{"id":"1792715572773-news-segment","slug":"iran-warns-of-strikes-on-gulf-airports","title":"Iran warns of strikes on Gulf airports","summary":"A heckler did disrupt a recent El-Sayed town hall, but at the Flint event the \"USA! USA!\" chant was prompted by El-Sayed to drown out the heckler, not a response to his father's immigration story; boos were directed at the heckler, not the candidate.","publishedAt":"2026-10-23T00:32:52.773Z","channel":{"id":"news","name":"Oncast News","language":"en"},"show":"News Tonight","verification":{"status":"verified","leadVerdict":"MISLEADING","notes":"MISLEADING: A heckler did disrupt a recent El-Sayed town hall, but at the Flint event the \"USA! USA!\" chant was prompted by El-Sayed to drown out the heckler, not a response to his father's immigration story; boos were directed at the heckler, not the candidate.\nSource: HuffPost (https://x.com/FoxNews/status/2113427944072712679)","claims":[{"verdict":"MISLEADING","summary":"A heckler did disrupt a recent El-Sayed town hall, but at the Flint event the \"USA! USA!\" chant was prompted by El-Sayed to drown out the heckler, not a response to his father's immigration story; boos were directed at the heckler, not the candidate.","sourceName":"HuffPost","sourceUrl":"https://x.com/FoxNews/status/2113427944072712679","claim":"Michigan Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed's rally is interrupted by a heckler, leading the candidate to start a \"USA! USA!\" chant as he discusses his father's immigration story. The disruption temporarily derails his remarks at Wayne State University, prompting El-Sayed h","author":"Fox News (@FoxNews)"}]},"sources":[{"url":"https://x.com/FoxNews/status/2113427944072712679","name":"HuffPost","kind":"x","verdict":"MISLEADING","author":"Fox News (@FoxNews)"}],"url":"https://oncast.fm/story/1792715572773-news-segment-iran-warns-of-strikes-on-gulf-airports","listenUrl":"https://oncast.fm/c/news","attribution":{"publisher":"Oncast","site":"https://oncast.fm","url":"https://oncast.fm/story/1792715572773-news-segment-iran-warns-of-strikes-on-gulf-airports","cite":"Cite https://oncast.fm/story/1792715572773-news-segment-iran-warns-of-strikes-on-gulf-airports and the original source links. Fact-check by Oncast (oncast.fm)."},"hostsSaid":[{"host":"Brian","text":"Iran just issued a threat that should make everyone in the Gulf sit up straight."},{"host":"Brian","text":"The Wall Street Journal reports Tehran is warning: if the U.S. and Israel restart air strikes, it won't just hit American bases and warships."},{"host":"Brian","text":"It says it will hit airports, pipelines, and other civilian targets in neighboring Gulf countries."},{"host":"Bella","text":"The key word there is 'civilian' ."},{"host":"Brian","text":"Exactly. This is a deliberate escalation message, and it's aimed as much at Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, as it is at Washington."},{"host":"Bella","text":"The Iranians are saying, in effect, 'If we burn, you burn with us.'"},{"host":"Bella","text":"And that's a shift. Previous threats were mostly about U.S. assets. This explicitly draws in the neighbors."},{"host":"Brian","text":"Here's what I think is really happening."},{"host":"Brian","text":"Iran knows it cannot win a direct war, so it's trying to make the cost of any strike so high that Washington blinks."},{"host":"Bella","text":"But threatening civilian airports — that's not deterrence. That's hostage-taking."},{"host":"Brian","text":"They have done it before. Look at the Hormuz threats, the tanker seizures. This is the same playbook, just louder."},{"host":"Bella","text":"I'll say this: the fact that the Journal got this, and Iran officials are talking about it openly, tells me they want it in the news."},{"host":"Bella","text":"This is a message sent through the press on purpose."},{"host":"Brian","text":"Right, and so far, no official word from Tehran denying it. They're letting it sit out there."},{"host":"Bella","text":"What would you be thinking if you're sitting in Riyadh tonight?"},{"host":"Brian","text":"I'd be thinking, 'We're being threatened with destruction because of a war we didn't start and can't stop.'"},{"host":"Brian","text":"And that's exactly the psychological pressure Iran wants on Gulf leaders."},{"host":"Bella","text":"Meanwhile, Formula 1 has actually said it's making backup plans for its Middle East races because of uncertainty."},{"host":"Bella","text":"The Liberty Media CEO told Axios, 'We're living in a world right now where there is still some uncertainty.'"},{"host":"Brian","text":"That's a small tell, but it's a real one. Big global sports are quietly planning around the possibility of a regional war."},{"host":"Bella","text":"We should be clear: these are threats. No strikes have happened. But markets and event planners are treating it as a live risk."},{"host":"Brian","text":"And here's the thing I keep coming back to."},{"host":"Brian","text":"The Biden administration's whole pitch was de-escalation. Then Trump comes in with maximum pressure. Now Iran is threatening the whole neighborhood."},{"host":"Bella","text":"Oh, come on — Iran was threatening the neighborhood long before this."},{"host":"Bella","text":"This is the regime that uses proxies in Yemen, Syria, Iraq, Lebanon. They've been at this for decades."},{"host":"Brian","text":"I'm not saying they're innocent! I'm saying the timing and the tone have changed."},{"host":"Brian","text":"This specific threat — naming civilian airports in Gulf capitals — is a direct response to maximum pressure."},{"host":"Bella","text":"So your answer is... what? Back off? Let them keep selling oil to China while they fund militias?"},{"host":"Brian","text":"No, my answer is: understand what your pressure will provoke before you squeeze. That's basic statecraft."},{"host":"Bella","text":"I think you're giving Iran too much credit. They want us to feel this is all our fault."},{"host":"Brian","text":"And I think you're ignoring that crises in the Gulf hit American drivers hard. Gas just spiked last year."},{"host":"Bella","text":"Okay, let's leave it there for now. We can both agree this is a threat that should be taken seriously."},{"host":"Brian","text":"Agreed. Not just by Washington — by every capital between Kuwait City and Dubai."},{"host":"Bella","text":"Different world entirely: Australia's Zip just collapsed 50% in a single day."},{"host":"Bella","text":"Reuters says the buy-now-pay-later company revealed a fraud incident dented its first-quarter customer growth."},{"host":"Brian","text":"Fifty percent in a day is not a market wobble. That's investors saying 'we don't trust your numbers anymore.'"},{"host":"Bella","text":"And they have a reason to worry. Fraud in fintech is a canary. If customers are being defrauded, how good is the platform's whole system?"},{"host":"Brian","text":"Afterpay already got enormous in Australia. Zip was the other one trying to ride the same wave. This may be the wave breaking."},{"host":"Bella","text":"Buy-now-pay-later is a brutal business. You're loaning money to people who don't want to pay upfront, on tiny margins, with high default risk."},{"host":"Brian","text":"And any fraud event makes you look like you don't have controls. That's death for a credit business."},{"host":"Bella","text":"Note: this is a single company, not a sector-wide trend. But fifty percent says investors think Zip has serious internal problems."},{"host":"Brian","text":"On a completely different subject — and this one has some real heat — Abdul El-Sayed's Michigan rally got heckled tonight."},{"host":"Brian","text":"Fox News says a heckler interrupted his speech at Wayne State, and El-Sayed started a 'USA! USA!' chant while discussing his father's immigration story."},{"host":"Bella","text":"Hold on, I need to correct the record."},{"host":"Bella","text":"There was a heckler, yes. But the chant wasn't about his father's story. A HuffPost account says he used the chant to drown out the heckler at a Flint town hall."},{"host":"Brian","text":"So Fox News made it sound like a patriotic moment during an emotional story, when actually it was crowd control?"},{"host":"Bella","text":"That's what the reporting shows. The boos were aimed at the heckler, not the candidate."},{"host":"Brian","text":"Okay, that's a meaningful difference. And it changes how I read it."},{"host":"Brian","text":"Whether you like El-Sayed or not, facing down a heckler by getting your crowd to chant 'USA' is a classic move — but not the heartwarming family story Fox sold."},{"host":"Bella","text":"That Fox account has one like. One. This is a network trying to push a narrative on the cheap."},{"host":"Brian","text":"Let's talk about the actual race then."},{"host":"Brian","text":"Every moment at a rally becomes ammo."},{"host":"Bella","text":"And this is where I push back. You see a story about a candidate caught in a deceptive frame. I see a candidate who wants the 'USA' chant on video."},{"host":"Brian","text":"So he's supposed to just stand there while someone screams at him?"},{"host":"Bella","text":"He's supposed to stay on his message. If his message is his father's immigrant story, the chant should not be the headline."},{"host":"Brian","text":"But in a room with one angry person, getting the crowd to chant 'USA' is actually efficient and inclusive. He turns a hostile moment into a shared one."},{"host":"Bella","text":"Efficient? It turns policy into a football game."},{"host":"Brian","text":"This is a political rally, Bella, not a seminar."},{"host":"Bella","text":"And that's the whole problem with politics today."},{"host":"Brian","text":"I know, but in a tight race, you take the moment. Rogers would do the same."},{"host":"Bella","text":"We'll find out in a few weeks. And we will cover that race when the votes are in."}]}