President Donald J Trump answers questions from the media as he departs the White House for a rally in Nebraska.

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Susan Kokinda delivers a great contextual overview for the IRGC letter to the world asking everyone, anyone, to help protect them from President Trump’s strategic operation against Iran.

Kokinda opens with the 26-page open letter Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps addressed to the American people weeks before the midterms, which the State Department dismissed as desperate and the Daily Wire read as a call to vote Democrat. She argues the letter tells a bigger story than anyone is reporting: it names the CIA, Israel and the military-industrial complex, but never once the British. After President Trump’s “easy way or the hard way” remark on Iran, and his statement at the U.N. that the election won’t influence his Iran policy, the episode revisits the 1953 overthrow of Mohammad Mosaddegh, whom the letter calls an “Americanophile,” after he nationalized the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, today’s BP, and cites National Security Archive documents showing the British Foreign Office approached the Truman administration in late 1952 to propose a coup.

Her review then then turns to a Foreign Affairs newsletter citing the 1956 Suez crisis as a parallel to the war with Iran, President Eisenhower’s refusal to back Britain and France at Suez, and Gamal Abdel Nasser’s 1955 Foreign Affairs article on how the British ran Egypt. It closes with Richard Haass on Morning Joe, the morning after Trump’s U.N. speech, calling it “the end of 80 years of American foreign policy,” Chatham House director Bronwen Maddox on Europe having to defend itself against the U.S., and Mark Carney telling the New York Times he spent the past year preparing for the “extreme tail risk” of U.S. military action against Canada.  WATCH:

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A few weeks ago, the voters in Iceland rejected a referendum to join the European Union.  Iceland remains a NATO ally, but not an EU member, this dynamic becomes more important when considering the Arctic defense strategy of President Trump and Secretary Rubio.

From the State Dept: Secretary of State Marco Rubio will travel to Reykjavík, Iceland; Athens, Greece; and Lisbon, Portugal from October 5-8, 2026.

Secretary Rubio will meet with Icelandic officials in Reykjavík to discuss economic and security collaboration.  In Greece, Secretary Rubio will lead the United States delegation for the Sixth U.S.-Greece Strategic Dialogue, deepening our partnership on key Administration priorities, including defense cooperation and regional and energy security.  Secretary Rubio will then travel to Lisbon to meet with Portuguese officials to advance defense, economic, and technology cooperation. (read more)

Rubio delivered remarks just before departure.  RAF Fairford, Russian Plague, Brazil Election, Saudi and Houthis, and more. WATCH:

I would also emphasize a little-known aspect to the Portuguese relationship.  Portugal has one of the most effective intelligence operations in the world, in part due to their diplomatic corps who have groomed very strong relationships with allies and not-s0-friendly nations.  Portugal maintains a very well-run, albeit very quiet intelligence system.

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Margaret Brennan asks Energy Secretary Chris Wright to tell her about U.S. troop and military deployments to the Middle East, and whether President Trump is going to “escalate” military operations in the region.  Yeah, she asked about that; as if the Energy Secretary would even talk about it on television if he knew.

Unfortunately, this remains the outlook of U.S. media. Energy Secretary Chris Wright told “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan” that President Trump was “well aware of the risks to energy flows” before launching the Iran war, but he said the president said, “the world cannot sustain a nuclear-armed Iran, and I’m not going to do it.”  WATCH:

[Transcript] – MARGARET BRENNAN: Good morning, and welcome to Face the Nation. We begin with one of the Trump administration officials tasked with working to lower those high gas and oil prices, Energy Secretary Chris Wright. Good morning to you.

SECRETARY OF ENERGY CHRIS WRIGHT: Good morning, Margaret.

MARGARET BRENNAN: So, it’s good to have you here. You said this past week that Americans can expect lower gasoline prices and diesel prices by election day. The Wall Street Journal editorial board has a piece outlining that the campaign to squeeze around financially is working, but they can still knock out significant Gulf energy infrastructure. They could be planning an October surprise before the U.S. midterms. We are still seeing Iranian attacks on ships now. I mean, how can you be so confident prices are headed down?

SEC. WRIGHT: Well, because we’ve got increasing supplies coming out of the Strait of Hormuz and they’ve continued to rise over the last months, over the last recent weeks. We’ve got U.S. gasoline production today at record high. We have demand for gasoline, as we come out of the summer driving scene, starting to go down. Similar stories with diesel. Diesel’s mostly been infected by the Russia-Ukraine war and also by China’s decision not to export diesel or gasoline into the marketplace. And of course, we’re living with two refineries that were recently closed, large refineries in California that Gavin Newsom forced the closure of. And frankly, 15 years of Democrat policies that have been energy subtraction, trying to close coal plants, close refineries, and shrink our capacity. Which means when you get in crisis, we’re just less resilient than we should be.

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I don’t want to focus too much on this, because there are multiple angles still at work.  However, against the backdrop of the non-coincidental coincidences that followed the August 2025 Alaska Summit, the Lukoil story looks strategically interesting.

The New York Times is looking at Lukoil from the perspective of President Trump organizing financial gains for people close to his administration, specifically Witkoff and Kusher.  {GO DEEP}

That aspect is nonsense, total nonsense; however, if you pull back and look at the background story without the Trump derangement overlay, there’s a potential here for something very good to come out of it.

As the story is told, Russian President Vladimir Putin has inquired about the potential for the U.S. to remove sanctions against Lukoil, a quasi-private energy company based out of Russia.  Before, getting too weedy about it, remind yourself of the statements that surfaced during the Trump-Putin summit in Alaska, August, 2025.

You might remember that both the U.S and Russia spoke of strategic partnerships surrounding the energy sector.  Obviously, this makes sense when we consider the “west” is actually fractured on the topic of energy.  There are two competing interests that overlap in the financial side of the issue, the ‘trillions at stake’ aspect.

On one side you have the “climate change” team, those who are fully invested (literally) in the financial mechanisms of the climate change, green new deal, build back better talking points.  The Green Energy team in the west.  The Paris Climate Treaty and carbon-trading proponents et al.

On the other side you have the pragmatic energy team in the west.  These are the Trump-minded and aligned western perspectives that look at oil, natural gas (LNG), clean coal and nuclear technology.  These are the “all the above” aligned voices in the more pragmatic view of low-cost energy production and development.

In the middle, between both sides of the fracture, are the banking and finance systems.  This is the BIG MONEY play, with the Climate Change team supported by banking ideology inside the city of London, while the Carbon Use team is constantly having to assemble finance and insurance from outside the banking control mechanisms.

The Climate Change team have support based on ideology within the finance system.  However, the Carbon Use team have the advantage of low-price outputs, global dependency and actual profits as leverage.  This is a fight essentially inside the larger energy sector, and we are all very familiar with it because it has been happening for decades.

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney is currently the main tool deployed by the Climate Change team on behalf of the London finance system.  Carney’s main opponent is U.S. President Donald Trump.

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Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent appears for an interview with Axios co-founder Mike Allen. The wide-ranging conversation covered the U.S. economy, the war in Iran and the Trump administration’s approach to AI.

Secretary Bessent responds to Americans’ frustration with the cost of living; explains why he doesn’t think the AI boom is a repeat of the dot-com bubble and argues that AI leaders warning about losing control should slow down. Bessent also discusses possible U.S-China cooperation on AI risks, Treasury’s economic pressure campaign against Iran, the bond market, Trump Accounts and his clashes inside the administration.  WATCH:

Chapters:

0:00 – Cold open
0:24 – Inside Treasury’s Cash Room
1:38 – Unpacking why Americans still feel squeezed
5:21 – Bessent’s economic campaign against Iran
7:35 – Is AI in a bubble?

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Once again, you may have seen a lot of banter, interpretation and discussion in western media about Russia speaking of defending Kaliningrad with nuclear weapons if needed.  To gain a full understanding of the context, I strongly suggest reading the transcript below.

Vladimir Putin addressed the plenary session of the 23^rd annual meeting of the Valdai Discussion Club. It is a very lengthy discussion.  I am pulling out the key segment and suggest everyone take some quiet time to read.

President Vladimir Putin – […] Let me digress from the main topic for a while. There are people here in this room who hold a very diverse mix of opinions regarding an extremely acute present-day conflict – the Ukraine conflict, and what caused it. I would like to say a few words on this matter. It is a fact that many hundreds or even thousands of experts, your colleagues who will study the materials from this Valdai Club meeting, they have their own opinions on this matter. I am, of course aware that some within the expert community might ask why Russia started the war while talking about peace. I have commented this many times already, but let me say this once again in front of this audience.

Where is the truth? The truth is that we did not want and were not the ones who started to fight. In fact, they started to fight against us. They should have refrained from encouraging aggressive nationalism and Russophobia in Ukraine so as to turn it into a tool for fighting Russia. NATO should not have embarked on an effort to make our historical territories part of its military space in its own interests and should not have planned setting up its bases there. Radicals in Kiev should not have been pushed to a government coup while the de facto illegal regime should not have been pumped full of all kinds of offensive weapons after that. Plans for setting up concentration camps for the people from Donbass and Crimea should not have been drafted. Unarmed people should not have been rolled over by tanks, shelled with missiles and bombed from the air and burnt alive just for being Russian, in terms of both their ethnic background and their spirit.

The list of these do-nots goes on, but let me stop at that. I am convinced that this was an intentional effort to place Russia in a situation when it was simply forced to defend itself with arms in hand to respond to this obvious act of aggression. They pushed us to this brink knowingly and intentionally. Overall, Russophobia, oppressing and killing Russian people and destroying Russia should not be turned into state ideology while striving to inflict a strategic defeat on Russia. This was the way it was all articulated, right? No one forgot this. At least, we did not forget this.

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President Donald Trump holds a rally in Mobile, Alabama, ahead of the Nov. 3 midterm elections.  President Trump is anticipated to speak at 7:00pm ET, with rally speakers ongoing.  Livestream Links Below:

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President Donald Trump departs the White House for a 2026 MAGA rally in Alabama.  As he departs the White House, Trump stops to answer questions from the assembled press pool.  WATCH:

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UPDATE BELOW:

According to CNN, current Director of National Intelligence Jay Clayton is likely to be appointed the AI/SI Czar.  If that is accurate, and not a leak trap – which considering the source is sketchy, then that leaves the DNI position open again.

(VIA CNN) – President Donald Trump is expected to pick Jay Clayton to be the White House’s new czar of artificial intelligence, two sources familiar with the discussion told CNN.

The president could announce his decision about Clayton, who is director of national intelligence, as early as Friday, one of the sources said.

Trump announced last month that he was planning to create an “AI Force” and name an AI czar as the government faces growing calls to impose guardrails on the technology’s rapid development.

Trump gathered several AI and technology CEOs at the White House on Tuesday for a meeting that culminated in the signing of a new commitment aimed at better “self-policing” their companies’ AI models. (read more)

If it is accurate that Clayton is going to the Super Intelligence Czar position, and considering the sudden reappearance last week at the White House, is there a possibility of someone returning to the administration as DNI?

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