America's Truckin' Network 4/17/26

0:00Support for the show comes from public, the investing platform for those who take it seriously. On public, you can build a multi-asset portfolio of stock, spawns, options, crypto, and now generated assets which allow you to turn any idea into an investable index with AI. It all starts with your prompt. From renewable energy companies with high free cash flow to semiconductor suppliers growing revenue over 20% year over year, you can literally type any prompt and put the AI to work. It screens thousands of stocks, builds a one-of-a-kind index, and lets you backtest it against the S&P 500. Then, you can invest in a few clicks. Generated assets are like ETFs with infinite possibilities, completely customizable and based on your thesis, not someone else's. Go to public.com slash podcast, and earn an uncapped 1% bonus when you transfer your portfolio. That's public.com slash podcast, paid for by public investing, brokerage services by open to the public investing ink, member Finra and SIPC, advisory services by public advisors LLC, SEC registered advisor. Data assets is an interactive analysis tool, output is for informational purposes only, and is not an investment recommendation or advice, complete disclosures available at public.com slash disclosures.

1:01The countdown is on for the 2026 NFL Draft, presented by Bud Light. Catch all seven rounds three days live from Pittsburgh, April 23rd through 25th. Watch every pick live on NFL Network ESPN and ABC. NFL Network is also streaming with NFL+. It all starts Thursday at 8 p.m. Eastern. Visit NFL.com slash draft for more information, subscription required for NFL+. Visit plus.nfl.com for turns. I need to be healthy every day to survive it and go to the next scheme around and the next scheme around. So, it's important that work was part of that. To keep my mind busy for eight, nine hours and then I had to go back and face the reality. I had a goal and the goal was to survive. Research shows there is a significant connection between the ability to continue to work and cancer recovery. We can make work a better place for healing. Learn more and sign the pledge at workingwithcancerpledge.com.

2:01Let's be honest, buying cannabis shouldn't be complicated, sketchy or low quality. That's why I want to tell you about mood.com, that's M-O-O-D.com. Moode ships federally legal cannabis straight to your door, no medical car, no hassle, and here's the kicker. The quality is better than anything you'll find at your local dispensary. Yeah, I said it. Whether you're into edibles, concentrates, flour or just looking to explore, you'll find it all at mood. And it's not just the variety that makes them stand out. Every product is sourced from small American-owned family farms that care deeply about what they grow. It's cannabis you can trust, delivered discreetly and ready to elevate your mood. And because you're a listener, you get 20% off your first order. Head to mood.com, that's M-O-O-D.com to get started. This is America's trucking network with Kevin Gordon. Welcome aboard. Thanks for tuning in on this Friday morning, going to start off again with some weather related

3:05news because that's the head of the national weather service. They always have that kind of alert up there. So when that's up there, we generally talk about it. San Laku continues to impact the Mariana's severe weather for the central plains, record warmth for the Mid-Atlantic to the southeast. Typhoons in Laku continues to affect the Mariana's as it moves north through today. Now I mentioned that again, and every time I've mentioned it this week, it probably saying Kevin and Mariana is what the hell. But our signal at night goes out over 38 different states and I've got friends in like something like 41s, countries. And I don't know if our signal goes as far as Guam or the Mariana's, but a lot of people may have relatives there that can kind of keep update or want to know what's going on. So I did get a message several months ago about somebody that said that they had heard about a weather report that we were doing that was from a far off place and said, hey,

4:12we've got relatives there. We had no clue about that. So thank you for putting that out there. So that's why I do it. You know, anyway, meanwhile, severe thunderstorms are expected for the central plains, southern plains today, considerable flooding impacts are ongoing in the upper great lakes and expected to continue through the weekend, fire weather concerns persist in the plains because of some of the hot weather there. So again, if you have your weather app, make sure you keep that up. And if you've got and counter conditions that are different than what the weather app is telling you because I see weather apps around where I live in Northern Kentucky. And sometimes there are two to three hours off or two, three hours behind from what the actual weather is. So if you encounter something that's not on the weather app, let's people behind you know. And hopefully the people in front of you will know again, because getting home is getting home safely is job one.

5:12Interesting. I was waiting for this report yesterday because I was kind of curious how everybody was going to handle it. And we, you know, on every Thursday that come out with the initial jobless claims and every week they, they have to say something about, you know, the job market and so on. And this weekend, then any different, but it's interesting to see how the headlines shake out. Okay. The top headlines for the US jobless claims breaking US initial jobless claims come lower than expected. This is from coin gap, seeking alpha initial jobless claims dip slightly more than expected in the past week. Let me see Reuters, which actually had a halfway decent headline US weekly jobless claims fall manufacturing production retreats in March. And the overall headline in the section on Google, if we pull it up is US jobless claims

6:15fall to 207,000 for the week ending April the 11th. Now the actual story itself, and I pulled this off of Reuters, new applications for US unemployment benefits fell more than expected last week, suggesting labor market conditions remained stable, okay. What do we keep hearing? Whenever we hear about companies, consumer sentiment, we just had to report yesterday from the National Federation of Independent Businesses, their monthly report, serving their companies and serving their people and seems like everybody too many people are paying attention to the spoon fed regurgitators in the mainstream media. I cannot stress that enough because you look at the market yesterday, well, yesterday, so okay, yesterday would have been okay. So Wednesday night, they were reporting that the S&P futures or S&P had hit a record number.

7:20All of the gains that supposedly were lost, all of the stock market that went down at the start of the war, has gained back every nickel and even gone beyond that. Just like with Liberation Day back on April the 2nd, when Trump announced the tariffs, everybody hit the panic button. The market dripped about 10, may have gone down as much as 15%, but within a month, people were actually further ahead, the stock market bounced back because there was flexibility with the tariffs that they were, that was the initial salvo and a warning to our trading allies, so to speak, that they better get to the bargaining table with us and it worked. And yet the stock market bounced back, started having record highs all last year, not only the record highs for a month, week or whatever, but record highs ever in the history of the

8:21stock market. So all of that continued and then on into this year, then when the war with Iran began, all of a sudden the market took a dip because everybody, the panicans were going all crazy and all this or so. I used to think it was kind of a joke, the term panicans, but apparently there are a lot of people that just sit around ringing their hands all the time and as something goes different than what they do, they hit the panic button. So imagine if somebody, unless they, when the market went down, well, I don't know if they'd even make back their gains, if the market went down and they sold when it was low, then they were having to buy when the market was back higher and so they would have lost money that way. And then when they hit the panic button, when the war with Iran came, came about and again sold off, they lost even more money, rather than writing it out, they'd be much further ahead if they had written out both of those downturns or if they had even poured

9:21a little bit more money on the downswing to buy more stock. It's just these people that are trying to time the market and that react negatively whenever there's any appearance of bad news, not bad news, but the appearance of bad news and the ramped up fear or what a panic from the spoon fed regurgitators in the mainstream media. Remember liberation day, all right, after liberation day, April the second, we were supposed to have a recession. We were supposed to have high unemployment. We were supposed to have out of control inflation, like what we had during the Biden administration. None of that came about, but every month, month after month after month, they talked about, well, the uncertainty over Donald Trump's tariffs and the chaos created by that is creating a problem and is adding to inflation. By the end of the year, even Lion Jerry Powell said the effects of inflation due to tariffs

10:23was minimal at best. Most of the tariffs had been absorbed by the individual, either the company manufacturing overseas, the exporter that got the goods and the importer that brought it into the country, the wholesaler that took it from the importer and the retailer that before it got to the individual consumer. So all along that chain, people were picking up a certain amount of that because they were worried about market share. They were worried about losing customers and so on. Now all of a sudden with the war in Iran, they didn't learn any lessons from last year and all of a sudden they said, oh, we're going to be having control inflation. The oil markets are going to go crazy and all this sort of stuff and I got this and so all of this panic is in here and so this is just absolutely ridiculous the way they react to this. But again, remains stable, though employers are cautious about increasing headcount as the war with Iran cast a shadow over the economy.

11:26Just another excuse is it, you know, is it interest rates, which it should be, which they should be worried about, is it because of tariffs that they're not adding employees or now all of a sudden it's because of the war with Iran. Again, the opening paragraph here, you know application for U.S. unemployment benefits fell more than expected last week, suggesting the labor market conditions remain stable. Okay, remains stable when all along the Spoon Federal Regurgitators of Mainstream meter, telling us how unstable the labor market was, though employers are cautious about increasing headcount as the war with Iran cast a shadow over the economy. A surge in oil prices and accompanying rise in inflation pressures because of the conflict has pushed consumer sentiment to record lows, which is a bunch of crap because this is the Spoon Federal Regurgitators of Mainstream media polluting well and economists warned households could scale back on spending with ripple effects in the labor market.

12:26Some anticipated labor market weakness due to oil price shock. Well, again, just one more excuse as to why things are where people are cautious and the bottom line is if they're cautious because of the lies being told to them by the Spoon Federal Regurgitators of the Mainstream media. All of this stuff, even Rick Santelli from CNBC said this a couple months ago, I'm Kevin Gordon America struck a network 700 WLW. Support for the show comes from public, the investing platform for those who take it seriously. On public, you can build a multi-asset portfolio of stock, bonds, options, crypto, and now generated assets which allow you to turn any idea into an investable index with AI. It all starts with your prompt, from renewable energy companies with high free cash flow to semiconductor suppliers growing revenue over 20% year over year. You can literally type any prompt and put the AI to work. It screens thousands of stocks, builds a one-of-a-kind index, and lets you backtest it against the S&P 500. Then, you can invest in a few clicks.

13:28Generated assets are like ETFs with infinite possibilities, completely customizable and based on your thesis, not someone else's. Go to public.com slash podcast and earn an uncapped 1% bonus when you transfer your portfolio. That's public.com slash podcast, paid for by public investing, brokerage services by open to the public investing ink member Finra and SIPC, advisory services by public advisors LLC, SEC registered advisor. Generated assets is an interactive analysis tool. Output is for informational purposes only and is not an investment recommendation or advice. Complete disclosures available at public.com slash disclosures. The countdown is on for the 2026 NFL Draft presented by Bud Light. Catch all seven rounds three days live from Pittsburgh, April 23rd through 25th. Watch every pick live on NFL Network ESPN and ABC. NFL Network is also streaming with NFL Plus. It all starts Thursday at 8 p.m. Eastern. Visit NFL.com slash draft for more information. Subscription required for NFL Plus. Visit plus dot NFL dot com for turns. When I was diagnosed, all I wanted to do was get back to work.

14:31I wanted to get back to that trajectory that I was on prior to the cancer. I always felt like I had value. I had a place on the team to just be treated with dignity. It means I'll be thin. Research shows there is a significant connection between the ability to continue to work and cancer recovery. We can make work a better place for healing. Learn more and sign the pledge at workingwithcancerpledge.com. Let's be honest. Buying cannabis shouldn't be complicated sketchy or low-quality. That's why I want to tell you about mood.com. That's mood.com. Mood ships federally legal cannabis straight to your door. No medical card, no hassle, and here's the kicker. The quality is better than anything you'll find at your local dispensary. Yeah, I said it. Whether you're into edibles, concentrates, flower, or just looking to explore, you'll find it all at mood. And it's not just the variety that makes them stand out. Every product is sourced from small American-owned family farms

15:32that care deeply about what they grow. It's cannabis you can trust, delivered discreetly, and ready to elevate your mood. And because you're a listener, you get 20% off your first order. Just head to mood.com. That's mood.com to get started. How about this? U.S. weekly jobless claims. Because again, we keep hearing that, okay, all of this stuff is going on. We also have these reports that they refer to this company. The name of the company is Challenger Gray and Christmas. And they are the company that monitors these notifications from these Fortune 500 companies and any of the major layoffs that are being talked about. And they roll that into a report and they talk about that. But one of the reports that we had last year and something I've never really heard. I've never heard anybody else talk about it. That's why it's so important that you listen to ATN. Because you are going to hear stuff. You're not going to hear from anybody else. And you're going to be so far ahead of the curve on stuff.

16:33They're not even going to see your tail lights. The reason they were always questioning, they said, well, Amazon announced 10,000 employees were going to be reduced. GM or somebody, some other company announced that 20,000 layoffs and so on. But what they were saying in this article and we brought it up is that a lot of these companies do ghost layoffs where they will announce that they're going to do major layoffs and then all of a sudden their stock rises and then the people look at that and say, well, you know, why the stock market or why their stock rises. People say, oh, these people are really looking out for the bottom line. They want to make sure that they're making the profit. And it'll be good for us, the shareholders. And so we're going to boost up. We're going to buy more stock in that company because they're going to be a good stewards of our money and all this sort of stuff. And what it boils down to is it's just an announcement that never comes true. And so these ghost announcements because it's not showing up in the initial jobless claims.

17:33It's not showing up in the unemployment number. So where are these mysterious jobs that are going to be lost? And that's one of the things, but the spoon, the federal court of the state is in the mainstream media. Keep talking about this bad news. It's like they cannot because Donald Trump is in the White House. They can't say anything positive either about him or the economy or any of the policies that are being done while he is president. And it's getting ridiculous. So going on through this story again, at some point elevated energy costs and prices for materials will cause firms to lay off marginal workers to protect profit margins. According to Carl Weinberg, chief economist at high frequency, just keep in mind that in 1973 oil shock, it took about three months for claims to start to rise in any meaningful way.

18:34Well, the only problem with that Carl is the fact that this isn't 1973. As a result of 1973, we learned a lesson. We developed the strategic petroleum reserves so that in the event that there is a oil embargo like it was during that period of time when we didn't have oil coming into the country when we were importing oil into this country. And we had not enough refining and not enough gas and we had gas lines. So we built up a strategic petroleum reserve to offset that in the event of some natural disaster or an oil embargo like this from the Middle East that we would be able to whether that stormed for a several months. Added to that the fact that the United States was smart enough to say, you know what? Why are we dependent upon these people in the Middle East for oil? When we've got a ton of oil in this country, they discovered oil under Alaska, the

19:36Arctic National Wildlife Refuge up there. And then all of the environmentalists started coming in and saying, well, that's pristine area up there. You know, even though nobody ever sees it, I mean, what's the tourist there? I mean, you know, it's not like Disney land like you got millions and millions of people that go and visit that every year. But when the truth came out about that, when they talked about how wide and vast that location was up there and the footprint of any drilling that was going to be done was so miniscule. In other words, to compare it to a football field, you've got the entire state of Alaska about the, you know, just equate that to a size of a football field. And the area where they were looking to drill was in the, probably between the 10 yard line and the goal line up there in Alaska. So a small area of that field. But the actual platforms where they were going to be drilling was about where you would place the football if you were kicking

20:38an extra point or something or the ground that's covered by the football at the line of scrimmage. So it was so small. Then they started talking about, well, okay, once they started drilling that, oh my gosh, they're going to do this pipeline and it's going to destroy the wildlife. They're going to kill off the caribou. It's going to kill off the elk. It's going to disturb all the wildlife and all this sort of stuff. It's going to with the ground that's the tundra up there, which is actually frozen ground that you bury these pipelines and it's going to thaw that area out and disturb the habitat and everything. So they elevated these pipelines and so they ran them all during and which is better than a buried pipeline because you at least can see it monitor and see if there's any leaks and what happened. The caribou said, hey, this is kind of warm under here and it became like a motel six and then the caribou started procreating even more and there were more caribou than when they started. But the environmentalists said that the caribou were going to go extinct if this pipeline had gone through. So environmentalists don't know what the hell they're talking about.

21:39We realized that we had all this oil in Texas off the, well, at the time, the Gulf of Mexico, which is now the Gulf of America, we had these areas off the state of California, had all these people places where we could drill oil in the United States. So we became more energy independent here in the United States. So this comment from this knucklehead saying that the unemployment rates affected months after the what happened in 1973. Again, Carl, this isn't 1973. We have a strategic oil reserve and as we talked about yesterday, we are now, well, during the last year of the Trump administration, we became energy independent for the first time since 1949. Since 1949, it took us to become energy independent under the first Trump administration. And so now and then as the story we had yesterday, we are now pumping more oil and exporting more oil than we did before the war began. We were pumping exporting 3.9 million barrels per day. We are now exporting 5.2 million

22:45barrels per day. A third more than what we were doing. We had the story yesterday. We're 171, 171 ships. We're coming to the United States to get oil for the Netherlands, the UK, France, all these European countries, even China, even South Korea, we're sending ships to the United States to fill up with oil for their purposes over there. Okay. And so normally, we would get 110 ships on a regular basis, on a monthly basis. We're getting, now we're getting 170. So this, I mean, I guess I wonder where Reuters goes to find these people. I mean, this stuff is readily available. Phil Flynn's energy report. I don't know why they don't talk to him on more regular basis. Apparently they don't like the narrative that he's saying and the truth that he talks about. So apparently they don't want to talk to him. So anyway, that's my rant for that. Initial claims for the state unemployment benefits dropped 11,000 to a seasonally adjusted 207,000 for the weekend in April of the 11th Labor Department set on Thursday. Economists pulled by Reuters

23:48had forecast 215,000 claims. So they were off by 4%. Claims in the lower end claims are in the lower end of their 201 to 230,000 range for the year. Now, the sweet spot that they talked about is actually somewhere between 190,000 to 250,000. But in this year, and so far, during the Trump administration, these jobless claims are going between 200, actually they dip below, they were down around 199,000 a few months ago. But in this range between 201,230,000 range, while layoffs remain low, the U.S. Israeli war in Iran could be hindering hiring. The Federal Reserve baseball report on Wednesday showed several district noted increased demand for temporary or contract workers as firms remain cautious about committing to permanent hires. Now, the problem with that is when you start digging in the numbers, and I'm going to have some

24:49thoughts about this a little bit later. Actually, I'm going to squeeze it in right now. We had the report yesterday for the National Federation of Independent Businesses. And in that particular report, they talked about how, looking overall, 52% of owners reported hiring or trying to hire in March, down 2% from February, 45% of owners, 87% of those trying to hire or trying to hire people reported few or no qualified applicants for the positions they were trying to fill. Okay, so if we've got no companies not hiring, they're not hiring because the skilled workers aren't there. I looked at the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the latest numbers, the job openings that reported at the end of the reported in March, the latest job openings, 6,882,000 openings are there. And yet in this initial jobless claims, they're saying that the people

25:56that are extended beyond the first week of jobless claims is now is right around 1.8 million. So we've got job openings of 6.8 million and people that are looking for work of 1.8 million. So where is the disconnect there? Is it possibly that, oh, maybe we should start looking at what our schools are turning out in terms of qualified people for these positions? Just a thought. I'm Kevin Gordon America's truck in Network 700W. Support for the show comes from public, the investing platform for those who take it seriously. On public, you can build a multi-asset portfolio of stock, bonds, options, crypto, and now generated assets which allow you to turn any idea into an investable index with AI. It all starts with your prompt, from renewable energy companies with high free cash flow to semiconductor suppliers growing revenue over 20% year over year. You can literally type any prompt and put the AI to work. It screens thousands of stocks, builds a one-of-a-kind index, and lets you backtest it against the S&P 500. Then you can invest in a few clicks.

27:00Generated assets are like ETFs with infinite possibilities, completely customizable and based on your thesis, not someone else's. Go to public.com slash podcast and earn an uncapped 1% bonus when you transfer your portfolio. That's public.com slash podcast, paid for by public investing, brokerage services by open to the public investing bank, member Finra and SIPC, advisory services by public advisors LLC, SEC registered advisor. Generated assets is an interactive analysis tool. Output is for informational purposes only and is not an investment recommendation or advice. Complete disclosures available at public.com slash disclosures. The countdown is on for the 2026 NFL Draft presented by Bud Light. Catch all seven rounds three days live from Pittsburgh, April 23rd through 25th. Watch every pick live on NFL Network ESPN and ABC. NFL Network is also streaming with NFL Plus. It all starts Thursday at 8pm Easter. Visit NFL.com slash draft for more information subscription required for NFL Plus. Visit plus.NFL.com for turns. I think when you're diagnosed with cancer, you crave a semblance of normalcy

28:03in control and so work allowed me to be me. So I think it's really important that companies stay flexible. Cancer in a diagnosis can be all consuming but it doesn't have to be. Research shows there is a significant connection between the ability to continue to work and cancer recovery. We can make work a better place for healing. Learn more and sign the pledge at workingwithcancerpludge.com. Let's be honest, buying cannabis shouldn't be complicated sketchy or low quality. That's why I want to tell you about mood.com. That's M-O-O-D.com. Mood ships federally legal cannabis straight to your door. No medical card, no hassle, and here's the kicker. The quality is better than anything you'll find at your local dispensary. Yeah, I said it. Whether you're into edibles, concentrates, flour, or just looking to explore, you'll find it all at mood. And it's not just the variety that makes them stand out. Every product is sourced from small American-owned family farms

29:04that care deeply about what they grow. It's cannabis you can trust, delivered discreetly, and ready to elevate your mood. And because you're a listener, you get 20% off your first order. Just head to mood.com. That's M-O-O-D.com to get started. Here's your trucking forecast for the tri-state and the rest of the country. In the tri-state overnight mostly clear, the low down to 58 sunny Friday, high of 84, showers and possible storm Saturday, high of 77, chance of early shower Sunday otherwise mostly sunny and cooler the high near 60. Nationally, the northern and central Rockies as well as the northern plains will see late-season snow. Friday bringing an enhanced risk of severe storms reports the upper and middle Mississippi Valley as well as the central and southern plains. The middle Mississippi Valley and central and southern plains also have a slight risk for excessive rainfall. 700 WLWM Kevin Borden is his America's trucking network. I'm finishing up on this jobless claims because it is so important because, you know, this is one of those areas where

30:09you get the impression of whether we have a strong economy or where the things are going well or not. And what is interesting is that from the people I've talked to and I try to talk about this as much as possible with higher gas prices, you shop around. Number one, you find a gas station that isn't charging 40 cents to 50 cents more than what you can get at another gas station. That's number one. Number two, with some of these companies, Meyer has it, Kroger has it. I think I'm not sure if Walmart has it, Sam's Club may have it, something along those lines that when you purchase groceries, you get fuel points. And if you get enough fuel points, you can deduct up to, well, here in the greater sense saying Northern Kentucky area, you can deduct up to a dollar off of your gallon of gas. In Tennessee, when we were down there for the Rush Tech rodeo, I had a rental car and I had to

31:12fill it up. And I went to the Kroger store down there, the Kroger fuel center. And I had like a thousand six thousand, I mean, a thousand six, what was it? It was a thousand six thousand six hundred and seventy fuel points on my Kroger card. And when I pulled up to the pump, they said, you want to use the whole dollar 67 off of a gallon of gasoline. I was like, what? And greater sense saying Northern Kentucky, you can only use up to a dollar, but in Tennessee, apparently, with the Kroger stores down there, you could use the entire thing. So I guess if I had 2000 fuel points, I could have used two dollars off of gallon of gasoline. So that's another way. Also, when stuff like this happens and gasoline prices go up, condensed trips, you know, it's, you know, it's, it's once in a while, it's one of those things where you just say, oh, I got to run this store, I got to get something. So you just hop in the car and you go get a

32:14gallon of milk or something. And then you say, oh, jeez, whiz. I mean, I, you know, when I was out, I forgot to do this. So I got to go in this direction. So a little bit of planning so you can dent your trips. And so you can solidate those. So you're not driving, you know, from here to here. And you kind of almost become kind of your own personal logistics person. You don't drive five miles to the south and then 10 miles to the north and then back to the south and then over to the west or whatever. You kind of plan out to say, well, you know, if I do this along the line, if I, if I go up here and then swing over and get this and I can come around here and kind of make a full circle and come back so that you can cut down the number of miles you're driving. Those are the kinds of things you can do. And we all know that this is going to be temporary. Just look at what the gas prices have been doing over the last several, not the last several weeks, but the last several days. We have gas prices. We'll talk about them here. Current national average for gasoline is currently at $4.09. It's down below that four, you know, that four and then 10 or, you know,

33:20with a one behind the four is when I'm trying to get to because it was got up to $1.15 and then it was down to $1.00. I'm sorry. It was up to $4.15. Then came down to $4.11. Today it's down or national average is $4.09. Compared to last week, we are down eight cents a gallon just from last week. And it's coming down because West Texas because the crude oil is coming down as well. West Texas Intermediate crude is not up there around $115 a barrel like it was at the start of the war or with the peace talks failing last weekend. Oil prices got up to 105. So it didn't quite get up to that 115, but get oil prices today are, well, close yesterday was $94.91 a barrel for West Texas Intermediate. It was up about $4 or almost a 4% and there was some, we'll talk about that in a minute, but Brent crude at $99.28 was up $4 or up 4.58. Now as far as what was going on

34:28with that, again, the panicens looking at the fact that the peace talks may be ongoing. And I love this in their in their report. They were talking about as far as oil prices rise on doubts. US ran peace talks will ease or move or moves disruption. They started talking about how they actually put in here that the US was blockading those straight of hormones, which is again, lazy journalism. They don't even know what they'll they're talking about. It's a blockade of the Iranian ports that ships going in or coming out of Iran are not happening. Oil prices rose on Thursday as the market question, whether the peace talks between the US and Iran would resolve disruptions amid these energy supplies. Talks between the United States and Iran have scaled back ambitions for a comprehensive peace deal and are instead seeking a temporary

35:29memorandum to prevent a return to the conflict. Again, this is one of those things. I'm seeing headlines, I'm, you know, the headlines that I'm seeing is that the leaders over there are looking at that and talking about that. They are running out of money that they're not going to be able to pay their soldiers, not going to be able to pay the people in the government within the next three weeks. So this has nothing to do with trying to get to a memorandum of understanding. This is a country that's on a verge of collapsing and they're trying to save face in order to eliminate it. But the Spoonfedig regurgitators in Mainstream media are going to gobble up all the positive talking points and all the things that almost sounds like they're just mimicking the talking points from the Iranian regime. They are talking, they're basically, they have no cards to play. And it's shown that, and I don't know why the Strait of Hormuz, they haven't found that they, you know, they said that they had mined the area. So far, we haven't found any mines. And so far,

36:34any of the ships going through there has not been attacked. So if they don't have the means to close that Strait, why are people acting as though the Strait are closed? So, you know, that's one of those things that is unbelievable. I don't understand how this is happening. But again, they're still panicking as far as whether or not these peace talks are going to resume and gas prices have come down. So again, when we're talking about the unemployment numbers and the people worrying about whether they're going to hire or fire or whatever else they're going to do, the financial statistics, the stock market is not indicating this. And there's an indication. I saw a report, I didn't print it, but they were talking about that even with high gas prices, people are not changing their discretionary spending. They understand that this is a temporary situation. And it appears as though they're ready to write it out. So again, I don't,

37:36you know, the laziness is unbelievable. One of the things I wanted to talk about. Also, when we were talking about the jobless claims and again, to reiterate that and kind of reset the table for that jobless claims fell 11,000 down to 207,000, which is well within that sweet spot of between 190,000 and 250,000. But what's interesting is the laziness of these reporters. Every week when Reuters throws out this story or somebody throws out this story, they have a picture and it shows a picture and it says job fair on it. And usually I, I have a tool on my computer where I can eliminate stuff that I don't want. So I can just, you know, get down to the text. So I usually don't even pay attention to that. But this past week, because I've been thinking about, well, if if we're in this no higher, no fire situation, that would seem to be a good thing because, and according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics,

38:38the number of people who are quitting their jobs versus the number of people that are hiring jobs, it's all 3.1%. 3.1% of the people that are that hold a job have quit their job. And 3.1% of the people looking have gotten a job. So it's balancing off. But I keep wondering, well, why we keep hearing this no higher, no fire situation and that employers are reluctant to hire people. And then I was thinking about this, after the show last night, or this morning, yesterday morning, reading that National Federation Independent Business report, where they were saying 87% of the people that wanted to hire people couldn't find qualified people to fill the positions. So what does that tell you? That tells you that our schools are not educating people properly, that people are not being geared towards either the trade schools or that they're

39:40getting the necessary training or the job skills or the knowledge skills. When they're in school, to be able to go out in the marketplace, market themselves and get a job. And the other thing that struck me was the fact that these pictures that they show for the job fair, I'll get this, that the title underneath the picture says, signage on a fifth avenue job fair, people seeking, companies seeking to hire people. The picture was taken on September the 3rd, 2021. They are so lazy that they're still using a picture from five years ago. They can't go out on the street and you hear to see a help wanted sign or someplace else. They got to rely on a stock photo from 2021. This is how lazy our spoon fed regurgitators are. I'm Kevin Gordon, America's truck in network 700 WLW. Support for the show comes from public, the investing platform for those who take it seriously. On public, you can build a multi-asset portfolio of stock spots, options, crypto, and now generated

40:42assets, which allow you to turn any idea into an investible index with AI. It all starts with your prompt, from renewable energy companies with high free cash flow to semiconductor suppliers growing revenue over 20% year over year. You can literally type any prompt and put the AI to work. It screens thousands of stocks, builds a one-of-a-kind index, and lets you backtest it against the S&P 500. Then you can invest in a few clicks. Generated assets are like ETFs with infinite possibilities, completely customizable and based on your thesis, not someone else's. Go to public.com slash podcast and earn an uncapped 1% bonus when you transfer your portfolio. That's public.com slash podcast. Paid for by public investing, brokerage services by open to the public investing ink, member Finra and SIPC. Advisory services by public advisors LLC, SEC registered advisor. Generated assets is an interactive analysis tool. Output is for informational purposes only, and is not an investment recommendation or advice. Complete disclosures available at public.com slash disclosures. The countdown is on for the 2026 NFL draft presented by Bud Light. Catch all seven rounds three days live from Pittsburgh April 23rd through 25th. Watch every pick live on

41:44NFL Network ESPN and ABC. NFL Network is also streaming with NFL Plus. It all starts Thursday at 8 p.m. Eastern. Visit NFL.com slash draft for more information. Subscription required for NFL Plus. Visit plus. NFL.com for turns. I need to be healthy every day to survive it and go through the next chemo round and the next chemo round. So it's important that work was part of that. To keep my mind busy for eight, nine hours and then I had to go back and face the reality. I had a goal and the goal was to survive. Research shows there is a significant connection between the ability to continue to work and cancer recovery. We can make work a better place for healing. Learn more and sign the pledge at workingwithcancerpledge.com. I'm John Green. You may know me as the author of The Fault in Our Stars and now I guess also is the co-host of The Away End, a brand new world soccer podcast. I'm Daniel Alargon, a writer and journalist and

42:44John and I have known each other since we were kids. My first World Cup was Mexico 86. I was nine years old. I watched every game and I fell in love. On our new podcast The Away End, we'll share with you the magic of international football, all leading up to the 2026 World Cup. For us, soccer, football is a story we've shared for over 30 years since Daniel was the star player on our high school soccer team very debatable and I was their most loyal and sometimes only fan. I love this game. I love its history, its hope, its heartbreak and above all its beauty. Together we'll find out why of all the unimportant things football, soccer is the most important. Listen to The Away End with Daniel Alargon and John Green on the I Heart Radio App, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Any of our segments, make sure you hit up that I Heart Radio App, brought you by your friends and brush trucks and I was trying to think of how to introduce this particular story and so I thought, well, now how am I going to do this? I should have done that before I came back

43:47on the air, but you know, we keep hearing this stuff about gas prices and we start hearing about the stuff about low higher, no fire situation, no higher, no fire situations and stuff as far as unemployment is concerned. Wouldn't it be great if the instead of wasting money that the states and federal government do on certain programs that they would initiate some sort of job training plan somewhere that, you know, they want to talk about, you know, Bill Clinton's big thing back in when he was president, they were going to do because the crime was an issue, crime was a problem. And so they wanted to address that and his big issue was, all right, well, we'll start having midnight basketball. Okay, that's a, that's a big help. Plus he decided and we keep hearing, I keep hearing people talking about this saying that, wow, you know, we, and, well, I'll tell you, I watched the five on, on, on Fox and the liberal that's on there, they have Jessica Tarlov and

44:53she's on there, but rotates with Harold Ford Jr. who used to be a congressman from Tennessee. And once in a while, he'll get on there and he'll talk about, well, you know, what's going on, what I'd like to see the president do is I'd like to see him come up with a, we had a crime bill back in the 90s, Bill Clinton put this through and it was very successful. We reduced the crime. Okay, let's not forget the fact that the, the murder rate based on what Trump has been doing as far as cracking down on illegitimate immigration and doing the National Guard in Washington, DC, that they have only, you know, in Washington, DC over the line, just since first of the year, they have had 12 murders. Only, I mean, 12 is still, I mean, one murder is too much, but they've had 12. Chicago has 12 a weekend. And so, you know, they don't talk, you know, nobody in the Spoon, February, Gurd Stairs is concentrating on that, but the streets of Washington are safe. The murder rate for last year was the lowest since 1900,

45:531900, maybe not the total number, but the per capita amount of murders was the lowest since 1900. But Harold Ford Jr. will get on there and talk about all the wonderful things that was done with the crime bill for Bill Clinton and, you know, 100,000 cops on the street. We know what he forgets that people like me remember what happened about that. They put these 100,000 cops on the street where the federal government was going to fund that, but they weren't going to fund it forever. They funded it for a total of two years. So you, you do a police academy, you hire these guys, you train them. And when they get to the point of where they're ready to go out on the street after six months, eight months or so, a year and a half later, you have to come up with that money. The city has to come up with that money in order to do this. And so what happened was these various cities did hire these took advantage of the money. I mean, now, you know, they get this money. And, you know, well, we got to take advantage of it because if we don't take it, somebody

46:57else will. So they hired these cops. And then all of a sudden, a year and a half later said, she was, we got to pay for this ourselves. They started laying off cops. So what was accomplished? Did you, did you not put the right program into effect? Did you not try to stop the crime so you don't maybe need as many cops? Just add more cops on the street. That's, you know, that's their solution. Throw more money at it, which is just absolute ridiculous. But again, getting to the states, if they're so concerned about their gas prices in their particular state, how about rolling back the state gasoline tax? Do you know that if California were to get rid of just for a month, get rid of the unnecessary taxes on, you know, the excise taxes, the sales tax, all this sort of stuff that they have to pay there in California. Their gas prices have come down $2 a gallon. California currently is at $5.86 a gallon, you know, the average in California.

48:00The lowest is in Oklahoma at $3.44. So there is a $2.42. $2.42 difference between the lowest gas prices in the country and the highest, which is in California. California is even higher than Hawaii that not only, you know, is it on an island and that any gasoline that is refined has to be shipped there. So even the cost of shipping that gasoline to Hawaii, buying gasoline and Hawaii is still cheaper than buying in California. If California did away with all those unnecessary taxes because they're not doing any good because everything they did as far as cleaning up the environment as I mentioned yesterday, the fact that the wildfires that they had in 2020, they just finished the study last year sometime that said that the devastation from those fires as far as the air pollution and the environmental conditions in California, those wildfires had wiped

49:05away 30 years of everything that did done to improve the environment there. Then on top of that, we had the wildfires in 2025 and that probably set them back even further. So all this money, all you guys on California that are paying that $2.24 of $44.42 higher than the cheapest gasoline in the country. You're paying for that because you want to clean up the environment with your government and your state will wind up squandering by not controlling wildfires. But there are some states that are weighing motor fuel tax holidays. Legislators in several states are calling for measures to temporarily halt motor fuel taxes to alleviate the impact of rising prices at the pump. Average national average, you know, where that is. We've talked about that. Now this story was a couple days old. So I should have updated that other states are seeking to follow the footsteps of Georgia governor, Brian Camp, who signed a law on March 20th to suspend motor fuel taxes for 60 days. We talked about that on this program. This tax break remains an effect through

50:06May the 19th per gallon price are now 37.3 cents for diesel and 33.3 cents lower for gasoline. Temporary excise tax halt also applies to the current 33.3 cent rate for liquefied petroleum and special fuels such as compressed national gas. In New York, state senator Michelle Hinchey and 14 other Democrat senators, a road to governor and Kathy Hocal urging her to implement a tax holiday on motor fuels. That's not going to happen because the one thing about greedy Democrats is that when they get their paws and their claws into a pile of money, they ain't giving it up. Let's see, since the closure, let me see, talking about where the gasoline, other state lawmakers have discussed imposing a gas tax holiday includes those in Connecticut, Tennessee, Virginia, Florida, and California. My question is, where is Kentucky? Where is Ohio

51:10and where is Indiana on this? Connecticut, both Democrat and Republican state senators and Connecticut have urged governor Ned Lamont to back a gas tax holiday. Why do you need the governor to back that? Why don't you just do it as far as the legislatures are concerned? Legislatures are concerned. Bob, let me see, according to them, these are states 25 cent per gasoline tax, excise tax, Connecticut diesel taxes are 48.9 cents per gallon. Tennessee, Tennessee represented Bo Mitchell and John Ray Clemens, both Democrats asked governor Bill leads to support gas tax holiday, Virginia, fat chance of that. You're going to get governor Spanberger there to do that. She won't even stand up for victims of crime there and people are getting murdered left and right by a little aliens. And she doesn't want to participate or help the ice round up any of these people. 32 cents gallon there in Florida, Florida saw a temporary relief from motorfuel

52:15tax. California legislatures so far have failed to advance a proposed bill. Nope. The countdown is on for the 2026 NFL draft presented by Bud Light. Catch all seven rounds three days live from Pittsburgh April 23rd through 25th. Watch every pick live on NFL network ESPN and ABC. NFL network is also streaming with NFL+. It all starts Thursday at 8 p.m. Eastern. Visit NFL.com slash draft for more information subscription required for NFL+. Visit plus dot NFL dot com for turns. I think when you're diagnosed with cancer you crave a semblance of normalcy in control and so work allowed me to be me. So I think it's really important that companies stay flexible. Cancer in a diagnosis can be all consuming but it doesn't have to be. Research shows there is a significant connection between the ability to continue to work and cancer recovery. We can make work a better place for healing. Learn more and sign the pledge at workingwithcancerpludge.com.

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54:32Modern will be there. Keep it positive, sweetie, with crypto or nay. We got reality with the king with Carlos King. And yes, drink champs will be in the building. Plus, you know, we're going to have a lot of guests. So you need to join us. And we got the black effect marketplace, the picture podcast, and everything you expect from the black effect podcast festival. Tickets are on tail right now. Go get yours at blackaffect.com slash podcast festival. Don't play yourself, okay? Pull up.