The memorandum of understanding between the United States and Iran was apparently signed over the weekend, but the text remains a mystery to most. Donald Trump says he’ll release it and even read it himself so nobody can misunderstand it. If it’s such good news, though, why not put it out right now? Israel isn’t a fan of it, nor are those who believe we’ve abandoned the Iranian people by making a deal with the IRGC. At the same time, there may be a silent majority that cares less about the politics and more about the price at the pump. And that’s what caught my attention.

Since the beginning of May, with Iran closing the Strait of Hormuz, gas prices in the United States have fallen. Not by a little, but by a lot. The national average has gone from roughly $4.50 a gallon to $3.50. That happened while the strait was closed and before any memorandum of understanding was announced. The White House wasn’t bragging about it. They weren’t loudly telling Iran that the closure wasn’t working. That made me think something else was going on.

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After digging through it, I’ve been able to dig up a few explanations. The most public, I’d argue, was the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. The Department of Energy released more than 53 million barrels as part of a broader international effort, bringing the reserve down to its lowest level since 1983. There were also reports that the United States was helping move oil out of the Gulf using some of the same techniques Iran has historically used to evade sanctions. American production remained high. Every hint of a peace deal pushed oil prices lower. Global demand softened. China sharply reduced its purchases on the open market. Alternative routes around Hormuz became more important. Gasoline inventories improved. All of it pushed prices down.

If I rank the reasons, peace-talk optimism sits at the top. Strategic reserve releases bought time. American-supported workarounds moved real barrels. Demand destruction, especially with China stepping back, reduced pressure. Improved gasoline inventories helped. Some of the more speculative theories include sanctions waivers for Iranian oil, greater tolerance for shadow-fleet shipments, and alternate export routes making Hormuz less decisive than Iran hoped.

What stands out is that there were more American incentives to get to the table than Iranian ones. The Strategic Petroleum Reserve is a temporary band-aid. Smuggling oil out of the Gulf is risky. Every day the Strait of Hormuz remained closed carried economic and military risks. That helps explain why the White House wanted a deal. Iran had incentives too, especially if China was no longer buying at previous levels, but the balance of pressure appears different than many expected.

My assumption remains what it has been for weeks: there are multiple power centers inside Iran, and the biggest question is whether any deal can survive them. The Ayatollah is gone, much of Iran’s leadership structure has been shattered, and the IRGC itself appears divided between factions willing to make a deal and hardliners who want to keep fighting. The memorandum of understanding may give us a clearer picture when we finally see it. Until then, the biggest question isn’t whether a deal exists. It’s whether anyone on the Iranian side can actually enforce it.

Chapters

00:00:00 - Intro

00:02:38 - Iran and Gas Prices

00:31:47 - Update

00:32:04 - UFC 250 Terrorism Plot

00:37:46 - Russia-Ukraine

00:39:48 - Primaries

00:42:48 - Interview with Maria Curi

01:11:46 - Wrap-up

The situation with Iran continues to feel like Groundhog Day, except this time, believe it or not, there may actually be movement.

Earlier this week, I mentioned that I had heard from people in the know that the United States military was coiled to strike Iran and was looking for either provocation or justification to resume major military activity. That appeared to happen when Iran shot down an Apache helicopter that was escorting oil tankers through the Strait of Hormuz. We also learned that more than 100 million barrels of oil had moved through the strait under U.S. protection over the last month.

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One of the reasons that caught my attention is that gas prices in the United States have been falling pretty dramatically. It was a head-scratcher. If the Strait of Hormuz was effectively stalled, then what explained the drop? Was it a global rerouting of supply? Was there a China component that had been negotiated and never publicly heralded? I didn’t know then, and I don’t know now, but the announcement about oil shipments at least provides part of the picture.

What’s more interesting is what happened next. After one night of military strikes, the second night was canceled. Donald Trump said that’s because we’re at the point of a deal, one that has supposedly been signed off on by all available parties in the region. It appears to resemble the memorandum of understanding that’s been floating around for weeks, although nobody really knows because we still haven’t seen the text. We don’t know if it’s real. We don’t even know exactly what it says.

The administration’s definition of success has been fairly consistent: Iran gives up its nuclear material and removes the nuclear threat. If that’s actually in the agreement, then it would be meaningfully different from what came before. The obvious question is what Iran gets in return. The reporting and public comments suggest that Tehran is focused on access to frozen assets and getting money quickly. Whether that money goes directly to Iran, whether it’s routed through humanitarian aid, and what conditions are attached are all questions that still need answers.

The strongest sign that something may actually be happening is coming from inside Iran. Reports indicate that FARS, the IRGC-controlled news agency, is acknowledging that a draft memorandum of understanding exists, that the United States has approved it, and that Iran is likely to do the same. The bigger question is whether any agreement can actually be enforced. Iran’s leadership appears splintered. We’ve seen officials make commitments before, only to have military figures or IRGC commanders move in a different direction. That’s why the real issue isn’t whether a deal can be signed. It’s whether anybody in Iran has enough authority to keep it.

Chapters

00:00:00 - Intro

00:02:48 - Iran

00:08:38 - Interview with Karol Markowicz

00:36:19 - Update

00:37:19 - DeSantis and AI

00:42:56 - FISA

00:44:42 - Director of National Intelligence

00:47:17 - Interview with Karol Markowicz, con’t

01:07:27 - Wrap-up

California is inviting questions about its elections because of a problem that is entirely solvable: the state takes too long to count ballots. This LA mayoral race is just the latest example.

Let’s look at what happened. On election night, Karen Bass was at 30 percent of the vote. Spencer Pratt was at 28 percent. Nithya Raman was around 20 percent. Every model from respected vote-modeling people that I saw indicated that Raman would gain more than Pratt in the later votes, presumably giving her enough to catch up to a less-distant third place without surpassing Pratt’s campaign. Instead, we got an avalanche of late Raman support.

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The first vote drop had Raman running about 10 percent ahead of Pratt. The second was stronger. Then Friday came around, and things got really weird. Whether you want to ascribe malicious motives to it or whether it’s totally above board and legitimate, the fact that this is happening on Friday for an election that happened on Tuesday becomes suspicious when Raman gets 40 percent of the vote total in a drop. She’s not only running ahead of Pratt, she’s running ahead of Bass. The same thing happened Saturday. The same thing happened Sunday. Now Raman is through to face Bass in the general a week after this sort of outcome — even in LA — seemed unlikely.

Am I saying that somebody cured ballots after seeing the results? Am I saying somebody harvested ballots? No. I don’t know specifics, and nobody else does, quite frankly. I’m saying you don’t have to do this. Opening the process up this way is the reason you create suspicion. Is it odd? Yeah, it is odd. Even the people who thought Raman was going to overtake Pratt thought it would happen by the skin of her teeth at the very end. Nobody thought it was going to be over by the weekend. It’s beyond expectations.

I’m going to renew my call here, and it’s not just me saying it. You’ve got systems in America that process a lot of votes really fast, and the way they do it is not rocket science. Florida created a system after 2000 that handles a lot of early voting and a lot of vote-by-mail, but those ballots are processed before Election Day and then dumped into the results when the polls close.

If we’re in an era of declining trust in elections, then I don’t care how you think we got here. I don’t care if you think it was Chicago in 1960, hanging chads in 2000, Democrats in 2020, Elon Musk and Starlink in 2024, or any of the other election fraud theories that have floated around American politics. What I care about is creating a system that we can all look at and say, “Seems like what happened.” I don’t think California is close to having that, and it’s only going to get worse if we don’t make some big changes ahead of 2028.

Chapters

00:00:00 - Intro

00:03:22 - California Results

00:13:57 - Interview with Bill Scher

00:35:08 - FISA

00:38:06 - Walz and Ellison

00:41:19 - Dems’ New Super PAC

00:44:09 - Interview with Bill Scher, con’t

01:13:13 - Wrap-up