Welcome to Friday’s edition of Washington Secrets. As usual, it is our roundup of the week with the verdict of two strategists. So without further ado…
This was tax week and a chance for President Donald Trump to tout the huge savings for taxpayers in his One Big Beautiful Bill Act. So he spent much of the week out of sight or talking about Iran, NATO, his ballroom, or whatever else flitted through his mind, much to the irritation of Republican strategists who need midterm help.
On Sunday, Vice President JD Vance flew back to Washington from peace talks in Islamabad. The best summary is probably that there was no breakthrough, but no breakdown either, as local officials put it. Which was a better outcome for him than in Hungary, where his 11th-hour campaign appearance with Prime Minister Viktor Orban could not prevent the hard-line leader from falling to election defeat.
On Monday, Trump gave a DoorDasher a $100 tip for delivering bags of McDonald’s burgers. It was a chance to tout his “no tax on tips” initiative, but he ended up talking about Iran as he took questions from journalists. And he had to explain the AI image posted a night earlier, which appeared to depict him as a Christ-like healer amid a feud with Pope Leo XIV.
Tuesday was a low-profile kind of day, filled with private meetings and occasional phone calls with journalists. Naturally.
Then on Wednesday, the president told Maria Bartiromo that he expected the war to end “fairly soon”. It was the same thing he had been saying since the start, some seven weeks ago. But that didn’t stop journalists from reporting it as news.
The president finally turned his attention to Tax Day, a day after Tax Day, when he attended a roundtable (at a square table) in Las Vegas on Thursday. He defended his administration’s economic policies, shrugging off rising prices caused by the war in Iran.
“Don’t forget, we’re having some fake inflation because of the fuel, the energy prices,” Trump said.
His advisers want him to focus on the economy, including promises made and kept on tax cuts. Yet the president couldn’t resist posting on Truth Social three times about his ballroom plans after a judge ordered a halt to all work above ground.
He heads to Arizona on Friday for an appearance in front of a Turning Point USA audience, as he tries to shore up support with young people and hold together his 2024 coalition.
So what did our two strategists make of it all?
Jed Babbin: Grade B+
This was a pretty good week for President Trump and his team. The big blockade of the Strait of Hormuz is in place for now, and no ships are getting through. The stock markets are still at about 49,000, and oil prices are reportedly falling.
The question about how long we can sustain the blockade of the strait may have been answered by Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Aragchi, who declared it open earlier on Friday. It remains to be seen whether it is really open.
That would be good news for Europe, whose airlines would have otherwise run out of jet fuel in about six weeks. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and French Prime Minister Emmanuel Macron plan to reopen the Strait after the war without the permission of Trump. Right.
The Democrats filed articles of impeachment against Secretary of War Pete Hegseth this week, alleging war crimes and such. Like the past impeachments of Trump, these proceedings will die an ignominious death.
The big mystery of the week is whether Supreme Court Justice Sam Alito and, possibly, Clarence Thomas, are planning to retire. Alito is 76, and Thomas is 77. If either or both retire, then Trump will have the rest of his term to replace them. It won’t be quick, and the Dems will fight tooth and nail against any conservative replacement. Let’s hope Trump learned his lesson with Amy Coney Barrett. She was thought to be a conservative, but proved to be quite liberal once on the court.
Ford and General Motors have been asked to convert some of their production to weapons for U.S. stockpiles. Let’s hope they do. Their excess production capacities, mostly dedicated to electric vehicles that nobody wants, could be converted to producing missiles, bullets, and bombs, which would be far more productive.
John Zogby: Grade F
So much has happened this week, so I will try to keep my review in chronological order. The week began with several MAGA influencers running for the hills away from the president’s war in Iran. That was about broken promises, then about infighting, neither of which is good for a party preparing for an election.
Figures released last Friday showed that the Consumer Price Index hit 3.3% in March, including about 31% for fuel.
Speaking about broken promises, the federal deficit hit $39 trillion, which means that the U.S. is now paying $88 billion per month to merely service its debt and cover just the interest.
At the start of negotiations with Iran in Islamabad, Trump declared that it didn’t matter what happened there because the United States won anyway. He said the same thing after the talks ended without a deal.
China has been trading military parts with Iran and is now considering full hardware in response to the president’s blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, through which China receives half of its oil.
The president insulted the pope, displayed a picture of himself as a Christ-like figure healing the sick — and it didn’t sit well with conservative Christians. The prime minister of Greenland said residents there have been living in fear because of Trump’s words about Greenland and his actions in Venezuela and Iran. And Orban, the longtime prime minister of Hungary and close ally of Trump, lost his bid for a new term.
Quote of the day
Dario Amodei, the chief executive of AI giant Anthropic, sits down for Lunch with the Financial Times. It’s well worth a read (if you are a subscriber) on the day that he is reportedly headed to the White House for peace talks in its bitter fight with the Pentagon.
He uses the interview to set out his stance on AI. And he articulates his position that only Anthropic is responsible enough to manage the huge risks that come with such powerful technology, at a time when the Trump administration wants a low-regulation environment to build a global lead.
“I think we should be thinking about regulating AI the way you regulate cars and airplanes,” Amodei said. “Everyone realizes they have enormous economic value, but they need to be built carefully. If they aren’t built right, they can kill you.”
Lunchtime reading
The 27-year-old diplomat waging Trump’s cultural war with Europe: Samuel Samson is only five years out of college. But he has shocked European leaders by accusing them of stifling freedom and by sitting down with the far-right challengers.
Andy Kershaw, broadcaster who opened the nation’s ears to music from around the world: Secrets gets to choose the reading. So here is something from way beyond the beltway, about one of Britain’s most influential broadcasters, who introduced generations to music from all around the world.
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