All eyes are on the Middle East as tensions continue to escalate between Israel and Iran. What is the latest coming out of both countries and how does the United States factor into all of this?
On the latest episode of Capitol Gains, Yahoo Finance’s Rachelle Akuffo, Washington Correspondent Ben Werschkul, and Senior Columnist Rick Newman discuss the latest in the tensions in Middle East, and how it could impact the upcoming presidential election between Vice President Kamala Harris and former president Donald Trump.
Newman breaks down the latest news coming out of Israel and Iran, and establishes the key issue that could potentially impact the Harris and Trump campaigns is oil.
“This only affects the US election if something happens to oil and gasoline and energy prices,” Newman says. Overall so far, prices haven’t increased by much. “I think oil prices are up about 5% since the Iranian attack on Israel… Low to mid $70s which is quite manageable.”
Overall, prices at the pump have been trending downward, which Newman says is a ‘tail wind’ for the Harris campaign.
To find out more, listen to the full episode of Capitol Gains here.
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This post was written by Lauren Pokedoff.
Video Transcript
Now we have a new cliche.
It’s October surprise.
I mean, every news news story is, oh, wow.
Look at all these October surprises and guess what?
Those three surprises if they are even that surprising.
They, they happened like on the first day of October, it wasn’t like an octo like the month of October surprise.
It was like the October 1 surprise.
So, you know, I don’t know if there’s gonna be an October 2 or three.
So my view of these, I, I think only one of these really, um, it, it, it could have, could have affect the election directly and it’s what’s happening in the Middle East and even there.
Um So as we’re, as we’re recording this, uh Israel has not retaliated against Iran for that uh strike where they sent almost 200 ballistic missiles into Israel.
Um, but they are certainly going to retaliate and the question is, what are they going to do?
And I think this only affects the US election if something happens to oil and gasoline and energy prices.
And I, my, my guess is that is it is not going to push oil or gasoline prices up by very much now, we have seen this little fair premium in the oil market.
I think oil prices are up about 5% since uh that Israeli uh excuse me, that Iranian attack on Israel.
Um That’s not a huge jump though.
And oil prices are still in the low to mid seventies, which is quite manageable.
So, you know, pump prices have been coming down and that’s clearly been a tailwind for Harris.
I think the Biden administration now we know that the Israel doesn’t necessarily do what the Biden administration tells them to do.
But on this one, I think uh the White House is, is probably really saying, whatever you do don’t um don’t strike Iranian oil facilities in a way that would affect their exports going on to the market and it really is about exports.
I mean, to keep this in mind, um there are other things they could do to strike Iranian uh energy infrastructure that would affect uh domestic supply inside Iran of energy products.
But uh I’d be, I’d be astonished if, if Israel did anything that would affect the supply of oil to global markets.