Hey everyone. Happy Friday.
We start with the part of the Iran war that almost nobody is talking about. Food, and more specifically, if there will be enough of it to go around. The head of one of the world’s biggest fertilizer companies is warning that this war is going to drive up grain prices and push more of the world’s poorest people into hunger, and the damage is already being done. You don’t feel a lost harvest the day a farmer can’t plant it. You feel it months later, when the food gets scarce and the prices climb.
We’ll also get into the world’s first trillionaire, Trump calling off strikes on Iran, fighter jets coming home from Europe, and the cage fight going up on the White House lawn.
And a quick thank you before we get started. We just wrapped our first week as a podcast, and the support has been incredible. If you haven’t already, please subscribe and rate The Kinzinger Report on whatever platform you use. It really helps us climb up the charts so more people can hear the truth.
1. Trump Pushes Congress to Erase His Impeachments
The head of one of the world’s largest fertilizer producers is warning the war is on track to spike grain prices and deepen hunger for the world’s poor.
The company turns natural gas into the fertilizer that grows corn, wheat, and rice. By their estimate, that fertilizer is responsible for feeding about half the people on the planet. Since the war began, its price has jumped, because Gulf supply dried up and the same energy shock that hit oil sent natural gas soaring.
With the Strait of Hormuz effectively shut, about 30 percent of the region’s exports can’t get out. The company is loading product onto trucks and hauling it overland to other ports, and it still isn’t close to enough.
And here’s what makes this so dangerous. It can take months for fertilizer to get from the Gulf to a farmer’s field. The farmers feeling it right now are in the Southern Hemisphere, where it’s planting season, and a lot of them can’t get the credit or the government help to buy fertilizer at these prices. If they miss this planting window, you won’t see it today. You’ll see it in a thin harvest months from now.
Analysts at ING called it what it is. “A tragedy unfolding in slow motion.”
And here’s the part that matters most, because you’re going to hear a lot of optimism about this war winding down. There’s hope a deal is close, and the markets are already betting on it. Word that the strait might reopen was enough to push oil below 90 dollars a barrel today. But even if it opens tomorrow, the fertilizer a farmer didn’t put in the ground this season can’t be put back. And grain prices, once they climb, take a long time to come down.
The rest of the world is already scrambling. The EU just put up more than 600 million dollars to help its own farmers afford fertilizer, and the UN’s food agency warned last month of a shock that could set off a global food crisis.
For twelve years I represented a district full of Illinois farmland. I talked with farmers all the time, and they taught me something early that’s stuck with me ever since. Today’s events don’t bill you today. A dry spell in May shows up at the grain elevator in October. An input cost in March decides what a family can afford the next winter. Farmers live on that delay, and it’s why they see around corners the rest of us miss.
That’s exactly how to read this war. The strikes can stop tomorrow and a deal can be signed next week, and I hope both happen. But we’ll be paying for this war long after it’s over.
2. Elon Musk Becomes World’s First Trillionaire As Americans Struggle
As of this morning, Elon Musk is the world’s first trillionaire.
His rocket company, SpaceX, is now valued at roughly 1.7 trillion dollars, and it pushes Musk, who owns about 42 percent of it, past a trillion dollars in personal net worth. The stock starts trading today on the Nasdaq.
For perspective, the second-richest person on earth, Larry Page, is worth around $288 billion. Musk is in a tier all by himself, and has been for some time.
Now, there’s a real fight over what this milestone literally means. Critics argue the entire fortune is a wealth transfer from everyday investors to insiders. Others call it a new step for oligarchy.
Look, Americans are pulling up to gas stations right now and seeing $4 a gallon and above. Inflation just surged to 4.2%, its highest level in three years. The last thing Americans need to be learning and the last thing that needs to be happening is this news, especially about a former ally of the President of the United States.
3. Trump Threatens, Backs Off, and Declares Victory in Iran in One Day
Here’s the sequence, all inside one day. Thursday morning, Trump threatened to hit Iran even harder and floated seizing its main oil island. By the afternoon, he canceled the strikes, pointing to progress in talks. By the evening, he announced the war was essentially over.
If that gives you whiplash, you are not alone. By one running tally, Trump has now declared a deal close to forty times. There was a signed ceasefire back in April that never actually…ceased fire. Iran keeps saying no final agreement has been reached. Even Israel says it isn’t aware of one.
Trump said the signing could happen this weekend, in Europe, but that he personally would have to miss it.
You heard that correctly: the president can’t attend. Why? He’s hosting a UFC match on the South Lawn of the White House on Sunday! So, the Vice President would have to go and sign in his place.
It, of course, gets even stranger. Trump also claimed the Strait of Hormuz, which Iran has effectively cut off access to for months, has secretly been open the whole time, thanks to a covert nighttime operation moving American ships through. “The strait is open,” he said. “But the straits have been open for a number of months already, and you just didn’t know about it.”
Great news Mr. President! Too bad you haven’t gotten a chance to tell oil companies though. Last time I checked, gas prices haven’t come down yet, and they’ve been high because the Strait of Hormuz has been closed.
We have to accept that we can’t take any of this information seriously. At this point, until inflation and oil prices adjust to where they were before, the effects of this conflict show we’re still in it. We’ll keep a close eye on everything for you, stay tuned.
4. U.S. to Pull a Third of its NATO Fighter Jets Out of Europe
The New York Times reports the Pentagon plans to cut 50 F-16 and F-15 jets, along with an entire aircraft carrier group from its NATO commitments.
These cuts hit the NATO forces built up in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The administration calls it burden-sharing, while the commander of U.S. forces in Europe said there has been, in his words, “an unhealthy co-dependence” on American power.
Co-dependence is a strange word for a partnership that kept the peace for eighty years. And you don’t fix it by blindsiding allies while Russia is still waging war on the continent’s doorstep.
As a former Air Force pilot, I know that deterrence comes from what the other side believes you will do. Pull your jets out in the middle of a war on the border, and you have answered that question for them. You will leave. The administration calls that burden-sharing. The rest of the world will call it what it is: a retreat.
5. The President's Having a Birthday Party And Attendance Is Mandatory
This Sunday is the President’s 80th birthday, and he is celebrating it the way the rest of us do: by turning the White House grounds into a cage-fighting arena. At his request, the UFC gave the South Lawn a full makeover: an octagon, grandstands, you name it. All on the same grass where presidents are supposed to host heads of state. And like a kid whose mom made the whole class come so the party wouldn’t look empty, he’s having the Pentagon bus in buff-looking troops to fill the seats.
Since you can’t upset the special birthday boy, Marco Rubio reached for a comparison for the event you have to hear to believe:
Absurdity aside, here’s the part that isn’t in any press release: Trump’s own financial disclosure shows he bought stock in UFC’s parent company this spring, while he was promoting this very event. So the man threw himself a birthday party that also happens to pad his own portfolio.
A poll this week found just 16 percent of Americans approve of the event, but does that surprise anyone? It’s a for-profit show on the White House lawn, on the President’s birthday, run through a company he owns stock in, with troops bused in to fill the seats. Unlike Rubio, most Americans are wondering how we got from the moon landing to a circus like this.
Some other stories that caught my eye:
The Kennedy Center’s board voted Thursday to seek an emergency stay of a federal court order requiring Trump’s name be stripped from the building. The board’s position is that the renaming, which it pushed through last year as the “Trump Kennedy Center,” should stand while an appeal plays out, and members even passed a resolution praising Trump’s commitment to the institution. U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper ruled in May that Trump’s name was illegally added to the Kennedy Center and that only Congress can change the center’s name. The fallout has been real, with many artists pulling out of appearances, and collaborators like Ben Folds and Renée Fleming resigned, while the National Symphony Orchestra’s executive director left for another job. This isn’t just a legal fight over a name plate. It’s about whether a politically appointed board can override a court and Congress because they don’t like the outcome.
On Thursday, President Trump announced he’s nominating Jay Clayton, the current US Attorney for the Southern District of New York and former SEC chairman, as his permanent pick for Director of National Intelligence. His nomination will require Senate approval, and the Senate Intelligence Committee has already scheduled a confirmation hearing for next Wednesday. Trump praised Clayton on Truth Social, calling him highly respected in the legal community and urging quick confirmation. This comes after Trump’s controversial decision to name Bill Pulte, the head of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, as acting DNI sparked bipartisan pushback over Pulte’s complete lack of intelligence experience. That fight directly contributed to both the House and Senate failing to pass an extension of Section 702 of FISA, a key surveillance authority.
