What a wind-down of the War in Iran could look like

And thanks for joining us on another busy night. Of all things people, power, and politics, this is The Pulse. I'm Rupe Raj. President Trump said he feels the war with Iran is, quote, effectively over after meeting with Qatar's prime minister. You'll remember, Qatar has been mediator between the U.S. and Iran. Retired Naval Intelligence Commander Dr. Paul Chabot with what a wind-down could actually look like. Plus, we're talking about the future of both parties with Democratic State Representative Noah Arbit and Kerry Leon Jackson, who's known as the urban conservative. There's so much to unpack after that election. We're taking a closer look at which direction they see the left and the right going now. Plus, we're going inside the economy with Oakland University's Michael Greiner. President Trump's plan to import Russian diesel has stalled, plus inflation is higher than expected. We take a closer look at what's driving all of that and why gas prices are actually going down right now. We begin with a warning issued by the Trump administration issued to Democrats over their planned investigations into the Trump administration. Now, this comes after Congressman Robert Garcia, who will likely be the next House Oversight Chair, warned Trump officials to, quote, lawyer up. Now, keep in mind, these investigations are standard in congressional oversight, and Republicans led a wide-ranging investigation into former President Biden and his family. But in a letter that was first reported by Punchbowl News, White House counsel Will Scharf told Garcia in part this, quote, threats to executive branch officials designed to deter them from public service or process designed merely to abuse or instill fear in the recipient may cross the line into blatant criminality. That's Will Scharf. Now, Garcia spoke with reporters and said he won't be intimidated. Donald Trump is clearly hiding something We're not gonna be threatened or intimidated. We're demanding accountability and understanding. The truth is that he needs to understand that Congress is a coequal branch of government This idea that President Trump or the White House counsel wants to send threatening letters to myself, in which he of course also threatens other members of Congress broadly, is not not only not constitutional, but it's not gonna stop our important work either. We need to understand at this moment that what happened on the election, the American public are very clear. They want us to focus on affordability and they want us to focus on accountability. We should also point out current chair James Comer, the Republican from Kentucky, told the Associated Press while he hasn't read the letter, he does feel the panel is, quote, very independent. That's just scratching the surface. Let's pick up the pace and run through some of the other stories in the news, making the rounds in the world of politics right now, beginning with outgrowing. Democratic Congresswoman Haley Stevens, she missed yesterday's procedural vote on impeaching Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. And we're getting new insight from Politico about what she's been doing since her return to Washington. Stevens has reportedly spotted in the Republican cloakroom, reportedly avoiding her Democratic colleagues. Stephans' future in the Democratic caucus is in doubt as she might have broken caucus rules when she endorsed Mike Rogers in the Senate race. Those rules say this. In order to maintain membership and good standing, members shall not participate in campaign activities for any candidate in a partisan federal election who is not a member of the Democratic Party. Stevens lost the primary, as you know, to Senator-elect Abdul Al-Sayed. Her current seat will be filled by Democrat Jeremy Moss. And it has now been more than a week since Michigan elected its new governor, Democrat Jocelyn Benson. In that week, we've had incoming Attorney General. Ali Savitt here on The Pulse and incoming Secretary of State Garland Gilchrist telling us he's excited to join for the first time since the election. We're trying to work with the schedulers on that, but we have not been able to get in touch with the governor-elect Benson, and not for lack of trying. Today, after reaching out to both her current office staff and her transition team, we eventually received a response of, we will be in touch when she is available. Thank you for reaching out. We look forward to Governor-Elect Benson talking to Fox 2 very soon to answer some of our questions and yours, speaking directly to folks in Detroit and South East Michigan. To the war in Iran, which President Trump declared the other day is militarily, quote, effectively over. He made those comments after meeting with Qatar's prime minister. But within the last day, we've also learned the US evacuated aircraft from a base in eastern England due to a threat. The Wall Street Journal reports the threat is related to Iran. Here to dive into all of this, including what a possible wind-down could look like, is retired Naval Intelligence Commander Dr. Paul Chabot. He also served as White House Senior Advisor to Presidents Clinton and George W. Bush. And it's always good to see you. Thanks for joining us here tonight. You're hearing the President say on Veterans Day at Arlington National Cemetery, the President said the U.S. has effectively won the conflict and that it is just a question of whether Of when we want to end it, aiming for a total victory rather than a partial one. Militarily speaking, do you see what he's saying as a reflection of what's really happening? I think right now we are at a stalemate. President Trump has told Gulf allies that he is holding off on attacking Iran. At the same time, we are keeping that blockade in place, which is really limiting the Iranian government from making much military. On top of that, we launched a new effort to try to stop Certain kinds of weapons or technology from coming over ground into Iran. But Iran has really picked up their rhetoric in the last few hours, which I think should give us pause as well as concern. Iran has really hardened their nuclear position. Just recently they said they will not give up their enriched uranium and they will not turn it over to anyone else. They've also said that if we attack Pickaxe Mountain, which is allegedly a location that Thank you very much. US bases. At the same time, we have seen Iran show new video, or it could be old video, but they're showing it now, of new stockpiles of ballistic missiles, which they state have even a longer range of the 1600 plus miles that we thought before. So there is a lot of saber rattling coming out of Iran tonight. Well, it's just interesting to note that, of course, on one hand, you have President Trump saying the war is essentially over. On the other hand, you have the senior official, the Secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, saying that Tehran will not give up even a single particle of enriched nuclear material from that country. When you hear those two, those two are like oil and water. You can't have both. No, and so at home, it's sort of whiplash. Oil prices have dropped to around $90 a barrel, so Americans are seeing at least the gas prices come down. But in the Middle East, we really are at a stalemate. And Iran has also said that they are not gonna give up control of the Strait of Hormuz, which is critical. So what we're potentially leaving here would be leaving it much worse than how we entered it. Unknown stockpiles of Iranian enriched uranium, which we know they were at 60%. Very close to 90%, which is nuclear grade, and control the Strait of Hormuz. Also we're seeing that the Iranian proxies are still very active. The Houthis in Yemen today attacked Saudi Arabia. And again, they're going after oil, which is gonna continue to put pressure on the system throughout the region. I feel that certainly we all want this war over. It was clear in this election. But what this looks like, I think it's very challenging to get to a smooth landing here. However, Wall Street Journal is reporting today that Vice President Vance may be doing direct talks with the Iranian officials. We know he did that about six months ago and that was unsuccessful. Yeah, we also know that at this point, you talk about the Strait of Hormuz and the oil markets. It is worthy of note that the U.S. maintains a naval blockade, but we should also mention that the regional exports have recovered to nearly 90% of pre-war levels. That means that that's one big reason the gas prices we're seeing have come down. So one of the big issues we had with Iran, the Strait of Hormuz, seems to have been somewhat alleviated in this case. Somewhat, but remember, it is much more expensive now to transit oil. The ships are paying much more on insurance fees to move them through the Strait of Hormuz. Tonight, Iran again attacked Oman for working with the US in the Strait of Hormuz. Saudi Arabia has got an east-west pipeline. A lot of oil is now moving over ground. That's much more expensive. So certainly, we may see oil prices drop, but the cost of moving it has increased, and that may stay Also, the Al-Mandeb Strait, which is what the Houthis control, still as well. Smaller percentage of what comes out of Strait of Hormuz, but also very critically important, and they are allied with Iran as well. We should also mention that there's been reporting out there that the Treasury Secretary, Scott Bessent, has been moved out of his home because of threats to his life. I mean, this is serious stuff when you have a state that's essentially threatening a cabinet member of the president. It is, and so many years ago before 9-11, no congressional member had private security. Now they have a budget to have security for congressional members. Secretaries have always had higher level security law enforcement around them. Many have already been on military bases, but to move the Secretary of the Treasury over there, it makes sense because he is directly targeting Iran financially. So it makes sense for Iran to, doesn't make sense to us rationally, but we can understand Why the threats are coming? Coming in to that Treasury Secretary, but yeah, putting him on a military base almost seems un-American that we are moving all of our big leaders from their homes with us in neighborhoods and putting them in military installations for better protection. Dr. Paul Chabot, thanks for your perspective here tonight on The Pulse. We appreciate you joining us. My pleasure. Thank you. Thank you. We're discussing the future right after the break. Democratic State Representative Noah Arvid and the urban conservative Carrie Leon Jackson with what next year and beyond could look like for both parties. You're watching The Pulse on FOX 2. Back on The Pulse, looking at all things people, power and politics. Here to talk about the future of both parties, Democratic State Representative Noah Arvid and Carrie Leon Jackson, known as the Urban Conservative. Good to have you both with us here tonight. And it's been a long, as we said, long four months or more, depending on how long you've been following the election. Of course, now the results are in. You had that blue wave that happened. Carrie, you watched that. You were a part of our election coverage the night this all happened. You weren't surprised by what you saw. Why? I wasn't surprised by what I saw on election night. I've been a little bit surprised as the results have come in about what happened in several states in the South. Including Mississippi, which just- Mississippi, Texas, Georgia, clearly the one mood of all of the voters, no matter north, south, east, or west, where in this country is they want fighters and they want change. And I'm telling you whether it's someone in the Democratic Party or in the Republican Party, these voters, there are a lot of new voters, a lot of people that usually don't want to get involved in the process. And I'm telling everybody, you've got five minutes to. To do exactly what they want and to give those people what they want or else they're gonna forget about you and you'll be out. I'll never forget it. It was 1996 and I was at Michigan State University as a young college student who was a reporter at the CBS station and Bill Clinton came through on a train stop tour to East Lansing and he stopped and we all went and watched him and he kept talking about young voters, first time voters and that was me. And I remember feeling energized by his message, regardless of who you were gonna vote for, that it was important to get out there and vote. And then there was this kind of lull, where you didn't hear about young voters for a little while. And then Obama came about, and then you heard about young voters, and there was a lull again. Are we seeing younger voters be the determining factors in these elections, Noah? I don't know about the determining factor. I think there are so many different Kinds of voters that determined why Democrats won in big numbers last Tuesday. But I think they're an increasingly important part of our coalition. And I think younger voters, you know, particularly, you know, my age and younger, who sort of grew up, you know, the first sort of thing that they knew about was. You know, the experience of the recession, right? And then the COVID pandemic and just sort of the economy sort of beating them down and beating them down and not being able to now, you know, go through the stages of life that our parents and grandparents have gone through, you know, being able to have, you know, a stable job that we, you know, lived through, you know, work for the same place. You know, it's not the same kind of economy that our parents grew up in, not being able to afford a home, having health care costs be out of control. You know, all these kinds of dynamics of the economy are new and different. And so that requires politicians and elected officials bringing new solutions to the table. But bringing new solutions, yes, but bringing new ways of campaigning also. Oh, absolutely. I mean, because before- New media, social media, TikTok. New media, social media, you can't just do traditional media. You gotta be on TikTok, you gotta do the podcast route. And you saw that in 2024, of course, with both Kamala Harris and with also Donald Trump, the president, they both were on those podcasts. My question to you is that activation, do you think that from 2024 until now, We know for a fact that there were large numbers of first-time young especially male voters that hadn't voted before That were activated. Yeah, and I think that that's the case in 2024 And we saw that there was a market shift to the right and then we saw what happened when you know Those policies were enacted and we saw a widespread revulsion And that's why Democrats had, you know, a pretty massive victory last Tuesday beyond even my expectations. And I think the expectations of so many people elected, not elected, just to see, you know, What I've been saying, too, is this is the natural response for Newton's laws of physics, for every action there's an equal and opposite reaction. The amount of damage that this presidency, this administration, and this Congress have done to Michigan and to this country is so substantial that it warranted the massive blue tsunami that we saw. That's why we saw states like Mississippi and Kansas flipping, because the president, His administration. And his enablers in Congress did absolutely nothing that they promised to do. And in fact, tore down guardrails, tore down institutions that were designed to help the American people. I mean, I keep thinking a great example of this is the cyclospora outbreak that we had earlier this summer, right? Destroyed the institution within the health department that was responsible for monitoring food safety. Well, there was a series of things that, including cyclosporosis, which was in the guardrails to be checked. Yeah, absolutely. When that was ripped apart, then obviously that kind of went through the people ate a lot of bad And just one example of the way that they have governed. Let's talk about the way they need to govern moving forward. You have this blue tsunami, and while that makes great headlines and gives people People a lot of relief and perhaps happiness. This could be gridlock if not handled the right way moving forward. What do both the Republicans and the Democrats need to do in Washington and in Lansing to make sure that doesn't happen? One thing that he didn't mention is that the generation, the newer, younger voter, they're not very patient. Well, the one thing that you've got to do in order to go while you're governing is you've got to give them results and you've got to do it immediately. None of this. We're going to study it. We're going to look at it. We'll think about it, two, three, and we'll talk about it after the next election. They want results and they want them now. So if you're going to govern, you've got to get feasible. I mean, not everything can be done at TikTok speed. Right. I mean, this is real legislation. You and I might believe that, but the truth is they've shown us that with technology and communication, if you're not going to do it at TikTok speed, you've got to explain to them why it's taking so long, because you've got to make a difference in their lives. You've got to make it where they can afford a home. You've got to make it where they're not scared to take, you know, they are, the weight of student loans is not just smuggling. Or at least show us that you're working towards that, right? Be transparent about the steps you're taking to make those things happen. Right. A little bit about the gridlock. Representative Arbet, yeah, you may be young, but you've been around the block. You've been a state lawmaker for a long time. You know how things work. How important is it to not get too cocky for the Democrats and for the Republicans to also not be belligerent about the blue tsunami? How do we meet in the middle to get the work done for you know who? The people at home. No, I think that's absolutely right. I mean, this is the, you know, speaking as a Democratic elected official, you know, for me, that's what I've been saying to my colleagues and to my constituents is this is the moment that my party has peak political capital. This is our moment where we have all the cards. We need to play all of our cards with 100%, but not overplay the cards, right? And so that's, I think, my North Star is that we should do everything in our power that we have consensus on to help the people of Michigan, particularly in the legislature, as well as in Congress. Congress, and see what we can do. And then we have to, to your point, we have to continue to communicate about that. There's such a trust deficit, I think, with our institutions, with our elected officials, with our legislators. And so for me as a legislator, the most important thing and most important thing for me to do for my constituents is to keep informing them of what I'm actually doing and how I hope those things will help them. What's something that you think the Democrats can get done in Lansing that they've been complaining they couldn't get done because of Republican rule? I think one of the big priorities that I would like to see done is Really, real accountability for our utilities. We know that's a huge issue, particularly here in southeast Michigan with DTE consumers and, you know, having really poor service levels for people and, you know, some of the highest prices compared to other states. And so really turning the screws on those utility companies and making sure they're delivering the service quality that they should be. Fifteen seconds. Are you hopeful for the future, Kerry? I'm hopeful, but they also need to address auto insurance rates immediately. Very true. Like overnight. That's a big problem. Of course, some of the highest rates in the country right here in Detroit. So very important indeed. Kerry Leon Jackson and Noah Arbutt, Representative Arbutt, good to see you both. Thanks for joining us here tonight. Thanks for having us. We're going inside the economy after the break. Oakland University's Michael Greiner with what's driving inflation as well as the effect the stalled plan to import Russian diesel could have. They're supposed to bring prices down. What's going to happen now? You're watching The Pulse on Fox 2. It is People, Power, and Politics. Welcome back to Detroit's only nightly political talk show, The Pulse. Here to go inside the economy is Oakland University Associate Professor of Management, Michael Greiner, and it's always good to see you, Michael. Thanks for joining us here tonight. Great to be back. Thanks for having me, Rupert. Just looking at some of these notes about the Strait of Hormuz, it says, while the U.S. maintains a naval blockade right now, and there are some escorts that are happening with these vessels, tanker traffic and regional exports have recovered to near Yeah. Is that why we're seeing a shift in gas prices are going lower in the last few weeks? Actually, I would say that's probably not the case. Okay, yeah. I think that, you know, I've heard from a lot of people that, oh, you know, every time that the election ends, you know, gas prices go down. Actually, there is a little correlation there. But the truth is that happens every year, and the reason that it happens every year is because you've got a combination of the oil refineries are going through some maintenance kind of as we go through the transition at the beginning of the fall, and that's come to an end. So now they're back fully performing right now. And then beyond that, also, we're seeing a decline in demand, you know, because people aren't driving as much as they are during the summer. So typically, this time of year, you always do see oil prices go down a little bit. Now that being said, Instead, I do think that you're seeing more coming out of this trade reform was and that has made a difference. The problem is, and this is one place that I have to agree with the president actually, is that with what's going on in Ukraine, that because of the fact that the Ukrainians have found it very effective to be attacking essentially Russian oil production, that that has had an impact then on the amount of products that are available on the market globally. And as a result of that, we've actually seen higher oil prices. That's interesting, because you often, when you think about the oil prices and gas prices, we blame the war in Iran, really it's the conflict with Ukraine and Russia that creates so much of an issue here. And President Trump even telling Fox 2, but three weeks ago, you know what, I'm working with Russia right now to get diesel from their ports to the ports in New York. And now we're understanding that there are people who essentially are saying, I don't wanna do that. It's hard to find an escort for this diesel to come through. That's going to put a chokehold on his plan, isn't it? Oh, it definitely does. Well, it even goes beyond that, where, for example, I think the governor of New Jersey has said that they aren't going to allow any of the Russian, yeah, yeah, transports to come to New Jersey, which, of course, is one of the major ports here in the United States. And generally speaking, there's this sense that they don't want to get involved in purchasing this oil because you never know where it could lead to further investigations. That being said, again, you know, I always kind of try to offer both sides here a little bit. On the one hand, I never thought that this plan was actually going to have a huge impact on the price of diesel. That being, although it sounds like it's a lot of diesel that was being purchased from Russia as a result of this deal. In terms of global demand, you're talking one day's worth. Wow. So, yeah. So the amount of diesel that was coming onto the market really wasn't having that huge of an impact. What's more, too, also I'd like to point out is even if the diesel doesn't come to the United States, that doesn't matter because of the fact that prices are set on a global basis. The United States is actually the world's largest producer of both diesel and the world's largest exporter of diesel. Russia was number two. And so as a result of that, we don't have a problem getting access The problem is, is that because of the fact that oil prices are so high overseas, that essentially the American companies are saying, hey, look, you know, you better pay us the higher price or we're going to sell it overseas. And finally, we have about 20 seconds left. Inflation. What's going to happen in the next? Two months. Well, I think a lot of that depends on really what we see come out of Washington, you know, because as we've discussed before, inflation is driven by the policies going on there. And if we're able to see some changes be delivered, then we'll see inflation go down. If not, they don't go back up. Michael Greiner, great to see you. Oakland University professor of economics. We always appreciate your time. That is the pulse for tonight. We are out of time. Thank you so much for joining us. I'm Rup Raj. As always, it was good to be with you.