Letters from an American - Unbelievably Irresponsible

Episode Date: April 1, 2026

Get full access to Letters from an American at heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/subscribe

March 31st, 26. At 4.11 this morning, President Donald J. Trump's social media account posted, all of those countries that can't get jet fuel because of the Strait of Hormuz, like the United Kingdom, which refused to get involved in the decapitation of Iran, I have a suggestion for you. Number one, buy from the U.S. We have plenty. And number two, build up some delayed courage. Go to the straight and just take it. You'll have to start. start learning how to fight for yourself, the USA won't be there to help you anymore, just like you weren't there for us. Iran has been essentially decimated. The hard part is done. Go get your own oil. President DJT. While this morning, Trump appeared to wash his hands of his Iran war,

there was an undertone of panic in his post, especially coming as it did just before an exclusive story by Alexander Ward and Meredith McGraw in the Wall Street Journal, reporting that Trump has told AIDS he is willing to end the military campaign against Iran, even if the Strait of Hormuz remains largely closed. Economist Paul Krugman noted this evening that this is essentially an admission of defeat, and Suzanne Maloney, Vice President of the Brookings Institution think tank, and an expert on Iran, called Trump's suggestion that he is willing to leave the strait close. unbelievably irresponsible. Having started a war, she said, the U.S. and Israel cannot walk away from the outcome. Energy markets are inherently global, and there is no possibility of insulating the U.S.

from the economic damage that is already occurring and will become exponentially worse if the closure of the strait continues, she told the Wall Street Journal reporters. Nonetheless, the idea the Iran war would ends soon was the signal investors wanted to see. On the strength of the hope for a short war, the stock market posted its biggest one-day gain in 10 months. Meanwhile, another aircraft carrier, the USS George H.W. Bush, left its home port, Naval Station Norfolk in Virginia today to head in the direction of the Middle East, although it is not clear if it will support Operation Epic Fury. According to Allison Bath of Stars and Stripes, the carrier will pick up other elements of the carrier group, including the destroyers USS Ross, USS Donald Cook, and USS Mason as it crosses the Atlantic.

The George H.W. Bush Carrier Strike Group also includes several aircraft squadrons and detachments that make up the 70 or more aircraft in Carrier Air Wing 7, along with more than 5,000 sailors and military. personnel. Nearly 3,500 sailors and Marines from the Tripoli Amphibious Ready Group arrived in the region on Saturday. Yesterday, host Laura Ingram of the Fox News Channel wondered, was the president fully briefed about the risks of all this from the beginning? And was he then able to take it all in and understand the complexity of this? How complex it could actually get? And further possibilities of casualties or other damage, the difficulty of dealing with these people? Or was he told this would be relatively quick, in and out? Nick Hilden of Alternate reported that MAGA leader Alex Jones

speculated today that ill health is contributing to Trump's poor decisions on Iran. Trump's run off the edge of a cliff, and I don't think he's coming back from it, Jones said. He urged MAGA to move on without Trump. We cut bait on Trump and we mobilize against the Democrats, he said. Trump is just a minor figure. Hunter Walker of Talking Points memo picked up the story of another mega figure distancing himself from Trump. When he ran for governor in 2024, former North Carolina lieutenant governor Mark Robinson flat out denied stories about his participation in pornography forums and social media chats, where he attacked Jewish, black, gay, and transgender people, as well as flirting with Holocaust denial and calling himself a black Nazi.

He even sued CNN for $50 million for defamation, calling their story about him a high-tech lynching before dropping the suit after losing the election. Walker noted that Robinson recently admitted on a podcast that he was lying all along. He had to ignore the truth at the moment. that moment, he said, because he was shielding Trump. I certainly don't want to be the person that costs the President of the United States the election, he said, didn't want to cost anyone else their

election. Asked if he would do it again, he answered, I'd make the exact same decision. I'd fight in the exact same way. After Saturdays no King's rallies around the country and the world, and after new polls showing his job approval ratings have dropped to new lows, Trump this afternoon signed an executive order attacking mail-in voting. Although both Democratic and Republican election officials insist mail-in voting is secure and reliable, Trump claims it permits Democrats to cheat. Ironically, earlier this month, the story broke of a right-wing activist in Wisconsin, who ordered ballots in other people's names to prove that mail-in voting enabled voter fraud.

Last week, Harry Waite was convicted of one felony count of identity theft and two misdemeanor counts of election fraud, suggesting mail-in voting is not as insecure as he thought. Nonetheless, Trump is ordering the Department of Homeland Security, or DHS, to work with the Social Security Administration to create a list of verified U.S. citizens who are eligible to vote in each state. The order directs the U.S. Postal Service to send mail-in ballots only to voters on the list and to mark each ballot with its own unique barcode. It threatens any states refusing to cooperate with the order with a loss of federal funding and directs Attorney General Pam Bondi to investigate anyone wrongfully distributing mail-in ballots. Aaron Reiklin-Melnick of the American Immigration Council notes that, there is no such thing as a federal list of citizens. It does not exist. This is unconstitutional on its face,

election law expert David Becker told Union Revas of Democracy Docket. The Constitution clearly gives the president no power over elections. The Senate Rules Committee oversees federal involvement in elections and its top Democrat, Alex Padilla, a Democrat of California, called the order a blatant. A blatant, a unconstitutional abuse of power, adding that Trump has no authority to commandeer federal elections or direct the Postal Service to undermine mail-and-a-absentee voting. Representative Joe Morelli, a Democrat of New York, the top-ranking Democrat on the House Administration Committee, said that the order is illegal, dangerous, and subversive, and that Donald Trump fears the American people and is willing to violate the Constitution to stop them from voting.

See you in court, posted Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, a Democrat of New York. You will lose. Another of Trump's executive orders was in court today when Judge Randolph Moss of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia ruled that much of Trump's order stripping NPR and PBS of funds was unconstitutional. As Brian Stelter of CNN reported, Moss quoted a Supreme Court ruling when he wrote, The First Amendment draws a line which the government may not cross at efforts to use government power, including the power of the purse, to punish or suppress disfavored expression by others.

Republicans in Congress have since voted to cut federal funding from NPR and PBS, but the decision is a victory for the first amendment. Amendment. Judge Richard Leon of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia also stymied Trump today when he ruled that Trump cannot proceed with his plans for a giant ballroom on the site of the demolished east wing of the White House without approval from Congress. The National Trust for Historic Preservation has sued Trump and a number of federal agencies to stop construction of the ballroom, noting that Trump skipped reviews and approvals that were required. by law. The decision by Leon, who was appointed by President George W. Bush,

begins, The President of the United States is the steward of the White House for future generations of first families. He is not, however, the owner. It goes on to say that no statute comes close to giving the president the authority he claims to construct his East Wing ballroom project and do it with private funds, and points out that Trump appears to be relying for authority on a law permitting him to conduct ordinary maintenance and repair of the White House. Leon also noted that the White House has offered vague and shifting information about who is actually in charge of the project,

and that the public has an interest in the appearance of the White House. Leon said, The Ballroom Construction Project must stop until Congress authorizes its completion. The Department of Justice has already appealed. Trump exploded at the judge's decision, posting on social media. The National Trust for Historic Preservation sues me for a ballroom that is under budget ahead of schedule

being built at no cost to the taxpayer and will be the finest building of its kind anywhere in the world. I then get sued by them over the renovation, of the dilapidated and structurally unsound former Kennedy Center. Now, the Trump Kennedy Center, a show of bipartisan unity, a Republican and Democrat president, where all I am doing is fixing, cleaning, running, and sprucing up a terribly maintained for many years building, but a building of potentially great importance. Yet, the National Trust for Historic Preservation, a radical left group of lunatics whose funding was

stopped by Congress in 2005, is not suing the Federal Reserve for a building which has been decimated and destroyed inside and out by an incompetent and possibly corrupt Fed chairman. The once magnificent building is billions over budget may never be completed and may never open. All of the beautiful walls inside have been ripped down, never to be built again, but the National Trust for Historic Preservation never did anything about it. Or have they sued on Governor Gavin Newskam's railroad to nowhere in California that is billions over budget and probably will never open or be used. So the White House ballroom and the Trump Kennedy Center, which are under budget ahead of schedule and will be among the most magnificent buildings of their kind anywhere in the

world, gets sued by a group that was cut off by government years ago, but all of the many disasters in our country are left alone to die. Doesn't make much sense, does it? President Donald J. Trump. Hours later, he posted, Secretary of the Interior, Doug Bergam and I are working on fixing the absolutely filthy, reflecting pool between the Lincoln Memorial and the Washington Monument.

This work was supposed to be done by the Biden administration, but Sleepy Joe doesn't know what clean or proper maintenance is. The president and secretary do. Tonight, Summer Said, David S. Cloud and Michael Amen of the Wall Street Journal reported that the United Arab Emirates is trying to get a United Nations Security Council resolution to call for the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz. The UAE says it will help the U.S. and other allies open the strait by force. Letters from an American was written and read by Heather Cox Richardson.

It was produced at Soundscape Productions, Dead in Massachusetts, recorded with music composed by Michael Moss.