Running Out of Missiles and Excuses
A president who profits from power puts every American at risk.
It’s Monday, July 27. The national average price for a gallon of regular gasoline has climbed to $4.11, according to AAA. Grocery prices have also increased 1.4 percent since the beginning of the year, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
At the same time, the United States has now gone three straight nights without launching new attacks on Iran after senior military officials reportedly advised Donald to stop the bombing. Iran has also halted attacks on American allies in the region, which is certainly good news. Unfortunately, from everything we know, there has been no meaningful progress toward an actual peace plan.
According to The Guardian, administration officials warned Donald that shrinking weapon stockpiles could make it difficult to sustain the campaign. Think about what that means. The United States, the country with the largest, strongest, and best-funded military in human history, is reportedly running out of ammunition.
Dan Caine, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, reportedly raised concerns specifically about dwindling supplies of Patriot missile interceptors and Tomahawk cruise missiles. Axios also reported over the weekend that Admiral Bradley Cooper, the top American commander in the region, told Donald the campaign had reached the limits of what it could realistically accomplish.
In other words, we are finally being told publicly what many of us have understood from the beginning. Donald lost this war the moment he chose to start it.
According to the reporting, the United States has now exhausted nearly all of its prepared military targets. Without returning to a broader combat operation, senior military officials saw little reason to continue the bombing campaign. Meanwhile, an Iranian army spokesperson described the United States as having no coherent strategy and suffering from what they called “strategic decision-making fatigue.”
As strange as it is to admit, that description is considerably more accurate than anything we have heard from the Trump regime.
Asked about those dwindling weapon stockpiles during NBC’s Meet the Press, United Nations Ambassador Michael Waltz offered an explanation that somehow managed to contradict itself almost immediately.
Welker: NBC News is reporting the Pentagon is actually rationing some defense weaponry amid diminishing supplies. Is America backing away from a larger military attack because its military stockpile has been depleted?
Waltz: Well, look, we have to take a step back here in that a lot of stockpiles were depleted, not only from what we gave Ukraine over the last however many years, four or five years, and the administration inherited, the secretary, Secretary Hegseth inherited a depleted situation from not only Ukraine, but also the ongoing fight with the Houthis under the Biden administration and a depleted military under the Biden administration. So they have decided, one, they’re going to new types of munitions, cheaper munitions, new technologies, but also with these new defense budgets rebuilding our great military.
The interviewer pressed him further.
But you acknowledge they’re depleted. I want to be clear. Do you acknowledge they’re depleted though at this moment?
This is what Michael Waltz said:
I want to be crystal clear. The U.S. military, and I’ve verified this every which way, has everything that it needs to conduct this campaign as effectively as it needs to be. And I have to tell you, the people that are leaking this nonsense deserve to be in jail.
There are certainly a lot of people who deserve to be in jail. Michael Waltz may very well be one of them.
Let’s try to untangle what he actually said because, as usual, it makes absolutely no sense. First, he admits the stockpiles are depleted. Then he blames Joe Biden for those depleted stockpiles, nearly two years into this benighted regime. Moments later, he insists the stockpiles are not depleted at all and that anyone suggesting otherwise should be prosecuted.
Which is it?
Republicans have become so accustomed to defending Donald that they no longer seem concerned with whether their explanations are internally consistent. Their only objective is protecting him, even if that requires saying two completely contradictory things within the same answer.
Is it Joe Biden’s fault that seventy-eight million profoundly misguided Americans returned to office a man who cannot balance his own checkbook, let alone manage the American economy or oversee a $1.5 trillion Defense Department budget?
Is it Joe Biden’s fault that Republican senators confirmed perhaps the most incompetent, corrupt, and spectacularly unqualified Secretary of Defense in modern American history?
I don’t think so.
Welker was also asked the question nobody in this administration ever seems willing to answer honestly: How much longer is this war going to last?
Welker: Mr. Ambassador, a lot of people are very interested in the timeline of this because President Trump had initially said that this conflict would last for a matter of weeks, five to six weeks. We are now at the five-month mark. Will this war be over by the new year?
Waltz: Well, first, this war has been going on for 47 years.
Kristin Welker immediately pushed back.
Not in this capacity. Not in this escalation.
This is how Michael Waltz responded:
Of course, not necessarily this intensity, but at some level, Iran is diplomatically isolated, economically isolated, and militarily devastated. They’ve never been so weak, and we’re negotiating from a position of strength.
Welker tried one more time,
But very quickly, do you anticipate this conflict will be concluded by the new year?
Waltz: Oh, I’m not going to put some kind of timeline on it. The president has all options on the table, and he is exercising both diplomatic, economic, and military to achieve a very clear strategic aim. And that’s what’s different. The wars of my generation, we had policy drift. Here, the president is very focused.
I often find myself wondering why people like Michael Waltz are so eager to sacrifice whatever credibility they once had. Then I remember that people willing to lie this brazenly on behalf of Donald Trump probably surrendered that credibility long ago.
There is no strategy. There never has been a strategy. And the suggestion that the United States and Iran have somehow been fighting the same war for forty-seven years is absurd on its face.
It is also important to remember something this administration desperately wants Americans to forget. Before Donald launched this unconstitutional war of choice, Iran was arguably in its weakest strategic position in decades. Thanks entirely to Donald’s catastrophic decision-making, Iran has emerged from this conflict stronger, more unified, and in many respects more influential than it was before he decided to bomb it.
That is not what winning looks like.
That is what failure looks like.
As if the administration’s inability to articulate even the most basic strategy were not troubling enough, the White House Correspondents’ Association, an organization that has become increasingly difficult to take seriously, decided to hold a second White House Correspondents’ Dinner after the original event was interrupted by a gunman who opened fire elsewhere in the hotel. For reasons that remain beyond my understanding, somebody thought it would be a good idea to stage a do-over, and once again Donald Trump was invited to speak.
During his rambling hour-long address, which I strongly recommend avoiding if you value your time or your mental health, Donald offered his latest assessment of the war with Iran.
Donald: It’s the only thing I’ve ever. We were talking before, I said, “So we’ve hit Iran very hard. Navy is gone. Air Force has gone. 250 jets no longer. 159 boats, good boats.” In fact, I said, “Why the hell didn’t we keep them? We could have used them.” But 159, but all at the bottom of the sea. They have no radar. They have very few drones left despite what you see. And every once in a while they’re going to set some things up, but they don’t have much left. And by the way, they are talking to us right now. They’d love to make a deal.
Iran has no interest in making a deal because, at this point, the continuation of the conflict serves its interests far more than it serves ours. And if anybody still believes Donald when he insists Iran has no functioning military, no air force, no navy, and virtually no weapons left, I have to ask whether they have been paying any attention at all.
If Iran’s military had truly been destroyed, it would not have continued striking targets until only a few days ago. If Donald’s description were accurate, Iran would be desperate to negotiate. Instead, the opposite appears to be true. Once again, Donald has managed to place the United States in a weaker strategic position while insisting we have never been stronger.
That has become the defining characteristic of this presidency. Donald declares victory while reality tells an entirely different story.
That disconnect became even more obvious when Donald was asked to explain an apparent contradiction between his own statements and those made by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. Donald claimed Russia and China were not assisting Iran. Hegseth, meanwhile, acknowledged that both countries were enabling the regime we are supposedly trying to defeat.
Reporter: You said today that Russia and China are not helping. Earlier this week, the war secretary Hegseth said that they are enabling. So what is the difference?
Donald: Well, I don’t know that they’re enabling. I mean, I will tell you that President Xi said he will not partake. And President Putin said the same thing. I think I trust them. They’ve had a long-term relationship. There could be some things they do, but thus far at least it has not been major. I don’t think they’d want to have me disappointed.
Yes, of course. Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping are deeply concerned about disappointing Donald Trump.
Why wouldn’t they be?
Donald has spent years advancing policies that benefit both Russia and China while weakening America’s alliances, undermining our credibility abroad, and isolating the United States from many of its closest democratic partners. If I were Vladimir Putin or Xi Jinping, I would want Donald to remain exactly where he is because I cannot imagine another American president doing more to advance their geopolitical interests than Donald already has.
While the administration continues insisting everything is proceeding exactly according to plan, the corruption surrounding this regime has reached levels that are almost impossible to calculate. Donald has reportedly made approximately $2.2 billion during the first year of his second term, yet many Republicans continue pretending they know nothing about it.
CNN’s Manu Raju recently confronted Republican lawmakers with that extraordinary figure.
Manu Raju: Are you concerned about the possible conflict of interest here?
Mike Johnson: That’s the first I’ve heard of that. I don’t even know what Truth Social is offering this as.
Manu Raju continued pressing the issue.
But Trump has made $2 billion since becoming president again.
Rand Paul responded:
Rand Paul: He’s already a billionaire and I don’t know how his stuff has been invested.
Manu Raju asked the obvious follow-up.
But he’s not raising any red flags with you. That’s my question.
The response somehow became even more absurd.
Nancy Mace: If you come in with a billion and you double it in a couple years, math, it’s probably a high-yield savings account. I don’t really know.
A high-yield savings account.
If anyone knows where I can find one of those, I would certainly appreciate the recommendation.
More seriously, if Speaker Mike Johnson truly knows nothing about Donald’s financial dealings, then he has no business serving as Speaker of the House. The same applies to Senator Rand Paul and every other Republican pretending ignorance.
Either they genuinely have no idea what the leader of their own party is doing, which would represent an astonishing level of incompetence, or they know perfectly well and are choosing to protect him. Those are the only two possibilities, and neither reflects particularly well on them.
Donald has spent decades cultivating the myth that he is a brilliant businessman. The truth is considerably less impressive. He inherited enormous wealth, squandered much of it, repeatedly failed in business, and has now discovered that the surest path to becoming wealthier than he has ever been is to occupy the Oval Office.
Donald was never actually a billionaire until he figured out how to monetize the presidency itself.
That should alarm every American regardless of political affiliation because no president should ever use the office to enrich himself. The presidency is supposed to be a public trust, not a private investment vehicle.
Even more troubling is the way Donald and his children have accumulated that wealth. Every new business venture, every licensing agreement, every investment opportunity, and every financial arrangement creates yet another avenue through which foreign governments, wealthy interests, or political actors can seek influence over the President of the United States.
That is not merely unethical.
It is a profound national security risk.
When the President of the United States effectively hangs a sign reading “For Sale,” the consequences extend far beyond his own bank account. They affect every American because the decisions made in the Oval Office can no longer be assumed to serve the national interest. They become entangled with Donald’s personal financial interests, and those two things should never, ever overlap.
Donald has spent his entire life pursuing wealth and personal advantage. The presidency has simply become the latest, and by far the most profitable, grift of his career. That should concern every one of us because history has shown repeatedly that when leaders begin treating public office as a means of personal enrichment, democracy itself becomes collateral damage.
