Episode 4477: Tony Katz Today Hour 3 - 03/25/26

0:00Why, from the heartland and the crossroads of America, it's Tony Katz today. The markets really do like it when you protect the straight-up or moves. Oh, they're never so happy as when you're protecting the straights and protecting the oil and it's just fantastic. And of course, the U.S. is saying there's a peace plan with Iran. Now, if you ask me, I'll tell you, I have no idea what the heck anybody is talking about at any time of the day. When it comes to the idea of a peace plan, when it comes to the idea that somehow, magically we are roaming free over to Iran, here at the city, to Iran, as opposed to Iran. We're roaming free. We can do whatever we want. And as you know, today, we're going to have the privilege of shooting down a very big electric generation plant, one of the biggest in the world.

1:02And one shot to the right location ends the plant that collapses. And we held off based on the fact that we're negotiating, you know. What do you think was the turning point to make you want to pursue a ceasefire a few days ago? You said you wanted to continue bombing Iran. Now you want to pursue peace talks. So is there something that... They're talking to us and they're talking since. And remember to all start with they cannot have a nuclear weapon. Just, you know, I said yesterday, what are they said? What are the top 10? I said, well, number one, two and three is they can't have a nuclear weapon. And they're not going to have a nuclear weapon. And we're talking about that. I don't want to say in advance, but they've agreed they will never have a nuclear weapon. They've agreed to that. The question, of course, is who has agreed to that? Who possibly has agreed to that, but neither here nor there. The markets here, oh, we've got peace and they're like, woohoo, market goes nuts. Tony cats, Tony cats today, guys, good to be here, good to be with you.

2:04Find everything I do over at TonyCats.com. The show she didn't get up yesterday. I don't know what I did wrong. I apologize for that. I'll make up for it today. Snacks for everybody. TonyCats.com. I don't know who this peace deal is with. I'm not opposed. I will admit that I am opposed to the idea that there's going to be some kind of peace deal when the regime is still in place. If any part of the regime is still in place, if we're dealing with this Iranian parliament speaker, Muhammad Bogger, God above. He's a hardliner. Oh, but he's a pragmatic hardliner. Stop it. Does he want dead Jews, dead Israel, call America the great Satan and want to end Western civilization? Yes or no, as he waits for the 12th Imam. Because if so, it's just a guy with a different hat.

3:06That's it. And I don't want us to lie to ourselves. I don't want to pretend that somehow we've done something here. We may have delayed something here. And there is a pragmatism to that, but we haven't done something if we haven't ended the regime and their supportive terrorism and their pursuit of nuclear anything. And then President Trump yesterday, this was an odd moment in the oval where he's discussing that they received a big present from the Iranians. They're going to make a deal. They did something yesterday that was amazing. Actually, they gave us a present and the present arrived today. It was a very big present worth a tremendous amount of money. And I'm not going to tell you what that present is. So that meant one thing to me would deal with the right people. No, it wasn't nuclear oil and gas related. Well, who doesn't like oil and gas?

4:09And since this whole conversation is about oil and gas, let me bring it back. To the conversation about the Strait of Hormuz. You can't trust the Iranians at all. I love that the Wall Street Journal had a headline and lots and lots of headlines today about how the Iranians are playing hardball. You'll know that the Iranians always play hardball, right? That's how they negotiate, but now they've been punched in the face and they're still playing hardball. I think you got to keep punching them in the face until they stop. This is about the Strait of Hormuz. And this story right here about how the British will be in the Strait. The British are sending the Royal Navy to lead a coalition to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. Now, what exactly did we talk about just like he maybe was a week ago? We discussed the fact that no one should be surprised by any stretch of the imagination that the British weren't a part of or jumping at the bit, jumping into being a part of

5:14this with Iran, nobody wants to be seen as the Johnny come lately. No one wants to be seen as the afterthought when you're talking about leadership on the world stage and guiding your militaries, of course, how you look strong and if you're a world leader, what an opportunity that is, let's not get ourselves. Let's not pretend. No, when you're dealing with the United States and a personality like Trump, these nations actually get a benefit from not succumbing to Trump, not coalescing around him, but rather being tough against him, all politics are local. Whether you agree or disagree, leave that to the side, understand how they view it. It's helpful. It's not that, okay, here's how they view it, but maybe here's how they're wrong in the long run, right? We can debate those out, understand that it's not all based on what we see. That's what influencers say, but influencers are stupid.

6:15Rational people take a look at the conversation and then of course come to a conclusion, but at least understand what's happening around them so they can make that conclusion. These leaders are better off saying, well, well, well, well, you were not going to be dragged into this by you and we're not here to just clean up your mess. But now here comes Britain, because remember, Britain wouldn't send the aircraft carrier and then they offered it up later and Trump said, well, I don't need your aircraft carrier. Now, there was a report about Iran firing missiles at the USS Abraham Lincoln. I think we'll find out more about this to the extent that we do. In the days ahead, it was naval today that had the story, as I saw it, that Iran fired 101 missiles at the USS Abraham Lincoln, right? We've got a piece deal, but they're still firing missiles. They do what they do. Now, we should also know everything is about telling the story.

7:20Firing missiles is different than hitting. I know. I know what you're going to say. Do I care? No. I'm with you on that. But understand how these things project. People trying to say face all sorts of things. Who knows if they even have the capability of guiding these missiles at this moment, even though they certainly have missiles that can reach targets 2,500 miles away, like Europe? Maybe that got the interest of the United Kingdom and maybe that's what made them say, you know what we'll do? We'll lead the mission to reopen the straight. Now Kier Starmer, because there was a conversation between President Trump and Kier Starmer yesterday, what does Kier Starmer get to do? You knew it. The minute I brought it up, you're like, oh, okay, I can see that politically. Now he's leading something. Now he's taking a position of strength in order to ensure that the world's energy supply continues safely. He's not doing it for the United States. He's doing it for the world.

8:22Of course that's different. And of course you would be right to say that's kind of insulting to the U.S. isn't it sure? But does Trump get out of it, what he needs out of it, which is an open, straight of our moves? Absolutely. And if Iran should get a little uppity with some warships of the British, because the British absolutely have some warships, well, then I guess the U.K. is going to be a little bit involved. Here we are trying to do this thing for the world and you attack one of our ships. Well, the world's not going to stand for that. And Great Britain has always led the world until America kicked our ass in 1776. But until then, we totally led the world. All politics are local. Once you start taking a look at these things in that wide swath, you realize how this all comes together.

9:22And you can make the argument that's kind of insulting that they wouldn't work with us to take out the Iranian threat. There are responses. You didn't come to us to work with us to work on the Iranian threat. So we're not going to follow the leader. But now they get to be a leader. And after all, that's what they want because they're saving face to. But the move helps the United States and the move helps the oil markets. The move makes everybody feel super, super duper good. Now I will admit that from, remember, these things will change and they're changing all the time. West Texas crude this morning was like $88 a barrel and Brent crude was $100 a barrel and there was like this $11, it was $88 50 or something like that on the Brent. So Brent, I'm sorry, West Texas was $88 and 50 cents or so. West Texas crude, known as the WTI, West Texas intermediate, that comes out of the ground.

10:26Brent crude comes out of the oceans. That's the way I define it. Somebody who knows more about oil could define a little bit better than me. But that's the way I break it down to these two categories. The spread as I've been covering the stuff on my, I talk about the stuff on my morning show every day. The spread's usually like three to five bucks. West Texas is lower than Brent crude. The difference is three to five dollars, usually that's what it is. Now with this, the spread has been higher and there's been a while where West Texas was above Brent and now the spread is about $11 a barrel. Brent crude out of the oceans more expensive than West Texas crude. I can't tell you specifically what that means. I'm trying to get an answer to that and if you guys know, if somebody knows, who knows this business, Tony at Tonycats.com, send me an email. I'd love to get your take on that and what that means and if there's something specific there or if it's just, no, it's just because these things are traveling to the oceans, it's just taking a little bit longer, right? We actually categorize it in a different way, etc., right?

11:28There can be a bunch of reasons. But the West Texas under $100 a barrel or back into the 80s has got to make people feel good and the markets today, you know, had the pre-market at like a plus 400 and the Nasdaq was plus 250, they're happy about it. The Dow is like, finally, we're getting somewhere, which brings us to another part of all of this that's worthy of note, which is the outrageous, childlike, nervous response of the Democrat Party, which looks at everything and says, this is terrible and this is awful and what a mess and look at the disaster and look what Trump did and sky high prices.

12:28Is that true of tomorrow? The objective, being all politics, being local, is to take whatever the calamity is of the moment and make it the most important calamity. Sometimes we fall for that because we're human and because these media assets work in such a way to try and take one subject and make it the only subject and it's all you hear, we can sometimes fall for it. So we're just as human as anybody else. So what's important is that we take a step back. Oil prices have been high and gas prices are buck a gallon higher than they were and in my state of Indiana, they're $4, it's $4 a gallon now. And $4 gallon gas sucks and in other places, it's more.

13:31Is that going to be the case next week? The Democrat Party on Twitter had the audacity to talk about high gas prices and never once talking about Joe Biden's high gas prices. With Donald Trump, we can argue it is a temporary policy if only because the War Powers Act would require this all to be done in 60 days. If he's utilizing the War Powers Act to engage this action, he could take the action. He could have to then notify Congress in 48 hours, which he did. He has 60 days to conclude the action. He can request an extra 30 days to wind down the removal of the military for their safety and security. That's going to happen. That's going to happen. And then this gets wound down. Take the straight of hormones is open again. If there is a level of deal made, even if I disagree with it because it doesn't involve the removal of the regime and the West Texas crew, which is now at 88, drops down to 71,

14:40not into the mid 60s where it was when this started, but to $71. You might be paying an extra nickel. I might be paying an extra nickel. I said, I don't think I want to pay an extra nickel. I am saying it isn't for forever. It isn't because Joe Biden and that administration engage policies that said, we don't care if you're paying too much for gas. It doesn't matter for us because as Scott Jennings pointed out very well on CNN the other day, Democrats love high gas prices because it helps people move to the wind and to the solar. And Democrats are like, oh, that's not true. Barack Obama stated in the run for president. He stated the words that we have to change how people view these things. We have to artificially increase the price of gas because if we don't, no one's going

15:43to use these other fuel sources. So we have to change things around and therefore, therefore, the price of oil, the price of gas will necessarily skyrocket. Don't believe me? Okay. Believe him. You know, and climate change is a great example, you know, when I was asked earlier about the issue of coal, under my plan of a cap and trade system, electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket. Even regardless of what I say about whether coal is good or bad, because I'm capping greenhouse gases, coal-powered plants, natural gas, you name it, whatever the plants were, whatever the industry was, they would have to retrofit their operations. That will cost money. They will pass that money on to consumers. Case rested.

16:43They were fine with and have always been fine with. Your energy costs going up so they could push their green agenda. This is not new. Don't get wrapped up in the idea that this is for forever. That's influencer progressive bull crap talk. We have to ask ourselves what is happening? What is the actual tangible thing? If the British get to the straight of hormones and oil starts to flow and gas prices come down, what are these lefty screaming about? And you realize what they're screaming about is we don't care how we demoralize US troops or the American people. We don't care how much we actually help the booey, the morale of the Iranian regime low lives. As long as Trump loses and as long as Democrats get power, they'll say anything. You know I'm right. I'm Tony Katz. This is Tony Katz today. Speaker Mike Johnson delivered a bit of a smack down today.

17:45Tony Katz. Tony Katz today, guys, thanks for being here, talking about the murder of Shardin Gorman. He was killed in Chicago by an illegal Venezuelan immigrant and Mayor Johnson and some alderman are like, well, it's a wrong place, wrong time. Well, you know, what are you going to do? Oh, how dare you speak poorly of immigrants. We're talking about illegal immigrants. We're talking about a murderer here and speaker Johnson. And we know that Medina Medina entered the United States illegally on May 9, 2023. That's under the Biden administration with their wide open borders policy. We also know he was caught by Border Patrol and let into the country, released into the country, like millions of others. And thanks to the Democrats open border policy, those are indisputable facts. But for that crazy set of policies, this young lady would still be alive. Weeks later, Medina was arrested in a major American city after they let them in. Again, only to be released onto the streets of Chicago. Why? Because of crazy Democrat policies.

18:47He would later take the life of Sheridan Gorman. The irony of all this is that the system did not fail Sheridan. That worked exactly as the Democrats intended. You had Democrats in charge of the White House and in charge in the city of Chicago. Open borders policies, sanctuary cities policies. They coddled the criminal illegal alien. They empowered. They allowed this to happen and that's why we're so angry about it. I very much appreciate this kind of talk. They did this. Their policies did this. And it is the perfect line. It's actually take off of a line Donald Trump used them from the UN in his first term, which I think is his best speech ever. In Venezuela, it's not that socialism has been implemented improperly. It's that it was implemented faithfully. That's why it's a disaster. That's why Democratic policies are disasters. Remember that, come to midterms. I'm Tony Katz. This is Tony Katz today. It's more than probable, more than possible.

19:48It's probable that you're not familiar with the name Cara Swisher, which is okay because you're not somebody reading the New York Times or watching CNN because mostly you love yourself. Tony Katz. Tony Katz today. Good to be here. Good to be with you. Find everything I do over at TonyKatz.com. She is a tech reporter. That's how she made her bones. And then she created a recode with Walt Mossberg, who's a famous name in that world. And then she did opinion for the New York Times and she was back over it at Vox. And she now has a show on CNN. I don't know how she got a show on CNN, but I'm not in charge of CNN's programming. If I was in charge of CNN's programming, I would have a show on CNN and they would have ratings. I had said when, when Jim Acosta in the most stunning and pseudo intellectual move ever,

20:51he couldn't come to some deal with, with CNN because they didn't want him to have the show that he had. They wanted to move him to midnight, midnight to 2 a.m. And he was making like 750 grand. Now you could argue, hey, in the TV world, that's not much. But in the Jim Acosta world, that's more than he deserved. And he was like, I'm not going to do that. I'm going to go about starting my own podcast. Okay, man, go start your own podcast. I'm not here to stop you. But for anybody thinking of starting their own podcast, you start the podcast if you're on traditional media, you do not start the podcast afterwards. You started before. You start it while you have the other thing. So if you lose the thing, you still have somewhere to go. Now Jim Acosta has more subscribers than I do. He has 248,000 subscribers on YouTube.

21:55That to me is an unbelievable number. His videos get 6,000 views, 5,000 views. There's one that got 115,000 views. So he can get some numbers. I cannot tell you if he's making any money. I'm willing to bet that it's not the $750,000. I'm willing to bet that while indeed, I mean, he's doing award winning interviews with Steve Schmidt, my point proven, this is all just leftist insanity. And if you want to hear about leftist insanity, did you hear this from Jennifer Welch, again, who does a podcast talking about JD Vance and his wife Una and their kids, listen to this. He is married to a woman of Indian descent. He has mixed race children. So to all of the mega voters out there, if this man will not defend his wife and will

22:55not defend his kids, do you think he gives a crap about you or anything to do with you? This is kids from what, what are you, what are you possibly referring to? Her name is Jennifer Welch. She's like this new face, the Democratic party. She is beyond vile. She is the poster child of being a Karen, whatever affluent suburb is in near where you live. That's where she lives and guaranteed she's on the HOA board. Why are you bringing up his kids? What do you mean he doesn't care about his kids? What possibly you're talking about? You don't think he knows his wife is Indian? He married the woman and I'm pretty sure he may have seen her in various stages of undress, what with having the children and all. You don't think he noticed? What argument is this? What insanity is this? But this on the political left as Chris Hayes isn't in interviewing her, I guess this passes it some kind of rational thought.

23:56Jim Acosta was never a journalist, Jim Acosta was a leftist who was on CNN and his job was to attack a president Trump, not because Jim Acosta was right, but because attacking the president would keep you on the air and he got offered midnight to two. He's like, I'm not going to do that. And I said at the time, I'll take that show right now. I will take midnight to two. I do a morning show in Indianapolis. I've got this show right here. I've got eat, drink, smoke. I will take that show right now midnight to two a.m. pay me half of the 750. All right, a little more than half, we'll just round it up to 400. And I will have better ratings than Jim Acosta ever had in six months at midnight to two. Nah, it's Eastern, of course, that's nine to 11 on the West Coast. I will have better ratings. I'll be a more entertaining show. You will love it. And then you'll pay me what you paid him. You know what? You'll pay me a little bit more because I exceeded the expectation. He wasn't willing to take that deal.

24:59Crazy. Use the platform, then build your other platform. That's the business, Boo Boo. That's how it works. By the way, follow me on YouTube, Tony Katz, be sure to subscribe. Jim Acosta, 248,000 subscribers. That is a lot of people living in their mom's basement and angry liberal white women. Kara Swisher, she's got a show coming to CNN, Kara Swisher wants to live forever. Well, sorry, I guess it's about tech and it's about longevity and how people will survive and are trying to survive. And that's what the show is about, except now she's come out to say that with the new purchase of CNN by Paramount Skydance, because Paramount Skydance, which is owned by Ellison, is purchasing Warner, Warner own CNN, Ellison, Larry Ellison, of course, Oracle, David Ellison

26:05is the son. They purchased Paramount, which is of course CBS. They put in Barry Weiss as the editor in chief and layoff started to happen. They just ended the whole radio world of CBS, CBS radio was around for almost 100 years. It is kind of nutty that it took place, but it's also the way things go. And people quit and then they were laid off and it's funny, one of the guys who is laid off said, hey, I got a new job, it's the most liberal outfit possible, it's called Midas Touch and their whole job is to be anti-Trump. That's their whole purpose. That's where you got a job. So really, no change for him. Because of this purchase and because of people hating Barry Weiss, who is not a conservative, but she believes in free speech and she actually wants to build a newsroom, Cara Swisher is now saying that when this takeover takes place, she's going to leave.

27:06The moment Paramount Skydance completes the takeover of Warner Brothers, she's leaving. You have no idea what's going to happen. You're going to quit before they have a chance to fire you. That's clearly the way to take this, right? That's clearly what it is that Swisher's saying here. She knows she's going to be fired because she knows that everything that she discusses because somehow she's been allowed to be this opinion person is all progressive nonsense and nothing that is rational. Now when CNN hired Chris Lyft, I had high hopes for him as the CEO. His job was to reset CNN into a worthy model and it didn't work. Lots of resistance, lots of leaks and then he was let go. It really stinks for him. Now maybe he wasn't the leader that was necessary, I don't know the man, I don't know all the

28:10internals, but I do know that CNN wants to be this, a progressive outfit claiming to be decent. They don't apologize for pushing Russia, Russia, Russia, they don't apologize for pushing any COVID scams, they don't apologize for hiding Hunter Biden and they still have the audacity to claim that they're the decent ones. You watch Abby Philip on her show Abby Philip tonight, a show that could have been monumental for CNN in making this pivot and wouldn't have taken much and instead support every leftist on the show, a tax got Jennings all day all night all the time and that guy handles himself like no one you've ever seen, it's super impressive, super duper impressive. CNN hasn't changed a bit. They are still the the the the Jim Acosta place, there's still the Jim Acosta station.

29:13If she is indeed telling the truth that she's going to be gone, the question being asked was actually asked by Garrett C. Wright in one of the radio trades called Barrett Media, com. It's the right question is Cara Swisher on her own or other people going to follow suit? Will other people quit CNN because of the takeover? And my answer is gosh, I hope so. Good. Let them leave. Do you know how much talent is out there? Tony, you're just talking about yourself. Oh, yeah, sure. Oh, be a great opportunity as long as I didn't have to do one of those kinds of shows, right? I know I could do it. Like as a host, I'm fully aware that I could do the Hannity type show. I don't think that's what I want. Could I do the Brett Bear kind of show?

30:17Yes, I could. I would be more interested in the Tim Russell ask kind of show and you could argue as in that what Brett Bear does. And I would say I would think that there's a little more rigidness to Brett Bear's time slot. And I would want a little more expansiveness. So that's where I make the difference, not disparaging Brett Bear in the slightest. But what I really want is late night. That you know, it's like, you know, what I really want to do is direct. No, what I would really want is is is late night for sure. Absolutely. I think there's more room in that space. And I think that if you mix comedy with kind of the the interview long form interview concepts Larry King. Oh, who's the guy who ended up taking off his pants in front of people Charlie Rose? The name Charlie Rose, right? That kind of stuff like I always wanted to do the longer form meets playboy after dark with the cigar with the bourbon everything else and kind of get kind of

31:18get into it with with with all sorts of people. That's where I'd like to be a little more comedy willing to be until laugh kind of focus. I would say that's where I'd want to be. And I'd show it absolutely want to want to do and still want to do. But yeah, there's a lot of people out there and you could probably name 100 people. You know what? Maybe not 100. You can name five. You give it five minutes of thought. You'll come in with five people you've listened to. They'd be like yep, they would they would do a great job. There's so much good talent out there that doesn't get the chance. And you say to me, who would want to be on CNN? And what I would say to you is we don't know what CNN is going to be yet. We don't know. And with a new ownership, if you're going to lose these people, there's a chance to remake it into something. Doesn't have to be a conservative. Something no. But it could offer up perspectives and ideas and thoughts and simply not be hateful. Maybe more to the point. And yes, hateful is a huge part of it. Not be so full of crap. CNN is full of garbage. They lie to themselves and they lie to us

32:27every single day about them not having a slanted, not having a bias. At least say so. My name's Tony Katz. I'm a conservative. I don't apologize for a damn thing. And if you don't like it, tell your mother to kiss off. I don't care. This is it, kittens. This is who I am and this is what I'm doing. And if you want to give me Katari money to change my mind, I'm going to say sorry there are other guys out there that you might want to go to. This is it. This is the show I want to do. These are the conversations I want to have. This is how I want to engage. And I think that there's room for a whole bunch of stuff. I don't think that you have to not listen to other people, not engage with other people. But I sure so don't want to engage with other people who are going to start with what you know Trump's a pedophile. No, he's not. That's crap. And that's the stuff you dismiss. But people who might disagree with the policy of Trump,

33:27yeah, I'll talk to them. Disagree with the policy of Israel. Talk to them too or England or France, which I disagree with many of their policies, specifically immigration policies. There's a great opportunity here. Why would I say no to it? Why would anybody? We don't know what we're going to get. That's my point about Kara Swisher. She doesn't know what she's going to get. She's already out the door, which means she knows what she's giving and what she's giving isn't needed. What she's giving isn't good. What she's giving doesn't get ratings. And most importantly, what she's giving precludes the importance of honesty, which is what happens when you disagree with your own team. You got to say so. And you see it and people won't do it. So yeah, let the takeover happen. Show these people the door. And no one is going to miss Kara Swisher. No one.

34:29Let me say it again. No one. I'm Tony Katz. This is Tony Katz today. So meta is found guilty and has to pay $375 million in fines. Tony Katz. Tony Katz today. The claim is that meta failed to protect kids from sexual predators and misled users. They're appealing the case. But that's not the part I think we should pay attention to, although we should see how the appeal goes. It's not a court was willing to say to a tech company, to a social media platform, you're not doing enough, which now leads to two things. Number one, what happens when they start doing enough? What gets curtailed? Does that mean your ability to speak gets curtailed? Does that mean the bots and all the fake users suddenly go? And if they go, where is their money? Because don't they make a lot of money from that? This case, which isn't getting much play because, of course, everything

35:31happened with Iran and oil prices and is there really going to be an end to this war? Who in the world could you possibly be negotiating with? This case has ramifications that we don't even know yet. Does this cause smaller players to get out of the game? Does it require them to have less users? I'm telling you, remember this, because we're going to be hearing about this and its reverberations for a while. Find everything at TonyCats.com tomorrow, everyone, take care.