# Oil Earnings, Binance Heist, A MAHA Update

- **Show:** Up First from NPR
- **Published:** 31 Oct 2026
- **Source:** https://www.npr.org/2026/10/31/nx-s1-6022401/oil-earnings-binance-heist-a-maha-update
- **Transcript:** https://podcasts.opennash.com/shows/up-first/oil-earnings-binance-heist-a-maha-update-dd783a/
- **Provider:** OpenNash Podcasts (machine-generated)

## In brief

Record oil-company profits, a record cryptocurrency theft and a mixed report card on the Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) movement all show the same thing: events outside ordinary people's control are producing winners and losers. The war in Iran has lifted oil prices and company earnings. The Binance hack exposed how little protection crypto customers have. MAHA's activists say the Trump administration is not delivering on its own promises.

The main tension is between promises and results. Oil executives say they are trying to ease prices, yet they are returning cash to shareholders. Crypto firms want light regulation, and critics say that leaves customers exposed. MAHA backers wanted fewer chemicals and less chronic disease, but they now accuse the EPA of weakening protections and see corporate interests moving in. With the midterms days away, each story asks who bears the cost.

## Key insights

1. **The Iran war is driving record oil profits** Brent crude trades near $113 a barrel versus about $70 before the war, because Middle East supply is limited while demand has barely changed. Exxon's earnings doubled and Chevron's rose 180%.
2. **Oil majors are saving cash, not drilling** Willa Rubin says much of the windfall goes to dividends and stock buybacks rather than new drilling projects. Oil is a cyclical industry, so companies hold cash in good times to cushion the bad.
3. **Crypto exchanges hold customer funds like banks** Unlike stock exchanges, where customers keep assets with an audited, insured broker, crypto exchanges let users hold coins in accounts at the exchange itself. Critics say that makes them tempting targets and invites misuse of client money.
4. **The Binance hack is unlikely to change rules** Rafael Nam says regulators were strict under the Biden administration, but the Trump administration has promised lighter oversight. He reports consumer advocates are telling Americans 'buyer beware'.
5. **MAHA supporters are splitting from the administration** Activists say the EPA weakened protections on forever chemicals and glyphosate, and the administration backed Roundup's maker in a Supreme Court case. Some are also dismayed by corporate figures at a MAHA summit.

## Questions this episode answers

### Why are oil companies making so much money right now?

The war in Iran has cut the amount of oil coming out of the Middle East, while demand has barely changed. That pushed Brent crude to about $113 a barrel from about $70, and companies producing in the U.S., Latin America and Europe sell their oil at those higher prices.

### Will gas and oil prices come down soon?

Probably not quickly. Shell's CEO said global inventories are being drawn down very fast and will take a long time to refill, and Willa Rubin says it is hard to see prices falling until reserves are replenished.

### What is a windfall profits tax?

It is a tax on excess profits that come from outside events, such as a war, rather than from company decisions. Some Democrats want one so that some of the money goes to Americans, while Exxon's CEO has called it a misguided policy.

### How did hackers steal $6.3 billion from Binance, and do customers get their money back?

A group widely believed to be North Korea's military broke into customer accounts at Binance, and many details are still unknown. Binance has promised to repay anyone who lost money and says it has frozen about $3 billion of the stolen crypto.

### Has the MAHA movement delivered on its promises?

The results are mixed. New dietary guidelines are seen as a win, but activists say the EPA has weakened chemical protections. Nutrition professor Barry Popkin sees no evidence of measurable progress against chronic disease and points to measles and foodborne outbreaks.

## Facts

- **Ayesha Rascoe** [0:00:02]: "The U.S. oil industry has earned over $130 billion since the U.S. and Israel started a war in Iran."
- **Willa Rubin** [0:01:18]: "Exxon said that it doubled its earnings compared to this time last year. Shell nearly doubled. It was their second highest quarterly earnings ever. Chevron's earnings were up 180%."
- **Willa Rubin** [0:01:36]: "A barrel of Brent crude is now trading around $113 a barrel. Before the war, it was about seventy."
- **Willa Rubin** [0:02:21]: "A good chunk is going to their shareholders through dividends and stock buybacks. But these companies are not really spending a ton on things like new drilling projects."
- **Willa Rubin** [0:03:19]: "Executives from all the companies pointed out that they're dealing with a massive supply shock, you know, not only the war in Iran, but also Ukraine's strikes on Russian oil refineries that have taken a lot of capacity offline."
- **Willa Rubin** [0:03:34]: "On Shell's earnings call, CEO Wael Sohn said that he thought high oil prices six months ago was a temporary spike"
- **Willa Rubin** [0:04:44]: "last quarter, Exxon CEO Darren Woods called them a misguided policy."
- **Willa Rubin** [0:04:44]: "They've waived sanctions on Russia to allow them to move more fuel onto the market. They loosened federal rules on a type of diesel used for farming"
- **Scott Simon** [0:00:30]: "it took hackers about 20 minutes to steal $6.3 billion in cryptocurrency this week"
- **Rafael Nam** [0:05:55]: "Binance has promised to repay anybody who lost money and is working hard at recovering as much of it as it can. The company says they've managed to freeze about $3 billion of the stolen crypto."
- **Rafael Nam** [0:06:58]: "You may trade on the New York Stock Exchange, but you don't keep your funds with the New York Stock Exchange, you keep it with your broker. And your broker is audited and regulated by the SEC"
- **Rafael Nam** [0:08:00]: "this has happened before, including most prominently with crypto exchange FTX, which collapsed in spectacular fashion in 2022."
- **Rafael Nam** [0:08:50]: "under the Biden administration, regulators took a really strict approach to the crypto sector, but the Trump administration has promised a much lighter regulatory approach."
- **Will Stone** [0:10:00]: "encouraging people to eat more saturated fat, uh, though they didn't actually change the limits, and to avoid processed foods, they did raise the daily goals for protein."
- **Will Stone** [0:10:31]: "She's a Maha activist, mostly focused on pesticides and runs a nonprofit called American Regeneration."
- **Will Stone** [0:11:23]: "the pesticide glyphosate, the main ingredient in the weed killer Roundup."
- **Will Stone** [0:11:23]: "And Trump signed an executive order encouraging domestic production of the pesticide"
- **Will Stone** [0:11:59]: "Kennedy came on NPR in November, right after the 2024 election, and he said Trump expected measurable progress in reducing chronic diseases in two years."
- **Will Stone** [0:11:59]: "Barry Popkin. He's a professor of nutrition at the University of North Carolina Gillings School of Public Health."
- **Will Stone** [0:12:57]: "there was recently a high-profile Maha summit in D.C. and it was stacked with figures from corporate America."

## Transcript

**[0:00:02] Ayesha Rascoe:** The U.S. oil industry has earned over $130 billion since the U.S. and Israel started a war in Iran.

**[0:00:10] Scott Simon:** Profits are three times higher than during the same period last year.

**[0:00:14] Ayesha Rascoe:** I'm Ayesha Rascoe.

**[0:00:15] Scott Simon:** And I'm Scott Simon, and this is Up First from NPR News.

**[0:00:21] Ayesha Rascoe:** ExxonMobil and Chevron report their best earnings in years, while the price of gasoline takes a bigger bite out of people's paychecks.

**[0:00:30] Scott Simon:** Also, it took hackers about 20 minutes to steal $6.3 billion in cryptocurrency this week.

**[0:00:36] Ayesha Rascoe:** And how clean is our diet, our water, soil and air since Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s crusade for a healthier America? We check in on the Maha movement.

**[0:00:46] Scott Simon:** So please stay with us. We've got the news you need to start your weekend.

**[0:01:01] Ayesha Rascoe:** Oil companies are reporting another quarter of sky-high profits as the war in Iran pushes up the price of oil.

**[0:01:08] Scott Simon:** NPR's energy reporter Willa Rubin has been listening to their earnings calls. She joins us now. Thanks for being with us, Willa.

**[0:01:15] Willa Rubin:** Thanks for having me.

**[0:01:16] Scott Simon:** What kind of profits did these companies report?

**[0:01:18] Willa Rubin:** Well, we're talking about a lot of money. Exxon said that it doubled its earnings compared to this time last year. Shell nearly doubled. It was their second highest quarterly earnings ever. Chevron's earnings were up 180%.

**[0:01:33] Scott Simon:** Is it all because the war in Iran has disrupted the oil supply?

**[0:01:36] Willa Rubin:** That is a really big piece of it. It's limited the amount of oil that's coming out of the Middle East. You know, our demand for oil hasn't changed much. We need it to heat our homes and drive our cars and run our tractors and truck everything we buy around the country. A barrel of Brent crude is now trading around $113 a barrel. Before the war, it was about seventy. Here's what energy analyst Dan Pickering says these high prices have meant for the oil companies.

**[0:02:03] Willa Rubin:** The majors are able to sell their barrels that they produce in the U.S. or Latin America or Europe for much higher prices. So the Middle East's loss is generally the gain of oil and gas companies in U.S. and Europe.

**[0:02:18] Scott Simon:** And do we know what they're doing with all that money?

**[0:02:21] Willa Rubin:** A good chunk is going to their shareholders through dividends and stock buybacks. But these companies are not really spending a ton on things like new drilling projects. You know, oil is a cyclical industry. Prices move up and down. Companies want to hold onto that cash when times are good so that they can insulate themselves when they're not so good.

**[0:02:40] Scott Simon:** Oil companies are making huge profits just as drivers are paying so much to fill up their tanks. Did any of these executives directly address this pain to consumers?

**[0:02:50] Willa Rubin:** Well, Exxon CEO Darren Woods was one of the few to take this on during his company's earnings call. We recognize the impact high prices have on people's lives and economic growth. And Exxon's solution, he said, is to produce as much as they can to bring more fuel to market. With products in short supply, our teams have done everything they can to keep prices down by maximizing production. Chevron CEO Mike Wirth said something similar.

**[0:03:14] Speaker 6:** What we can do is what we can control, and that's help consumers get as much as they possibly can out of our systems.

**[0:03:19] Willa Rubin:** Executives from all the companies pointed out that they're dealing with a massive supply shock, you know, not only the war in Iran, but also Ukraine's strikes on Russian oil refineries that have taken a lot of capacity offline.

**[0:03:30] Scott Simon:** Did any of the executives say if they think oil prices would come down anytime soon?

**[0:03:34] Willa Rubin:** They said because the war has gone on this long, global oil reserves are really depleted. On Shell's earnings call, CEO Wael Sohn said that he thought high oil prices six months ago was a temporary spike, but he said

**[0:03:48] Speaker 6:** We are seeing that inventory levels are being drawn down very quickly, and it's going to take quite some time to be able to refill that inventory.

**[0:03:56] Willa Rubin:** meaning it's hard to see how oil prices will come down until those reserves get replenished.

**[0:04:01] Scott Simon:** What kind of political reaction is there? Has there been against these high profits?

**[0:04:05] Willa Rubin:** Well, we are a few days out from the midterms. If Democrats gain control of Congress, this may not be the first thing on their agenda, but some of them have pushed to create a tax on windfall profits. These are excess profits that come about because of geopolitical forces outside of companies' control. The idea is to give some of those profits to Americans. I talked to economist Isabella Weber, she is at UMass Amherst. She says windfall taxes are a way to bridge the gap between what oil companies make and what most people pay for that oil.

**[0:04:34] Speaker 6:** This is, uh, I think, uh, good economic policy in an energy shock situation where you get these redistribution dynamics amidst a very deep cost of living crisis.

**[0:04:44] Willa Rubin:** While the executives didn't mention windfall taxes, um, on these calls, last quarter, Exxon CEO Darren Woods called them a misguided policy. He said they penalize companies that are trying to be successful in a volatile industry. Now, the Trump administration is trying to lower the price of diesel. They've waived sanctions on Russia to allow them to move more fuel onto the market. They loosened federal rules on a type of diesel used for farming, but experts have told me these moves probably won't make much of a difference, and not before Tuesday.

**[0:05:12] Scott Simon:** And there's Willa Rubin. Thanks so much.

**[0:05:14] Willa Rubin:** Thank you.

**[0:05:22] Scott Simon:** The largest crypto heist in history this week, the cryptocurrency exchange Binance, was hacked. Billions of dollars are missing.

**[0:05:31] Ayesha Rascoe:** The hack comes as the crypto industry has been trying to get a little more respectability. The Trump administration has been friendly in regulating it, but critics warn that cryptocurrency is the wild west of finance, and this massive hack of Binance proves it.

**[0:05:47] Scott Simon:** NPR senior business editor Rafael Nam joins us. Rafael, thanks for being with us. Hey Scott, How did this happen? How did they lose so much money?

**[0:05:55] Rafael Nam:** I know it's a staggering amount. So a group of hackers widely believed to be the North Hm. Korean military broke into accounts that investors hold at Binance to trade cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, and then stole their money essentially. Now, now Binance has promised to repay anybody who lost money and is working hard at recovering as much of it as it can. The company says they've managed to freeze about $3 billion of the stolen crypto.

**[0:06:20] Scott Simon:** You don't often hear about so much money being taken stolen from a financial exchange. How did it happen?

**[0:06:27] Rafael Nam:** So there's still a lot we don't know, Scott, and it's too early to say whether there were any major major flaws in Binance's security system. If anything, researchers I talked to say it may have more to do with how sophisticated North Korean hackers are, but the one thing critics did point out is that the way these crypto exchanges are set up deserves some scrutiny here. What's peculiar is that at crypto exchanges, Hm. you can not only buy and sell Bitcoin, for example, you can also hold that Bitcoin at a trading account at the exchange itself.

**[0:06:58] Rafael Nam:** That's a very unique and risky feature that makes it different from traditional stock exchanges, according to Amanda Fisher from financial advocacy group Better Markets. You may trade on the New York Stock Exchange, but you don't keep your funds with the New York Stock Exchange, you keep it with your broker. And your broker is audited and regulated by the SEC, and your broker has to pay for insurance that will make customers whole in the event that there's a cyberattack.

**[0:07:27] Scott Simon:** So, Rafael, what are the consequences when crypto exchanges become this kind of one-stop shop for trading?

**[0:07:33] Rafael Nam:** Well, first, it makes crypto exchanges a tempting target for hackers. You know, Scott, it's kinda like the famous quote attributed to Robert Willie Sutton, when asked why he targeted banks, he supposedly said, Because that's where the money is. And second, although Binance has said they will pay back investors who lost money, they don't necessarily have to offer the same protections as established financial institutions, and that can lead to risky behavior by crypto exchanges. This is Fisher again.

**[0:08:00] Rafael Nam:** It can become almost irresistible to dip into those client funds just this one time, you know, is what they say, to cover their losses, but we know that that can cascade into catastrophe for investors. And I should say this has happened before, including most prominently with crypto exchange FTX, which collapsed in spectacular fashion in 2022.

**[0:08:23] Scott Simon:** Why don't crypto exchanges have to follow the same rules as Wall Street?

**[0:08:27] Rafael Nam:** So this one drives crypto critics crazy. They think the crypto sector is trying to have it both ways. Exchanges like Binance say Hm. they are safe venues and they don't, and they deny they do anything shady, but they also don't want to follow the same rules as Wall Street firms. They say this is a young and promising industry that needs easier regulations to grow. Hm.

**[0:08:47] Scott Simon:** Could a theft of this magnitude lead to changes?

**[0:08:50] Rafael Nam:** Probably not is what I'm hearing. Scott, under the Biden administration, regulators took a really strict approach to the crypto sector, but the Trump administration has promised a much lighter regulatory approach. So many consumer advocates consistently tell Americans, when it comes to crypto, buyer beware.

**[0:09:09] Scott Simon:** Rafael, thanks for being with us.

**[0:09:11] Rafael Nam:** Thank you, Scott.

**[0:09:19] Scott Simon:** Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Donald Trump joined forces just over two years ago, promising to make America healthy again, or MAHA. They had a grand agenda to bring down the rates of chronic disease, reform the food system, and clean up harmful chemicals.

**[0:09:34] Ayesha Rascoe:** To see how they've delivered on these promises, NPR health correspondent Will Stone joins us now. Good morning, Will.

**[0:09:41] Rafael Nam:** Hey, Aisha, good to be here.

**[0:09:43] Ayesha Rascoe:** How do folks who support the Maha platform feel about the last two years? Uh, can you run us through some of their promises?

**[0:09:52] Rafael Nam:** Yeah, it's mixed. Uh, one obvious victory were the new dietary guidelines. These were a real departure from the previous

**[0:10:00] Will Stone:** ones, and they reflect the Maha philosophy, encouraging people to eat more saturated fat, uh, though they didn't actually change the limits, and to avoid processed foods, they did raise the daily goals for protein. But when you look at how this administration has handled other issues around food and, more broadly, our water, our air, which all gets bundled under concerns around toxic chemicals, uh, some say the track record is not great if you grade them by their own, uh, Maha rubric.

**[0:10:24] Will Stone:** Encouraging people to eat more saturated fat, though they didn't actually change the limits, and to avoid processed foods, they did raise the daily goals for protein. But when you look at how this administration has handled other issues around food and, more broadly, our water, our air, which all gets bundled under concerns around toxic chemicals, some say the track record is not great if you grade them by their own Maha rubric.

**[0:10:29] Ayesha Rascoe:** Oh, well, what happened?

**[0:10:31] Will Stone:** Yeah, well, here's what I heard from Kelly Ryerison. She's a Maha activist, mostly focused on pesticides and runs a nonprofit called American Regeneration. I cannot think of a single good thing that the EPA has done during this administration. Instead, they've rolled back protections, drinking water from forever chemicals, they've approved pesticides that have no business being approved.

**[0:10:55] Ayesha Rascoe:** It sounds like they've really upset some people.

**[0:10:58] Will Stone:** You bet. And you can hear Ryerson is focusing on the EPA, the Environmental Protection Agency, because that agency shapes a lot of this policy. And what's striking is that some of the chemicals identified in the Trump administration's own Maha report as possibly harmful for children's health are the same ones EPA has moved to weaken protections around.

**[0:11:20] Ayesha Rascoe:** What chemicals are we talking about here?

**[0:11:23] Will Stone:** So a big example here is the pesticide glyphosate, the main ingredient in the weed killer Roundup. Now, in this case, many in this movement have wanted to see meaningful action on glyphosate because of cancer concerns. Instead, the Trump administration backed the company that makes Roundup in a high-profile Supreme Court case, which the company ultimately won. And Trump signed an executive order encouraging domestic production of the pesticide, and that's disenchanted a lot of Maha supporters.

**[0:11:51] Ayesha Rascoe:** The goal of changing our food supply and reducing chemicals was to help reduce chronic diseases. I is that what they're hoping for?

**[0:11:59] Will Stone:** Yeah, actually, Kennedy came on NPR in November, right after the 2024 election, and he said Trump expected measurable progress in reducing chronic diseases in two years. Uh, so I called up an expert on this, Barry Popkin. He's a professor of nutrition at the University of North Carolina Gillings School of Public Health. He said he doesn't see any evidence that this has happened. Here's his assessment of how they've done.

**[0:12:23] Barry Popkin:** They've raised a lot of important issues pesticides about ultra-processed foods. They've also done a number of things which are terribly dangerous. They've really unleashed

**[0:12:39] Will Stone:** A group of people in this country that will not get vaccinated. We've seen major measles outbreaks. Also pointed to some of the large foodborne illness outbreaks that have affected thousands of Americans in the last year or two.

**[0:12:54] Ayesha Rascoe:** Well, what's Maha hoping for next?

**[0:12:57] Will Stone:** Well, there's real tension here around who speaks for this movement beyond Kennedy. For example, there was recently a high-profile Maha summit in D.C. and it was stacked with figures from corporate America. Kelly Ryerison told me she was mortified. I don't even recognize this iteration of Maha. It it was so confusing to see all these corporate interests when very specifically the grassrooters want out of the Maha movement is to get corporations out of the way. And she says the Maha brand may need to evolve in 2027, uh, depending on how things shake out in the midterms.

**[0:13:35] Ayesha Rascoe:** That's NPR health correspondent Will Stone. Thank you so much.

**[0:13:39] Will Stone:** Thank you.

**[0:13:44] Scott Simon:** And that's up first for All Hallows Eve, Saturday, October thirty-first, 2026. I'm Scott Simon.

**[0:13:51] Ayesha Rascoe:** And I'm Ayesha Rascoe. Happy Halloween. Our producers Danica Pineda, along with Chris Harlan Dunaway and Michael Radcliffe.

**[0:13:59] Scott Simon:** Diana Douglas edits this podcast. She has help from Cara Platoni, Fernando Narro Roman, Scott Hensley, and Jacob Fenton.

**[0:14:07] Ayesha Rascoe:** In our control room is our director, Elena Tork, and our technical director, David Greenberg, with additional technical help from Zovan Kenhoven, Simon Laszlo Jansen, and Zach Coleman.

**[0:14:22] Scott Simon:** Our deputy managing editor is Catherine Laidlaw, our executive producer is Evie Stone, and our senior supervising editor is Shannon Rhodes. The good witch of the North, the good witch of the South, and the wicked witch of the West. I didn't write these.

**[0:14:38] Ayesha Rascoe:** Tomorrow on the Sunday story, the president's party historically loses seats in the midterm elections. Republicans around the country are bracing for it next week.

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