Tuesday: Trump Called Off the Same Iran Strike Twice

Rush Lindell: Welcome back to the show. I'm sitting across from Reagan here, who keeps me honest, as always. Reagan: That's the job description. Rush Lindell: It is. We've got a stacked hour. Reagan: We do. Trump called off the biggest strike plan in Pentagon history twice, then turned around and called Tehran unbelievably duplicitous. Rush Lindell: Twice! You can't make this up. And Iran's over there saying we're not talking to Washington. We're talking to Oman about a shipping route. Reagan: Which raises a real question about who's actually driving this. Rush Lindell: Oh, we're going there. And we lost somebody who mattered today in that fight: Lindsey Graham, seventy one years old. Reagan: One of Israel's loudest defenders in that chamber. We'll talk about what his voice meant and who fills that silence now. Rush Lindell: Plus two Senate votes on this war. One passed, one failed by a single vote. VOTE. Reagan: A one vote margin on a war-stick around for that math. Rush Lindell: That math-I like that. But first-this hour is brought to you by Lear Capital, America's Precious Metals Leader since Nineteen Ninety Seven. Reagan: All right-Iran, whiplash and a straight answer on what's actually happening at Hormuz. Rush Lindell: Let's start there. Before we get into it, a quick reminder: We love hearing from you. If you have questions or topics you'd like us to cover, head to the link in the description and submit your question. We read every single one. Same strike package, called off twice in one week. Reagan: The one Trump says would have been the biggest attack since World War II? Rush Lindell: Biggest since World War II, and he pulls the trigger back not once, but Twice, because Saudi Arabia calls, the UAE calls, Qatar calls, and get this, Iran calls too. Reagan: According to Spokesmancom's reporting Sunday, that's the exact. Act Sequence: "Gulf Allies Plus Tehran itself asking for the pause. Rush Lindell: And then Monday morning-boom! Truth Social-Iranian leadership is unbelievably duplicitous. Reagan: Rich, considering he'd just done them a favor twenty four hours ago. Rush Lindell: I'm naming this thing the Snooze Button Strike-On Off, on off-somebody keeps hitting it every few days! Reagan: Laughing, Write it down-you're bringing that back. Rush Lindell: Guarantee it! Reagan: But here's what breaks the tantrum story: Iran's foreign ministry spokesman, Baghaei, went on record: We are not currently negotiating with the United States. Rush Lindell: Only Oman. Reagan: Right, a transit corridor through Hormuz. Not a peace deal. Spokesmancom had that Monday flat denial. Nothing with Washington. Rush Lindell: So who's lying? Reagan: Maybe neither. Maybe they're describing two different rooms. Rush Lindell: Fair. CNN's live coverage into Tuesday has Trump saying he's under zero time pressure, calling this Iran's last chance before his word decapitation and claiming Hormuz reopens as phase one of some deal. Reagan: Decapitation and no rush, same breath. Rush Lindell: Right. Reagan: That's a lot of temperature from a man who just stood the strike down. Rush Lindell: And Globalsecurity's Day 158 update backs it up. Up no U.S. strike inside Iran reported since August Fifth; fifth quiet night running. Reagan: So the guns are quiet; I'll give Riyadh, Abu Dhabi and Doha this much; their tankers and pipelines sit right next to this. Asking for restraint isn't weakness, it's self preservation. Rush Lindell: Sure, but restraint toward what end? What's the actual American objective now? Last chance isn't a strategy. Reagan: Canceling a strike twice can be leverage. It can also be a tell you never meant to pull it. The difference won't show up in a Truth Social post. Rush Lindell: Bait. It shows up at Hormuz. Reagan: Exactly. And if that strait doesn't move, somebody's paying for the indecision. Probably not in Washington. Rush Lindell: So where do you think that bill actually lands? Speaking of whiplash-the second Trump said the strikes were off, oil prices dropped instantly. Reagan: Which tells you the market's not pricing supply right now-it's pricing one man's mood. Rush Lindell: Crew, doing the electric slide every time he posts, I'm calling it the Mood Barrel. Reagan: Cute nickname, but the mechanism's real: traders are hedging Truth Social, not tankers. Rush Lindell: And while that's happening, six Saudi-operated tankers just- just rerouted clean around Africa, dodging the Houthi blockade in the Red Sea. Reagan: That's two extra weeks per voyage, minimum. Fuel, crew, insurance-it all stacks fast. Rush Lindell: And get this: Reagan: Mm-hmm. Rush Lindell: GlobalSecurity's Day One Fifty Eight Update says another vessel, the Minoan Pioneer, took an unidentified projectile northeast of Khasab, lost power, fire aboard. Reagan: One crew member's missing-that's the human cost sitting underneath every barrel count. Rush Lindell: Reuters had Saudi Aramco CEO Amin Nasser putting an actual number on it: two point six billion barrels of crude knocked out of global supply since this thing started. Reagan: Worth taking seriously, though a barrel count from one executive is one data point, not the whole ledger. Iran's held the strait since February twenty eighth. And every day that continues ensures reprice the risk. Rush Lindell: Five months of that gets baked into freight, into premiums, into what you pay at the register. And nobody in Washington calls it a war cost! Reagan: They call it inflation-same math, friendlier name. Rush Lindell: Which is exactly why when things get this shaky, people run toward something they can actually hold. My friends at Lear Capital are doing something I haven't seen before. They're selling in one ounce silver American Eagle. Below spot price, That's right, below what silver is actually trading for right now—and Lear covers the shipping and the taxes. Reagan: Here's what you need to know: Priced below spot, Lear's selling this at a loss just to get silver in your hand. Limit one per person, new customers only. Free shipping, fully insured by Lear. This is a twenty four hour offer only. Rush Lindell: And understand how rare that is—spot price doesn't even include the cost to mint the coin, ship it, or any dealer overhead, buying at spot is already a deal; buying below spot almost never happens. Reagan: This isn't some obscure bullion piece either—the Silver American Eagle is one of the most recognizable, sought after coins in the world. Rush Lindell: Backed by the U.S. Government for weight and purity, one ounce of point nine nine nine fine silver, IRA eligible, a tangible asset you can hold in your hand. Reagan: Go to rushcoinoffer.com right now. This is a twenty four hour offer. The URL goes dark after that, and when it's gone, it's gone. That's rushcoinoffer dot com. Rush Lindell: So if six tankers around Africa, one tanker hit, a crew member missing, and Iran still sitting on the Straits since February. Reagan: That's a war finding new routes. It hasn't slowed down at all. Rush Lindell: And that's the receipt we should be checking against everything the show's predicted lately. Reagan: Which is exactly what we're about to do. Building on that grocery bill, let's grade ourselves, Reagan; three weeks running I called this war winding down. Rush Lindell: Receipts, please. You don't get to declare victory on vibes. Reagan: (Fine.) Item one, mediators: Armand's carrying real weight on Hormuz transit deal, and CNN reports Trump himself credits Persian Gulf allies for talking him off two separate strike orders this week. Rush Lindell: That part earns a passing grade. A Hormuz arrangement is closer than it was back in June-I'll give you that one clean. Reagan: Mm-hmm. Speaker 3: Thank you-see, I told- Rush Lindell: Don't get comfortable, here's where you failed. Speaker 3: Go ahead, dock me! Rush Lindell: You predicted a cease fire that holds, but that requires both sides to admit out loud they're talking, Iran's foreign ministry per CNN still insists it's only negotiating a transit route with Oman, not Washington, not a deal. Reagan: Tehran would rather eat glass than sate negotiation. Rush Lindell: Fair; and Global Security's day one fifty eight tracker confirms five straight nights with no US strike inside Iran which backs your pause instinct. Instinct isn't the same as the prediction you made. Reagan: So, Partial credit? Rush Lindell: Partial credit. My rule for anyone grading a war from home: a prediction you can't check against something specific? Thick was never a forecast; it was a mood. Speaker 3: Brutal; fair though. Rush Lindell: I try. Speaker 3: Now flip that on its head-because nobody grades themselves on cable. Rush Lindell: Same panel, every network-zero memory from Sunday to Monday. Speaker 3: Oh, we're doing that bit next? Buckle up. Reagan: Sharply breaking now Iran deal imminent. Countdown clock on screen. Sixty days and counting. Speaker 4: It's been imminent since spring. Reagan: That's the bit; Sunday Chiron imminent, Monday Unbelievably duplicitous, Tuesday same for retired generals, zero memory of Monday. Rush Lindell: I'm not doing the accents with you. Reagan: Sources tell us-sources always tell us. Rush Lindell: Rush. Reagan: Fine, fine; but CNN ran imminent on this exact story again Sunday. Same word, different Sunday for months now. Speaker 4: And nobody's pulled the tape. Reagan: Not the Chiron? Speaker 4: The Chiron's cheap feeder-the problem is nobody on that panel gets asked why what they predicted in May never happened. Reagan: Yeah! Speaker 4: That question takes four minutes and it never airs. Reagan: Because the answer makes everybody look bad-including us. Rush Lindell: So the countdown that matters isn't on the deal, it's on how long before anyone in that business asks a second question. Reagan: Speaking of nobody following up, there's a story Cable's already buried that we're not burying. Rush Lindell: Speaking of nobody following up, there's a story Cable's already buried that we're not burying. Reagan: LINDSEY GRAHAM Building on that, we need to slow down. Quietly, Lindsey Graham died Saturday night, seventy one years old. Rush Lindell: The Senate's most relentless War Hawk, gone right as the war he championed reignited. Reagan: Al Jazeera reported his office said it was a brief and sudden illness, and that he passed Saturday evening. Rush Lindell: CBS News reported the DC Medical Examiner's preliminary finding was an aortic dissection. Reagan: And ABC7 Los Angeles noted he'd just gotten back from Ukraine. One day before he was scheduled on Meet the Press! Rush Lindell: He was going to defend this war on camera; that interview doesn't happen now. Speaker 3: The one thing I keep sitting with, Reagan, whatever you thought of the man's position, he showed up, put his name on it, out loud, every week. Rush Lindell: Compare that to right now-who in the Senate is standing in front of a camera defending or restraining this war on record? Speaker 3: Nobody. Silence! Rush Lindell: I'll give both sides their due: the case for him, hawkishness needs someone willing to own it, not hide behind a committee vote; Speaker 3: Right. Rush Lindell: the case against, maybe the party had a He had already drifted toward restraint before he died, and he was the last man arguing a position his own base was leaving behind. Reagan: So which is it-a messenger they lost or a message they'd already dropped? Rush Lindell: I don't know yet, but cables barely touched this connection; the loudest voice for this specific war gone mid war. That's not an accident of coverage. Reagan: That's discomfort. Rush Lindell: Discomfort with what? Reagan: with asking who's left to answer for it. And that question doesn't wait for cable to Rush Lindell: It lands in Congress's lap, on paper, in actual votes. Reagan: votes that already happened and votes that are about to. Speaker 3: So the numbers here matter. Congress actually did something in June: the Senate passed a War Powers resolution, fifty to forty eight, the first time both chambers landed on the same side, all war. Crossover votes, right? For Republicans, Cassidy, Collins, Paul, and Murkowski broke with the president. Al Jazeera called it a rare rebuke to Trump. And the White House's response? Told CNN the resolution carries no force of law. So it passed and nothing changed. Symbolic, my favorite word in this town." Then July thirtieth a follow-up vote fails fifty to forty nine. The Washington Post called it the second such failure in two weeks. Two in a row? Two in a row." And NPR cited Pentagon figures while that vote sat on the floor: eighteen U.S. troop deaths since February, roughly five hundred wounded. Reagan: My problem is, Congress wants credit for opposing this war without owning what stopping it would cost; fair enough, but a losing vote still lands on the record, compare that to silence. So we've gone from the strike Trump can't stop canceling to a Senate that Rush Lindell: It can't decide, either. Article One gives Congress the war power, using it symbolically still counts as exercising it. Reagan: Right. Rush Lindell: That's the parallel; a Congress that won't authorize this war and won't stop it is choosing to watch from the sideline three months before an election. Bystander government has a ring to it. Unflattering. Also accurate. At least somebody's keeping score. Speaker 3: Shifting away from Capitol Hill, while every camera's locked on Hormuz, CBS reported a seventh round of Lebanon-Israel talks just opened in Rome, US-mediated, barely a mention anywhere. Speaker 4: Seventh round—nobody's covering the process, only the flash point. Speaker 3: Exactly—and it matters because attention's are resource. Adversaries watching us are counting how long we can stare at one door. Speaker 4: I'd frame that as a question not a Speaker 5: reply. Speaker 4: Not a verdict. Are Beijing and capitals in Latin America actually testing how thin our munition stocks run on a second front? We don't have hard evidence yet, just a real question worth asking. Speaker 3: Fair, but capacity questions don't wait for proof; that's the whole point of asking them now. Speaker 4: Agreed so what would move me three things by next week? Speaker 3: Go! Speaker 4: one Does commercial traffic actually move through Hormuz again, insurers included? two Does anyone in Tehran say the word 'negotiation' out loud, not 'transit route' or 'Oman' as a proxy? three Does the Senate schedule another war powers vote before midterms or did July thirtieth kill the appetite for good? Speaker 3: I'll put my name on all three. Traffic Speaker 5: - Speaker 3: Traffic moves partial by Friday, Tehran holds the line, no negotiation, not this month, and the Senate sits on its hands till September. Speaker 4: Bold. Write it down. Speaker 3: I always do-hold me to it next week-that's the deal. Speaker 4: We will. Rome's quiet talks might end up mattering more than Hormuz ever does. Rush Lindell: So that's the show-trumpeting Snooze Button Strike again, Reagan? Speaker 4: The Snooze Button Strike stole my favorite nickname of the year. Rush Lindell: Damn right; and the real headline underneath all that noise- Speaker 4: Is We Lost Lindsey Graham This Week Seventy-one years old. Gone just like that. Rush Lindell: Yeah, whatever you thought of the man, he never hid from a camera on this war. Speaker 4: That's the piece missing now-someone on record willing to be wrong. Wrong in public. Rush Lindell: Which is exactly why you keep listening to us; we're not hiding either. Speaker 4: If you liked what you heard, subscribe, leave us five stars, tell a friend. Rush Lindell: New episodes every weekday. We'll be tracking Hormuz, the War Powers Fight, all of it. Speaker 4: Thanks for spending the hour with us. Rush Lindell: Go live your life. We'll handle the outrage. See you tomorrow. And I'll see you next time. And I'll see you next time.