Bulwark Takes - BREAKING: Strait of Hormuz is ALREADY Closed Again

Episode Date: April 18, 2026

Tim Miller takes on fast-moving developments after Iran closes the Strait of Hormuz again and fires on commercial ships—less than a day after Donald Trump said it would "never" close again. Plus: Trump’s appearance with Joe Rogan, his response to the crisis, and his decision to shut down questions from reporters.

Come see Vignetti wheel loaders at the National Heavy Equipment Show April 23rd and 24th. Coy Brothers will be at booth 2520. See you there. Vignetti loaders for all season use. Booster juice is going crazy for hazelnuts. No, not crazy. Nuts. Booster juice is going bananas for hazelnuts. I mean, there are bananas and smoothies, but that's not the point. Banana juice is booster for hazelnuts.

What? Just stop. Booster juice is going nuts for hazelnuts. Introducing the Nutty Monkey Smooth. Holy Hazelnut Asaibol and Nutty Booster Ball, all made with rich, creamy hazelnut spread. Try them today. Only at booster juice. Canadian-born. Blending since 1999. Hey, Tim Miller from The Bullwark here. Well, that was fast. The Strait of Hormuz is closed again. I'm taping this on Saturday morning. Obviously, this is all a developing situation. But it looks like we're headed into a kind of Wayne's World style, War on, War on. off situation. And I don't think really anybody should be surprised. And when I was talking to Ben Rhodes about this yesterday, there were two things that we flagged about how what makes a situation not that stable. The first was Trump is not reliable. You can't trust what he's saying is actually what is in the deal. The counterpart of Iran isn't particularly reliable. And then you

also have our partner in the war, Israel, whose strategic aims are misaligned. That has not come to a head this morning, but my guess is that it will at some point in the near future where Israel decides that they need to continue engaging in a battle, whether it be against Hezbollah and Lebanon or somewhere else. So I want to walk through what we know right now this morning. Top headline here is that the straight of Hormuz is closed again. So that's where we're at. Donald Trump has spoken about that. We're going to play a little bit of that in a bit. But here are some of the logistics. from Fars, Iran's like basically state news agency.

It's like maybe one tick more state media than Fox. They first reported the closure. They cited that the Iranians are upset about the ongoing blockade from the United States. It's in the United States continues to engage in banditry and maritime piracy. It's a quote from the Iranian side. And they said this, as long as the United States does not agree to the complete freedom of navigation for vessels, the situation in the straight and four moves will remain tightly controlled. and in its previous state, U.S. commands and 23 ships had been turned around because of our blockade earlier this week.

In addition to that dispute over which blockade counts over who's going to let ships through and who's going to send them back, which is a pretty key item, we also have reports that Iran was firing on ships in the Strait of Form moves. this morning. A U.S. defense official of the United Kingdom Maritime Trade official told Axis that there have been at least three attacks on commercial ships so far on Saturday. The UK MTO had reported two attacks, so at least a couple of them. At least one ship was hit and would cause some damage. There are some audio recordings that Axios has listened to that indicate this at least one of the ships and was given clearance to enter the straight

and then was fired upon prompting the dispatcher to say they are turning around. SEPA Navy, SEPA Navy. This is Motoranga Sunmar Hedalt. You gave me clearance to go. My name second on your list. You gave me clearance to go.

You are fighting now. Let me turn back. Two of the ships fired upon were Indian vessels carrying a couple million barrels of Iraqi oil. So that is from Dominica Pfeiffer and Barak. over at Axis. So I want to run through, you know, a couple of my bookmarks. I've been bookmarking tweets all morning trying to figure out what is happening. This is kind of a good timeline breakdown from the COBSC letter yesterday. It's being Friday, 845 a.m. Iran's foreign minister announced

the Strait of Formos was completely open for all commercial vessels. 9.06, President Trump thanked Iran for opening the straight. Then at 10, Trump and Iran said the U.S. were working. together to remove all minds from the straight. Then Trump between 1040 and noon said Iran agreed to never close the straight again. That was the president's

announcement. Less than 24 hours ago, Donald Trump said, Iran has agreed to never close the straight again. The straight is closed right now. So his claim was eternity, free seas for eternity,

17 hours later, Iran is firing on ships of the Strait of Hormuz and saying that it's closed again. So a little off base on that prediction and commitment from the president. Later, yesterday evening, Friday evening that Iran, Speaker of the Parliament said Trump had made a bunch of claims that were false. And then the following morning here, Saturday morning, we have the strait being closed. again. So that's the state of play behind the scenes. You're seeing that Trump's strategy of just like making a bunch of claims and hoping that they come to fruition. He was a big friend and the advocate of the author of the power of positive thinking. I think Trump does do that sometimes. I'll just be like, hey, this is going to happen and hope that he can will it into existence because he sees himself

as kind of a demigod. And, you know, that isn't really working on, on the Iranian side because they have specific needs. Another thing that's interesting, I've seen some scuttlebutt about this, and we'll be bringing in, I know, obviously, always on Sunday, with the Bill Crystal Live, we'll bring in General Hurtling and other Iran experts to kind of weigh in on this. But just some scuttlebutt out there is that there's some view on the Iranian side that the power struggle is still ongoing.

This foreign minister has been more of, let's say, the Delci Rodriguez-style type person of Iran willing to work with America and the IRGC. And so the military elements of the hardliners in Iran are exerting more control. And so there's some scuttlebut that it's hard to even know if the negotiations are with the people that will actually end up being in power. So it makes it hard to make grand claims like Iran agreed to open the straight forever when you've got some hard line thugs from the military who might decide that this is their moment to seize even more power within the regime. So that's something to keep an eye on. Dan Shapiro, who I like to turn to, he is Biden's ambassador to Israel, very middle of the road,

on analyzing what is happening in the Middle East. He posted this. Trump spent all day posting things on truth social that had not been agreed to, trying to will them to be true by saying them publicly. This is a crazy way to do diplomacy on something that's consequential.

And it has to be telling the Iranians that he's desperate for an off-ramp, which only increases their leverage. I think that's exactly right. If Iranians look at this, they look at Trump advance and say, these guys went out. And so we want to get more money.

We want to get a higher toll on the straight. We want more sanctions relief. You know, they're going into the next negotiation, which is supposed to be Sunday, and now they're saying we don't have a day for it, in a weaker and weaker position. Let's see here. Roy Johnson, an analyst.

Someone to flag this. Oil market researcher has been talking about, has been a really good follow on just getting, through the fog of what is actually happening in the movement of oil and other energy through the Strait, through other parts of Persian Gulf, down around Yemen, and how that is impacting the market. He points out this is the most attack on ships in the Strait of Hormuzon's the early days of the war.

It's like we're really, you know, kind of back in on it here. One other thing that has happened, the shows, I think that. There are concerns in the White House about this. There was a little noticed late night Friday update from the administration announcing that they're lifting sanctions on the Russian oil for another month. It was just two days ago, three days ago now, that Scott Besant said that the U.S. would not renew that waiver. They'd put this waiver.

They'd release some sanctions on Russian oil to help calm the markets when the street was originally closed. well, late Friday night, they said they're extending that another month. So that can either be read as a favor for Russia, just another favor from Russia, from a russophile president, or as a sign that they're not as confident as they're claiming that the Strait of Hormuz situation is going to be resolved, or maybe a little bit from a bucket A and a little bit from bucket B. I think that's probably the answer. Just one more from Gregory Brew, another oil analyst have been following.

He's talking about how really, and this is going back even more than this morning, there's been total chaos in the straight over the last 24 hours. There are dozens of trap ships trying to transit only to reverse course. Five tankers have made it through today with Iranian position, but permission rather, but more were turned around. I already mentioned the Indian tanker that was attacked. Straight is still under Iranian control. So it is not at all what Donald Trump was pitching.

yesterday, which should not be a surprise since that's him. He's a huckster and a liar. Here he is this morning. He had a big announcement in the Oval Office with Joe Rogan about trying to, Joe Rogan is passionate about the use of psychedelics for treatment for people that have addictions to opioids or BDSD and trying to get those through the approval process. Trump had an executive order press conference about that this morning where he had a little Joe Rogan right behind him. It was interesting Joe Rogan had just called all these mega guys like dwebes and losers and not that smart a couple weeks ago. And there he is in the Oval Office hanging out with the losers. But during that announcement, Trump did address

the situation in Iran briefly. Let's take a look at that. talking about a red later, we have very good conversations going on. It's working out very well. They got a little cute as they have been doing for 47 years. Nobody ever took them on. We took them on. They have no Navy. They have no Air Force.

They have no leaders. They have no nothing. Actually, their leaders are, it is regime change. You call that enforced regime change. But we're talking to them. They wanted to close up the straight again, you know, as they've been doing for. been doing for years. They can't blackmail us. In fact, a lot of the ships are coming up to Texas. I don't know if you know in Louisiana. The ships are coming up. They got used to it.

Maybe they'll keep doing it. It's worked out pretty good. But it's going actually along very well. And we'll see. But we'll have some information by the end of the day. We're talking to them. And, you know, we're taking a tough stand. They've killed a lot of people. A lot of our people have been killed. A lot of your fellow soldiers have been killed over the years by Iran. So you have there, Trump saying that they get a little cute. I think firing on ships is more than a little cute. He talks about how they're talking about the Iranians, we're talking about closing the straight again, which they have been for years. That's not true. Not true. State of Vermont rules had not been closed for years. There had not been lots of examples of this

during the previous administrations. This is something that just happened this time because Donald Trump started a war of choice and didn't think about the consequences. So that was the spin that he's got. He says that they'll be out more later today. So obviously we'll be keeping our eyes on that. But I think it was noteworthy that Trump who likes to answer questions, likes to vamp in these settings, likes to show off his shiny toy. In this case, Joe Rogan, when things came to a close and there were journalists wanted to ask more questions about the situation in the straight, here's what happened then. Got to shut this one down.

Got to shut this one down. Not good news coming out of the White House. And we'll continue to see what happens. I think obviously that Trump will continue to offer more and more concessions in the hope that the street can get reopened. But the situation is a lot dicier that it was made to seem. 24 hours ago or even 12 hours ago. So we'll keep on that for you.

Subscribe to the feed. We're going to 2 million. Going to the moon. We're going to 2 million subscribers. We really appreciate it. Tell your friends. And I'll be talking to you soon.