Iran’s New ‘Nuclear’ Weapon

 

Iran’s New ‘Nuclear’ Weapon

What happens if the U.S. declines to fight for the Strait of Hormuz.

Eric S. Edelman, Reuel Marc Gerecht, & Ray Takeyh / May 26, 2026

 

The Islamic Republic isn’t a problem that can be wished away through quick fixes. Countering Iran, which is a far less challenging foe than the former Soviet Union and communist-turned-fascist China, is, nonetheless, a demanding prospect. And we know what doesn’t work: Arms-control agreements laced with financial dividends didn’t transform the Islamist regime into a responsible state.

If anything, Barack Obama’s nuclear deal provided the cash that allowed Tehran to intensify its malevolent behavior. Washington’s exclusive focus on Iran’s nuclear threat also told Tehran that its proxy-war strategy against Israel wouldn’t encounter any serious American opposition. Any new nuclear deal, if one is even possible today, will likely recertify all the crippling weaknesses of the first accord and possibly add more. 

Donald Trump appears on the cusp of an agreement to demilitarize, at least temporarily, the Hormuz Strait. Ancillary to this may be certain Iranian nuclear promises and U.S. sanctions relief. Whatever the actual details of this accord are, no matter whether it later, in part or entirely, falls apart, this agreement flows directly from Tehran dueling Washington to a standstill. Iranian tenacity, not the acumen of the regime’s diplomats and statesmen or the feebleness of their American counterparts, has led to this point.  

An indisputable truth: A massive bombing campaign by Israel and the United States has allowed Tehran to see the incomparable utility of the Strait of Hormuz as a weapon against the global economy and its primary enemies. Donald Trump may have finally “TACOed” because he’s unwilling to take the military risks that would surely accompany any serious effort to open the strait. A reanimated Islamist regime—and we don’t doubt that senior commanders in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps now think they are winning—might even refuse a generous nuclear deal because it’s having so much fun humbling its foes. In the past, the clerical regime often overplayed its hand. This war, and the one last June, probably wouldn’t have happened if Tehran had been less zealous in supporting its proxies, expanding uranium enrichment, and increasing missile production. It’s possible it will overplay its hand again. 

Yet a victory in the strait for Iran offers the promise of almost everything: a defeat of the United States and regime-buttressing shockwaves coming from that failure; the ever-present prospect of money from tolls on Persian Gulf shipping; restarting the export of Iranian oil to China and possibly to others for hard currency; a potential check on overt Israeli attacks on Iran and greater American hesitancy—possibly even discord between Jerusalem and Washington—about Israeli actions against Iranian proxies; and Iranian dominion over the future of Arab Gulf states. The Islamic Republic has been desperate for a win since the Hamas invasion of Israel on October 7, 2023, unleashed a sequence of events that shredded so many of the regime’s accomplishments. It looks now like it could be on the cusp of a big one.

Though we can still imagine a containment strategy against the clerical regime, if the Islamic Republic can hold Hormuz hostage, Tehran will severely wound America’s self-confidence, reputation, and capacity.  Even if some arrangement can be made to allow commercial traffic to pass without paying tolls, which appears to be part of the current agreement between Tehran and Washington, once most of the U.S. armada returns home, the odds of the warships returning aren’t good. The odds of the Islamic Republic demanding tolls later are a near certainty. Freedom of navigation ends unless Washington can find the military means and the will necessary to sustain convoys, even under hostile fire. This frustrating denouement, which would ensure shipping remains far below pre-war levels, may be enough, however, to avoid $150-plus-per-barrel oil and a global recession. It could conceivably allow Washington to maintain regime-crippling pressure on Tehran. Take away the U.S. armada, however, and Washington will lose most of its leverage.  

All nations have their breaking points. It’s possible that the theocracy may succumb to the contradictions of its own making. Yet the regime’s resilience has been impressive. Bound together by ideological conviction, the regime’s elite remains deeply entrenched and multilayered. Though battered, the regime still appears to retain the capacity to mobilize its core supporters, make decisions, and enforce them.

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In January, Iranian security forces killed with brutal efficiency. This uprising was one of the most consequential and sobering in the history of the Islamic Republic. This was the first time the clerical oligarchs faced popular protest after losing a war in June. The sight of Americans and, more humiliatingly, Israelis blowing up nuclear installations and killing generals in their homes was a bad look for a regime that rules by force and fear. Both President Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sensed in the regime’s defeat last June the prospect of its collapse. This undoubtedly nudged them toward launching another campaign in February.

But that campaign has yielded a more unpredictable regime. The new powerbrokers are drawn largely from the Revolutionary Guards, with the still-hidden Mojtaba Khamenei, the putative, wounded supreme leader, taking his cues from the enforcers. These men are not necessarily more militant, but in some ways they are bolder. The American and Israeli killings precipitated a shift within the regime, elevating those who had grown weary of what they regarded as Ali Khamenei’s nuclear timidity in the face of mounting danger.

A series of articles in Javan, a mouthpiece of the Revolutionary Guards, introduced a new doctrine dubbed “offensive deterrence.” The series began by taking a swipe at the martyred supreme leader: “Iran’s previous doctrine was defined in controlling tensions below the level of war, but the forty-day war was the starting point for deterrence through expanding the geography of crisis.” The new crew highlighted the geographical weapon that the regime had always boasted about in its propaganda but never attempted to use: “The Strait of Hormuz overlooks the coast of the Islamic Republic of Iran, and it is natural that, as a coastal country, we have the right to monitor and exercise sovereignty over our coastal waters. … The world economy’s critical dependence on this route makes this source of income absolutely unsanctionable and transforms the structure of Iran’s political economy from crude oil sales to sustainable transit income.” Ali Nikzad, the deputy speaker of Parliament, went so far as to declare, “The Strait of Hormuz is Iran’s atomic bomb.”

It is an exaggeration to claim that nuclear arms have lost their centrality in the regime’s strategic calculations. The bomb is still important for ensuring Iran’s regional sway. But the nuclear infrastructure is far too battered to deliver nuclear weapons soon. By contrast, control over the waterways offers immediate, simpler power. 

President Trump’s failure to gain control over Hormuz undoubtedly in part flows from the realization  of how much effort would be required to hold the strait after the battle to clear it. Containing the Islamic Republic will necessitate a radical review of the prevailing assumptions that have underpinned earlier national-security strategies—both Republican and Democratic. The Trump administration’s 2026 National Defense Strategy suggested, “[Department of War] will empower regional allies and partners to take primary responsibility for deterring and defending against Iran and its proxies.” The United States has sought to move away from involvement in “forever wars,” relying on Israel and Arab Gulf states who were supposedly “increasingly willing and able to do more … against Iran and its proxies.” More U.S. military assets and defense spending were supposed to be shifted toward China.

Although U.S. partners in the region have been increasing their own indigenous defense capabilities, this war has shown that neither the Saudis nor the Emiratis are comfortable on offense, despite reports that they launched clandestine strikes of their own against Iran. Only American involvement can provide key military capabilities–for example, continuous technically gathered intelligence, persistent reconnaissance, surveillance, command and control, and the sheer firepower necessary for degrading the Iranian military. We know already that nearly 40 days of bombing has not yet provided us with deterrence since the regime still is capable of shooting at ships and our Gulf allies. That could change since the Revolutionary Guards might prefer to absorb less damage. In any case, we do know that the U.S. would need to maintain in theater a lot of firepower to have any chance of dissuading the Guards from further violence. 

Patrolling the Persian Gulf to keep the Strait of Hormuz open post-ceasefire would be a mission of uncertain duration, depending on the regime’s ability to survive the unresolved crises it faces. At a minimum, it would demand a large, sustained, multi-domain, layered, multinational defense presence. The U.S. will need to rebuild or relocate the many bases it has operated in the region in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the UAE, Qatar, Bahrain, and Iraq, as they appear to have sustained serious damage. Some of the cost, estimated to be between $15 billion and $25 billion, will presumably be borne by host nations. But not all of it. Beyond the facilities, the cost of replacing and/or repairing the 40-plus manned and unmanned aircraft that were damaged or destroyed will likely to fall on the U.S. taxpayer as will the costs of replenishing America’s depleted munitions stocks—an effort that is already creating ripple effects in Europe and the Indo-Pacific.

The ongoing requirements would likely mean that the U.S., which in recent years has had no or just one carrier strike group near the Middle East, will likely in future require two. An Amphibious Ready Group or two would also be necessary, as well as up to six to 10 guided-missile destroyers, two attack submarines, and a guided-missile submarine. The force would also require several P-8 Poseidon maritime surveillance and RC-135 Rivet Joint reconnaissance planes and unmanned MQ-9 Reaper aircraft for continuous surveillance. We would need to maintain E-2D Hawkeye and E-3 Sentry aircraft for command-and-control purposes, as well as a variety of rotary-wing aircraft for coastal and search-and-rescue operations.

Also needed are ground and sea-based fighter aircraft, several Independence-class littoral combat ships for demining operations, and unmanned autonomous vehicles and manned aircraft for persistent surveillance. Augmented land- and sea-based aircraft would add striking power to the mix. The force won’t need to be as big as the current buildup, but it would be significant, and the cost would be considerable (perhaps $5 billion to $10 billion dollars annually). It would also entail geopolitical costs as well, since it will limit the ability of the U.S. to move its forces to other theaters. Allies would be necessary to supply some capabilities like frigates, which the U.S. Navy lacks, for escort and additional mine-sweeping to supplement America’s limited resources for counter-mine warfare. Our European allies have long had the bulk of the West’s mine-sweepers.

In short, this would be a considerable military mission, more redolent of the “forever wars” that the president and vice president have decried rather than the “right-sized” presence envisaged by his administration in 2024. 

With an American failure in the strait, demands on American intelligence are going to increase since Tehran will likely want to push the envelope and try to hurt us even more—regardless of what is in Trump’s agreement with the clerical regime. War or no war, all of the mundane intelligence tasks aren’t disappearing. Washington will have to monitor the bombed nuclear facilities closely, and the bombed underground military bases and factories involved with ballistic-missile and drone production. We will need to know how many and what kind of missiles and drones the Islamic Republic will be able to build, and how quickly, given the damage to factories and supply lines, and whether the Russians and Chinese will meaningfully help the effort. With a U.S. defeat in the strait, it’s a very good bet that both Russia and China will see greater strategic value in an axis that is already well-established. Moscow, which benefits enormously from higher oil prices and is increasingly under stress in the Ukraine war, may be tempted to rearm Iran with better weapons.

All of this U.S. intelligence effort will unavoidably keep us thinking about regime change in the Islamic Republic; we would be foolish not to do so since, ultimately, the collapse of the Islamist government is the only answer to all of the problems that started with Ruhollah Khomeini’s triumph. 

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Iran’s internal problems remain enormous. This war has made most of them worse. The unpleasantness of an Iranian triumph in the Gulf—and the Islamist hubris that it will generate in Tehran—may be enough to finally shake Democrats out of their engagement fantasy. There may be enough liberal internationalist sentiment left among Democrats to explore ways of helping the Iranian people and keep Democrats on the congressional intelligence committees from killing clandestine programs. We also assume that Republicans won’t go belly up, that isolationism and the Iran-is-no-threat rumination that Tucker Carlson and his ilk sometimes express, won’t gain more ground.

The Trump administration and much of the right are allergic to the phrase “regime change,” seeing it as a negation of the “realism” favored by many in the America First crowd. But the ugliness of what may well happen globally after freedom of navigation ends in the Persian Gulf may be enough, combined with the enforced frugality that is surely coming because of the size of America’s national debt, to encourage folks on the right and left to seek relatively inexpensive options for countering an Islamic Republic doped up on victory.

And the ongoing intelligence war between the United States and Iran will surely complement the intelligence war between Israel and the Islamic Republic. Intelligence cooperation, because it doesn’t usually happen openly, has a certain resilience that defies the passions of the day.

Intelligence—operational—success is inevitably tied to how much risk clandestine services and their political overlords want to endure. The Islamic Republic is an existential threat to the Jewish state; to the United States, the clerical regime has been a non-existential but deadly foe.  These differences in perspective and fear are sufficient to explain why the Israelis have had the patience and fortitude to work the Iranian target in ways that have been impossible for American or European intelligence services. But that disparity, besides producing a certain jealousy and sometimes anger inside CIA headquarters at Langley, offers advantages to Washington if it decides to get more serious about aid to the Iranian people.  

Jerusalem may well try to do things that Washington may object to: first and foremost, the delivery of large quantities of weaponry to resistance groups inside Iran. The Israelis wanted to do a delivery to the Kurds, who apparently were willing to take the fight to the dominant ethnic group, the Persians, on whom the regime depends. Trump, possibly motivated by a call from Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, limited the operation. As a rule, Washington wants to imagine that Iran can come out whole, ideally democratic, after the collapse of the Islamic Republic; the Israelis, as a rule, are far more pessimistic about the evolutionary political possibilities of Muslims. Ethnic warfare inside Iran may appeal to them since accessing minority groups on Iran’s borders is operationally much easier; it would be payback for all of the proxies that Tehran has unleashed on the Jewish state. 

Moving arms into the hands of Iranians who really matter—and who would know how to use them—would be a long-term project for Jerusalem, or Washington, since there are now, so far as we know, no organized Azeri or Persian opposition groups that could even use this weaponry against the Revolutionary Guards and the street-level security service, the Basij. Delivering weapons to other Iranian ethnic groups that do already have organized, armed outfits—the Kurds and the Baluch—can’t possibly topple the clerical regime. Only the Azeris and Persians, if they rebelled in large numbers, can overcome the status quo. Until such organized outfits exist, any effort to deliver weaponry to where it matters most would just end in delivering arms to the Revolutionary Guards and the Iranian intelligence ministry. It would be quite the trial-and-error process for any foreign power to develop something that the natives haven’t so far figured out how to establish.

America and Israel can weaken Iran, but the task of displacing it will surely be up to the Iranian people. All revolutions, at core, are psychological phenomena. Before a decisive mass of people take to and stay in the streets, they must perceive weakness in the regime and a measure of immunity for themselves. Significant defections and dissension within the ruling elite are the necessary precursors to any successful insurrection. Thus far, the Islamic Republic has gone wobbly, but it hasn’t lost its bearings. Still, little operational successes—baby steps for both a foreign intelligence service and Iranian protesters who must prove that they can organize and not get shattered—may open up larger opportunities hitherto unseen.

None of the above should offer any immediate hope to the United States, or to the Iranian people. We are now stuck in a predicament where Washington may have already lost a war against a Middle Eastern power that has defined itself in opposition to America. Lost wars always have painful repercussions. But unless the United States is leaving the Middle East with its tail between its legs, a bloody struggle with the Islamic Republic will continue. Iran’s revolutionary elite knows that. Do we?

Eric S. Edelman was undersecretary of defense for policy (2005-2009) and has served as the co-chair for the congressionally mandated Commissions to review the National Defense Strategy in 2018 and 2024.

Haidt - Commencement Speech

NYU began holding commencement ceremonies here in Yankee Stadium in 2009. Since then, graduates have heard from prime ministers, presidents, Supreme Court justices, movie stars, civil-rights crusaders, and Taylor Swift. So I know what you’re all thinking: Finally, they brought in a social psychologist!

Perhaps that’s why over the past few weeks, as I’ve thought about what I might say to all of you, I’ve felt grateful. I’ve felt excited. But most of all, I’ve felt a strong sense of responsibility. Because I am part of NYU. I love this university, and I love the students that I have the privilege to teach. That’s why I feel a strong responsibility to do my small part to make this the great and memorable day that all of you, and your families, deserve.

Graduates, I see how hard you have worked. And I love how you also throw yourselves into the life of New York City. Because all of us made the same deal when we chose NYU: We traded in the campus quad for Washington Square, and the football stadium for the city that never sleeps.

Here’s something else I know: Most families have stories of struggle and perseverance, many of which began on distant continents. But all our family stories converge here, today, in Yankee Stadium, with a loved one graduating from New York University. So to all of the parents, grandparents, and other relatives and friends in the audience, and to all the teachers or anyone else who helped you reach this day, let us all thank you and applaud you.

As I sat down to write this address, I thought back to my own commencement, in May of 1985. I remember the mix of emotions I felt as I sat with my fellow graduates in our caps and gowns. On the one hand: pride, excitement, gratitude, and love for my friends. On the other, the sadness of knowing that an amazing chapter of my life was ending, and the fear of not knowing what would come next.

Our commencement speaker that day was a former Massachusetts congressman who said that in 20 years we would not remember anything from his speech. He was wrong: I still remember that he said we would not remember anything from his speech.

His words ring as a reminder to approach my role here with humility. So, while I will share several lessons that I’ve learned in my life and my research, if there’s just one thing from my address that you remember tomorrow, next week, and 20 years from now, make it this: Treasure your attention.

In 2014, when she was nearly 80 years old, the poet Mary Oliver wrote a short poem titled “Instructions for Living a Life.” It goes like this:

Pay attention.

Be astonished.

Tell about it.

It sounds simple. But paying attention is in fact one of the most challenging and meaningful things you can do. Because what you pay attention to shapes what you care about. And what you care about shapes who you become.

Taking control of your own attention has never been easy — which is why it’s one of the many things this university has tried to prepare you to do. In 2005, the writer David Foster Wallace gave one of this century’s best-known commencement addresses, at Kenyon College. He said, “the really significant education-in-thinking that we’re supposed to get in a place like this isn’t really about the capacity to think, but rather about the choice of what to think about.” He was right, and he seemed to anticipate that, two decades later, there would be so many powerful people and big companies trying to take that choice away from you.

They compete with each other to capture your attention. Think about that phrase. It acknowledges that your attention is valuable. But it also reveals that some of the biggest corporations in human history aren’t trying to earn your attention, or deserve your attention. They’re trying to take it from you.

Consider just one example. Meta is valued at well over a trillion dollars, even though few of us have given it any money. How is that possible? Because it invented a business model that extracts attention from nearly half of all human beings and sells it to advertisers. Other industries followed: video games, dating, gambling — even investing has been gamified and optimized to keep us all staring and swiping. We’ve all had the experience of picking up our phone, maybe for a good reason, only to find ourselves, an hour later, mindlessly scrolling. That’s not an accident. That’s our phones and apps, doing what they were designed to do.

Let me tell you what I have learned, from my research and my teaching, about how to resist, how to reclaim your attention. I’ve taught a course at NYU’s Stern School of Business, now for 12 years, called “Flourishing.” On day one of that course, I ask students to do something simple: Turn off nearly all the notifications on their phones. Do you get an alert every time an email comes in? Many young people do, so, turn it off. Alerts for breaking news? Turn those off, too.

A week later, I ask them, “Did you miss anything really important?” The answer is almost always no. Then I ask: “Did you gain anything important?” Yes. Students are amazed at how much better life feels when they remove a hundred interruptions from their day. When they check things when they choose to, rather than giving a company the right to interrupt them as it pleases.

In the third week of my “Flourishing” course, I ask my students to take part in an exercise that they think is going to be a lot harder: I ask them to delete social-media apps from their phones, just for a week. I don’t ask them to stop using social media entirely. Many of them continue to use it through a web browser. But adding that little bit of friction for one week, by having to log in on a web browser rather than just pulling out a phone without thinking, puts us back in charge of deciding where our attention goes.

By the end of the week, most students are surprised by how easy it was. More than that, they’re surprised by how much freer they feel. They got back precious hours each day, and a feeling of agency over how to spend that time.

So treasure your attention more than the people who want to take it from you. Never forget what it’s worth. For Meta, it’s a trillion dollars. For you and your life, it is priceless.

Once you’re in control of your attention, you can start to ask yourself one of life’s most exciting questions: “What do I want to do?”

Of course, the answer to this question is going to be different for each of you. But looked at in another way, I think the answer may be the same for all of you. What should you do? You should do hard things.

This is among the most universal pieces of advice from our ancestors. In the words of two great philosophers — Friedrich Nietzsche and Kelly Clarkson — what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. The psychological foundation of this great truth is that humans, and especially young people, are not fragile. They are antifragile, to use a term coined by NYU professor Nassim Taleb. Fragile things break when they get knocked over or challenged, so we need to protect them vigilantly. Antifragile things grow stronger, so we need to expose them to challenges, diligently.

So how should you live these next postgraduate years, these years of transition? By repeatedly turning your attention toward doing hard things. Throw yourself into your next job, or academic program, or whatever your next adventure is. Take chances. Say yes to anything that will expand your capabilities.

And I’m not just talking about your career. Devote your precious attention to taking chances in relationships, too. You’ve heard it said that “’Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.” That line becomes even more resonant once you understand that your heart is antifragile, too.

Which brings me to my final point. Because along with the question “What should I turn my attention towards?” comes a related question: “Whom should I spend my attention on?”

Once again, the answer is going to be different for each of you. And once again, the answer may also be the same for all of you: You should spend a lot of your attention on real people in the real world.

During your time at NYU, in-person connection was built into the architecture of your lives. You ran into friends constantly. Or maybe someone texted “pizza?”— and 10 minutes later, you were getting pizza. Shared experiences are easily launched in college. That’s part of what makes this place so special.

But today one of the most common experiences of adulthood — especially in ambitious cities, among high-achieving people — is a strange kind of loneliness. You can be messaging people all day. You can see everyone’s lives unfold in real time. And yet, despite all this so-called connection, you may find yourself feeling increasingly alone. Friendship now requires much more intentionality than it once did. So my advice, as you think about what does and doesn’t deserve your attention, is to reach out to others, even when it feels awkward.

Call someone you love just to say hi. Invite someone to dinner. Say yes when someone invites you. Be the one who makes things happen in the real world, and others will be grateful to you.

Think about your most memorable moments from your time at NYU. I’m willing to bet that almost none of them happened on a screen. Most of them probably happened while spending time with people who made you laugh or helped you grow. Keep making those moments happen.

So, NYU Class of 2026, I want to end where I started, with Mary Oliver’s instructions for living a life:

Pay attention.

Be astonished.

Tell about it.

I cannot predict what your future will hold. But I can tell you this: At your age, at this point in your life, with a degree from NYU, you have opportunities that few people in history could have dreamed of. You have the opportunity to become the best, fullest, and truest version of yourself.

Here’s something else I can tell you: The world needs you to seize that opportunity with everything you’ve got. It won’t be easy. You’ll face the universal challenges encountered by all the generations who came before you, and you’ll face the unique ones that have arisen for your generation.

But if you treasure your attention, and then use it to do hard things, with other people, in real life, then — and trust me on this, as a social psychologist — your life is going to be amazing. And the world is going to be a far better place because you’re in it.

Congratulations, NYU Class of 2026. May you all flourish.

 

Dan Goldman Just NAILED The Three Reasons Trump Ran For President. And He's 100% Correct. Stay out of jail. Punish his enemies. Get rich. Goldman put it in a tweet. Sixteen months of Trump’s second term turned it into a checklist — and he’s checked every box. Dean Blundell May 25 May 25, 2026 Congressman Dan Goldman — the guy who served as lead counsel in Trump’s first impeachment, so he’s not exactly working off a hunch — put out a tweet that landed like a brick through a window: “Donald Trump ran for office for three reasons: 1) to stay out of jail, 2) to exact revenge on his enemies, and 3) to line his pockets. Everything else he says is bullshit.” Here’s the thing about a tweet like that. It’s the kind of line that gets dismissed as partisan venting. Oh, Goldman hates Trump; of course, he’d say that. And if it were just a feeling — just a vibe — I’d tell you to ignore it too. But it’s not a vibe. It’s a hypothesis. And the beautiful, brutal thing about a hypothesis is that you can test it. So let’s do that. Not with feelings. Not with “everybody knows.” With the record. With dates, dollar figures, indictments, and the man’s own words on his own platform. Three claims. Three piles of evidence. Let’s go. A quick note before we start, because I’m not going to insult you: nobody — not me, not Goldman, not God — can crawl inside Donald Trump’s skull and read the receipts of his soul. Motive is invisible. So I’m not going to pretend I’ve got a signed confession. What I’ve got is something almost as good. When a man’s every major action over sixteen months points in exactly the same three directions, the honest question stops being “can we prove what he wanted?” and becomes “what else would explain this?“ And as you’ll see, the innocent explanations have to do some Olympic-level gymnastics. Hold that thought. We’ll come back to it. Reason #1: Stay Out Of Jail Let’s rewind to where Trump actually was before the 2024 election, because the MAGA memory-hole has worked overtime to make you forget. Going into that election, Donald Trump was staring down 91 felony counts across four separate criminal cases — New York, Florida, Washington D.C., and Fulton County, Georgia. In May 2024, he became the first former president in American history to be convicted of a crime — 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in the Manhattan hush-money case. Not accused. Convicted. By a jury. Two of those four cases were federal: the classified-documents case down in Florida (the one about the boxes of national-defence secrets in the Mar-a-Lago bathroom and ballroom) and the D.C. election-interference case (the one about trying to overturn a national election he lost by seven million votes). Now watch what happened the second he won. The federal cases didn’t go to trial. They didn’t get argued. They got dismissed — because of a decades-old Department of Justice policy, dating back to the Nixon era, that a sitting president can’t be prosecuted. Special Counsel Jack Smith folded both federal cases before Trump was even sworn in. The Georgia racketeering case? Charges against Trump were dropped in November 2025 after a chain of events that conveniently cleared his path. The New York conviction — the one a jury already returned — ended in a sentence of “unconditional discharge.” Translation: convicted of 34 felonies, walks away with nothing. Sit with the sequence here. Four criminal cases. Ninety-one counts. One election. Zero consequences. I want to be precise, because precision is the whole game: the presidency didn’t make Trump innocent. It made him immune. Those are completely different things, and the difference is the entire argument. A not-guilty verdict is the system saying “he didn’t do it.” Immunity is the system saying, “We are not allowed to ask.” Trump didn’t beat the cases. He outran them — and the finish line was the Oval Office. So ask yourself the honest question. If you were facing 91 felony counts and a criminal conviction, and you knew — because the policy is written down, it’s not a secret — that one specific job in the entire country comes with a built-in shield against prosecution... how badly would you want that job? Goldman’s claim #1 isn’t a stretch. It’s a description of a man sprinting toward the only exit in the building. Verdict: Box checked. Reason #2: Exact Revenge On His Enemies This one’s almost too easy, because Trump didn’t hide it. He campaigned on it. “I am your retribution.“ He said it out loud. Repeatedly. To cheering crowds. He sold the merch. NPR did the unglamorous work of counting and found Trump had made more than 100 distinct threats to investigate, prosecute, jail, or otherwise punish his perceived enemies. This wasn’t subtext. It was the text. It was on a T-shirt. So when a politician tells you exactly what he’s going to do, the only real question is whether he does it. Did he? Let’s go to the tape on year one of term two: James Comey — former FBI Director — was indicted in September 2025 and again last month. For a sea shell pic. For calling Trump a conman. With receipts. BREAKING: The Comey Indictment Is a Revenge Prosecution—And the Paper Trail Shows It Dean Blundell · September 26, 2025 September 26, 2025 Read full story Letitia James — the New York Attorney General who brought the civil fraud case against him — indicted. For investigating Trump. Jerome Powell — the Federal Reserve chairman — placed under criminal investigation. For saying no to Trump. Security clearances stripped from a tidy little roster of names: Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, Hillary Clinton, Antony Blinken, Jake Sullivan, Letitia James, and Alvin Bragg. Read that list again. It’s not a national-security list. It’s a grudge list. It’s everyone who beat him, opposed him, or prosecuted him, collected in one place. For offering to tell the truth about Trump. And here’s the part that should end the debate, because it’s not interpretation — it’s Trump telling on himself, in writing, on his own platform. In September 2025, he posted on Truth Social about his own enemies: “They’re all guilty as hell, but nothing is going to be done.“ And then: “We can’t delay any longer, it’s killing our reputation and credibility.” Read that like a prosecutor would. That is not the language of a president asking for evidence. There’s no “let’s see what the investigation turns up.” He has already announced the verdict — “guilty as hell” — and he is publicly frustrated that the punishment hasn’t been administered yet. He’s not pursuing justice. He’s chasing a sentence and is annoyed that the paperwork is slow. This is the same man — and I love this detail — who got elected partly by screaming that the Biden DOJ had been “weaponized” against him. Then he took office and weaponized it. Out loud. On the internet. With a body count of indictments. Verdict: Box checked. In his own handwriting. Reason #3: Line His Pockets If reasons one and two are about fear and spite, reason three is just plain appetite. And the numbers here are so large they stop sounding like corruption and start sounding like a typo. Start with the official paperwork — his own federally required financial disclosure. Trump reported at least $630 million in business income for 2024 alone. That includes $57 million from token sales at World Liberty Financial, the crypto outfit he’s a partial owner of. But the disclosure is the small number. It’s the polite, on-the-record number. The real story is what happened after he took office and the crypto machine really started humming. A staff report from the House Judiciary Committee laid it out: the Trump family’s crypto holdings have been valued as high as $11.6 billion, with more than $800 million in income from selling crypto assets in just the first half of 2025. Forbes pegged Trump’s personal crypto winnings since 2024 at around $2.4 billion. By various estimates, his net worth roughly tripled in a single year in office — from somewhere near $2.3 billion to north of $6 billion. The New Yorker put the family’s 2025 take at around $4 billion. Do that math, and it’s roughly $456,000 an hour, every hour, including while he sleeps. But the dollar figure isn’t even the worst part. The worst part is who’s handing him the money — and what they get back. BREAKING: Is Anyone Going to Investigate Trump’s $2 Billion Crypto Grift in the Middle East? Dean Blundell · May 7, 2025 It started, as most Trump scandals do, in a gold-trimmed ballroom filled with billionaires, bluster, and just enough plausible deniability to make your head spin. At the Token2049 conference in Dubai, the crowd was buzzing. Crypto whales and Gulf royalty packed in shoulder-to-shoulder, eager to watch the former president’s next act. Read full story Here’s the sequence that should make every American, left or right, feel something cold in their stomach. Days before the inauguration, an Abu Dhabi investment vehicle — backed by a member of the UAE royal family, the brother of the country’s president — bought 49% of World Liberty Financial for $500 million. Then, a UAE government fund used $2 billion of Trump’s company’s stablecoin in a deal that funnelled tens of millions in interest straight back to a Trump entity. And then — then — the Trump administration reversed a Biden-era restriction and granted the UAE expanded access to advanced American AI chips. I’m not going to use the word “bribery” because I’m not a prosecutor, and that word has a legal definition. So I’ll just lay the three events on the table in the order they happened and let you be the adult in the room: foreign government money flows to Trump’s company. Then, Trump’s government does that foreign government a major strategic favour. If you saw that sequence in any other country, you wouldn’t hesitate for a second to name it. And who wants to talk about his “Malicious prosecution” sush fund for 1.776 Billion with no oversight, no strings attached, Trump Crime Family expense account? BREAKING: Trump Gifted Himself $1.776 BILLION. From YOUR Wallet. To Pay For His Insurrectionist Army And Allies To Do It Again. Dean Blundell · May 19 Tuesday, May 19, 2026 Read full story Every president in modern memory used a blind trust — they walled themselves off from their own businesses specifically so this question could never be asked. Trump didn’t. His assets sit with his kids, there’s no moratorium on foreign deals, and the family business has spent sixteen months collecting money from the exact governments his administration makes decisions about. Verdict: Box checked. With a UAE sovereign-wealth fund holding the pen. “Everything Else He Says Is Bullshit” That’s the last line of Goldman’s tweet, and it’s the one that sounds like pure partisanship. So let me make the actual argument for it, because there is one, and it’s not about name-calling. Goldman’s three reasons all share one feature: they are personal. Stay out of his jail. Punish his enemies. Fill his pockets. None of them is about you. None of them is about the country. None is about the price of groceries or the border or any of the things sold to you from a podium. And here’s the tell. Look at where the follow-through went. The criminal cases vanished, fast, totally. The enemies — indicted, investigated, stripped, on a clear and public timeline. The money — billions, documented, ongoing. The machinery moved with speed and precision in exactly three directions. Now look at the promises that were supposed to be about you. Compare the intensity. Compare the urgency. Compare the results. When something served Trump personally, it got done — fast, relentless, no excuses. When something was merely promised to the public, it got a speech. That’s what Goldman means by “bullshit.” Not that Trump literally never says a true word. He means the priorities reveal themselves through the effort. You don’t learn what a man wants by listening to his speeches. You learn it by watching where he spends his energy when he thinks the speech is over. And for sixteen months, the energy has gone to the jail, the enemies, and the bank account. Every time. So Is Goldman’s Tweet A “Fact”? I promised you I wouldn’t insult you, so here’s the straight answer. ABSO-F******-LUTELY. A tweet about another man’s private motives can never be a “fact” the way “water boils at 100 degrees” is a fact. Motive lives inside the skull, and the skull is locked. Anybody who tells you they’ve proven what Donald Trump wants in his heart is selling you something, and you should keep your wallet closed. But that’s the wrong standard, and demanding it is how the guilty walk. We almost never get a confession. What we get is evidence — and we ask whether one explanation accounts for it better than all the others. That’s not a lower standard. It’s the standard. It’s how every jury in America does its job. So apply it. Goldman offered three reasons. The record shows: four criminal cases that evaporated on contact with the immunity of the office. An enemies list that became an indictment list, narrated by the man himself in writing. A personal fortune that tripled, fed by foreign governments that kept getting favours. Three predictions. Three direct hits. No misses. Could it all be a coincidence? Could a man just happen to escape 91 felony counts, happen to prosecute everyone who ever crossed him, and happen to triple his money via foreign cash — all while genuinely, secretly being motivated by selfless public service? Sure. It’s possible. It’s also possible to flip a coin and have it land on its edge sixteen times in a row. At some point, a reasonable person stops calling it luck and starts calling it what it plainly is. A hypothesis with no equal. It’s something that, in a functioning country, would be treated as more useful than one: the most reasonable explanation of the evidence, with no serious competitor. The burden has shifted. It’s not on Goldman to prove Trump’s a self-dealer anymore. It’s on anyone still claiming otherwise to explain the jail, the enemies, and the billions — all three, at once, with a straight face. I’ll wait.