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Hi all, Ben here. It’s Monday, and the word of the day is catastrophic. The economy? Catastrophic. The Iran situation? Catastrophic. The political outlook for Trump heading into the midterms? Catastrophic. And the response from the White House to all of it? Well, that might be the most catastrophic thing of all.
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Let me run through what we’re tracking today before I get into the details:
Trump floats pausing the federal gas tax — a tell that prices are about to get much worse
Trump shovels more B.S. to Fox, telling the network he’s “seriously considering” making Venezuela the 51st state
Americans are draining their savings; consumer sentiment hits its lowest point since 1952
Iran rejects Trump’s demands and issues a blistering public statement
The Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool is now the subject of a federal lawsuit
Hantavirus cruise ship passengers land on U.S. soil; HHS issues a statement hiding key details
Trump dozes off in the Oval
The U.S. is now spending more on debt interest than on national defense
Before I go any further, I want to thank all our paid subscribers for helping to grow this platform. If you’re already a Meidas+ paid Substack subscriber, thank you. If not, consider stepping up now and join us today to support our unapologetic reporting.
Let’s get into it.
The gas tax gimmick is a very bad sign
Trump called CBS News this morning and told Nancy Cordes that he wants to pause the 18-cent federal gas tax “for a period of time.” He said he thinks it’s a great idea and that once gas prices come down, the tax will just phase back in.
Here’s what that tells you: things are about to get significantly worse. You don’t float a gas tax pause unless you know the trajectory is bad. The national average is already sitting around $4.60 a gallon, and with the Strait of Hormuz still effectively closed after Iran rejected Trump’s demands, it’s heading toward five dollars fast. I am sure many of you are seeing far higher prices where you live. I know I am here in California. The 18-cent pause wouldn’t even make a dent — gas prices have already risen far more than that, and the causes have nothing to do with the federal gas tax. On top of that, economists estimate this move would add roughly $2.5 billion per month to the national debt. The same national debt Trump is already spiking at record speed.
This is a panicked gesture from a man who has no real answers and knows it.
Move over, Canada
Apparently not done making calls for the day, Trump then rang up Fox News to tell John Roberts that he’s “seriously considering” making Venezuela the 51st state of the United States, citing $40 trillion in oil reserves sitting there. He also added that Venezuela loves him.
This is the latest Trump hoax. First it was DOGE…remember that? DOGE was going to fix everything. Then it was the gold cards, which were going to bring in $5 trillion. They’ve sold roughly one gold card and processed somewhere around 160 applications out of what was supposed to be a massive program. Then it was tariff revenue from foreign countries, which was going to be somewhere between $18 and $21 trillion depending on which interview you caught. And now it’s Venezuela, which is going to deliver $40 trillion, conveniently matching the rough size of the national debt Trump is busy inflating.
The plan keeps changing. The number always sounds enormous. Nothing ever materializes. Don’t spend that tariff rebate check all at once, folks.
Americans are running out of money
While Trump is busy mapping out his annexation of Venezuela, here’s what’s actually happening to real Americans. The personal savings rate dropped to 3.6% in March — the lowest since 2022. The University of Michigan’s consumer sentiment index just hit its lowest reading since they started tracking it in 1952.
The Kraft Heinz CEO warned that people are literally running out of money at the end of the month and dipping into savings. The McDonald’s CEO talked about rising gas prices hitting low-income consumers hardest. The Whirlpool CEO said the appliance industry is experiencing a decline on par with the 2008 financial crisis. The Costco CFO noted that people are trading beef for chicken, and chicken for canned tuna. These are clear recession indicators.
Kevin Hassett, Trump’s economic advisor, was sent out to respond to the record-low consumer sentiment number, and his answer was essentially: people are stressed out because Trump is doing such an incredible job fixing everything that the pace of positive change is overwhelming them. Trump is so good at his job that it’s making people feel terrible. Yeah, ok.
Iran continues to outmaneuver Trump
Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmail Baghaei issued a detailed public statement today laying out exactly what Iran is asking for: an end to the blockade, an end to what they describe as maritime piracy, the release of frozen assets, and safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz. He pointed out that Iran has not launched military operations on U.S. soil thousands of miles away, has not killed hundreds of civilians in a single day, and is not bullying countries throughout the Western Hemisphere.
Trump’s response was to call their proposal “garbage” and say the so called “ceasefire” is now on “life support.” He said he didn’t even finish reading it. He also assured everyone that he has “the best plan ever” for Iran, but could not describe what that plan is, because there is no plan. There is frustration, there are threats, and there are phone calls to television programs. There are weird AI memes posted to his social media accounts. But no plan.
Meanwhile, experts across the political spectrum, including figures not exactly known for being soft on foreign policy, are describing the current situation as Iran having effectively checkmated the United States. The Strait of Hormuz remains closed. Gas prices keep climbing. And Trump keeps telling Fox News he’s very upset about it.
The Kurds, the weapons, and the blame game
Trump also offered a new explanation for why there isn’t a popular uprising inside Iran: the Kurds. He said he sent weapons to be delivered to Kurdish groups to help arm Iranian protesters, but that the Kurds kept the weapons for themselves. “The Kurds take, take, take,” he said.
Kurdish organizations have uniformly denied any of this. Multiple commanders of major Kurdish factions told reporters they received no American weapons and were not part of any such operation. There is no independent confirmation these weapons were ever delivered to anyone. The truth on that is anyone’s guess, to be honest. And this is the same administration that in Trump’s first term abruptly pulled U.S. troops from northern Syria, green-lighting a Turkish invasion of Kurdish-held territory and leaving behind the very fighters who had been America’s primary partners against ISIS — at a cost of more than 11,000 Kurdish lives. The Kurds held signs reading “Trump betrayed us” as U.S. convoys pulled out.
So yes, there are reasons Kurdish groups might be skeptical of American reliability. Trump publicly blaming them now is both revisionist and reckless and it also hands Iran a pretext to retaliate against Kurdish populations.
The Reflecting Pool lawsuit
The Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool has become the subject of a federal emergency lawsuit after the Trump administration hired his handpicked swimming pool contractor, on a no-bid contract, with a reported 20% profit margin built in, to repaint the pool blue. The cost has already jumped 88% to $13.1 million.
The lawsuit notes that the Reflecting Pool’s dark tile was not decorative but intentional — it was specifically designed to create the illusion of depth and produce a more profound reflection. It’s a character-defining feature of one of the most historically significant sites in the country, the location where Martin Luther King Jr. delivered “I Have a Dream” in 1963. Plaintiffs are arguing the administration skipped mandatory Congressional review procedures before starting the work.
Trump turned one of the most iconic memorials in American history into a tacky swimming pool renovation project and handed it to a buddy on a no-bid contract.
Fertility, sperm counts, and zzzs
This afternoon, Trump hosted an Oval Office event theoretically about maternal health. RFK Jr. used the occasion to discuss declining sperm counts in teenage boys, saying it was his task to investigate the issue. Trump was photographed visibly dozing during portions of the event, with his face notably drooping. Side note: I don’t think the Epstein administration should be discussing the sperm counts of teenage boys.
Dr. Oz contributed the observation that one in three Americans are “under-babied.”
Trump announced that his administration is bringing drug prices down by somewhere between 70% and 600%, depending on, as he put it, “the way you want to phrase the question.” He added that he likes the 500% number better. More stupidity.
Hantavirus and the deceptive HHS statement
American passengers exposed to the Andes variant of hantavirus on a cruise ship are now back on U.S. soil, headed into a 42-day quarantine in Omaha, Nebraska. At least one American has tested positive. A French passenger repatriated separately tested positive and deteriorated overnight in the hospital.
HHS put out a statement that described one passenger as “mildly PCR positive.” There is no such thing. A PCR test is either positive or negative. This was a transparent attempt to minimize an asymptomatic positive case while burying the news that an American had contracted the virus. They also conspicuously avoided using the word “quarantine” at any point, despite that being precisely what is happening.
James Comer, when asked about this, said he has complete confidence in the Trump administration because of how well they handled COVID. Umm…
To be clear, there are no signs right now that this is going to become anything resembling the COVID pandemic. The Andes variant transmits differently and the situation is being monitored. But the problem, and it is a real problem, is that we have a gutted CDC, a compromised HHS, and an administration that has already demonstrated in the first few minutes of this crisis that their instinct is to minimize, mislead, and obscure. That’s the danger. Not the virus itself right now, but the people who would be responsible for telling us the truth about it. We need to know exactly what the latest developments are and if this becomes something of greater concern.
Meidas Health’s Vin Gupta said on CNBC earlier: “Hantavirus can cause a serious pulmonary syndrome with a high fatality rate. Clearly a scroll of social media shows a mix of us all learning more in real time. Infectious diseases and critical illness are humbling. I’m glad to see a push towards mandatory quarantine.”
Stay vigilant. Our Meidas Health team will keep watching this one closely.
That’s the Monday update — for now. Ron Filipkowski will be back later with a deeper dive of the entire day’s news. Thanks to everyone for spreading the word about the MeidasTouch Network and this Substack!
JUST A FEW COMMENTS:
This from Robert Reich, former Secy of Labor under Clinton and economist:
"The U.S. national debt just crossed a once-unthinkable threshold on the way toward breaking the record set in the wake of World War II: It now exceeds 100 percent of America’s gross domestic product.
As of March 31, our publicly held debt was $31.27 trillion, while America’s GDP in 2025 was $31.22 trillion. This puts the ratio at 100.2 percent, compared with 99.5 percent when the last fiscal year ended September 30.
That 100.2 percent figure will likely climb, because the federal government is running historically large annual deficits of nearly 6 percent of GDP, which add to the debt. The final tally will depend on Iran war spending, tariff refunds, and the strength of the economy.
Should you worry? Well, it’s not as if we’re heading into a depression. Passing the 100 percent threshold won’t suddenly cause the world to lose confidence in the dollar.
The real problem is that an increasing portion of our nation’s budget — and your tax dollars — is dedicated to paying interest on this growing debt. That’s money we don’t spend on education, healthcare, roads and bridges, social safety nets, or (if we actually needed more spending on it) national defense.
As the debt continues to grow, interest payments continue to soar. We’ll soon be paying more in interest on the federal debt each year than we spend each year on Medicare.
So, who exactly receives these interest payments? This is an issue you hear very little discussion about, because the wealthy and powerful of this country would rather you didn’t know.
You probably do hear that a chunk of our debt is held by foreign governments and foreign investors. That’s true, but they hold only about 30 percent of our debt. The rest — roughly 70 percent — is held domestically. That is, we pay the interest to ourselves.
And who, exactly, is the “ourselves” who receive these interest payments? The Federal Reserve holds part of this debt, state and local governments hold part.
But the biggest chunk — nearly half — is held by mutual funds, pension funds, insurance companies, and banks. And who owns them? The Americans who invest in these funds — and who thereby, directly or indirectly, hold Treasury bills.
And who, exactly are these Americans — the Americans who are directly or indirectly collecting a large amount of the interest we’re paying on the national debt? It’s the people at the top.
The richest 1 percent of U.S. households hold about 35.6 percent of all financial assets — shares of stock, corporate bonds, and Treasury bills — so it’s safe to assume they hold at least a third of all Treasury bills.
What’s wrong with this picture?
Here’s where things get really interesting.
Decades ago, wealthy Americans financed the federal government mainly by paying taxes. Their tax rate was far, far higher than it is today. In the 1950s, under President Dwight Eisenhower, the richest Americans paid a marginal tax rate of 91 percent. (Tax deductions and tax credits meant that the top effective marginal rate was lower than this.)
Fast forward. Now, wealthy Americans finance the federal government mainly by lending it money and collecting interest payments on those loans.
Interest payments on the national debt this year are expected to reach $1 trillion.
There are roughly 128 million households in the United States. Dividing $1 trillion in annual interest among U.S. households would amount to $650 per household per month. (This is a simplified average, of course; actual burdens vary based on tax status, income, and spending.)
The point is that a big chunk of the growing interest payments American taxpayers make on the federal debt is going to wealthy Americans.
Keep following the money. One of the biggest reasons the federal debt has exploded is that tax cuts — starting with the George W. Bush administration in 2001 and extending through Trump’s 2018 and 2024 tax cuts — have reduced government revenues by $10.6 trillion.
Most of the benefits from those tax cuts are going to the wealthy. Since 2000, 65 percent of the benefits from tax cuts have gone to the richest fifth of Americans — 22 percent to the top 1 percent.
So, you see what’s happened?
The wealthiest Americans used to pay higher taxes to finance the government. Now, the government pays wealthy Americans interest on a swelling debt, caused largely by lower taxes on wealthy Americans.
Which means a growing portion of everyone else’s taxes are now paying wealthy Americans interest on those loans, instead of paying for government services everyone needs.
So, from now on, whenever you hear someone say how huge, horrible, and out-of-control the national debt is, explain to them that it’s because of tax cuts to the wealthy — who are also the major recipients of interest on that debt.
America’s wealthy have never been wealthier. If they paid their fair share of taxes, we wouldn’t have such a huge federal debt. And we wouldn’t be paying them so much interest on that debt.
Know what’s happened, and pass it on.
It was reported that BRAIN WORK RFK JR fired all of the INSPECTORS responsible for inspecting CRUISE SHIPS. (How much was saved with LIVES LOST?)
BRAIN WORM RFK JR fired all of the scientists working on creating a HANTA VIRUS VACCINE.
