What a Bad Night Frees Trump to Do
In Blue Crush, we argued that the Iran war cost Republicans the midterms. Some of the sharpest criticism since the election has come from Trump’s own side. Matt Walsh called him a lame duck and said the party’s immediate task was to find its next leader. We think that rush to move on is unfair to Trump and premature for JD Vance.
Trump kept campaigning after the shooting in Butler and a second assassination attempt in Florida. He did it while fighting politically motivated prosecutions, including this New York case. He went through that while running on promises his supporters had waited years to see acted on.
Trump Voters Largely Got What They Voted For
Granted, they didn’t vote for the Iran War. Nevertheless, on immigration and antiwhite discrimination, the Trump Administration has delivered. Trump’s immigration policy is the most restrictive in a century, argued Josef Burton, earlier this year. U.S. consulates issued 49% fewer immigrant visas in February 2026 than in February 2024. Over the same period, Cato’s David Bier found that student visas fell 42% and H-1B and H-4 visas fell 78%. Trump imposed a $100K fee for certain new H-1B hires from abroad (though courts have so far blocked collection). In fiscal 2026, refugee admissions fell 84% from Biden’s last full fiscal year and 81% from Obama’s. Nearly all were White South Africans.
On the southwest border, Border Patrol recorded more than 2.7 million direct releases into the U.S. under Biden from February 2021 through December 2024. Under Trump, it reported zero direct releases from May 2025 through September 2026. Apprehensions in fiscal 2026 were 95% below Biden’s annual average. The Migration Policy Institute projects 382% more deportations following interior arrests in fiscal 2026 than in Biden’s last full fiscal year. It estimates voluntary departures in Trump’s first 18 months were 100% to 300% above previous highs in its data going back to 2014.
Trump also ordered federal DEI preferences ended, extended the campaign to federal contractors and challenged racial preferences in university admissions and private employment. That includes discrimination against white applicants and workers.
Vance Named Four Things to Fix
Vance’s post on Wednesday relayed a pollster’s findings about Trump voters who switched sides. They wanted an end to the war, action on the cost of living, an America First foreign policy and a different relationship with Israel. The pollster’s findings, as Vance described them, offer a better place to start than writing off the administration or its presumptive successor.
When Democrats take both chambers in January, Trump will need their votes for tax legislation. He can still set enforcement priorities, open negotiations and propose changes to where American forces are based. The midterms are behind him, and he has no reelection campaign to protect. Being unpopular gives him a kind of freedom. He can spend the next two years on decisions that may be unpopular now and look a good deal better by 2028.
Finish the War With Iran
Trump should negotiate an end to the war around two red lines. Iran must forgo nuclear weapons, and commercial vessels must be able to navigate freely through the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz. Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian has said at the UN that Iran won’t seek a bomb. Turn that declaration into a commitment the International Atomic Energy Agency can verify, with access to the relevant facilities and nuclear material. The agency has spelled out what access it still needs.
Everything else should be on the table. Trump should be prepared to offer phased sanctions relief, normalization of relations and the drawdown or removal of U.S. bases in the region. Tie each step to reciprocal commitments. The most useful sign of a deal will be tankers sailing through Hormuz routinely and underwriters willing to insure them at ordinary rates.
A wider agreement could trade an end to Iranian-backed attacks on Israel for an end to Israeli covert operations against Iran. Pursue that separately if it takes longer. An enforceable U.S.–Iran agreement on nuclear weapons and navigation would be worth taking even if the Israeli and Iranian governments remain at odds.
Put America First by Reducing the Risk of War
Trump should say plainly what the Iran war taught us. American military power has limits, and so does Americans’ willingness to incur casualties in a long war overseas. If the country won’t bear the costs of decisively defeating Iran, Washington should rethink plans that assume it would sustain a direct war with Russia or China. It was less costly to learn that lesson in the Persian Gulf than it likely would’ve been in a fight with either of them.
Start with a workable peace with both powers. Trump should seek a settlement in Ukraine, ideally with Kiev at the table. Washington should work to reduce tensions with Moscow regardless of whether those talks move forward. It can start by proposing reciprocal limits on deployments and military exercises near Russia. Treasury’s license for Russian diesel expires April 7, 2027. A lasting agreement to ease energy sanctions would give buyers and shippers more certainty. The drop in Russian exports has already tightened the diesel market. Steadier flows of Russian oil and fuel could lower energy and freight costs and ease inflation.
In the Taiwan Strait, Washington should negotiate limits on close military encounters and provocative deployments in exchange for concrete Chinese steps to reduce military pressure on Taiwan. Keep direct military hotlines open and agree on what ships and aircraft should do when they encounter one another. The aim is to make it harder for an incident to become a war.
Trump has already proposed talks with both countries on cutting nuclear arsenals and military spending. Start with verifiable limits and inspections, then cut forces and spending as the agreements take effect. A smaller bill for overseas contingencies is one benefit. The larger one is a lower chance that an American president has to decide whether to fight a war the country is unwilling to sustain.
Make the Israel Aid Decision Stick
On Election Day, Trump said the aid would end this year. He put it at about $4 billion a year and said of Israel, “They don’t need it.” The existing aid agreement runs through fiscal 2028, subject to congressional appropriations. Trump should work with Congress to put a timetable in law and explain in a speech what comes next. Israel can buy American weapons with its own money, and the countries can keep cooperating where their interests coincide.
Most Jewish voters backed Kamala Harris in 2024. Some Jewish donors support Republicans, but the larger constituency Trump needs to speak to about this decision is evangelical Christians. Pew found 81% of white evangelical Protestants voted for him in 2024.
Ask Ambassador Mike Huckabee to help write the speech. He’s a former Baptist pastor and a longtime supporter of Israel who has also publicly criticized West Bank settler violence. He can help Trump explain why continued friendship, frank disagreement and an end to the subsidy can go together.
Ask Congress for a Payroll Tax Increase
Restoring oil traffic is the first cost-of-living measure. Gasoline accounted for over half of September’s monthly rise in consumer prices. A tax increase can cool demand, but it can’t move a tanker through Hormuz. The case for raising taxes rests on what’s still driving inflation after energy supplies start to recover.
During COVID, Trump signed the bills that sent the first two rounds of checks to American households. Biden signed the third. The money helped keep the economy going while people were out of work. It also gave households more to spend while businesses struggled to supply goods and services. San Francisco Fed researchers estimated fiscal support added about three percentage points to U.S. inflation by the end of 2021.
That episode illustrates an argument made by Modern Monetary Theory. Government can support spending when demand collapses. When spending outruns what the economy can supply, taxes can take some demand back out. Stephanie Kelton, a leading MMT economist, backed the 2021 rescue package. A year later she explained why a payroll tax could cool excess demand by reaching households that spend much of what they earn. She opposed a hike in 2022. She saw other causes as more important and argued that higher taxes would squeeze households already struggling with inflation. Sending people checks in a crisis is easier politics than taking money out of their paychecks when prices are already high. With the midterms behind him, Trump can make the case for the harder half of the policy.
Trump should ask Democrats to negotiate a temporary Medicare payroll surcharge if spending continues to outstrip supply. Taxing high earners can raise revenue, but if the aim is to slow household spending, the tax has to reach paychecks well below the top. Congress has a separate reason to act. The Medicare trustees project the hospital trust fund’s reserves will run out in 2033 under current law.
Spell Out What Workers Would Pay
One starting point for negotiations would be an employee-side surcharge of 1.5 percentage points on the first $200,000 of annual wages and 3 percentage points on wages above that. The higher rate would apply only to earnings above the threshold. At $60,000 a year, the proposal would take $900 a year, or $75 a month, out of a worker’s paycheck. That’s a real cost to ask people to bear after an election about affordability, but the pandemic checks helped push prices up in the first place. If spending still outruns supply once fuel costs ease, a temporary payroll surcharge would help slow further price increases while shoring up Medicare.
Dedicate the proceeds to Medicare’s hospital trust fund and have Congress’s budget scorekeepers estimate the effect on take-home pay, demand and the fund. Set a two-year expiration, with a fresh vote required to extend it. If demand is already cooling by the time a bill is negotiated, scale down or defer the surcharge. A sounder Medicare balance sheet and slower inflation are achievable aims. It will take cheaper energy, more supply or rising real wages to give households back purchasing power.
Make a Tariff Deal With Democrats
Trump should ask Democrats to put a targeted set of tariffs into law, with rates set for several years and a fixed review schedule. Biden’s decision to keep and selectively raise Trump’s China tariffs gives them a place to start. A company deciding whether to build an American factory has to estimate what its competitors will pay to import the same product by the time the plant opens. If the tariff could disappear before then, waiting may be the better investment. Congress can give manufacturers a policy they can plan around and use some of the revenue to help pay for its priorities.
Set Vance Up For Success
Vance can argue for these changes now and help deliver them (or he can distance himself from the payroll tax increase if he wants, and let Trump take the heat alone for that). If by 2028 the U.S. is at peace, tankers are moving through Hormuz, fuel prices and inflation are down, and Congress has done something serious about Medicare’s finances, he can run on that. The voters he wrote about will be able to judge what changed after they sent their message.
For investors, the first signs that an Iran deal is working would be more tankers moving through Hormuz and lower shipping insurance costs. If sanctions on Russia ease, steadier fuel shipments could also bring down fuel and freight costs. A broad payroll surcharge would take spending power out of the economy. For businesses that depend on discretionary purchases, the rates and effective dates of any bill will matter.
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Wishful thinking. Democrats are already declaring they are going to investigate Trump, his family, and everyone who worked for the Administration. The Establishment Democrats need to send a message that the far left do not run the party.