ОБ ЭТОМ ЭПИЗОДЕ
This week's "Who Said It" is about gas prices, refineries, blue states, and Ukraine — and the creative geography involved in that explanation is going to set the tone for everything that follows about how this administration talks about energy.
Tesla jumped and the most credible theory involves Elon unfollowing someone on X — we explain the relationship, the timeline, and why four secret children and a perjury allegation make this one of the more complicated breakups in recent memory. SpaceX ticked up too, and we eventually found the actual reason, which involves Taiwan and semiconductors and is considerably less dramatic.
Ukraine has now knocked out half of Russia's refining capacity — and while Trump is blaming blue states and Ukraine for fuel prices, the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve just hit its lowest level since 1982. The EU opened their strategic reserves after being threatened into it. We note where that leaves everyone if this conflict escalates.
The New York Times dropped a story about Kushner and Witkoff quietly negotiating to acquire Russian oil fields as part of a peace deal — and once you map out the Albania real estate connection, the Qatar brothers at the inauguration, Kushner's defense investment portfolio, and his $2.4 billion Gaza rebuilding plan, the phrase "conflict of interest" starts to feel very inadequate. Russia's sovereign wealth fund chief called Jared a Peacemaker with a capital P and a dove emoji. We have thoughts.
Pneumonic plague showed up in Siberia and Trump immediately offered to help Russia — the same administration that spent years telling us to distrust doctors. Ukraine shot down a jet-powered drone using something that has never been used for that purpose before, and we're going to make you guess what it was. Mamdani moved 10,000 families off the childcare waitlist and Fox News is reportedly doing fine.
The B-1 Lancers pulled out of the UK base after five terror suspects were released on bail — and what replaced them in the region tells a very different story about what comes next. Kristi Noem spent her last days at DHS buying planes at prices that made aviation experts visibly uncomfortable, from a donor who somehow didn't know her name was on his website. And Dennis Hastert died — and we say exactly what needs to be said about that.
If you are wondering about the album art this week that's the inside of Trump's jacket at one of his rallies. Make sure to outsource all your maga rally fits
In case you want to check in on the Strait of Hormuz ship traffic, the link is below
