Trying to Control the Media

Our most recent book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. The second Trump administration has been full of ominous developments.  He and his allies are using legal and regulatory pressure to stifle dissent.

Ashley Ahn at NYT:

Brendan Carr, the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, threatened on Saturday to revoke broadcasters’ licenses over their coverage of the war with Iran, his latest move in a campaign to stomp out what he sees as liberal bias in broadcasts.

As the war entered its third week, Mr. Carr accused broadcasters of “running hoaxes and news distortions” in a social media post and warned them to “correct course before their license renewals come up.”

“Broadcasters must operate in the public interest, and they will lose their licenses if they do not,” he said.

Mr. Carr shared a Truth Social post by President Trump that criticized the news media for its coverage of the war with Iran. Mr. Trump referred to a story published by The Wall Street Journal that reported five American refueling planes had been struck in Saudi Arabia, claiming its headline was “intentionally misleading.” He accused the news media of wanting the United States to lose the war.

Dow Jones & Company, which publishes The Wall Street Journal, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, in a similar vein, delivered a lengthy complaint about CNN’s coverage of the war in the Middle East during a news conference Friday, saying that he looked forward to the news network being controlled by the billionaire David Ellison.

Dire Strait of Hormuz

 Our most recent book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. The second Trump administration has been full of ominous developments -- now including a war in the Middle East.

Alexander Wardm Lara Seligman, Alex Leary, and Vera Bergengruen at WSJ:

Before the U.S. went to war, Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told President Trump that an American attack could prompt Iran to close the Strait of Hormuz.

Caine said in several briefings that U.S. officials had long believed Iran would deploy mines, drones and missiles to close the world’s most vital shipping lane, according to people with knowledge of the discussions.

Trump acknowledged the risk, these people said, but moved forward with the most consequential foreign-policy decision of his two presidencies. He told his team that Tehran would likely capitulate before closing the strait—and even if Iran tried, the U.S. military could handle it.

Now, two weeks into the war, Iran’s leaders have refused to back down, and the Strait of Hormuz has emerged as Tehran’s most potent leverage point.

Adam Cancryn et al. at CNN:

Instead of rapid collapse, the Iranian regime has consolidated control, and responded more aggressively than US officials expected, firing on targets across the Middle East, including oil tankers in the region. Iran has effectively halted the flow of oil through the Strait of Hormuz, sparking a global energy crisis that the administration is now struggling to contain.

Trump has continued to tout the war as a resounding success, seizing on the scale of the military operation and suggesting the US could declare victory at any moment. But two weeks in, the administration is no closer to articulating a defined strategy for finishing a conflict that has grown only more complicated by the day, according to interviews with more than a half-dozen people familiar with the internal deliberations.

Thirteen American service members have died thus far, and roughly 140 others have been wounded since the fighting began. Across the US, there is little indication in early polling that the public is on board with the idea of war.

...

On Friday, the average per-gallon price of gas in the US stood at $3.63, an increase of 65 cents since the war began and the highest level in nearly two years.

Within the Republican Party, the surge has undercut a core element of its political pitch ahead of midterm elections focused chiefly on the cost-of-living, erasing all the progress made toward lower gas prices since Trump took office.

State Legislative Elections and the Midterm

Our most recent book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. It includes a chapter on congressional and state elections. 

Natalie Fertig at Politico:

Democrats have flipped 28 Republican-held seats in state legislatures across the country over the past 14 months, a sign that the GOP is indeed at risk of losing control of the House, and maybe even the Senate, in the midterms.

Democratic wins have come even in deep red states, including Texas, Arkansas and Mississippi, and often by margins that make Republican leaders uneasy.

“I’m ringing the alarm bell,” said Brendan Steinhauser, a Texas GOP consultant who has run campaigns for Republicans in the state, including Sen. John Cornyn and Rep. Dan Crenshaw.

The results of these state-level elections reflect the immediate concerns of the electorate, provide a launching pad for the next generation of national leaders and could influence the future makeup of Congress through redistricting. They may also give both Republicans and Democrats a preview of the midterm battles to come.

Miscalculation

 Our most recent book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. The second Trump administration has been full of ominous developments -- now including a war in the Middle East.

Mark Mazzetti, Tyler Pager and Edward Wong at NYT:

On Feb. 18, as President Trump weighed whether to launch military attacks on Iran, Chris Wright, the energy secretary, told an interviewer he was not concerned that the looming war might disrupt oil supplies in the Middle East and wreak havoc in energy markets.

Even during the Israeli and U.S. strikes against Iran last June, Mr. Wright said, there had been little disruption in the markets. “Oil prices blipped up and then went back down,” he said. Some of Mr. Trump’s other advisers shared similar views in private, dismissing warnings that — the second time around — Iran might wage economic warfare by closing shipping lanes carrying roughly 20 percent of the world’s oil supply.

The extent of that miscalculation was laid bare in recent days, as Iran threatened to fire at commercial oil tankers transiting the Strait of Hormuz, the strategic choke point through which all ships must pass on their way out of the Persian Gulf. In response to the Iranian threats, commercial shipping has come to a standstill in the Gulf, oil prices have spiked, and the Trump administration has scrambled to find ways to tamp down an economic crisis that has triggered higher gasoline prices for Americans.

The episode is emblematic of how much Mr. Trump and his advisers misjudged how Iran would respond to a conflict that the government in Tehran sees as an existential threat. Iran has responded far more aggressively than it did during last June’s 12-day war, firing barrages of missiles and drones at U.S. military bases, cities in Arab nations across the Middle East, and on Israeli population centers.

Bad Optics

 Our most recent book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics.  For a reality-TV guy, Trump has seemed remarkably inattentive to optics.

📺FAKE FOX NEWS: In shocking example of MAGA propaganda, @foxandfriends Weekend replaces footage of Trump's attendance at Dover AFB dignified transfer yesterday with video clip of Trump attending similar transfer on December 17, 2025 — all because he wore a baseball cap yesterday https://t.co/B06cdaAWRi pic.twitter.com/7iyoxUrM1D

— Bad Fox Graphics (@BadFoxGraphics) March 8, 2026

Fox News admits to airing an old dignified transfer video on its program this morning, one that did not show Donald Trump wearing a white ball cap. pic.twitter.com/Wi0xleC0lU

— Aaron Parnas (@AaronParnas) March 8, 2026

Trump to Latin American leaders: "I'm not learning your damn language. I don't have time." pic.twitter.com/02eQBPS9Gv

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) March 7, 2026

The Trump Administration's choice to end their "Shield for the Americas" summit with the Monty Python Flying Circus theme march is inspired. I take back everything bad I ever said about the regime pic.twitter.com/01rFCKuKrs

— Laura Jedeed (@LauraJedeed) March 7, 2026

Karoline Leavitt doesn’t rule out a draft.

How about the answer is NO DRAFT AND NO BOOTS ON THE GROUND because we campaigned on NO MORE FOREIGN WARS OR REGIME CHANGE!!!

Liars every single one of them!

Not my son, over my dead body!!!!!
pic.twitter.com/UTLn4WXFRV

— Former Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene🇺🇸 (@FmrRepMTG) March 8, 2026

Trump now says $100/barrel oil “a very small price to pay” and calls anyone who disagrees a “fool” pic.twitter.com/COdfvvJKDE

— Andrew Feinberg (@AndrewFeinberg) March 8, 2026

The Epstein Story Isn't Going Away

Our new book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. The second Trump administration has been full of ominous developments. Scandals persist.  Especially Epstein.

 Julie K. Brown and Claire Healy at Miami Herald:

Three FBI interviews that contain graphic sexual and physical assault allegations against President Donald Trump were released Thursday by the Justice Department. The reports were follow-up interviews a woman gave to the FBI in 2019, when the agency was investigating Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell’s sex trafficking crimes.

There is no indication in the reports whether the FBI was able to verify her claims. The White House on Thursday called the woman’s allegations “baseless.” But a DOJ source told the Miami Herald that agents found her to be credible – and that they would not have interviewed her four times if they thought she was lying. In the end, she declined to cooperate with their investigation, and they lost touch with her, the source said.

Favour Adegoke at Yahoo:

Federal investigators have released a new legal document that contains several suspicious findings in relation to Epstein's death by suicide.

According to the New York Post, one of the guards tasked with monitoring Epstein's tier, Tova Noel, searched for the latest update on the sex offender just moments before he was found dead by hanging in his cell, and also made an unexplained bank deposit of $5,000 ten days prior.

Noel was one of the officers who were accused of falsifying records to claim they checked on Epstein throughout the night of his August 10, 2019, suicide.

However, the document reveals that she googled "latest on Epstein in jail" at 5:42 am and then again at 5:52 am. It was about 40 minutes after her colleague, correctional officer Michael Thomas, found Epstein dead.

The document notes that Noel also searched for furniture online and reportedly missed out on completing her routine checks on Epstein, while Thomas checked for motorcycles.

Bad Times

Our most recent book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. The second Trump administration has been full of ominous developments -- now including a war in the Middle East.

 Sam Sutton and Megan Messerly at POLITICO:

Donald Trump won reelection on the promise of restoring the economy and eliminating illegal immigration.

But in the last week, both issues have threatened to turn into liabilities: A stagnant labor market and soaring gas prices amid the Iran conflict are hammering the economy, and the ouster of Kristi Noem from the Department of Homeland Security has cast new light on the administration’s increasingly unpopular immigration agenda. The economic backdrop has grown ominous — Wall Street analysts are warning that surging oil prices could lead to stagflation — and the blitzkrieg of bad news has jeopardized the GOP’s ability to keep voters focused on Trump administration policies that were designed to help with the rising cost of living.

“If you combine an economy that people don’t like with a prolonged war that you know nobody in his base believes they voted for, that’s a toxic problem,” said one Trump ally granted anonymity to speak freely. While Trump isn’t on the ballot this year, his party needs the president’s poll numbers to improve to keep the House and Senate.

“Don’t drag this war out,” the person said. “That’s my best advice for the administration. The country is in no mood for a prolonged war.”

The Iran conflict has put immense upward pressure on oil and gas –- prices at the pump have climbed by more than 11 percent in a week. Now, with employers shedding payroll and Trump pressing reset on who’s leading his immigration agenda, the president is on the backfoot on the two issues he needs to own for his party to win the midterms.

 Justin Lahart at WSJ:

The U.S. lost 92,000 jobs in February, a sign that the job market continues to struggle in nearly every sector.

The hiring numbers, reported Friday by the Labor Department, fell far short of January’s gain of 126,000 jobs. They were worse than the gain of 50,000 jobs that economists polled by The Wall Street Journal had expected to see.

The unemployment rate was 4.4%.

The labor market slowed markedly last year, with the U.S. adding the fewest jobs outside of a recession since 2003. That was in part due to the Trump administration’s cuts to the federal workforce through a combination of layoffs and voluntary buyouts, but it also reflected the cautious approach to hiring that many businesses adopted to combat uncertainty about tariffs and other policy measures. Expectations that artificial intelligence could reduce staffing needs might have further cut into hiring plans.

Despite some high-profile announcements, the overall level of layoffs remains low. But businesses are limiting the number of new workers they take on. Moreover, job growth was highly uneven, with the healthcare and social-assistance sectors driving gains over the past year, and most other sectors shedding jobs.