Trump's about to face an 'absolute nightmare' of his own making | Sir Bill Browder

**Bill Browder** (0:00)
He goes from one thing to another to another. And so, I mean, it's probably, it's unprecedented, I think, in the history of US leadership to have a president that has so little credibility from one moment to the next in terms of what he says and what he does and how he changes his position from moment to moment. It's not a normal situation, for sure.

**Maddie Hale** (0:30)
Hello, welcome to The Trump Report. I'm Maddie Hale. There's a lot to discuss today. Of course, we've got updates with the Iran War, whether the Strait of Hormuz is actually open. We've got some discussions about the economy, whether Trump is, I guess, convincing voters that the economy is doing well. And then we'll also talk about Russia and Ukraine. Zelensky is making a lot of headway on the battlefield. So just a reminder, you can watch us every day, Monday through Friday on the Trump Report YouTube page. You can stream us as a podcast, wherever you get your podcasts. You can watch clips of the show on Facebook, Instagram and TikTok. And if you haven't signed up to be a Trump Report member on YouTube, you can do so for about $6 a month. You get an ad free and early access. Now, my guest today is Sir Bill Browder. Bill, thank you so much for joining the Trump Report.

**Bill Browder** (1:10)
I'm glad to be here.

**Maddie Hale** (1:11)
Glad to get you back. There's a lot to discuss. We're going to kick off with Iran. So Trump's Iran deal is facing its first major stress test after a Singapore flagged cargo ship was hit near Amman in a suspected Iranian drone attack just days after he claimed that the Strait of Hormuz was reopening and his ceasefire was working. Now, the incident has forced the UN to pause shipping escorts and revived fears that, I guess, that Tehran is testing the limits of Trump's 60-day framework. But Bill, I guess for Trump right now, the question is really whether his deal has actually restored freedom of navigation or whether Iran is already proving that it can still control the Strait of Hormuz. What do you think?

**Bill Browder** (1:54)
Well, I mean, the main reason why the Strait of Hormuz was closed is that any shipping company and any insurance company is worried that their ship or the insurers will have to pay if there's some type of incident. And it doesn't have to be 100% of every ship being attacked for there to be an incident. So yesterday there was an incident. And so if I was a ship owner or I was an insurance company, I would be saying, you know what, as an insurance company, I'd want 300% higher premiums. As a ship owner, I might be saying, I'm not sure I wanna sail into the Strait of Hormuz. And so is the Strait of Hormuz open or is it closed? It's not a binary thing. It's a economic decision made by every person involved. And if there is risk and there surely is risk, then it's not open in a clear 100% way.
And that is a problem for Donald Trump because he made this very clear statement that he was going to give the Iranians or allow them access to $300 billion of frozen funds in exchange for opening up the Strait of Hormuz.
I received an email from the US Treasury update to say that sanctions have been lifted and the Strait of Hormuz is not fully open. So it doesn't look very good for Donald Trump.

**Maddie Hale** (3:20)
Absolutely not. I mean, Trump still says, he said yesterday, Iran wants to make a deal with us very badly, the Strait is open. But as you say, you know, how is commercial shipping supposed to trust this? Why would they put their ships at risk if this is still happening? But I want to move on to just kind of represent how things change so quickly in Trump camp. So here's an interaction between a reporter and Marco Rubio. This comes just as Iran and Amman have agreed to work together on how ships travel through the strait of Moose once the current 60-day negotiating period ends. There's apparently discussion over whether they're still tolling. That's up for negotiations between the two of them. But a reporter asked, how is the bilateral relationship with Amman? And Marco Rubio replied, our relationship with Amman is fine. To which the reporter said, well, just a few weeks ago, Trump threatened to bomb them. So it didn't seem to be okay then, to which Rubio said, I can only talk about today.
I mean, that should indicate just how quickly this is going.