Hello and welcome to the DSR Daily.
To my day, I'm David Rothkoff joined by Riley Fessler, menestine, the Big Weekend Lotta News.
Mita?
“The Defense Department has identified the two soldiers killed last week during an Iranian”
ballistic missile and drone attack on U.S. forces in Jordan. Their deaths bring the official U.S. military fatality count to 17 and the sprawling regional conflict. A President Trump maintains its necessary to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons. The ongoing lethal risks to highlight how American forces stationed across the Middle
East remain highly vulnerable to drone and missile strikes, even as retaliatory U.S. attacks
have reportedly killed dozens of people inside Iran over the past three weeks.
Yeah, the winner in a mess here because the President of the United States doesn't understand what's going on is doing it all for the wrong reasons. And frankly, is deeply flawed character whose pride is getting in the way of resolving what it was clearly a giant mess.
“And his response to more American soldiers being killed, or, I guess one went missing and”
as now but identified as dead, in addition is, well, that's very sad. But I had to do this, this kind of thing happens in war, had to do this to keep Iran from having a missile, a nuclear missile, except for, as we know, Iran was not on the verge of having a nuclear weapon. The attacks have not appreciably reduced the nuclear threat from Iran.
And in fact, in waging this war, the United States has introduced Iran to a strategic tool that is better than a nuclear weapon. And that is its ability to threaten and manipulate traffic through the straight-of-war moves. Now, frankly, above and beyond, that the ability that they have to use drones to strike
in a lot of places, low-tech inexpensive drones is also a strategic tool that was the benefits of which were unclear when this conflict started.
“So that's why they're merging stronger, Trump could just close up shop and leave, but”
he wants to say he got a better deal than Obama, and he wants to, you know, declare himself a glorious victor in this to be a glorious victory. He just doesn't ought to get there. So day after day, week after week, we do the same thing that didn't work in the preceding five months of this war, and we don't make any progress and more people die, and it's
not just however many Americans have died, we're not really sure because this administration lies. It's not however many Americans have been injured. It's also the thousands of Iranians have died, thousands of people have died in Lebanon, and billions of people are suffering the economic cuts.
Yeah, driven by those renewed attacks between the U.S. and Iran, the national average free US gasoline has climbed back to $4 a gallon, despite coincides with rising international crude oil prices, and both nations move closer to a potential all at war, although actual pump prices vary by state due to local taxes and supply factors. The current average is significantly higher than last year's rate of $3 in 14 cents.
Ultimately, these climbing energy costs are in to push up with the prices of groceries
and other goods making economic affordability a critical issue for voters in the upcoming
midterms. Yeah, and their number of reasons why this is going to get worse before it gets better. Today, the hooties announced that they were going to stop Saudi shipping in the Red Sea. This hasn't effect because the Saudis have a pipeline that goes across Saudi Arabia, so that they can distribute oil not through the Persian Gulf, but by the Red Sea.
If the hooties start attacking that pipeline or attacking those shipments, then that's going to reduce the ability of the Saudis even further to sell their oil. Also, as we discussed in our podcast last week with Amos Huxstein, who's both a national security scholar and practitioner and also an energy expert, the price of diesel is also going
Up because of the escalating attacks by Ukraine on Russian energy capacity.
Russia's a big producer of diesel that has produced the prices of diesel up.
The escalations in that war, as well as this war, not only have an impact on energy prices,
“but as Riley said on food prices, and then you have to take into consideration the fact”
that Russia and Ukraine are two of the world's biggest grain producers. Trump does not understand the connections between these things. He thinks he is fighting a war between a superpower and a lesser power, and that the superpower can just flex its budget, flex its advanced weapon systems, and win via air war. Iran realizes that what they're in is an economic war, and their ability to slow flows
through the strait, or to work with their proxies to slow flows elsewhere, is going to
put pressure on Trump, put pressure on other countries around the world, and give them
ever greater leverage as they negotiate or try to negotiate or someday try to negotiate. A settlement that will bring this conflict to an end. For Trump, of course, there are other consequences here. His approval rating is down in the 30s. Republican approval ratings are in the tank, and it's almost the end of July.
What does that leave us with, August September, October, before the elections?
“That's why Trump is talking so much about his efforts to interfere with the elections,”
as he realizes that if elections occur purely based on the fact about the U.S. economy,
about the mismanagement and unnecessary nature of this war, about the losses from this
war, about the cost of this war, about his corruption, about his insane remaking of Washington, D.C., about the fact that this weekend, while American soldiers were dying in the Middle East, Donald Trump's choice was to party. He played golf. He went to a big fundraising party, and as we'll talk about later, he also went to the World
Cup Championship match. Trump is completely disconnected from the havoc he has reached in, and it's disgusted. It's irreversible to inhumane, it's not how presidents behave, and that's where we are today, and I don't expect that we are going to make big progress on any of this this week. Well, before we talk about Trump being at the World Cup, which I definitely am excited
to hear all your World Cup final thoughts, we're going to have a small update on our Grand Platner story, former Maine Senate President Troy Jackson has secured a clear path to the state's democratic U.S. Senate nomination after his primary opponents abruptly suspended their campaigns yesterday. The mass exodus followed a weekend of county-enominating meetings where Jackson's organized
sleet of delicates swept the state, establishing an insurmountable lead ahead of next week's state-nominating convention. The parties scrambled to find a new nominee to face incumbent Republican Senator Susan Collins after the initial primary winner, Graham Platner, dropped out of the race over a sexual assault allegation.
Yeah, among other things, well, you know, bye bye, Graham, don't let the door hit you on the back, aside, and this guy ran an organized campaign, it shows that politics works at the grassroots, and it also shows with the dropping out of the other candidates that the Democrats in Maine want to win. And so, you know, it's very encouraging if I were Susan Collins, I'd be worried, of course,
she's worried about everything, that sort of thing, I'm concerned. And I think, you know, they have a very good chance of unseating her.
“And when you do the math about the Senate, you have to get Maine, as well as half a dozen”
other states for the Democrats to take control over the Senate. We'll Trump push back on that with illegal, you know, campaign shenanigans. Oh, yeah, but if the turnout's big enough, and the Republican support is weak enough, we could be seeing a major change in U.S. leadership in just a few months. Well, speaking of a big change in leadership, taking us across the pond, Andy Burnham
has taken office as Britain's seventh prime minister in a decade, succeeding near Starmer
Pledging to deliver a new economic and political model for a nation, a weary ...
instability, speaking outside of tenant, Downing Street, Burnham promised immediate measures
“to address the cost of living crisis, which will be followed by a comprehensive 10-year plan”
for Britain to be unveiled later this year. His stated policy priorities include tackling homelessness, building more public housing to help fund defense investment, and asserting a stronger public control over underperforming utility companies. I'm sorry to interrupt, but I really have to tell you about our sub-stack.
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"I feel like it is so." "And spend." "Hold your money!"
"Abbgabba frizzed 31-cyoli."
"What?" "Shastu can't spend." "What do you mean? Oh, yeah." "You know, it's clearly a good move for labor within the UK to move to a new leader.
Carestormer was not a good leader. Andy Burnham is more personable. He's got a better personality for this kind of thing. But I also think there's another trend of foot here. You know, I wouldn't be too quick to say, "Well, look at this UK development and let's
attach it to some other US things and create a trend out of nothing."
“But there is something that Burnham has going for him that I think could be a very powerful”
tool in upcoming US elections, and that is he was a mayor. You fix things, you got things done. When you're a mayor, you actually have to make people's lives better, and they know it immediately. If crime goes up, or crime goes down, potholes of field, potholes are not filled, schools are better, schools are worse.
Housing gets built, housing doesn't get built. He was working, for example, on the problem of rough sleeping in the United States. We call it homelessness or the unhoused in Manchester, and he made progress. When you look at the politicians that have special appeal right now, Zorum, I'm Donnie, and the United States, obviously, comes to mind, it's politicians who get things done for
people. Doesn't mean they don't keep their eye on the strategic, it doesn't mean they don't keep their eye on the real threats within our societies in the United States, in the case of Trump and corruption. It just means that people want an end to politics as usual if they want politicians
to do what they're supposed to be doing, which is working for them. And there have been seven British prime ministers in the past ten years, and that kind of instability reflects very poorly on both parties. Andy Burnham says he understands it, he wants to change the trend, and I might add there are some, you know, rumors of foot that that may include getting back closer to Europe
and doing some of the idiotic, Brexit disaster of the recent past. We've been through enough in the UK not to get too hopeful, but certainly the early signs are positive, and there are reasons we can see why this might work a little better than some of the flops of the recent past. President Trump was forced to celebrate Spain's World Cup victory in New Jersey yesterday
presenting the championship trophy to the team alongside Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez. The high profile ceremony followed months of bitter diplomatic clashes during which Trump lambasted that ally as hopeless and threatened trade cuts over Spain's low defense spending,
It's refusal to let US forces use local bases for bombing missions in Iran.
Despite the deep ideological divides between Trump and Sanchez's progressive government
“on immigration, climate change, Middle East policy, Spanish soccer officials downplayed”
the political tension, focusing entirely on their historic tournament win. Well, they also did a few other things. For example, one of the most notorious incidents that took place yesterday was Trump going up onto the stage and trying to get into the team photo when they were celebrating their victory.
The team totally ignored him to their credit, but Trump tried to get in the middle of it and they said, "No," and then he went down to the end and tried to stand at the
end looking like truly, like some disoriented grandpa who didn't know where he was supposed
to be.
“Ultimately, he had to be led off the stage by Johnny and Fantino, the head of FIFA.”
And Trump was reluctant to go, and Fantino had to essentially drag him off the stage he did not belong to. So he spoiled the picture, which is a kind of world cup and championship tradition. And what did the Spanish do? Well, they took advantage of AI and they just edited him out of the picture.
But it was overall pretty humiliating experience for Trump when he came on to the pitch. The booze were so loud throughout Metropolitan Life Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey, that the music, as they turned it up, wouldn't drown it out. You could hear the booze. It was embarrassing, players from both teams, at least one Argentine, at least one Spanish
player, ignored him altogether, didn't want to have anything to do with him. And then there was this incident at the end. He destroys everything he touches. On top of all of that, he looked very low energy. Clearly, it was an inappropriate place for him to be, as I said earlier, given the war and the casualties that are going on, and clearly he doesn't care.
He could barely bring himself to say that it was a very sad that the soldiers who died, and, you know, he would have wanted Argentina because the President of Argentina is a friend of Trump's, he also, by the way, had embarrassing incident at the end of World Cup because his team released a social media post about the nationwide celebration that will follow the Argentine victory at the end of the match, of course, Argentina, not only did not win,
but they played atrociously poorly, until the very end, no shots on goal were completely shut down by the Spanish. And on top of that, we're unbelievably unspoken, including at the end of the match, turning the back, their backs on the Spanish when the Spanish were receiving their awards, getting into a big fight.
It was not a good day for Argentine soccer, which is very sad given the legacy of Lionel Messi. And, you know, the fact that he was really the dominant player of this tournament, but this was a tournament full of these kind of contradictions. There were over 100 matches.
I personally watched a lot of them. Many of them were very dramatic, there were great stories, whether it was Cabo Verde or the Norwegians or Erlin Holland or the heroics of Messi, or, yeah, I mean, there were great stories on a regular basis, but you were also reminded on a regular basis that the organization that runs all of this FIFA is one of the most corrupt organizations on earth, gave the World
Cup, two World Cups ago to the Russians, gave it to Cutter the last time.
“They've now just, you've literally given it to Saudi in a couple of years after, I think”
the one after in the next month. And there were all sorts of hints of corruption throughout the match, notably Trump calling up in Fintino after a U.S. player was disqualified with a red card.
Having FIFA reversed that, which is I think a permanent stain and may ultimately lead to
In Fintino being excused from his job.
Having said that, you know, you have to distinguish between the politics and the corruption,
“the presenters who were also responsible by the way yesterday, for indeed worst half-time”
show. I have ever seen, including at my high school football games, and it was just so
fatulished, it was just ridiculous, but in any event, at the performance of the players,
many of whom were heroic, much of it was dramatic, there were great stories throughout it.
“Because that's why, you know, billions of people watched people like in Fintino and Trump”
just set the steel glory from it all, and it's embarrassing, but it's also typical for them.
And the only way to cure that is to get rid of people like them. In any event, here we are, heading into the week, we've got activity in Congress that wants
“to get away. Will there be a save act? Will they confirm Todd Blanche? Will Republicans”
rebel against Trump? You've got the spreading cyclospora, or whatever it is that is producing explosive diarrhea around the United States. The FDA said, "Maybe it's not a parasite," because they don't have enough experts left at the FDA to track these kinds of things. That will certainly hear more about that. We'll hear more about the war in Iran. There will be more about gas prices and market jitters, as we saw last week. So, we'll be here.
We'll cover it with our usual, I don't know, a plom spray, energy, grimness, focus on the truth, more than sense of humor, so all those things. And we hope you'll join us for all of that. For now, thank you, Riley. Thank you, Mena. Thank you, everybody. Have as good a week as you possibly can.
