The pipe-bomb blow-up "lays out a conundrum that’s faced conservative media outlets dating back to Fox News’s mammoth settlement with Dominion Voting Systems over its airing of 2020 election conspiracies."
Q: "Do you believe the price of oil & gas will be lower before the midterms?"
Trump: "I hope so. I think so. It could be. Or the same, or maybe a little bit higher."
Trump: "Look at the Israeli relationship. Look at the incredible partnership we have on this. As Bibi Netanyahu said, we're the big brother and they're the small brother. And, you know, it's been a very effective."
Q: "Is this all going to be enough to lower the price of oil and gas?"
Trump: "Well, eventually it's going to go be lower. It might not happen initially, but it's going to go down…The stock market has not gone down very much at all…The gas hasn't gone up as much as I thought."
Q: "You were criticized for this tweet because you said 'a whole civilization will die tonight.' What do you want to say about that?"
Trump: "Well I'm fine with it. That statement brought them to the table…They're allowed to say 'death to America.'"
Q: "Can you explain to those people why it was critical for the U.S. to go into Iran?"
Trump: "Easiest question you've asked me so far. They can't have nuclear weapons…If they had a nuclear weapon, they would have used it on Israel and the Middle East."
Trump on blockading the Strait of Hormuz: "It's called all in and all out. There will be a time when we'll have them all come in, and all come out, but it won't be a percentage. It won't be a friend of yours like a country that's your ally…We're putting on a full blockade."
Trump: "We don't need the strait, but other countries do. And I will tell you while we're on the subject we're very disappointed with NATO…We're going to clean out the strait and they'll be able to use the strait in not too long a distance."
Q: "What did the U.S. ask of Iran and how did they react?"
Trump: "They reacted, you know it was very interesting, it started off weak. They came in like they had the cards but they don't have the cards."
Trump: "We're going to be blockading [the Strait of Hormuz]. It'll take a little while but it'll be effective pretty soon…We didn't get there on the important issue. They wanna have nuclear weapons. They're not going to have nuclear weapons."
"That’s what Chaplain Maj. Gen. William Green believed, as did Gen. George, Gen. Hodne, and all the others who have been dismissed without true cause. Their departures say less about them than it does about the direction we are heading."
Full episode of How To Fix It:
Substack: lnk.thebulwark.com/4qGWSJD
YouTube: lnk.thebulwark.com/4rcnYYH
Apple: lnk.thebulwark.com/3L9LkyW
Spotify: lnk.thebulwark.com/4qFAtvZ
"When we give the mortgage interest deduction....what you are doing is favoring people that deduct, and those people are more likely to be upper income." What about a *housing* deduction?
Mechele Dickerson joins @johnavlon.bsky.social on How To Fix It:
These proposals, which Center for American Progress senior staff shared exclusively with The Bulwark, aren’t fully fleshed out in the way a bill in Congress would be. But they point to the next big Democratic push on healthcare policy:
It's all important and dangerous and it's not just a series of "distractions," but do remember that alongside starting a fresh Middle East war and stonewalling on the Epstein files, Trump is also threatening the integrity of American elections.
Whatever happens with Iran from this point on, the American president has done permanent damage to the global status of the dollar, for absolutely nothing.
We came out with (maybe?) a settlement that we can survive, but which was also entirely unnecessary and the result of one man's folly.
Q: "What have they rejected here?"
Vance: "I won't go into all the details because I don't want to negotiate in public…The simple fact is that we need to see an affirmative commitment that they will not seek a nuclear weapon…We haven't seen that yet."
Vance: "We leave here with a very simple proposal, a method of understanding that is our final and best offer. We'll see if the Iranians accept it."
As Trump’s unauthorized war on Iran with Israel entered into its second month, some Democratic officials were looking around and wondering: Where are the anti-war protests this time around? And why are college campuses so quiet?
Vance: "We just could not get to a situation where the Iranians were willing to accept our terms…Unfortunately, we weren't able to make any headway."
Vance: "The bad news is that we have not reached an agreement, and I think that's bad news for Iran, much more than it's bad news for the United States of America."
"It helps that a podcaster’s life is a series of natural jump scares." But it doesn't quite help "Undertone" enough. Plus, the best video-game movie adaptation:
Trump's attempt to wash America' hands of the Strait "is not strategic sophistication, and not even transactional cleverness; a more astute businessman would better protect the national brand." ICYMI @giselledonnelly.bsky.social on what Trump is giving up:
"I sort of had the intuition that it was gonna be a big moment for the show... I didn't really anticipate how big of a moment it was gonna be, and that was sort of the same reaction I had to making The Pitt."
Ned Brower sits down with @sonnybunch.bsky.social and @adriancarrasquillo.bsky.social.
Many of these influencers calling for a DOJ probe into foreign influence have taken foreign money themselves. Just so you know how seriously to take them. ICYMI @willsommer.bsky.social:
"I am a three-time loser—I voted for him three times."
"I was hoping we would get that same president in 2016...and it's not the same guy."
@sarahlongwell25.bsky.social and @cookpolitical.com's Amy Walter look at 2020/24 Trump voter focus group respondents as their views of the president sour.
"Pretty much everything that happens in A Better Life is entirely predictable if you know anything about Shriver’s politics." ICYMI, Cathy Young on how Lionel Shriver's political obsessions made her boring: lnk.thebulwark.com/3PZP7B4
"I think that a lot of this stuff [Iran, Venezuela] that's happening now is because of the Epstein files...as a distraction because I think that they're that bad."
@sarahlongwell25.bsky.social looks at Trump voters who think he’s trying to bury the Epstein story under a pile of fresh chaos.
