The New Realist Podcast

The most important question the new Secretary of Homeland Security [DHS] Markwayne Mullin was asked during his confirmation hearings was when Sen. Elissa Slotkin pressed him on whether he would deploy ICE agents to polling sites during the November election?

If you are secretary of Homeland Security, do you feel you have the authority to put uniformed officers at polling locations in 2026?

Mullin, a close ally of President Trump, refused to rule out the possibility, saying instead that he would consider sending ICE to polling sites for “specific threats.” [Note: he likewise was unable to say clearly who won the 2020 election].

Slotkin’s question has even more relevance today. Not only has Mullin been confirmed, but earlier this week Trump deployed ICE agents to the nation’s airports; this followed months of back and forth amongst key administration officials, many of whom have been unwilling to rule out the deployment of ICE to polling sites.

Early last month, for instance, when WH Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt was asked about it she dismissed the question, before adding:

That’s not something I’ve ever heard the president consider. I can’t guarantee that an ICE agent won’t be around a polling location in November.

Moreover, after months of calling on the administration to have ICE “surround the polls,” over the last few days Trump ally Steve Bannon has described the deployment of ICE to airports as a “test run.”

We can use what’s happening with these ICE [agents] helping out at the airports, we can use this as a test run, as a test case to really perfect ICE’s involvement in the 2026 midterm elections

Bannon did not come up with this idea out of whole cloth. As far back as the fall of 2020, when polls suggested Trump might not win the election, the president threatened to send law enforcement and national guard members to polling sites.

We’re going to have sheriffs, and we’re going to have law enforcement, and we’re going to have, hopefully, US attorneys, and we’re going to have everybody and attorney generals (sic).

Most legal experts agree that 18 U.S. Code § 593 makes this unlawful. Nevertheless, several events over the last few weeks make this once unthinkable notion not as far-fetched as it may have seen. Consider the following, not only have…

* top White House officials, including Mullin, refused to rule it out

* Trump and his advisors publicly discussed the idea multiple times

* & some of Trump’s allies on the right openly been pushing for this

In addition, over the last few days Trump did something that makes little political sense - he combined two very bad stories for Republicans, the partial shutdown of DHS and the deployment of ICE Agents. Whenever someone acts against their own political interests, it is important to ask why? Particularly when it is someone like Trump who has very good political instincts.

Allies like Rep. James Comer (R) have described his actions as an attempt ‘own the lib’s.’ I don’t buy it, at least that’s not the whole story.

Trump has been been willing to take ownership of an increasingly unpopular partial shutdown and combined this with the deployment of ICE because he is betting that prolonging this pain for Americans will push congress to pass the SAVE America Act. Remember, Trump said he will not sign any piece of legislation until this bill is passed. This intense focus on passing a law that would disenfranchise millions follows equally intense efforts over the last year to impact the election by engaging in mid-decade redistricting, taking over polling administration around the country, ending the Voting Rights Act, and much more. What all of these have in common is they are tools that are used to hold on to executive power if and when you cannot hold on to it via the regular, democratic, electoral process.

And it doesn’t take a politician as astute as Trump to understand that all signs suggest the Republicans are going to lose the House in November, if not the Senate. Heck, just this week Democrats did the seemingly impossible, flipping a seat Trump won by double-digits in 2024 to win the Florida state House seat that includes Trump’s residence, Mar-a-Lago. [Note: Trump voted in that election by mail, after describing mail-in-voting as mail-in cheating].

Since the beginning of 2025, Democrats have flipped 30 Republican seats. No one understands better what this, his flagging poll numbers, an unpopular war abroad, and an increasingly shaky economy portend for the GOP in November. Of course, Trump is less concerned about the fate of the GOP than he is his own fate and presidency should Democrats win in November.

Slotkin was right to ask Mullin about the deployment of ICE to polls; just as the many states who have taken steps to ensure the sanctity of the vote in their states are right to be concerned about what might happen at polling sites across the country in November.

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“Mail-in voting means mail-in cheating. I call it mail-in cheating, and we got to do something about it all.”

This is what President Trump said during a roundtable in Minneapolis on Monday.

The issue is so important to him that as millions of Americans waited in long lines at the nations airports due to the DHS shutdown, the president rebuffed efforts by his own party to reopen the department and get TSA Agents paid. Instead, he urged Republicans in Congress not to make a deal until Democrats agree to pass the controversial voter-id bill, the SAVE America Act.

"Don't make any deal on anything," he urged Republicans. "The most important thing we can have is called the SAVE America Act" Trump said before suggesting that Congress remain in session over the Easter holiday and “make this one for Jesus."

All of this suggests that Trump is very committed to the SAVE America Act which includes several controversial changes to our voting processes - including an end to universal mail ballots.

This is controversial because it is a popular way for busy Americans who cannot get to their polling site on Election Day to cast their ballots. It is so popular that in 2022, more than 7 million Americans registered to vote by mail.

Yet, as Trump has made clear for years, and reiterated this week, mail-in ballots are “mail-in cheating.” He even complained about it when he was hosting the Irish Prime Minister Micheál Martin last week.

“We’re the only country in the world that does it that way. Corrupt as hell,” Trump said. It’s a line he has repeated many times, including earlier to Ukrainian President Zelensky. [Fact check: more than 30 countries/territories allow mail-in or postal voting]

What Trump didn’t reveal to either Martin, Zelensky, or even his supporters, was he does not have a problem with mail-in ballots when he’s the one voting, only when others are.

How do we know this? Because records show Trump just voted by mail in a special election for House district 87 which includes his golf club in Palm Beach. Like millions of Americans, he chose to mail in his ballot even though he has been in Palm Beach during the time when early in-person voting was available.

The White House pushed back on this arguing that while the SAVE America legislation ends universal mail-in voting, it has “exceptions” for “illness, disability, military, or travel.” Moreover, they added “everyone knows, the President is a resident of Palm Beach and participates in Florida elections, but he obviously primarily lives at the White House in Washington, D.C.”

What’s good for the goose should, particularly in a democracy when it comes to voting, be good for the rest of us, no?

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“ICE was my idea.”

This is what President Trump told reporters before boarding Air Force One to fly to Memphis this morning

Even by Trump standards, it struck me as an odd thing to say. After all, were others really clamoring to take credit for the controversial idea of putting ICE agents in the nation’s airports?

Turns out, yes! Thanks to some very good reporting by CNN’s Brian Stelter, it turns out that a controversy regarding who originated the idea is brewing and it pits two very unlikely adversaries against each other: Donald from Mar-a-Lago, President of the United States versus Linda from Arizona, a caller on a conservative radio talk show.

Stelter’s article is worth reading in its entirety, but by way of a brief summary:

Friday afternoon, “Linda from Arizona” called “The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show” to suggest a way to resolve the TSA issue.

“We need to bring in ICE agents,” she said.

Travis was so taken with the plan, which he called “kind of a brilliant idea,” that he pitched it during an appearance later that night on Trump’s favorite Fox News show, “Jesse Watters Primetime.”

To Travis’ credit, he generously referenced Linda during the appearance, but as became clear today, Trump doesn’t seem ready to follow suit.

When asked this morning whose idea it was to send ICE agents to airports, Trump responded “Mine, that was mine,” before quickly weaving into a bizarre rant about the person who invented the paperclip.

It’s just the sort of defensive response that makes you wonder if the brainchild behind this entire idea was in fact Linda from Arizona?

While Trump doesn’t seem prepared to share the glory with Linda now, if the plan to deploy untrained ICE agents to airports goes South any time soon, she might just become the perfect foil.

p.s. Trump didn’t name the inventor of the paperclip. Leading most people’s list is Norwegian Johan Vaaler who patented the paperclip Germany in 1899 and then in the U.S. a few years later. Vaaler’s design, however, lacked the standard twist we associate with the almighty paperclip today, leading some to suggest that the genius behind it was instead William Middlebrook.

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During an Oval Office meeting yesterday with Japan’s prime minister, Sanae Takaichi, President Trump made headlines for joking about Pearl Harbor. The response to his taboo, third-rail-breaking commentary was largely on point.

My own view, which I shared with Bloomberg’s Joe Mathieu in the attached clip, is that in equating his actions in Iran to those of the Japanese in Pearl Harbor Trump once again said the quiet part out loud. What Japan did in December 1941 was a war crime and a violation of international law. The fact that this is the analogy Trump pulled from regarding his “excursion” into Iran a few weeks ago is telling.

What was even more striking about what he said during the bilat was what he said about the costs of the war. It did not get as much coverage as his Pearl Harbor statement, but it should have, because when it comes to the costs of the war, Trump’s response was: “it’s not bad.”

The day after the national debt hit $39T, mortgages reached a three month high, the price of a barrel of Dubai crude oil surpassed $166, gas prices at home now average $3.90+/gallon, not to mention the rising costs of everything else from food to transportation, housing to healthcare - the president’s response is, its not so bad? Beyond the devastating economic impact of the war, are the far more important human costs. Can he really look at what has happened and say, ‘its not so bad’ when less than three weeks into this debacle the U.S. has lost 13 service members, with 200+ injured, according to the Iranian Red Crescent Society 1400 people, including 204 children, have been killed, while 18,000 have been injured and the U.N. is reporting more than 3 million people have already been displaced, a number that is sure to rise as the strikes continue. Is it really not so bad when politically we are caught in an asymmetric war with a terrorist regime, seemingly at odds with our own co-warrior, Israel, as it pertains to a day after plan, unable to articulate a goal and unable to garner the support of our closest allies to open a Strait that carries 20% of the worlds oil thanks in large part to a year of maltreatment, berating, tariffing, and threatening at the hands of this administration?

In response to all of this, these enormous human, economic, and political costs, the president’s take is - it’s not so bad.’

“I thought that it [gas prices] would go up more than it did… oil prices will go up, the economy will go down a little bit. I thought it would be worse, much worse actually. I thought there was a chance it could be much worse. It’s not bad.”

The 2026 and 2028 commercials write themselves, but it’s fair to say that this is about as tone deaf as a leader can get because to any thinking, reasonable person it’s very bad; and it’s made far worse by the fact that more than twenty days in, we have yet to hear a clear strategy regarding how the administration plans to right this quickly sinking ship.

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When President Trump was asked today whether his advisors had told him “anything in terms of how long we can expect gas prices as high as they are right now?”

Trump boasted he doesn’t “need advisors to tell me that, I know what it is.”

He went on to chastise UK Prime Minister Kier Starmer, for refusing to commit to assisting the US in the Strait of Hormuz before consulting his advisors.

“The Prime Minister of UK, United Kingdom, told me yesterday, ‘I’m meeting with my team to make a determination,’ I told him you don’t need to meet with your team to make a determination, you’re the Prime Minister… why do you have to meet with your team to determine if you are going to send us some mine sweepers or boats. It’s the same thing here, I can tell you that when this is over oil prices are going to go down very, very rapidly, so is inflation and everything else.”

Amidst so much else the President has said in the last 24-hours that begs scrutiny this comment hardly stands out as the most egregious. As it pertains to American foreign policy and decision-making, however, it speaks volumes.

We are in the position we are today - a war without goals, strategy or end, an economic catastrophe, chaos at home and abroad - because Trump has refused to either learn the lessons of recent history or to listen to experts who know the score.

Instead of ridiculing Starmer, Trump would be wise to follow his lead and seek advice from experts, particularly those who will challenge his thinking and who are well versed in Iran, the Middle East and recent history as it pertains to the many lessons from American entanglements abroad:

* When it comes to regime change, there is no such thing as ‘quick' and easy’ or ‘in and out’

* Regime change cannot be accomplished by air, it almost always requires an extended campaign and boots on the ground

* Don’t go to war until you have specified why it is in the national interest, what your goal is, and how you will achieve it; Moreover, make sure these goals cannot be achieved in any other way

* Don’t go to war until you have made your case to the public, congress, allies, and international organizations around the world

* Before you attack, plan for the ‘day after’

* Keep your aims limited, don’t continue to escalate or you will find yourself bogged down

* Build the life boat before you begin sinking; as it pertains to allies, seek their support before you decide to go it alone

* The enemy has a vote

* All politics are local, in Iran or any other regime, there are dynamics on the ground that must be understood, particularly if you are depending on an uprising to overthrow an entrenched regime. Listen to people who are experts in the area, who have studied the nation, its history, religion, language, etc. They are critical voices here.

* Soft power matters, don’t depend solely on military might

* The world is rapidly changing, in today’s environment, even smaller and less sophisticated powers can inflict enormous pain on a super power and its interests via terrorism, drone strikes, etc.

* Careful about depleting your own stockpiles of expensive weapons, it not only causes economic challenges but makes the conflict unsustainable over long periods of time and leaves you unable to address other challenges that may arise

* Beware of wars with opponents whose sole aim is to survive, particularly when your aims are varied, muddled, unclear, and shifting.

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Two weeks into the ill-fated War with Iran, the economic news at home is increasingly dire.

When it comes to Americans financial well being, most experts agree that the War comes at an enormous cost. Oil prices have shot up and will continue to increase until the Strait of Hormuz is reopened. The average price of a gallon of regular gas in the U.S. is now $3.58 compared with $2.98 before the war started.

It is almost always the case that Americans first feel the impact at the gas pump and grocery store, but the war will soon hit our wallets in other ways as well, as prices for everything from heat and electricity to travel, airfare, housing, and more are impacted.

Historically when the price of gas and milk rises, a president’s approval rating drops. According to the RealClearPolitics average of polls, that is exactly what has happened over the last few weeks as President Trump is now 17 points under water when it comes to his handling the economy.

In recognition of this, the White House politics team has been struggling to get Trump out on the campaign trail to talk about what he is going to do to keep prices down.

This week he went to Kentucky and Ohio where he was charged with assuaging voters concerns about the economy. The trip came just hours after he told a gathering of Republican congressmen and women that the Save Act, not the affordability, is the number one concern of most Americans.

“Every time I go out, save America, sir. Save America Act,” he said. “That’s all they talk about. They don’t talk about housing. They don’t talk about anything. That’s what they want to talk about.”

He brought this message with him to Cincinnati where, by the time he landed, the average price of gas, which sat at $2.64 just a year ago, had risen to $3.44.

His tone deaf message to voters is best summed up by the headline The Cincinnati Enquirer:

“Trump claimed the economy is ‘roaring.’ The numbers say otherwise”

According to Dan Horn, a reporter with the Enquirer, the president remained mostly on message when speaking to supporters gathered at a warehouse in Northern Kentucky, except for “a few tangents… to lambaste” fellow Republican, Thomas Massie as a “nut job”.

Beyond that, Horn reports that Trump spent much of the speech boasting about the economy which he said had…

delivered lower prices and bigger paychecks… claim[ing] prescription drug prices in the United States are now the lowest in the world, that job creation and manufacturing are on the rise, that inflation is falling fast and that the overall economy is booming.”

To the contrary, the actual economic picture is far “gloomier.”

This bodes terribly for the GOP in the midterms, which is why the president’s political team has been desperate to get him out on the road to talk about affordability.

Much more importantly then the politics, however, is the fact that all of this bodes very badly for the American public.

The other day Joe Rogan said Trump supporters “feel betrayed” by what he called the “insane” conflict with Iran. As Rogan said, “He ran on, ‘No more wars,’ ‘End these stupid, senseless wars,’ and then we have one that we can’t even really clearly define why we did it.”

The same could be said of Trump supporters who believed the president when he said he would bring prices down, make life more affordable and better for Americans and do so to such a degree that we would be tired of winning.

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House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) refused to rule out more funding for the war in Iran on Sunday’s Meet the Press, saying only “we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.”

Just a few days earlier, Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) told Bloomberg’s Joe Mathieu she would support an emergency supplemental request.

They are not alone, Sen’s. Dick Durbin (D-ILL), Chris Coons (D-DE), and Elisa Slotkin (D-MI) likewise refused to rule it out.

This is unfortunate. These Democrats should not try to split the difference on this. If they oppose the war, they should also oppose any request for additional funding.

After all, President Trump started this war unilaterally. He did so without consulting congress or informing the American people, without an authorization for the use of force, without discussion with any international bodies or our allies, and in violation of U.S. law, the constitution, and international law. And as a result of what he has done, seven American soldiers have been killed and many other injured, over 1,000 Iranians are reported dead, including almost 200 innocent school girls, most of the Middle East is under assault and thousands have been forced to flee their homes, not to mention we are facing what some describe as the biggest energy crisis in decades and a potential international economic calamity.

Under these circumstances, Democrats should meet any request for additional funding with an automatic and unwavering ‘no.’ And they should do so confident that, as Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) has argued, they are voting to support the troops by getting them out of harms way.

They should also do so confident that voting for the funding would only further embolden Trump in a war that is built on lies (such as the unsubstantiated claim that Iran was going to strike the U.S., so we had to act first) and that has no clear strategy or objectives. Moreover, they would be voting to fund a war which the president has boasted several times could end any day.

If that happens, the additional money would presumably be used to allow the president to follow his other whims and fancies, such as taking over Cuba. This is not as farfetched as it may sound. After all, even in the midst of the Iran war, the president and his close allies have been openly musing about regime change in Cuba.

The other day, Trump described Cuba as at the “end of the line” and suggested there may be a “friendly takeover” or an “unfriendly” one if required. His confidant, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), was even more blunt stating that the end of the Cuban regime is inevitable: “it is over, it’s just a matter of time.”

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With the firing of Kristi Noem, President Trump has signaled that his much talked about ‘no scalps’ policy is a thing of the past.

What the action did not signal, however, is a change in Department of Homeland Security (DHS) policy as it pertains to immigration, nationwide raids and detentions, the treatment of peaceful protestors, and the use of unchecked force; actions that have resulted in the killing of four, including two U.S. citizens - Renee Good and Alex Pretti on the streets of Minneapolis.

Noem was not pushed out of DHS due to ICE tactics or the administration’s hardline immigration policies, but for a variety of other reasons that go back months including Stephen Miller’s frustration with her management of funding, her suspected relationship with Corey Lewandowski, charges of corruption and overspending, frustration by many within the DHS, and more; a good deal of which was cataloged in a tough piece in the Wall Street Journal last month.

The straw that broke the proverbial camels back appears to be when a few days ago, during congressional testimony, she hung Trump out to dry, telling Senators that he approved the spending of $220m in tax payers dollars on flashy campaign style ads featuring Noem. After tough questioning from Sen John Kennedy in which Noem tried to say the buck stops with her boss, we learned that Trump called Kennedy, “mad as a murder hornet” and refuted her testimony regarding his involvement.

There are few people left or right who will defend Noem in any capacity, and for good reason. From her photo-op in front of half-dressed prisoners at El Salvador’s CECOT prison wearing a $50k Rolex to spending over $70m+ on a luxury jet to labeling two dead American’s ‘domestic terrorists" and much more, there is no question that the withering criticism she has received from both sides of the aisle is more than justified.

Let’s also be clear, however, that the ad buy that seems to have inflamed the president so much was widely known, on the air for a long time and featured not only Noem, but Trump as well. ProPublica broke the story of these glossy, Taylor Sheridan-Yellowstone looking ads back in November.

Noem’s replacement is Oklahoma Senator Markwayne Mullin, a former plumber and fighter who entered politics fifteen years ago and has since had a meteoric rise. He was chosen not, however, to introduce a more sane approach to immigration or in recognition how disastrous the adminisatration’s approach has been so far, but rather because he is a Trump loyalist, without as much of the baggage or drama.

Despite the fact that he became known to most Americans when he challenged the Teamsters President to a fight during a congressional hearing in 2023 and despite the fact that he recently calling the Republican Chair of the Homeland Security Committee Senator Rand Paul a “freaking snake,” Mullin’s nomination will likely sail through in the GOP controlled Senate.

Change was needed at the top of DHS. And while Noem’s departure represents a bit of vindication for Cricket, the 14 month old dog she bragged about shooting, it does not provide the same for people in communities around the nation who have been victimized and traumatized by an overly aggressive immigration policy; a policy that by all accounts will remain in place under Noem’s successor.

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My previous post concerned how the Trump administration went to war in Iran.

This post concerns why.

Since the war began 5 days ago, the Trump administration has offered various and often contradictory explanations for the strikes, including:

* stopping Iran from developing or reconstituting its nuclear weapons program

* destroying Iran’s ballistic missile capabilities which pose an imminent threat to U.S. interests and partners

* obliterating Iran’s navy

* preventing Iran from arming and funding militias from proxy groups such as the Houthis, Hamas, and Hezbollah

* avenging the deaths of Iranian protestors

* responding to Israel’s plan to strike Iran which, would have prompted a response from Tehran that puts US interests in the region in jeopardy. As a result, the U.S. had no choice but to launch preemptive strikes on Iran.

It is easy to dismiss this lack of clarity as inconsequential. After all, as the Secretary of Defense (War) Pete Hegseth keeps saying “America is winning decisively, devastatingly and without mercy.”

This depends on how you define ‘“winning.” As it pertains to shock and awe, no one does it better than the U.S. military. When it comes to defense, we are bigger, better, more sophisticated, well stocked and positioned than any other nation in the world.

If, however, you define “winning” as meeting the objectives you set, the lack of clarity matters an awful lot. Without a clear rationale, how do you know when you’ve achieved your goals? How do you know the war is over if the aims were not articulated?

Consider a hypothetical scenario in which the U.S. and Israel achieve all six of the goals listed above.

Then what?

In the absence of regime change, the same Iranian regime will remain in place and begin reconstituting their weapons programs, building their navy, working with their proxies and repressing their people.

There is no narrative coming from anyone in the administration which explains how we get regime change. Instead we were specifically told this is not one of our war objectives; the mission will not involve putting the men and women of the U.S. military on the ground.

Imagine, however, that for some reason the regime did change (either at our hands, at the hands of Israel or for another reason). Even if it changed, how would we be able to insure the new regime is more moderate and friendly to the U.S. and its interests? How would we insure it does not have an interest in building a nuclear or ballistic missiles program, supporting the proxies, or repressing its people? For that matter, how would we insure that its not even more hardline than the last one?

There is no story coming out of this administration in which any of that is envisioned.

This is why for all of Hegseth’s boasting about Iran being “toast” and the U.S./Israel dominating the skies and raining down destruction, the fact remains they have something we do not - a clear and achievable objective, to survive.

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We are now living in a country in which less than two months apart the U.S. President has sent American troops into foreign nations to remove and kill their leaders.

It is not just that the Trump administration has taken these actions, it is how.

The invasions of Venezuela (January 3) and Iran (February 28) demonstrate a marked change in how the U.S. goes to war - and yes, when you invade another country and remove their leader, especially when that country presents no imminent threat, it IS a war. In both cases, preemptive wars of choice.

From the time he first burst on the political scene, Trump has been a vocal critic of the U.S.’s 2003 invasion of Iraq. It has been a central pillar of his “America First” foreign policy. It is a war which he described it as “the single biggest mistake made in the history of our country.”

Yet contrast how the Bush administration went to War in Iraq with what the president has done over the last few months. Regardless of your view of the War in Iraq, the Bush administration conducted itself in accordance with the rules based order as established and agreed upon in the modern era. In the run-up to the Iraq War, they defined the principles at stake, worked with international organizations and law (U.N., etc.), built a broad coalition of forty-some odd allies from around the world, consulted with Congress, Congressional leadership, and the American people, and explained both their rationale and objectives (flawed as they were).

None of that has been done in these recent cases. Instead, the world’s leading democracy has, through its actions and deeds, now set a precedent which is welcome by the autocrats of the world: the rules based order is of little concern or consequence. Intervention into a foreign nation - whether a quick hit, more extended incursion, removal or killing of another country’s leader, or any other type of intervention - all of that takes just one thing, military power and might. If you have the power to act, you can do so regardless of the post-WWII system of laws, norms, and institutions designed in the late 20th Century to precent or at least diminish conflict and the use of force.

The impacts of how the Trump administration has approached Venezuela and Iran are many and long term. By way of just a few short-term examples: how can the U.S. speak out against Russia’s invasion of Ukraine? How can we help negotiate an end to the Russia/Ukraine War? How can the U.S. criticize Putin for invading Ukraine? What if Putin chooses to kill V. Zelensky or vice-versa, Ukraine decapitates Russia’s leadership, what then? Likewise, on what grounds can we lead the Western world in challenging a potential Chinese takeover of Taiwan?

What can be done about this at home? Very little. Congress does, under Article I, section 8, have the sole power to declare War. That wasn’t done in this case as they were not consulted. They will come back to Washington D.C. this week and debate will begin on a War Powers Resolution. As important as it is for all members of Congress to go on the record and let the American people know where they stand on this War, even if it passes both the House and the Senate, it will be vetoed by Trump and in a GOP-led congress, they will have the votes to override that veto. Apart from that, Congress can only act to restrict funding for the War should the President ask for more, but that is doubtful in the short term.

What is left is for the American public to speak out, most importantly at the ballot box. Voting in the primaries begins tomorrow in Texas and North Carolina and then extends across the nation in the coming weeks. U.S. voters seldom take foreign policy into account in any concerted way at the ballot box (unless the nation is at War for an extended period of time and there is a loss of U.S. life). It is still too early to know if that will be different this year and much of that depends on what happens in the ground in Iran and the Middle East given the U.S. has now started a War without articulating clear objectives or goals, and without a plan as to how best to achieve them.

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