Today in Politics, Bulletin 331. 3/19/26

… Trump during his meeting with Japanese PM Sanae Takaichi in the Oval Office: Q - “Why didn't you tell allies about the war before attacking Iran? Trump: We wanted it to be a surprise. Who knows better about surprise than Japan? (Gestures to Takaichi) Why didn't you tell me about Pearl Harbor?”

… After creating an international incident with one of our most important allies with that classless statement, (I can imagine what Japanese media is going to look like) Trump went on to make the following remarks:

• He wants Japan to bail him out on Iran: “I expect Japan to step up because, you know, we have that kind of relationship and we step up for Japan. We have 45,000 soldiers in Japan. We don't need anything from Japan or from anyone else.”

• “NATO doesn’t want to help us defend the strait and they're the ones that need it. But now they're getting much nicer because they're seeing my attitude. But it's as far as I'm concerned, it's too late. UK wants to send aircraft carriers now. And I said, I want the aircraft carriers before the war. I don't want them after the war is won.”

• “We've demolished that country. The only thing is the strait—it's very hard. You could take two people and they could drop little bombs in the water and they're holding things up.”

  

… AP: “Iran intensified its attacks on oil and gas facilities around the Gulf on Thursday, dramatically raising the stakes in a war that is sending shock waves through the global economy. The strikes, in retaliation for an Israeli attack on a key Iranian gas field, sent fuel prices soaring and risked drawing Iran’s Arab neighbors directly into the conflict.”

… “Underscoring the danger to ships in the region, a vessel was set ablaze off the coast of the UAE and another damaged off Qatar. But efforts to bypass the strait were also under pressure: An Iranian drone hit a Saudi refinery on the Red Sea, which the country had been hoping to use as an alternative exit route.”

… “Brent crude oil, the international standard, spiked to as high as $118 a barrel, up more than 60% since Israel and the US started the war. Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE denounced the Iranian attacks. Arab League Secretary-General Ahmed Aboul Gheit called them a ‘dangerous escalation.’ But Iran showed no signs of backing down.”

… “Saudi Arabia intercepted 6 drones in Riyadh and its Eastern province before saying that the SAMREF refinery in the Red Sea port city of Yanbu was hit. Saudi Arabia had begun pumping large volumes of oil west toward the Red Sea to avoid the Strait of Hormuz. The Saudi Defense Ministry and Shell said damage assessment was underway at the facility.”

… CNBC: “Qatar said that Iranian missile strikes had damaged a key liquefied natural gas (LNG) export facility. The action followed Tehran’s warning about attacking energy facilities in Qatar, Saudi Arabia and UAE in retaliation for Israel’s bombing of a natural gas processing facility in Iran. Iranian missile strikes inflicted ‘extensive damage’ on Ras Laffan Industrial City, the world’s largest LNG export facility in the world.”

… “International benchmark Brent crude futures with May delivery rose 6.6% to $114.47 per barrel, paring gains after briefly climbing above $119 earlier in the session. US West Texas Intermediate futures advanced 1.3% to $97.59.”

… “The front-month gas price at the Dutch Title Transfer Facility (TTF) hub, a European benchmark for natural gas trading, traded up over 16.5% at 63.7 euros ($73.07) per megawatt-hour.”

… US natural gas prices were last seen 4% higher, trading at $3.19 per million British thermal units. Front-month Nymex RBOB gasoline for April delivery, meanwhile, rose 2.7% to $3.18, reaching a near four-year high.”

… Reuters: “QatarEnergy CEO says the Iranian attack overnight damaged 17% of its LNG production capacity, and it would take 3-5 years to repair the damage.”

… WSJ: “Arab governments were furious about Israel’s attack and the US failure to head it off. They had aggressively lobbied the Trump admin to stop US and Israeli strikes on Iranian energy infrastructure and now feel a target has been put on their backs. America’s Arab allies are now fuming that they don’t seem to have any influence with the Trump admin despite heavy investments of time and money.”

… They gave him a jet. Bought a billion in Trump crypto. Signed deals to build Trump golf resorts. Made deals with his flunky kids. Gave $2 billion to his repulsive son-in-law. And this is how he repays them. Sad.

… Trump was in full denial mode on Truth Social - blaming it all on Netayahu: “Israel, out of anger for what has taken place in the Middle East, has violently lashed out at a major facility known as South Pars Gas Field in Iran. A relatively small section of the whole has been hit. The US knew nothing about this particular attack, and the country of Qatar was in no way, shape, or form, involved with it, nor did it have any idea that it was going to happen.”

… “Unfortunately, Iran did not know this, or any of the pertinent facts pertaining to the South Pars attack, and unjustifiably and unfairly attacked a portion of Qatar’s LNG Gas facility. NO MORE ATTACKS WILL BE MADE BY ISRAEL pertaining to this extremely important and valuable South Pars Field unless Iran unwisely decides to attack a very innocent, in this case, Qatar - In which instance the US, with or without the help or consent of Israel, will massively blow up the entirety of the South Pars Gas Field at an amount of strength and power that Iran has never seen or witnessed before.”

… Trump-supporting podcaster Tim Pool responded to the post: “This is fucking embarrassing. Holy shit.”

… Dan Shapiro, former US Ambassador to Israel: “Once Israel was made part of CENTCOM, what the President claimed is politically and operationally impossible.”

… Axios: “After the first Iranian missile strike, Qatari officials contacted Steve Witkoff, CENTCOM commanders and other senior Trump admin officials and demanded to know whether the US had prior knowledge of the Israeli strike. Witkoff conducted numerous calls with Qatari officials in an effort to organize an urgent call between Trump and the emir of Qatar.”

… “An hour after the second Iranian missile attack on the Qatari gas field, Trump claimed on Truth Social that ‘the US knew nothing about this particular attack’ and stressed Qatar ‘was in no way, shape, or form, involved with it, nor did it have any idea that it was going to happen.’ Trump’s remarks were inaccurate, US and Israeli officials said.”

… “While Qatar didn’t know about the Israeli strike in advance, Trump did. PM Netanyahu and Trump coordinated about the strike and the aim was to try and deter Iran from continuing to disrupt oil supply through the Strait of Hormuz, Israeli officials said.”

… Middle East analyst Dennis Citrinowicz: “A brief summary of last night’s events:

• Iran emerged with the upper hand. It demonstrated once again that it will not hesitate to raise the level of escalation to defend its strategic assets - without any retreat on the issue of the Strait of Hormuz. This was entirely predictable.

• Yet another indication that this war lacks a coherent, pre-planned strategy. Once the regime did not collapse early on, it is no longer clear what the overarching strategy actually is.

• Trump was aware of the strike, but chose to look the other way once tensions escalated. This reflects an ongoing gap between Washington which may still be interested in preserving a future-facing Iran and Israel, whose approach appears aimed at systematically degrading the country’s entire infrastructure.

• The strike itself seems to have been driven by frustration: Iran is not yielding, and there is a desire to force outcomes (such as opening the Strait of Hormuz) without committing ground forces - and before external pressure brings the campaign to a halt.

• The strategic failure so far leaves Trump facing a difficult choice: escalate dramatically, potentially including boots on the ground, or move to stop the campaign now.

• At this stage, the fundamental questions remain unanswered: What is the ultimate objective? What are the exit ramps? What does success even look like?"

• Instead, the conflict is drifting into a war of attrition - with no clear signs of regime collapse in Iran. Meanwhile, the president, having committed to the idea that Iran has effectively capitulated, may find it difficult to disengage while facing a visible disadvantage in the maritime arena and no resolution to the nuclear issue.”

… Ed Conway with Sky News: “Ras Laffan is one of the most important industrial sites not just in the Gulf but in the world. LNG, helium, other products. Massive. Whatever happens next, serious damage to this site could reverberate for months, maybe years. QatarEnergy CEO: We may have to declare force majeure on long-term contracts for up to 5 years for LNG. This is bad.”

… Arnaud Bertrand: “I hate to be the bearer of bad news but if infrastructure like this gets blown up, as of this moment it will take at least a decade to recover from this war - and the truth is that the world’s energy picture is probably changed forever. This single facility produced roughly 20% of global LNG supply and, as of 2011, had taken $70 billion to build.”

… “What makes this even worse is that Iran’s strike on this was retaliation after Israel attacked their South Pars gas field which draws from the same natural gas reservoir, which is the world’s largest by far (9,700 km² - about the size of Qatar itself). On the list of the 25 largest natural gas fields this single reservoir holds roughly 40% of their combined recoverable reserves - and is nearly 6 times bigger than the 2nd biggest field in the world.”

… “Which means that, probably for many years, a huge share of the gas from the world’s largest reservoir simply won’t be extractable, as infrastructure on both sides - Qatar’s and Iran’s - has now been blown up. From a global energy supply perspective, we’re deep into worst-case scenario territory.”

… Multiple media reports that the massive Israeli Haifa refinery was hit today by Iran. The Haifa refinery is Israel’s largest and most critical fuel facility, supplying about 50–60% of the country’s fuel (60% of the diesel, 50% of the gas). It processes roughly 197,000 barrels per day, meaning a large share of Israel’s transport, aviation, and military fuel depends on it. Israel has only two refineries.”

… Anne Applebaum in The Atlantic: “Trump does not think strategically. Nor does he think historically, geographically, or even rationally. He does not connect actions he takes on one day to events that occur weeks later. He does not think about how his behavior in one place will change the behavior of other people in other places.”

… “He does not consider the wider implications of his decisions. He does not take responsibility when these decisions go wrong. Instead, he acts on whim and impulse, and when he changes his mind - when he feels new whims and new impulses - he simply lies about whatever he said or did before.”

… Gas market analyst Patrick De Haan: “The national average price of gasoline in the US has reached $3.90 per gallon, while diesel has climbed to $5.09 per gallon. It now looks like gasoline will hit $4/gal next week and could head toward $4.10/gal and beyond.”

… The Atlantic: “The House, Republicans privately admit, seems lost, and the Senate could follow. But it’s unclear how much Trump cares. He has made remarkably little effort to sell the war, or explain why it had to happen now.”

… Stephen Miller on Fox: “President Trump was aware of and has calculated through every permutation and every degree of strategy.”

… MN Republican US Senate candidate Michelle Tafoya to KWAM on rising gas prices: “Maybe you take one less trip to Starbucks and so that gas goes a little further until this thing is over and these gas prices come back down again. Let’s just try to be patriots about this.”

… Tulsi Gabbard’s deputy Joe Kent was on Tucker Carlson’s podcast after resigning to protest the war. Tucker: “Was Iran on the verge of getting a nuclear weapon? Kent: No. They weren’t 3 weeks ago when this started, and they weren’t in June either.”

… Kent: “The last time I saw Charlie Kirk was in June in the West Wing. He said, ‘Joe, stop us from getting into a war with Iran’. Then he went into the Oval Office. So one of Trump’s closest advisors who is vocally advocating for us to not go to war with Iran and to rethink our relationship with the Israelis is then publicly assassinated, but we are not allowed to ask questions about it.”

… Tucker: “What do you mean you weren’t allowed to ask questions about it? Kent - We were told Robinson was a lone gunman. Maybe he is. But the investigation that I was a part of, that the National Counterterrorism Center was a part of, we were stopped from continuing to investigate by the FBI. There was a lot to look into, there was linkage. Charlie was under a lot of pressure from a lot of pro-Israel donors because Charlie was advocating against war with Iran.”

… Megyn Kelly: “This particular sentiment was also expressed out loud by Charlie to President Trump over the course of two days at the WH.”

… Semafor reported minutes after the interview, which was later confirmed by Fox: “Joe Kent is under FBI investigation for allegedly leaking classified information.”

… Kelly: “You wanna rip the GOP apart right to its core and prevent a single America First voter from participating in the midterms? Indict Joe Kent and Tucker Carlson. See how that works out.”

Reminder that tomorrow is the Ask the Editor podcast where I choose 5 of your questions to answer. Please submit any questions or topics you just want me to talk more about in the comments. Also, PLEASE resist the temptation to reply to someone’s question! We are trying to get them for the show and when you are answering and posting links it usually just causes me to bypass that question for the show.

Meidas partnered with Ken Harbaugh to produce an amazing documentary about the Drone Hunters in Ukraine stationed along the front who are protecting Ukrainian cities every day. I intended to pop in and check out the first couple of minutes, but it was so compelling I couldn’t stop and watched the whole thing, which is 17 minutes. I highly recommend if you have the time. A link to it is here.

I started early at 5 AM this morning instead of 6 because I had a feeling this was going to be a heavy day with Trump unraveling on Truth Social last night. That turned out to be true as this one took me 13 hours straight of work with no break. If you missed the last Bulletin you can find it here.

My weekly podcast Uncovered was yesterday, where I do a deeper dive into the Top stories of the week. A link to that is here. Thank you to everyone who reads, shares and subscribes to my work!

… Pete Hegseth gave another unhinged press conference this morning where he attack the media while refusing to call on any of the mainstream journalists in the room. He only took questions from the usual right-wing hacks. This is some of what he said:

• “A dishonest and anti-Trump press will stop at nothing to downplay progress, amplify every cost, and call into question every step. Sadly, TDS is in their DNA. They want President Trump to fail.”

• “The media wants you to think that we’re somehow spinning toward an endless abyss or a forever war or a quagmire. Nothing could be further from the truth. I