The Mark Arum Show 6-18-26 HR 2

Welcome back to the show and a good Thursday morning to you. Mark Aram here, you there. It's 10.05, 5 minutes after 10 o'clock. This is the Mark Aram show live Monday through Friday 9 a.m. to noon on 955. W.S.B. The whole fan with us today. Gracie award-winning Deborah, executive producer of the program. Got Darius on the phones today. And down south, Vinny is on the other side of the takeout window. Coming up in 45 minutes, we're going to check in with Bloomberg News on the future of gas and oil. And by the way, The markets are reacting positively to the memorandum of understanding. Dow's up to Hyundai. Nasdaq's up 250. And oil, Deborah, is down 3.88%. Nice. That Texas sweet crude is hovering at $73.80 a barrel. Far cry from the high of $120. So we're going to go in-depth with that Bloomberg News at $10.50. And perhaps the highlight of today's show, at least in my mind's eyes. Even Vinnie's dancing this song. Gloria Estefan is going to join us live after the news at 1135. And right before Gloria, Deborah's got tickets to see Bob Dylan again. So a very musical-centric final half hour, the Mark Air show. I wonder if I can still remember the dance. Like there is a dance to this. You can always just do a Congo line. Oh, okay. We'll do that in the newsroom. alert Austin and Jonathan O'Brien was very excited about Gloria Estefan so I hope he's here today. Look at J-O-B. All right. You never prejudge. You never know what someone's into. All right. Let's continue our team coverage of the Memorandum of Understanding. Obviously, you know exactly what's been going on. President Trump signed it in Versailles. And there's been a lot of criticism. We talked to Jordana Miller in Jerusalem. Israelis not happy about that. We talked to the head of the Iranian-American Council of Georgia Batole at the beginning of the show, and she seemed okay with it, but not fully on board. This is where I stand, and I've been consistent since day one. When this war started, I said for the first time in my lifetime, there is an open window for us to actually get a legitimate regime change. and a pathway toward a democratic Iran. If Iran became a democracy, that would just change everything. It's an oil-rich country, 91 million people, fantastic Persian people, smart, educated, they're just suffocated by this regime. And they tried an uprising, and the regime killed like 40,000 people not too long ago. So that's where I've been from day one. And obviously that is not what this memorandum of understanding is. The Ayatollah son is staying in charge. We're no closer to a Democratic to Iran than we were 18 months ago. And that's disheartening to me. Now, I want to go back when February 28th, obviously the Iran war started. President Trump addressed the nation, laying out why he, along with Israel, took this military action. This is what the president had to say after the start of the war. The United States military began major combat operations in Iran.

Our objective is to defend the American people by eliminating imminent threats from the Iranian regime. It's menacing activities directly in danger. The United States, our troops, our bases overseas, and our allies throughout the world. It's been mass terror, and we're not going to put up with it any longer. The regime has armed, trained, and funded terrorist militias that have soaked the earth with blood and guts. And it was Iran's proxy Hamas that launched the monstrous October 7th attacks on Israel. It has always been the policy of the United States, in particular, my administration, that this terrorist regime can never have a nuclear weapon. I'll say it again, they can never have a nuclear weapon. They've rejected every opportunity to renounce their nuclear ambitions, and we can't take it anymore. Instead, they attempted to rebuild their nuclear program and to continue developing long-range missiles that can now threaten our... Very good friends and allies in Europe are troops stationed overseas and could soon reach the American homeland. For these reasons, the United States military has undertaken a massive and ongoing operation to prevent this very wicked, radical dictatorship. from threatening America and our core national security interests. We are going to destroy their missiles and raise their missile industry to the ground. It will be totally, again, obliterated. And we will ensure that Iran does not obtain a nuclear weapon. It's a very simple message. They will never have a nuclear weapon. All right, so that was President Trump, you know, telling us that the war started in Iran back on February 28th. And the memorandum of understanding, again, there is a commitment from Iran to not. continue to pursue a nuclear weapon or acquire one. That is in the memorandum of a memorandum of understanding. President Trump has been adamant through the 100 plus days of this war that that is the ultimate goal. There are other goals. There were other goals for this war, but that's the one. But this memorandum of understanding doesn't lay out, like we heard in the news there, the Obama nuclear plan, which allowed inspections. you know international groups to go and it's but that's not part of this memorandum of an we're just taking them at their word which to me has less teeth than the obama deal but if you heard president trump there starting before he got to the nuclear uh issue he talked about the funding of terror

Like for the 47 years since the revolution that Iran has been a state sponsor of terror, funding, Hezbollah, the Houthis, Hamas, the funding that Iran, that was the criticism of the Obama deal. You gave $600 million to $1.7 billion of money back to Iran that was theirs, and they turned around and used that and funded Hamas, which led to October 7th, funded Hezbollah, which leads to what we've been seeing there. That was the criticism of the Obama deal. Now we're staring at a reality where Iran's going to have exponentially more money than they got in the Obama deal. And there's nothing in the agreement that says, hey, you're going to stop funding terrorist organizations. There's nothing in that. There's nothing in that memorandum of understanding that Iran says, okay, we're going to stop giving money to terrorist organizations, our proxies. There's none of that in there. And that was one of the central things that President Trump led with on February 28th saying, hey, we want to knock out Iran's capability to fund these terrorist organizations that have cost Americans' lives for the last 47 years. Nowhere to be found in the agreement. He then transferred to the missile capabilities. He went in depth there. He said the goal of this war is to make sure that Iran doesn't have these ballistic missiles. That could hit Israel. That could hit Europe. And President Trump says eventually they could hit the American homeland. Now, our military did everything we asked of them. Flawless execution. Knocked out a lot of important stuff there. There's no criticism whatsoever of what our military did in Iran. But President Trump yesterday was asked about what about the ballistic missile capabilities? He's like, well, I can't do that. They've got to have missiles. Saudi Arabia's got missiles. So Iran's what? That was one of the central reasons you stated we went to war is that Iran would no longer have their missile capabilities to strike American bases in the region, to strike our ally Israel, to strike our allies in Europe. and eventually the capability to strike us here in the American homeland. That was big. He went on about that, about the missile capabilities of Iran, that that can't not happen. And then asked about it yesterday, he's like, well, it is, they got to have missiles. Like, I can't tell them they can't. And never mind regime change. Never mind regime change, which is not on the table. So again. I don't think this is the end of the story. I think there's a lot of opportunity for negotiators to address, hey, you can't take any of these billions and give them to Hezbollah Hamas or the Houthis. I think there's time to address the missile capabilities. There's a lot. We're not done with this yet. This is a memorandum of understanding that opens negotiations. There has, there'd better be, I want Marco Rubio at that freaking table. I want him at that table. I want him negotiating. No offense to Vice President JD Vance or Steve Witkoff or, no, back to the kids' table. Let the Secretary of State deal with this. So, again, not the end of the road. The story's not written, but I have major concerns from what President Trump stated back on February 28th, why we're in this war, to where we are now.

I went a little long there. Tell Stephen Portnoy to hang on. I'm going to break a little early so we can come back and go to the nation's capital and check in with Stephen Portnoy with more reaction to the Memorandum of Understanding. 1021 on the Mark Aram Show, continuing our team coverage of the Iran negotiations, the Memorandum of Understanding. Joining us from ABC News in the nation's capital, Stephen Portnoy. Steve, we've got confirmation that this is the deed in the Memorandum of Understanding. What are your biggest takeaways from this? I think what's most interesting is the idea that the United States will immediately issue sanctions waivers. to allow Iran to sell oil into the global marketplace right away and receive money right away as a function of its sale of oil. And Iran pledges for 60 days to allow toll-free, safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz. What happens on day 61? Well, that'll be figured out, I guess. There's also the creation of a $300 billion fund that over time will accrue to Iran's benefit for economic development. The regional partners apparently are going to be asked to contribute to that. And the president said yesterday, as this deal is implemented, over time, there'll be the unfreezing of assets, which the president said yesterday is Iran's money, not our money, which is a strange thing for a Republican president to say, particularly one who was so critical of the United States unfreezing assets during Barack Obama's presidency. The president yesterday cast this in practical terms. He said that he didn't want to see economic catastrophe. He says, if you kept this going, that could have happened. He says he doesn't want to be the late great Herbert Hoover, who was president in 1929 during the stock market crash, which touched off the Great Depression. The president said yesterday that the global stockpiles of oil are being depleted, the global reserves. He said, you want to see Bedlam? Just give it four more weeks. So Iranian oil will enter the global marketplace with American ascent, and we'll see what happens next. Oh, yeah, the Iran nuclear program. This agreement has Iran saying that it reaffirms it will not procure or develop nuclear weapons. Reaffirms because they made that commitment more than a decade ago during Barack Obama's presidency. What's new here is they say that they'll work under international supervision to downblend on site their stockpile of highly enriched uranium, which... is new here, and if it's fully implemented, which experts say will take a lot of careful attention and time to negotiate, they fear, that'll be a key element of it. But I guess we'll see what happens next. The president, as he signed this thing at Versailles last night, said to the room, this wasn't easy, and he put his own signature on it. He's sending the vice president to Switzerland at the end of the week tomorrow to sign, I guess, the same piece of paper. I'm not sure why.

But that's what's going to happen. Well, I'm old enough to remember the pallets of cash criticism of former President Obama when that deal went down. After the official MOU was announced, a lot of Republican criticism here, stateside. President Trump, not happy with that, getting on social media early this morning. Do you think he thought this would just be wildly accepted by everybody? I don't know. I think that ultimately, you know, what he's doing is he's saying that critics of the deal are jealous, bad people, or stupid. He's trying to convince his own party and skeptics that this is... for the broader economic benefit of the world, and that's the argument. Iranians claiming complete victory in this war now after the signing of this memorandum of understanding. Now, to be fair, though, there's a 60-day negotiating period, so we don't know what will happen at the end of these 60 days, but I think it's, you know... Pretty shocking that Iran is declaring victory in this war with the United States and Israel. I think that this is not the unconditional surrender that the president said would be necessary earlier this year. And I think that it'll be very interesting to see how the response to this is calibrated by the president's allies in Congress. But so far, Bill Cassidy, the Republican senator from Louisiana, who is not going to be serving after the end of this year because he was essentially ousted from office. The president backed a primary opponent. Bill Cassidy said yesterday that Ronald Reagan would be rolling over in his grave, that this is the worst foreign policy blunder in decades. And finally, Stephen, you remember President Trump addressing the nation or the world right after the war started and laying out why he chose this military action with Israel. And the four things, I think it was four, maybe five things that, you know, led to the war in what they wanted to accomplish. It looks like maybe one of the five might have been accomplished. Well, one of the five would have to do, and a big one from the White House's perspective, is this idea of Iran's nuclear ambitions. I think, you know, look, this pledge on paper is that Iran will not procure develop nuclear weapons. The president's backing up the deal by saying that if it doesn't work out, we'll go back to bombing the hell out of them. That's what he said yesterday. There is, however, history here, which indicates that, yes, Iran can agree to things, and the international community also has said, well, yes, but, you know, when I say international community, I mean the IAEA, the international inspectors. who were skeptical of Iran's compliance as Donald Trump was during Barack Obama's presidency. So I think we're just going to have to see. Stephen, great stuff, as always. Have a good day, my friend. You bet. 1026 in the Mark Ham Show. Just picking up some breaking news from the Supreme Court. Supreme Court limits the power of federal government to disarm.

Drug users. Supreme Court today curbed the power of the government to disarm a frequent marijuana user, limiting the scope of a law enacted during the 60s to keep weapons out of the hands of Americans who regularly use drugs. That just popped from the Supreme Court. We'll digest, marinate, regurgitate, let you know what that means. to gun owners and drug users nationwide. News weather and traffic in three when we come back. More on our top local stories and the memorandum of understanding. This is the Mark Aram Show on 955.WSP. The legend, Gloria Estefan, is going to join us live. She is in town performing a show at the Alliance Theater. Very excited to talk to Ms. Estefan. And right before we talk to Gloria, Debra, you have tickets to give away to see another musical legend. Yeah, Bob Dylan's going to be playing at Chastain. That's a hell of a duo. I'd like to do a duet. A collab between Gloria Estefan. Maybe Vinnie can make that happen. And Bob Dylan. All right. So very musical final half hour of the Mark Aram show. Right now, though, right before the news break, we picked up some breaking news from the Supreme Court. Unanimous Supreme Court decision, they've sided with a marijuana user who wants to legally own a gun. AP correspondent, Sanger Magani, has the ruling. A unanimous Supreme Court has sided with a marijuana user who wants to legally own a gun. The Texas man argued a 1968 law barring illegal drug users from having guns violates the Second Amendment, and the High Court agreed. That's a loss for the Trump administration, which defended the law despite arguing against other gun restrictions. The same law was used in a case against Hunter Biden, who was convicted of buying a gun while a cocaine addict and was later pardoned by his father. This was the latest in a series of firearms cases for a high court that has expanded gun rights. Sagar Magani, Washington. So that's... It's so ironic because when the story broke, I was like, wait, what does that mean for Hunter Biden? So that's interesting. So unanimous Supreme Court to say, we don't see those anymore. And I didn't know that it was the Trump administration that was pushing this. Interesting. So now Hunter Biden can get a firearm? I don't know. Anyway, that's some breaking news. Speaking of drug used, Deborah, let's go to North Georgia. Massive meth bust. How big and where was the meth discovered? All right. This was in Forest Park. So a woman was seen doing a drug deal in the church parking lot. So they started an investigation. Oh, whoa, whoa, whoa, what? Yes. Yeah. This was just like a, almost like a small drug deal. I don't know. Hold on. Let me think about that. Okay. If I were a drug dealer.

Where would I do the deal? Is that a smart thing to do it at the church? Maybe? I would say no. No, but I think, like, police, they're not going to be expecting it there. Right, you think when people are in the church parking lot, because there's all kinds of events for community there. Yeah, there's a potluck going on. There's all kinds of, yeah, different events that happened at different hours and days that happened in churches. All right. I'm not opposed to that. that maneuver. Okay, I'm sorry. All right. Well, anyway, she was doing a deal there. This started an investigation into who this person was and why they were dealing it. So they were able to obtain a warrant and check out their house where they found 200 pounds of meth. And where do you store 200 pounds of meth under the bed, of course. In my card room. In your car room? Yeah, I would start. That's the only place I could store 200 pounds. I don't even know what 200 pounds of meth looks like. So the deal didn't go down. Like there were 200 pounds of meth wasn't in the church parking lot. No, that was a much smaller deal. I think that was maybe like four pounds. But the rest of her staff, she kept under the bed. Well, that's where you put it. So this is in Forest Park. Was it Forest Park police? Was it GBI? Does it say who? Investigators. I'm sure the GBI got involved. I'm sure it was a collaboration between like county and state and federal. But I do want to give a hat tip to the officer that saw something fishy in the church parking lot. Because if I was a police officer. I mean, I would, you know, patrol near church just to make sure nothing, you know, no one's breaking in. Maybe he was doing, like, traffic control that one day. You know how do police come out and do traffic after church? Yeah, I don't know. I don't know what the drug dealer handbook says about where, but I would think that's better than, you know, like a parking line of a Walmart or. A preschool? Yeah, well, I mean, well, I don't know. Anyway, good job. 200 pounds of meth hidden under the, was it a water bed? Does not say. Are those still, have you ever, do you ever sleep in a water bed? I've always wanted to get in a water bed. No, my friend in high school had a water bed. So when we would have sleepovers and I did not like it. Worst experience in my life. You're not missing anything, Vin. You're not missing. I mean, maybe in 2026, the technology is caught up. But in the early to mid-80s, that was a horrible night. Because if it wasn't filled all the way, it was. Yeah, I did not like it. Again, I was a kid. I don't really remember. Uneven. Yeah. It's always uneven. That's the problem. I don't know. No, for all the waterbed salesmen out there. The new ones, who knows? Yeah, I know a lot of folks are financing water beds right now, according to three-year lettermen. But I'm not disparaging the actual, but in the 80s, they were not good. All right now. Dows up, NASDAX up. Gas is falling. O'Brien. Continue our team coverage of reaction to the Iran agreement. His correspondent, Rory O'Neill. Roy markets up. Gas is falling. The Fed says... Hey, we're not going to raise interest rates. Overall, pretty good economic news right now. Yeah, you know, today we're seeing more of the oil decline. And yesterday we saw the Dow drop off big. A lot of that has to do with the comments made by the new chairman of the Federal Reserve, Kevin Warsh. This is the guy who replaced Jerome Powell. So it was some of his comments suggesting that, you know.

We all thought Jerome Powell was sort of, they let his term expire, President Trump did, because he wanted someone to be more aggressive about lowering interest rates. Well, Kevin Warsh's first comments suggest that maybe we could have to raise interest rates before the year is done because of all the inflation caused by the spike in oil prices caused by the conflict with Iran. But as that looks to resolve itself, as the oil prices start to slide, maybe we won't need that rate increase later in the year. So stay tuned. I can't imagine President Trump wanted to hear that from his new Fed chair that interest rates might have to go up. Well, no, and clearly investors didn't want to either with the Dow shedding 500 points yesterday. But, you know, you know how the Dow swings these days. It's nowadays we shrug off 500 point swings, either up or down. But again, a lot of this is now going to depend on the success of negotiators reaching a deal. You know, we talked about this 14-point plan that's really vague, this memorandum of understanding. It's designed to be vague. But, you know, this is my new comparison. I say this is... like when you put in an offer to buy a house or a condo, like we're just at the point where we put in the offer. You've said, I accept. We still have to go through closing. And boy, there's a lot that can happen there. That's a really good analogy. Correspondent, Rory O'Neill, joining us on the market here. I'm sure. All right, so gas prices dip in before below $4 a gallon nationwide. The markets are up. What's ahead for the economy and how is it going to affect the personal spending of the listeners here in Atlanta? Well, I think we're all waiting to see what's going to be happening with these oil prices. You know, it showed as a result of this conflict that it doesn't take much for Iran to be able to disrupt and strangle off the Strait of Hormuz. Just a few Boston whalers, you know, zipping around a tanker can cause all kinds of chaos. And that's going to be a concern going forward. You know, we also got an unrelated report from AAA yesterday talking about the 4th of July travel. They said it's going to be flat, flat airfares. flat air travel, flat by car. They see it bump up in cruising, but that's really seen as a budget option for many travelers since, you know, the food's included, the rooms included, stuff like that. So it's interesting to see that that may be a sign of where a lot of people have confidence in the economy, just sort of saying, you know, it's okay, but I'm just going to hold back a little bit. I don't need to be adding a lot to the credit card right now. Roy, I know it's been a couple days now, but how did the markets react to the New York Knicks winning their first title in 53 years? Insufferable, like all Knicks fans. And then to have this, look, nothing is getting done today. So, by the way, don't look at whatever Wall Street number comes out today. Nobody's working today in New York as the parades being held to celebrate the victory. I just had to sneak it at the end there. Yes, Rory, great stuff, as always, my friend. Have a good day. Hey, thanks, Mark. By the way, the New York Knicks parade going on right now, I am not there. Deborah, we just missed it. We just missed the parade. Just blocks away from it. Yeah, I'm not really a parade guy, though. Yeah. There's a lot of standing around. Do they still throw candy? That's what I remember as a kid. They used to throw candy. Really? Yeah. At the Knicks parade?

Yes, at the Nix parade. Prades in general, right? That's what I remember. If I were nine, I'd be like, yeah, I want to go to the, at 52 I'm like, no. Where's the bathroom situation? You're going to be outside of hotels. He used the bathroom. Yeah. Exactly. Anyway, it took me this long into the show to mention that the next parade is going on right now. That's it. I'm going to drop it because I know you folks don't want me. Just be happy for me. Dear listener, I'd be happy for you if your team won for the first time in 53 years. So just be happy for me. And I'll leave it at that. I'll say no more. All right, continue our coverage of the markets. When we come back after a check of traffic and a quick break, we're going to check in with Bloomberg News because U.S. gasoline prices have fallen below $4 a gallon. We'll see the future of the oil and gas market. On the Atlantic flight, I had ice conditions and general storm. On this flight, really no bad weather at all except a few little rain squalls. On this date in 1928, aviator Amelia Earhart became the first woman to fly across the Atlantic Ocean. She completed a flight from Newfoundland to Wales in about 21 hours. Wonder how much it costs to fill up her plane back in 1928. Speaking of gas prices. Great story. Great for us anyway. Story on Bloomberg.com this morning that the nationwide price of a gallon of gas dripped below $4, first time since the war. Continue our team coverage from Bloomberg News. It's Jack Wittles. Jack, good morning. Thanks so much for your time. Good morning. Thank you for having me. I mean, there's been some criticism of this memorandum of understanding, but I don't think anyone in the oil or energy industries right now is crying over this deal. How have the markets reacted? Yeah, I mean, so it's the first time that the national average gasoline price in the US has gone back below $4 a gallon, sorry, since March. Of course, prices are still a lot higher than before the war. So, you know, there is scope for criticism of the Trump administration on that basis, but it is still... a win for the White House on the basis that prices are lower. And that will no doubt be welcome for a lot of Americans. Refresh my memory, Jack. What was the highest barrel cost that Brent crude hit during this war? Did it get up over 125? I will have to double check on that, but I can tell you that gasoline did go over $450 a gallon in the US, and the prices in Georgia at the moment are a bit lower. The average national price in Georgia, currently $371 a gallon, according to the American Automobile Association. We caught a break for about a month of this war. The governor of Georgia suspended the gas tax. So that was saving us, you know, over 25 cents a gallon. That has since expired. We're paying that gas tax again. But throughout this war, you know, watching the markets, we heard some doomsday predictions, depending on how long the war went, that oil could reach $200 a barrel. It looks like...

That's, I mean, you never know what's going to happen in the future, but it looks like we're not going down that path anyway. No, I mean, the oil market has held up remarkably well. This was really a doomsday scenario in the closure of the straight of all moves. And, you know, I'm just checking now how high oil got. They'll be to say oil futures in the U.S., they didn't surpass $120 a barrel, and they're now back down to about 74. So, yes, it's a combination of China buying less oil, the US releasing some of its strategic reserves. Some people, you know, driving a bit less, flying a bit less. So that combination of demand destruction, China buying less, strategic reserve releases. And some barrels, of course, slipping out through the Strait of Hormuz and others being able to go through the Red Sea via pipeline across Saudi Arabia. That combination has all helped to really keep a lid on prices. And it's not been as bad as I think many people feared. Finally, Jack, you mentioned the Strait of Hormuz. Are tankers moving? We expect increased flow. What's the short-term and long-term future of transit through the Strait? Yeah, so it's not really a binary thing. They never completely 100% stopped, and there are still some tankers going through. especially and with the signing of the MOU, there is a wide expectation that those flows will ramp up. However, it would be premature. This is not a light switch. There are still mines in the strait according to the shipping trade group BIMCO. There are still lots of concerns around insurance and other technicalities to do with shipping. So in the real world, it will probably be a prolonged, gradual restart of flows. This is not going to be it return to normal today, tomorrow, or even this or next week. Jack, unrelated to the memorandum of understanding, but World Cup, we're a host city here in Atlanta. How excited is England thus far? Yeah, I can tell you that I definitely paid close attention to our 4-2 win last night. And, yeah, I don't want to jinx it by saying more than that. Understood, yes, I am a very superstitious sports fan myself. Jack Widows, Bloomberg News. Jack, great stuff. Thanks so much for your time, my friend. Thank you. There you go. By the way, do we have time for this? Yeah, a World Cup related story. Bars in Boston ran out of beer because of the World Cup, Deborah. Who drank all the beer? The Scottish, of course. Have you ever drank with the Scott? No. I only know one, but I've sung out with plenty of English people, and they know how to put back some pints. And there's so many of them in Scotland that were there for the game that literally the bars did not have enough. They ran out.

beer on tap for them to drink. I saw them at a Boston Red Sox game and they were doing their World Cup chance during the game. It was amazing. Yeah, it was amazing. All right. All right. So England won four two. Good job to our neighbors, our friends across the pond. All right, news weather and traffic and three. We're going to update our top local stories and the very latest on the memorandum of understanding. Social media is up and active at Mark Airman at WSB Radio.