What A Day - Trump’s War Hits The Economy

Episode Date: March 4, 2026

The U.S.-Israeli war in Iran is sowing death and chaos, surely, but with ship traffic avoiding Iran’s shores, the war’s also threatening the global economy through higher oil prices. Miles Taylor explains why all this is happening. Taylor served as the chief of staff at the Department of Homeland Security in the first Trump administration, where he made waves for writing an Op-ed in the New York Times headlined, “I Am Part of the Resistance Inside the Trump Administration.”And in headlines, the State Department scrambles to help thousands of Americans stuck in the Middle East, Iran continues to retaliate against the U.S.-Israeli attacks, and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem faces tough questions in the Senate.Show Notes: Miles Taylor’s writing on whether Trump is creating a financial crisis  Call Congress – 202-224-3121  Subscribe to the What A Day Newsletter – https://tinyurl.com/y4y2e9jy  What A Day – YouTube – https://www.youtube.com/@whatadaypodcast   Follow us on Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/crookedmedia/   For a transcript of this episode, please visit crooked.com/whataday

It's Wednesday, March 4th. I'm Greg Walters in for Jane Koston, and this is What a Day. The show that noted yesterday, Oklahoma Republican Senator Mark Wayne Mullen couldn't keep straight whether America is at war with Iran or Iraq. And now, he doesn't seem totally sure whether we're at war at all. This is war, and we're taking out the threat. Got it. This is a war. But I thought only Congress could declare a war. You can see this is war.

We have declared war. They declared war on us, but we haven't called war and Secretary Huxethel. We haven't declared. Just now you said this is war. They've called it war. What I was saying, okay, well that was it misspoke, but I was saying that they've declared war on us,

but war is ugly. It always has been ugly. You know, at least we can agree on that last part. On today's show, the State Department scrambles to help thousands of Americans stuck in the Middle East, and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Christy Noam faces tough questions from

senators about immigration enforcement and her personal history of canine execution. But first, a very big, happy, oh my God, the midterms are finally upon us day to all those who celebrate, because yesterday marked the first official primaries ahead of this November's big vote. Ballots were still being counted as we were recording this on Tuesday evening, and we'll be back tomorrow with a breakdown of who's up, who's down, and what we can learn from the results in Texas, North Carolina, and Arkansas. And that includes how the electorate is feeling about a certain you know who and all of his ludicrous Michigas, like this war he just got us into. Specifically, the kind of war that President Donald Trump spent the last decade promising he would never lead us into.

Here he is during the State of the Union address in 2019. As a candidate for president, I loudly pledged a new approach. Great nations do not fight. endless wars. Gee whiz. I never thought I'd get nostalgic for 2019 Trump. But this war in Iran isn't just sowing chaos, death, and destruction

for an uncertain period of time without any apparent plan or endgame. It's also making one extremely important commodity a lot more expensive. Oil. And I'm no economist, but I recall Donald Trump boasting that he would make the price of oil and gasoline

go down or something. And here he is speaking on Sinclair before the election in 2024. I'm going to cut fuel prices in half within 12 months, because the energy costs are so high. Instead, we're now looking at a bait and switch of downright historic proportions. On both fronts, thanks to his war of choice against Iran, all traffic has stopped in the Middle Eastern waterway called the Strait of Hormuz, which happens to handle one out of every five barrels of oil consumed in the world. Now, you might be asking yourself, is this all part of

some diabolically clever plan? Run on peace and low gas prices and then impulsively start a war that pushes oil prices up? Or is it? As I once heard someone say, Donald Trump doesn't play 17-dimensional chess. He eats the pieces. To find out, I spoke to Miles Taylor, the guy that you might remember as anonymous. Now, he served as the chief of staff at the Department of Homeland Security in the first Trump administration, where he caused a big hoopla by writing an op-ed in the New York Times headlined, I am part of the resistance inside the Trump administration. That prompted Trump to sign a memorandum stating Taylor's actions might have been treasonous and calling for an investigation. Now, Miles is the founder of defiance.org, a civic club focused on countering Trump's abuses

of power. Miles, welcome to one today. Great to be with you, my friend. We've been hearing a lot about the straight of Hormuz, but what is that and why should we care? Well, look, most people, don't spend their days too worried about a little tiny waterway in the Middle East, but that all just changed, Greg, because the Strait of Hormuz, which is a waterway that at its thinnest point is only 21 miles across is a critical choke point for goods and services, but especially one big thing, oil. And within the past two days, the Iranians have sealed that strait. Why does that matter?

Well, 20% of the world's oil supply goes through that straight. And even if the Iranians hadn't closed it, shipping companies are so worried that their boats will be destroyed either in the crossfire or by deliberate sabotage in this war with Iran that they're not crossing it anymore. Their insurance companies don't want them to do it. Their own boat drivers and employees don't want them to do it. the obvious question that your average person would have is, well, isn't there some other way around this? I mean, if you look at a map and you see the Strait of Hormuz, just south of Iran, just north of Oman, you would think, well, there's got to be some way to get this across land. And there are pipelines in the region.

But by and large, Greg, the answer is no, you really can't get around it. You can't get that much oil around it. Nothing has been built to make that happen. So you're largely stuck with this problem. If the strait is closed, a lot of the world's oil supply. is stopped. And that's bad news, because if 20% of the world's oil supply is choked off for very long, it could have massive repercussions for the global economy. But wait a minute, wait a minute. So I thought America didn't import oil from Iran because of sanctions. So why does this impact us?

Well, look, you think of it like a balloon that you squeeze. If you squeeze it in one place, the pressure is going to go to another part of the balloon. So even if Iranian oil is not, not coming to the United States, constrictions in the global supply affect the United States. What's more than that, it's not just Iranian oil we are worried about here. And there are folks in the Trump administration who would say, well, don't worry, because we're not dependent on Iranian oil. Yeah, but that's not the only thing passing through the strait of Hormuz. In fact, most of the oil going through that straight isn't Iranian oil. It's oil from other countries in the region that has to transfer through that critical point to make it. Here's the

other piece, we have seen this multiple times throughout history when there is shipping delays, traffic, problems with some of these major oil routes that these container ships go through, it directly affects prices at the pump. But that means something else much, much bigger, Greg, which is that groceries, stereos that you buy at the store, all goods you buy in one way, shape, or form are dependent on oil. They're dependent on gasoline, vehicles, airplanes, and trucks, and other ships moving those products across the world. So all of those products are going to go up in price because the companies aren't going to want to shoulder that burden.

They're going to pass it on to consumers. That leads to the magic word, the dangerous word here, which is inflation. The closing of this little tiny waterway south of Iran has the capacity to supercharge inflation all around the globe if it lasts too long. So play this out for me. How bad could this get?

Bad. Very, very bad. And here's what I want to compare it to. I don't want to be alarmist. I don't want to make people panic. But the last time we saw a similar series of events like this was back in 2008. Now, oil has gone up and has had spikes, certainly since 2008. But this sort of eerie series of events echoes what we saw before the financial crisis.

Why? Because back then in 2008, there was a lot of concern that the Iranians were moving towards, a nuclear capability. There was concern that that might lead to military conflict in the region, and markets, the jitters in the markets, started to price oil higher. Oil started off at the beginning of 2008, around $90 a barrel, kind of historically high, but not terrifyingly high. Then that number skyrocketed to $150 a barrel that was a historic number in the summer of of 2008, which resulted in inflation around the globe. That meant businesses that had tight margins, individual households that had tight margins, could not afford the price increases. That is the

domino that pushed the markets over the edge. We are seeing something similar happen right now, just in the handful of days since the Trump administration and the Israelis started to bomb Iran. We've seen oil spike close to $15 a barrel. It's not quite over that hundred $100 a barrel margin that you really start to worry about. But it's trending fast in that direction. That's what people need to keep their eye on. If that price starts to go too high, markets are going to get really worried that there won't be time for a correction.

And you're going to see inflation prices start to make their way to store shelves. So you're talking about this war leading to higher inflation. It strikes me there's an irony here, which is that, as I recall, Trump campaign on a few things, including keeping America out of what he called stupid wars and lowering the price of everything. Does it feel like Trump is delivering on those promises with this campaign to bomb Iran? No, I mean, look, I'll be honest with you. You would only do something like this if you weren't looking into the future or you intentionally wanted to destroy people's bank accounts. And I cannot imagine that any politician, love or hate Donald Trump, wants to intentionally destroy

people's bank accounts. And so it's got to be the first one. You're doing something so heedless, you're not considering the secondary and tertiary consequences. I mean, anyone who has studied the region knows that the straight of Hormuz is this critical geopolitical choke point. And there has always been conversation that in a war with Iran, this is one of the first things you would worry about.

This was a known, known, but clearly was something that the Trump administration was not thinking about and is something that's going to have enormous repercussions in the midterm elections. Affordability is the number one thing. Those Republicans are hearing from their constituents that they are mad about. They are worried they will lose the House and maybe the Senate because prices are so expensive. What has their president, Donald Trump, gone and done? One more thing that has the capability to supercharge inflation and make that problem worse. I cannot imagine that right now on Capitol Hill behind closed doors, there are very excited

conversations among the Republican caucus about this war. This is the type of thing that will guarantee their losses in November if they don't pressure the White House to turn it around. You worked in the first Trump administration and saw how decisions were made firsthand. You're famous for announcing to the world that you were quietly, secretly, working against his craziest decisions from the inside. In your view, do people inside the... the administration now, understand these risks that you're talking about? I mean, is there a plan

or is this just bomb first plan later? Look, Greg, I honestly think it's the latter. And what I did in the First Trump administration is the absolute bare minimum you should expect from any public servant. It's not heroic to comply with the law. That's the expectation. And the only defiance that we undertook in the First Trump administration was saying no when the president wanted to break the law or was going to put lives in danger. I don't see that happening anymore. I don't see folks in this administration saying no. And this heedless attack on Iran that's putting the global economy at risk, by the way, is the perfect example. So tie this all together for me. What does this tell us about Trump's priorities as he's asking Americans to give his party control of Congress once again?

Look, this says pure and simple that Donald Trump cares about Donald Trump and not the average American. and you don't even need to know anything about foreign policy, national security, or economics to see that. All you need to do is to look at the side by side. Donald Trump announced this war from his ballroom in Mar-Lago as people feet away, dance the night away. Two days later, his first real conversation about it with the American people was inside the White House, where he stood there and briefly pivoted away from talking about Medal of Honor recipients to talking about the gold drapes in the White House, and the giant ballroom he was building. Donald Trump is the most out-of-touch billionaire

that's ever occupied the Oval Office, and that is bleeding into his actual decision-making. One more data point, the Washington Post just reported this week that one of the key reasons Donald Trump wanted to go to war with Iran is that their leaders had targeted him. Their leaders had tried to undermine his personal security

and had threatened Donald Trump. And his quote was, I got them before they got me. This is personal for Donald Trump, and personally affects the rest of us. Miles, thank you so much for being here. Thanks, my friend. That was my conversation with Miles Taylor, founder of defiance.org,

and former DHS chief of staff in Trump's first term. And just to clarify, that quote he mentioned at the end was actually from an interview Trump did with ABC News on Sunday. The president was talking about Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Hamini, and he said, quote, I got him before he got me. Unlike the Trump administration, we know what our mission is,

to bring you more of the news. And that's coming up. But if you like the show, make sure to subscribe, leave a five-star review on Spotify and Apple Podcasts, watch us on YouTube and share with your friends.

Stay tuned after some ads. What a Day is brought to you by Zbiotics. Let's face it, after a night with drinks, I don't bounce back the way I used to. I have to make a choice. I can either have a great night

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a chancellery building and then set off a fire in that place. All personnel are accounted for, as you're aware, we began drawing down personnel from our diplomatic facilities in advance of this. Secretary of State Marco Rubio spoke with reporters on Tuesday shortly after an Iranian drone hit a parking lot next to the U.S. consulate in Dubai. United Arab Emirates officials said the strike caused a fire, but that they were able to contain it. This was just one of several retaliatory attacks made by Iran this week against U.S.

consulates and embassies in the Middle East. Drones hit U.S. embassy buildings in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, but no casualties have been reported in those incidents either. Iran has also reportedly damaged energy facilities across the Middle East. Deaths from Iranian strikes have been reported in countries including Israel, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, and the United Arab Emirates. But the death toll in those countries so far remains relatively low compared to the Iranian Red Crescent's estimate of 787 killed in Iran. The State Department is urging Americans to evacuate from more than a dozen countries in the Middle East. The main problem for the people being told to leave is that many airports are closed and airways are restricted amid the war with Iran.

The State Department says they are coordinating with around 3,000 Americans who are among hundreds of thousands of travelers trying to leave the region. On Tuesday, Trump was asked why his administration didn't have a better plan to help Americans abroad. Why wasn't we're an evacuation plan and will you send planes to get people out? because it happened all very quickly. And how could Trump possibly have guessed how quickly war would break out when he started it? State Department officials said Tuesday that the administration is working to charter flights to help get Americans out of the Middle East. They've also directed people stranded in the region to a State Department phone number

for more assistance. But as of this recording, an automated message that plays out when you call says, quote, please do not rely on the U.S. government for assisted departure or evacuation at this time. Noted. A lot has happened since Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Hamine was killed in the initial round of U.S. Israeli strikes in Iran on Saturday. For one, President Trump told the Atlantic he was open to talking with Iran's new leadership. But here's the question. Who would Trump talk to? An interim council assumed temporary leadership duties, while a group of clerics called the Assembly of Experts was set to select a new Supreme Leader.

Israel's ambassador to the United States, Yehiel Leiter, told CNN that Israel actually targeted the place where the assembly would appoint that new leader. We struck in an area where the electors were meeting to appoint a new supreme leader, somebody who would be in charge of spreading death and mayhem, both in Iran and outside of Iran. And there's a very good chance that the electors will not be readily available for any further meeting. According to the Times of Israel, an Israeli defense source said it's unclear how many members of the electors were in the building, if any.

The New York Times cites the Iranian Farras News Agency, which says that the Assembly had met virtually and that nobody was in the building. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Christy Noem testified in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday. Noam repeatedly dodged accountability for falsely accusing René Good and Alex Pretti of domestic terrorism. Good and Prattie were both killed by immigration officers in Minnesota in January. Democrat Dick Durbin from Illinois was one of several senators who confronted Noem. How did you think that calling them domestic terrorists at that scene was somehow going to calm the situation? You know, Senator, we are working in those situations where there's a tragic loss of life and that there is something that our agents are involved in that we continue to deliver information.

Is it so hard to say you were wrong? We continue as these investigations continue to go, we will provide it. I absolutely strive to provide factual information. Spoiler alert, Noam did not admit that she was wrong. And it wasn't just Democrats who expressed frustration with Noem. North Carolina Republican Tom Tillis even compared Noam's poor leadership to the infamous stories she's told about her decisions to kill a dog and a goat that belonged to her family. My point is, those are bad decisions made in the heat of the law.

moment, not unlike what happened up in Minneapolis. I expect we're an exceptional nation. And one of the reasons we're exceptional is we expect exceptional leadership. You may not be surprised to hear the Tillis is retiring when his term is up early next year. And that's the news. Before we go, if you're trying to keep up with the rapidly escalating war on Iran, tune in to Pod Save the World. This week hosts Ben Rhodes and Tommy Vitore dropped two bonus episodes breaking down what's happening in the Middle East, including the latest Iran developments and new statements from Trump and Hegseth. Subscribe now to Pod Save the World so you don't miss bonus episodes like these,

and watch now on YouTube or listen in the Pod Save the World feed. That's all for today. If you like the show, make sure you subscribe, leave a review, ponder whether we really need a Game of Thrones movie or if we're just going to get one, and tell your friends to listen. And if you're into reading and not just about how Warner Brothers is developing yet another Game of Thrones prequel. Like me, What a Day is also

a nightly newsletter, one that I just happened to edit. Check it out and and subscribe at crooked.com slash subscribe. I'm Greg Walters, in for Jane Koston. And if this movie does get made, that doesn't mean George R.R. Martin is off the hook. He's had 15 years to finish the winds of winter.

What a day is a production of Crooked Media. It's recorded and mixed by Desmond Taylor. Our associate producer is Emily 4. Our producer is Caitlin Plummer. Our video editor is Joseph Dutra. Our video producer is Johanna Case. We had production help today from Greg Walters, Matt Berg, Sean Ali, and Ethan Oberman. Our senior producer is Erica Morrison and our senior vice president of News and Politics is Adrian Hill. Our theme music is by Kyle Murdoch and Jordan Cantor.

We had helped today from the Associated Press. Our production staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America East.