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… Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent held his major press conference today to announce what was hyped as an “economic D-Day” to crush Iran once and for all after sanctions, bombing, blockades, peace negotiations and threats failed to do the job.
… If you were expecting Bessent to list specific actions being taken against specific countries and companies doing business with Iran, you were probably pretty disappointed. What we got from Bessent today was not so much a D-Day invasion but a warning that an economic D-Day might happen. Eventually. Someday. Maybe.
… Before the press conference, Bessent posted:
“President Trump has dismantled Iran’s military capabilities, destroyed nearly 100% of its military factories, and buried its nuclear program. We are now entering the endgame. At dawn begins an economic D-Day - the single greatest financial offensive ever marshaled against an adversary.”
… “The Islamic Republic has subsisted by dressing extortion as security guarantees. It has drawn strength from a calculus that regards Iranian retaliation as certain and American enforcement as negotiable. Under Trump, that era is over. And those who fear the danger of defying Tehran ought not to discount the cost of testing Washington.”
… “The President has created the conditions to leverage every agency, every authority and action many assumed we would never summon. Our objective is to sever every economic lifeline that sustains the tyrannical regime until Tehran stands alone.”
… From the press conference:
Q - “What specific secondary sanctions or penalties is Treasury prepared to levy against Chinese banks and shipping firms if they do not comply? Bessent: Every entity should know that they should be prepared to face US sanctions. No one should test our resolve.”
Q - “We don’t see any Chinese banks or institutions targeted here. Is that something which is coming? Bessent: No one is above the reach of US sanctions. Anyone who is part of the Iranian ecosystem, they will be targeted. The best way to engage with countries right now is quiet diplomacy.”
… What a surprise that Scott Bessent’s all-out “economic D-Day” to sanction countries and companies doing business with Iran excludes the Chinese, Iran’s largest trading partner. But I knew there was no way they were going to do anything against the Chinese before President Xi comes to Washington next month.
Q - “You described this as an economic D-Day, but D-Day wasn't a threat of an invasion and the US didn't give a timeline to Germany. So why not impose the sanctions today? Bessent: Why would I want to blow up the global financial system?”
… You can’t have an “economic D-Day” against Iran with secondary sanctions without including China and India. Nothing Bessent announced or said is truly meaningful without including Iran’s largest trading partners, and it is doubtful the Trump admin will do anything against them.
“We do not take the use of secondary sanctions lightly. So we believe that a ‘warning shot’ is appropriate. And if people don’t want to meet our expectations, then they should expect to leave the dollar system.”
"Q - Does Trump still want Canada to become a state? Bessent: I think he would like Canada to come to the table and negotiate in good faith. They were offered quite a good deal last week. They chose to reject it. Unfortunately, Mark Carney rose to power on an anti-American, anti-Trump platform. I think one has to ask, is he trying to benefit himself, the Liberal Party or the Canadian people.”
… Imagine a member of a Trump cabinet accusing Carney of rejecting this deal because that supposedly benefits him personally. From the most self-dealing US admin in history.
Bessent to Iranian troops: “To the ordinary soldiers supporting this regime as more and more of your paychecks stop or supposedly just delayed, ask whether your commanders are leading your country to triumph or to ruin, and recall that the Berlin Wall fell when ordinary soldiers decided not to shoot at their own people.”
… I guess this time we aren't promising that we are "locked and loaded" to come to their rescue if they rise up like Trump promised protesters 6 months ago then sold them out and did nothing.
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… French economic and geopolitical analyst Arnaud Bertrand: “The same Bessent who deluded himself into thinking back in April 2025 that all countries would join the US in a ‘grand economic encirclement’ of China, only to fold a few weeks later because no-one joined.
… Now he’s recycling the same script against Iran and it’s even more deluded because it requires the cooperation of China - the very country he tried and failed to isolate last year - and China is obviously refusing. You couldn’t make this up.”
… Trump posted this morning: “IRAN IS COMPLETELY COLLAPSING!!!”
… Trump also posted the same thing over 4 months ago on April 21: “Iran is collapsing financially! They want the Strait of Hormuz opened immediately - starving for cash! Losing $500 million a day. Military and police complaining they are not getting paid. SOS!!!
… Iranian Parliament Speaker MB Ghalibaf: “Americans know that no one buys their bombast; the US is not in an economic position to further restrict its relations with other countries. Iran’s trading partners, both in the media and through messages sent to us, have made it clear that they don’t take these statements into account anywhere.”
… Dr. Mohsen Rezaee, Iran’s new secretary of the Supreme National Security Council: “If the economic war continues, not a single drop of oil will be exported - neither through the Strait of Hormuz nor from anywhere in the Persian Gulf. Iran will regard any country’s participation in or support for America’s economic war against the Iranian people as an act of war.”
… WSJ: “Scott Bessent’s mission to tame the bond market could get help from another Trump admin push: crypto legislation. Last week, the Treasury announced larger buybacks of longer-term bonds. That can be funded by increasing issuance of shorter-term Treasury bills, or what Bessent called a Treasury twist. In that context, it is notable that Bessent has in the past talked about a big potential new source of demand for Treasury bills: stablecoins.”
… “The connection is that under the Genius Act—the crypto regulatory law passed last year—stablecoins issued in the US that aim to stay fixed to the value of the dollar can back that promise only with certain assets, including Treasurys that mature within 93 days.”
… “Today, the market value of all stablecoins is around $300 billion. That is still pretty small in the grand scheme of things: US money-market funds are close to $8 trillion. But Bessent has in the past cited projections that stablecoins could grow into a nearly $4 trillion market, and written that ‘this could lower govt borrowing costs.’”
… CNBC: “The Treasury could use its near $1 trillion General Account to help fund its recently announced plans to increase purchases of govt bonds, according to two senior Treasury officials. Using the TGA would provide the Treasury with considerable firepower to influence long-term bond yields. The Treasury surprised markets last week with an announcement that it would be doubling the size of buybacks of off-the-run securities on the long end from $2 billion to at least $4 billion.”
… “However, the Treasury made no mention of how it would fund the purchases. Most market participants assumed it would do so by selling short-term bills. The senior Treasury officials did not rule that out. Bessent called the operation a ‘Treasury Twist,’ a reference to a govt or Fed Reserve operation where long-term Treasurys are bought and paid for with short-term issuance. That also implied that short-term bonds would be sold.”
… “But since the surprise announcement, bonds have retreated from an initial rally, sending yields higher, in part because of skepticism voiced by many market analysts about how effective the operation would be and whether the Treasury’s resources were too limited.”
… “Using the TGA could change that perception. The TGA is essentially the govt’s checking account, a rainy day fund of sorts held at the Federal Reserve. It is already funded with existing tax collections. Bessent has built up the TGA to around $950 billion currently, compared with the Biden admin balance of around $550 billion to $600 billion.”
… “The officials would not say how much, if any, of the TGA would be used or when such an announcement could be made. But they were clear that it is considered to be available. The TGA’s size is discretionary. When Janet Yellen ran the Treasury, officials said the goal was to set the TGA at a ‘week ahead of cash needs.’ The current Treasury says it sets the account ‘consistent with Treasury’s long-standing cash balance policy.’”
… Market analyst Charlie Bilello: “Instead of cutting spending and reducing deficits, Washington is considering using nearly $1 trillion from the Treasury General Account to suppress bond yields. Step 1: Create the problem. Step 2: Refuse to fix the problem. Step 3: Manipulate the market to hide the problem.”
… “We’re borrowing trillions, driving interest rates higher in the process, and then using Treasury’s cash (funded in part by that borrowing) to buy back the debt in an attempt to push those rates back down. This is what happens when you refuse to get your fiscal house in order.”
… Economist Peter Schiff: “Bessent’s plan to use the TGA to fund Treasury buybacks makes possible exactly what I warned would happen. This reckless plan will substantially shorten the average maturity of the national debt, increasing our exposure to rising short-term rates and making it even harder for the Fed to hike rates without exploding interest expense and budget deficits. It’s a recipe for massive quantitative easing and runaway inflation. Got gold?”
… Why do I feel like we have Bernie Madoff in charge of the US Treasury?
… JD Vance was in Maine doing a campaign stop for Susan Collins for the second time. However, both times Collins was sadly “unable to attend.” Collins doesn’t even want to be photographed with Trump or Vance right now let alone share a stage with them.
“To the PM of Canada, stop taking advantage of the people of Maine. Stop taking advantage of America. It's over.”
… Trade with Canada is hugely important to the Maine economy and nobody in Maine blames Carney for the current trade war.
“Canada is a country that has underinvested in its military that quite literally would get invaded by a foreign country were it not for the umbrella of protection provided by the USA.”
“If you bring in millions and millions of illegal aliens, you got to put them somewhere . And when you give them houses that ought go by right to American citizens, that’s going to increase the cost of housing.”
… Over 90% of towns in Maine have 0 immigrants. We do not have many statewide. There is not a single person in Maine paying more for housing because of our handful of immigrants.
On the ICE murder in Biddeford: "When the officers approached the person they were trying to arrest, that person, like, broke away from the scene, and what at least the law enforcement officers argue is that person posed a danger to the community. When I look at the case what I see is a country that's trying to enforce its laws.”
… People in Maine are overwhelmingly outraged by that shooting. Susan Collins hasn’t even tried to defend it.
… Rep. William Timmons (R-SC) on Newsmax: Q - What is your confidence level in senate nominee Darline Graham when it comes to national security? Timmons: This is silly for us to talk about Taiwan. The is very simple - she needs to support the military and support the president. She’ll learn the rest as she goes.”
… This pretty accurately sums up the reason Trump endorsed her. She doesn't know anything so her job will be to just support Trump and do what he says. Trump’s perfect senator.
… Canadian PM Mark Carney held a press conference today:
“This fall we will begin intense discussions with the EU, the world’s second-largest economy, to build a much stronger and deeper economic and security partnership.”
"It's not a surprise that the US would take some form of reprisal to our response to their unjustified tariffs, which was on top of other unjustified tariffs. But what message does that send to the workers in Michigan and Ohio and Kentucky and Alabama who rely on Canadian demand?"
… Trump posted this morning: “Canada has been ripping off the USA for years. Their ridiculously high tariffs on our Farmers and farm products has made life impossible for these great American Patriots, and has long created a 60 Billion Dollar Deficit between our two Countries. Not sustainable, and NOT ANYMORE! On January First, 2027, Tariffs on all Cars, Trucks, both large and small, Automotive Parts, and Steel, will be increased to 50%. Build in the US and there are ZERO TARIFFS. Canada will be treated like a State no longer! On Trade, and in other ways, also, they are among the worst Nations in the World to deal with. They feel entitled, and yet, WE DON’T NEED CANADA, THEY NEED US! They do 95% of their business with the U.S., with us, the exact opposite!”
The Ask the Editor podcast should be out later tonight as once again it was difficult to choose only 5 of your great questions. These were the 5 that I answered on the show:
What is your take on Jeffries secretly meeting with Kushner? Does he realize how furious it makes Democrats? Does he care?
Assuming Democrats win the senate and house, will anyone challenge Schumer and Jeffries for their leader positions?
What impact will the Canada trade war have on the midterms?
Talk about Byron Donalds blaming the measles outbreak on immigrants.
Is the Navy really going to go through with the design changes that Trump demanded for carriers?
If you missed yesterday’s Bulletin, you can find it here.
… Trump held a going away party at the WH today for Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt which was open to the press. He also veered off into several different topics, which included an announcement of his new vaccine recommendations for children:
“She decided she loved her children more than she loved Trump. I'm very upset about this. She has to go home and spend time with her children. That does happen on occasion with some people - when they love their children.”
“You do it in 5 different shots, 5 different shots, small little shots with those beautiful little bodies can handle it, and I think you're going to see a very big
difference in the rate of autism.”
“Every public school in America is now on notice that if they tell a child that they're trapped in the wrong body, they are committing child abuse.”
“We're teaching our children to love America, not to hate America, there's a lot of love going on right now. We have billions and billions of different things happening.”
… NOTUS: “The midterms will effectively decide if Trump’s lame-duck era starts in 2027 or if he has two more years of Republican control in Congress to move his agenda. If Democrats retake the gavel, the job description of Mike Johnson will change dramatically and the House GOP conference may look elsewhere for a figure to push back against a slew of investigations of the Trump admin.”
… “If the Republicans are to pull it out and keep the majority, his position atop the Republican conference is all but secure. But if they lose the majority, Johnson’s future becomes much more uncertain. Republicans across the House GOP conference, including some in leadership, don’t believe Johnson will run for minority leader and will step down from House leadership.”
… If Republicans lose in November, there will be a fight for the top spots. One senior GOP member: “In the political burn down that’s coming, we slaughter everybody at the front of the room.”
… Hakeem Jeffries released statement to ABC on the controversial meeting he had with Jared Kushner:
“Throughout this Congress, Republicans have adopted a my-way-or-the-highway approach to governing that has failed the American people. To stop the madness, we have repeatedly made clear that an extremist approach will not work and will be met with forceful opposition.
The American people want bold change and that’s what House Democrats will deliver. In every conversation that we have with the Trump admin, we will continue to make it explicitly clear that the affordability crisis is not a hoax and nothing short of transformational policy change is acceptable. We are fighting for an affordable America. The question is whether Republicans will join us.”
… I’m really not sure that statement addressed people’s major concerns.
… NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani at a press event today: Q - “What do you think about Hakeem Jeffries meeting with Jared Kushner, and should he become speaker? Mamdani: I continue to support Rep. Jeffries and continue to think he should be the leader.”
… Politico: “The intensifying late-summer backlash against data centers is inspiring panic among some corners of the tech sector - amid fears that the industry is mishandling a political crisis that will stretch into 2028 and beyond. Those worries have deepened in recent weeks as politicians across the political spectrum embraced various curbs on data center construction, with Gov. Greg Abbott, Gov. Josh Shapiro and MI GOP Senate nominee Mike Rogers being among the latest to sign on.”
… A rep from a major AI company: “AI is going to be a massive issue for the presidential election in a way that technology has never been an issue. Nobody wants to lose their job and they’re already feeling squeezed while these very, very rich people who are richer than anything we have ever seen in the history of Earth are making more. And I think people are sick and tired of that.”
… “The swiftness and ferocity of the backlash has caught the tech industry on the backfoot, where it’s struggled to find an effective message that assuages voters’ worries that data centers will raise their power bills, hog their water supplies and blight the landscape.”
… An AI industry advocate: “Some in the industry are viewing it as an ‘oh shit’ moment. Others are brushing it off like it’s nothing, and those people have to get their heads out of their asses. This could go south for them. Fast.”
… NC Republican Senate nominee Michael Whatley on Fox host Brian Kilmeade’s podcast: “You gotta remember that this opposition to data centers is not organic. This is being ginned up.”
… The grass roots movement against data centers is one of the most organic movements I have ever seen. So organic it caught virtually every politician completely by surprise when they started getting yelled at in town halls. What is not organic is the promotion of data centers by tech oligarchs who largely control media now and the algorithms of the social media platforms.
… Fox chief political analyst Karl Rove on the political fallout in the midterms for Republican candidates who back Trump’s complete support data centers: “42% of American live within 5 miles of a data center or a proposed data center, so this is problematic.”
… CNN: “The US Army’s Apache helicopters are crashing at a historically high rate amid a widespread problem with the model’s transmission. The helicopter type has experienced 5 major crashes since October, and a deadly mishap earlier this month in Texas killed two soldiers, sparked a wildfire and led the Army to temporarily bar Apache pilots from conducting routine training flights.”
… “With that crash, fiscal year 2026 is on pace to be the second worst for Apache flight accidents since a new model of the AH-64 was rolled out in 2011. The Army announced that the pause in training flights, which exempted units deployed to the Middle East, ended Wednesday.”
… WSJ: “The Trump admin says large volumes of oil are slipping through the Strait of Hormuz. The trackers whose job it is to count the world’s oil shipments see much less.”
… “Energy Secretary Chris Wright said last week the US military had helped ship over 15 million barrels of crude and oil products out of the waterway last Tuesday. He put the average oil exports through the strait over a 7-day period at more than 8 million barrels a day. Earlier this month, Wright said the 7-day average stood at around 9 million barrels a day.”
… “The count from commercial ship trackers tells a different story, with estimates ranging from roughly 2-6 million barrels a day. Industry figures on the amount of crude oil and oil products being loaded onto ships in the Persian Gulf and delivered to buyers don’t corroborate the US claims.”
… NYT: “A private arbitrator has ordered WaPo to rehire the opinion columnist Karen Attiah, who was fired in Sept over her social media posts about the assassination of the conservative activist Charlie Kirk. It also ordered the company to compensate her with back pay.”
… Arbitrator Sarah Miller Espinosa: “WaPo did not have good and sufficient cause, and failed to establish the grievant engaged in gross misconduct.”
… Attiah: “I hope this sends a message to journalists and media institutions everywhere that freedom of expression is always worth fighting for.” She said that she was “willing to go back” to her work at The Post.
… Attiah’s remarks about Kirk’s assassination, which she posted to Bluesky on Sept. 10, the day he was shot, responded to the outpouring of grief after the shooting: “Refusing to tear my clothes and smear ashes on my face in performative mourning for a white man that espoused violence is not the same as violence.”
… WSJ: Trump personally intervened to force a DOJ settlement with Ticketmaster owner Live Nation, which faced a high-profile antitrust trial for abusing its market power and illegally crushing competition. DOJ, which sued Live Nation in 2024 during Biden’s admin, was preparing to wage a legal battle more than a decade in the making against the world’s largest concert promoter. Then Trump called. A senior DOJ official relayed to associates that the president told them to “settle it.”
… Trump’s instruction to the DOJ to settle the Live Nation case came shortly after the president met with the company’s CEO, Michael Rapino, in the Oval Office. Trump had called the meeting to discuss how to improve bookings at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. He also wanted to know why the company hadn’t reached a deal over its lawsuit.
… Trump stopped by as Rapino was meeting with DOJ officials to check on the negotiations. “How is this not settled yet?” asked Trump. By the end of the meeting, it was.
… Since the start of Trump’s second term, DOJ has repeatedly settled cases against corporations accused of violating the nation’s antitrust laws. MS NOW reported last month that “DOJ staff have privately complained that the Trump admin is essentially deciding not to enforce antitrust laws that are critical to keeping companies from becoming single-source providers and being able to charge enormous sums for their product or service.”
… Puck: “Republicans are growing anxious that Trump still hasn’t greenlit any spending from Maga Inc. for the midterms. Nevertheless, the group’s advisers have been working closely with the Senate Leadership Fund and the Congressional Leadership Fund on midterm strategy, helping to conduct polling and message testing in Ken Paxton’s TX Senate race and several House districts. The ads are ready. But Trump has yet to sign off.”
… Trump is helping with “polling and message testing” but not providing any cash. What a surprise.
… “Republicans we’ve spoken with are now speculating about the delay. According to the S.E.C., Maga Inc. has some $400 million on hand. Yet some sources say that Trump remains furious that several candidates he endorsed have lost their races.”
… You don’t say?
… “Others worry that he wants to preserve the money for his presidential library.”
… I’m shocked.
… “Meanwhile, advertising airtime gets more expensive with every passing day.”
… It also sells out.
… One Republican familiar with the conversations: “They keep telling their consultants that they will, and the staff wants to, but Trump has to sign off.”
… And that still hasn’t happened. Surprising since Trump is always so generous about spending money to help other people. It’s only a measly $400 million.
… Politico: “Stefanie Spear, a top aide to HHS Secretary RFK Jr, early on in the Trump admin stayed for a short period at a $10 million Georgetown house rented by vape billionaire Riaz Valani, a top investor in Juul, which is regulated by HHS.”
… Trump says all his bad approval polls are fake: “The Radical Left Democrats are going CRAZY with Fake Polls. They’re putting them out at levels never seen before. They’re called, “Demoralization Operations,” where they try to demoralize Republicans so that they don’t go out and vote — But the actual Polls are tremendous, and the Spirit in our Country has never been higher. We’re winning against EVERYONE, including Iran, whose Country is in Economic and Military Death Spiral.”
… CNN: “Jeanine Pirro’s office has a jury problem. An increasingly alarming number of cases have fallen apart this year in DC’s federal court - even when the cases appear to be strong arguments against violent crime, relatively straightforward to prove, and tried by experienced prosecutors.”
… “The DC US Attorney’s Office had secured convictions in only 4 of the 8 federal cases tried before Washington juries since January. Since the MS-13 case’s jury hung in April, the US Attorney’s Office has tried nearly a dozen more criminal cases in DC’s federal court. In two, the defendants were acquitted. 4 of the trials ended in deadlock. Mistrials were declared.”
… “That track record for the US Attorney’s Office is essentially unheard of in recent memory, according to over two dozen Washington, DC, investigators, former prosecutors, defense attorneys and other legal experts. Federal juries typically decide to convict defendants in criminal trials nationwide at a rate of about 90%.”
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