This summer’s jobs reports have mostly been clunkers, but this morning we got a more encouraging one.
asserted
we → get → one
The U.S. economy added 162,000 jobs in August, while unemployment held steady at 4.1 percent and the labor force participation rate—which had sunk throughout the year—ticked back up a hair.
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which → add → year
I don’t know if you know this, but we’re actually not at war with Iran.
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we → know → Iran
I know!
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I → know → ?
The six-months-and-counting conflict has been one of the central stories of Donald Trump’s second term, and is very much an ongoing crisis: We’re still shooting back and forth, the Strait of Hormuz remains more or less closed, Iran has not agreed to the restraints on its nuclear program Trump demands, and so on and so on.
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Trump → count → program
But when Vice President JD Vance took to the White House briefing room for a press conference yesterday, he was surprisingly insistent: Rumors of war with Iran, he argued, have been greatly exaggerated.
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he → take → Iran
“The phrase ‘an end to the war’—I want to push back on that,” Vance said. “Because major combat operations are currently not ongoing, and they haven’t been ongoing in a very long time.”
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they → want → time
Later, he repeated the point: “Again, I wouldn’t call it a war.
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I → repeat → it
What America had now, Vance suggested, was simply a little problem of “the Iranians shooting at ships.”
uncertain
Iranians → suggest → ships
This sort of silly talk serves a couple purposes.
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sort → serve → purposes
One is the longstanding semantic game of describing the conflict as an “operation” or “excursion” to put a fig leaf on the fact that Congress never approved it.
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Congress → describe → it
Trump, it seems, has grown tired of making repeated demands that Iran never deigns to meet.
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Iran → seem → demands
That’s not a very alpha way to conduct business!
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That → ’ → business
It seems Trump is mulling a change in strategy.
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Trump → seem → strategy
The Wall Street Journal reports that the president is privately “having discussions with senior aides about whether to declare the Iran war over.”
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president → report → war
Outside MAGA voices have been pushing a similar idea: The Iran exit strategy “is happening right now,” CNN commentator Scott Jennings said Wednesday.
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Jennings → push → idea
The time has come for an “affirmative, formal declaration of victory,” Jennings added: “We’re at the point now where Iran is totally scrambled and defeated, and we need to take credit for it.”
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we → come → it
The White House has been talking a big game for months: Iran is outmatched, outgunned, decimated, days from surrender.
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Iran → talk → surrender
Massive Iranian concessions, Trump and Co. have suggested all along, are just days away.
uncertain
Trump → suggest → ?
Now, they are apparently on the brink of declaring that no more agreements are forthcoming.
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agreements → declare → brink
The status quo, it seems, is as good as they hope to get.
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they → seem → ?
At one point, they hoped to win the war: Back in March, the president seemed genuinely to believe that a few weeks of devastating bombing would bring Iran’s government to its knees.
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weeks → hop → knees
Later on, they even tried to lose the war.
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they → try → war
Two months ago, Trump was plainly seeking any way out of a conflict that he suddenly feared would trigger a genuine energy crisis and a global economic collapse.
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he → seek → crisis
“The one president I did not want to be was the late, great Herbert Hoover,” he said in a July speech by way of justifying his memorandum of understanding with Iran.
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he → want → Iran
When a catastrophe rises to a certain level, it has a way of focusing Trump’s mind.
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it → rise → mind
Last year, Trump’s sudden realization that his “Liberation Day” tariffs were about to tank global markets led to the biggest about-face of his political career.
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tariffs → tank → career
This summer, he plainly had begun to place the Iran war in this same extinction-level tier: If I don’t get this under control, I’m signing my own political death certificate.
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I → begin → certificate
But Trump has since gotten himself back under control.
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Trump → get → control
The memorandum of understanding may have collapsed, but energy markets haven’t yet melted down completely.
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markets → collapse → understanding
Perhaps, he now believes, it may be possible for him to bullshit his way through this crisis after all.
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him → believe → crisis
As a result, this summer’s sudden spurt of presidential real talk has completely dried up.
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spurt → dry → talk
Instead of actually working to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, Trump is back to his usual nonsense: pretending that the trickle of ships the U.S. military is managing to escort out of the Persian Gulf is itself a major geopolitical win.
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military → work → Gulf
“Hormuz oil volumes are BACK!” the president proclaimed in a Truth Social post yesterday, suggesting that 18 million barrels of oil were now daily transiting the strait.
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barrels → proclaim → strait
This figure is out of keeping with independent commercial shipping trackers, which continue to report that Hormuz transits are a fraction of their pre-war volumes.
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transits → keep → volumes
Nor is it reflected in oil and gas prices.
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it → reflect → prices
Brent crude remains substantially more expensive than it was two months ago, and far more expensive than before the war.
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it → remain → war
Yesterday, diesel fuel hit its all-time high price.
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fuel → hit → price
But to Trump, this doesn’t matter.
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this → matter → Trump
He may have tried to flinch away from global financial meltdown, but he remains confident in his own ability to explain away any economic damage short of that.
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he → try → that
…and 59 more, not listed.
