He’s got to be dreaming. GET OFF THE GAS DON!

The $5,000 “Trump Dividend” & Ending the War

• The $5,000 Promise: At the Republican midterm convention in Dallas, Donald Trump pledged a $5,000 “Trump dividend” to every adult U.S. citizen conditioned on Republicans keeping control of both the House and the Senate in the November midterms. ANI News
• The Fiscal Cost: With roughly 260 to 270 million adult citizens in the United States, sending $5,000 to every adult would cost between $1.3 trillion and $1.35 trillion.
  • Even if means-tested to exclude high earners, the cost would comfortably exceed $1 trillion. ANI News
  • Trump claimed foreign tariff revenues would fund it, but total annual U.S. tariff revenue brings in only a fraction of that sum. Funding this program would require congressional appropriations, adding directly to national deficits and borrowing. ANI News+ 1
• Ending the War: En route to Dallas, Trump told reporters that the military conflict with Iran will “end immediately after the election” because Iran “can’t hold out any longer”. He claimed Tehran is prolonging the fight simply to hurt Republicans in the midterms. In contrast, defense officials and intelligence analysts have warned the confrontation could drag on indefinitely without a diplomatic resolution. The Guardian+ 1

Why the U.S. and Iran Are Striking Oil Tankers

The attacks are part of an escalating, tit-for-tat maritime conflict centered around the Strait of Hormuz and the Persian Gulf:

The Guardian

• Economic Chokepoint & Blockades: After direct clashes broke out between the U.S. and Iran, Tehran enforced naval blockades and began harassing commercial maritime traffic in the Strait of Hormuz—the waterway through which roughly 20% of global oil flows. AP News
• Targeting Iran’s Lifeblood: The U.S. and its regional allies initiated a counter-blockade targeting Iran’s illicit “shadow fleet”. Following Iranian ballistic missile attacks aimed at U.S. Navy warships in the Gulf, U.S. Central Command carried out strikes that destroyed multiple Iranian crude tankers near Kharg Island and in the Gulf of Oman. AP News
• Retaliation Spirals: Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) retaliated by targeting coalition military bases and warning foreign commercial tankers docking in Kuwait and Bahrain that they are liable to be struck, pushing Brent crude prices near $100 a barrel. AP News

Trump’s Stock Trading and Financial Disclosures

• Thousands of Transactions: Ethics disclosures reveal that brokerage accounts owned by Donald Trump engage in massive trading volume—including over 1,000 transactions in single-month reporting periods across hundreds of pages of filings. The portfolios are reported to be actively traded by commercial asset managers. The Motley Fool
• How Much Did He Make? Because federal Office of Government Ethics (OGE) disclosure rules only require assets, capital gains, and sales to be reported in broad value brackets (e.g., “$100,001–$1,000,000” or “$5,000,001–$25,000,000”), an exact net profit dollar figure cannot be determined. YouTube
• Sources of Wealth Increase: Independent financial reviews of Trump’s mandatory filings show his overall reported income increased by over $2 billion. However, the overwhelming majority of that cash influx came from cryptocurrency ventures (bringing in over $1.4 billion) alongside licensing deals and real estate, rather than net profits realized solely from public equity trading. Poynter+ 1