28 posts from Sunday, August 30, 2026

A stylized, painterly digital illustration of a man resembling Donald Trump, shown from the knees up, wearing a red "MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN" cap, a dark long overcoat over a navy suit with white shirt and red tie. He stands with his head tilted slightly down, looking stern/serious, arms at his sides. Behind him is an artistic, distressed rendering of an American flag (stars in upper left, red/white stripes in splattered paint style) blending into a dark city skyline silhouette with a tall spire resembling the Empire State Building on the right and other building silhouettes on the left. The overall palette is dark with gold/amber lighting accents and grunge/paint-splatter texture effects, giving it a dramatic, poster-like aesthetic.

Text in image: MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN

Described automatically. The words above are a machine's reading of the picture, not Trump's.

Here to discuss all of this is former Trump Deputy National Security Advisor, KT McFarland. Always great to see you, especially great to see you, KT, on this particular story because it's right in your wheelhouse. I want to start with Venezuela. When you step back and you look at this deal, and I get, you know, there are all kinds of other questions about this, but it does kind of make you wonder if when President Trump's memoirs are written, the whole, this whole situation in Venezuela, where the US winds up gaining access to these reserves, wasn't the precursor to his decision to then go after Iran? Oh, I think it was. And I think they probably thought Iran might be easier than it turned out to be, but it didn't. It turned out to be harder, but we still won. And that's the difference. We've won that. We've won that war. Because why? Because the oil that was moving through the Strait of Hormuz, 20 million barrels a day, it's going differently. It's going through the Strait of Hormuz. Yeah, I'm probably 10 million barrels a day now because we've cleared the southern route. But a lot of that oil that used to move by tankers is now moving by pipeline. And it's not going to go back to tankers. And then some of the shortfall has been made up by American oil and natural gas that's moving out of the United States. So at the end of the day, we got rid of the nukes. And if they try to rebuild the nukes, well, we'll bomb those again. And as far as the importance of the Strait, it's going to be increasingly irrelevant, especially because of the Venezuela oil connection. We are now controlling a quarter of the world's oil and whoever controls the world's energy, the world's fossil fuels in the years ahead controls the future. You know, it's kind of amazing to think about, but for five decades, Iran has used their ability to put the squeeze in the Strait of Hormuz to get exact, you know, political things from other people. It's almost like they kind of pulled that bluff this time with the wrong dude, and it didn't work out for them. And they may have broken the one thing, the one lever that they've always had. You know, that's the point. They thought they were dealing with, you know, typical American president. They didn't realize it was Donald Trump and he plays by different games. And so they thought, okay, we're going to close the Strait of Hormuz just like we tried to do with President Reagan, just like we've tried to do many times before. But because Donald Trump already had the Armada prepositioned, he could then put a blockade on Iran. So for six months, no ships have gone into Iran. No ships have gone out of Iran. Their economy is spiraling. And yet at the same time, we've got this workaround of how to get oil to the world. You're going to see oil prices start to go down. I think pretty dramatically now that that shortfall of 20 million barrels a day, that's now getting to the producers. That's getting to the refineries. And it wasn't three weeks ago. It wasn't two months ago. Now it is. And so the price of oil should start coming down and hopefully the price of gasoline to follow. So not only is it significant in terms of American power in Venezuela, the U.S. having control of that. It also means that our enemies, our biggest rivals, whether it's a country like Cuba or a country like China, doesn't have access, free access for cut rate oil from Venezuela. Yeah, China had been all over South America trying to get their hands on Venezuelan and other other resources, oil as well. And now they're gone. They're out of there. They're not having any access to that. All China can get is that Iranian oil, which they're probably not getting that much of anyway. The genius of President Trump is that he realizes as a businessman, what's the best country solution you can have to all of your trade, all of your commerce, all of your manufacturing, all of your production to do it nearby. So we don't have to think about trans-specific trade or transatlantic trade. We're now going to have a Western hemisphere united at peace, trading with each other and under the United States leadership. The cheap goods that we've been importing from China for decades, they're going to now be made in South America. And because of the energy, particularly as we look to the future and the requirements of the data centers and artificial intelligence, and he's a lot more energy. Well, who's going to have all the energy? Us. Yes. Make the Western hemisphere great again. KT McFarland, as always, really appreciate it. Thank you so much.

Transcribed automatically. Expect errors in names and numbers.

You know what Steve's important? I hear people say, you can't say everything's going great and expect people to believe. How about you just tell the truth about what's taking place in the economy because that's not happening. Go ahead. - Okay, let's start with the big one. The median household income in the United States, the people in the exact middle have an income of about $85,000 a year. That's incredible. I mean, in almost every other country in the world, $85,000 is considered rich. So we are doing much better in terms of income than any other family, any other country. Let's look at some of these other ones. How about the fact that we have, I know the stock market is not the economy, but the wealth that is being created in 401(k) plans, retirement plans, we have by far the best stock market. Everybody wants to invest in the USA under Donald Trump. And in fact, the investment numbers are just off the charts. Trump is right. We have trillions of dollars coming into the United States for the first time that is being invested here. We are in a manufacturing book. Did you know that, Mark? We are creating more manufacturing jobs than ever before. We have a construction boom in this country. In fact, if you ask manufacturers and construction companies, they're having a hard time finding the workers to fill all of the jobs. How about the fact that crime recently hit 50 year low in this country under Trump in major cities in the United States because he is a crime fighter? I mean, I could go on and on with these. How about the fact that there are more jobs available in this country, eight million, than there are people to fill them? That's a pretty good problem to have. And it's so true. And let me ask you this. Are Republicans, deaf, dumb, and blind, do they not know how to speak and see and hear? I don't understand. Some of them will be offended by what I'm saying, but they need three, four, five basic talking points. They need to be like a chorus line, like the Democrats and go out there and hit it out of the park. Am I wrong? They've got to celebrate the good news of this economy because we know in November, which is less than two months away, we're gonna be talking about, the whole issue is about affordability. And here's a situation where America, and look, people are angry about food prices and gas prices, I get that. But the overall picture of the US economy is very healthy. And by the way, the states that have the biggest affordability problem in a country, the highest cost of living, you know what states those are? They're Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, California, Connecticut, states that are run by Democrats. The states with the lowest cost of living are states like Alabama and states like Oklahoma and states like Arkansas and Idaho and Utah, states that are run by Republicans. So if you're concerned about affordability, why would you put someone like Gavin Newsom in the White House that can't do anything right in California? - So if you're serious about affordability in the long term, you have to leave some of these states even though it's difficult. - Exactly. - And that's exactly what people are doing, isn't it? - Oh, this is the big story in America, that the center of gravity politically is leaving the Northeast, it's leaving California, it's leaving Washington and Oregon and where people are going to, they're going to the South. You're there in Florida, Florida has grown tremendously under the great leadership of your governor there, DeSantis. But now people are going to the Carolinas, they're going to Alabama. And you know what's really ironic about this, I just wrote a column on this, that it used to be, remember the old Beverly Hillbilly show where they, you know, the Clapits make all their money and they go to Beverly Hills. Now people are leaving California and they're going to Arkansas, Oklahoma, it's the reverse Beverly Hillbillies effect. - I would add one footnote to all this. These big blue states, California, New York, Illinois, you can name them, heavily populated. When you look at overall national numbers, they'd even be better. If these Democrats who drag down these states actually embraced capitalism and lower taxes and job growth and so forth, the entire country would benefit from it. So to say, oh, under the president, these things aren't happening, first things are, secondly, they'd be even better. But for these big states that are dragging us down. Steve Moore, I want to thank you, my friend. God bless you and keep up the great work. - Thank you, Mark.

Transcribed automatically. Expect errors in names and numbers.

A black-and-white news photograph of a man resembling Donald Trump speaking at a podium bearing the Presidential seal, with two teleprompter screens on either side. He is gesturing with his right hand pointed toward the crowd, eyes closed, speaking into a microphone. Behind him stands a large group of people wearing dark NASA jumpsuits/flight suits, arranged in rows as if posing for a group photo. The backdrop features a large NASA "meatball" logo emblem at the top, the word "NASA" in bold letters below it, and a banner further down also reading "NASA" with star graphics and images of the Moon/Earth on either side.

Text in image: NASA

Described automatically. The words above are a machine's reading of the picture, not Trump's.

A black-and-white news photograph of a man resembling Donald Trump in a dark suit, standing on a stage speaking or gesturing toward a group of people. To his right (foreground) are two full astronaut suits with helmets displayed on stands. To his left, a line of people in dark flight-suit-style jumpsuits with patches stand facing him, along with a couple more people in astronaut suits with helmets on. Behind them is a backdrop featuring a large photo of the Moon and repeated NASA logos. Dark stage curtains form the background.

Text in image: NASA (repeated logo text on backdrop)

Described automatically. The words above are a machine's reading of the picture, not Trump's.

A black-and-white news photograph showing a man in a suit (resembling Donald Trump) standing at an event with a NASA backdrop featuring a large moon graphic and repeated "NASA" logos. A man wearing a dark flight-style jacket with patches, standing in front of him, is holding up a matching jacket, presenting it to him or helping him look at it. The jacket has a circular patch near the sleeve/shoulder area and two round patches on the front reading "45" and "47" with additional small text below each ("THE GOLDEN AGE OF SPACE..." partially visible). In the background, several people in NASA flight suits/jumpsuits (apparent astronauts) stand in a row, along with other onlookers.

Text in image: NASA 45 THE GOLDEN AGE OF SPACE... 47 ...

Described automatically. The words above are a machine's reading of the picture, not Trump's.

A graphic titled "Service Academies" on a white background, displaying six military/service academy emblems arranged in a 3x2 grid, each with a caption below it. Top row: the West Point Academy crest (eagle atop a shield with a Trojan-style helmet and red, white, and blue stripes, with ribbons reading "Country," "Duty," and "Honor" and "West Point" and "M DCCCII U.S.M.A."), labeled "WEST POINT ACADEMY"; the U.S. Coast Guard Academy shield (eagle above an anchor and shield reading "1876"), labeled "COAST GUARD ACADEMY" with "USCGA" beneath the crest; and a black, white, and silver angular arrow/chevron emblem labeled "UNITED STATES SPACE ACADEMY / SPACE ACADEMY," flanked by two red rectangular "NEW" tags, one on each side. Bottom row: the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy seal (eagle, anchor, wreath, banner reading "ACTA NON VERBA," and "1943"), labeled "MERCHANT MARINE ACADEMY"; a large navy blue "AF" monogram, labeled "AIR FORCE ACADEMY"; and the Naval Academy crest (trident-flanked shield with a ship, torches, and a banner reading "SCIENTIA / EX TRIDENS," topped with an anchor), labeled "NAVAL ACADEMY."

Text in image: Service Academies NEW NEW UNITED STATES SPACE ACADEMY WEST POINT ACADEMY COAST GUARD ACADEMY SPACE ACADEMY USCGA 1876 COUNTRY WEST POINT HONOR DUTY M DCCCII U.S.M.A. UNITED STATES MERCHANT MARINE ACADEMY ACTA NON VERBA 1943 KINGS POINT AF NAVAL ACADEMY SCIENTIA EX TRIDENS MERCHANT MARINE ACADEMY AIR FORCE ACADEMY NAVAL ACADEMY

Described automatically. The words above are a machine's reading of the picture, not Trump's.