Gas Prices Soar

Trump’s Iran war is now hitting Americans exactly where everyone knew it would: at the gas pump.The Strait of Hormuz is still the center of this mess, and Trump is now pitching some new coalition to reopen it, after spending days pretending he didn’t need anyone else, and in fact, he WANTED it closed! He even claimed that King Charles privately told him he would’ve been willing to join the war against Iran, which is one of those Trump stories that sounds less like diplomacy and more like a guy at a bar explaining how all the important people secretly agree with him. (Buckingham Palace was forced to publicly deny the story.)Meanwhile, gas is already at $4.40. Oil is still sitting at crisis levels. And Republicans are doing what Republicans always do when reality becomes inconvenient: lie. Tim Scott said gas prices are coming down. They’re not. Steve Scalise claimed gas is way down from two years ago. It’s not. Pete Hegseth suggested California gas was $8 when the war started. It wasn’t. This is the problem with propaganda. It doesn’t make the price at the pump go down. And people aren’t stupid. They go to the store and they know what things cost. And lately, that’s far too much.And even if the Strait reopens, some day, prices don’t magically fix themselves the next day. GasBuddy’s Patrick De Haan is saying prices may not return to pre-war levels for well over a year after the Strait reopens. So the idea that this is just a temporary inconvenience, that Trump can wave his hand and prices will collapse, is fantasy. This is the cost of war. It’s the cost of instability. It’s the cost of putting a guy in charge who treats global security like a reality show cliffhanger.Then there’s Trump’s war on the press, which is getting more dangerous by the day. Just days after a gunman entered a dinner hosting thousands of journalists, Trump called CNN “the enemy,” and said the New York Times was “actually seditious.” Sedition is not just “I disagree with this newspaper.” Sedition means trying to violently overthrow the government. So when Trump tells his supporters that journalists are enemies of the country, and literally trying to violently overthrow him, that’s not harmless bluster. That’s the kind of language that can inspire someone unstable to act, violently.And the hypocrisy is off the charts. Trump and Melania just spent days whining because a comedian told a joke they thought was mean. But Trump can accuse journalists of being enemies of the state, and suddenly everyone is supposed to pretend this is normal. It’s not normal. It’s authoritarian. And it’s dangerous.The rest of the show is the full Trump collapse in miniature: the Justice Department going after James Comey over “86 47,” revived probes that look a whole lot like political retribution, the Epstein suicide note that was apparently sealed for years, Trump attacking Hakeem Jeffries for criticizing the Supreme Court after Trump himself trashed the Court last week, and Trump’s sons taking a stake in a Kazakh mining company that won a $1.6 billion US government contract. Just normal family business. Nothing to see here, Hunter.And because no Trump news cycle is complete without some cognitive weirdness, Trump is now bragging that he took cognitive tests three whole times! And never once asked WHY his doctor thought he needed three tests for dementia. Add in Russia claiming Trump and Putin blamed Zelensky for the lack of a peace deal, Ukraine aid only moving after Mitch McConnell had to shame the administration, and Trump apparently gluing his own challenge coins to White House doors, and you’ve got the whole picture. War, corruption, gas prices, authoritarian rhetoric, and a president decorating the White House like it’s a tacky casino gift shop.That’s tonight’s show, check out the video for more. Otherwise, I’ll check in tomorrow. Thanks, JOHN 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