It’s Monday afternoon. I hope you had a good weekend. Let me fill you in quickly on what’s happening right now because the pace of news surrounding Donald Trump’s war with Iran is accelerating and the consequences are becoming clearer by the hour.
Let’s start with what’s happening politically here at home.
While oil prices surge, global markets wobble, and the United States finds itself deeper in a Middle East war, House Republicans kicked off their annual legislative retreat today at Trump National Doral in Miami. Yes, the entire Republican conference gathering at Trump’s own golf resort where Trump himself is scheduled to address them tonight in the Donald J. Trump Ballroom.
Apologies for my language, but what an F-U to the American people!! The economy is suffering. Oil prices have spiked. War is expanding across the region. Yet the GOP leadership is literally holding their retreat at Trump’s private resort, funneling money into the president’s business while the crisis grows.
Outside the resort, reporters captured a pretty telling image: diesel prices near five dollars a gallon right outside Trump’s property as Republican lawmakers arrived for the event.
Inside that retreat, you’ve got Speaker Mike Johnson’s conference hosting right wing pundits and Trump loyalists. Figures like Ben Shapiro and Scott Jennings are speaking, along with Trump political advisers and administration officials.
Meanwhile, the rhetoric from some Republicans continues to escalate in disturbing ways. Tennessee Congressman Andy Ogles posted on social media that Muslims “don’t belong in American society.” What a disgusting, anti-American thing to say. This isn’t some random Internet troll, but a prominent member of Congress.
At the same time, some Republicans are refusing to even call the war what it is. Vice President JD Vance finally surfaced publicly after days of silence and described the situation not as a war but as a “conflict with Iran.” House Majority Whip Tom Emmer told CNBC this is simply a “short-term experience.”
A short-term experience.
That’s how they’re describing a war that has already killed American soldiers, triggered massive instability in global oil markets, and threatens to widen across the region.
It’s also worth remembering that just two years ago, JD Vance was campaigning on a very different message, arguing that American leaders should stop sending young people to fight in “stupid wars” in distant countries. Fast forward to today and the administration he serves is doing exactly that. We always keep receipts, JD.
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Back to the news.
Huge crowds gathered in Tehran’s Revolution Square after the appointment of Iran’s new leader, Mojtaba Khamenei. The demonstrations included thousands condemning the United States and Israel while rallying around the new leadership.
If the goal of this war was to weaken Iran’s regime politically, scenes like that suggest the opposite may be happening. Historically, external attacks tend to rally populations around their governments, even when those governments were unpopular beforehand. That appears to be what is happening in Iran right now.
And there are other worrying developments.
U.S. officials have intercepted encrypted communications believed to have originated in Iran that could serve as an operational trigger for sleeper cells outside the country. Federal alerts have already gone out to law enforcement agencies warning about the possibility of retaliatory activity. That’s the kind of escalation risk that comes with wars like this.
Meanwhile, the economic fallout continues to spread.
A massive fire erupted at Bahrain’s main oil refinery near Manama following a combined drone and missile attack attributed to Iran. Bahrain Petroleum Company declared force majeure, meaning it cannot fulfill certain contractual obligations because its facilities are under attack.
Energy infrastructure across the region is increasingly becoming a target, which explains why global oil prices have been surging.
Yet on Fox News this morning, host Brian Kilmeade had a stunning message for oil tanker captains stuck near the Strait of Hormuz. He encouraged them to show “guts” and sail through the dangerous waterway to break Iran’s pressure on global oil markets.
In other words, Fox pundits are now urging civilian shipping captains to risk their lives to help the GDP.
Meanwhile, the administration’s diplomatic messaging continues to be… strange, to say the least.
The U.S. Deputy Ambassador to the United Nations said that even if Russia is helping Iran target American troops, it’s not a major concern. “They’re not doing a very good job of it,” she said, claiming Iran is already “decimated.” If you notice a theme, the Trump regime never dares criticize Putin, even when it’s clear he is targeting American troops.
That’s the official line being repeated across the administration: Iran is already crushed, the situation is under control, and Donald Trump will decide how everything ends. Like a miracle, it will go away. Nothing to see here. It’s the Trump COVID “strategy” all over again.
But the reality on the ground looks a lot messier.
Independent forensic investigations using satellite imagery and video analysis show that U.S. and Israeli strikes have damaged civilian infrastructure, including hospitals, schools, and sports facilities near military targets.
One particularly tragic incident involved a missile strike on a girls’ school in Iran that killed more than 150 children. Trump over the weekend blamed Iran for that strike. But U.S. officials have privately acknowledged the missile was American. Multiple news organizations and independent investigators have reached the same conclusion. Even some MAGA media figures, Laura Ingraham and Megyn Kelly among them, are now publicly demanding that the administration release the results of its investigation. The Pentagon, however, appears to be moving slowly on that report. They clearly don’t want to admit that it was the fault of the United States.
While all of this unfolds, the Trump family appears to be looking for ways to profit off the war. A new report from The Wall Street Journal reveals that Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump are backing a drone company called Powerus that hopes to sell military drones to the Pentagon. The company reportedly plans to incorporate Ukrainian drone technology, the same technology developed during Ukraine’s war with Russia.
The Pentagon is planning a massive expansion of drone procurement, including programs that could involve hundreds of thousands of unmanned systems over the next few years.
So while American troops are deployed and taxpayers fund the war effort, the president’s sons are investing in companies positioned to profit from that military spending.
And speaking of Ukraine, there’s another twist. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced that multiple countries, including neighbors of Iran, European states, and even the United States, have requested Ukraine’s expertise in countering Iranian Shahed drones. Ukraine has already received eleven such requests and has begun providing assistance.
In other words, after years of political attacks on Ukraine from the Trump regime, the Trump regime and countries across the world now want the expertise Ukraine developed fighting the very drones now shaping this war.
There’s another story worth mentioning that highlights the contradictions of the moment. Donald Trump spent part of the morning demanding that Australia grant asylum to Iran’s women’s national soccer team. The players had refused to sing the Iranian national anthem during an Asian Cup match in defiance against the regime.
Trump urged Australia to grant them asylum, and the Australian president is now assisting the players.
But here’s the irony.
Trump’s administration has been deporting planeloads of Iranian refugees from the United States, people who faced exactly the same risks if returned to Iran. In fact, Trump sent Iranian refugees back to Iran during the height of the Iranian regime’s crackdown of protests in the country, which resulted in tens of thousands of deaths at the hands of the regime.
Finally, the geopolitical backlash continues to build across the Middle East.
Prominent Emirati businessman, Khalaf Ahmad Al Habtoor, published a blistering response to comments from Senator Lindsey Graham urging Gulf states to join the war. His message was blunt: the region was dragged into this escalation without consultation, and Gulf countries will not sacrifice their citizens in a war that could have been avoided through diplomacy.
He also pointed out something many critics of this war have been saying. The global arms industry, and the politics surrounding oil reserves, often drive decisions that ordinary people in the region pay for with their lives.
Those words reflect a growing frustration among U.S. partners who feel the region is being pulled into a war they never asked for.
So that’s where things stand as of this moment. We’ll continue to follow every development closely. Later today at 8p ET/5p PT, I’ll be going live with my brothers for a new episode of the MeidasTouch Podcast on YouTube. I hope to see you there. MeidasTouch editor-in-chief will publish his bulletin with all of the day’s news later as well, so stay tuned.
I’ll keep you updated as the situation unfolds. Thanks for reading and subscribing.
