Thursday Afternoon News Updates: No Deal, No Ceasefire, No Shame – 5/28/26

Trump wants his face on money while yours runs out

Iran’s Revolutionary Guard released footage showing missiles launched toward the U.S. base in Kuwait, calling it retaliation for the recent American strike near Bandar Abbas in southern Iran.

Hi all, Ben here. It’s Thursday and there have been lots of updates today, so let’s get right into it. Remember to like and re-stack to spread this information far and wide. First, the headlines:

Top stories we’re tracking today:

• Iran fired a ballistic missile at Kuwait after U.S. strikes; the so-called ceasefire is a ceasefire in name only

• Axios hyped another “deal” that Iran says isn’t agreed to

• Trump skipped visiting 14 wounded troops at Walter Reed

• PCE inflation hit a three-year high; Americans’ savings rate is collapsing

• ProPublica: a $620 million Pentagon loan got pushed through for a company tied to Donald Trump Jr.

• Trump’s team is trying to put his face on a $250 bill

• $67 million in national park entrance fees have been diverted to Trump’s D.C. vanity projects

• The U.S. is militarily encircling Mexico through deals with Guatemala and Ecuador

• 60 Minutes is being gutted, and Sharyn Alfonsi went scorched earth on the way out

• DOJ opens criminal investigation into E. Jean Carroll, with Trump taking revenge against his sexual abuse victim who successfully sued him

• Netanyahu’s latest Gaza threat

• MeidasTouch is partnering with the No Kings Coalition and Billboard for a June 14 nationwide concert livestream

Before I go any further, if you haven’t yet joined as a paid subscriber, consider doing so now by clicking here to support our work. This is how we grow. And if you’re already a Meidas+ paid Substack subscriber, thank you for supporting pro-democracy media. We’re making this update free for everyone to read.

Let’s dive in.

Ceasefire in Name Only

Iran’s Revolutionary Guard released footage earlier showing missile launches toward the U.S. base in Kuwait yesterday, retaliation for an American strike near Bandar Abbas in southern Iran. CENTCOM confirmed the launch, saying it was a ballistic missile intercepted by Kuwaiti forces, and called it an egregious ceasefire violation. CENTCOM said they shot down five Iranian drones near the Strait of Hormuz and stopped a sixth from launching.

Trump has been notably silent amid the recent hostilities. His last post was a photo of the Lincoln Memorial reflecting pool, and in the roughly 12 hours since, as Iran fired missiles at a U.S. base and the supposed ceasefire continued collapsing in real time, Trump has said nothing publicly.

Let’s back up a little. The U.S. struck Iran on Monday and Wednesday, which Iran also called ceasefire violations. So we have both sides shooting at each other and both sides calling the other’s attacks violations of the ceasefire.

At this point, let’s just say what it is. There is no ceasefire. Both sides are shooting at each other and both sides are calling the other’s attacks violations. That’s an active war.

The IRGC continues to control commercial shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, requiring explicit permission before vessels can pass. Several ships that tried to enter without authorization were turned back. Iran warned that any further U.S. strikes will trigger a “more decisive response” and made clear that Washington bears responsibility for what follows. Iran’s Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei also addressed the situation directly, saying the enemy’s strategy, after the imposed war, economic pressure, and propaganda siege, is to create division and social fragmentation to compensate for military defeats and bring the nation to its knees.

I think what Khamenei is signaling is that Iran understands exactly who they’re dealing with. And they’re right to be skeptical. Trump is what I’d call a sucker punch negotiator, which is really about the lowest form of behavior in any negotiation or in anything, frankly. He lures you in with the appearance of good faith, and then when your back is turned, you get hit. Look at the pattern: last June, when there was basically a deal in principle, that’s when he attacked Iran. In February, same thing — deal in principle, then he struck. He manufactures fake deals and exploits the good faith that normally exists in negotiations to set up the next blow. That’s his M.O. his entire life. When people stand up to Trump, he loses. When you let those tactics capture you, you lose.

The Phantom Deal and the Market Manipulation

So with all of that as backdrop, the ceasefire collapsing, the war raging, and terrible economic data coming in this morning, here comes Axios’s Barak Ravid with the scoop: the U.S. and Iran have reached a memorandum of understanding for a 60-day ceasefire extension and the beginning of nuclear negotiations. But Trump hasn’t approved it yet. He “wants a few days to think about it.”

I want you to notice the timing here, because I don’t think it’s a coincidence. The PCE inflation numbers were released this morning (more on those in a moment) and they were bad. Really bad. So what do you do when the economic news is terrible and the markets need a jolt? You run to the press with a “peace deal.” This has been the playbook since the war began, and it’s market manipulation, in my view, plain and simple.

Scott Jennings, the MAGA sycophant who got taken apart on CNN by our own Adam Mockler, immediately retweeted the story calling it a “huge win for President Trump” and said he was hearing from a senior administration official that the report was true. Then Ravid retweeted Jennings praising his own story. “This report is TRUE and the U.S. appears to be getting everything we want,” Jennings wrote, in the post retweeted by Ravid.

Even taking the article at face value, what was being described? A 60-day pause in hostilities. Nuclear talks deferred for 60 days with no specifics. The Strait of Hormuz, which was open before Trump and Netanyahu launched this war, would reopen. The U.S. blockade would be lifted. As Adam wrote: “Everything we want? Where?” The entire point of this war was Iran’s nuclear program, and the article itself admitted that still requires “further intensive negotiations.” One U.S. official described it as getting “everybody to the table.” Haven’t we been at the table?

Then Iran said there was no deal. An Israeli official briefing local media said Khamenei has not approved anything, and that the Iranian officials who participated in the framework discussions simply don’t have final authority. Israel says it has not been told by either side that anything has been approved.

The Economy Keeps Getting Worse

In December 2025, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent went on Fox and promised that 2026 was “shaping up to be a great year.” Peace deals. Trade deals. Tax cuts. Deregulation. Manufacturing comeback. Get ready for growth, he said. How did that prediction work out?

This morning we got the PCE numbers, the Fed’s preferred inflation measure, and they came in hot. April PCE inflation is at 3.8%, the highest since May of 2023. Core PCE is at 3.3%, the highest since October of 2023. The Fed’s top inflation metric is nearly double their target. Biden had handed Trump a situation where PCE inflation was heading toward 2%. Then came the tariffs against the world, and then came this catastrophic war that shut the Strait of Hormuz, and here we are.

But dig deeper and it gets worse. The personal savings rate has plunged from 5.5% in April of last year to 2.6% today, the lowest since June of 2022. As economist Heather Long put it, that sharp drop underscores how squeezed Americans are right now, with higher prices and incomes that aren’t keeping up. People are dipping into savings and 401(k)s just to get by. And it’s not a narrow problem. Half of all items in the CPI report are growing at 3% or higher. This is deeper and wider than an energy shock. It’s broad inflation, and it’s showing no signs of slowing anytime soon.

This is exactly why Republicans spend their days manufacturing outrage about whether James Talarico is a vegan and calling him a freak show. They have nothing to sell. No results, no credibility, no plan. Just new wars, a slush fund for criminals, a ballroom, and a lousy economy.

The Corruption Never Stops

While Americans are struggling to afford groceries and rent, the Trump regime has been busy.

The Washington Post reports that Trump’s political appointees pushed the Bureau of Engraving and Printing to design a proposed $250 bill featuring Trump’s portrait. Federal law has prohibited living people from appearing on U.S. currency since 1866. A $250 denomination doesn’t even exist and would require an act of Congress. The bureau’s director told them it was illegal and would take years. That director was promptly reassigned and effectively demoted. The political appointee who led the push is now the acting director. So with inflation surging and people’s savings evaporating, the plan is apparently to print more money and put Trump’s face on it.

ProPublica uncovered that a top White House aide intervened to push through a $620 million Pentagon loan for a small North Carolina startup linked to Donald Trump Jr. “The call came from the White House: We have to get this done,” one person involved told ProPublica. A company that had a valuation around $200 million suddenly found itself valued in the billions after that call. The Trump crime family, and that is my characterization, because that is what the evidence points to, continues to make billions while the rest of the country falls behind.

And then there’s the national parks story. The New York Times reports the administration has diverted at least $67 million in entrance fees paid by the American people to fund Trump’s renovation projects in Washington, D.C. That includes the multi-million dollar contract to repaint the Reflecting Pool, awarded to a MAGA-connected contractor. As MeidasTouch editor-in-chief Ron Filipkowski said: Trump is stealing your entry fees to national parks.

Trump’s Threats in the Western Hemisphere

While Trump is getting outmaneuvered internationally, he’s pushing an aggressive military expansion closer to home. Guatemala has secretly agreed to allow joint U.S. military strikes on drug trafficking groups inside its borders, the second such arrangement after Ecuador, with Honduras reportedly next. The U.S. is working to normalize the presence of American troops across Latin America, and the end goal, as the New York Times is reporting, is to encircle Mexico and force it to accept a massive U.S. military presence on its soil.

The U.S. already has troops engaged in active operations in Ecuador. American forces have been involved in operations off the coast of Venezuela. The framing is always “drug trafficking” or “cartels,” but we’ve seen repeatedly that the people on the receiving end of these strikes are not always who the administration says they are. Trump wants to project force across the entire Western Hemisphere, and each new “agreement” is another step toward that.

On the propaganda front, Axios was also used this week to float that the Trump administration is “bracing for the potential collapse of Cuba’s totalitarian government as early as this summer” and has war-gamed military response plans. Notice the pattern — Axios gets the Iran deal leak, Axios gets the Cuba war-gaming leak. This is a deliberate funnel. The goal is to create confusion, project overwhelming force, and try to induce surrender through sheer propaganda volume while the carriers are positioned nearby. That’s the playbook.

More Important News

Netanyahu announced Israel now controls 60% of Gaza and has set a new target of 70%. When a crowd member called for 100%, he said they’re “going in order” without ruling it out. On Lebanon, he said strikes will continue with no endpoint unless there is surrender. Israel has destroyed entire city blocks in Beirut and demolished complete communities. We’ve been covering it here on the MeidasTouch Network.

Zelenskyy is in Sweden working on a major defense package including Gripen fighter jets. Russia has escalated strikes on Kyiv and warned embassy personnel to leave. Every European embassy stayed. The American embassy left. EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas noted that Russia’s direct threat against foreign diplomats is a public announcement of a war crime.

Bari Weiss is gutting 60 Minutes. Sharyn Alfonsi, Tanya Simon, Draggan Mihailovich, and Cecilia Vega are reportedly all out, per Puck. Before her departure became official, Alfonsi released a statement saying she refused to sanitize a factually accurate report on CECOT, that network leadership chose to penalize her for it, and that the wall between editorial independence and corporate interest is being “methodically torn down.” She told her colleagues to hold the line anyway. I hope they do.

CNN reports the Justice Department has launched a criminal investigation into E. Jean Carroll, the woman who successfully sued Donald Trump for sexual abuse and defamation. The reported focus is alleged perjury related to funding for her lawsuits against Trump. This is naked retaliation. It is the revictimization of a sexual assault survivor by the man who assaulted her, using the machinery of federal law enforcement as a weapon.

DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin floated pulling customs agents from airports in sanctuary cities, effectively ending international travel to those cities. Senator Jim Banks called it a good idea. Ron Filipkowski noted the obvious: these people genuinely believe airlines will divert all international flights from New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, and San Francisco to red state airports. It is stunningly stupid.

New York City Mayor Mamdani launched COGE, the Commission on Government Efficiency, calling out Elon Musk directly for manipulating the public desire for efficient government to justify “slash and burn” cuts to services Americans rely on. COGE will look for ways to make city government work smarter and faster for working people. That’s what real government efficiency looks like.

Artists booked for Trump’s America 250 anniversary concert are pulling out after learning it was a Trump-backed event. Young MC, of “Bust a Move” fame, said clearly he was never told about the political involvement and is not performing.

Rise Up, Sing Out

Finally, here’s something to look forward to. MeidasTouch is partnering with the No Kings Coalition and Billboard to livestream “Rise Up, Sing Out: A Concert for the First Amendment” on June 14 at 7:30 p.m. ET, completely free. The lineup includes Jane Fonda, Bette Midler, Rufus Wainwright, and others. While Trump hosts his UFC spectacle that night, the No Kings movement will be organizing in living rooms and community centers across the country. Watch parties, local organizing, building the infrastructure we need heading into the midterms. More details to come.

We’ll have much more tonight on the MeidasTouch Podcast. I’ll see you then at 8p ET with my brothers, and before then at 4:30p ET for a new episode of Ben on Breaking News.