As Donald Trump's war of choice stumbles and staggers into its third month, you'll be happy to hear that not everyone has been economically hit hard by the rise in prices it has caused. That's right -- there is one clear winner in all of this disruption. This headline sums it up: "Shell Reports Nearly $7 Billion Profit Amid 'Unprecedented Disruption'." Good to know that somebody's doing well, right?

Well... no. Not really. It's no comfort to everyone who is footing the bill for these monumental windfall profits to know that a whole lot of the money they are paying at the pump isn't because the price per barrel of oil has gone up, but is instead just going to line the pockets of Big Oil. But then, that's the way it has always worked, really.

The C.E.O. of Shell called it an "unprecedented disruption in global energy markets," and that is a good way to describe pretty much anything Trump touches. The war itself lurched from ceasefire to sporadic exchanges of hostilities and then back again all week long. Even setting aside the rest of this misadventure, just the past week alone certainly showed a lot of "unprecedented disruption."

At the start of the week, Trump announced out of the blue that the U.S. military was going to open the Strait of Hormuz by force, and with much fanfare two U.S. warships escorted two cargo ships through the Strait. Iran took some potshots at this miniature convoy, and sent some fast attack boats out. The U.S. shot down the missiles and blew up the boats. Since then, the tit-for-tat back-and-forth has gone on (at a low level) all week long.

Trump then pulled a whiplash-inducing about-face and announced that he was "pausing" the whole effort, which by then had acquired the grandiose title of "Project Freedom." At first, nobody really knew why he pulled the plug on his new strategy, but later in the week it was revealed that Saudi Arabia essentially forced Trump to back down, by refusing to allow Saudi airspace to be used in the effort and refusing to let any American military bases on its soil participate. As with the very start of the war, this showed to the world that America is actually not the one calling the shots here.

Meanwhile, the Iranians have now formalized what might be called a "toll booth agency" which will monitor traffic through the Strait and charge what a mobster would call "protection money" to every ship they allow through.

Progress may be happening on the diplomatic front, but with Trump it's impossible to know what is reality and what is pure fantasy his brain has dreamed up to convince himself (and anyone around him) that everything is working out just fine. The rumors are that Iran and America are now discussing a one-page proposal from Trump that would address three big issues but leave all the even-bigger issues to be worked out at a later date. The reports say that the bare-bones plan would: reopen the Strait of Hormuz to shipping, end the U.S. blockade of Iranian ports, and declare that the war was over.

That would be progress, if it actually comes to pass. But, as always, the sticking point is Iran's nuclear program. Iran's position is that they want this to be on the list of things to be worked out later (the one-page plan optimistically projects only a 30-day period to come to a sweeping overall agreement). Trump's position is that Iran should just completely surrender on the issue and agree to everything Trump wants them to -- in the initial, one-page agreement. That's a pretty wide disparity in viewpoints.

Trump would probably settle for some vague language about Iran "not wanting a nuclear bomb at all" -- details to be worked out later. Iran might agree to that, but then again they might not (the wording would be crucial, of course, in how acceptable the idea was to both sides).

Pretty much from the beginning, Trump has predicted that Iran was on the brink of reaching a deal. None of his cheery optimism on the issue has ever turned out to be true, but that hasn't stopped the rest of the world (including the stock markets and energy markets) from reacting wildly to each of Trump's sunny predictions. We're in the middle of one of those cycles right now.

The current stalemate in the Strait is hurting everyone, it bears mentioning. Americans are paying soaring prices at the pump (the average nationwide price of a gallon of gas shot above $4.50 this week), but the rest of the world is in even worse shape, as many nations are facing shortages of not just gasoline but jet fuel and diesel as well. Iran has lost both the revenue they got from selling oil to the world and the ability to trade with the world for other products sent by surface ships. This has all been a giant geopolitical game of "chicken," to see which side would blink first.

The Washington Post published two jaw-dropping exposé reports on the war this week, but for some reason most of the rest of the media just flat-out ignored the news. The first of these revealed that Iran has been a lot more successful in their attacks on U.S. military bases around the Gulf region than anyone in the Trump administration has admitted to the American public. Over 200 buildings have been destroyed by Iran's missile and drone attacks, as well as radar installations, planes, fuel dumps, air defenses, communications sites, and other important military equipment. The damage was so bad -- and the danger to the troops on those bases so great -- that the U.S. has had to evacuate some of the most important installations in the region, with some bases pulling all the way back to Florida.

The most interesting aspect of this report was that the data that spurred this investigation actually came from the Iranian press. They've been releasing satellite photos of the damage they claimed they had caused throughout the war. The Post verified over 100 of these images by comparing the Iranians' claims with independent satellite imagery that showed that the Iranians weren't lying. You'd expect Iran to present a whole lot of propaganda to the world, boasting about things that they hadn't actually achieved. However, the Post concluded: "No Iranian imagery was found to have been manipulated."

The reason this is interesting is because it means that the Iranians are actually more believable than the U.S. government on how the war has been progressing. The Pentagon certainly didn't let the American public know any of this, as they've been proclaiming the biggest victory in the whole history of military victories since the very start. But it turns out the enemy is being more truthful than America's leaders.

The second huge scoop from the Post was a report on how ineffective America's attacks have apparently been. This was based on a report from the C.I.A. that admitted that Iran still has a huge arsenal of missiles, missile launchers, and drones that have not been destroyed by all of the American bombing:

A confidential CIA analysis delivered to administration policymakers this week concludes that Iran can survive the U.S. naval blockade for at least three to four months before facing more severe economic hardship, four people familiar with the document said, a finding that appears to raise new questions about President Donald Trump's optimism on ending the war.

The analysis by the U.S. intelligence community, whose secret assessments on Iran have often been more sober than the administration's public statements, also found that Tehran retains significant ballistic missile capabilities despite weeks of intense U.S. and Israeli bombardment, three of the people familiar with it said.

Iran retains about 75 percent of its prewar inventories of mobile launchers and about 70 percent of its prewar stockpiles of missiles, a U.S. official said. The official said there is evidence that the regime has been able to recover and reopen almost all of its underground storage facilities, repair some damaged missiles and even assemble some new missiles that were nearly complete when the war began.

The article later states that Iran was estimated to have 2,500 ballistic missiles before the war started, so this would mean they still have 1,750 left. Plus "thousands" of drones. Contrast that with all the chest-thumping from Trump and the Pentagon about how Iran's military has been utterly destroyed. This week, Trump "painted a rosier picture" than the C.I.A. report, telling reporters: "Their missiles are mostly decimated, they have probably 18, 19 percent, but not a lot by comparison to what they had."

The only consistent thing about this entire war has been Donald Trump lying about it -- with every chance he gets, really. His timeline for when the war would end has had to keep shifting, since his predictions haven't even been close to reality, and he continues to just flail around without any solid military plan or strategy. The whole fiasco of "Project Freedom" this week was just another chapter in this continuing saga.

Nobody should forget that all of this is already having major impacts on the American economy. This week, Spirit Airlines went out of business because they couldn't afford the sky-high (pun intended) price of jet fuel anymore. Americans are wondering if it is safe to fly to Europe and Asia this summer because there might not be any jet fuel available in certain countries to fill up the plane to take them back home.

Meanwhile, the price of diesel fuel is approaching an all-time high -- higher even than the price spike during the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic. This week, it got within 15 cents a gallon of that all-time high. And this is going to hurt consumers in numerous ways:

Most Americans are focused on the cost of gasoline at the station up the street -- but diesel fuel costs are also poised to set an all-time high in the U.S., which in turn is expected to drive up prices for everything from groceries to postage.

A spike in diesel fuel affects a wide array of commodities that need to move across the country – including for home building, manufacturing and much more. And it couldn't come at a worse time for President Donald Trump and Republicans, just months ahead of the contentious midterm election season in which Democrats are expected to take back the House and possibly the Senate amid intensifying voter anger over the rising cost of living and the unpopular war in Iran.

Voters may not know why the cost of goods that travel via freight are going up, but they'll blame the party in charge, said Chuck Coughlin, a veteran Republican strategist and president of political consulting firm HighGround.

"The price of everything has gone up, Trump promised just the opposite," Coughlin said. "He's gonna pay a price at the polls."

He already is. This week, Trump hit his own all-time high. One poll put his job disapproval rating at a whopping 62 percent -- a higher number than he has seen during either of his terms in office. The Republicans facing midterm elections are getting increasingly glum about their chances, for good reason. Support for their agenda is cratering, and young voters in particular are fleeing the GOP in droves.

As time goes on, more and more people are figuring out the hard, cold fact that Trump just lies right to their faces -- about anything and everything. In fact, it's easier at this point to just assume that whatever Trump says is completely untrue and the opposite must be true instead.

 

This is going to be a group award this week, and our only regret is that the group isn't bigger than it is. Because this is a sleeper issue that Democrats should be turning to their advantage across the entire party.

Here's the story:

More than 200 Democratic candidates for Congress have signed a pledge requiring them to turn down donations from corporate PACs, support a ban on trading stocks while in office and vote for policies to crack down on "dark money" in elections -- a display of how broadly the party is embracing anti-corruption messaging ahead of the 2026 midterm elections.

. . .

"Candidates understand the need to have a proactive, positive reform agenda, especially when what we're seeing out of this administration is kind of the most brazen corruption that we have ever seen in our country's history,” said Tiffany Muller, the president of End Citizens United, the group that organized the pledge. "It's not just about winning the election, it's also about setting up the long-term momentum and power behind these issues to be able to really pass meaningful reform."

The group, which first gained prominence by asking candidates to reject corporate PAC money in 2018, said this new pledge is spreading faster. More than 150 candidates agreed to reject corporate PAC money then, a number the new "Unrig Washington" pledge has surpassed with more than six months to go before the midterms.

The group is preparing a press release that will point out that "polling found that three-quarters of voters believe corruption affects what they pay for healthcare, and that two-thirds believe it impacts the price of groceries and other everyday goods."

"These findings are critical because it means corruption is not competing with affordability. It is one of the clearest ways to talk about why costs are high, why families are getting economically squeezed, and why so many believe the system isn't working for them," the group wrote. "This creates a major opening for Democratic candidates."

That is an excellent way to frame the issue -- not as something separate from affordability, but something closely intertwined with it. Senator John Ossoff has apparently been leaning into the anti-corruption message in a big way: "As you pay more for everything, the first family's wealth is growing by billions of dollars. Because they are crooks, and everybody knows it."

Now that is a good message for Democrats! So we are handing a group Most Impressive Democrat Of The Week to every Democratic candidate who has signed this pledge.

We just wish that list included all Democratic candidates, as we said. Because this really should be a bedrock issue that the party as a whole should embrace.

[The press release mentioned won't be officially be put out until Monday, and we could not find a comprehensive list of the 200-plus Democrats who have signed the pledge on the End Citizens United webpage, so while you can read a draft copy of the press release now, you'll have to wait until Monday to see if candidates near you are listed on it.]

 

This doesn't really qualify, because there was nothing particular about this week to it, but the New York Times had a rather good point to make: Kamala Harris should have run for California governor instead of deciding to (probably) run for president in 2028. They point out that Harris likely would have cleared the field of Democrats and emerged as the frontrunner, instead of the mess the state is experiencing right now (where if Democratic voters don't rally behind one of the candidates, we could wind up with a November election with only two Republicans to choose from). It's an interesting "What if?" article, and it makes some good points, but as we said, there's nothing about this week in particular that would cause us to hand an award to Harris for her decision.

The Democratic establishment seems to be jumping into primary races, which rankles some Democrats (especially the candidates running who don't get endorsed). Should the party be neutral in the primaries and only get involved when a nominee emerges, or should they jump in early to boost their preferred candidate? Opinions differ, obviously.

Senator John Fetterman wrote a piece for the Washington Post this week to address rumors that the Republicans have been quietly lobbying him to switch parties, and although he did strongly deny that he was even considering doing so, Fetterman deserves at least a (Dis-)Honorable Mention award for one snarky bit of it:

My party cannot simply be the opposite of whatever President Donald Trump says. The president could come out for ice cream and lazy Sundays, and my party would suddenly hate them. Such pointless pile-ons and attacks are unproductive.

But this week our Most Disappointing Democrat Of The Week is a Michigan candidate for state representative. Here's the story:

Joanna Whaley was on the phone with a member of her campaign team when she received an email from the county clerk's office saying that her candidacy was being challenged.

Frank Liberati, a fellow Democratic candidate for Michigan state representative, had filed a complaint against Whaley, a transgender woman, alleging that she had made a "false statement" and skirted state election law because she did not list her birth name when she filed to run for office.

"I thought it was spam," Whaley told HuffPost. "But I opened it and saw it was an actual legal document. I expected this from Republicans, but not from my primary candidates in the Democratic Party."

She's right -- this is the sort of thing Republicans do, which makes it disappointing indeed to see coming from a Democrat. Whaley and Liberati are both running in a crowded primary for a seat representing a Detroit suburb. Whaley was actually inspired to run for office because of a vote from Liberati's brother Tullio (both brothers have served as Michigan legislators) in favor of a Republican bill banning trans girls from participating on sports teams that match their gender. Tullio represents the district Whaley is running in, but he decided not to run for re-election.

Whaley began the process of legally changing her name in 2023, but she let the process lapse (she didn't have the money to complete it, at the time). She returned and finished the process in 2025, so her legal name change is now official. But at the time, she asked the court to seal the records "as she had become a more public figure in the Detroit area and was concerned about her safety." Liberati apparently found the initial petition for a name change and assumed she had never finished the process, so he filed a complaint.

Whaley has not tried to hide her identity at all:

Last fall, Whaley voluntarily shared her dead name in her affidavit of identity "in an effort to not mislead the Elections Division... despite having no legal obligation to do so," according to a court filing by Whaley's lawyer. As a result, the Michigan Secretary of State's website listed her dead name for a month without her knowledge.

She began receiving death threats on social media as a result.

Whaley's story is an interesting one, as she comes from the world of evangelical politics. She "spent two decades as an evangelical pastor at some of the country's largest megachurches," and "was subjected to 15 years of conversion therapy before coming out as transgender at the age of 34."

But she deserves a chance to run for office. She has legally changed her name, and lives as Joanna. It should be up to the voters in her legislative district to decide whether they want her as a Democratic nominee or not -- she should not be disqualified before she even gets the chance to do so.

As she put it, this is the sort of thing you expect from Republicans. But it shouldn't come from fellow Democrats, no matter how they feel about trans girls in school sports. Which is why Frank Liberati is our Most Disappointing Democrat Of The Week this week.

[While Frank Liberati used to be a state legislator, he is currently out of office and thus a private citizen. Our blanket policy is to not provide contact information or link to campaign websites, so you'll have to search contact info out yourself if you'd like to let him know what you think of his actions.]

 

Volume 840 (5/8/26)

A very mixed bunch, this week. Mostly reactions to the news rather than forward-looking talking points for Democrats on the campaign trail, but it's been that sort of week (again).

 

   70 percent

This deserves wider attention than it has so far gotten.

"The C.I.A. just gave a report to the Trump administration that says that Iran still has seventy percent of the ballistic missiles they had before this war started. Seventy percent! That's not what Trump or the Pentagon has been telling the public, not by a long shot (pun intended). They've fired off hundreds of missiles, meaning that all the bombing we did during this war has only taken out a very small percentage of the total missile arsenal Iran has. America is being lied to about the military situation in Iraq, as even the C.I.A. knows it. We need more honesty from the White House and the Pentagon, because right now all we're getting are lies."

 

   Swimming in cash

Time for some new legislation, obviously.

"The oil companies are the only ones doing well in this war -- their profits are through the roof! They pull this same trick any time a crisis develops, in fact. The price at the pump for Americans goes up immediately when the crisis hits, and the oil companies just shrug and say: 'The price of oil is up, it's not our fault,' but then when the price of oil comes back down again the price at the pump takes months to follow. At that point, they shrug their shoulders and say: 'It takes a while for oil to be processed and get to your gas station -- the price will come back down eventually... in a couple of weeks... or months.' All while they line their pockets with our hard-earned cash. Congress needs to pass a strict windfall profits tax on the oil companies to claw back all this wartime profiteering. Because the American consumer is getting ripped off."

 

   Hamlet knew this guy

We've got two tone-deaf statements from Trump officials this week to get to.

"White House economic advisor Kevin Hassett always seems to be smiling. No matter what is happening, he's got a permanent grin on his face. He smirks his way through all news, good or bad, while telling everyone that everything's peachy-keen. This week, in an interview, he stated that rising credit card debt is actually a good thing, because 'credit card spending is through the roof' means the economy must be doing wonderfully. He is tone-deaf to the reality Americans are going through, with skyrocketing gas prices and the price of everything else going up as well. People have to max out their credit cards because it is the only way they can survive. But this isn't a good thing at all -- just ask people, they'll tell you. Kevin Hassett -- every time I see him on television -- always brings to mind a line from Hamlet to me: 'One may smile, and smile, and be a villain.' Hamlet knew -- that describes Hassett to a T."

 

   Another "good thing" from the Trump admin

As mentioned, we've got two of these this week.

"The secretary of Agriculture could also be lumped in with Hassett. This week she actually bragged about throwing 4.5 million Americans off their food stamps. She called it, quote, good news, unquote that she is denying poor people the assistance they need to buy food, and she is downright enthusiastic 'to be kicking more and more people off' in the future. The cruelty of the Trump administration knows no bounds, apparently."

 

   Meanwhile, let's talk about some real "waste, fraud, and abuse," shall we?

Another sweeping promise by Trump turns out to be a big fat lie.

"Remember how Trump swore up and down that his palatial new ballroom would never cost the taxpayers a single dime? He used that phrase repeatedly, in fact. It was all going to be paid for by his buddies. He has said this for the past year. But now all of a sudden the Republicans in Congress tried to sneak some taxpayer money into one of their budgets to pay for the ballroom. Initially, Trump estimated that the ballroom would only cost $200 million. Then that doubled to $400 million. But the congressional Republicans now want to spend one billion dollars of taxpayer money to build Trump's ridiculous palace. Trump lies about everything, and average Americans always seem to wind up paying the price."

 

   As if that weren't enough...

This one is in keeping with Trump's megalomania as well.

"Trump is also spending uncountable amounts of taxpayer money to hang big huge banners all over Washington D.C. that read: 'Thank you, President Trump.' How much taxpayer money is necessary to feed Trump's gargantuan ego? Seriously, the enormous banners on all the federal buildings with Trump's ugly face on them wasn't enough? Renaming everything in sight after himself wasn't enough? He's got to spend a boatload of money to hang banners thanking himself everywhere in D.C. too? This is just pathetic, and the money to pay for it all comes right out of your taxes, folks. D.C. is looking more like the Soviet Union or North Korea every day, it seems, and we're the ones paying for it all."

 

   Jim Crow 2.0

It even rhymes....

"The Supreme Court is hell-bent on taking America back to a much uglier time, as it rips the guts out of all the civil rights legislation plenty of people died to make a reality. They just tore up the remaining parts of the Voting Rights Act, and -- surprise, surprise! -- all the Southern states are falling all over themselves to redraw their congressional districts to prevent Black voters from ever having a voice in government ever again. So let's call it what it really is, because this is nothing short of ushering in Jim Crow 2.0."

-- Chris Weigant

 

Follow Chris on Twitter: @ChrisWeigant

Cross-posted at: Democratic Underground