Unbelievably Irresponsible

March 31, 2026 At 4.11 this morning, President Donald J. Trump's

social media account posted, all of those countries that can't get jet fuel because

of the state of Hormuz, like the United Kingdom, which refused to get involved in the

decapitation of Iran, I have a suggestion for you.

Number one, buy from the US. We have plenty. And number two, build up some delayed

courage, go to the straight and just take it. You'll have to start learning how to fight

for yourself. The USA won't be there to help you anymore, just like you weren't there for us.

Iran has been essentially decimated. The hard part is done. Go get your own oil.

President DJT.

While this morning, Trump appeared to wash his hands of his Iran war, there was an

undertone of panic in his post, especially coming as it did just before an exclusive story by

Alexander Ward and Meredith McGraw in the Wall Street Journal. Reporting that Trump has

told AIDS he is willing to end the military campaign against Iran even if the

straight of Hormuz remains largely closed. Economist Paul Krugman noted this evening that this

is essentially an admission of defeat and Suzanne Maloney, vice president of the Brookings

Institution Think Tank and an expert on Iran, called Trump's suggestion that he is willing to

leave the straight closed, unbelievably irresponsible. Having started a war, she said,

the US and Israel cannot walk away from the outcome. Energy markets are inherently global and

there is no possibility of insulating the US from the economic damage that is already

occurring and will become exponentially worse if the closure of the straight continues.

She told the Wall Street Journal reporters. Nonetheless, the idea the Iran war would end soon

was a signal investors wanted to see. On the strength of the hope for a short war,

the stock market posted its biggest one-day gain in 10 months.

Meanwhile, another aircraft carrier, the USS George H.W. Bush, left its home port,

Naval Station Norfolk in Virginia, today to head in the direction of the Middle East,

although it is not clear if it will support Operation Epic Fury.

According to Alison Bath of Stars and Stripes, the carrier will pick up other elements of the

carrier group, including the destroyer's USS Ross, USS Donald Cook, and USS Mason as it crosses

the Atlantic. The George H.W. Bush carrier strike group also includes several aircraft squadrons

and detachments that make up the 70 or more aircraft in carrier Air Wing 7, along with more than

5,000 sailors and military personnel. Nearly 3,500 sailors and Marines from the Tripoli

amphibious ready group arrived in the region on Saturday. Yesterday, host Laura Ingram of the Fox

news channel wondered, was the president fully briefed about the risks of all this from the

beginning? And was he then able to take it all in and understand the complexity of this?

How complex it could actually get and further possibilities of casualties or other damage?

The difficulty of dealing with these people? Or was he told this would be relatively quick

in and out? Nick Hilden of alternate reported that Maga leader Alex Jones speculated today that

ill health is contributing to Trump's poor decisions on Iran. Trump's runoff the edge of a cliff,

and I don't think he's coming back from it, Jones said. He urged Maga to move on without Trump.

We cut baton Trump and we mobilize against the Democrats, he said. Trump is just a minor figure.

Hunter Walker of Talking Points memo picked up the story of another Maga figure distancing

himself from Trump. When he ran for governor in 2024, former North Carolina lieutenant

governor Mark Robinson flat out denied stories about his participation in pornography forums and

social media chats where he attacked Jewish black gay and transgender people as well as flirting

with Holocaust denial and calling himself a black Nazi. He even sued CNN for 50 million dollars

for defamation, calling their story about him a high-tech lynching before dropping the suit after

losing the election. Walker noted that Robinson recently admitted on a podcast that he was lying

all along. He had to ignore the truth at that moment, he said, because he was shielding Trump.

I certainly don't want to be the person that costs the president of the United States the election,

he said, didn't want to cost anyone else their election. Asked if he would do it again,

he answered, I'd make the exact same decision. I'd fight in the exact same way.

After Saturday's No Kings rallies around the country and the world, and after new polls showing

his job approval ratings have dropped to new lows, Trump this afternoon signed an executive order

attacking mail-in voting. Although both Democratic and Republican election officials insist mail-in

voting is secure and reliable, Trump claims it permits Democrats to cheat. Ironically, earlier

this month, the story broke of a right-wing activist in Wisconsin who ordered ballots in other

people's names to prove that mail-in voting enabled voter fraud. Last week, Harry Weight was

convicted of one felony count of identity theft and two misdemeanor counts of election fraud,

suggesting mail-in voting is not as insecure as he thought. Nonetheless, Trump is ordering the

Department of Homeland Security, or DHS, to work with the Social Security Administration to create

a list of verified U.S. citizens who are eligible to vote in each state. The order directs the U.S.

Postal Service to send mail-in ballots only to voters on the list and to mark each ballot with

its own unique barcode. It threatens any states refusing to cooperate with the order with a

loss of federal funding and directs Attorney General Pam Bondi to investigate anyone wrongfully

distributing mail-in ballots. Aaron Reiklin-Melnek of the American Immigration Council notes that

there is no such thing as a federal list of citizens. It does not exist.

This is unconstitutional on its face, election law expert David Becker told

Junior Rivas of Democracy Docket. The Constitution clearly gives the president no power over elections.

The Senate Rules Committee oversees federal involvement in elections and its top Democrat,

Alex Padilla, a Democrat of California, called the order a blatant, unconstitutional abuse of power,

adding that Trump has no authority to commandeer federal elections or direct the Postal Service to

undermine mail and absentee voting. Representative Joe Morelli, a Democrat of New York, the top-ranking

Democrat on the House Administration Committee, said that the order is illegal, dangerous, and subversive,

and that Donald Trump fears the American people and is willing to violate the Constitution to stop

them from voting. See you in court, Posted Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, a Democrat of New

New York. You will lose. Another of Trump's executive orders was in court today when Judge Randolph

Moss of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia ruled that much of Trump's order

stripping NPR and PBS of funds was unconstitutional. As Brian Stelter of CNN reported,

Moss quoted a Supreme Court ruling when he wrote,

The First Amendment draws a line which the government may not cross at efforts to use government

power, including the power of the purse, to punish or suppress disfavorite expression by others.

Republicans in Congress have since voted to cut federal funding from NPR and PBS, but the decision

is a victory for the First Amendment. Judge Richard Leon of the U.S. District Court for the

District of Columbia also stymied Trump today when he ruled that Trump cannot proceed with his

plans for a giant ballroom on the site of the demolished east wing of the White House without

approval from Congress. The National Trust for Historic Preservation has sued Trump and a number

of federal agencies to stop construction of the ballroom, noting that Trump skipped reviews and

approvals that were required by law. The decision by Leon, who was appointed by President George W. Bush

begins, The President of the United States is the steward of the White House for future generations

of first families. He is not, however, the owner. It goes on to say that no statute comes close to

giving the President the authority he claims to construct his east wing ballroom project and

do it with private funds. And points out that Trump appears to be relying for authority on a law

permitting him to conduct ordinary maintenance and repair of the White House. Leon also noted that

the White House has offered vague and shifting information about who is actually in charge of the

project and that the public has an interest in the appearance of the White House. Leon said

the ballroom construction project must stop until Congress authorizes its completion.

The Department of Justice has already appealed. Trump exploded at the judge's decision,

posting on social media. The National Trust for Historic Preservation

sues me for a ballroom that is under budget ahead of schedule, being built at no cost to the taxpayer

and will be the finest building of its kind anywhere in the world. I then get sued by them over

the renovation of the dilapidated and structurally unsound former Kennedy Center. Now the Trump Kennedy

Center, a show of bipartisan unity, a Republican and Democrat President, where all I am doing is

fixing, cleaning, running, and sprucing up a terribly maintained for many years building,

but a building of potentially great importance. Yet the National Trust for Historic Preservation,

a radical left group of lunatics whose funding was stopped by Congress in 2005 is not suing the

federal reserve for a building which has been decimated and destroyed inside and out by an

incompetent and possibly corrupt Fed Chairman. The once magnificent building is billions over budget

may never be completed and may never open. All of the beautiful walls inside have been ripped

down, never to be built again, but the National Trust for Historic Preservation never did anything

about it. Or have they sued on Governor Gavin Newscombe's railroad to nowhere in California that

is billions over budget and probably will never open or be used? So the White House Ballroom

and the Trump Kennedy Center, which are under budget ahead of schedule and will be among the most

magnificent buildings of their kind anywhere in the world, gets sued by a group that was cut off

by government years ago, but all of the many disasters in our country are left alone to die.

Doesn't make much sense, does it? President Donald J. Trump.

Hours later, he posted, Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgham and I are working on fixing the

absolutely filthy reflecting pool between the Lincoln Memorial and the Washington Monument.

This work was supposed to be done by the Biden administration, but Sleepy Joe doesn't know what

clean or proper maintenance is. The President and Secretary do.

Tonight's Summer Said, David S. Cloud and Michael Aiman of the Wall Street Journal reported

that the United Arab Emirates is trying to get a United Nations Security Council resolution

to call for the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz. The UAE says it will help the US and other allies

open the Strait by force.

Letters from an American was written and read by Heather Cox Richardson. It was produced

at Soundscape Productions, Data Massachusetts, recorded with music composed by Michael Moss.