Losing Sight of What Matters‼️
Those trying to force a quick end to the war should question who they are rooting for.
Shot🤾: Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., asking Trump judicial nominee if Trump can run for reelection:
Coons: “Is President Trump eligible to run for president again in 2028?”
Chaser🏃: Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., asking now-Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, “What is a woman?”
Blackburn: “Can you provide a definition for the word ‘woman’?”
What I am thinking💭: How are either of them senators or judges?
White House cage match🥊: Today, Trump unexpectedly called the press pool into the Oval Office to promote the White House South Lawn UFC fight for his June 14 birthday.
Political fight🥊: Will it be enough to get back the bros?
👏Young men broke strongly for Trump in 2024 — hat tip to Barron’s understanding of the bro-sphere and its podcasters
Now‼️: Many of those podcasters have turned against Trump, particularly over the Iran war
History🔙: Bernie-bros became a powerful force for Trump — that doesn’t mean they will stay with him — is a UFC fight at the White House enough?
The Real Iran Timeline ⏱️
⏲️The Iranians think in centuries — maybe we should at least think in years.
‼️Amid the fevered media pitch of “deal watch,” we have lost sight of what is important here — let me offer a few things more important than the price of gas.
☑️The elimination of Iran’s ability to project force beyond its borders
Its Navy and Air Force don’t exist
☑️The elimination of Iran’s ability to fund and control its terrorist proxies
☑️The realignment of the Middle East behind America and Israel
☑️Exposing the danger of an emboldened Iran
☑️Pushing back the clock on Iran’s nuclear program
☑️Killing off multiple levels of Iran’s leadership to form internal strife
☑️Strangling the regime financially
Should I keep going!??!
‼️Here is Ken Griffin of Citadel looking at the war from a perspective other than tomorrow’s gas prices
Griffin: “With this war, I believe the president has done a great service to humanity by curtailing and containing Iran’s nuclear ambitions. The combination of the strikes on their nuclear facilities last year, this strike or this war this year has set back Iran’s nuclear ambitions by years, if not a decade or more.”
🔊Trump faces enormous pressure to “wrap up” the war in Iran because of domestic political considerations — with zero consideration for all of the above.
🤦The pressure is coming from the Democrats and the media — yes, it’s that simple
What I am thinking💭: Tehran doesn’t need a sophisticated propaganda network.
🤔Just think about the unending focus on gas prices — and when Trump will end the war to bring them down
👀Have you seen one segment on local or national TV about the price of gas if Iran gets a nuclear weapon
🤦Democrats and the media seem to have forgotten when Biden’s energy secretary said “the president does not control the price of gasoline.”
🗣️The Taliban said of America’s war in Afghanistan, “We have the watches, they have the time”
☑️President Joe Biden proved them right.
What I am thinking💭: It’s confounding why so many are pushing Trump to make the same mistake
Be fair⚖️: Trump doesn’t help this with “deal” hysteria, but he largely has no choice to play the hand he’s dealt
Flip side🔃: Our buddy Mark Halperin lays out the argument for why there really isn’t any pressure — aside from domestic political pressure — to “make a deal”
Halperin: “If these four things are executed, there’s no rush. The clock is ticking on the Iranians, but it’s not ticking on the United States.”
As reported📃: The current one-page memo seems silly — Hugh Hewitt is about as clear eyed as he can be.
Hewitt: “This would be a terrible deal. I hope the terms of any deal would be significantly stricter: No enrichment, ever. HEU to us stat. No more proxies. Turn on the internet.”
‼️The Iranians aren’t serious about a deal — they never have been — that’s what makes all the accomplishments of the war so much more important.
❗American pain is real.
❗The pressure on Trump to end the war is real.
❗We should be honest about who is applying the pressure and who it helps.
Find Other Ways 👀
🤦For all the talk about gas prices, politicians (especially Democrats) don’t seem to care much.
⛽Gas prices are up at $4.54 per gallon today
👀It’s indisputable that there are other regulations involved in creating high gas prices
Example🤷: There’s a reason California gas prices are higher than Arizona — it’s not just gas taxes causing this.
Special gas blend adds 10 to15 cents per gallon
Cap-and-trade program adds 23 cents per gallon
Low carbon fuel standard adds 14 centers per gallon
🎤Here’s CNN Harry Enten:
“Go out to the left coast, top in the United States, $6.13. There’s even a gas station out there where the cost is about $10 per gallon. And of course, if you’ve ever been out there, you always know that the prices in California for a gallon of gas are just, simply put, absolutely outrageous
👎Democrats and the media think the only way to lower the gas tax is to end the war in Iran
🤦There’s no talk of losing regulations, lowering gas taxes because God forbid it helps President Trump.
Good read📰: Axios headlines: “What a gas tax holiday would actually do”
Just look👀: Four red states have implemented gas tax reductions or eliminations
Georgia
Indiana
Utah
Kentucky
Inescapable truth✅: If you start with Iran is evil and wants to destroy Western civilization — we know that because they say they will — is it better to pay $4 a gallon now or $9 when they have a nuclear weapon?
🗣️Listen to Secretary Marco Rubio:
“Everybody needs to think about it this way. If Iran had a nuclear weapon and they decided to close the straits and make our gas prices like $9 a gallon or $8 a gallon, we wouldn’t be able to do anything about it because they have a nuclear weapon.”
Why isn’t this argument getting through?
Tonight📺: Our friend Jillian Michaels on the intentional pain caused by so many in an effort to hurt Trump.
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Trump Still Has Power💪
‼️No one understands American politics better than President Obama and President Trump
Both are still the most effective political leaders in the country
😬Although Obama notes in a new interview Mamdani is a new force.
🪢They pull people in opposite directions — and we’ll see which sides prevails in November
💪Trump still has a lot of power among MAGA — and we saw it last night in Indiana
☑️Five of the seven Trump endorsed challengers defeated GOP incumbents who broke ranks with him
Good read📰: Axios headlines “Trump revenge tour steamrolls Indiana holdouts” writing:
“The outcome represented a major win for Trump’s political team, which is aggressively going after Republicans who defy the president.”
📈His approval among MAGA is at 96%
And 60% among non-MAGA Republicans
👀Then there is President Obama — on the surface, there looks like a power struggle going on between him and the new far-Left progressive crazies
🗣️Listen to Obama on what’s ailing Democrats today:
Obama: “What I’m more interested in for Democrats is, do you know how to just talk to regular people like we’re not in a college seminar? Can you talk in plain English to folks?
Colbert: “I think that’s one of the powers Mamdani has.”
Obama: “That’s correct…and not have a bunch of gobbledygook around it…Just talk like normal people talk. ‘The rent is too high.’”
⚠️When he says “the rent is too high” — the people he’s warning is the establishment
He’s seeing what people are responding to — not these overly complicated messages
🤦Instead of running from New York’s Zohran Mamdani or Nazi-tattooed Graham Platner in Maine or Hamas-adjacent Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan… he is embracing them
Good read📰: The Atlantic headlines “How the Far Left Tapped Into a Money Machine” writing
“Graham Platner’s success in the Maine primary shows how easy it’s become for radical candidates to attract major campaign donations.”
Watch tonight📺: The new morning meeting host Mark Halperin, Kevin Walling and Larry O’Connor with why America can’t escape the Trump and Obama matrix
Bonus➕: Obama lamented in the Colbert interview about the “weaponization” of the DOJ — really from the guy whose attorney general described himself as Obama’s wingman.