The New Realist Podcast

Cole Tomas Allen, the alleged White House Correspondents’ Dinner [WHCD] shooter, traveled by train from the West to East Coast with weapons, including a 12-gauge pump action shotgun, Rock Island Armory 1911 .38 caliber pistol and several knives. He did so without detection, something he likely could not have accomplished if he tried to board an aircraft.

This fact underscores the differences between air and ground travel in this country. It also is a reminder of a national security loophole that has long been identified, but never acted on - the need for better security screening at the nations train and bus terminals.

Over the weekend, Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche revealed that Allen “traveled by train from Los Angeles to Chicago, and then Chicago to Washington, D.C., where he checked into the hotel where the correspondents’ dinner was at in the last day or two.” According to reports, that journey involves two routes: (1) the Southwest Chief from Los Angeles to Chicago and then (2) the Capitol Limited from Chicago to Washington D.C.

Despite this, when appearing on Sunday’s Face the Nation Blanche said addressing train security by making it as hard to carry weapons on rails as it is on airplanes is not a focus of this White House.

This isn’t about, in my mind, changing the law or making the laws more restrictive around possession of firearms. I don’t think that’s something that we should be focused on right now in any way, shape or form.

It may not be a priority for the Trump administration but it should be. The fact that Allen was able to transport multiple weapons via train should serve as a wake up call. Unlike air travel which has universal passenger screening, security screening on the rails is random and rare, leaving all of us more vulnerable to a violent attack.

This issue has been debated periodically, particularly in the wake of incidents such as the Feb. 3 2020 shooting on a Greyhound bus in California that killed one person and wounded five. As was noted at that time, the incident “illustrates a stark reality about security on buses and trains: Anyone determined to carry out an attack on ground transportation faces few, if any, security checks.”

The WHCD attempted shooting did not involve a ground transportation attack and, as a result, is likely to do little to drive discussion of this issue. This is a mistake. The fact that Allen was able to carry multiple weapons via train across the country to a location where he is alleged to have tried to assassinate the president and other high ranking officials is yet another reminder as to why our lax ground transportation security procedures should be reconsidered.

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Last Friday, April 17, it looked like the war was winding down. Negotiators for the U.S. and Iran had met in Islamabad and, as the president said in a Truth Social post, “The Strait of Hormuz is completely open and ready for business and full passage… This process should go very quickly in that most of the points are already negotiated."

Likewise, Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi announced on X that “in line with the ceasefire in Lebanon, the passage for all commercial vessels through Strait of Hormuz is declared completely open.”

On this welcome news, optimism soared, markets surged and oil prices plummeted (Brent dropped over 10% to ~$89, WTI fell 11% to ~$84).

Then, in a head scratching turn, Trump announced that the U.S. blockade would remain in place and the U.S. would retain the right to board ships coming from and going to Iran.

It was a strategic and diplomatic misstep of epic proportions as Tehran, already distrustful of the U.S., responded in-kind. Within hours, the Strait was closed again and it has remained that way ever since; moreover, the two sides have yet to get back to the negotiating table despite the best efforts of the Pakistani negotiating team.

In response how did one of Trump’s closest ally’s and the person who some say played a key role in nudging the president to bomb Iran in the first place, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), react to the news?

Very well!

Taking to X on Wednesday, he described “the decision to leave the blockade in place” as “very smart,” before adding that he expects the blockade to grow and “become global soon.”

What Graham describes as “very smart” historians are likely to see in a much different light. While he and others in the administration talk about ‘escalating to deescalate’ and promote moving up the escalation ladder - this is not a winning strategy for the U.S. For one thing, any escalation will result in a response by Iran. Second, since the U.S. and Israel represent an existential threat to Iran, their main objective is to survive and, as history has shown us, they will fight to the end to do that.

This war will not be settled on the battlefield, it will require careful and thoughtful diplomacy by experts in Iran and the Middle East who are prepared to enter extended negotiations on a range of issues on behalf of the U.S. Before they do this, however, trust must be established and what happened on Friday as it pertained to the blockade served only to foment further mistrust.

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When they go low, we hit back hard… Maximum warfare, everywhere, all the time.

~Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), House Minority Leader

Jeffries made this comment in statement shared by Punchbowl News last night after Democrats successfully passed a referendum to redraw district lines in Virginia.

The statement represents a sharp turn for a party which, as Jeffries noted, “many expected… to roll over and play dead.”

Instead, in Jeffries words, they “did the opposite…[they] fought back.” In so doing, they turned Michelle Obama’s oft-cited mantra “when they go low, we go high” on its head.

The first inkling that Trump’s redistricting wars were going to play out this way came in California where, despite enormous pressure, Democrats were not willing to ‘unilaterally disarm’ or be cowed by those who warned about the “escalation of political gamesmanship” and argued that “two wrongs don’t make a right.” With leadership from Gov. Gavin Newsom and support of 64% of voters, California temporarily adopted the new ‘Democratic-friendly’ map giving the party potentially 5 seats and, in the process, wiping out the GOP’s five seat gain in Texas.

For anyone keeping score, as of today, the mid-decade redistricting war is either a wash or narrow advantage Democrats. IF voters in the redrawn districts vote the way intended (and that’s not a certainty), Democrats now have ten additional seats (5 in California, 1 in Utah, 4 in Virginia) to the Republicans nine (5 in Texas, 2 in Ohio, 1 each in North Carolina and Missouri).

That’s the scorecard as of today, but the redistricting wars are not over. Florida, which many people see as the final place where the GOP can potentially pick up a few more seats, is up next. Gov. Ron DeSantis has called for a special session to redraw the maps next week. In this environment, however, that is a dangerous game.

Republicans in Florida, like Republicans across the country, have not performed well in elections over the last year. Just a month ago a Democrat flipped the state legislative district that is also home to Trump’s beloved Mara Lago. Not only did Trump endorse the Republican in that race, but the GOP carried it by 19 points in 2024.

This was just one of many impressive wins by Democrats in the sunshine state over the several months. Another was the race for Miami mayor which Democrats won for the first time in thirty years.

All of this has made some in the GOP question whether it makes sense to redraw the states’ maps now, or if this could end of backfiring? Already some in Texas have suggested they have buyers remorse because their newly drawn map may cost them seats in the end.

Whatever the outcome, the Democratic party’s willingness to meet the GOP head on is something that the base has been demanding and Jeffries, his predecessor Rep. Nancy Pelosi, former President Barack Obama, former Attorney General Eric Holder, Gov’s. Newsom (CA), Abigail Spanbereger (VA), Wes Moore (MD) and Tony Evers (WI), are just some of the many Democrats who deserve credit for successfully leading the charge against unilateral disarmament.

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The first round of talks in Islamabad between the U.S. and Iran may go down in history as a wasted opportunity because even if the two sides were able to rebuild some trust - and it seemed initially they did - it was squandered.

After the meeting things looked like they may be moving in the right direction, the U.S. was able to get a ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon and in return, on Friday, Iran promised to reopen the Strait of Hormuz to commercial shipping. Almost immediately, however, President Trump announced that the blockade would remain in effect and be enforced. He then went further, publicly suggesting that Tehran had agreed to give up its nuclear program. Suffice it to say, this is not the case and no agreement had been reached.

There is a tendency in the U.S. to either disregard Trump’s tendency for loose talk, or to read it as an attempt to quell the markets. In Tehran, however, these erratic statements are received in a very different way, as a signal that the U.S. is not serious; all the talk about negotiations, agreements, and the like is just political theater - a way for Trump to string Iran along while he moves the military into place and reignites the war.

This type of distrust is the number one thing that negotiators at the next round of talks have to focus on. If they are able to, Trump’s advisors have to make sure that the president doesn’t destroy their progress with a series of incendiary public statements. The Wall Street Journal reported today that Trump’s advisors kept him out of the room during the military’s efforts to find the pilots who had been shot down on April 3 for fear his “impatience” would infringe on the dangerous recovery effort. The same logic should be put in place as it pertains to the Iran negotiations - not only while they are going on, but in the aftermath.

Aides kept the president out of the room as they got minute-by-minute updates because they believed his impatience wouldn’t be helpful

-Wall Street Journal, 20 April 2026

The distrust between both sides predates Trump by decades, but his actions over the last several years have only exacerbated it. From Iran’s perspective, they negotiated the JCPOA in 2015 and fulfilled their end of the agreement, only to have Trump destroy it. They went to the negotiating table with his emissaries, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner in 2025, only to have those end with a U.S. bombing campaign. Months later they once again went back to the table for talks in Geneva, offered to make more concessions and instead of being met with continued meetings or a counter offer, they were bombed once again.

There is a U.S. side to this as well and good reason for Americans not to trust Iran. None of that, however, negates the fact that if we want to make a deal, that trust needs to be built and Trump’s erratic public talk is counterproductive to that end.

Case in point, his post yesterday morning. To say out of one side of your mouth that negotiations will resume and out of the other, if Iran doesn’t agree to a deal we are going to bomb their power plants and bridges serves no one, including the U.S.

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News from Tehran and President Trump about the potential opening of the Strait of Hormuz sent the stock market soaring and oil prices plummeting earlier today. Once details emerge regarding just how precarious the situation still is, however, this exuberance could dampen quickly.

Despite Trump’s sunny rhetoric and wishful thinking that he can put this war of choice behind him quickly, the two sides remain very far apart.

Two events over the last 48 hours gave rise to talk that the war may be ending: (1) the temporary ceasefire between Lebanon and Israel and (2) the reopening of the Strait.

Unfortunately, both are fraught.

(1) CEASEFIRE

Israel is still occupying Southern Lebanon and said it will continue to, something which Hezbollah says is a non-starter. Moreover, the agreement is between Lebanon and Israel, not Hezbollah, which said it may not abide by it. Finally, Israel has said an agreement must include the dismantling of Hezbollah, but there is no evidence we are close to that. These are just a few of the many realities which make the temporary ceasefire so precarious, another is the number of saboteurs who have reason to disrupt the temporary peace - from Benjamin Netanyahu and Israel to Hamas, Hezbollah, members of the IRGC and many others.

(2) STRAIT REOPENING

Iran agreed to reopen the Strait under certain conditions. One is that the ceasefire holds, something which is not guaranteed. A second is that the US ends its blockade, something which Trump said today he is not doing, at least yet. According to Tehran, other terms of the reopening are that only commercial vessels (not military) will be allowed through and in that case, only via Iran’s predesignated channels. Moreover, there is no information regarding whether Iran will charge tolls for passage, etc.

Even if the ceasefire lasts and the Strait is fully re-opened, all this means is that the stage has been set another round of negotiations between the US and Iran. In short, we are back where we were in late February and the two sides remain as far apart now as they were then.

By all accounts, the U.S.’s 15 Point-Plan to end the war is as maximalist and vital to the administration as ever; as is Iran’s 10 Point-Plan to the regime in Tehran. Even a cursory look at the list of major demands on both sides shows just how difficult it would be for a U.S. president to agree to Iran’s demands, and vice-versa as it pertains to Irans rulers.

All of which is to say, best case scenario at the end of the day we are back to the table, same place we were before the war began; only then - gas was hovering around $2.98/gallon.

Iran’s 10 Point-Plan to end the war includes:

* lifting of all primary and secondary sanctions on Iran

* continued Iranian control over the strait of Hormuz

* withdrawal of the U.S. military from the Middle East

* an end to attacks on Iran and its allies

* the release of frozen Iranian assets.

* a UN security council resolution making any deal binding.

* concrete guarantees preventing the recurrence of war

* guaranteed payment of war damages and compensation

U.S.’s Plan to end the war has not been published, but is said to demand of Iran that they:

* commit to never developing nuclear weapons

* no longer enrich uranium within the country, and hand over its stockpile of already enriched uranium to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)

* commit to allowing the IAEA to monitor all elements of the country’s remaining nuclear infrastructure

* reopening of the Strait of Hormuz

* ending support for regional proxies such as Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen

* limiting the range and number of its missiles

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After telling Fox Business Network’s Maria Bartiromo today that the Iran war is “very close to over,” President Trump added the Iranian’s, “want to make a deal very badly.”

There is very little evidence of either. If the war is ‘very close to over,’ why did the Pentagon just announce it is sending thousand more American troops to the Middle East?

Likewise, why would the regime be more interested in striking a deal now than it was in late March when the Trump administration decided that there was no reason to continue negotiating and instead decided to mount a bombing campaign?

According to the President, the difference is that there is a “new regime in place.” As Trump has repeatedly claimed, Iran’s new leadership is

“less radical and much more reasonable… If you look already because the one regime was decimated, destroyed. They’re all dead. The next regime is mostly dead. And the third regime, we’re dealing with different people than anybody’s dealt with before. It’s a whole different group of people.”

A piece in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal, however, tells a very different story about the “new regime.”

Among other things, the article gives insight into the backgrounds of the key individuals who make up the regime. After reading the article, even a novice would be hard pressed to describe these figures as far “less radical” and “much more reasonable” than their predecessors. Among them are:

(1) Mojtaba Khamenei, the new Ayatollah, who survived “the airstrike that killed his father and several other members of his family” and is reported by most experts to be even more hardline than his father.

(2) Mohammad Bagher Zolghadr, the new national security chief, who was not only a former member of the Revolutionary Guard but “the leader of a guerrilla group that killed an American petroleum engineer…” and someone who “was personally involved in the assassination of two policemen.”

(3) Ahmad Vahidi, the IRGC’s new commander in chief who “is accused of participating in the 1994 bombing of a Jewish community center in Buenos Aires that killed 85 people and injured hundreds.”

The article, by Margherita Staccato, Benoit Faucon, and Henna Moussavi, is well worth reading in full. Among other things, it raises questions about the veracity of Trump’s repeated assertions regarding the new regime; as well as whether his optimistic talk about a pending negotiated settlement and an imminent end to the war are anything more than wishful thinking.

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The stock market has responded positively to news that, in the wake of the failed peace talks in Islamabad, President Trump has ordered a blockade of the Strait of Hormuz [caveat, at least as of this writing].

This response is not unexpected, after all everyone is looking for a glimmer of hope after more than 40 days of war with Iran. In making the decision to blockade, Trump has signaled his willingness to adopt the best of the worst options; one that is a far cry better than the other escalatory alternatives available to him - attacking Kharg Island, destroying Iranian oil and gas facilities, etc.

The economy has been Iran’s achilles heel for some time and it remains that today. With this blockade, Trump is doing exactly what every American president before him over the last half century has done - bring enhanced economic pressure on the Iranian regime.

Since there is no military solution to this War, this pressure must be coupled with diplomacy; and we have to hope that the economic pressure is enough to bring Iran back to the negotiating table sooner rather than later (or at least before the economic pain caused by this action cascades around the world).

While this is the best of the worst options and there is reason for the market to breath a sigh of mini-relief, it is worth underscoring four things.

(1) The Strait was wide open prior to this President’s decision to go to War

(2) Iran was in arguably one of the worst economic and political conditions of its 47 year life prior to the War - weakened economically by sanctions and facing an uprising at home. Since the War began, both of these have been reversed - Iran’s economic position has strengthened due to the removal of sanctions and our constant bombing has caused the protestors to stay home.

(3) The U.S. has historically supported freedom of navigation, we have defended this right since the Founding and supported the principle that commerce should be able to move freely and without interference via open waterways. This makes the markets reaction to this move, while understandable, all that much more interesting. It is also worth reflecting on what this blockade and the presidents musings in the last week regarding the US potentially sharing toll funds collected at the Strait with Iran, says about how who we are as a nation and what we stand for.

(4) Finally, watch for Iran to retaliate against the blockade - whether that means putting more mines in the Strait, attempting to break the blockade by smuggling, or engaging in cyber attacks. The U.S. is particularly vulnerable to the latter as the Department of Homeland Security remains partially shutdown.

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President Trump’s remarks to attendees at a private Easter lunch last week lay bare what his priorities are. In a video, first posted on the White House’s YouTube page and later taken down Trump said:

“It’s not possible for us to take care of day care, Medicaid, Medicare, all these individual things. They can do it on a state basis. You can’t do it on a federal. We have to take care of one thing: military protection. We have to guard the country.”

He then added, that the states could pay for it by increasing taxes:

“They should pay for it, too. They should pay. They have to raise their taxes, but they should pay for it. And we could lower our taxes a little bit to make up for it.”

There’s no question why the White House quickly removed the post, it underscores the president’s priorities - he is for defense and military spending, and against funding children, the elderly, low and middle-classes.

While he won’t fund health care or day care, however, he is willing to pay for a war of choice in Iran that cost more than $11.3B in its first six days. Sen. Andy Kim (D-NJ) put this amount in stark contrast in a post on X.

Congress comes back next week after a two week recess. They are considering two more reconciliation bills in order to bypass the Senate filibuster. The second of these bills is slated to include additional funding for the Iran War - floated to be around $200B - although there is no final figure on that.

This comes just days after the Trump administration sent Congress its budget request for next year which includes $1.5T for the military (that is up from a historic $1T last year - despite the fact that the Pentagon has yet to pass a required audit). The White House proposed offsetting these rising military costs by cutting $15.8B in healthcare spending. This follows on the $1T cut to Medicaid adopted as a part last year’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act.

All of this comes as consumer sentiment is dropping, gas and grocery prices are soaring and the nations debt is set to reach $40T.

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At 8:06 AM EST the President of the United States threatened to annihilate the Iranian civilization: “a whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again.”

It may or may not be bluster; we will see at 8 pm tonight whether he follows through on his threat or once again moves the goal post. We should all hope he moves the goal post and begins to engage in the only workable strategy for getting us out of this war - diplomacy.

Even if he does that, however, it will not change the fact that the U.S. President went on social media to threaten one of the worlds oldest civilizations with genocide.

It is fair to ask, as many have, where are the adults in the room - particularly on the Republican side? Where are members of the administration, Congress, conservative leaders? Why haven’t we heard more and louder condemnation from those in conservative circles - elected and otherwise? To be fair, so far a few people have come forward, including Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI), former Representative Marjorie Taylor-Greene, and Tucker Carlson. For the most part, however, the silence is deafening.

What this and his Easter morning diatribe (see my previous post) show is just how desperate the president is. He knows there are no good options to resolve the war and he understands what is on the line - everything from the world economy, millions of lives, and Middle East peace to the U.S. economy, his presidency and his legacy.

The president entered this war of choice fresh off of Venezuela and, ignoring the warnings of experts, assumed that it would result in a quick and decisive victory. Now, however, he has found himself in a protracted war with no good ways out.

As a result he is increasingly angry, flailing and trying to concoct an exit strategy. His abhorrent messages of the last few days are a result of his belief that he can bully other countries and leaders into submission by appearing unpredictable and ‘crazy’ (the Madman Theory). This approach did not work for Nixon in Vietnam and it will not work for Trump now. Let us hope that Trump knows this and has no intention of following through on his genocidal threats. We will not know until 8 pm tonight, but if he backs off he will once again be faced with the reality that there is no military solution this problem; which is why his predecessors - who he continues to rail against - did not walk the U.S. into a war of choice with this regime.

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President Trump’s Easter morning Truth Social post has been described as everything from vulgar, obscene, and blasphemous to expletive-laden, deeply insulting and inflammatory.

It is also best described as futile, feckless, ineffective, and indicative of what we have seen throughout this war - that the president has misjudged his enemy.

Anyone remotely familiar with the Iranian regime would understand that this kind of bluster and ‘tough talk’ is not going to be effective in moving an entrenched and hardline Iranian regime into backing down as it pertains to reopening the Strait of Hormuz or anything else.

Which makes one question what the point of this type of outrageous threat is?

Some have suggested it is the president trying to appease his base with ‘macho’ talk. Judging by the response from people such as Marjorie Taylor-Greene and Candice Owens , among others, it has not had the desired effect.

That said, the base is not his major audience, it is the Iranian regime.

Like Richard Nixon, Trump is a believer in the ‘madman theory’ of foreign policy. First articulated by Daniel Ellsberg and popularized by Thomas Schelling, it was H. R. “Bob” Haldeman who, in his 1978 memoir, described how Nixon embraced it in an attempt to end the Vietnam War. Henry Kissinger, his National Security Advisor, described the strategy as reminiscent of a poker game in which Nixon “push[ed] so many chips into the pot” that the United States’ foes would think the president had gone “crazy.”

Nixon’s efforts to make the enemy believe that he was ‘crazy’ enough to do anything, however, was not effective in getting the North Vietnam to back down in the Vietnam War. Nor will it be effective for Trump in his efforts to get the Iranian regime to capitulate. It is instead another example of the president failing to understand who he is dealing with. While he has had success bullying some countries and individuals, this is a classic case of misjudging and under estimating your opponent.

The Iranian regime’s goal is survival. The longer they sew chaos, the more leverage they have and it will take a lot of skilled politicking, diplomacy, and engagement rather than early morning Truth Social posts, Trump displays of derangement or threats, to change that.

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