The Daily Wrap Up

10 March, 2026

[Transcript edited for clarity, flow and length]

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I have seen that a lot of people expressing their consternation that Donald does not seem to know how to end the war he started. The reality is that it is very difficult to know how to end a war if you do not know why you started it in the first place.

There is a great deal happening across the region. In Lebanon alone, nearly 700,000 people have been displaced as Israeli airstrikes and evacuation orders force civilians from their homes. At the same time, bombing has continued inside Iran, including strikes on Tehran. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who has demonstrated a remarkable appetite for escalation, said earlier that the current day would likely be the most intense day of American strikes since the war began.

The conflict has already killed more than 1,800 people. About 1,300 of those deaths occurred inside Iran, including more than 160 children killed when an elementary school was struck. Nearly 500 people have died in Lebanon, and at least 30 people across the region have been killed in Iranian retaliatory attacks.

Beyond the human toll, the war is disrupting global energy markets in ways that anyone with even a basic understanding of the Middle East should have predicted. Fighting has slowed shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, a waterway effectively controlled by Iran that carries roughly one fifth of the world’s oil supply. Pakistani naval vessels are now escorting merchant ships to help safeguard energy shipments.

Meanwhile the Trump regime has begun easing restrictions on Russian oil exports. A thirty day waiver now allows India to purchase Russian oil already at sea, an effort the administration claims is meant to reduce rising fuel prices. The question that immediately arises is obvious. Who benefits from that decision.

Russia does.

Allowing Russia to expand oil sales while global prices rise enables the Kremlin to collect enormous sums of money. Those funds help replenish the financial resources Russia has burned through while prosecuting its brutal war against Ukraine. In effect, the United States is helping fund the continuation of that conflict.

At the same time, new evidence suggests that an American missile likely struck the Iranian elementary school mentioned earlier, where roughly 175 people were reportedly killed, most of them children. The missile appears to have been a Tomahawk missile manufactured in Arizona and used by the United States military and a small number of allied forces. Iran does not possess those weapons.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt was asked about the strike during a press briefing.

The president said yesterday he will accept the conclusion of this investigation by the Department of War. There has been speculation in the media about who may be responsible. We are not going to get ahead of the Department of War and its investigation. The president has a right to share his opinions with the American public and he has said he will accept the conclusion of that investigation. We are not going to be harassed by the New York Times into rushing the process.

The response was revealing. Donald was not offering an opinion when he blamed Iran for the attack. He was lying. The American military appears to have accidentally struck a school, and he is refusing to accept responsibility. It is also difficult to imagine that the Department of Defense under Pete Hegseth would contradict Donald even if the evidence demands it.

Donald has also delivered wildly conflicting messages about the war’s trajectory. In conversations with Republican lawmakers he suggested the conflict might be brief. Later the same day he warned that the United States could dramatically expand its strikes if Iran attempts to close the Strait of Hormuz.

During a press conference he was asked whether the war was over or just beginning.

It is the beginning of building a new country. They have no navy, no air force, no anti aircraft equipment. It has all been blown up. They have no radar and no telecommunications and no leadership. You could call that a tremendous success right now. Or we could go further and we are going to go further.

Donald can call it a success if he wants. That does not make it one.

His statements have been so inconsistent that markets are reacting to his words in real time. One moment he claims the war is nearly over. A few hours later he declares it could last indefinitely.

He has also revived the idea that the war was meant to produce regime change. That claim is already collapsing. Iran’s new Supreme Leader is Mojtaba Khamenei, the son of the previous leader killed in the initial strike. Far from moderating the regime, he is widely considered even more hardline. He is also significantly younger, which means he may remain in power for decades.

Donald’s special envoy to the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, a real estate developer with no diplomatic background, addressed questions about Russia’s involvement during an interview.

I am not an intelligence officer so I cannot tell you. I can say that yesterday on a call with the president the Russians said they have not been sharing intelligence. That is what they said, so we can take them at their word.

That level of naïveté would be astonishing in an inexperienced intern. Hearing it from the administration’s envoy for a war zone is something else entirely.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has already congratulated Iran’s new Supreme Leader and pledged continued support. In his message he emphasized Russia’s solidarity with Tehran and described the conflict as aggression against Iran.

In other words, Russia is aligning itself with a government the United States claims is an enemy.

Meanwhile Americans are feeling the consequences at home. Fuel prices have surged in several battleground states that could determine political control of Congress. Diesel costs have risen sharply in Texas, North Carolina, and Georgia, while gasoline prices have climbed quickly in Ohio and Michigan.

Nationwide, the average price for regular gasoline now sits around $3.55 per gallon. That represents a jump of roughly sixty one cents in a single month. Only nine states averaged more than three dollars per gallon a month ago. Now forty eight do.

Donald dismissed the increase on social media, writing that higher gas prices are a very small price to pay for USA and world safety and peace and that only fools would think otherwise.

That response is typical. Rising fuel costs have no impact on him personally, and dismissing economic hardship is something he does easily.

Public opinion reflects the growing frustration. A Reuters Ipsos poll shows that only twenty nine percent of Americans support the strikes on Iran. Two thirds expect gas prices to keep rising.

Even some Republicans are openly worried about the political consequences. Senator Rand Paul warned that prolonged conflict combined with rising oil prices could devastate Republican prospects in the next election cycle.

I think high oil prices will be a problem. If we still have kinetic action against Iran and oil stays over one hundred dollars a barrel, I think you are going to see a disastrous election.

Kinetic action is a polite phrase. The reality is simpler. The United States is at war.

While the war dominates headlines, another story continues to unfold in the background. Newly released Justice Department documents describe allegations from an accuser who told the FBI she was forced to perform sexual acts on Donald when she was between thirteen and fifteen years old during the 1980s. She also alleged that he physically assaulted her after she resisted.

These claims remain allegations and have not been corroborated. The White House denies them. However thirty seven pages of records connected to the accuser are missing from the Epstein files.

Investigations tied to Jeffrey Epstein’s network are continuing elsewhere. Authorities in New Mexico have reopened an inquiry at Zorro Ranch, Epstein’s former property near Santa Fe.

Representative Teresa Leger Fernández addressed the renewed investigation.

On Sunday I was at Zorro Ranch demanding that there be an investigation into the evidence that might still be there. Too many decades have passed. We need to know what is buried there. The New Mexico Department of Justice has now begun that investigation and will examine the property. The federal Department of Justice has ignored evidence in its own files. New Mexico must keep pushing until the truth is uncovered and those responsible are held accountable.

Another detail deserves attention. The accuser who alleged abuse by Donald was interviewed by the FBI four separate times. The bureau does not typically conduct repeated interviews with witnesses it considers unreliable.

So far roughly eighty percent of the information emerging about Epstein’s network has come from independent investigators and private citizens, not from the federal government. And that fact alone raises a final question that remains unanswered.

What exactly is the Department of Justice trying to hide.

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