U.S. President Donald Trump’s midterm election losses haven’t helped the U.K. economy — yet.
The Bank of England’s nine-member Monetary Policy Committee announced on Thursday it has overwhelmingly voted to increase interest rates to 4% from 3.75%, the first time since August 2023 to combat rising prices driven bythe war in Iran.
Unlike the U.S. Federal Reserve and European Central Bank, the Bank of England has been reluctant to raise rates for fear of denting the British economy.
Until now, Governor Andrew Bailey and other MPC members have preferred to wait and see whether higher energy prices spilled over more broadly.
But the Bank was forced to increase rates after U.K. inflation came in at 3.5% in September, while the economy posted better-than-expected growth figures — raising the risk prices could take off.
The MPC on Wednesday voted 8-to-1 to raise rates, arguing the energy shock since the war began has built “sufficient” inflation pressures to justify a hike.
The dissenting vote from Catherine Mann was for a larger increase of 0.5 percentage points.
But Bailey made no secret of the fact that the future health of the U.K.’s economy depends on what the U.S. does in Iran.
“Today’s increase shouldn’t be seen as the first in an inevitable long sequence of hikes,” Bailey said.
“But, unless the conflict in the Middle East is resolved, neither does it seem likely to be the last increase.”
The Bank projected inflation would pick up to nearly 5% by the second quarter of 2027, higher than its previous forecast, with greater spillover into wages and other prices.
Under an adverse scenario, in which prices stay higher for longer and the conflict in the Middle East continues to flare, inflation would hit 6.2% in the third quarter of 2027.
Thursday’s decision, which comes a week after Chancellor John Healey delivered his first budget under the specter of Brits paying the highest energy prices in three years, will further squeeze struggling U.K. households and businesses already hit with higher energy bills and mortgage rates.
The tougher financing backdrop could hurt the Burnham government’s promises to tackle the cost of living. Yet rampant inflation would also undercut that pledge.
Still, the Bank’s top brass also pushed back on market expectations that rates could by hiked to 4.75% or 5% in 2027 — which could help bring down decades-high government borrowing costs.
The Trump factor
The decision comes as the rout of Trump’s Republican Party at the U.S. midterm elections on Tuesday raised the prospect of a peace deal in the Middle East.
A thaw in the conflict could bring down fuel prices by easing pressure on oil supplies and improve the cost-of-living picture for U.K. households.
There were reports Trump could respond to his party’s losses by embarking on a bombing campaign in the Middle East, but the U.S. president appeared to accept on Wednesday that higher petrol prices affected his popularity and struck a more conciliatory tone on the prospect of peace negotiations.
U.S. Vice-President JD Vance blamed the Iran war for the electoral losses. And U.K. Prime Minister Andy Burnham said Wednesday that the elections create an opportunity to focus on the cost of living.
Oil prices fell sharply on Wednesday, amid expectations Democrats could also limit Trump’s funding for the conflict. The possibility of a ceasefire could yet be subject to Trump’s whims.
Regardless, U.K. consumers will feel the pinch through a rise in the energy price cap in January.
Even if falling oil prices persist over the next few weeks, the price cap is likely to rise substantially because of a lag in the way it is calculated.
The Bank forecast the cap will hit £2,150 in the first quarter of 2027. Food price increases, which have so far been muted, could hit 4.75% by mid-2027 as companies pass through higher costs.
Healey’s budget will knock 0.25 percentage points off inflation by the second quarter of next year, the Bank said, while tighter fiscal policy to bring down the deficit would likely detract from growth in the medium term.
A senior Iranian official mocked JD Vance on Thursday for a lengthy social media post in which the U.S. vice president conceded that the American-Israeli war on Iran caused the Republican Party’s midterm election meltdown this week.
“Losing gambler energy, can’t walk away from the table. Boss is prepping the next war phase while America teeters on an Israel-First cliff. Skip the TED talk. Why not say this to your boss?” Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, the speaker of Iran’s parliament, shot back at Vance.
In his screed on X, published less than 24 hours after the Republicans suffered an election wipeout, Vance pointed to four things that needed to happen for voters to return to the party in future ballots.
“1) End the war. 2) Focus on cost of living/inflation. 3) Put America First. 4) Change our relationship to Israel,” Vance argued, in a missive that he personally drafted and which marked his first post-election attempt to distance himself from a war that U.S. President Donald Trump has repeatedly defended.
The U.S. and Israel attacked Iran on Feb. 28 this year, decapitating much of its top leadership. But the Tehran regime retaliated by attacking U.S. targets in the Middle East and closing off the Strait of Hormuz — a vital maritime chokepoint for the supply of oil and gas — by threatening ships attempting to traverse the waterway.
The standoff drove up the price of fuels and fertilizer, which raised the cost-of-living in the U.S. and contributed to a brutal electoral environment for the Republicans, who suffered a generational defeat on Tuesday night.
While Vance stated that “the reason we lost is the war,” Trump has been insistent that the conflict is necessary to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.
Europe is feeling more than a little bit of schadenfreude.
In a stunning U.S. midterm election, Democrats regained control of the House of Representatives and the Senate, as well as several governorships, winning big in Republican strongholds like South Carolina, Texas and even Kansas. While some races were yet to be called Wednesday morning, the result is a monumental rebuke of U.S. President Donald Trump.
For Europe, which has weathered Trump’s incessant verbal attacks and tariff threats for the last two years, it was a rare ray of hope in transatlantic politics — if not because Washington would become a more predictable partner, then at least because the U.S. president might be too distracted to focus his usual ire on Europeans.
European Parliament Vice President Sophie Wilmès, a former Belgian prime minister, heralded a “major shift in the balance of power in the U.S. Congress,” adding: “I hope it will lead to a calmer, more constructive relationship with Europe.”
It remains to be seen how Trump will shift his stance on Europe, if at all, with Congress no longer under his control. As president, he still retains many of the executive’s powers on foreign policy.
German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius called the Democratic victory “historic” but cautioned against Europe expecting too much. “We will seek close contact with the Democrats,” he said Wednesday morning at the Berlin Security Conference. “But we do not know what the president will do after the election in the near future.”
Two senior EU figures — both regular Trump antagonists — couldn’t resist celebrating the result, though.
“American society voted against policies that only impoverish,” Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said. “Against hate. Against sexism. Against climate change denial and against the privileges of the elites.”
Polish Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski reshared his own tweet from June last year responding to Elon Musk, a key Trump ally. “See, big man, politics is harder than you thought,” he snarked.
Headache for Europe’s far right
For Europe’s ascendant far right, which has long balanced admiration for Trump with the reality that he is deeply unpopular across the continent, the midterms are an uncomfortable reminder of the political risks of being too closely associated with the U.S. president.
Jordan Bardella, leader of France’s National Rally (RN), was keen to chalk up Trump’s “unfavorable” result to his decision to go to war with Iran more than anything else.
“It’s the case that the U.S. intervention in Iran has had a very strong impact on the U.S. economy, but also on the European economy,” he said Wednesday morning.
Bardella added that the RN’s presidential candidate Marine Le Pen was still leading in the French polls ahead of next year’s election and insisted defeats for nationalist politicians in Brazil, Hungary and now the U.S. did not bode ill for his party’s chances.
Jordan Bardella arrives for an event in La Seyne-sur-Mer, France, on Sept. 27, 2026. | Thibaud Moritz/AFP via Getty Images
But the cost-of-living crisis was top of American voters’ minds, according to polls. That’s also the case in European countries, from France to Spain to Greece, which are grappling with soaring rents and widespread anger at apparently impotent governments.
Marine Tondelier, leader of France’s Greens, said Trump had “made the United States the laughingstock of the world” and called the result a “warning for France” ahead of the presidential election in April.
“If our country brings the RN to power next year, it will meet the same tragic fate as the United States,” she said.
U.S. Ambassador to NATO Matthew Whitaker sought to downplay the prospect of a shift in Washington’s foreign policy following the midterm elections, insisting that the issues facing the U.S. and its European allies remained unchanged.
“The foreign policy of the United States has not changed,” Whitaker said, adding that “the issues that we’re facing as a country and as an alliance are the same.”
European markets, meanwhile, greeted the results with cautious optimism. Paris, London and Frankfurt opened slightly higher on Wednesday, following the Democrats’ sweeping victory.
Reality check for Trump
For all the celebrations, European officials were also quick to acknowledge that a Democratic-controlled Congress does not automatically translate into a more accommodating U.S. administration.
Trump retains considerable room to maneuver on foreign policy, including on the issues that have most strained transatlantic ties: European security, trade and Russia’s war in Ukraine.
France’s Economy Minister Roland Lescure noted Wednesday morning that while Trump would be “quite weakened” domestically, the “unpredictable” president remained “in charge of international policy.”
But a hostile Congress could make it harder for him to push through his domestic agenda, while opening the door to greater scrutiny of his administration.
“Voters have a habit of balancing power,” Finnish MEP Mika Aaltola said on X, “and now the president’s hands are more tied in domestic and foreign policy.”
Former Italian Prime Minister Enrico Letta was more emphatic.
Enrico Letta is pictured during an event in Milan, Italy on April 16, 2025. | Emanuele Cremaschi/Getty Images
“Europe is much stronger” thanks to the “blue wave,” he wrote on X.
Kathleen Van Brempt, vice-chair of the European Parliament’s International Trade Committee, shared a White House tweet predicting a Trump victory — and captioned it that it was, actually, America that won.
“And he lost,” she said.
Despite the ballot-box drubbing, Trump himself couldn’t resist a final shot at Europe, during an election night call with Fox News.
“You look at Europe, it’s dying. You look at what’s going on in France, what’s going on in Italy and all these other countries. I mean, they’re going through a terrible time. And they may not even survive, frankly,” he warned. “And we are thriving.”
European capitals are watching these midterms closely — but are under no illusions that a Democrat-led Congress could reverse the new world order shaped by President Donald Trump.
The MAGA movement has few friends among European governments, given Trump’s backpedaling on support for Ukraine and NATO. The president’s war in Iran has caused economic chaos across the continent and his frequent browbeating of European leaders is a headache they could do without.
So Europe will be watching for two things tonight — firstly, an election that leaves Trump so weakened at home that he’s somehow more stymied abroad. This feels optimistic: Foreign affairs remain the White House’s prerogative whichever party controls Congress, and history shows that presidents tend to have an even greater overseas focus in their final years in office.
Second, European leaders will be watching for any hint of the direction the U.S. might be headed in 2028. Any prospect of a 48th president with a more traditional American view of the world — embracing NATO, Europe and free trade — would be warmly welcomed.
But more important still would be any sign that the MAGA movement itself is on the wane. Europe knows full well from the Joe Biden presidency that any reversion to a more conventional president is only going to be temporary for as long as the Republican Party remains of a MAGA mindset.
At some point, maybe around the time Joe Biden declared on the debate stage that he “finally beat Medicare,” Washington got the idea that defeating an old man in an election was easy.
Not always.
Just days before an American election viewed by many voters as an opportunity to neuter an unpopular 80-year-old president, voters in Brazil and Israel delivered a vivid reminder that an old man in his country’s highest office usually didn’t get there by accident.
Lula, 81, and Netanyahu, 77, have almost nothing in common except their age and political resilience. They have towered over their countries for more than a generation, outfoxed prosecutors and humiliated electoral rivals, enraged and entranced Washington. They have done it with the loyal support of voters on the left and right who view each man in heroic terms, as a tireless champion of their interests and a shield against the most fearsome enemies.
President Donald Trump has, at times, shared those political traits. If he has one more escape act left in him, it would look more like what we’ve just seen in Israel and Brazil than anything in Trump’s second term so far.
Since returning to office in 2025, Trump has failed to deliver policy victories that most voters can feel in their own lives, while shedding some of the most important parts of the political identity that forged his populist base. He ran for president in 2024 pledging to whip inflation and railing against needless foreign wars. Trump’s signature acts this term — passing the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, waging a global trade war, attempting regime change in Iran — have made health care, consumer goods and energy more expensive.
What is his closing message in the midterm election? Trump makes one argument consistently: that Democrats are crazy. But you’d be hard-pressed to find a convincing through line in a series of campaign-trail monologues boasting about the economy, trashing individual Democratic candidates as weirdos and subversives, musing about renaming oceans, defending the Cheesecake Factory and admiring Jon Husted’s rock-hard bod.
Compare this to what voters heard in Brazil and Israel: relentless, ruthless, shameless appeals to the political coalitions that Lula and Netanyahu forged over decades.
In Brazil, Lula tapped into the regional and class-based divisions that have defined his electoral career, while offering a buffet of new economic promises to voters in his base. He hiked welfare payments, promised voters free public transit on weekends and endorsed a shorter workweek. His 45-year-old opponent, Flavio Bolsonaro, stumbled in the final days with a dismissive comment alluding to an accident Lula suffered as a young metalworker — a remark apparently taken by many voters as a gratuitous sneer at the working class.
In Netanyahu’s fight for political survival, the Israeli leader delivered an apocalyptic message aimed at polarizing the electorate to his advantage. He posted an AI-generated image of a nuclear strike on Tel Aviv, branded his challengers as soft on Iran and derided Arab political parties as an enemy within. Israeli and American news outlets have reported that Netanyahu pushed the military for a new wave of attacks on Iran before the election, an escalation that might have reshaped the campaign’s final days.
If Trump had approached the midterms with Lula- or Netanyahu-like focus and vigor, he would probably still be a very unpopular president. But he might be a very unpopular president with a firm grip on the red states that control the Senate, instead of scrambling in October to defend Kansas and Mississippi.
Trump’s populist campaign tactics have been comparatively slapdash and unresponsive to voters’ real needs. He floated giving away $5,000 checks to Americans if Republicans keep control of Congress, only to see lawmakers from his own party pan the idea as a budget buster. He has handed out locally tailored goodies — new funding pledges for a pipeline in Alaska, tariff exemptions as a gift to Maine — that might make a difference on the margins but can’t substitute for a national message on the cost of living.
And Trump has not made a concerted effort to heal the breach within the MAGA base over the war in Iran. He has toggled between Bibi-like warnings about nuclear attacks on Southern California and assurances that the war will end after the November election, all while fuel prices stay painfully high for the people who put him in office.
It may add up to the least effective campaign ever for the man who has overwhelmed American politics for 11 and a half years.
And yet, the midterms are not the end of the story.
Even a broad defeat for Republicans next week would leave Trump with half a term to work with. Two more years to recover his footing, return to political basics, reconnect with his base and fight, fight, fight for relevance and recovery. There is a bag of tricks available to him, if he were to get serious about salvaging his presidency.
For Trump’s opponents, the warning from abroad remains: Beware the old man in a hurry.
LONDON — John Healey wants to keep his debut budget low-key — but he’s also got to show the British public his boss really does feel their pain.
The chancellor delivers the first financial statement of the Andy Burnham era Wednesday. The pitch? “Breathing space for today” mixed with some “fresh hope for the future.”
But with war in Iran driving up costs worldwide, government borrowing at its highest level in a year, and businesses warning they’re taxed to the max, Healey is up against it.
Here’s how POLITICO’s team of reporters will be poring over the big fiscal moment, unveiled at 12.30 p.m. U.K. time Wednesday.
U.K. Political Editor Dan Bloom
I’ll flip straight to the big table two-thirds of the way through the ‘red book,’ where Treasury officials list the total tax rises and spending cuts, and then the “headroom” against Healey’s fiscal rules in the executive summary.
The briefing suggests these numbers will be smaller than the £26 billion in tax rises and £23.6 billion in headroom former Chancellor Rachel Reeves notched up in March this year.
The Treasury has turned this into its comms strategy, pointing to “everyday fixes” and non-tax measures like scrapping business red tape. But these numbers will also show how Donald Trump’s war in Iran has reined in Burnham’s ambitions.
And they are indicative of something else — the budget just isn’t the main event this time. In the next seven weeks or so we’re expecting [former minister] Alan Milburn’s review of the benefit system, a U.K.-EU summit, a “10-year plan” and a white paper on “rewiring the state.”
Then next year is the spending review. That’s when the really hard choices will come — and the budget will give us a sign of how hard, since it will map out a path for departmental spending over the next few years.
U.K. Political Correspondent Sam Blewett
Andy Burnham’s team has been speaking a lot about “everyday fixes” — cheapo policies that can rectify real-life niggles.
That will buy the government a fair amount of goodwill, building a sense that the government isn’t entirely a useless beast being buffeted by global horror shows. But it’ll only go so far.
Burnham departs Downing Street in London for prime minister’s questions on Oct. 21, 2026. | Leon Neal/Getty Images
Healey is under pressure to show bold action on what really matters too — actual interventions that bring down the cost of living. We know already there will be support for household energy bills, a fuel duty freeze, support for pensioners and a hike to the minimum wage. All eyes will be on whether Healey has any more surprises on this front.
As costly as any support is for the exchequer, will it all pale in comparison to the effects of the Strait of Hormuz-sealing war with Iran? This is a self-declared “cost of living government” after all.
First, I’ll scour watchdog the Office for Budget Responsibility’s forecasts to see where the semi-official number crunchers reckon real household disposable income is headed. Then the analysts at the Institute for Fiscal Studies and the Resolution Foundation will provide more insight.
After that, the voices that really matter will be those sitting down to ever-costlier dinner, nursing pricy pints and rolling their eyes at the petrol pumps. Will this budget give Brits enough reason to believe Burnham’s new government is a force for good, trying to ease the pain? Or will they deem the new-look administration just the same old ineffective bureaucrats who need sweeping away in favor of a more radical response?
The number one thing we’ll be looking out for in today’s budget is how exactly Healey — who quit as defense secretary in the dying days of Keir Starmer’s government over exactly this issue — tries to demonstrate he is raising defense spending against a tough backdrop.
The chancellor has tried to manage expectations for the Ministry of Defence at the budget pretty closely, initially stating that he would only seek to cover a £4.7 billion pound shortfall in its already-unveiled Defence Investment Plan.
In recent weeks, however, the Treasury has suggested he could do more to show the U.K. is moving towards spending 3% of GDP on defense, something Healey sees as an important marker on the way to meeting the NATO target of 3.5%.
Media reports leading up to Wednesday suggest an increase will come from money funneled into the British Business Bank and National Wealth Fund.
But could he have something else in his back pocket? Healey is well aware of the potential for awkward questions about his commitment to follow through on the promises he made just four months ago that he said were crucial to U.K. security, now that he’s in charge of the money.
Financial Services Reporter Eleanor Myers
A hike in bank taxes is all but inevitable in today’s budget – but the City of London will be nervously watching how high the increase goes. Along with the lenders, I’ll be looking out for how much taxes are raised, whether any changes are temporary, and whether the City — Britain’s financial powerhouse — gets anything in return.
The easiest move for Healey is to increase the surcharge banks pay on top of corporation tax. That currently stands at 3%, after Conservative Chancellor Jeremy Hunt reduced it from 8% in 2023 to account for higher corporation taxes. Healey could simply reverse the surcharge to 8%, which would be unpopular with the banks and might not even go far enough for campaigners: the Trades Union Congress has called for an increase to 16%.
I’ll also be closely watching for how the bond markets react to the first budget under Burnham. Despite the prime minister describing Britain as “in hock” to the bond markets before he took office, odds are on for a “boring” budget, without any huge spending commitments that might spike borrowing costs.
People view the City of London from Parliament Hill on Jan. 3, 2025. | Benjamin Cremel/AFP via Getty Images
But any cautious policy changes designed to placate the bond market will have to be tempered alongside demands from the Labour Party. It’s a tricky balance, and Labour MPs showed under Keir Starmer that they were willing to rebel when it mattered.
Senior U.K. Energy Correspondent Charlie Cooper
A sharp, painful spike in energy bills is coming for Britain; at this budget we’ll find out how much power Healey and Burnham have to help.
The latest energy price cap forecasts are brutal. Energy firms expect average, annual household bills to rise by more than £450 in January. They could go even higher in April. Why? Mainly because of gas. The fallout from the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran has sent wholesale prices soaring to levels not seen since December 2022.
Healey knows how bleak things look, but he may not have the fiscal firepower to offer much help. Burnham has hinted at removing gas standing charges from bills, which could save an average household a modest £27, according to one estimate.Meanwhile, payments to around 6 million low-income households — the Warm Homes Discount — are likely to get a top-up of between £100 and £150.
Businesses, meanwhile, could get details of a 10-year plan to bring their energy costs into line with European competitors, according to two people familiar with budget preparations.
But with the cost of living and cost of doing business set to rise so high, will that be it?
There’s “strong awareness” inside government “of how bad it will get,” said one senior government official. Unfortunately, they added, there are “not the pockets deep enough to do all the things we might like to do.”
Elsewhere, we’ll be watching closely to see whether net zero schemes — like the rollout of electric heat pumps — could face cuts to cover shortfalls in defense spending.
Technology Reporter Joseph Bambridge
Healey put AI and innovation at the heart of his growth plan in a pre-budget speech back in September.
In that vein, the government has trailed a £600 million spending package to protect the U.K. from AI risks while growing its own share of the sector, calling it a “distinctively British” approach to mitigating risks from the technology while capturing the benefits.
The question now is whether more measures to support the U.K.’s tech and AI sector will come on Wednesday, with trade groups calling for bold moves to lower energy costs, tackle energy and planning delays, and help firms invest in AI and upskill workers.
Startups are also hoping for tax relief and further reforms to regulation and procurement rules. A relief for founders who re-invest their earnings in the U.K. has been a particular demand from the startup community, which has already bagged a win after Healey ruled out raising capital gains tax.
Trade groups are calling for bold moves to lower energy costs, tackle energy and planning delays, and help firms invest in AI and upskill workers. | Henry Nicholls/AFP via Getty Images
AI is also likely to play a significant role in the government’s plans to make Whitehall more efficient, as it did under Reeves.
The sector is also closely watching how the chancellor plans to meet his defense spending targets, in the hopes that drone makers and military tech firms might benefit from the uplift.
Trade Reporter Caroline Hug
I’m looking out for the chancellor’s VAT crackdown on foreign sellers, who register as U.K. based companies to avoid paying the tax. Healey is expected to make online marketplaces like Amazon, eBay and Temu responsible for collecting tax owed by all retailers.
We’re also waiting to see whether the government has more information on its de minimis crackdown, including whether it will introduce a handling fee for small packages below £135. The EU already has one in place.
Finally, we’ll be looking out for any more detail on the government’s suspension of tariffs on more than 100 food, drink, fuel and fertilizer products.
Barely noticed among all the talk in the election campaign about great asses, shithouse countries and commie jihadists running for the Senate was a report from The New York Times warning of “heightened levels of tension and risk” surrounding Israel’s parliamentary elections, slated for today, and America’s Nov. 3 midterms due to the countries’ war with Iran, which has “entered a new phase.” They also offered this bracing observation: “This is how countries can escalate into full-scale war, several diplomats and outside experts noted.”
How’s that for a wake-up call?
In fairness, Donald Trump has mentioned in passing that he plans to “finish the job” after the midterm elections, with CNN reporting that the president “appears to be leaning toward major action.” On Oct. 15, the outlet revealed that the U.S. is considering using the “mother of all bombs” on Iranian energy infrastructure and nuclear facilities. (They admit that such a strike would be “performative,” since it would not actually accomplish anything, but would supposedly allow Trump to declare victory.)
If anyone had the idea that a midterm election campaign would be the place where serious people of goodwill debate the major issues of the day, they were mistaken. For the most part, the war with Iran has hardly come up, and to the extent that it has, it’s been in the context of high gas prices.
If anyone had the idea that a midterm election campaign would be the place where serious people of goodwill debate the major issues of the day, they were mistaken. For the most part, the war with Iran has hardly come up, and to the extent that it has, it’s been in the context of high gas prices, not the possibility of the conflict turning into a major conflagration from which the United States will not be able to walk away after putting on a fireworks show. We may be at a turning point, and nobody’s paying attention.
The U.S. has received credible intelligence, according to the Times report, that Iran has “advanced” plans to attack Americans at home and abroad. According to Reuters, the State Department has ordered non-emergency government employees and their family members to leave U.S. diplomatic missions in Saudi Arabia and has reduced staff in Lebanon, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Jordan. NBC News revealed that “the U.S. military has been quietly scaling back its troop presence at bases across the Middle East as well.” It certainly sounds as if something is afoot, which the Times characterized in fairly alarming terms:
The fact that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel and President Trump are facing critical elections that could dramatically affect the balance of power in their countries feeds into the complex set of calculations that all sides are making. Even if he is defeated on Tuesday, Mr. Netanyahu could decide to launch one last strike that he may believe his successor would hesitate to execute. Similarly, Mr. Trump, who knows how unpopular the war is even among his strongest supporters, may want to show that at least when it comes to his powers as commander in chief, his authority is undiminished.
Trump has claimed dozens of times that we have already won the war. This is not out of character; his habit is to prematurely declare victory in everything, apparently assuming that the force of his declaration makes it a reality. In the lead-up to the U.S. and Israel’s Feb. 28 attacks on Iran, Trump was apparently so pumped up by his historic political comeback and success at cruel mass deportation, murder on the high seas and the conquest of Venezuela, an oil-rich country, that he assumed he could succeed at what every former president knew was a fool’s errand: take over Iran, seize its oil and dominate the world’s oil supply. And, as Haberman and Swan reported in their book “Regime Change,” Trump had been convinced by whom he called a presidential historian (actually a caddie for Gary Player) that he was “the most powerful man who’s ever existed on the planet by far” — more powerful than Mao, Alexander the Great, Stalin, Hitler, all of them.
What Trump has succeeded in doing is making Iran a global power, capable of re-ordering the world through control of one of the most important waterways on the planet. In the process, he has exposed the U.S. as a second-rate military power, at least compared to the country’s previous reputation, by insisting on fighting an unnecessary war of choice without a strategy while being low on munitions and proving that it lacks the capability of fighting on more than one front. Having let down our Middle Eastern partners who assumed that by allowing bases in their countries they could count on America to defend them — not to mention the administration’s destructive tariffs and abandonment of Ukraine — the world knows that the U.S. is unreliable, and they are looking elsewhere for alliances and economic partnerships.
All this brings to mind historian Barbara Tuchman’s “The March of Folly.” Published in 1984, the book examines tragic wars of choice that needn’t have been fought but, because of hubris and ignorance, were waged anyway, despite being against the best interests of the countries that started them. As Tuchman put it:
To qualify as folly for this inquiry, the policy adopted must meet three criteria: it must have been perceived as counter-productive in its own time, not merely by hindsight . . . Secondly a feasible alternative course of action must have been available . . . third . . . the policy in question should be that of a group, not an individual leader.
Among the conflicts Tuchman chronicled in the book are the errors of the Catholic Church that led to the Reformation, as well as King George III’s epic misunderstanding of the dynamics driving the colonists (and England’s other enemies) to rebel against the British Crown. She also turned her keen historical eye to the big kahuna of her era, Vietnam, in which the U.S. squandered its power and moral authority on a war that began as an ideological experiment, escalated for political reasons, and ended in failure and embarrassment only 51 years ago. You’d think that lesson would still be fresh enough that we wouldn’t indulge in such a folly again.
But, of course, we have. While Afghanistan had at least the fig leaf of justification after 9/11, Iraq and now Iran have both demonstrated that the U.S. has learned nothing from its own recent history. Eight months in, Trump’s misadventure in the Islamic Republic has proven even more irrational than the others. As with all the follies, Trump indulged his fantasies, failed to understand the adversary and ended up working against his country’s own interests.
A delusional, psychologically unfit president started a war based on shifting rationales, finally landing on the idea that Iran was pursuing a nuclear weapon. This was the same country that had been complying with an agreement not to pursue a nuclear weapon, but which this president tore up simply because it had been negotiated by the man he succeeded in office.
We don’t yet know whether these latest threats will lead to an escalation by either party. But either way, the deed is done. The world has been fundamentally changed by Trump’s daft decision to start this war, and there is no going back. That’s how all these follies end, and it’s very rarely a happy ending for the countries that started it.
Jamie Dettmer is associate editor and a foreign affairs columnist for POLITICO.
The war in Gaza hasn’t figured much in campaigning for Israel’s upcoming election — despite the likelihood that Israel’s Arab minority, Palestinian by heritage, might well decide who gets to be prime minister.
Israel’s Arabs make up around 20% of the electorate that will be casting ballots in the Oct. 27 parliamentary election. And thanks to complex coalition math, Arab parties might well be the ones to crown Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s main rival, former military chief Gadi Eisenkot, who leads a center-right opposition bloc.
But campaigns by both the Arab parties and Jewish politicians have avoided talking about what the outcome might actually mean for Jewish-Arab relations in the region, for the possibility of a two-state solution and even for U.S. President Donald Trump’s vision for a comprehensive peace-through-prosperity deal between Israelis and the Palestinians.
“The election campaign has been bizarre,” said Michael Milshtein, a retired Israeli army colonel and former head of Palestinian affairs in Israel’s military intelligence agency. “The campaign has been focused on domestic and personal issues, and on Netanyahu.”
That means it hasn’t included “the very deep complicated issue of the critical relations between us and the Palestinians, and what kind of scenarios or solutions are left after the Oct. 7 Hamas attack and the Gaza War — for any kind of political settlement,” Milshtein said.
But outside of Israel there’s alarm — especially among Arab leaders — over the absence of any serious debate about how to end the multi-front conflicts Israel is engaged in and what that might foretell, said HA Hellyer, a geopolitical scholar specializing in the region.
“Netanyahu, or not, the Israelis are on a particular trajectory when it comes to foreign and security policies,”Hellyer told POLITICO.
“Opposition politicians blame Netanyahu for Israel’s increasing diplomatic isolation and loss of support in parts of Europe and North America. But when you look at what they’re actually saying, they’re not arguing with the policies when it comes to Gaza. They support the overall settlement project in the West Bank. They support the incursion in Southern Lebanon. Their proposition is that they could have done things in a better way,” said Hellyer, who’s a fellow at Britain’s Royal United Services Institute.
Mentions of the Gaza conflict in election campaigns have been largely limited to clashes over who was to blame for failing to prevent the Hamas attack on southern Israel, which killed more than 1,200 people.The Eisenkot-led Change bloc has focused on Netanyahu’s role in the lead-up to the Oct. 7, 2023 massacre, pointing to the failures of his government and arguing he ignored warnings of a likely big Hamas attack. But the bloc has done little to flesh out its governing policy platform.
Meanwhile, Netanyahu’s campaign has sought to frame Eisenkot as an appeaser and puppet of Arab party leaders — such as Mansour Abbas, leader of the Islamist Ra’am party, and Ahmad Tibi, leader of Ta’al party — arguing he would compromise on core security issues to persuade them to join or vote with his coalition bloc after the election to give him a Knesset majority.
“The lack of real content is a major problem for such a crucial election,” the Jerusalem Post lamented in an editorial this week.
Few see any chance of a negotiated peace or a two-state solution any time soon. Israelis largely view international condemnation as biased, and say critics of Israel’s conduct in Gaza fail to understand what the country has to do to survive.
People walk past election campaign banners in Jerusalem on Oct. 22, 2026. | John Wessels/AFP via Getty Images
But at some stage or another, Israelis will have to have conversations about peace, and delaying them isn’t going to help the country reduce its deepening isolation or help repair strained ties with traditional allies, including Europeans, who are starting to impose sanctions and considering arms embargoes.
Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, a fierce Netanyahu critic, said that while there has been election debate about how successful the Gaza war has been in degrading Hamas, “it’s true that the main issue of our future with the Palestinians has been ignored.” He added: “Had I been running, I would have talked about it the whole time.”
So why hasn’t peace been on the agenda?
As Olmert sees it, the root lies in “the huge trauma of Oct. 7, along with the perception that public opinion, the mainstream, has shifted from where it was before the massacre and moved further rightward politically.” That isn’t uncommon: When Israel suffers a severe psychological blow, the political center-of-gravity habitually moves sharply to the right, favoring hawkish and nationalist positions and marginalizing more conciliatory perspectives.
“Nonetheless, the perception is that general public opinion has shifted and, therefore, all of the other parties are hesitant to talk about any political process with the Palestinians or about negotiations or about a two-state solution, and so on and so forth, because they worry they’ll lose support,” Olmert said.
Sven Burgsdorff, a former EU representative and ambassador to the West Bank, doesn’t subscribe to Olmert’s view, instead arguing there’s not much difference between Netanyahu and the leaders of the center-right Change bloc when it comes to Gaza or a two-state solution — something Netanyahu dismisses out of hand regularly, saying that Palestinian sovereignty is incompatible with Israel’s security.
“Even if the right-wing Netanyahu coalition were to be replaced by the current opposition, none of its main leaders — Eisenkot, Naftali Bennett, Yair Lapid and Avigdor Lieberman — question the IDF’s conduct [in] the war on Gaza, nor are they supportive of the idea of Palestinian self-determination. Only Yair Golan of the Democrats and the coalition of Arab parties are in favor of that,” he said in an interview.
Opposition leaders don’t criticize Netanyahu for the conduct of the Gaza war, Burgsdorff continued. Their issue with him is whether he was at fault for not protecting Israel from the 2023 attack. They also accuse him of being set on dismantling Israel’s democratic system and for having no exit strategy for his forays into broader regional conflicts.
Netanyahu has made a long political career out of leveraging external crises to keep his grip on power. And even now, it would take a brave commentator to write him off and suggest that Bibi the Magician, to use one of his nicknames, has lost the magic touch. The Israeli leader has pulled off stunning turnarounds in his long political career, including in the 1990s when he beat Shimon Peres in elections held just months after the assassination of then-Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin.
Olmert still hopes for a Netanyahu defeat and says if Eisenkot is installed, he might make conciliatory moves like meeting with Mahmoud Abbas, the president of Palestinian National Authority.
“He won’t be able to do anything big or quickly with Bennett and Lieberman in his cabinet. Both of them are completely opposed to the idea of Palestinian sovereignty. They keep saying it all the time. ‘There will never be a Palestinian state,’” he said. “So the political space will be very limited.”
But without some serious movement toward a two-state solution, Israel could risk alienating more of its traditional allies in Europe and the U.S.
In so-called normal times and under business-as-usual administrations the job of White House Press Secretary doesn’t lead to renown or infamy. Those terms — normal, business as usual — don’t apply to Donald Trump’s tenure in the Oval Office, and his press secretaries have become household names mostly for the wrong reasons.
Sean Spicer’s claim to fame is being a terrible liar and an even worse dancer. Sarah Huckabee Sanders distinguished herself by reducing the once-frequent White House press corps briefings to very occasional insult exchanges peppered by lies. Her successor Stephanie Grisham, meanwhile, spends her time appearing on the One America News Network, Sinclair Broadcast Group stations, and Fox News instead of serving as a liaison between the press corps and the Oval Office.
More than 300 days have passed since the White House has held a news conference with reporters. In light of the recent saber-rattling between the U.S. military and Iran, that number is stunning. Times such as these require an official briefings from the White House and the military, who are charged with a duty to convey information to citizens via the press corps with clarity.
Such times also present tremendous opportunities to spin the administration’s actions in a persuasive light, leading citizens to have confidence in its actions. Indeed, Ari Fleischer used his position as George W. Bush’s press secretary to sell a war that has been dragging on now for 17 years.
On Friday, Fleischer appeared in Pasadena to talk about the upcoming “American Experience” profile “George W. Bush,” part of PBS’ day of press conferences at the Television Critics Association winter press tour. This is where Salon sat down with him for an interview that took place before the “American Experience” panel.
Right around the same time, 13 former White House press secretaries, military and foreign service officials published a letter on CNN calling for the restoration of regular press briefings.
“An informed press corps strengthens our ability to govern,” the letter states. “Yes, presidents are now able to communicate directly via the internet, social media and tweets. But most Americans will learn about the work of the White House in the reports they see, read, and hear in what we collectively call ‘the press.'”
The statement then observes that regular White House briefings generally lead to better and more responsible reporting, later adding, “In times of military conflict and international crisis, these briefings take on even more importance. Americans want to know the latest developments and seek the truth. On social media, wild rumors can fly, and our adversaries can manipulate disinformation to their advantage. This is now well documented.”
“For that reason, among many, the country needs trusted sources of information delivered on a timely and regular schedule. That is the fundamental responsibility of people who serve as spokesmen and women for presidents, cabinet secretaries and other high-ranking government officials.”
White House spokesman Hogan Gidley responded to the letter by calling its writers “D.C. establishment swamp creatures.”
Among those who signed are Victoria Clarke, who worked under Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, and Scott McClellan, who worked under Bush as his press secretary.
Missing from that list are McClellan’s fellow Bush-era press secretaries Dana Perino and Fleischer. Perino is now a Fox News anchor, and Fleischer is a contributor at Fox News.
In this one-on-one conversation with Salon, Fleischer talked about his view of the press’ relationship with the White House in the current climate and was asked to reflect on his time as press secretary to the second President Bush, specifically with regard to conveying false information about Saddam Hussein possessing weapons of mass destruction that led us to the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003.
Please note that this interview has been lightly edited for clarity and length.
I don’t know if you read the recent Twitter challenge from authors Don Winslow and Stephen King to Stephanie Grisham.
No, I haven’t.
They stated that if she would hold a press briefing, they’ll give $200,000 to St. Jude’s Charity. This was a serious offer, speaking to the fact that there has not been a White House press briefing for more than 300 days.
Yeah.
You held that job and observed the traditional means of operating as an information bridge between the White House and the press corps. So what do you think about the fact that the last couple of press secretaries have been not only less approachable, but granting less access to official information coming out of the White House?
I’m a traditionalist, so it concerns me a lot and there’s a tremendous value to the briefing. There certainly was during the Bush era, and historically now, the advantage to a president is you have people reinforce his message and buttress what he says. The advantage to the country is it gives reporters a chance to ask more probing, longer follow-up questions.
But everything’s changed now in this era of hostility between President Trump and the press. And I’ve never seen such rancor and hostility in both directions. And so as much as I’m a traditionalist and see the benefits of the briefing, I don’t know that if they brought the briefing back in this current environment, it would serve the press, the public or the press secretary any good cause. I just think it would turn the room into nothing but a TV show that was full of nasty arguments both directions.
I’m not going to disagree with the partisan rancor in this country. That is abundantly clear. But I do not believe that what you’re saying about the animosity in terms of the press, particularly the actual people in that briefing room, is justified.
I say that because there is a habit nowadays, as we’re consuming media, of conflating the people who are on the ground and in that room doing their job as journalists and asking questions, with punditry. You know this. You’re a pundit. So I understand that you’re going to have a viewpoint on this topic that’s going to be a bit skewed. But I just want to say that when you’re blaming both sides, I need to disagree with that.
The questions that are being asked are probing and they’re certainly pressing tough issues with the president. But I would also say that the reaction the president has had, and the press secretaries from Sean Spicer to Sarah Huckabee Sanders and now what we seen of Stephanie Grisham, that is where the rancor has showed up. And you can call me biased on the behalf of those journalists, but when I’m watching the news, the rancor is really elevated from the [White House] side.
Just one other factor I’ll mention – and I’ll come back to that. But there’s another big factor here that’s changed things. And that’s the accessibility of the president himself versus President Obama, President Bush, President Clinton. No predecessor has been as open and accessible to the press as the president himself. And that is the primary job of the White House press corps, is to ask the president hard questions. So he’s doing it on virtually a daily basis, whether it’s a good day for him or a bad day —
As he’s getting on a helicopter with very loud rotors where he limits amount of time spent answering questions.
—that matters. I mean, if you’re, if you’re sitting there, they’re getting seven, eight, nine, 10 questions —
They’re getting in a couple of questions repeated seven, eight, nine, 10 times…And he’s not really answering those questions.
I don’t think that’s the case.
I’m just saying that there’s a difference between those formal briefings, which as you know, you have a controlled environment that you, as the press secretary, used to your advantage. Just in terms of being able to distill information accurately and effectively to the press. What you did, and I’m not saying this was right, but you distilled the message to the press, and the press gave it credibility and repeated it. I’ll also say the press should have questioned you even more. I would say that to every press secretary.
But the role that the press secretary plays carries a certain level of respect with the press. By saying Trump is more accessible, that doesn’t necessarily mean that the press is getting a better value in the information he’s sharing.
That’s on the press, not on the president. They have daily access and the press can get out of it whatever they seek. And I don’t think venue matters. They have access to the president, which is an improvement over prior White Houses for the press. So given the fact that the president is so accessible, I still wish as a traditionalist there were the briefing, but I’m realist enough to know that that rancor, that hostility would turn into a nasty red hot TV show where the few grandstanders in the room will spoil it for the lot of them, particularly print reporters who really do just want to get questions answered.
[CNN White House correspondent] Jim Acosta, for example. He acts like a pundit when he should be a correspondent. He states his opinion. He tells the White House what they should be concluding, and I think it’s that type of grandstanding along with the breakdown of the media in the modern era that has led to such polarizing media outlets. We used to have a much more dedicated, neutral fact-finding press corps and now, in both directions, the press takes stands for and against. And I think that’s a reality that’s going to live long after President Trump as well. There’s just been a breakdown on what the media represents that’s changed with this polarization. All of it in the Trump era leads me to think that as traditional as I am, and as constructive as the briefing can be, it makes little to no sense to fiddle with the Trump administration.
At the same time you have to also consider who is that in that room. You’re talking about the breakdown in the media. But there are people in that room who aren’t actually, and I am saying this politely, traditional media. They’re not even really media at all. The White House has invited propaganda machines into that room.
They’ve always been there.
So you’re saying this is normal, that you let in the likes of One America News, conspiracy bloggers ,and newsletter writers, you let those in during the Bush era?
Oh yeah. I mean, my approach during the Bush era was the press secretary should not be the person who decides who was or who was not media. There were people who worked for me who made that decision based on logistics and Secret Service reviews. I don’t think it’s helpful for the press secretary to decide you are acceptable as a journalist. That’s a thin line on thin ice. So I had people in there who were far, far left pundits and then far, far right pundits. That’s the way it goes. I’d spend most of my time taking questions from the front couple of rows, which is where the traditional mainstream outlets sit.
The difference now is that when Trump has appeared and asked questions, he’s gone to the “friendlier” outlets that aren’t actual news organizations. And that’s something as press secretary when you would brief Bush, my guess is, and you can clarify this, but I suspect you encouraged him to take questions from the traditional news outlets that carried the most weight.
He did, regularly. What really changed is the internet and social media has created profound changes in the way the media operates. And then breakdown of the media in terms of the polarization that the rest of the nation is going through as well.
When I was there, there was no Facebook, there was no Twitter, it was the dawn of the social media internet era. Toward the end of the Bush years, Twitter existed and Facebook existed, but I remember thinking if we ever wanted to produce a White House video, we would have released it through government channels and I’d have been hammered for creating government propaganda.
Technology changed, and the Obama administration regularly released YouTube videos and it was widely accepted. It was measured then by how many clicks it got as a measure of whether it was popular, whether it was successful. Gone was the notion that this could be propaganda even though the only difference was who carried it: YouTube versus the government channel.
Technology has really changed everything for the media probably in many ways that are positive in many ways that are negative and we’re still flushing that out.
Let’s talk about that. A lot of your tweets and recent interviews have been quoted. You are getting on Fox News and saying a lot of things in the moment, that you’re having thrown back in your face and you’re being asked to defend yourself.
I’m talking about everything that’s happening in Iran, the missile strikes in Iraq, and all the reaction around this new conflict in the Middle East. People have taken issue with your recent initial reaction of “we’ll be greeted as liberators,” which is what you said in 2003. After that, there were marches in the streets of Iran showing that not to be the case.
Looking at this part of a 17-year war – one which you had role in starting – it’s curious to me that now, 17 years later that you wouldn’t look back and observe that maybe we shouldn’t be doing this, maybe we shouldn’t be increasing tensions with Iran.
Yeah, I’d do it the same way I always have. And that’s to say what I believe. It’s not complicated.
Not even in hindsight?
First off, you have to make the distinction between the military operation, the war itself, and then the occupation. The aftermath fact is from March of 2003 till roughly July, August of 2003, we were greeted as liberators. You could go to cafes and downtown Baghdad, sit outside and have meals. It was a peaceful city. People welcomed the Americans. Starting in the fall of 2003 predominantly, that’s when the occupation turned terrible. And that’s when we start to lose many more lives. And that’s when the tide turned.
So two things can be right at the same time. We were greeted as liberators, and then a guerrilla war became a highly successful guerrilla operation. And we didn’t handle the occupation, right? We handled the military invasion. We didn’t handle the occupation.
But I’m talking about the information that was dispensed to the press before the war.
I’ll get back to that. The other big thing was the issue of weapons of mass destruction. This is an entirely legitimate issue. Of course, I faithfully and accurately reported to the American people precisely what the CIA concluded. The CIA concluded the Saddam had weapons of mass destruction, biological or chemical, no if, ands, or buts.
And the UN investigators went in and didn’t find any conclusive evidence of WMDs.
The CIA said that he had them. That was the CIA’s conclusion. And that was what the president relied on when he made the decision to go to war.
Now, tragically, that intelligence turned out to be wrong, and we all acknowledge that that’s what led to the creation of the war. They called the Robb-Silberman Commission, a bipartisan investigation into how and why it went wrong. Their conclusion was it was an intelligence failure. That’s the heart of it.
And to this day, I’m certain that if the CIA had said to President Bush, “We don’t know. We’re not sure if he has weapons of mass destruction or not,” there never would have been [a war].
And the tragedy is the information turned out to be wrong and we went to war based on a wrong conclusion by the CIA.
Famously, you said that you didn’t support Trump in the election. But you do now. At what point do you look at the events that are either connected to Trump or that he’s precipitated in terms of tensions not just between party but also between the people of this country and say to yourself, “Enough is enough”? Or, “You know what? Looking back, I might not have been correct in this initial assessment”? At what point do you maybe reassess and actually say in public, “Maybe I wasn’t correct?”Do you apologize for anything?
In the primary, I voted for somebody else. I wanted to be for him in the general against Hillary Clinton. And as I watched it all unfold, I ultimately left my ballot blank at the presidential level and voted for him all the levels below president. And as I have watched President Trump, there are many times I have criticized him and there are many times that I have praised him. I’m not afraid to be independent and call it as I see it.
I regularly defended [Special Counsel Robert Mueller] because I know Bob Mueller. I know what a man of integrity is. I was one of few, if not the only person, on Fox News from start to finish to defend Bob and Bob Mueller’s honor and integrity and how he conducted that investigation. And I’ve never hesitated to criticize the president on Twitter or on Fox News.
. . . So I don’t hide what I think or say. And I think one of the highest duties you have having once worked at the White House is no longer to be a spokesperson for any one president or cause. That’s what I used to do with tremendous pride. Now the more important thing is to try to shine a light on what’s right, what’s wrong, what worked, what didn’t, and explain it.
And that’s what I’ve tried to do with President Trump. There are things that he’s done that . . . I don’t support his manner. His style is not mine. It’s not like that any of the people that I’ve worked for. It’s too truculent. It’s too offensive.
But I’ll also point out that many of the criticisms against him are too truculent and too offensive. He’s been called Adolf Hitler, he’s been called Mussolini. As soon as he was the president-elect, a movement [arose] that was based on the word “resistance,” which was the word used against the Nazis in France. . . . Talk about going beyond the norms. These are all actions beyond the norms.
But do you believe that he has been a normal president? You’ve worked for a man who I think people would say operated within the social contract of what we expect from a president.
He’s the president that the American people through the electoral college elected. And I see a lot of people who rejected that, who tried to overturn it in the electoral college, if they could have, who are now trying to overturn it through impeachment if they can. And I think that is equally, if not more so, violative of the norms that I believe are important to the traditions that George Bush represented and the people that I used to work for represented. So I think there’s way too much hostility in the system. But it’s on every side. It’s not just President Trump.
Just to clarify, what would you say those norms are?
To treat people you disagree with, with respect. When President Obama was reelected in 2012 I tweeted the next morning, congratulations to President Obama. He’s my president and he’s all our president. I think that’s the way we should all be. That’s how you show respect for the American people and the decisions made within our constitutional system. I didn’t vote for President Obama. I voted for Mitt Romney, but I recognized he’s my president. As soon as President Trump was elected, you had this massive movement on Twitter and social media saying, “not my president.”
That same thing happened with Obama.
But not by me. You’re asking me questions of me. That’s why I said to you, I instantly tweeted, he’s my president. I wanted to strike that civil tone that much more representative of the Bush family’s tone. So if you’re asking about my behavior, I can just tell you what I’ve done. And that’s represented by what I believe about President Bush. and how you treat people, and how you should be civil with people even if you disagree with them.
You’re a contributor to Fox News and a lot of people have pointed out that Fox is one of the less respectful, less civil, less considerate proponents of discourse right now, particularly in politics. So when you’re talking about respect and civility — obviously they employ you, so there’s only so much you can say — but what do you see that they’re contributing to this conversation?
Well, I think you have to make a distinction between opinion shows and news shows.
Viewers don’t make that distinction.
But I think there is a distinction between the opinion shows and the news shows, and the news shows are superb. I think Bret Baier’s show at six o’clock is one of the best, most fair shows in journalism, and their daytime shows as well. I wake up in the morning, I watch CNN in the morning, and I watch Fox in the afternoon because I like the balance. I want to hear what all parties are saying and I think you can make many of the same points you made about Fox, about CNN and certainly about MSNBC.
So that’s part of that polarization, the breakdown in the media that I was talking about. But I also suggest if you see the things that I say on Fox, it is very much an independent voice and a voice that reminds people about the importance of civility.
This is the point I was making to you about Bob Mueller and I could give you dozens of examples where I’ve said things that were critical of the president and said things that are supportive of the president. I don’t have to be polarizing.
The “American Experience” two-part biographical profile “George W. Bush” with Fleischer airs Monday, May 4, and Tuesday, May 5 at 9 p.m., on PBS member stations.
At a Monday night rally in Nebraska, President Donald Trump spoke about the Iran war and record-high oil prices, both of which are outraging voters and promise to be deciding factors in the November midterm elections. First the president downplayed the high costs, saying they are “artificial” and “a little bit high.” Then Trump said that by attacking Iran, he was promoting peace.
“It’s a small price to pay for keeping the world safe, keeping our country safe,” Trump said to applause. “They can take out a city. Let them take let it let them take out Los Angeles. Let them take out San Diego. That’s this is a very small price to pay and it’s going to be over with very soon. It’s essentially almost over with and they might keep going a little long. You know, they always say they have a big threshold for pain. They need it. Let me tell you.”
The New York Times reported “It was not immediately clear what Mr. Trump meant,” but to others, the message was clearly about inciting violence on an American city. Politicians, especially in California, erupted in outrage, at least on social media. San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria posted on X that “San Diego is not collateral damage … Keep our city out of your reckless war talk.” Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass described Trump’s comments as “dangerous,” posting on X that “In the face of irresponsible threats, as Angelenos, we know how to stand together and protect our city.”
California Gov. Gavin Newsom echoed Bass, posting on X that Trump’s comments could be “treasonous” and claimed he is “directing the State Threat Assessment Center to actively monitor the situation in the event that foreign actors interpret the President’s remarks as an invitation to target California.” All three are Democrats but at least one Republican shared the sentiment that Trump’s speech wasn’t harmless.
“As a Navy veteran, I served to protect Americans, not write off American cities as an acceptable price of war,” Jim Desmond, a Republican congressional nominee in a San Diego metro district, posted on X. “Our job is to keep Americans safe, stand up to our enemies, and make sure a threat like that never becomes reality. No American city is expendable, and no American family should ever be treated as collateral damage.”
But on Tuesday, the White House said this was all just a big misunderstanding and the president actually wants to prevent Tehran from taking out a city. White House Communications Director Steven Cheung posted on X that “The media freakout over President Trump’s comments is not rooted in reality. He was clearly stating U.S. cities would have been threatened if a nuclear Iran hadn’t been stopped. America is safer because of the President. Iran has no nuclear, no navy, no air force, and no money.”
Also on Tuesday, it was reported that most families of the six soldiers killed in the deadliest attack of the Iran war would not be attending a major White House event for Gold Star families hosted by Trump.
The price of diesel fuel is displayed outside of a Shell gas station in Carson, California, on September 22, 2026. | Patrick T. Fallon/AFP via Getty Images
But diesel fuel — the lifeblood of shipping, agriculture, and heavy industry — usually flies under the radar. Its price has surged too, and while truckers and farmers are feeling the initial blow, the rest of the country won’t be far behind.
“Most products in America are shipped along the road via trucks,” Nathan Bomey, a business reporter at Axios, told Today, Explained co-host Noel King. Diesel prices “directly affect their cost of doing business, which then eventually trickles down and affects the consumer.”
On the podcast, Bomey discusses what’s driving the price spike, how quickly it’s going to become a problem for everyday consumers, and whether electric semi trucks could offer a way out.
Below is an excerpt of the conversation, edited for length and clarity. There’s much more in the full podcast, so listen to Today, Explained wherever you get your podcasts, including Apple Podcasts, Pandora, and Spotify.
What is happening with diesel?
There was one major geopolitical event this year that disrupted the entire energy economy, which is the US and Israel attacking Iran. Iran is at the center of the oil economy in some ways, but primarily you have to look at the closure of the Strait of Hormuz and the jockeying over it that has happened in the months since.
Once they closed the strait, it disrupted the entire global energy economy because it handles a substantial portion of the shipping bringing supplies out of the Middle East. That affected diesel prices, gasoline prices, jet fuel prices, and effectively everything based on crude oil.
Who are the people right now that are profoundly freaked out about the cost of diesel?
First off, truckers are freaked out because their cost of doing business is going much higher. Farmers are also freaked out because they’re already facing real pressures from trade wars and things that are out of control, like climate issues, that have caused their costs to go higher.
The price of diesel affecting farmers eventually affects the price they charge, which ultimately gets to the consumer because it ends up costing more to pay for things like an ear of corn.
How stark do you think this might be? In a month or two, do you think I could go down to Walmart and see that something I buy all the time is now a dollar more expensive?
I think the impact is imminent. This flows through very quickly. We’re not talking about months; we’re talking about weeks, if not days, before people will start to notice increases, especially in the grocery aisle. That’s the first place people will notice it because fresh food has to be shipped on a weekly basis. Diesel prices are going to have a big effect on food inflation. This is coming off of several years of food price increases that we experienced in the wake of the pandemic.
We’re also barreling toward the holiday shopping season, which is going to be affected by this as well. If a toy, for example, is made with a resin affected by the cost of crude oil, which also affects the cost of diesel, and then it’s shipped over the road to Walmart in a truck that uses diesel, all of these things add up and will probably lead to higher prices.
We’ve also got an issue with heating oil, which is a fuel used primarily by households in the Northeast to heat their homes. Heating oil, diesel, and all of these oil-based products are caught up in this vortex right now. Ultimately, it is not something the ordinary person can do much about.
Do the industries that rely on diesel have any other options?
There are definitely alternatives to diesel, but in many cases, they cannot be switched to quickly. If you think about the trucking industry, they are invested heavily in big rigs that take products from place A to place B. If you are invested in a truck, yes, you could theoretically switch, but you would be scrapping this huge investment you’ve made. Diesel trucks are not really going anywhere immediately. A lot of times, they’re simply still the best way to get somewhere.
You can switch to rail; railroads are definitely a competitor to trucking, but really only best for certain types of products. There are other types of trucks you can buy. Compressed natural gas or liquid natural gas is an alternative fuel for some trucks, and biodiesel can actually be good. Hydrogen is more of a futuristic thing down the road.
In the short term, there is the possibility of using electric trucks. That is starting to become more realistic. In fact, in recent days, Tesla began major production of the Tesla Semi, an electric semitruck we’ve been waiting for for years. I remember covering this in 2018 when Tesla debuted the semi, and we all thought it was going to be coming out soon.
It has taken nearly a decade for this to finally become a reality in large proportions, but the Tesla Semi is an electric truck that could be an alternative for some. There are other companies making electric trucks too, so that could be viable. But the problem with electric trucks is that the battery is so heavy, making it tough to compete with diesel on shipping heavy items.
It was often joked that when the Tesla Semi first debuted, the very first thing it shipped was a bunch of bags of Cheetos because they were so light and the truck couldn’t handle extra weight. They had a deal with PepsiCo, and it wasn’t ready at the time to ship anything heavy.
It’s a lot better now, but the issue is still how heavy electric truck batteries are, which will make them somewhat limited in capacity. However, we are seeing some demand for the Tesla Semi that indicates it might become more competitive because of the price of diesel.
So when prices are high, generally somebody somewhere is benefiting. Who is it, in this case?
The people benefiting from diesel prices being so high are the refineries, which a lot of people don’t think about much because they’re the middle person in this entire process. They take the crude oil and turn it into usable diesel for a pickup truck, a semi truck, or farming equipment.
The refinery business is experiencing high demand right now, and there’s limited capacity to do this because of issues in Russia, Iran, and other places throughout the world. There’s really nowhere else to do this, and therefore they can charge higher prices. That means higher profits for the refineries.
All of this is shaping up to potentially mean a really ugly winter. One thing I think about a lot is that American consumers will accept a lot of pain. We had Covid — the inflation, and shortages of literally everything. Then we had the war in Ukraine, and prices went up again.
People still keep spending money, even as we predict this one’s going to get bad. People go to the store and spend money, and maybe they gripe, but it’s not like we’re out in the streets. Do you think this coming diesel shock — imminent, in your words — is going to be different?
I’m not an economist, but there is an interesting phenomenon emerging in the economy where consumer sentiment is at rock bottom, but consumer spending is actually really strong. There’s a gap emerging between what people say they feel and what they’re actually doing — in this case, they’re still spending.
Maybe it’s YOLO spending. They’re thinking they don’t have much going for them, so they’re just going to keep spending. I’ve experienced that a little bit, so I don’t blame anybody.
At the end of the day, the numbers matter a little bit more than what people say they feel. But I do think people are going to hit a breaking point because they simply cannot continue this level of spending if the underlying fundamentals of the economy start to collapse.
British counterterrorism police are investigating a possible Iran connection after five men were arrested near a U.S.-used air base on suspicion of preparing a terrorist act.
Police received a call shortly after midnight Sunday about three suspicious vehicles apparently traveling toward RAF Fairford in Gloucestershire, England, near the southern Welsh border. Armed officers stopped the vehicles and arrested five men in nearby Whelford on suspicion of explosives offenses.
The men were later also arrested on suspicion of preparing a terrorist act, according to Counter Terrorism Policing.
Investigators are examining whether the suspected plot is linked to Iran, according to multiple reports. A source familiar with the investigation told Reuters that an Iran-linked motive is considered the leading possibility, while Russian sabotage and an Islamist plot are also being examined.
British authorities have not publicly identified a motive or said who they believe was behind the alleged plot.
RAF Fairford has played a role in U.S. military operations during the war with Iran. American B-1 and B-52 bombers have operated from the base, including for strikes on Iranian missile sites.
Iran‘s Revolutionary Guards warned Britain in July against allowing U.S. bombers to operate from Fairford, saying bases used for attacks on Iranian territory could become legitimate targets.
Police established a roughly 400-meter cordon around the vehicles while an explosive ordnance disposal team examined them. About 85 nearby households were advised to evacuate as a precaution.
President Donald Trump said Sunday that U.S. and British authorities had worked together on the investigation and claimed the suspects intended to cause “big damage.”
“We had them under investigation,” Trump told reporters. “They were looking to do big damage to our fort.”
British authorities have not publicly confirmed Trump’s characterization of the alleged plot or said how long the suspects had been under surveillance.
“We are in the early stages of an investigation, and five men remain in custody,” Deputy Assistant Commissioner Vicki Evans, the senior national coordinator for Counter Terrorism Policing, said.
Police said the immediate incident has been contained, but the investigation remains ongoing.
President Donald Trump said Saturday that he rejected Iran’s proposal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, days after publicly calling on Tehran to reopen the critical shipping route and suggesting a deal could end the seven-month war.
“They made a proposal, but I rejected it,” Trump told reporters outside the White House on Saturday.
Iranian officials unveiled the proposal during a week of diplomacy surrounding the United Nations General Assembly in New York. The plan would reopen the Strait of Hormuz within seven days and pause fighting across the region while the two sides pursued broader negotiations.
In exchange, Tehran sought an end to the U.S. blockade of Iranian ports, sanctions relief and access to frozen Iranian assets, according to reports. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said Friday that the proposal had been transmitted to U.S. officials through mediators.
The Wall Street Journal first reported that Trump had rejected the proposal, citing U.S. officials. The newspaper also reported that Trump has told aides he expects the United States to resume bombing Iran after the November midterm elections.
Trump’s rejection comes just days after he used his address before the U.N. General Assembly to demand that Iran reopen the strait while threatening the country with “annihilation” if it failed to reach an agreement with the United States.
“I have a big decision to make,” Trump told world leaders Tuesday, presenting Iran with a choice between a deal that would allow the country to rebuild or further U.S. military action.
Trump also predicted that an agreement with Tehran could come after the midterms, while insisting that the November elections were not influencing his decisions on the war.
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian responded from the same U.N. stage Wednesday, saying Tehran remained open to diplomacy but would not negotiate under threat. U.S. and Iranian officials also communicated through Qatari and Pakistani mediators during the gathering, contacts Secretary of State Marco Rubio described as significant despite the limited progress.
The Strait of Hormuz remains one of the world’s most important energy corridors, and its closure during the war has disrupted global oil shipments and contributed to higher energy prices.
Trump appeared to have another idea for the waterway Friday, sharing a map on Truth Social in which the Strait of Hormuz had been relabeled the “TRUMP STRAIT.”
Despite Trump’s rejection of Iran’s latest proposal, indirect diplomacy has not formally ended. An American official described this week’s mediated discussions as “positive and constructive,” while Iranian officials said Saturday they were awaiting an official U.S. response.
For now, however, the proposal that could have reopened the strait within a week appears to have met a considerably shorter response from the president: no.
On Tuesday, Donald Trump stood before the United Nations General Assembly to give a speech in which he made it clear that the United States has now fully abandoned its last remaining fig leaf of decency and morality on the world stage, and has embarked on an imperialist model not seen since the 19th century. Since this was a Trump speech, filled with his usual bombast and braggadocio, it didn’t have quite the shock value it might have carried in the past. But there was a new atmosphere in the room. The world sees America as a threat now, and countries are making new arrangements.
The speech was the worst he’s given, and that’s saying something. Delivered with a bored, desultory tone, the obviously tired president spent 40 minutes rambling on and on with his usual litany of grievances and lies. He made it clear that he sees no limits on his power. Looking directly at the Iranian president, he mused aloud, “I have a big decision to make. Will a deal be made with Iran that lets them rebuild? Or do I annihilate the Islamic Republic? Do I drive them into hell with no chance of survival, and no hope of future greatness for generations?” It was outrageously provocative and insulting, and on Wednesday, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian responded in his own U.N. speech by describing the Islamic Republic as “victims of terrorism” at the hands of the U.S., while claiming “we are ready for dialogue and diplomacy and negotiations without accepting the language of force.”
In many ways, this was familiar ground for the president. But there was one portion of his speech that brought home just how far gone American foreign policy is today. Speaking of his policy of murder on the high seas in the Caribbean, Trump claimed that drug traffickers, whom he calls “terrorists,” must be “killed, exiled or detained as enemy combatants without the possibility of release, which is what we’re doing.” The Navy is routinely blowing up small boats and killing human beings based upon unproven claims that they are transporting drugs. No U.S. or international law sanctions such a thing. And according to a fact-check by the New York Times, Trump’s assertion that this operation has reduced the flow of drugs by 90% is a blatant lie. It has made no difference at all. The policy is an abomination, and it proves to the world that the United States has abandoned all fealty to the rule of law, not to mention common decency.
(Patrick van Katwijk/Getty Images) United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres during the speech of President Donald Trump during the 81st U.N. General Assembly on Sept. 22, 2026.
But that wasn’t all. The president bragged about his actions in Venezuela, declaring that since his incursion in January, which deposed President Nicolás Maduro, Trump has now acquired “more than 60% of the oil in the world . . . it was a war, but it’s perhaps the biggest deal ever made. To the victor belong the spoils. You’ve all heard that.” (The number is actually about 23%, according to the Times.) We have certainly heard that before — from him. The saying is one of his favorite maxims, but it hasn’t been uttered by any other world leader for centuries. He went on to proclaim, “Our actions in Venezuela are proof that the United States will no longer permit threats to America to gain a foothold anywhere in the Western Hemisphere. And if necessary, we will use our unmatched military might to secure the vital national interests of the United States.” What threat Venezuela posed to our “vital national interests” is unclear, unless it means simply having something we want to take.
To say this at the U.N., which was formed to prevent this very behavior, confirms every nation’s worst fears about what the United States has become under Trump. It is crude, antediluvian imperialism, and the assembled dignitaries did not applaud or even respond, although the Iranian and Cuban delegations did walk out when they were threatened.
The U.S is obviously now seen by many as a rogue state, disrespected and disdained by allies and adversaries alike. All you had to do was look at the faces of those in attendance to see it.
But many are realizing, even as Trump besmirched the U.S. and U.N. alike, there is a new “leader of the free world” on the scene.
Mark Carney did not speak at the General Assembly, but he did hold bilateral meetings and a press conference. In the process, the Canadian prime minister gave some measure of hope to those — including many Americans themselves — who see the U.S. as a threat to world peace and yearn for something better.
Mark Carney did not speak at the General Assembly, but he did hold bilateral meetings and a press conference. In the process, the Canadian prime minister gave some measure of hope to those — including many Americans themselves — who see the U.S. as a threat to world peace and yearn for something better. “This is, in many respects, a time that comes once or twice every century,” Carney told the media gathered in New York. “What comes ahead, it’s not wishful multilateralism, which defends only the status quo, nor a cold realpolitik that dismantles the status quo altogether. The alternative that Canada and many others are pursuing is values-based realism, an approach that’s both principled and pragmatic.”
The last few weeks have been productive for Carney, as he led a summit of big money investors and CEOs, partnering with former prime minister Steve Harper to make a bipartisan pitch for opportunities in manufacturing, natural gas, mining and ports on two oceans. Canada has a wealth of resources, including an educated workforce. You know, kind of like America — before it turned itself into a global pariah.
Carney followed his U.N. appearance with a triumphant trip to Europe, where he was greeted like a rock star, obviously appreciated for his bold break with the U.S. that began with a visionary speech in January at the World Economic Forum in Davos that called for a new world order. On Sept. 16, at the meeting of the European Commission, President Ursula von der Leyen called for Canada to become the European Union’s first “associate member.” In making the case, she said, “We must urgently reimagine our partnerships. And build global coalitions for our resilience and democracies.”
In his speech, which was greeted ecstatically by E.U. members, Carney said “Put simply: we’re in a position where we need to pursue calibrated alliances, integrating deeply with those countries who share our values, remaining open-eyed with those who do not.”
That vision was put into action this week in New York, when Carney and leaders from the European Union and six other nations announced “Partners for Multilateralism,” which he described as “a new forum that looks at universal institutions, practical coalitions and capacities that exist outside of governments to build trust and bring people together.” The prime minister explained that they do not see this as an attempt to form consensus among nations, an impossible task, but to instead create a new paradigm for countries “formed around problems rather than geography or size, not as an alternative to multilateralism, but as an instrument of it.”
I have written before that the post-World War II order has run its course. The end of the Cold War, and the burden of being the world’s policeman and guarantor of security, has warped America’s values. It was clearly time for something new, hopefully better, to emerge in the 21st century. But Trump’s bellicose “transactional” approach, aside from the clear corruption and immorality, exacerbates the problem at a time of serious global challenges that include nuclear threats, climate change and the emergence of artificial intelligence. These issues demand cooperation. But Trump prefers to blow everything up — and reap the financial rewards wherever he can find them.
Finally, someone is proposing something new to take its place. It’s still in the very nascent stages, and who knows where it will go? But it’s a serious proposal that seeks to find some stability and predictability in a modern, multi-polar world that requires both cooperation and flexibility.
We can thank Carney for taking the president’s threats to Canadian sovereignty seriously and starting this overdue conversation. He is the man to whom those who believe in freedom and democracy now look for leadership, and we should all be grateful that he has willingly taken on the role.
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