Good morning, I’m Thom Hartmann.
Trump spent Tuesday morning raging at NATO allies for not joining his war, telling Britain to “build up some delayed courage” and go take the Strait of Hormuz themselves. The State Department has issued a worldwide cable directing every U.S. embassy to run anti-propaganda operations alongside military psychological operations units, specifically endorsing Elon Musk’s X as the tool to do it. The DHS shutdown is now expected to drag into summer after Trump accidentally eliminated his own leverage by paying TSA workers. And a top House Democrat is drawing fierce criticism for announcing he will vote to reauthorize sweeping warrantless surveillance powers for this administration.
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Trump Tells NATO Allies to Go Take the Strait Themselves. Italy Just Refused to Let His Bombers Land.
In a Tuesday morning Truth Social post, Trump told countries struggling with the global oil crisis to “build up some delayed courage, go to the Strait, and just TAKE IT.” He singled out Britain for refusing to participate in what he called “the decapitation of Iran” and attacked France for not allowing U.S. military supply planes to fly over French territory.
The same day, Italy refused to allow U.S. bombers to land at Sigonella, a key NATO base in Sicily, because the U.S. did not seek proper permission and Italy’s military leadership was not consulted.
Every major European ally has declined to join or assist Trump’s Iran operation. The United States is prosecuting a war entirely without allied support that has killed 13 service members and pushed gas toward $4 a gallon. Sources say Trump has been telling aides he is prepared to end military operations without solving the Strait of Hormuz crisis, apparently having concluded that reopening the passage would require either extending the conflict significantly or putting boots on the ground. The president who declared victory cannot reopen the shipping lane that caused the energy crisis, his allies won’t help him, and he is reportedly bored.
What we’re watching here is the unraveling of seventy years of American alliance-building, the thing that actually kept the peace after World War Two. When our closest partners start blocking our bombers from their bases, that’s not a diplomatic hiccup, that’s the world telling us they don’t trust us anymore, and that trust, once broken, doesn’t just come back.
The State Department Endorsed Elon Musk’s X as an Official Tool of U.S. Psychological Operations
A cable signed by Secretary of State Marco Rubio instructs every U.S. embassy and consulate to launch coordinated anti-propaganda campaigns and specifically endorses Musk’s X platform by name as an “innovative” tool for countering disinformation. The cable also directs embassy staff to work alongside U.S. military psychological operations units.
The United States government has officially designated a platform owned by one of Trump’s closest billionaire allies as an instrument of state psychological operations. Musk sits on a White House technology advisory panel. His company just received a $10 billion military contract. He was secretly on a presidential foreign policy call about the Iran war. And now his platform is formally endorsed for military psyops by the Secretary of State.
This is not a free speech policy. It is the construction of a state-aligned information architecture, built on platforms owned by oligarchs with direct financial ties to this administration, coordinated with military operations, at the exact moment independent journalism is being defunded and threatened out of existence.
Every authoritarian government in history has needed a media apparatus it controls, and what we’re seeing is America’s version being assembled in plain sight. When a single billionaire’s platform becomes the official instrument of state psychological operations, the line between a free press and state propaganda doesn’t blur, POOF - it disappears.
Trump Accidentally Eliminated His Own Leverage. The DHS Shutdown May Last Until Summer.
The DHS shutdown is expected to drag into summer. The reason is bitter irony: Trump eliminated his own leverage when he paid TSA workers. Airport chaos was the administration’s primary tool for forcing Democratic capitulation on ICE funding. When Trump ordered TSA workers paid, he removed the pressure that had previously broken a shutdown. “Remember in the last shutdown, it was airport chaos that forced the seven Democrats to switch sides,” one DHS official said. That pressure is gone.
Congress has adjourned for two weeks. More than 2,000 cybersecurity workers, 4,000 FEMA employees, and 1,000 Coast Guard civilians remain unpaid. ICE became politically radioactive after agents killed two American citizens in Minneapolis in January, and Democrats will not fund it without conditions. Trump has made little effort to unite Republicans. The House and Senate are blaming each other publicly. “People are thinking this will go into the summer,” one administration official said.
Behind the political theater, what’s actually happening is that thousands of Americans who protect our coastlines, respond to disasters, and defend our digital infrastructure aren’t getting paid — and the people who are supposed to govern can’t get out of their own way long enough to fix it. That’s not dysfunction, that’s a government that’s been deliberately broken.
A House Democrat Is Lobbying Colleagues to Renew Warrantless Surveillance Powers for Trump
House Intelligence Committee Ranking Member Jim Himes announced Monday he will vote to reauthorize Section 702 of FISA, which enables warrantless government surveillance, and lobby fellow Democrats to join him. Section 702 has been abused at least hundreds of thousands of times, including to surveil protesters, journalists, and congressional donors. Its authorization expires April 20th.
Himes acknowledged most Democrats don’t trust Trump with these powers but argued Trump hasn’t technically abused the program. Critics were swift. “It is unforgivably cynical and reckless for Rep. Himes to make it easier for this administration to spy on Americans,” said the executive director of Demand Progress, “especially when government agencies have made clear they intend to supercharge surveillance with artificial intelligence.”
The timing is alarming. The FBI admitted this month it purchases Americans’ location data without warrants. Palantir holds a $10 billion government contract to build the AI infrastructure that processes mass surveillance data. The State Department just endorsed Musk’s platform for military psyops. Each piece fits with the others, and a House Democrat is now helping one of them stay in place.
The Fourth Amendment wasn’t written to protect people from governments that were obviously tyrannical, it was written precisely for moments like this one, when a government looks just legitimate enough that some people are still giving it the benefit of the doubt. Handing a surveillance apparatus of this scale to this administration isn’t caution, it’s capitulation.
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The picture from this morning is coherent. A war without allied support or an exit plan. A State Department that has made a MAGA billionaire’s platform an official psyops tool. A surveillance apparatus being expanded with Democratic help. And a media landscape owned by Bezos, controlled by Ellison, and threatened by an FCC chair who told broadcasters last Friday they can hand in their licenses if they don’t comply.
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Good morning. We will see you tomorrow.
STORIES YOU MAY HAVE MISSED:
Even More Americans Worried About Healthcare Costs Than Economy. A new Gallup poll finds that a larger percentage of Americans are worried a “great deal” about rising healthcare costs than they are about the state of the U.S. economy. 61 percent of Americans listed the cost of healthcare as their top issue of concern, beating out the economy for the first time since 2020. Roughly half of Americans are “very worried” about inflation and the economy. The poll comes as Republicans in Congress failed to extend Affordable Care Act tax credits, making health insurance significantly more expensive for tens of millions of Americans.
Trump Gets Airport Named After Him While His War Keeps Killing People. Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis signed HB 919 into law this week, which would change the name of the Palm Beach International Airport to the “President Donald J. Trump International Airport.” Meanwhile, nearly 2,000 people have been killed in Trump’s war in Iran with no end in sight. 13 American service members have been killed, while more than 200 U.S. troops have been wounded.
Trump’s Gaudy Presidential Library Design Includes Golden Statue of Himself. Trump recently unveiled the designs for his presidential library in Miami, which would be a 47-story skyscraper bearing his name on the top. The design also includes a faux Oval Office, a golden escalator symbolizing where he announced his 2016 presidential campaign, and even a golden statue of himself after his 2024 assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania. California Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom — who is presumed to run for the presidency in 2028 — said the statue looks “awfully familiar,” comparing it to statues of North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Un and Chinese President Xi Jinping.
Pardoned Jan. 6 Rioter Gets 4-Year Prison Sentence for CSAM Collection. Amherst, Massachusetts man Daniel Tocci — who Trump pardoned for his role in the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol — was sentenced this week to a four-year prison sentence for possessing more than 100,000 images of child sexual abuse material (CSAM). His attorneys previously tried to have the CSAM charges dropped, arguing that the images were obtained as part of the raid on his home relating to his Jan. 6 arrest and that the pardon covered the CSAM images. However, they eventually withdrew that motion. Tocci also possessed what authorities called “disturbing” images of violence against animals and bestiality.
Democrats Win Another Special Election in Florida. On Monday, Navy veteran and union leader Brian Nathan won a special Florida state senate election in the 14th district, which covers the West Tampa area. Nathan defeated Republican Josie Tomkow, who outspent him by a 10-1 margin. He won by 855 votes, just under half a percentage point. Nathan’s victory is the 30th Democratic flip of a Republican district since Trump was reelected in 2024.
