September 01, 2026

Good morning! Today is Tuesday, September 1st 2026, and this is The American Conservative's Morning Brief. On day 185 of the Persian Gulf war, the United States and Iran traded direct fire for the first time since July, sending Brent crude back above ninety dollars as gasoline at home climbs past four dollars a gallon. Jason Jones argues the fashionable warning of a "red-green" coalition is an elite pretext for dismembering the anti-war voters — including Arab Americans who helped deliver Michigan — who put Trump back in office. At Jackson Hole, new Fed Chair Kevin Warsh moved against forward guidance, blamed the central bank for 65 months of elevated inflation, and hinted at hikes that could collide with Trump's demands for cuts. and now for the details. We begin with the war in the Persian Gulf, now in its one hundred and eighty-fifth day. Overnight into Monday, the United States and Iran exchanged direct fire for the first time since late July, ending a month-long pause in open hostilities. U.S. Central Command says it struck launchers and troops on Larak Island as Iranian forces prepared to seed the Strait of Hormuz with naval mines. Iran responded by firing missiles and drones at American bases in Jordan and the United Arab Emirates. Jordan reports it intercepted all incoming fire, while the UAE said it "responded to" a drone attack. President Trump told Fox News the United States will hit back hard. Brent crude jumped more than three percent Monday, back above ninety dollars a barrel. As Andrew Day reports, the exchange comes days after the six-month mark of a war Trump had expected to be much shorter. In the recent lull, the administration had shifted to a strategy of further strangling Iran's economy while trying to help ships transit the Strait. Day notes the cost at home is visible at the pump: the national average price of gasoline stands at four dollars and eight cents a gallon, up from two ninety-eight on the eve of the war. Staying with the fallout from that war, TAC contributor Jason Jones takes aim at what he calls a new elite narrative: the warning of a sinister "red-green" coalition, red for communists, green for Islamists, said to threaten the American republic. Jones argues the labels are being applied broadly and loosely, with "communists" meaning young Americans angry about their economic prospects, and "Islamists" often meaning simply Muslims, or even Middle Eastern Christians with foreign-sounding names. He reminds readers that in 2024, Arab American and Lebanese American voters helped deliver Michigan for Donald Trump. Trump carried Dearborn with forty-two percent of the vote, and gained roughly nine thousand votes across Dearborn, Dearborn Heights, and Hamtramck, while Kamala Harris fell twenty-two thousand votes behind Biden's totals there. Jones writes that the second Trump administration's continued support for Israel's campaigns in Gaza and Lebanon, and the ongoing war with Iran, represent a betrayal of the anti-war coalition that put Trump in office. He describes the red-green framing as an "inverse color revolution," an attempt, in his words, to persuade Christians to fear their Muslim neighbors, to persuade peace voters that their allies are Marxists, and to dismember the 2024 coalition without ever having to debate it honestly. Jones, writing after a recent trip through southern Lebanon, urges conservatives to hold that coalition together. Turning to monetary policy, new Federal Reserve Chairman Kevin Warsh delivered his first major address on August 28th at the Jackson Hole Economic Policy Symposium, and he may have set himself on a collision course with the president who appointed him. As David Brady reports, Warsh used the speech to move against the practice of "forward guidance," the Fed's habit of telegraphing rate decisions well in advance. Warsh argued that markets have grown too dependent on such signaling, and that the central bank needs clean data — including, in his words, the prices and trading volumes of Treasury securities. Brady reads that line as a pointed jab at Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, whose recent buybacks of long-term bonds were meant to push down yields at the long end of the curve. The national debt has now passed forty trillion dollars, and thirty-year Treasury yields recently hit near two-decade highs. Brady notes that Warsh appears aligned with investor Stanley Druckenmiller, who has warned that suppressing the long yield removes the last fiscal disciplinarian the country has. Warsh also placed the blame for sixty-five months of elevated inflation squarely on the central bank, and signaled continued focus on price stability. Markets read that as a hint of possible rate hikes ahead. That puts Warsh at odds with President Trump, who has publicly pressed for cuts. Brady writes that recent Supreme Court decisions should protect the chairman from arbitrary removal, but that the coming Fed meeting will show whether Warsh's inflation-hawk rheto