John Aravosis
@johnaravosisdc·36.9K subscribers·2.8K videos
Trump Caves on Iran, AGAIN
Posted
May 18, 2026
Views
1,407
Likes
94
Engagement
6.68%
May 18, 2026
1,407
94
6.68%
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1:21:38Now PlayingOn tonight’s show, I’ll be discussing Trump’s latest Iran cave. Yesterday, he was threatening to bomb Iran if they didn’t move fast. “The clock is ticking,” he said. And then tonight, suddenly, the big military strike that was supposedly scheduled for tomorrow is off because -- allegedly -- Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE asked him to hold back.
I’ll also talk about the larger Iran mess: the Strait of Hormuz, Thomas Friedman’s argument that NATO navies need to show up in the Persian Gulf, and the polling showing Americans overwhelmingly don’t think Trump has made the case for war. According to the numbers in my notes, only 30% say going to war with Iran was right, while 64% say it was wrong.
Then we’ll get into Trump’s disastrous China summit, where his big “win” was apparently that he has a good relationship with Xi. Great. Wonderful. Meanwhile, when asked about Taiwan, Trump basically described it as a small island too far away to defend, blamed past presidents for creating the problem, and suggested the chip industry should just come back to the US. So if you’re Taiwan tonight -- or, really, any American ally -- you’re not feeling reassured.
We’ll also talk about the truly insane financial disclosures showing Trump or his advisers made more than 3,700 trades in the first quarter -- tens of millions of dollars, dozens of trades a day, including companies with direct business before his administration. And some of the details are just breathtaking: Trump praising companies publicly while buying their stock, including Thermo Fisher, Micron, Dell, and Eli Lilly.
And then there’s the corruption and chaos file: an ICE agent charged with assault and falsely reporting a crime; Trump’s attorney general pushing election-rigging claims without evidence; the EPA moving to weaken limits on “forever chemicals” in drinking water; and more on the bizarre story of Kash Patel getting a VIP snorkel near the USS Arizona, a sacred underwater tomb at Pearl Harbor where more than 900 sailors and Marines remain.
We’ll also hit Ukraine, where there was a huge drone attack on Moscow, including an oil refinery, and where Russia is reportedly facing its first sustained net loss of territory in Ukraine since October 2023. That matters because Putin’s entire theory of the war is that time is on his side. But if Russia is losing ground, losing equipment, and getting hit at home, that theory starts to look a lot shakier.
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And finally, we’ll look at Trump’s political trouble at home: the CBS poll showing seven in ten Americans frustrated or angry with his handling of the economy, only 27% approving of his handling of inflation, and a collapse in his support among white non-college voters -- from 68% approval in February 2025 to 46% now. Add in growing questions about his age, his late-night social-media meltdowns, the public dozing off, the hand bruises, and the increasingly unhinged rhetoric.
