Fecklessly Failing
4/21/202614 min
April 20, 2026
Reporting indicates Trump entered the Iran War convinced that Iranian people would support it, The closing of the Strait of Hormuz has left Trump unable to figure out a way out of the war, The two-week ceasefire between the US and Iran expires on April 22, Insider trading over Trump’s war announcements appears to be widespread, Jared Kushner is doing business on his own behalf with the Saudis while leading diplomacy in the Middle East, Reporting in the Atlantic suggests Kash Patel’s behavior is endangering national security, Patel sues the Atlantic, Trump's secretary of labor resigns, becoming the third person, and third woman, to leave his cabinet.
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Transcript preview
First 90 secondsMichael Moss0:00
[outro jingle] Hello, this is Michael Moss. Heather Cox Richardson is unable to read the letter today, so I will be reading it in her place. April twentieth, twenty twenty-six. Late Saturday evening, Josh Dawsey and Annie Linskey of The Wall Street Journal reported that Trump was so unstable and angry after learning on April third that Iranians had shot down an American jet that his aides kept him out of the room as they received updates, simply telling him what was going on at important moments. The journalists describe an erratic president who entered the war after Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu convinced him the Iranian people would support such strikes, and after his successful extraction of Venezuela's President Nicolás Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores convinced him the military could pull off another quick victory. He seemed to believe that if his gamble worked, he would be saving the world. But while the strikes did indeed kill Iran's top leaders and badly damaged its military, the Iranians closed the Straits of Hormuz. Trump did not foresee this outcome, although he was warned of it. He told his team that the Iranian government would give up before it closed the strait and, if it did manage