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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.



