Displays of Dominance With No Way Out | Explainer

追加: 2026-06-01

[00:00:00]One of the things to be watching right now, of course, is Iran and what Trump has done with Iran. And I'm not going to rehearse where we have been with that because I've talked about it almost every time I've come on this webcast since he and uh Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel began to bomb Iran in February on February 2028. But the bottom line at this point is Trump doesn't have a way out and the pressure is building. And what I mean by not having a way out is this.

[00:00:32]Right now, Iran essentially is holding the upper hand or as Trump would say the cards because although the Israelis and the US forces have inflicted enormous damage on Iran. Iran has managed to get control and to keep control over the strait of Hormuz through which before Trump and Israel attacked or the US and Israel attacked about 20% of the world's oil flowed. So by having control over that straight, the straight of Hormuz, um Iran has been able to put enormous pressure politically, not only on the US, but especially on the US, but also around the world. And this is a tragedy, by the way, of huge proportions because although I haven't focused on it much because my emphasis is America, the the cutting into the fertilizer supplies for countries that are food insecure is going to have extraordinary um repercussions over the course of the summer and the next year. And some of those countries are already in in dire straits because of war or because now of uh Ebola that is spreading us through the Democratic Republic of the of Congo for example.

[00:01:47]So the this is a this is a global issue that's happening. But here at home what it has meant is that Trump expected to have a very quick turnaround that he was going to go in he was going to get rid of the leadership that he didn't like.

[00:02:01]He was going to get back out the same way he did in Venezuela. and then everything was going to be hunky dory.

[00:02:06]And apparently the Iranians did not get the memo because they have retained control over the straight of Hormuz. And what this means is that in order to reopen that straight and that's actually quite important in a in a really cosmic way, not just simply the issue of the transportation of fertilizer and of oil and of other products through that straight. But it's also important because since at least uh let's I'll I'll say 1941 but even before that one of the things that the US and its allies have really backed is the idea of freedom of the seas because once you start having countries being able to um to have tolls for example over straits that are near them or over different bodies of water or to threaten each other ships o on the water you first of all run the risk of conflicts. between between countries, but you also get rid of free trade. And once you get rid of free trade, you're going to really hurt economies everywhere. So, the reopening of the Straight of Hormuz is a really big deal. And it it this is the first time in in modern history that it's been closed and and this is really on Trump, right? So, he wants that to to reopen.

[00:03:21]But the problem with it is that there doesn't, you know, Iran is is saying, you know, we're basically gonna extract some concessions from you before we do that. We want reparations. We want unfreezing of some of our a uh assets that have been frozen overseas because of sanctions. They've asked for a number of things. And Trump in turn is saying, but I want your uh ability to create a nuclear weapon and I want that straight back open. And these are actually not compatible. Um they certainly could be negotiated. And the Obama administration along with China and France and Germany and the United Kingdom and um did I say China? I did. I don't forget who the fifth country was. I'm sorry off the top of my head. Did in 2015 negotiate the joint comprehensive plan of action or JCPOA that took a lot of these issues and found a solution to them. And that's what Trump took us out of in 2018 that he's now trying sort of to get back to, but he's not going to get back to that specific issue. Anyway, all that to say that some of Trump's supporters, especially on the on the far right side, want him to to really start bombing Iran again and force Iran to reopen that straight. But if he does that, Iran does have the capability to hurt and to hit Arab states, especially the oil production of nearby states. And of course, the Arab states are like, "Don't even think about it because you're hurting our economy really badly and they're taking out our oil." So if he makes those strikes, that's going to create problems for the United States and for Trump. And the other thing he could do is he could send in ground troops. And I don't think that I need to explain why that's not going to be a very popular thing in the United States of America.

[00:05:11]Or he could simply do nothing, which would leave Iran in control of the strait. And that's not popular. But what he can't do is leave it because as in the condition it's in with the Iran being able to control what ships can go through the straight pressure is mounting because the US is not getting the kind of oil it's accustomed to using and just today um the news came out that what we have been doing around the world but certainly in the US is the US has been spending down whatever reserves people had to try and keep prices somewhat low and those reserves are running out And when they do, they're gonna we're gonna hit another real energy shock. Thank God it's summer because those of us who live in cold climates, um you it's bad enough trying to heat your home in the you know, even where oil was and now we're in a real mess. So basically, he can't walk away.

[00:06:09]He can't bomb again. And he can't leave things the way they are. And this is a recipe for extraordinary stress. And so that I think is another reason he's turning back to all of the work in the um in the uh on the on the the building that he's trying to do in Washington DC. Um but but there's another way in which he's really lashing out. And the way in which he started lashing out yesterday, mostly yesterday, was that um he's not entirely suddenly, but he's begun to lash out against people who have gotten the better of him in the past. It's almost as if he is determined to demonstrate his dominance because he's very into these whole ideas of dominance displays and the idea, you know, he's he cares a lot about, you know, the the ultimate fighting championship and he cares a lot about professional wrestling and, you know, the whole idea of this administration was that it was going to every day was going to be an episode in a soap opera and he had to win the end of every day. And he cares a lot about dominance. You know, he never backs down. county always has to dominate. So last night we learned from CNN that the Department of Justice has opened up a criminal investigation into whether 82year-old now um Eugene Carroll, the journalist um who won a number of lawsuits against Trump, committed criminal perjury in her testimony about um her defamation suit against Trump and about her uh her lawsuit acced accusing Trump of sexually assaulting her. Um, that is a a case that Trump has tried very hard to get out of. He's tried very hard to say first of all that he didn't sexually assault her and then that he should not have to pay the extraordinary numbers of millions that a judge awarded um Eugene Carol after a jury did in fact convict Trump. Um, and the the reopening of that was just not really reopening, I'm sorry. The fact he's got the Department of Justice to look into whether or not she has committed uh a crime in her testimony almost just seemed like a knee-jerk I got to beat somebody up to me anyway.

[00:08:32]And that she was a logical place for him to try and assert dominance both because she's female and because she won against him in the past. And that um that I thought was interesting. But that's not the only thing. Yesterday he also refiled his lawsuit against the Wall Street Journal. And again, there's so many law uh lawsuits, I know, but he had I believe it was a $10 billion lawsuit.

[00:08:58]Don't quote me on that. It's off the top of my head because I actually couldn't really prepare either today because I was busy doing stuff. but a10 billion dollar lawsuit as I recall against the Wall Street Journal for publishing that birthday card with his signature on it that was uh came from the Epstein estate that had been a gift to Jeffrey Epstein on his I think 50th birthday. And the Wall Street Journal published that and and said that it um came from Trump and Trump sued and the case got thrown out for technical reasons and now he has relaunched it. And that was interesting because that card um shows, you know, the Wall Street Journal keeps calling it a body card, which is a word um but it is seemingly a a child um a a girl. and the writing of the words on it are very suggestive of um sexual assault against children.

[00:10:13]So, it was interesting that once again in a case that had sort of somewhat fortuitously gone away for for Trump um that he felt the need to refile that remembering of course that the Wall Street Journal is owned by the Murdoch family, Rupert Murdoch, and that they have always been on Trump's side. And this almost seemed again, obviously they're not that much anymore. or the Wall Street Journal has been turning out really pretty hard-hitting journalism that exposes things like that birthday card. But it was interesting that he felt the the need to reopen that as well.

[00:10:53]Um but then there was also the fact that um one of the things that Trump has always insisted is that he it that the Department of Justice has been used against him, not that he's using it against other people. And that of course is the justification for that $1.776 billion slush fund that is designed uh allegedly to go um provide payment for those people who were convicted of crimes associated with Trump's attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. Trump's argument for that slush fund was that the Department of Justice had been weaponized as he says against his him and his supporters. So while they're making that argument, they are in fact using the Department of Justice themselves against other people, which is again a tactic that a number of Republicans have used for a while now.

[00:11:55]Accuse other people of what you yourself are doing. I I'll come back to that in a minute. But last night, a group of 35 former judges wrote a an a letter asking the judge who closed Trump's lawsuit that that led to the slush fund, asking that judge to reopen the case uh because they believed it was a fraud on the American people.

[00:12:25]And let me untangle that just a little bit for you. A number of people have referred to that slush fund as part of a settlement and it was explicitly not part of a settlement.

[00:12:39]Trump had sued the Internal Revenue Service for the fact that a contractor to the IRS during his first term had released the tax returns of more than 400,000 people to media outlets.

[00:12:54]He sued the IRS during his second term for $10 billion.

[00:13:01]And the judge who was in charge of that suit was looking at it like there were a lot of signs that she was going to say this isn't real because you can't sue yourself and then turn around and say, "Well, I deserve this much in a settlement." You just can't do that.

[00:13:17]That's that's not actually a lawsuit.

[00:13:19]So, right before she was about to decide whether or not it was a real lawsuit and could go forward, Trump and his sons and the Trump organization, all the people who brought it in the first place, dropped it. They closed it. So, it went away. And she she in her order cancelling the depositions and so on or cancelling the movement forward of that case, she said, "This isn't a settlement. The case is done." That that this there is I have not seen a settlement. There is nothing about what I'm hearing about that is part of this case.

[00:13:55]That same day, or maybe it was even the day before, the Department of Justice said it had a settlement agreement with Trump, his oldest sons, and the Trump Organization. And that part of that settlement agreement was this slush fund. And so what these judges have asked is for the judge to reopen that case and say, "Are you perpetrating a fraud on the American people with this 1.776 billion dollar slush fund essentially?"

[00:14:25]So that is also here on the table in the last two days. Um but I but I'm not done yet. I'm really not done and I will try to be quick here. Um, the other thing that we heard today came from ProPublica, which has been doing just phenomenal work. I really urge you to support them if you can.

[00:14:48]That the Pentagon did a $620 million deal with a company that Donald Trump Jr. had invested in. And at the time when people, you know, people's eyes kind of eyebrows kind of went up, the White House and Trump Jr. said, "Well, you know, no strings were pulled. You know, I this had nothing to do with us." Turns out Peter Navaro, who is Trump's trade advisor, actually said to the Pentagon, "You got to get this deal done and you got to get this deal done quickly." And that according to ProPublica, and that is um, you know, corruption 101 basically. So you have that actually on the table as well. So, I think all of these things, these pressures are starting to mount and they're they're illust illustrative of what's happening to the American government, but I think they're also illustrative of increasing pressure on Trump himself. Elf.