Trump threatens to declare Strait of Hormuz 'territory of the US'

The danger to public health amid the persecution of Mr. Foucher

who used to run the Center for Disease Control, and, of course, the new, you know, the Secretary of Health in America

making American health great again, as Trump would say, run Robert Kennedy Jr., saying we've got to ban the MMR vaccine

or at least separate them out. What's going on there? Well, we've got intertwined stories here, Matt

one of which goes back to the pandemic. And of course, Dr. Fauci, who headed up America's Institute for Infectious Diseases

the leading virologist in America. And I think between the containment measures and the vaccines

he was one of the scientists that was responsible for saving millions of lives

And Trump hated it from the get-go, didn't he? Yeah, because Fauci wouldn't put up with some of the nonsense that Trump came out with

For example, you know, maybe we should think about people injecting bleach or maybe we should think about them taking ivermectin, you know, horse dewormer or hydroxychloroquine

You know, so all of those, you know, like pseudo scientific ideas that Trump had

And then, of course, Trump trying to lift the containment measures. And Fauci kept telling him, not as much publicly, but privately, look, you're going to get people killed here

Well, Fauci was right. And indeed, the other scientists and medics who we should hail were right

But there are a lot of conspiracy theorists, a lot of COVID and vaccine deniers, including in Trump's cabinet and in Congress

And so here we are in 2026 that although Joe Biden anticipating this had given Fauci a pardon for anything up to, you know, through Biden's time in office, Senator Rand Paul, this libertarian from Kentucky, wants Fauci in prison

And so do other Republican senators. So they dragged him through these hearings a few weeks ago

And having threatened him with prison, Fauci took the fifth on the advice of his lawyers

because anything he said despite that pardon the pardon didn cover that He could have been prosecuted you know And so he pled the fifth and Rand Paul and the other Republicans then tried to stitch him up by saying well you going to be held contempt of Congress charges

So 85 years old, Fauci being threatened with prison. And it reminds me of that scene in War of the Worlds, the film from the 1950s, Matt, where, you know, people are just scared

They're frightened because the aliens are invading. So what do they do? They just tear up the research labs and wreck all the labs, which brings us to the second story

That rather than upholding the scientists and the medics, you have the conspiracy theorist and the vaccine denier, Robert Kennedy

And he and Trump have this big press conference this week where they say, well, we're going to scrap the measles, mumps, rubella jabs, the NMR jabs

And, you know, that you'll make parents have to take them singularly

They're doing this on the basis of a discredited, a long discredited theory, which you might remember was pushed by Andrew Wakefield 25 years ago in the UK, that these vaccines cause autism

And there's no scientific evidence to uphold that. Now, the risk here, Matt, is that people are going to, because you have to go in for multiple trips to the doctors, and because you hear all this stuff that they might be dangerous, they stop taking the jabs

the united states has already set a record this year for measles cases they've exceeded last year's

record already in just seven months and this is dangerous you know we've only had fortunately we

only had two unvaccinated children who died from measles last year but there's the risk it could

be far more in the u.s and of course globally so it's it's a combination i mean we should remind

people that measles is one of the most infectious infectious diseases out there yeah and so what

you have is is that you have this trashing of scientists and medics in face replaced by this

junk science and conspiracy theorists at a time remember when the united states when trump one of

the first things he did was pull the u.s out of the world health organization and it's a question

of when do we get back to a sensible discussion of public health rather than being led by these folks who hold positions of power but instead have no regard no regard for what is the proper way of dealing with this scientifically and medically

Indeed, and we should point out that one of the biggest conspiracy theorists on issues of vaccination and vaccine denies

is actually the Secretary of Health who's in charge of the nation's health, and that is a scary thought

let's move on to iran then i mean iran is a sort of groundhog day nightmare for trump isn't it um

i saw that yesterday he claimed that actually he might turn the strait of hormuz into american

territory i mean of all the pipe dreams that he's entertained recently where the iranians are

clearly determining the timing and the terms of when this thing will end in the strait of hormuz

which is now their super weapon um this is the latest bit of bonkers trump rhetoric

Yeah, except it's more serious than that, because in Trump's head, Matt, somehow he can make this happen

Remember, Trump likes to take stuff. So he's tried to take the Panama C back

He's tried to take Greenland. He has tried to take Venezuela, succeeded in part in doing that

And so he's now like, I'm going to change reality by just declaring this. It's important to establish what that reality is

Iran controls the Strait of Hormuz. They're negotiating with the Gulf state of Oman, which is on the south side of the strait, for joint management

June's Memorandum of Understanding, which Trump signed, recognized that Iranian management. But because Trump and his folks are backing away from that, what they say is, no, no, no, no, no

We'll control the strait. Now, in fact, two weeks ago, they reached a dead end on military options

They were considering expanding the airstrikes on Iran. Their military said, you do that, you don't have enough air defense interceptors if Iran retaliates, we don't have enough offensive munitions, and we would have to expand to civilian targets, which raises questions about war crimes

So they pulled back from that. So what do they do? What do they do other than going back into talks, including over the strait

So the latest fantasy bluster that they're putting out is, we'll break Iran economically

Now this goes back to Operation Economic Fury back in April Folks you been in this for six months Iran economy is a shambles It been a problem even before this war but that does not mean regime surrender If anything the regime is

able to go to its people and say, look, you have to sacrifice because the Americans are trying to

break you. So whether it's days or weeks, especially with the election coming up, I think Trump has to

go back into negotiations. But will he do so on that basis of that memorandum of understanding

which he signed in June. I doubt it. Worth pointing out that actually J.D. Vance has just said

that keeping the gas prices low is priority number one of this war. It used to be getting rid of the regime

and reducing their ballistic missile capability, but it's become keeping gas prices low

which is rather ironic and sad for everyone. Finally and briefly, let's move on to Trump's poll numbers

record low, and of course the catering truck incident. Yeah, well, let's talk about surreal on top of real

Real is that as long as this war in Iran goes, that the economic problems grow for Trump's folks

That's why J.D. Vance is trying to bail out on this by saying, look, look, look, we'll get your gas prices down because J.D. Vance wants to be president in 2028

But the immediate crisis for them is the 2026 midterms in November. On top of that, to bring all these stories together, Trump, with all this bluster, has to be taken last in July after the NATO summit from Air Force One to another jet because there's supposedly a threat that they may attack Air Force One, the Iranians, and they hide him in a catering truck

Here's the stinger in the tale. The journalists who are on that plane were not told about this

and cabinet members like Marco Rubio, who were not told about this, and the press secretary

Caroline Levitt, who may or may not have made this the tipping point for her decision to leave

a few days ago. And what do you have? Donald Trump and Pete Hegseth, the warrior men

the tough men, taking a couple of their assistants with them, including Trump's social media person

Natalie Harp. They hide in a catering truck. What kind of projection of strength is that, folks

in the couple months before the elections