El-Sayed has run a very good campaign, but he’s had trouble restabilizing since Stevens found her footing. His problem is explaining his progressive message to people who don’t automatically buy into it. You need to describe the what before the why. Start with the person who counted on a government check that didn’t come, then explain why it happened and where the money went. El-Sayed keeps starting with AIPAC and the quid pro quo because he’s still talking to progressives. Progressives understand that language, but everybody else might not.

The Stevens campaign wants to make El-Sayed the bully. She keeps pointing out that he makes fun of the way she talks, and she brought up his comment about putting an ogre’s head on a spike. That matters because El-Sayed needs the McMorrow women — voters who weren’t into Stevens but could be talked into a more progressive way of thinking. He’s going to ride and die on being a fighter, including his support for abolishing ICE. That’s authentic, but he’s more of a blunt instrument than Bernie Sanders or Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Stevens looked confident under the lights. El-Sayed didn’t look in command. My prediction: Stevens by five.

Trump, meanwhile, has asked the Supreme Court to revive parts of his executive order restricting mail voting before the November midterms. A federal judge blocked provisions directing agencies to build state citizenship lists and requiring the Postal Service to send mail ballots only to currently listed voters. I’m not personally for asking states to assemble these lists so close to an election, for the same reason I wasn’t for expanding mail voting during COVID. Anytime you’re expanding or restricting voting and changing the electorate, you’ve got to do it with some tender loving care.

Trump also met with Benjamin Netanyahu for the first time since the United States and Israel launched their joint air campaign against Iran. Iran was expected to dominate the meeting as Trump decides whether to resume large-scale strikes or give diplomacy more time. There’s visible friction: Trump doesn’t like Netanyahu publicly raising concerns about activity at Iran’s Pickaxe Mountain to pressure him, while Netanyahu wants to preserve military pressure. Their decision could determine whether this pause becomes a negotiating window or merely an intermission. Nobody knows what’s happening in Iran. There are only so many ways I can say it.

Michigan’s attorney general is also reviewing how a false allegation against Pete Buttigieg led authorities to separate him from his four-year-old twins. Officials acted on a vague tip before confirming the caller’s identity or credibility, and Michigan State Police later declared the allegation unfounded. Investigators found a Facebook post in which the apparent caller urged people not to vote for Buttigieg and referenced the accusation before contacting authorities. Emergency responses involving children need a hair trigger, but unsupported accusations can also become political intimidation. It’s ugly — really, really, really ugly.

Chapters

00:00:00 - Intro

00:03:49 - Michigan

00:21:31 - Israel, Iran, and Ukraine

00:30:40 - Mayor Pete Swatted

00:34:22 - Interview with Howard Mortman

01:06:28 - Wrap-up

Trump remains extraordinarily popular within the Republican Party, with approval ratings somewhere in the mid-to-high 80s. But independents have never liked him less. Republicans might be able to turn out their voters, except those voters might not be excited, while the independents who helped decide the 2024 election have turned against Trump. Put everything in a blender, throw it on frappe, and inspect the results. Right now, I see a suicide slush of “I don’t know what.”

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There are a lot of signs that something is about to happen. Air traffic is moving, Israel is opening bomb shelters, hospitals are getting specific instructions, and skirmishes on the Iran-Iraq border might suggest American special forces will get involved. Trump has said Israel would quickly rejoin the fight if asked, but claims the United States could act alone. The B-1 launched from Britain can carry two dozen 2,000-pound bombs or dozens of cruise missiles. Its targets included Iranian military operations centers, maritime capabilities, aircraft hangars, drone storage, and logistics infrastructure.

Iran still has some ability to threaten shipping despite officials saying its military capability around Hormuz has been sharply degraded. On the other side of Saudi Arabia, the Houthis have attacked a Saudi shipping line and threatened a second critical energy route through the Red Sea at the Bab el-Mandeb.

I think this is on and poppin’. Either there’s some kind of détente that lets Trump kick the can past the midterms, or you’ve got to extract a pound of flesh from Iran. You’ve got to call their bluff and say: Look, whatever you think you can do, go ahead and do it.

I don’t think there are any coincidences in the Middle East. It’s a very transactional region, and I don’t think Saudi Arabia getting a nuclear deal is disconnected from what’s happening. My 360-degree view of Iran has always been predicated on the idea that both the region and the United States are looking to reshape the Middle East around Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Israel as the new powers, while the United States pivots to China. But if you’re going to do that, you’ve got to really degrade Iran.

I don’t know how you do it or what you can do. It certainly seems that the Trump administration believes bridges and power plants are what the IRGC really, really, really doesn’t want to lose. The more audacious military plans include storming an area where we believe Iran has nuclear material and taking it by force, seizing the coastline from which Iran is firing drones and missiles to ensure the Strait of Hormuz stays open, or seizing Kharg Island, where Iran exports its oil. I don’t know that Iran can function without the kind of money it gets from oil.

It’s very hard to follow this because you don’t really know what’s happening. I didn’t know why oil stayed as low as it did before, why it fell before the memorandum of understanding, or why it’s shooting up now. If it goes way up, how fast can it fall? I don’t know. I have no idea. But it looks like something is about to pop. In fact, it might already be happening by the time this podcast hits your feed.

Chapters

00:00:00 - Intro

00:02:52 - Campaign Undertaker

00:13:42 - Iran Heats up

00:20:20 - Stock Trading Bill

00:21:57 - Midterm Polling

00:25:33 - Interview with Josh Jennings

01:22:51 - Wrap-up

This is a mess. No matter what you think of Iran, you’ve got to pay for it somehow. Pete Hegseth told senators that the Pentagon was running short of cash after estimating that the war had already cost $37.5 billion. John Thune has been noncommittal and doesn’t want to deal with a vote-arama that could force vulnerable Republicans to take tough votes so close to the election. I don’t know if that’s as important as it used to be. If you can’t message beyond a vote, then you’ve probably failed at messaging.

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Go back to the beginning of 2025, when Trump 2.0 very much was aligned. The coalition was locked in. The administration had momentum. USAID dismantled in a split second. The one big beautiful bill pushed over the finish line in record time. Again, the point isn’t that these were good things that happened. It’s that they kept happening. But no momentum is made to last forever. Maybe the coalition was always doomed to splinter. The cracks began to show as people were fired, as Kristi Noem and Pam Bondi went down for various different ICE shootings and Epstein, accelerating distrust and leaving Dan Bongino back on the radio airwaves. Either way, the drama that Trump 2.0 kept outside the tent has now fully moved back within it.

How do we know? Because they’re telling us.

Take the address that happened last Thursday night. We knew officials were fighting over how much information the president should share when he was speaking to America. Acting DNI Bill Pulte pushed for a more aggressive version, but senior White House aides intervened. Separate reports said the speech might have claimed that Georgia’s two Democratic senators were elected illegitimately because they both came in during the 2020 runoff. The final address didn’t go that far, meaning somebody pulled something back — or at least that’s what the reports would lead us to believe, which means somebody inside the administration is telling a reporter. The 24-minute speech eventually focused more on election interference and intelligence findings as a way to get to the idea that the Save America Act should be passed. But even that’s telling, because the speech was quickly swallowed by the news cycle. That’s another hallmark of Trump 1.0: a lot of sound and fury signifying nothing, or at least nothing that’s remembered more than 48 hours later.

The biggest Trump 1.0 tell is Iran. From the very beginning, the administration has said the Iran strategy has two hands. Marco Rubio and Pete Hegseth are the closed fist, the violence that will come down on the regime, while J.D. Vance, Jared Kushner, and Steve Witkoff are the open hand of diplomacy. If you want to make a deal on our terms, we’re always welcome. In the meantime, we’ll punch you in the face. Trump has actively encouraged a rivalry between Vance and Rubio, asking people all the time who they think should be the next president. And now the proxies of both men are in out-and-out war online.

Alex Bruesewitz is on the J.D. Vance side, making it a priority to talk about how much foreign influence, including Israel, is affecting the discourse. Meanwhile, Israel hawks, including Mark Levin and Ben Shapiro, are attacking Vance, saying he’s surrendering to Qatar and he’s mostly a socialist. The damage is falling most heavily on Vance because he’s become the face of diplomacy. If the memorandum of understanding had worked, he would’ve gotten the credit. Since there’s now a lot of violence happening in that region again, he gets the blame. Instead of all of this being part of one big rolling ball that is the Trump administration, we now have winners and losers, which means people inside that sphere are playing the game. Very Trump 1.0.

The reason this happens in both instances is, well, Big Chungus. Trump 2.0’s advantage was that the drama stayed outside the tent and the team inside was united. Now we’re getting a clearer view of exactly what the war behind closed doors looks like, and in my opinion, it goes hand in hand with priorities not being enacted. You hear a lot about the Save America Act, but it’s stalled and doesn’t have the votes to become law. Iran is different because the consequences are immediate. Trump has to show that either pressure or diplomacy can produce a successful end state. If neither path works, he’ll have made a very big bet without a clear conclusion, and he’ll have to define a win for himself even if it’s not very clear to the American people. We might already be in the lame-duck phase for Donald Trump, which may make all of these problems worse.

Chapters

00:00:00 - Intro

00:03:44 - Trump 1.0

00:11:36 - Darlene Graham

00:16:05 - Reconciliation, Again, Again

00:19:38 - Andy Burnham

00:25:03 - Interview with Michael Cohen

01:13:55 - Wrap-up

Here’s how I understand it. There are multiple factions inside Iran debating which way they want to go. Some believe the time to start cashing in chips is now because money is becoming a major problem, they can’t activate their proxies the way they used to, and if they can’t pay street-level thugs to keep people in the streets at bay, they risk a wider revolt.

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What Trump really wants to do is demonstrate that now that he’s in control of the federal government, all the things he said about the federal government are indeed true. He wants to reveal elements of the secret workings of the deep state that he was previously unable or unwilling to reveal in his first term. According to Politico, Trump is expected to declassify previously unseen intelligence during the address, and White House aides are reportedly debating exactly how far they should go. Senior staffers have prepared a version they believe is supported by the available intelligence, while others want Trump to make broader claims.

Trump also wants to pass the SAVE America Act. The current House-passed version has two major requirements: documentary proof of citizenship when somebody registers to vote in a federal election, and photo identification when that person casts a federal ballot. The Senate doesn’t currently have the votes to pass it under normal rules unless Republicans suspend the filibuster or find another way to attach it to legislation that can pass. Whether an election law provision could survive the Senate’s reconciliation rules is a different story for a different day.

The biggest, juiciest kernel inside the legislation is voter ID. That’s a huge political opportunity for Republicans and a problem for elected Democrats. If Trump were to get on television and say we need voter ID, we’re going to include it in the SAVE America package going to the Senate, and the reason is simple — only citizens should be able to vote — that’s overwhelmingly popular. Democrats will say it’s voter suppression. They’ll say women who change their names could be disenfranchised because their current identification doesn’t match what’s on their birth certificates. Well, Trump could answer that by putting money in the bill to expedite any new identification and documentation necessary to comply with the SAVE America Act, especially for women who’ve taken their husband’s names.

That’s the layup. Pew found in August 2025 that 83% of Americans supported requiring government-issued photo IDs to vote, including 95% of Republicans and 71% of Democrats. Pew measured the issue again in January 2026: 80% supported voter ID, with 58% strongly favoring it and another 22% somewhat favoring it. Gallup found essentially the same thing, with 84% of Americans supporting photo identification at the polls. In politics, that’s called a no-brainer layup. Put the screws to him if you’re the GOP.

But guess what? He ain’t gonna. Because Trump also wants to expose what he considers the nefarious deep state, and with that comes the greatest bugaboo of his political life: the 2020 election. If Trump goes on television and says the 2020 election was manipulated by China, Democrats, Brad Raffensperger, or anybody else, he’s no longer operating within the overwhelming support of the American public. Talking about 2020 and manipulated vote counts is, at best, red meat for the base. At worst, it’s exactly what Democrats want to be talking about, because it takes Trump further away from the current moment. Sometimes you get the 80-20 layup, and sometimes you get the long, meandering “Democrats plus China plus Brad Raffensperger ruined my life.”

Chapters

00:00:00 - Intro

00:03:38 - Trump’s Primetime Speech

00:12:02 - Iran

00:15:59 - Israel and Democrats

00:20:20 - NYS Data Centers

00:29:23 - Interview with Dave Levinthal

01:03:47 - Wrap-up

Democrats are opposed, Republicans have an 11-10 committee edge, and one Republican defection could sink Blanche’s nomination before it even reaches the floor. But the palace intrigue here is all about John Cornyn.

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This really represents the first live test for the current Democratic Party. Can the progressive movement, with a more charismatic candidate and a high-energy, extraordinarily competent campaign, expand its coalition enough to win statewide? Or will it do what it’s done in the past — hit a ceiling when the opposition consolidates?

There’s only one new clean head-to-head test: a Tavern Research survey from July 6th through July 7th of 2,211 likely Democratic primary voters. It found Haley Stevens at 42%, El-Sayed at 41%, with 17 to 18% undecided. That’s a margin-of-error race, but it’s the first time in a very long time that we’ve seen Haley Stevens up over Abdul. The same poll tested the old three-person field and found El-Sayed at 41%, Stevens at 38%, and the flagging McMorrow at five. In other words, when McMorrow disappears, the voters are forced into a binary choice, and they’re making it more on the Stevens side than the El-Sayed side. But still: tight, tight, tight, tight, tight.

Because we live in reboot culture, this is essentially — coalitionally, at least — Bernie Sanders versus Hillary Clinton for a new generation. The Stevens coalition is exactly like Hill-dogs: older voters, Black voters, traditional self-identified Democrats, non-college voters, and on the Michigan side, Metro Detroit — particularly Oakland, Macomb, and Wayne counties. What’s powering Stevens is Black voters. She’s led El-Sayed consistently in almost every poll. Meanwhile, Abdul’s coalition is younger voters, very liberal and progressive voters, college-educated voters, voters outside Metro Detroit, Democratic Socialists, Arab Americans, and Muslim organizing networks. He also has significant labor support, including the UAW endorsement, despite most UAW members being non-college educated, which would normally fall outside his coalition. A very strange world we live in.

The one demographic that’s going to decide this race is women. They’re the biggest disputed demo in every poll we’ve seen. An April Glenn Gariff poll showed Stevens leading among women 29% to 17%. But in a June Mitchell poll, the exact opposite was demonstrated: El-Sayed led with women 51% to Stevens’s 35%. So as we look at the rest of the polls from now until Election Day, keep an eye on the ladies. They’re the majority of the likely Democratic primary electorate. If Stevens can consolidate older and Black women while also inheriting McMorrow’s suburban women, she can win. But if El-Sayed’s progressive and younger female support holds, his coalition may be large enough to break through.

Which brings me to the latest front of this war. I don’t know if it’s being done to court women, I don’t know if it’s being done specifically on purpose, but the results are undeniable: El-Sayed and Stevens are in an out-and-out shooting match to be more cringe. For Haley Stevens, this isn’t something she has to worry about. She’s naturally gifted in this regard. She’s awkward, she has a thick Great Lakes accent, and she speaks in this clipped, emphatic manner. On one hand, she is herself. She feels less like a polished Washington candidate and more like somebody who wandered out of a Detroiters sketch. Abdul El-Sayed has the opposite problem. He’s clearly a charismatic, compassionate candidate, a strong communicator, and an aggressive counterpuncher. But if you’re running against him, your job is to make El-Sayed scare the hos. I think his campaign has found a solution: make himself toe-cringingly embarrassing. My read — and this is analysis, not something the campaign has admitted — is that cringe is a form of inoculation against being defined as scary. If you’re embarrassing, you can’t be terrifying.

So who’s going to win? I’m an old-school guy. I tend to bet chalk unless I’m convinced otherwise. And while I very much believe El-Sayed has the better campaign, and I think he’s the better candidate if we’re just looking at raw talent, I’d still bet the Michigan coalition that usually wins. Haley Stevens is a suboptimal candidate, and I’ve counted her out at every step of this race. I thought McMorrow was going to win. That obviously didn’t happen. So don’t take my prediction for a whole lot. But Stevens doesn’t really have to do anything but be her cringy self to get over the line. Meanwhile, waiting on the other side, smiling like the butcher’s dog, is Mike Rogers. He nearly beat Elissa Slotkin in 2024, losing by only 18 to 20,000 votes, about 0.3%. This is supposed to be more of a blue-wave year, but Rogers is going to benefit from a fractured leftward coalition. After Stevens and El-Sayed spend weeks beating the hell out of each other, the question is whether the losing half comes home. If they don’t, Rogers benefits.

Chapters

00:00:00 - Intro

00:03:01 - Michigan Preview

00:14:58 - Update

00:22:04 - Trump’s Upcoming Address

00:25:40 - Reconciliation

00:29:36 - Inflation

00:32:37 - Interview with Bill Scher

01:20:01 - Wrap-up

According to Graham’s office, the preliminary examination from the D.C. medical examiner found that he died of an aortic dissection due to atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease. The death certificate remains pending until toxicology and microscopic testing are finalized. There will inevitably be conspiracy theories, but Graham had high blood pressure, his father died at around the same age from a heart attack, and that now appears to be what happened here.

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Everybody wanted Platner to be a lot more conciliatory. He was not. He was forceful. He took what he wanted. But here’s the big question: you can’t declare bankruptcy like Michael Scott. You can’t just walk into the office and yell, “Bankruptcy.” You need to file paperwork. So even though Graham Platner suspended his campaign on Twitter, that doesn’t mean his campaign is suspended in real life.

He’s telling people he’ll suspend his campaign on Monday. By the way, Monday is when he needs to file by. If Graham Platner gets a little sleepy on Monday and forgets to file, then there’s no replacement. He’s the nominee. That’s something to keep an eye on. Now, full transparency: I don’t believe he’s going to do that. I do believe he’s going to file either then or sooner, and this will eventually blow over. But, still, with this guy, you really never know.

So the question becomes: who’s running against Susan Collins? A handful of names are now in the mix, and they’ll essentially be decided at a hastily thrown together state convention sometime in the next few weeks, because Democrats need an answer by July 27th. Troy Jackson tends to be more of the favorite of the progressives. Nirav Shah, the former Maine CDC director, is in the conversation. Dan Kleban, who had initially been running against Platner before dropping out when Janet Mills got involved, is back in a big way. Jordan Wood, Paige Loud, and Shenna Bellows bring up the rear.

I don’t know exactly what happens at that convention. Are they all going to debate on one stage? Are they just going to make their pitches and then have a back and forth? I do know this: if you leave it up to the supporters of those people, they’re going to start knifing each other. And if you’re a Democrat trying to take down Susan Collins, that’s the last thing you want. You don’t want this to get fractious.

There’s some polling from a pro-Nirav Shah outside group showing Shah up on Collins 47-46, Collins up on Troy Jackson 48-47, and Collins tied with Shenna Bellows 47-47. I don’t know whether that’s a reputable outfit or whether those are reputable polls. What I’ll say is this: if you’re tied with Susan Collins, you’re losing. Platner, before the disaster, was running about eight to ten points ahead of Susan Collins. Now Democrats are looking at people who are tied, and Susan Collins regularly outperforms her polls by six to eight points. So if you’re tied with Susan Collins, you’re losing. Have we seen the last of Graham Platner? Man, I really don’t know.

Chapters

00:00 - Intro

03:52 - Graham Platner

09:47 - Trump’s Plane Switch

12:40 - Mexico, ICE, and Dems Polling

18:55 - Interview with Juliegrace Brufke

52:36 - Wrap-up

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Trump is never going to be a weepy internationalist reminiscing about the transatlantic bond forged in blood and mud from World War II through the Cold War. He looks at every relationship as a business deal: What are you doing for me, and what am I doing for you in return? He doesn’t mind doing something for Europe if Europe does something for America, and he views this as one of our more one-sided relationships.

European governments are now removing American technology from their systems, adopting European open-source software, and investing hundreds of billions of dollars in their own space firms, artificial intelligence companies, and data centers. Good luck. If Europe were capable of developing that economy under its current system, it wouldn’t be in this situation. The talent exists, but investment is too hard, regulation is too burdensome, and companies must navigate a collection of fiefdoms with their own tax bases and regulatory structures. Europe has a gigantic social safety net, and it can’t grow its way out of it.

The numbers tell the story. From the fourth quarter of 2019 through the first quarter of 2026, real GDP grew 15.2 percent in the United States and 6.4 percent in the euro area. In the first quarter of 2026, American GDP was up 2.7 percent year over year, while the euro area managed 0.3 percent. Europe has made more promises to its citizens, created a larger regulatory burden, and left itself more vulnerable to inflationary spikes. If it wants to decouple from America, it will need to start paying its own bills — including the enormous cost of providing for its own defense.

Quite simply, Europe is not a serious place. Many of the leaders complaining about Trump might not even be around in 2028. By then, a President Vance could meet a NATO shaped by Nigel Farage, Marine Le Pen, and an elder stateswoman Giorgia Meloni. The political order Europe imagines itself preserving may be disappearing faster than its relationship with Washington.

For lack of a better phrase, Europe needs a sugar daddy, and its binary choice is either America or China. Only one of those countries has a shared history with Europe, and it’s us. I understand that Trump is frustrating and isn’t the American president European leaders came to know and love. But he’s the best they’ve got, and the alternative is either unrealistic or worse. There is no great substitute for America, so Europe will ultimately have to take the deal we give it.

Chapters

00:00:00 - Intro

00:03:44 - Graham Platner

00:07:29 - Kirk Bado on Graham Platner and More

00:35:20 - Andrew Gillum’s Arrest

00:45:49 - Trump’s F-35 Push for Turkey

00:48:08 - Iran Attacks

00:50:08 - Europe’s Divorce from America

00:59:56 - Wrap-up

I caught up on Trump’s speech this morning, alongside the fireworks from the National Mall. The speech was more partisan than somebody else’s might have been, but for Donald Trump it was earnestly corny: a wall of historic American flags, battle-worn veterans, and the oldest flag apparently known to America. Then came roughly 40 minutes of fireworks designed to be the biggest and longest display ever fired on planet Earth. If you want America to go bigger, go home. Trump wants the US to be the biggest and the best, and that’s just who the president is right now. The process of getting there may be haphazard and weird, but the stage looked phenomenal, and boy, was that was a lot of fireworks.

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I keep telling people that, with America, we’ve got a classic. But what does that mean? In the same way your favorite song is a classic, something you can play over and over again and it never gets old. Your favorite movie that you quote with your friends. Something that lives in your head and every time you think about it, you find a new way to think about it. Two hundred and fifty years ago, we declared independence with the idea that we could make one. We could invent our own set of rules that would not only endure, but allow humans to prosper. What we got from it was the United States Constitution. It continues to endure to this day. We argue about it, we amend it, we challenge it, and we defend it because we know it’s worth defending. It’s a classic.

While we are a young country, we are old in one regard: we are the longest continuous form of government on the planet. Everybody else comes and goes. You don’t have to when you’re sitting on a classic. I love America. I love talking about our great moments. I love talking about our bad moments. I love learning lessons from the missteps we’ve made, and I love reveling in our success. Ronald Reagan once said that you could live a hundred years in Japan and not be Japanese, or in Germany and not be German, but if you come to the United States, you can be an American. It is a spirit that beats deep within those of us who are lucky enough to have been born here and lucky enough to live at the bleeding edge of technology, culture, and finance. We have our problems, but there is no better country on the planet to identify them and fix them.

So this weekend, raise a glass with your loved ones. Grill whatever you want on that grill. Look around in that humid, hot weather, whether you’re by the lake, in your backyard, sitting at your desk, or doing whatever the hell you want. I hope that either physically or in spirit, you’re with your friends and family when you say, “Happy Birthday, America.” You absolute classic.

Chapters

00:00:00 - Intro

00:10:17 - America at 250

00:17:05 - Interview with Jeff Maurer

00:42:55 - AOC Endorses El-Sayed

00:48:54 - SAVE America Dead?

00:51:18 - OpenAI’s 5% Plan

00:54:37 - Interview with Jeff Maurer, con’t

01:21:47 - Wrap-up

The DSA is here to stay, and it’s not just a New York City phenomenon. Malat Kiros knocked off longtime incumbent Diana DeGette in Colorado’s 1st District, and Manny Rutinel crushed Shannon Bird in Colorado’s 8th. DeGette wasn’t a Blue Dog. She was a pretty progressive Democrat, but not progressive enough. She got rattled by activists, specifically on Israel and Gaza, and a change message was enough to power Kiros to victory. Colorado’s 8th is the bigger story because it’s a Republican-held swing seat, and now Gabe Evans is going to face the more progressive of the two Democratic challengers.

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The actual rulings were significant enough on their own, though. The Court rejected Trump’s effort to end birthright citizenship for the children of undocumented immigrants and temporary visa holders, effectively settling a legal argument that immigration hawks have wanted decided for decades. They’ve argued for years that the phrase “under the jurisdiction thereof” in the Fourteenth Amendment leaves room to limit birthright citizenship. Trump finally brought that argument to the Supreme Court, and the Court disagreed. At least for now, this feels like settled law, and I’m curious to see where immigration activists go from here.

The Court also upheld Idaho and West Virginia laws banning transgender athletes from women’s and girls’ sports. The ruling says Title IX permits sex-separated teams based on biological sex, and while the liberal justices wanted a narrower constitutional review, they agreed on the Title IX question. It feels like this issue has reached a legal endpoint. It’s remarkable that Title IX has become the vehicle for defending these policies, but I don’t see much room left for this fight in the courts.

The final decision struck down federal limits on coordinated spending between political parties and candidates, ruling that the caps violate the First Amendment. Republicans are understandably celebrating because the National Republican Senatorial Committee brought the case, while Democrats are warning about billionaire influence and corruption. I tend to think the real victim here is the political middleman. Most of this money was getting where it wanted to go anyway. People donate to party committees because they want those organizations directing resources into competitive races. If you’re worried about billionaire influence, I think the darker corners of campaign finance remain a much bigger issue than the official party committees.

Meanwhile, the national media has finally caught up to something I’ve been talking about for weeks: gas prices keep falling even though every expert expected the opposite after the war with Iran began. I first noticed it at my local gas station in Austin, and it didn’t line up with the conventional wisdom that prices shoot up like a rocket and come down like a feather. Now that same question is being asked everywhere. National gas prices have fallen for five straight weeks, crude oil has drifted back into what I’d consider a normal range, and we’re steadily moving away from the price spike that followed the conflict. Trump is even publicly pressuring retailers to get prices down to $2.50 a gallon, although it’s pretty obvious he’d be thrilled just to get them back near $3.

The diplomacy behind all of this is getting more interesting. Iran launched drones at supertankers over the weekend, the United States responded with strikes on missile sites near the Strait of Hormuz, and shipping resumed. At the same time, the Trump administration appears to be running a good cop, bad cop strategy. JD Vance has focused on keeping negotiations alive, while Marco Rubio’s trip through the Gulf helped produce an Israel-Lebanon agreement tied to a broader deal with Iran and expanded shipping options through Oman. If crude oil keeps falling despite all of that, then the question I can’t shake is the same one I’ve been asking for weeks: what exactly is Iran’s leverage? If they’re negotiating denuclearization and they can’t keep energy prices elevated, then I need somebody who understands the Iranian system better than I do to explain where the leverage actually is.

Chapters

00:00:00 - Intro

00:03:21 - Tom Kean

00:06:41 - Supreme Court Decisions

00:12:17 - Iran and Gas Prices

00:24:28 - Interview with Kevin Ryan

00:46:57 - Colorado Primaries

00:54:29 - House of Representatives

00:57:46 - Interview with Kevin Ryan, con’t

01:36:37 - Wrap-up

My understanding is that there are forces within Iran that are primarily concerned with the country’s economic health and believe it is on the verge of fiscal collapse. That’s why the blockade of Iranian oil was more effective than military strikes on the country, and why the initial carrot to bring Iran back to the table was the ability to sell oil. Everything else in the memorandum of understanding may be performance-based, but money is the constant.

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Luna’s leverage comes from one place: Donald Trump. The president canceled the planned signing of the bipartisan housing bill, saying he would not move forward until the Save America Act passes. House Republicans believe Luna’s close relationship with Trump is what’s keeping the blockade alive. Mike Lee has also pushed Trump to hold the line, arguing that Republican voters need something to get excited about before the midterms and that the Save America Act is that issue.

The divide inside the Republican Party is becoming clearer. Luna, Lee, and the hardliners argue that if voters gave Republicans the White House and both chambers of Congress, they expect them to fight for election legislation, not immediately explain why it can’t pass. The Senate’s answer is that the bill doesn’t have sixty votes. Their view is that Republicans can either spend weeks arguing over a bill that cannot pass or move on to things they can actually accomplish.

I think this has been mishandled by both Speaker Johnson and Leader Thune. Whether or not the entire Save America Act could ever get sixty votes, there are pieces of it that are broadly popular with the American public, particularly voter ID provisions. Those could have been broken out and forced into separate fights. Instead, Republicans have backed themselves into a corner where the House is frozen, the Senate has no incentive to move, and everyone is arguing over tactics instead of making progress.

My expectation is that Trump ultimately signs the housing bill. This feels like walking away from the table before signing in the hope of getting something else. He wants movement on the Save America Act. I just don’t think he’s going to get it.

Meanwhile, Iran's Revolutionary Guard reportedly struck the Singapore-flagged cargo ship Ever Lovely as it transited the Strait of Hormuz, raising new doubts about the U.S.-Iran memorandum of understanding and the security of commercial shipping through the waterway. No casualties were reported, but the ship was damaged and the International Maritime Organization paused evacuation efforts while reassessing security. My biggest question isn't whether the memorandum itself is good or bad. It's whether any agreement can actually be enforced if there isn't one clear center of leadership in Iran. I honestly don't know who's making the calls, and I’m not sure if anyone else really has a good idea either.

Chapters

00:00:00 - Intro

00:02:57 - SAVE America Blockade

00:11:54 - Iran

00:14:16 - Asylum Ruling

00:16:29 - James vs. Mamdani

00:19:52 - Interview with Tom Merritt

01:06:40 - Wrap-up

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