highest inflation print in the last two years last week

Or in a situation where it doesn't look like there is any relief coming

Relatively soon for energy prices which were what the administration was leaning on is like one area where tariffs weren't having the type of impact

That they're having across the border and everything else consumers are buying and so I don't know

I think that the American people are kind of rightfully recognizing that a lot of this is self-inflicted wounds

That are having really significant consequences on their own pocket books

Today John Williams sees the president of the New York Fed warned that the war in Iran could result in a large supply shock

But according to political Trump officials are now urging the heads of top US oil and gas companies to increase their drilling

In order to reduce prices that's according to four people with direct knowledge of this call

How much of a difference would that make you know suddenly they're pressuring US oil and gas companies

Okay, to start with oil is priced and sold on global markets

Okay, I need you to say this one more time because I know the president watches cable TV

And it's though he's missing this okay do it the camera yeah, you definitely can look right at it

Miss president oil is priced and sold on global markets unless you are prepared to create a purely domestic market for oil

And tell all of your oil majors that they can only sell oil in the United States

Then we are stuck with a globally set price of what I slammed the desk. That was fun

But this is the problem also

If we're going to ask CEOs to forego profits for the good of the economy

I have some suggestions if we're doing that now

There's a lot of things that we could ask the problem is it has always been what oil companies do when there's uncertainty

When prices go up they don't increase production they sit on what they have and they earn profits on what they're selling

It doesn't that nothing about what they're asking is any way in which the oil majors have ever behaved before okay

And even if things are going well here in terms of oil production

We need to be aware of what's happening around the world Natasha the international energy agency warned

That Europe might only have six weeks of jet fuel left and the head of the agency told the AP flight cancellations

Could soon follow and we know countries already have for day work weeks are happening kids are going to school for home all concerned

About oil is this administration prepared for consequences that are taking place around the world and what they could mean for us

There's really no way to be prepared for these wide-ranging consequences step you're talking about a situation

Where by the way we're about to hit sort of peak travel season in Europe um for American flyers as well

Where you're having large-scale disruptions as a result of the fact that jet fuel is simply not going to be available

You're also seeing disruptions in global fertilizer markets because of the straight-of-form moves closures

It turns out about a third of global global fertilizer supply runs through the straight and meaningful ways

And of course you're seeing these wide-ranging energy effects which aren't just going to go away

magically even if we were able to reopen the straight-of-form moves

Because it turns out that what we've done as a result of this conflict is really decimated a lot of critical infrastructure

That it's going to take months years in order to be able to bring back online in a meaningful way

And so I just think that the kind of consequences here are not

measured in a matter of weeks in any real way

They're measured in a matter of months and years and you're already seeing estimates about what that's going to mean for US GDP

Which is expected to shave off something like three percentage points and also global GDP as well

And all of this is at the hands and the choice of our president

Brendan Natasha, thank you so much, but you at home

Don't go get a drink just yet because I want to share a story that you may have missed and it matters

Bloomberg reports that he mixed martial arts company

MMA with ties to the president's eldest son Don Jr

Is seeking government contracts by teaching fighting techniques Brendan is crying right now to military and police

Donald Trump Jr. is both an advisor and an investor in the Australia-based company

Alongside Conor McGregor a celebrity fighter who has repeatedly flexed his relationship with the Trump family

Since the president's return to office the company's last fundraising round was led by American ventures

LLC that is a fund affiliated with the Trump family

Donald Trump Jr. did not respond to Bloomberg's request for a comment on this matter

But he and his brother have previously said they have no conflicts of interest because they are private businessmen

But it is yet another story that we are following closely and we needed to share because it has us asking the question

Is this White House for sale

When we come back with barely any oil making it out of the straight of formulas the markets sure seem hopeful

But are they severely underestimating the reality? I took that question to former treasury secretary Bob Rubin a conversation with him next

We have talked a lot about the economic impact of the war in Iran

So today I sat down with two former policy officials and experts

From different administrations at Semaphore World Economy

2026 to get some perspective and I want to share some of my conversation with them

Here are Amos Hockstein a senior advisor to President Biden and Robert Rubin former treasury secretary under President Clinton

The most important point is that we have a fundamental change in how the world's energy is going to work

moving forward

Regardless of how the war ends

Iran will have control of the straight of formulas

Once you get that genius out of the bottle it doesn't come back in

So it doesn't matter what is said in the ceasefire the ultimate end of war documents

They know that they now have a leverage that works not only against the United States but against their neighbors

And so they're going to want to keep that piece of leverage and they won't give it up

number one number two

We have the biggest disparity between where the market

Is and where the physical market is

So you can look on your your iPhone screen today and look up Brent oil

And it'll tell you that next month oil or today is about 92 or 95 dollars

You can't buy a barrel of oil of Brent at 95 you can buy it for between 120 and 150

Why is there that disparity because most people don't know that

Well, there's no oil coming out of the Gulf period. So that's 10 million barrels that don't exist

So the market is saying it's going to be fine

Donald Trump just said that we're going to have good talks this weekend

And it's always on Sunday Monday. We announced we're going to have talks at the end of the week

Just before the market opens just before on Sunday Monday

Usually Saturdays the bad news day

Sunday

During the day it's a you know still a bit tough news

So the Asian markets trade long oil goes up by the time markets open on Monday in New York

Oil prices good news and we're going to have a deal at the end of the week

The problem is that

We have a crisis that's already happened

Demand destruction is already happening

It's just the market doesn't really care about low-income countries or middle-income countries

They only care about the United States and a few other countries

We have five countries that have gone to a four-day work week to conserve energy

That have sent their kids back to zoom school not because of COVID because they don't want them to drive

We have airports around Asia. I just came back from Hong Kong this morning around Asia that have shutting down their domestic aviation

Or to conserve jet fuel for the international flights

There are no there almost no tankers on the water reach it going to Asia

With any of these refined products

So I think the two big issues are one is a right now issue the market is

Discounting where we really are at its own peril

And we have a long-term problem on medium-term problem of what do we how do we manage a

Risk premium into the state of her muse that we only had in theory before and now we haven't practiced

Dios mio

Bob, what do you think? I think first of all agree with almost nobody said secondly

I think almost it's emblematic. I think it's a much larger problem

Which is I think we have a president who fundamentally is undisciplined

And non-rational in the way he deals with policy and it manifests itself in the approach to Iran

But I think it manifests as much more broadly over is disregard for the rule of law

The punishment and intimidation of descent and then a whole vast array of economic policy issues

So I think we've got a level almost of uncertainty and unpredictability

It certainly relates as you correctly say to the straits and oil

But I think it relates far more broadly to the huge number of issues that we have to deal with if we're going to be as successful as we could be

You know that the sadness and I even to the tragedy of it in a way

Is we have enormous or had enormous economic strength and we should succeed economically

But to succeed economically we've got to deal with a whole host of policy challenges

Summer long standing like fiscal health system with another

And then there's a whole there a whole array of issues including as I said a moment ago disregard for the rule of law

That this administration is created that are I at least think creating enormous dangers for and damage to our economy

Which will play out over time and we've got to deal with that as well

I'm just going to get participants

honoring an administration that respects the rule of law and the fact that we seem to be okay with what's happening

So look I work for president Biden and the everybody can guess where my political views are

Uh on the on the current administration, but but I think the wall she it's not as much about

Wall she wants the traders want to do want to believe

Whatever it is that will create market dynamic of increasing valuations

Because that's what makes the system go around and so you always want to believe

It's not that you create a belief

If the president says the wars about the end then I I choose to believe that because that's good for

valuations

We also we've had two economies here before the war started right you had a the k-shape of massive amounts of

AI

Investment that's coming into the into the economy and that's continuing that that is not dependent on the war

It is completely disconnected from that and that is the US is so strong the economy is so strong in that in that space

But everything else is very susceptible to higher cost

People are not feeling that same

They see the valuations on Wall Street, but they're not feeling it in their own in their own pockets or in their own communities

Because there's that dislocation of the two so now when you inject into this a war that nobody knows how it ends

Nobody knows when it ends because we're going on a it's going to end next week every week for the last

Three weeks we don't know if the ceasefire is going to be extended

So we have two choices we can say look let's let's work on that let's work under the assumption

That the war is not ending anytime soon because it hasn't and therefore what is the how do you calculate the risk on that?

I think the risk on that is not in the market at all

The only thing the market is looking at is looking down the road at whatever the futures

Curve is for the fourth quarter and say it's going to be fine

And we have AI and AI is going to be fine so everything will be fine

And that's basically the market that we're in so it's hard to when you talk about the next era

Will the US dominate or not? Yes, the US is going to be dominated because our economy is dominant innovation happens here

but have we lost the

credibility and trustworthiness

Of managing world affairs

We were the ones that in

Brought stability to the world our military was there not to go to war but really more to ensure stability

And today we are the cause of the instability and so I think that's going to take a long time for the world to figure out how to manage that risk

Oh, and then I'd add to amuses very good comment

Is when we've had financial crises over the last 30 years the United States with the IMF in some measure has really been the source of

addressing that instability

Mexican financial crisis the Asian financial crisis

I think we are at real risk now and you just said it MSN repeating what you said of not having the credit

But in the credibility was grounded in having a strong economy good policy and then treating the rest of the world in a reasonable fashion

Not going not attacking our NATO allies and others around the world and creating the kinds of

Instability that we've now created around the world

Thank you again to Robert Rubin and Amos Hockstein. I know I learned a lot. Hopefully you did too

We come back. You're going to care about this some of the biggest sports betting platforms are pulling their money together into a new super pack

We're going to get into it. You're going to care

The

2026 midterms may be brought to you by draft kings or at least swayed by it the New York Times is reporting that the sports betting website alongside competitors

Fandall and fanatics pulled forty one million dollars to start to create a super pack to influence the upcoming elections

And the striking total signals that the group is likely to be one of the biggest spenders in this cycle

Teddy Slyfer a reporter on that story. It is such an important one joins me now

He covers campaign finance and how billionaires influence American politics for the New York Times now this industry has done a huge

amount of lobbying your reporting points out that it has led to the fastest

Expansion of legalized gambling in American history and this is at a time

When all sorts of analysis is telling us that gambling has become a crisis for young people specifically young men in America

What can you tell us like what is the goal heading into the midterms clearly the sports betting companies are not happy enough

Yes, there's been this as well. They're winning, but they want to win more

I mean, there have been I think 35 states that have legalized in some fashion or another but the reason why

Calche and polymarket are

You know really pushing ahead in prediction markets is because what they want to see they've seen what's happened in sports betting

Where you know, there's basically been all these companies that are being very very successful in pushing

legalization and

There are some more states that have not been doing a good enough job in their opinion

So we have 15 states that have not yet legalized it and that's why we see this 41 million dollar super pack

Which is in a lot of ways modern what's happening on AI and crypto issue now you've been covering a lot where

Hey, if the states aren't you know or federal government is not being

Pushing policy change quickly enough just like some new people

So an AI incredibly put hundreds of millions dollars into super packs and now in sports betting we see

40 million dollars heading to an election area you say they're focusing on state legislative races

Is that because they want to level the playing field because the prediction markets

Don't face the same state legislation and the fandal and and and draft kings of the world want to be in the same arena

Yeah, that's actually a good theory for why they're doing this now because the spring court legalized this you know seven or eight years ago

And sports betting has been you know, been trying to push this in state legislatures for a while

But only in the 2026 midterms have they decided to pool their money and start this you know

Presumably they're going to be spending elections as soon as this week

So I think they are feeling the threat from the prediction market companies like calcium and polymarket and you know

We were just talking before like there's this

massive potential audience of people who could be

betting every minute and and there's the revenue here seems endless potentially

Okay, but at the same time and and I just said it there's there are so many studies studies being done

About young people becoming addicted to gambling in in all of this spending yeah

Is any of it even considering or thinking about what this industry is doing to young people because there's a lot of lawmakers

That are that are concerned about the addictive nature of gambling and I don't hear any of that in any of this all of this

Just sounds like no regulation. We're looking for a betting super highway

Well, that's because this is the industry that is of course supporting the super pack like the you know

The industry if they were here right now might say hey, you know, it's not our job to push back on our own corporate interests

We you know obviously fandal and draft kings are for-profit companies with shareholders and they're you know

It's obviously in their interest to have as many people betting as possible and of course

It's the job of policymakers and you know academics and people like us to scrutinize whether or not that is good or not

But I don't think we should expect you know the the fox to be policing you know their own henhouse here

I mean there they're the companies and they're not the policymakers

But your point is they're spending forty-one million dollars because they want more

Yes, and when they spend all that money potentially

This is the opportunity for those lawmakers to say before I take all that money. Let me identify you the fox

Yucky so much. We're gonna be right back

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