Elections, Iran, the economy & more

Thank you Lynda A Paquette, NJ McGuigan, BriaMom, and many others for tuning into my live video! Join me for my next live video in the app.Tonight’s show started with the political map, because Republicans just got a very real gift. The Virginia Supreme Court struck down the Democratic redistricting plan, and combined with the Supreme Court gutting the Voting Rights Act, Republicans may now have a much easier path to holding the House. Democrats can still win. Trump is still unpopular. Republicans still have no message beyond chaos, cruelty, and “please ignore the prices.” But the road just got harder. And that’s the point. When Republicans can’t win the argument, they try to change the map before voters even get a say.Then there’s Trump’s billion-dollar ballroom. Republicans are reportedly freaking out about having to vote for a billion dollars tied to Trump’s ballroom while Americans are getting crushed by inflation, gas prices, and basic costs. And they should freak out. It’s insane. Trump keeps pretending prices are fine. He says consumer confidence is “way up.” It isn’t. He says gas prices are way down. They’re not. Gas is still way up from January — up 66% on average — and families are looking at summer vacations that cost thousands of dollars and deciding to stay home. That’s not confidence.And then we got into Iran, where Trump is trying to sell two completely opposite stories at the same time. On the one hand, peace is supposedly right around the corner. Iran could respond to the latest US proposal any minute. A deal could be close. On the other hand, US and Iranian forces are still clashing in the Gulf, the UAE is reportedly under attack again, and US forces just hit two Iranian-flagged oil tankers. So which is it? Are we ending the war, or escalating it?The worst part is the war’s original justification keeps getting weaker. Joe Kent, Trump’s former counterterrorism official who quit in protest the other week, says the US intelligence community assessed before the war that Iran was not developing a nuclear weapon -- and that attacking Iran would likely lead to exactly what we’re seeing now: retaliation, threats to US bases, and the Strait of Hormuz becoming a global economic choke point. In other words, the experts warned Trump. He did it anyway. Now Trump needs an off-ramp, because the war didn’t deliver the magic victory he promised.And markets aren’t buying the spin either. Wall Street has moved from TACO to their new phrase for Trump, NACHO -- “Not A Chance Hormuz Opens” -- because investors increasingly don’t believe Trump can just bluster the world’s most important shipping lanes back into normality.We also talked about the hantavirus outbreak on a cruise ship, which would be alarming enough on its own, except RFK Jr. fired the CDC unit that actually handled cruise ship outbreaks. Trump’s response was basically, “hope it’s under control.” Very reassuring. Nothing says public health leadership like dismantling the fire department and then hoping the smoke clears itself.And yes, we got UFO files. The administration still hasn’t released all the Epstein files, but hey, here are some unidentified aerial phenomena. I’m pro-UFO transparency, actually. I’m also pro-not using UFOs as a shiny object while everything else burns.Then we wrapped with the fun stuff: Greek citizenship, language learning, old IDs, bad hair, good hair, alleged celebrity lookalikes, and the fact that by Monday night, I should officially be a European citizen. No passport yet. No maroon EU document to clutch dramatically to my chest. (That’ll come in a few months.) But after fifteen years of fighting with documents, registries, spellings, and bureaucracies, I’m taking the oath at the Greek embassy on Monday. And honestly, after this week’s news, having one foot in Europe doesn’t sound so bad. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit aravosis.substack.com/subscribe